Hey-o

[adam]

Hey everyone,

Sorry, this is getting long, but... oh well,

I'm (unsurprisingly) Adam. I'm 24 and a grad student in Chicago. I had never really been active for most of my life, I rode my bike around in college, but never for exercise, just for transportation, and I went to the gym a few times with friends but nothing consistent, and looking back I just wasn't that in to it (I hated running, especially). I had hated playing soccer as a kid, and just generally was much more at home sitting around playing video games, watching tv, playing on the computer, and reading. During my last 2 years of college I had some pretty severe depression, which was partially alleviated when I took a 7-month break to travel before starting grad school, but by no means taken gone.

Grad school is when I started working out consistently with one of my classmates, doing crossfit, and from there I've actually gotten into exercise in a big way. Some of my classmates were constantly stressed and freaking out about little things, but (and I've read articles that somewhat back this up) I think working out had been training me to deal with stress a little better, not to mention flooding my body with endorphins on a regular basis. I dropped ~25 lbs (I'm now stable at 6'2" and 170lbs), and was doing fine for a while, even discovering that I loved endurance exercise, running (in shoes that look like feet), biking for hours on end, go figure... then I started overtraining (hindsight). I was going to the gym Sunday-Friday doing 3/6+ miles on alternating days and lifting on the light running days. I was waking up at 6 to get to the gym on time and also trying to cut more weight because of this unhealthy obsession I had (still have, but I'm trying to manage it) with body image. When I injured myself running six times a week, I started swimming six times a week instead. When I injured myself swimming I started mixing more things in just trying to keep going... kinda like an exercise junkie or something. I was feeling crazily guilty when I wasn't working out as much as I thought I SHOULD be, and in general I was trying to overpower my body through sheer force of will... admirable in a Green Lantern sort of way, but not sustainable. I wasn't happy, though.

Anyways, this is rambling on. I took several weeks easy, tried to let myself heal, fixed my diet a bit by adding a LOT more protein in, and in general just toned it down a bit. I'm on the crossfit schedule of 3 days on/ 1 day off and I just do the WOD (after a warm up) and go on about my day. I've started going more or less paleo (minus unhealthy binges of free grad school food... bah, also I'm a scientist and I have to take some of the claims being made in paleo with a big grain of salt), as I'm not concerned with weight and muscle gains now as I am with fat losses.

In short, I found this site when I had already been getting fit for a long time, but the ideas I find here generally gel a lot with what I've been trying to do for myself, and so I'm glad to officially join your community

[Rocketman]

Hey Adam, welcome!

I went through something similar only when I finally broken down, I fell off the wagon in a big way (no pun intended). Glad to hear you didn't lose all the gains you had made!