Got degree, got job, need to get healthy (long)

[Icewraith]

Here's where I am starting:

 

I made it over the deadzone in the "screw you millenials" economy we have going right now.

I got my Master's in mechanical engineering at the start of the year.  I have a pretty cool job now - I don't consider myself a rocket scientist, but it's pretty close and so that's what we tell people when they ask to save time, and I've been married for over seven years now, we have 2 dogs.

 

I got a pretty good hand genetically.  I'm 6'1.5ish, can basically eat what I want and not gain weight.

 

My wife and I play quite a bit of WoW.  We just transitioned from me being a master's student, got our own apartment, I've basically been working the last several years to get to the point where I have a degree, which ended up getting me the job.

 

Here's where things are off:

 

I reinforced some longstanding bad habits, especially in my last year of school, regarding sitting on the computer not doing anything for long periods of time.  My last semester I was working mostly full time and driving to and from class twice a week.  That's 30+ hours of work per week, ten+ hours of driving between the county I worked and lived in during the week and the county I attended school during the week and lived during the weekend, four hours of class, and masters-level engineering homework and studying.  It worked out to basically sixty hours a week of "work", ten at least of which I was taking my life into my hands on California's freeways.  I would often leave late at night to avoid traffic, get to the room I was renting, sleep for five hours and go into work the next day and try to be productive.  My free time was generally spent on WoW or random internet sites because I was tired otherwise.  Right now I've gotten it to the point where I need to be getting to bed at 10:30ish and am usually getting to bed at 11:30ish, which is an improvement from 1:00 or 2:00 AM.

 

I have a history of depression, the meds I'm on suppress appetite as the only side effect I've experienced.  Right now I'm 166ish pounds (at 6'2") and it's trivial to completely skip lunch if I have an interesting project to work on.  It's really hard to find pants in a 33 waist and 36 leg, but at least I've been up from a 32 waist for a couple years now, and those were even harder to find.  I can coast through the day on a missed meal but I think I don't really have the energy to exercise the next day.

 

My dad set a pretty good example growing up of being an office drone (although that description is doing his job a disservice, since it's pretty cool) and not needing to exercise since we have the same body type.  He's having to start an exercise program now in his late 50s because he's having blood pressure issues from job stress and lack of exercise.  I don't mind exercise- I played soccer and baseball when I was little, basketball later, ran for a couple years in high school until I got a knee injury and decided I wanted to concentrate on my schoolwork anyways, since I felt terrible after practices.  My problem is that I haven't really found a form of exercise I actively enjoy that I can do by myself.  I still have pretty strong legs since I try to walk and use stairs but my upper body strength is not impressive and I specifically want to get a lot stronger before we start having kids.

 

My wife has weight issues, she's been slowly losing weight since we starting living together full time and eating better, but she has a long way to go and she needs to lose more weight and be in better shape before we can have kids.

 

I'm a federal employee and have been taking a 20% pay cut for about three weeks now from furloughs, and we haven't really saved anything since we just caught up with most of the debts I ran up being a student (except student loans, I was making so little money previously I haven't even had to start paying them off yet) and only being able to work summers and winters as an intern for several years, and having no jobs or crappy retail jobs before that.  I've had my awesome job for about five months, and while the pay will get better, even before the 20% cut there wasn't a whole lot left after rent, cars, food, bills etc.  Also we moved and I never really met people in the area since I was driving and spending weekends in a different county, mostly sleeping, spending time with my wife, playing wow, and studying/working on my master's project. 

 

Where I want to be:

 

I want to be in better shape, and I really would like having some muscle on my upper torso and better upper body strength (my wife would also appreciate me having aforementioned muscles).  While we enjoy WoW we still spend way more time on it than we should, but we've made some friendships on there and don't want to quit either.  Also we can't really afford to do anything else right now (and we're paid up for quite a while), getting a gym membership is out of the question, as is buying equipment.  The tiny workout room in my apartment complex has a bunch of bikes, ellipticals, two weight machines of various sorts, zero free weights and zero bars for lifting or bench pressing or the mythical deadlifting people refer to on this site that apparently works so well.  I want to have kids, so we need to get going on that in the next couple years, and I need to be able to carry them for long periods of time and have them sit on my shoulders without being in agony and do all that stereotypical dad stuff.  

