Weight Loss Tips

Thursday, August 27, 2020

So I spent a week making workout routines for strangers in an online game. . .

and it was an amazing experience. The game is a massive multiplayer online role-playing game called Guild Wars 2 (GW2) and they were running a week long event "Boss Rush" where I quickly noticed there was ample time before each boss to get in a little 1-3 minute exercise. It started out as a half-joking post on the GW2 subreddit and turned into an entire week of fun. I thought that I would get so much hate but what actually happened caught me by surprise. A small community started to participate, group up with me, and we all worked out together before each boss. We discussed weight loss, nutrition, and everyone thoroughly enjoyed participating. My wife (personal trainer, former powerlifter, crossfit beast) and I spent every night thinking of workouts. Our goal was to design a full suite of workouts that required no equipment and hit nearly every muscle group. Each workout was themed after a positive effect (aka "buff") available in the game. . . hence the names next to each day. This brought a lot of positivity into my world and I figure it would be a nice post here too. My wife and I have both struggled with weight at one point or another so I hope this helps.

(I'm terrified of posting at this point. The mods of GetMotivated removed this and then banned me for providing feedback that I disagree with their decision. Then Fitness removed it because it wasn't a question. I'm cool with this, I should have known. I was originally very excited to share this outside of the gaming community but I can't seem to find the right subreddit. All I want to do is help motivate anyone out there who's struggling to lose weight and stuck inside without workout equipment. If you know anyone that this might benefit please feel free to share. My wife and I put a lot of work into making quality workouts for new comers and old timers alike. If I've found the wrong subreddit again, please help me find the right place. Sorry for the text I'm running out of ideas here. )

Here's the content of everything we did over the last week. . .

The Workouts

If you want to get a decent little workout then I would recommend picking a day below and repeating all exercises 3-6 times. We put in a ton of effort to make sure not over burden a single muscle group for all 6 days. Easy options are designed for those with low mobility, just getting started in their exercise routines, or have an injury which restricts movement. The only equipment you need to complete all exercises is a towel. Stay hydrated, stretch often, and at minimum please try to get up and walk around every hour or so when sitting at a computer.

Day 1 - Might

10-20 Pushups (Hands shoulders width apart. Keep your elbows tucked in to avoid shoulder problems. I have to use a foam roller for my standard pushups due to fused feet bones so don't think you need one!)
1. Easy - Cobra Pushup
2. Intermediate - Knee Pushup
3. Hard - Pushups
10-20 Squats (Feet shoulders width apart. Toes out 15 degrees. Keep heels on the ground for the entire squat.)
1. Easy - Chair Squat
2. Intermediate - Half Squat
3. Hard - Full Squat
10-20 Crunches (No situps! Crunches are better for your spine. Squeeze your abdominal. Do not fling your arms/elbows forward to gain momentum!)
1. Easy - Lil'Crunch
2. Intermediate - Half Crunch
3. Hard - Full Crunch

Day 2 - Swiftness

10-20 Standing Elbows to Knees (obliques, hip flexors, and abdominal)
1. Easy - Leg Lift Elbow Tuck (slow and controlled)
2. Intermediate - Elbow to Knee (fast and intense)
3. Hard - Hand to Toe (explosive)
10-20 Windmills (lower back, glutes, hamstrings)
1. Easy - Halfmill
2. Intermediate - Windmill
3. Hard - Weighted Windmill
20-60 Jumping Jacks (calves, shoulders, hips)
1. Easy - Step Jacks (slower and low impact)
2. Intermediate - Jumping Jacks (faster)
3. Hard - Fancy Jacks (faster with more complex foot work)
4. Ridiculous - Criss Cross (extreme speed and coordination)

Day 3 - Stability

10-20 Superman Rows
1. Easy - Future Superman Rows
2. Intermediate - Superman Extensions
3. Hard - Superman Rows
10-20 Bird Dogs
1. Easy - Touchy Dogs
2. Intermediate - Light Bird Dogs
3. Hard - Bird Dogs
Plank (30-60 cumulative seconds. Please ignore my use of the foam roller.)
1. Easy - Knee Plank (rest by putting hips on ground)
2. Intermediate - Full Elbow Plank (rest position shown in video after a few seconds)
3. Hard - Arms Extended Plank (rest position shown in video after a few seconds)

