Returning to fitness

[Got Fat and Lazy]

Hi there, my name is David.

 

I used to be fairly fit, and I guess compared to the average sedentary person I still have a decent level of fitness.

 

I used to weight lift, run on a treadmill every day, probably around 3-5 miles, and do a variety of combat sports during my 20's.

 

My job is fairly fitness based, house removals, and I recently started taking interest in gardening with the aim to eventually train and work full time in landscape gardening. I seem to prefer physical jobs, I tried working in an office doing some basic IT support and it drove me insane.

 

Around last Christmas I was still doing some weight lifting, exclusively compound movements using free weights on a bar, and I wasn't really concentrating. I had previously been overhead pressing (front of shoulders) 70kg, and had been stuck doing that for a couple of months. One session I resolved to increase the weight by 5kg in order to attempt to progress, and for whatever reason ended up blank mindedly adding 15kg taking it up to 85kg. I managed to do 5 reps, with a real struggle and realised what I had done. Instead of taking the surplus 10kg off, I reasoned that I had managed it once and pressed on for a further 4 sets of five reps.

 

Soon after my left shoulder totally seized up, and it felt like either my shoulder blade or a rib, or maybe both were no longer located exactly where they should be. I went to the doctor, and he seemed to think rest was the key and I had done no real damage, despite what felt like nerve damage as I had a definite numbness in my hand.

 

I became demoralised and virtually gave up, resigning myself to sitting on Xbox all night, and drinking fairly heavily to mask the utter boredom in my free time. My diet also suffered, I went from virtually paleo, except the odd bacon muffin for breakfast, to full on, albeit home made from fresh not processed, junk food like pizza, burgers lot's of carb heavy stodge basically.

 

My job became increasingly more difficult as a result.

 

Fast forward to a month ago. I'm a few stone over weight, probably about 3 st (or 42lbs if you do not use stones as a unit of measurement), and very unhappy, to the point this has forced me back into action.

 

I have mostly given up on the weights, and instead I am trying to do more bodyweight exercises, and have recently become interested in the parkour/ Georges Hebert method naturelle/movnat type exercise lifestyles. I like the idea of using nature and my environment as my gym, and have started to put this into practice.

 

Over the last month I have been doing a bodyweight routine that is basically ever changing, today my workout looked like this:

 

Pushups 5x15

Squats 5x15

Sit ups 5 x 10

Dips 5x 10

Squat Jumps 5 x 10

Lunges 1 set each of front, side and reaching on each leg.

Chin ups, as many as I can manage, today it was 5,5,5,3,3

Then I do a few cardio type exercises.

 

20 seconds on, 20 seconds rest

Burpees, mountain climbers, jumping jacks, high knee sprints, that I count as one round, then I have 90 seconds rest and do another round, for as many rounds as I can manage, this morning was 4 rounds.

 

Also I have taken to charging around my local park like a maniac, till I am too short of breath to continue running, and attempting to climb walls and trees and trying to squat and deadlift smaller fallen trees and logs.

 

I know this is probably pretty basic stuff, but I needed to start again basically from scratch, and I haven't felt as genuinely refreshed after a workout for a long time.

 

Thank you for reading my introduction, I have looked at a lot of fitness forums, and this one seemed the best community that fitted my goals, which is to get back to a good weight and become as fit as I once was, and would be most likely to help me accomplish them.

 

This really does look like a very happy and positive community, and I look forward to being a part of it very much.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Welcome aboard. You are way ahead of basic, you've got great workout habits and can do things some of us can't.  You have a good plan, it just sounds like you need to get your eating back on track.  And yes, this is a great community, and we're richer for having you in it.

[Got Fat and Lazy]

Hello Tanktimus, thank you for the welcome!

 

Your post is very encouraging, it's given me a boost already

 

Definitely working on improving my diet, I very much enjoyed eating paleo style, as I have always been a big fruit fan, especially, and I don't think you can have a bigger carnivore than I am either . Aside from the odd Bolognese, it's a family thing, whenever we all get together, the host cooks up a huge batch of Bolognese, I think I'll be sticking to pretty much Meat, Fish, fruit and veg.

 

My main, and probably only reason for becoming derailed was the shoulder injury, and while I still have some discomfort (I really must insist that my doctor refers me for a scan soon), I have found that the bodyweight exercises don't aggravate it in the same way as a weights workout.

 

I've been looking around a little on the forum, and like the look of the challenges section, though I don't quite understand it just yet, when I get some spare time i'm going to look into it fully.

 

Thanks again for the welcome, I just know I'm going to have a great time being part of this community.

 

Also, I hope I can change my username one day, I'm looking forward to the time I can change it to Got Fit and Healthy

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

You're welcome.  I joined like you did, in the middle of a challenge. Lurk on the challenge threads, and see what's going on. You'll probably start in the recruit section if you join the next one coming up. I think you can change your name after 150 days, so that's a good goal to work towards.

[Got Fat and Lazy]

Yes, 150 days sounds like a good target to achieve my goals.

 

Currently I'm 210lbs, which at 5'7" (170 cm) is about 45lbs too heavy, last time I could see muscle definition and especially abs I weighed 170lbs, maybe a tad under, so that probably is my goal.  This sounds as though my goal is purely aesthetic, but my real aim is to gain strength and endurance, and real overall fitness, if I achieve this and end up looking better then bonus

 

Also watching youtube videos of people doing natural movement type training, and parkour, one thing is undeniable, they all look so happy and satisfied with just being able to move so freely. This is what attracted me to it, not because I want to look cool jumping over roof's, as is a common misconception and bad reason for starting this type of training, but because I want to feel the same happiness and freedom that they have. I understand it will be a long and difficult journey, but things earned from real hard work feel so much more rewarding in my opinion.

 

I started on a cleaned up eating plan yesterday, probably could do with adding a couple of extra meals in as I was hungry at times, but every meal was delicious, and I should adapt to it pretty easily. I had:

 

Breakfast: 3 poached eggs with 6 pieces of grilled asparagus

Lunch: Chicken breast marinated in chili and garlic (a bit dry as I pre-cooked it and took it with me), with small bag of salad, pea shoots and baby leaves.

Dinner: Large rump steak, fatty bit left on (my favourite bit ), with steamed broccoli, cauliflower and carrots, steamed for only 5 minutes, I like my veg very firm.

 

In between meals I had a few bananas and apples to stave off hunger, and I drank 4 litres of water.

 

Pretty successful start to improving my eating, I am going to need to learn some interesting recipes for variety though.

 

I didn't get to do my workout, but had a pretty long, physical and exhausting day at work, so probably not a great deal to worry about in that respect.

 

Also I was thinking, that the more effort I put into being able to move my own body around while I am at this heavier weight, that when I finally am at a healthier size I would have a much higher strength to body weight ratio. Dunno if this theory is correct as I may lose strength with the weight loss, but as long as I am just losing fat and not muscle I don't see any reason for that to happen.

 

Do you have thoughts about what's likely to happen?

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Well, if you eat correctly and keep using your muscles you are likely to lose more fat than muscle which means you won't lose strength. Don't neglect the workout for too long. What you ate today sounds pretty on target for what you are wanting to do. The blog has some cooking entries with how-to's and basic principles of cooking that will give you plenty of great ideas.