Greetings from another newbie

[Lowenna]

edit I just realised how long this post is, um.., sorry about that, I talk too much

Hi everyone! I've recently stumbled across the NF blog and thought I'd join up because you all seem rather lovely and hopefully this will help me with my motivation a bit.

A little bit about me:

I'm studying Philosophy at the University of York (The one in the UK, not the one in Toronto).

I'd say I'm quite nerdy. I'm basically surgically attached to my laptop.

I love cricket and can watch an entire test match (yes, that's five days)

I've recently discovered that doing handstands is a very good cure for tension headaches

The fitness history:

When I was a kid I was very fit. I used to swim competitively, I trained 3 times a week for that, I also did gymnastics, ballet (it wasn't my idea), horse riding, hockey, went tombstoning and generally ran about the countryside climbing up things, jumping off things, hurting myself and failing to be at all girly. I always wanted to take up rock climbing and learn a martial art, but mum didn't think that was a great idea. I used to eat loads, but I did so much exercise it didn't really matter.

But when I was 16 we moved and I changed schools and stop exercising pretty much overnight. We moved from the country to a town so I couldn't do all the running about in fields which I'd done before and my new school was ages away so I had a lot more time travelling and a lot less time to do active things. But I kept eating like I had been before, my weight has been creeping up ever since.

Starting uni didn't help at all. My diet has certainly got worse, I always used to eat a lot, but it was mostly fairly healthy, now I eating mostly convenience food and a lot of fries. I've often tried to start exercising again, but never really stuck to it. I've done yoga on and off for a few years, so I'm fairly bendy, but that's all.

The current situation:

Age: 21

Height: 5'5''

Weight: 164lbs

Size: UK14 (which I think is a US10)

I really need to get my fitness sorted this time, because my asthma is starting to play up.

It feels kinda wrong when I exercise, because my body can't do any of the stuff it used to. I was always the skinny kid who could do pretty much anything, now I'm chubby and get out of breath SO quickly. Tbh I find it quite humilating that I can't really run or do a proper push up.

My target weight is 132lbs. Its a bit of an arbitrary number, really I'm just going to lose weight until I feel fit and right in my skin again.

The strategy:

At the moment for my workouts I'm starting off on the treadmill. I warm up doing fast walking for 5mins, then I do 7 intervals of 30seconds fast 2mins slow, then I walk again until I get my breath back. I've been finding that I'm actually quite enjoying the running, which I wasn't expecting, but I can't do too much because I have collapsed arches and I need to build up the amount of high impact exercise I do quite slowly otherwise my feet swell up and hurt like hell. Also, my heart rate often gets up into the high 180s when I'm doing my intervals, should I worry about that? Then I go find a quiet corner to hide in and do lunges, body weight squats, press ups with knees on the floor, plank, side plank, etc.

I'm trying to work out like this Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. I'm also trying to do a little bit of Yoga first thing every morning. Usually just a couple of sun salutations to wake me up and help get rid of the soreness from my workouts (I really feel them the next day). I think I might add swimming 2k a couple of times a week.

Being in the gym isn't my favourite thing, but I don't really have the guts to join any sports clubs or anything until I get my fitness back a bit. I'm hoping to be able to cancel my gym membership before too long and do all my training out of the gym. I'll probably keep running and doing intervals, just do them outside.

I don't know if I've lost weight, because I've not weighed myself for over 2 weeks. I don't have any scales in the house and you have to pay for the ones at the gym (which is mental) so I'm only going to weigh myself every 3 or 4 weeks.

In terms of diet I'm changing it very gradually. Because I've tried making drastic changes before and I always fail and end up back where I started in less than a week. My current strategy is:

1. Generally eat a bit less

2. Try to eat less processed stuff. My white bread addiction needs to end.

3. Increase the % protein in my diet because right now it's very very little. I can easily go a week where my only protein is the cheese I put on my fries. (Yes I know my diet is TERRIBLE) This isn't as easy as it sounds because I'm veggie and I hate milk and egg whites.

I'm planning to sort out a character sheet and join the OMFG. I'm thinking I'll probably be an Assassin, it sounds like fun. I'm definitely going to start rock climbing (eventually) and might take up Parkour (it looks super fun). I want to take up a martial art too, which is more of a Monk thing, but I think knowing how to do someone some damage is pretty useful for an Assassin.

Any advice or friendly arse-kicking would be greatly appreciated.

Love and stuff

xx

[werwolf]

Hello Lowenna!

A friend of mine dearly loves his cricket and would love me more if I understood it better. As it is, I only listen to the commentary for the soothing background noise it provides. lol I'm much more of a rugger sort of girl, but I feel I could benefit culturally if I mastered an appreciation (if not a love) of cricket.

I'm also a grown-up (physically anyway) tomboy, so I'm glad to meet you.

