Emi inspired running/workout

[Gandara]

Weekly Update

I don't know what the hell's going on with my scale at work. In about fifteen attempts to weigh myself, it told me I weighed anywhere from 353 lbs. to 341 lbs.

The scale sucks, but it's never been this bad. Usually only a variance of 2-3 lbs., I would just weigh myself five times and take the average. Didn't seem to care how I was standing on the damn thing either, though the scale platform is TINY (I have to literally balance on it carefully to stand on it). I don't think that it's a matter of not handling the amount, either - I used it to weigh myself back when I was 400 lbs. and it read just fine. Maybe it's just breaking. Or broken.

Regardless, no weight result this week. I'll just have to purchase a scale for myself, methinks.

[Sk3tch]

Been sick all week so my workout came to a screeching halt this week :/

Oh well, nothing I can do about that. Next week though I should be back in action. Though next week, school starts up, so with school, work, and life, it will probably be much harder to go running. Midnight runs anyone?

[Althamus]

Midnight runs anyone?

I used to do midnight runs or later quite a bit back when I was running before. It's really nice and cool out at that time, everything is really quiet, and you hardly meet anyone (although on the flip side, people you do meet have a 50/50 chance around here of trying to knife you).

Might crack out the ol' kevlar and do some more late-night running actually, although now that I'm working and waking up earlier, it won't be such an option I guess. Ho hum.

[Pseudogenesis]

Midnight runs anyone?

When else?

[ZXRN]

I didn't run. D: But I'm afraid that Emi picture will be ineffective. I am immune. My procrastination is unstoppable.

I did run a mile after school on the track earlier though, and ended up getting the rather disappointing time of 7 minutes 20 seconds. In my defense, I hadn't had a breakfast and it was pretty hot, but I think I'm just used to running at night. I always have tons more energy at night, and the air not burning your lungs as it enters and leaves is always a plus. Maybe I'll try the track again at night sometime to see if I get a different score.

Well, at least you ran some; you've avoided puppy-dog eyes for now. I also like running at sunset or at night. Fewer people around the track and it's much cooler.

Procrastination is the enemy, and must be scourged with extreme prejudice. Believe it or not, I've never been very disciplined about exercise, nor do I have an athlete's mindset. The way I've succeeded is never missing a run for anything other than injury. If I miss one, it will be much easier to miss another and so on - I have to make them inevitable. It was particularly important early on, before I started seeing results. That's just what worked for me.

Just droppin' by to send you an inspiring photo!
http://9gag.com/gag/4969070?ref=fb.s (just click on the link...I can't show the image for some reason.)
Reminded me of Emi so much lol.

Anyways, since I'm not running anymore, (i'll run when I can, but the storm and the schedule just ain't getting good for me.)
I don't feel like posting here coz you guys work so much harder than I do now. (just a random rant from me.)

Soooo with that said, Keep doing your best to be your Emiest! See ya.

Aww, don't go! You're working hard; I see on the other place that you are manfully pushing up. You can't control the heavens, and sometimes important life things get in the way - nothing to feel bad about.

Thanks for posting that photo; so very awesome.

Unfortunately, there is a temptress more powerful than pouting Emi, and it is Persona 4 Arena...It is that, and also the fact it is 100 degrees on average here... for the last month.

At least that's a good game. I hate the heat as well; that's the main reason I run at dusk or night.

Good job BionicKraken! Nice comeback. North End Pier looks nice, at least on the streetview.

wahaha, thanks dood. I'll still post here whenever I have the chance to do some running. But yeah, I think I won't be posting as much.

update: my run today sucked so bad I was just plainly disappointed. (Felt like Emi was pouting in my imagination too after that.) After all the crappy things that's happened that made me stay away from running...I had that coming. (stitches came in too early, and my feet was giving up.)

In any case, I ain't leaving completely..just snooping around. And thanks Walrus for yer continuous support dood! (really do appreciate it)

[Akros]

Midnight runs anyone?

Most of the time, if not, really close to midnight then. There's basically no people out there, no cars, and no assholes to annoy you

[ojamamask]

I used to go on 6:00 am runs but then stopped for some reason. Again, no one around especially in winter. I'm gonna try again though, these guides help quite a lot.

[BionicKraken]

I can't run at midnight because I work at 8 am and I'd never get to sleep afterwards. I probably would if I had a free schedule or if I was put on night shift regularly, though, since I tend to run around 7-8 pm currently.