Day 4 - Retaliation

10-20 Pop Ups
1. Easy - Step Up
2. Intermediate - Pop Up
3. Hard - Pop Up and Fight
10-20 Burpees
1. Easy - Lil'Burp
2. Intermediate - Up Down Burpees
3. Hard - Belly Flop Burpees
4. Advanced - Don't Hate Me Burpees
50-100 Punches
1. Easy - Stand Still Punches
2. Intermediate - Orthodox & Southpaw Punches
3. Hard - Punch Punch Uppercut Uppercut Switch!

Day 5 - Regeneration

5-10 Downward Dog to Cobra (5-10 seconds in each pose, drive your heels as close to the ground as you can.)
1. Easy - Puppy to Dangernoodle
2. Intermediate - Downward Dog and Cobra
3. Hard - Downward Dog to Cobra
5-10 Bridge (5-10 seconds in each pose)
1. Easy - Bridgeish
2. Intermediate - Half Bridge
3. Hard - Full Bridge
5-10 Salute Fold to Tree (5-10 seconds in each pose)
1. Easy - Handy Sproutling
2. Intermediate - Shins and Shrubs
3. Hard - Salute Fold to Tree

Day 6 - Vigor

10-20 Towel Bicep Curls (difficulty is up to you! The more weight you add with your leg the harder it is. Turn hands outward at top of rep.)
1. Easy/Intermediate/Hard - Bicep Curls
10-20 Towel Tricep Extensions and Hammer Curl (difficulty is up to you! Reps are per arm so 20-40 total. One arm provides the resistance while the other pulls against it.)
1. Easy/Intermediate/Hard - Tricep Extension
10-20 Lunges
1. Easy - Half Lunge
2. Easy/Intermediate (Bad Knees) - Back Lunge (difficulty based on knee depth)
3. Intermediate - Lunge
4. Hard - Back Lunge to High Knee

Day Cat - Fury (Bonus Cat Workouts)

About weight loss

This was my response to someone asking about exercise and weight loss.

"Before I answer - I want to provide some information about weight loss because exercise is a small part of the equation. I don't know if you care but I do think it's important to get the information out there just in case it helps you. There is so much nonsense out there designed to exploit people trying to lose weight but the answer is to simply pay attention to the numbers.

Take this advice for what it is - a stranger on the internet telling you stuff. I have experimented with weight loss multiple times in my life and one of the biggest lessons was learned going from 225lbs (102.05kg) to 165lbs (74.84kg). I simply wanted to see if I could do it with a fairly sedentary lifestyle. . . programmer by day, gamer by night, and pretty much no exercise. This is when I learned that weight is mostly controlled in the kitchen. I started at probably 2500 calories a day (weight/size specific) and I would lose .5lb (.22kg) - 1lb (.45kg) a week. Every 5-10 weeks I would plateau on weight loss, remove another 200+ calories, and check again in 2-3 weeks to see if it was working. I did this for about a year until I reached a weight that felt healthy. (EDIT) This does not mean my heart or body was healthy, it simply means I got rid of all the flub that was making me depressed. I didn't want to work out because I was depressed and I was depressed because I wasn't happy about my weight.

I strongly believe that you shouldn't diet to lose weight. You should fix the lifestyle that you're unhappy with and create a new normal*. This is why I'm happy your asking questions because it looks like you're doing just that! A diet or goal weight feels like a punishment that will end after a few months but if you can fix a lifestyle then you can keep that change forever. There is absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying a pizza, soda, cake, donut, or cookies. When you are eating bad food you should go all out, don't get the fat free junk, and enjoy the full experience! However, you should remind yourself that these things are intended to be consumed as a treat and treats should be rare. Bad food is extremely addictive because it makes you feel so good. . . we often forget that things like pizza are a treat and not actually a good dinner.*Now to actually answer your question. . .If you can get your heart rate up for about 20-30 minutes a day and exercise those muscles you will 100% improve your bodies ability to efficiently shrink fat cells. The more healthy muscle have the more calories your body will naturally burn."

