Ya-haw!

[Banjo]

(The title is my attempt on doing a Banjo impression... bad one, I know, but kickass character)

Hello, I'm Theo, 24 year old living in Brazil, and for the most part of my life I've struggled with health (mainly weight).

I tried a few different diets, exercises and stuff like that in the past. Some of them worked for a while, some didn't and some made me feel worse. I eventually gave up on it all. I had bad eating habits, I didn't exercise at all, I was stressed all the time, didn't sleep well (if at all) and I knew all of that was killing me. I knew that for quite a while, but didn't want to change. All the excuses seemed pretty convincing: "it's too expensive", "it'll take so much time, you know you won't handle it", "you will have time for that later on, you must focus on getting a better job now".

Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked... I mean, then about 6 months ago I realized I couldn't go on like this. I decided to change. I told people that and I immediately started changing what/when/how I ate and started exercising. I did lose weight from then until now, but I realized this picture could sum up my actions:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]6709[/ATTACH]

A few days ago I stumbled upon NF and I liked what I read (specially the Legos... jk... but seriously). I now know I can't do this alone, so I invited myself in. Hope you don't mind!

Oh, I'm 5'7" and 147.7 lbs right now. I read about the professions (awesome, by the way) and I identified a lot of what I want on the Ranger side of the Force. Gotta work to get there now! As first attempt to get a little better conditioning, I scheduled an initial class at a local martial arts school.

Well, thanks for reading this huge post and see you (or read you) later!

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Welcome to the rebellion. We've been getting a few more Brazilian Rebels lately, there are several of your countrymen(and women) here on the boards. We're glad you arrived. What are some of your fitness goals?

[Banjo]

Hey tanktimus. Good to know there are more Brazilians around; I was actually wondering if there were any.

Oh, and I haven’t thought that much about my goals yet. The ones I had before I found to be not really what I want. I would like to work on endurance, that much I know for sure.

I’m a pretty fast runner and my reflexes are good too but, my endurance sucks so bad. Almost any kind of physical exercise that I do for more than 10 minutes leaves me gasping for air for the rest of the day. Strength would be cool too, it’d boost not only my health as my self-esteem, I’m sure of that.

I started the beginner workout on Monday, 17th, trying to see how I was/solve the above. I’m still kinda sore and I managed to complete only 1 circuit (and a half), but I’m thinking that’s normal after so much time standing idle.

Any ideas/suggestions? They’re more than welcome!

[Laureleye]

The BBW is a good starting point. For the soreness, make sure you stretch after your workout. Try a walk on your between days, that will also help ease some of the soreness. You can do the BBW one of two ways; you can do the entire recomended set and try to do as many circuits as possible (which is what you did). Alternately, you can do fewer reps, but complete all three circuits. So if you did 1 circuit of 12 lunges, you might try cutting back to 5 lunges in each of the 3 circuits for a total of 15. This method might help build up your endurance. However you choose to do it, keep plugging away at it. Glad you invited yourself in and hope you stay.