Emi inspired running/workout

[Gandara]

I just wanted to say "thank you" to all of you for your encouraging words. I'm happy to say that I've made it through week 1, with zero slips on my diet and constant exercise. I'm really excited to go weigh myself again - even if the loss is minimal, any change is good change.

Words

I really, really appreciate your encouragement, and your story is a great testament to the possibilities when you set your mind to a goal.

So far, I'm having great luck with the nutrition guideline I've set for myself. I am lucky to be working in a kitchen for a large corporation, so their focus is primarily on healthy, or "lean" food. Granted, they still have greasy burgers and fries, but they also offer a variety of steamed vegetable blends, relatively low-calorie entree options, and a full sub + salad bar. For the past several days I've been keeping my lunch at or below 500 calories, with at least four servings of fruits and vegetables (two of which come from a can of V8 Fusion). At home, I've been snacking on carrots, and dinners have been small-ish portions of either pork wraps or chili. And, of course, tons of water. All totaled, I've kept it at between 1000-1500 calories every day.

Today was rough, however. I was up at 3am to drive our delivery truck; I ate two bananas, walked to work, then bought something called a "Naked Juice" - 16oz of fruits blended up, very tasty. Started driving at about 5am, and by around 7:30am I was ravenously hungry. Like, painfully hungry. I bought an apple at my next stop and that seemed to tide me over until lunch time. I think so far it's been the hardest day - the worst was driving past a McDonald's while being super hungry... damn, I wanted a steak egg & cheese bagel. But... I didn't. And I feel super stoked about that.

Heh. On one of the first days of my diet, I was out with my roommate, who is also trying to lose weight, and another friend. We drove past an ice cream place and their flavor of the day was Grasshopper. He is driving, and just says, "I'm stoppin!" Upon entering, he is the only one of the group that orders anything. He turned back to us and said, "... You guys aren't getting anything?" My friend, in decent shape, just says nah, and I say, "Nope, I'm on a diet, remember?" My roommate's response, with a sad face, is "Oh... now I feel fat."

It's all about willpower. You might think to yourself, "What's one ice cream gonna hurt?" when actually you should be thinking, "What's one ice cream gonna help?"

As for the clothes, I sprouted to my current height relatively young but kept adding pounds. I've got a box somewhere of saved clothes that are / were too small for me, so I'm hoping I can finally put some of those to use in short order. =)

I really do appreciate the feedback though. I'm in this one for the long haul. Besides, if I'm ever to meet a cute disabled girl I'd rather not risk having a heart attack while in the sack with her.

[gRaViJa]

haha, your last sentence made me laugh :p

Today I went for a short 1 mile run. New personal record: 6:49! I went to my absolute max and even had to lay down a bit afterwards. It's a great time but i just looked up the world record time out of curiosity and it's 3:43. Just how the f*ck is that even possible :p

[Akros]

haha, your last sentence made me laugh :p

Today I went for a short 1 mile run. New personal record: 6:49! I went to my absolute max and even had to lay down a bit afterwards. It's a great time but i just looked up the world record time out of curiosity and it's 3:43. Just how the f*ck is that even possible :p

that's what I call drugs, either that or the guy is african or a descendant. That's like half my time or so

[Megumeru]

haha, your last sentence made me laugh :p

Today I went for a short 1 mile run. New personal record: 6:49! I went to my absolute max and even had to lay down a bit afterwards. It's a great time but i just looked up the world record time out of curiosity and it's 3:43. Just how the f*ck is that even possible :p

Maybe because he drinks POWER THIRST!

If you drink that, you might break the world record and run as fast as KENYANS, people will watch you running and think you're KENYANS, you'll race as fast as KENYANS, against actual KENYANS, and there will be a tie and you'll be deported back to KENYAAAAAAAAA!!!

...ok, time to lay-off the alcohol...