[Shmarah]

I'm running all the time now to try and make the cross country track team!
Whenever I need to push myself, I think, "Go for it, go for it, or you won't get on Emi's rouuuute!"
Whenever a cinematic song comes on, I don't let myself stop running until it's over!
Whenever I feel like my heart's going to give out to arrhythmia, I tell myself, "YOU'VE GOT TO CATCH THE PLANE HISAO YOU NEED TO CATCH THE PLANE"

Mom, Dad, visual novels are NOT unhealthy!

[Akros]

I'm running all the time now to try and make the cross country track team!
Whenever I need to push myself, I think, "Go for it, go for it, or you won't get on Emi's rouuuute!"
Whenever a cinematic song comes on, I don't let myself stop running until it's over!
Whenever I feel like my heart's going to give out to arrhythmia, I tell myself, "YOU'VE GOT TO CATCH THE PLANE HISAO YOU NEED TO CATCH THE PLANE"

Mom, Dad, visual novels are NOT unhealthy!

Amen bro * brofist*

[DrNonookee]

Seventeen pounds. O.o

I've lost seventeen pounds since my last doctor's appointment six months ago. IIRC, I first played KS and started trying to lose weight sometime around late March/early April. I've been naturally losing two or three pounds between doctor's visits for some time now, so accounting for that, I've dropped 12-13 pounds over the past few months.

Holy sh*t, it's working.

The real kicker? I haven't actually exercised for quite a while now. I've been dealing with wonky work schedule stuff due to a bureaucratic screw-up on the part of my superiors, and haven't had the morale to get up and do it like I should. Which means most of that weight loss is due solely to my diet.

Oh...and speaking of which, I'm on a diet. :p I thought I'd talk about that a bit in here, since AFAIK the thread has so far been focused mostly on the exercise side of things.

For those of you who are curious, the diet I'm on is a calore-based diet - the intent is to reduce calorie intake as much as is reasonably possible without starving myself. I got started on it after reading Fitness for Dummies, and here's what I took away from it:

-The human body, on average, burns somewhere around 2,000-2,500 calories a day to maintain its own metabolism and vital functions, with pluses or minuses either way depending on how big your body mass is and how much you exercise. This is the reason why all those nutritional labels are marked "based on a 2,000-calorie diet" or the like.
-One pound of fat is equal to about 3,500 calories.
-Body fat buildup is mostly dependant on calories - not so much on the fat content of what you eat. The idea is simple - if you consume more calories than you burn in a day, you gain weight. If you burn more than you consume, you lose weight.
-If you want to lose weight, you need to A> reduce your daily calorie intake, and B> increase your daily calorie burn. The former is done by eating intelligently, the latter via exercise.

In this case, "eating intelligently" doesn't just mean reducing the *amount* you eat to reasonable levels (don't pig out); it also means watching *what* you eat. Basically, reduce or eliminate high-calorie foods, and replace them with low-calorie alternatives. If you're hungry, don't eat those big fat pieces of high-calorie pizza - eat a couple of sandwiches instead and you could walk away with half the calories consumed.

PAY ATTENTION to the nutritional labels on the foods you buy, and note just how many calories you're consuming - and how many you could afford to shed. Once I read up about it all in the book, I started going through all the stuff I ate on a regular basis, and was downright *shocked* at how many calories I was consuming above and beyond the normal 2,000-2,500 range. Those peanut-butter-on-waffle sandwiches I'd often have for breakfast? 400 calories *each*. Two of them to start the day and I'm already up to 800 calories. That big bag of Doritos I spent most of the day grazing on instead of eating real meals? 1800+ calories - that's over half a pound of fat in one container.

Once I knew what to aim for and what to avoid, I found it wasn't all that hard to switch to lower-calorie alternatives. That waffle breakfat I mentioned? Now my daily breakfast consists of two sausage links (each wrapped in a slice of whole wheat bread like a half-sandwich) and two or three eggs' worth of Egg Beaters (the yolkless, cholesteraol free egg stuff you get in a carton). Calorie total - about 400 or so. I chopped half the calorie intake off my breakfast, and frankly I like the sausage better than I do the peanut butter as a breakfast food.

My current diet involves four meals a day, each around the 350-400 calorie mark thanks to smart food choices and the stripping away of anything I stand to do without. Add to that another 200-300 calories for daily beverage intake of things like milk and V8, as well as the occasional (very) light snack before bed, and I'm coming in at anywhere from 1700-1900 calories a day. It may not seem like much below the 2000-2500 mark, but every little bit counts - every day I get away with eating only 1800 calories, I'm losing at least 200 calories' worth of fat. Add that up day after day after day and it really does count.