About nutrition

A few people asked me about nutrition. I don't want to comment on nutrition because everyone has their own nutritional needs. I'll just list off a few key things. . .

Liquid calories are like fat ninjas. It's easy to pack on an extra 500-1000 calories a day with these and not even notice. (e.g. Soda, Starbucks, fruit juice, beer, liquor, SAUCES, DIPS, OILS, etc)
Perishable food is king. If it doesn't go bad it's probably not doing you much good.
Take it easy on pasta, rice, grains, etc
Meat/Soy/Protein + Vegetables > Fruits > Pasta
Fat isn't bad
Hunger pangs don't mean you need to stuff calories in your face. It's your stomachs way of saying "Hey, I'm not as full as I usually am! Things are different!". This goes away after a few weeks of proper meal sizes.
If you eat less calories than your body burns in a day, you WILL lose weight. It doesn't matter if you're a sedentary couch potato or an Olympic athlete.

Take care of your hearts and try to stay healthy reddit. <3

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[Century Club] August 27, 2020 - Have you lost or need to lose 100 lbs or more? Here’s a thread just for you!

I have often welcomed those who have lost 100+ lbs (~ 50 kg , ~7 stone) to “the club” and joked that club meetings were on Thursdays. I recently suggested that we try out having a regular weekly thread to talk about issues that are particular to those who have lost 100+ lbs, those who are well on their way and those who are just at the beginning of a journey this big.

Welcome back to the Century Club! Each week I will provide a topic of the day that has been on my mind or inspired by previous posts. However you are free to talk about any topics you think might be relevant to current and prospective club members.

Previous topics: Exercise - Denial - Headwinds - Streaks - Other People - Toolkit - Breaks - Support - Clothing - The Unexpected - Self-image - How do you end your journey? - What made it click? - Loose Skin

Today's prompt: Health

Did any underlying health conditions contribute to your decision to undertake your weight loss journey? If so, how's that going?

For me, I suffered from three significant chronic conditions in my life as a fat man. High Blood Pressure, Asthma and Obstructive Sleep Apnea. Type II Diabetes runs in the family and my blood sugar was often borderline, and my cholesterol levels were also bordering on high. Neither required treatment, but I was warned several times about them over the 3 decades I was fat.

Since I started my journey my blood sugar and cholesterol levels have been in the normal range and I have not needed my asthma inhaler. (I did fall miserably ill with the flu in the winter of 2018 so it hasn't prevented me from getting sick.)

The great thing is that I seem to have been able to get off CPAP. I was on it for over a decade, and snored up a storm well before that. I feel better now sleeping without it than I ever did when I needed it, and boy did I need it. I don't fall asleep on the couch just watching TV on a regular basis and if I get enough sleep I really feel refreshed. I still track my snoring using an app and generally it's well managed.

Once things really calm down w.r.t Coronavirus, I'm going to try and see if I can get off the HBP drugs I'm on, and have been on since the mid-90s. If I really want to make this a priority I'll probably have to get a BlueTooth cuff and measure my blood pressure with the same regularity as I measure my weight and track my fitness activities.

It's not all sunshine and rainbows though, but I don't know if either of these are a result of or aggravated by my weight loss. I now suffer from tinnitus even though I have no measurable hearing loss, and I've got some arthritis in my left shoulder and right hip that can be annoying at times. All in all not bad for my 53 years on this planet.

What about you Centurion? What role has your general health played in your journey? What's better now? What's not?

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I don’t have IBS, I was just overeating!

TMI warning!

[F/SW:301/CW244]

For the past four or five years, I have been dealing with what I self diagnosed as IBS. I would get terrible diarrhea almost every night, to the point where I would get anxiety about going out to movies or a friends house that I didn’t feel comfortable stinking up the house in front of. I had so much gas all the time that I didn’t understand how people could go to yoga classes and not fart in every position. At first it sucked miserably, but overtime I just accepted my life with IBS and started adapting.