[Babli]

Finished day 2 of week 5. On Friday I am gonna try dat day 3. I have no idea if I will be able to run for whole 21 minutes. Seems pretty hardcore for me

[Akros]

Finished day 2 of week 5. On Friday I am gonna try dat day 3. I have no idea if I will be able to run for whole 21 minutes. Seems pretty hardcore for me

same thing here, even though I thought I did great on day 1, day 2 didn't go that well and got really tired towards the end. Let's wait and see how it goes on friday

[Walrusfella]

Finished day 2 of week 5. On Friday I am gonna try dat day 3. I have no idea if I will be able to run for whole 21 minutes. Seems pretty hardcore for me

I'm doing week 5 day 3 tomorrow. It feels like the mid-term exam or something. I'll keep going if you guys do.

[gRaViJa]

Good luck with the 21 minutes. It really did felt as an accomplishment for me too AND it went easier then i hoped. So Ganbate Kudasai! (ok, i sound like a weeaboo now)

[Althamus]

haha, your last sentence made me laugh :p

Today I went for a short 1 mile run. New personal record: 6:49! I went to my absolute max and even had to lay down a bit afterwards. It's a great time but i just looked up the world record time out of curiosity and it's 3:43. Just how the f*ck is that even possible :p

that's what I call drugs, either that or the guy is african or a descendant. That's like half my time or so

Roger Bannister, first guy to break a 4 min mile (English I think...?).

[Sk3tch]

I find it mildly ironic that the thing that made me kick it into gear and get in shape is a video game.

(Take THAT dad, video games are good for me)

But no seriously i find it quite fascinating.
One question I had, what is Fitocracy? I have seen it mentioned a few times and am curious to this ........ whatever it is.

[Gandara]

http://www.fitocracy.com

It's a web app (or phone app) that allows you to track daily activity, from walking to swimming to jogging to pumping iron. It gives you arbitrary "points" which level you up (again, arbitrary), but it's a pretty decent tool from what I've seen. You can link it up with friends or groups - there's a KS one with several members of this forum, most of which post in this topic - and these groups can give encouragement and challenges and such.

I'm still very new to it, just signed up yesterday, but I'm already level 3! Using it to track my time and miles walked, and my swimming. Overall, a pretty neat tool that I'll most likely continue using during my diet and beyond.

[ZXRN]

wow, week5 already eh? Tell me how that goes so I can prepare.(thinking abt it makes me kinda tired...all that running...)

btw, How long does it take you guys to reach 1km? Just wanna know so I can see if I should speed up a bit or just go with what I do.

edit:or maybe I don't know how to use google map distance and failed to understand what they meant by 1km. Coz the others I know took like 7 min. So now I'm curious if i'm doing something wrong.

[Akros]

wow, week5 already eh? Tell me how that goes so I can prepare.(thinking abt it makes me kinda tired...all that running...)

btw, How long does it take you guys to reach 1km? Just wanna know so I can see if I should speed up a bit or just go with what I do.

edit:or maybe I don't know how to use google map distance and failed to understand what they meant by 1km. Coz the others I know took like 7 min. So now I'm curious if i'm doing something wrong.

About 5 mins, normally that, it just depends on how fast I run, but yeah, I would say 5 mins, cause most of the time I aim for that and get it done.
Go to google maps, zoom to the area you want, and start setting route points, then when you are done with them click the "how to get there walking" ( the walking guy button), and it'll tell you the time it would take you to do the whole route on foot, and the distance walked from start to finish

[jmeks23]

Hey guys. Relatively new to the forums. I figured I'd post this here because... well, I'd rather not make a new topic, and this seemed to be the most fitting place to post it.

<snip>

tl;dr - I'm fat, but I'm working on it.

Hey man, I just wanted to tell you that I undertook a very similar lifestyle change about 20 months ago, starting from a similar weight. Today, I'm 215lbs and running 5k 3 times a week, and I feel and look so much better than I did 2 years ago. As long as you can dedicate yourself to your goal and not deviate from it, you will achieve the results you want. It's simply a matter of making your mind and self-discipline stronger than your cravings and laziness.