 

I can't force my wife to exercise, so I guess I just have to work on being healthier and hopefully some of it rubs off.  The problem is that we're approaching the issue from different ends of the spectrum, so what's good for my goals or an appropriate quantity of food for me is bad for her and vice versa.  Also I need to make sure I don't nag her about stuff since that generally has the opposite effect of what was intended.

 

I also need to use what I've got and keep healthy so my body doesn't deteriorate further- I'm already making up for 13ish years of not much activity (there was a kettlebell kick for a couple months about two years ago, I could tell I was getting healthier but not a whole lot stronger even though it was kicking my butt.  This is probably because I wasn't eating enough, as I discovered on this site.) and I don't want blood pressure issues like my dad.  

 

What I've got:

 

One kind-of-crappy exercise mat that I tend to stick to once I get sweaty and don't like using, and a 14 and 20 lb kettlebell.  I have a piece of rubber flooring that was working pretty well, but it's sitting outside behind where we used to live since the dogs started peeing on it and it's pretty hard to move, and there's nowhere to put it in our apartment.

 

What I've been doing:

 

Basically I've been forcing myself to eat more and in larger quantities, and I'm trying to veer in the general direction of paleo but more prioritizing calorie intake.  I do have a sweet tooth but now I more worry about my energy level since I'm trying to gain weight.  The exercise is helping a bit with the appetite but not the sweet tooth, I just consumed some chocolate ice cream but earlier I had a ton of chicken and later will have dinner.

 

I started doing most of the exercises in the basic no-weight routine on this site, although I'm leaving out the lunges at the moment since I find those to be uncomfortable.  (I'm really tall but I'm mostly leg and therefore lunges suck)  I work out in the bathroom in the morning because the fan is loud and it drowns out most noises I make but the wife is used to it.  I officially started doing a m-w-f routine a couple weeks ago and have kept at least 1 day a week so far.  I worked out last m and w, and friday instead of exercising I helped demolish the playhouse in my in-laws' backyard- which was about six hours of labor.  I missed m and then w this week because I still needed a lot more sleep than I had been getting to recover from the demo and things got thrown off in that department, I did my workout today since I'm furloughed (I'm not working but I'm also not getting paid, so it's not a vacation).  I threw in my 20lb kettlebell on the squats last week and use it for the arm rows as well instead of the milk jug.

 

I'm back up to doing normal push-ups after having to do the granny versions last week to get my form right, since apparently I've been doing push ups wrong forever (when I did them) and doing them correctly is significantly more difficult.

 

Anyways, hopefully I can stick with the exercise since I have a normal work schedule instead of the insane work-drive-school-homework-wow for stress break-sleep thing I was doing.  If I'm going to stare at a computer and read forums it's probably better they're about getting and being healthy instead of D&D or WoW.  Also since I tend to be a bit of a forum junkie hopefully participating here will keep my actual exercise going.  I don't particularly enjoy the exercise but I feel pretty good afterwards, even if I'm a bit sore.

 

That's my story to this point, hope someone found it interesting.

[wideeyed]

First place I started was by reading all of Steve's blogs and articles and watching the videos. The I went Paleo web site hunting. Found lots of great sites, with lots of good recipes. Then I started walking. My husband and I are a great deal like you and your wife - he is your height, but being a decade older, 20 pounds heavier. It isn't muscle either. Skinny fat eventually catches up with you

I am overweight. He walks with me every night after dinner. He has also been making an effort to leave for work earlier so he can get home to share a Paleo dinner (I do let him and the two boys eat a grain) and walk with me. We talk, laugh, and have a good time. Ask her to walk with you and hold hands once in a while.

You can't force her to eat differently, but you can ask her to to compromise on what you are eating together. I can't help you with the bulk up, but go hang out in one of the forums that focuses on lifting (assassins do a lot of body weight stuff).

Much luck. For the record, my husband lost 6 pounds of that belly JUST from doing Paleo dinners and walking with me. What you do WILL impact your wife.