Another new member stopping by to say hello

[hotacidbath]

In the immortal words of Dr. Nick, "hi everybody!"

I've come to this site with the goal of losing weight and getting in shape for a few different reasons, but first a little background. I'm a 22-year-old, female, college student who is planning on working as a zookeeper after graduation. I've been overweight my entire life, even when I was on two different swim teams and practicing for 5-6 hours a day for five days a week (I was in shape but still overweight). My doctor pretty much told me that I would always be above the normal weight ranges for my height. Once he told me that I sort of gave up on ever being skinny, which was a pretty devastating realization for a 12-year-old girl. After quitting swimming in high school my weight ballooned and I've been sitting at the same spot for 6 years. I always made promises to myself to lose weight, it's just never happened and I was never able to stick to a plan. I often made up bullshit excuses to avoid going to the gym, but no more! A few things have happened in recent months that have inspired me to lose weight.

The first was some unintended (though not unwelcomed) weight loss from working outside all summer. It gives me a bit of a jumping off point. The second was getting a vegetarian marathon runner roommate. It's a lot easier to eat healthy and work out when he goes for a ten mile run and I just end up feeling guilty if I don't go out and do something. I also have hopes of improving enough in Taekwondo (balance and flexibility are good, but speed and stamina need a lot of improvement) to test for my black belt by the summer. I'm currently a blue belt so it's not impossible but it will be a challenge. The final reason and most important is that I'm just sick and tired of constantly wanting to improve, but not taking any of the steps to reach my goals.

I've only just started a little over a week ago, but I've already made a lot of changes. I'm hoping with the support of this nerdy community that I will reach my goals and become fit as a fiddle.

[Alethea]

Hiya! Very good to meet you! You sound like you have some great goals and the motivation to achieve them. Are you going to be running with your roommate (active roommates rock. I don't know what I'd do without mine), or doing something else? How do you find Taekwondo? I've always been curious to try a martial art, but I can't choose between them!

[hotacidbath]

I won't be running with my roommate anytime soon since he does ten miles a day and I can barely jog two, but I'm going to try the couch to 5k program so maybe in the future we'll be running partners. My workout routine is currently a mishmash of going to the gym, riding my bike around town, and my schools TKD club, but I'm hoping to create a more concrete routine over the next few weeks as I figure out what works best for me.

I also highly recommend TKD as a beginning martial art. It is based more in control, balance, speed, and flexibility over brute strength and is a great introduction into the basics of martial arts. The downside is that it's unrealistic for self-defense. It is based more in kicking over punching. In sparring, kicks are scored by contact to point areas while punches are only scored if the opponent is moved by the punch. This makes it very hard to score with punches so it just makes more sense to use your energy on kicks. There is also no grappling. With all that being said, I love it. My balance has greatly improved, it gives me an outlet to let loose my frustrations, and I've made a lot of great friends. After I move to a bigger town though, I plan at looking into other martial arts styles (I'm currently leaning towards hapkido) to learn better self-defense tactics while still sticking with TKD.

[Alethea]

I was into muay thai until I realized I'd be getting hits as well as giving them. : P Interesting about tkd. I'm not too worried about practical self-defense (I've managed to get out of a few scary situations in my life, and realized that a) I'd rather run than fight, and people who want to hurt you usually have weapons. Don't bring your fists to a knife or gun fight), so doing it just for the general agility and balance etc sounds very appealing.

Sounds like you've got most of your bases covered. You mentioned gym but not what you do - have you given any thought to a strength training program? Seems like thats the only thing missing. If you're not a fan of standing around slinging weights, I've found body weight excercises like pushups, squats, jumps, etc to be a whole lot of fun. Lots of progressions and variations you can do if you get bored of it, too.

[hotacidbath]

If practical self defense (and I do agree on the run before fighting stance) isn't an issue then TKD is great. My balance and flexibility have increased dramatically since I started. There is sparring in TKD, but it's all very regulated and you're well protected with a chest protector, head gear, mouth guard, forearm guards, shin and foot guards, and they just recently added gloves to the required gear. The only time I've ever gotten bruised in TKD was when sparring with overenthusiastic lower belts with no control, but it's still nothing close to muay thai so I'm thinking you're pretty safe.

Typically at the gym I'll do about 15 minutes of cardio with about half an hour of strength training followed by another 15 to 30 minutes of cardio. I'm still trying to get the hang of strength training, but I have been looking into the body weight programs which look like a good place to start. I think my biggest problem area is going to be my legs so squats and jumps are definitely in order. This place has been a really great resource for body weight training and I'm looking forward to learning more about it.

[Robzilla1983]

The couch to 5k is great. I followed it for a few weeks, then just bit the bullet and actually ran a 5k. I "run" slowly, but it's still faster than my fastest walking, and that's all I really care about

I've also used the C25K on the stationary bikes a few time. I like the interval training, and I've got the iPhone app for it, so it's nice to just plug headphones in and let someone else tell me when to "run" (bike fast, usually aiming for 100rpm) and "walk" (70 rpm). I also really like it because I play Catan on my phone and typically a game takes me half an hour, which is about how long each day is on the C25K

[hotacidbath]

Yeah, I've really been enjoying the C25K program a lot. It keeps me from starting too hard and burning myself out which is something I've done every single time I tried to start running in the past.