As of the new year I started counting calories and have lost 55ish lbs (yay!!) My quality of life has already changed in many ways, one of them being my IBS has all but disappeared. Turns out, when you’re eating 1000-2000+ extra calories of junk food a day, your body will try to expel it. I cringe looking back at all the nights when my stomach was cramping with pain because it was flooded with food and I just ignored it and kept eating. Now if I overeat on a few especially triggering foods I will still get some stomach pains and/or diarrhea, but it’s so much fewer and farther between than before.

Just wanted to share in case anyone else has experienced this. I love hearing about people’s unexpected benefits of weight loss and this is one of mine. I am so much happier with my quality of life and can literally feel my body is happier and healthier because it isn’t physically revolting against me. Best of luck everyone!

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Beyond my wake up calls and out of excuses.

38F SW: 187 GW:157

5 years ago I was shocked by similar numbers and did the HCG diet on my mom’s recommendation. While I did indeed lose 30 pounds, I didn’t learn any habits to keep it off. I did get to experience being thin again and I sure miss that feeling. My husband eats like a monster and I’ve just been steady gaining weight since our wedding day. I’ve also failed so much because I tried to be so restrictive. No alcohol and 1400 calories a day just sets me up for failure. So I’m going into battle with a plan...

Gym closed and that’s ok because I need to focus on weight loss not muscle gain right now. Running 1 mile a day at the track until it’s nice enough to hike again and then either or.

Planning the day before for downfalls. Husband’s day off? We’ll probably want some beers or to eat out. Cut portions in half. 2 alcohols per week. Add an intense hike. No snacking, light or no breakfast.

Keep the food simple. I love to cook but I need to learn how calories work again. So until I get some traction I’m sticking with simple, low calorie meals that are easy to track and make. I’ll be eating differently than my husband. He can have his burritos and peanut butter and jelly’s.

I want to gain control of my body. You’d think for a control freak this would be easy.

I should hit my goal weight around my birthday.

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“You haven’t changed much”

So I’m 5”6 15F who’s gone from 172lbs to about 137lbs (trying to get down to 130lbs) since January and today was my first day back and school since I lost weight. I wasn’t going in expecting compliments at all because well we’re teenagers but considering the amount of compliments I’ve gotten from family members I thought my weight loss was quite noticeable.

However I have a friend who has seen me once during lockdown and was fully aware I’d lost weight and we were talking about whether anyone had changed over lockdown. I don’t remember the exact conversation but I briefly mentioned the fact I’d lost some weight and she said “you haven’t changed much”. Admittedly I’m probably overreacting to this but it made me feel absolutely horrible. Obviously I’ve not lost a ridiculous amount of weight but the amount of effort I’ve put into it suddenly feels completely pointless. I thought I looked good but now I just feel like I have too much self confidence.

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I just realized people w/o eating issues literally just don't understand why weight loss is hard

I'm not attacking skinny people or healthy people obviously lol. Ive had issues my whole life with food and id always talk to healthy people and they're response is so tranquil and simple like "why can't you lose weight?" Like its just a thing thats simply done. Thats always confused and kinda motivated me like oh its simple. The real reason its hard is bad mental perspective, binging, self loathing, letting your "slack off "voice take over.

I just read David goggins book and for the first time in my entire life. I dont feel a need to give into my voices. Ive been addicted to sugar up and down and addicted to porn for 10 years. I now for the first time ever feel normal. Ive lost 17lbs in a little over a week because I've learned how to control my mind. I dont do ANYTHING I don't want to now. I dont jack off when I'm high, I dont eat at 9pm. I dont let that little voice tell me anything. I feel normal and that feels odd as hell. Idk if you guys will accept a post like this but thought I share my succes. Read "cant hurt me." Take control of your mind. Stay hard.

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Onederland!!!

I stepped on the scale and saw 199.6. I haven't been under 200 in about four years!

30F, 5'9", SW: ~220, GW: 145

Backstory: A tale as old as time-- I was thin and fit in the latter half of high school, I used to play Dance Dance Revolution and such. I didn't get my driver's license until I was 22, so I walked everywhere through high school and college. College saw me staying much the same weight-- I took aerobic dance, fencing, and judo as "filler credits" and was healthy and strong.