[sumdawgtwigg]

Welcome! I'm pretty much a newbie so I don't really have anything else constructive to say lol

[Shadawyn]

Welcome!

Regarding college and weight-gain... when I started college I gained about 30 pounds in six months, despite that I was being more active and running around than I had been at home (I was a slightly chubby kid). Oops. What I finally discovered was the cafeteria portion sizes were huge--once I actually learned a decent portion size, I realized that the huge thing of pasta I was getting was 4 meals worth of food. Once I realized that, I started saving money with leftovers and stopped gaining weight. Adding in exercise (walking/jogging) and making better food choices (including a cheese burger and fries once a week), I lost the 30 pounds and some of my pre-college weight during my senior year. (Eventually I stopped getting cafeteria food, and made my own fresh meals with creative use of a microwave and mini-fridge.)

Which is all to say, I've been there, and I know it can be changed Good luck!

[Jabba the Hupp]

I know you're only weighing in every 3-4 weeks due to cost but it's really much better that way. You'll find that over the course of the month there will be weeks you lose weight and some where you don't or don't lose as much as you'd wished. By doing it once a month you'll only see the big picture of the weight loss and it's much better psychologicallly. At least that's my opinion.

[mark]

Welcome! If you can find a couple of friends that are interested something like indoor soccer or netball that can be a fun way to play some sport in a more relaxed environment. At least where I live it's pretty relaxed and the focus is more on fun than competition and we never train just rock up each week and play. Tennis is good too.

I find running definitely more fun outside. I don't think heart rate in 180s during intervals is worth worrying about. Or at least when I do intervals my heart rate gets up that high easily and I've never worried about it. Maybe I should be?

I love cricket and can watch an entire test match (yes, that's five days)

Awesome! I'm sure you enjoyed the Ashes more than we did in Aus

[Lowenna]

werwolf: Good to meet another Tomboy, as for developing an appreciation of cricket, don't do it, it will steal your life! Much to my dad's disappointment I never really got in to rugby, no idea why.

sumdawgtwigg: Thanks.

Shadwyn: It's always nice to hear from some one who's been there and been successful losing the weight evil freshman 15/30/40/40. I lived in a self-catering hall and now I live out so the cafeteria isn't the problem it's learning to cook for myself. And beer, I like beer, not the crappy Becks stuff proper ale, Hobgoblin, Midnight Bell, Doom Bar, Tribute, etc, which even worse calorie-wise than the Becks-type stuff. Ah, well, I'm cutting back what I drink, I'm learning to nurse them so they last for ages.

Jabba: You're probably right, I was a scales junkie until I moved and didn't have any, it was really is depressing starting at that number all the time.

mark: All the local sports teams are university ones and they are SERIOUS. I thought about joining hockey, but you have to tryout and if you don't make the BUCS team or the seconds no training for you. I might take a look at the Women's Football (Soccer), they're apparently pretty laid back.

I've been googling the high heart rate thing, apparently nothing to worry about when your young-ish as long as it goes back down fair quick too. So I'm going to try and stop worrying.

Aside from the horrific sleep deprivation I LOVED the ashes. Good times! I guess they weren't your favourite ashes ever.

[werwolf]

Re: Rugby

It's the large, well-educated men throwing each other around that I rather enjoy. Plus I was an American football cheerleader as a child and rugby is just so much more badass than football! But cricket is so damn civilized. If I knew my way around the cricket grounds it might make people less likely to call me a dirty colonial.

[Cacophony]

Re: Heart Rate

The off-the-cuff ceiling you want to watch for your maximum heart rate as a basic rule of thumb is:

220 - your age in years

Try not to rev over that. =) That poor little pump needs to work your entire life and it doesn't get any rest breaks. That being said, any kind of sudden shortness of breath, little tiny twinges of chest pain, or those little lights in your vision where you're not really dizzy but it looks like little light dust motes are signs that you're working a little too hard and need to slow down. It'll get stronger as you do unless you blow a valve. Then you're in trouble.

[Lowenna]

Hehe, rugby is totally more badass that football. Still not really my thing, I get the appeal though and sometimes watch it with my sister and my dad.

Grand, thanks Cacophony. Never gets up to 199, usually hovers around 187-189 on fast bits and drops down to around 165 on the slow bits, then straight back up again when I'm back to my 'sprints'. No sudden shortness of breath, no pains, have given myself the little lights and strange semi-dizziness before though, knew I pushed it a bit hard that time though, am a bit more realistic about what I can do now. I have to keep remembering my heart gets maxed out long before I feel the burn in my muscles when it comes to cardio, I like feeling the burn, I chase it a bit.

[Cacophony]

I have to keep remembering my heart gets maxed out long before I feel the burn in my muscles when it comes to cardio, I like feeling the burn, I chase it a bit.

"Burn" is peachy.... "burn out" takes months or more to recover from. =)