The first few weeks are the hardest, by far. Your body will expect the level of food intake its been experiencing for the entirety of your life, and it will punish you severely when it doesn't get it. You'll find yourself standing in the kitchen looking for food with no clear memory of deciding to go there. You'll be hungry... basically all the time. In fact, after eating, you'll probably feel full and hungry at the same time. You may find yourself fantasizing about food rather frequently when you're unable to eat it. Just remember, those cravings are never stronger than your conscious will. If you really want to not eat something, all you have to do is decide not to put it in your mouth, and there's nothing your bodily desires can do to override that decision. It's all your own responsibility in the end, and if you want to change yourself badly enough, you will do so.

After a few weeks, your body will get used to the lack of food... a little. You'll still be hungry all the time, but the hunger won't be as sharp, and you'll be able to ignore it mostly. Your tastes will change as you discover new foods that are more nutritious and filling, and learn to associate the eating of those foods with positive mental reinforcement. You'll become more confident in your ability to be around food without feeling the need to eat it, and you'll become less awkward at declining food when it's offered to you, especially when people who know you realize that you're serious about the new dietary habits you're exhibiting.

But it's not until a few months in that you'll experience your real motivation. You'll start to notice that your body doesn't quite look like it did before. Your clothes will become too loose to stay on your body and you'll have to buy smaller things. You'll begin to realize that you can do physical tasks that you couldn't do before: open a door at arm's length without it being blocked by your stomach, lean over to tie your shoes without squeezing the air out of your lungs, buckle the seatbelt in your car more easily, etc. Exercise will become easier as you shed pounds, as well. Your muscles will get stronger and at the same time will have less mass to move, so the brisk walking that tires you out now will become negligible. Two years ago, I used to find ways to avoid walking even short distances because I found it annoying; today, when I get home from work, I literally sprint as fast as I can across the apartment complex parking lot to the mailboxes to check my mail, just because I can and it feels good to prove that to myself.

After a long time, say a year or so, you'll come across an old picture of yourself, and you'll be absolutely shocked at how different you look. You may not be at your end goal at that point, but the realization that what people say about diet and exercise with regards to losing weight is actually true, and it works when you try to implement it, will evolve in your mind from a factual concept to a fundamental belief. At that point, I don't think there's any way to "relapse" to old habits. I can't even imagine eating like I did two years ago anymore; I would find it physically and mentally sickening to be that gluttonous. I'm now locked in to my new lifestyle and there's no way I'm changing it.

Now, a few minor things to note:

• Get a countertop scale for your kitchen. There's no better way to carefully control your caloric intake than by precisely weighing everything you eat.
• Don't worry too much about what you eat. Eating "healthy" is actually much much less important for weight loss than just eating less. For example, this nutrition professor lost 27lbs eating mostly twinkies with some nutritional supplements. If you really want to eat a big piece of chocolate cake, there's no reason not to... you just can't have anything else for lunch if you do. Likewise, if you want to eat at McDonalds, you can, you'll just probably have to limit yourself to a single small hamburger and no fries. You can even eat full meals at American restaurants with ridiculous portion sizes as long as you skip a meal before or afterwards.
• Keep your weekly weigh-ins in an Excel spreadsheet so you can make a neat graph of your progress.
• Set aside a large budget for clothes. You're going to have to replace your wardrobe several times if you're going from 400lbs to 220lbs.
• Finally, whenever you make a decision about your diet or exercise, think about it in terms of something you will do for the rest of your life. If it's not something you're comfortable with committing to indefinitely, then just choose something easier. It's better to commit to a small goal and succeed at it than to try to change everything about yourself but fail. And anything you can't commit to forever is something you'll eventually fail to maintain.

Good luck with your endeavors... even though you won't need it!

A little late, but this was some of the most inspiring shit I've read/heard/ANYTHING in a while. I'm printing this out and putting it on my wall man, thank you!

[Sk3tch]

"Fitocracy is incompatible with this iPod Touch"

Huh, well there went that idea.
Can i run it on my computer or something?