Then I moved home, got a license and a car, and it all started to slide downhill. I worked a retail job for a bit and walked a lot during work but my feet and legs would be too tired to do any exercise. Then I got a desk job and, with no exercise habits and a slightly bigger budget, started eating more (fast food, coffee shops, etc.) 2015 was a rough year for me (lost my grandma, my beloved elderly cat, my then-boyfriend-now-fiance's elderly dog, left my job for one that ended up being a hundred times worse), and a depression that I think started genetically started to spiral. I could go to work, but as soon as I got home I could barely muster the energy to shower, let alone cook or exercise.

I've never been one to weigh myself often, so most of my weight tracking before recently was from my paperwork during the scant times I would go to the doctor (I wasn't one for regular Dr appointments either-- both of these have changed :) ) Per that paperwork, I haven't been under 200 lbs in four years! I have a family history of diabetes on both sides, and I was just over the line from healthy to prediabetic in my first physical of my adult life. I started antidepressants and Metformin to improve blood sugar. I managed to reverse the prediabetes, but my weight loss went down to 206 and then back up hovering around 215 lbs over the last four years. I carry my weight very well, so of the few people I've talked to, even my own mother didn't believe I was over 200 pounds. But my body could feel it.

With quarantine, at first I was gorging on snacks and eating whatever I felt like. In April, my fiance and I took up bicycling for my first time in ten years, and I started taking walks outside for a change of pace. I started to feel better and eat better, so I bought a scale and started weighing myself. Then I started back up with CICO. Here's my notes:

For my height, I determined that one point on the BMI chart is seven pounds. I'm setting my goal on Fitbit as 7 lbs at a time. Ultimately I plan to get down to 145 lbs (smack dab in the middle of my healthy BMI range), but smaller goals are more manageable for my brain and keep me fresh and excited.
I have been extremely selective about who I've told that I'm trying to lose weight. People have noticed and said something positive (NSVs!) but I am not bringing it up to most people. I just don't want to invite other people's tips, commentary, competition, or judgement, so I thank them for compliments and move on. I may make a social media post when I reach my ultimate goal.
I have always been avoidant of exercise for exercise's sake (jogging, weights, etc). I am the kind of person who needs to distract myself from the fact that I am exercising, thus the draw to dance, exercise video games, or martial arts. Finding/ getting back to physical activity that feels good not just physically, but mentally, has been critical. I still need to exercise more often, or on a scheduled basis, but any movement is an improvement.
no one can really explain how difficult (or critically important!) it is to overcome feelings of really, really, REALLY not wanting to move when you are trying to overcome the draw to be sedentary. It is such a steep uphill battle, and improvement often feels more like "I made myself do it even though I wanted to do anything BUT that, and I survived, and now I feel great and proud!" and less like "Now I love exercising!", at least for me at this point. So many people have shared similar sentiments but it didn't really sink in until I was doing it.
Trying to maintain a positive attitude and celebrating gratitude has been huge. About everything. Celebrating small victories, practicing self care regardless of the scale number, telling myself a single day where I went over or didn't move much can be overcome, telling myself "but you'd feel better if you did" or "a little bit is better than none" re: exercise. I try to focus more on strength and health than looks, and as it turns out, they impact each other anyway.
It's amazing how much less food you feel like you need if you drink more water. A lighter meal can turn out to be perfectly filling if I drink a full glass of water with it, afterwards, etc. Sometimes a glass of water is all I needed instead of a snack. I also like sparkling water instead of pop.
I don't allow myself to buy junk food snacks (especially sweet ones, personally) in anything larger than a single serving. If I have it around the house, I will go after it. This is proven so many times over. If I'm craving chocolate, I will walk to the store and buy a single candy bar, not a bag of mini's. Often times, I'll get put off or be too busy to walk to the store for a Snickers, so I just... don't.

Thanks for reading my novel. Just wanted to celebrate this somewhat anonymously in a place I knew people would understand. Cheers to a healthier tomorrow!

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