Of course, the other side of all this is that you have to know when to *stop*. Your body *needs* a minimum amount of caloric intake every day - and if it doesn't get it, Bad Things happen. If your calorie intake drops too low (around 1,200, according to my book) then your body goes into conservation mode - you rmetabolism drops as your body struggles to avoid what it perceives as starvation, and you stop losing weight and start having health problems (ever seen that episode of Metalocalypse?). Lowering your calorie intake does *not* mean you should stop eating - that's just about the worst thing you can do in this instance. You *need* to eat right to stay healthy, and as I said, starving yourself just makes your body fight your weight-loss attempts. Instead, seek out low-calorie foods that will allow you to eat like you need to while still reducing your calorie intake.

The other element of weight loss is exercise, but as the book points out, it's actually the *minor* part. The simple fact of the matter is that working doesn't burn that many calories in and of itself, at least not compared to your caloric intake. The idea of pigging out and then burning off the excess calories you just ate? It does not work. While exercise obviously burns calories, it doesn't burn *enough* of them to be able to compensate for bad eating habits the way many people think it can.

An example: walking at 3mph on flat ground burns about 240 calories an hour. That's enough to burn off, say, a lean roast beef sandwich without much in the way of trimmings, but not nearly enough to burn off that high-calorie grease-fest of a combo meal from Mc Donalds.

With regards to weight loss, exercise is best used as an extention of proper dieting. Cardio exercise directly burns calories; meanwhile, exercising to build physical strength increases the size of your muscles, which increases your body's metabolism (in other words, stronger muscles = more calories burned naturally every day). Neither really adds up to all that much on a daily basis (unless you enjoy spending 3-4 hours a day running on the treadmill), but as with a calorie reducing diet, it creates small daily increases that *add up* to gradual weight loss over time.

That's the important thing to realize about weight loss - it does *not* happen quickly. Doing it right means making small changes that slowly lower your weight over a long period of time, and then maintaining those changes *over* that long period of time without letting them slip. Crash diets and running yourself into the ground at the gym won't give the results you want - the human body just doesn't work that way. Put in a reasonable amount of work every day, and try to be patient.

Anyone else want to throw their thoughts in on this?

On a side note, one change I made to my diet was to eliminate white bread completely and replace it with whole wheat bread. Whole weat food products contain complex carbohydrates - they provide long-term energy and make you feel fuller longer (mmm, fiber). White bread and other 'processed' grain products contain mostly simple carbohydrates, just like sugars - the kind that gives you quick energy but leaves you feeling all 'bleh' afterwards. They're both about the same calorie-wise, but choosing whole wheat foods over processed grains may help you feel better overall in terms of energy.

although on the flip side, people you do meet have a 50/50 chance around here of trying to knife you).
Might crack out the ol' kevlar

Important note: kevlar body armor does *not* stop knife blades. Kevlar is meant to stop bullets, but due to the way it works, a knife stab will pierce right through the fabric and into your abdomen. I recommend ceramic plate armor, or perhaps one of those hyper-padded anti-attack-dog suits.

[Pseudogenesis]

I've gained 8 lbs since I've started running. O.o I'm still 20 lbs under the average weight for my height though, so you won't hear me complaining.

[ook]

On a side note, one change I made to my diet was to eliminate white bread completely and replace it with whole wheat bread. Whole weat food products contain complex carbohydrates - they provide long-term energy and make you feel fuller longer (mmm, fiber). White bread and other 'processed' grain products contain mostly simple carbohydrates, just like sugars - the kind that gives you quick energy but leaves you feeling all 'bleh' afterwards. They're both about the same calorie-wise, but choosing whole wheat foods over processed grains may help you feel better overall in terms of energy.

This kind of thing is pretty crucial I think. Some people get it in their minds that calories are the ONLY thing that matters for losing weight - that it's just a simple math thing. And it's somewhat true.

BUT... the key is, eating healthier foods makes it much easier to eat less calories.

If you eat 500 calories of chicken and veggies (for an example of a healthy meal), you'll be satisfied for quite a while.
If you eat 500 calories of chips, or drink 500 calories of pop, you'll just get hungry again.
IMO, cutting back on sugar and eating more vegatables is probably the easiest and best thing you can do to lose weight.

I've heard protein is good at keeping you full, so eat some protein with every meal too. Don't just have a bowl of cereal for breakfast, have some eggs or something.

By paying attention to the nutrients (protein/fat/carbs) in the foods I eat instead of just counting the calories, I've found that I just naturally level out around 2000 calories and feel better. Whereas my last attempt at losing weight a few years ago (which failed) I had to force myself to get down that low. It sucked, I was always hungry.

As you said, diet has a much bigger impact on losing weight than exercise does, but exercise is still important for overall health.

anyway congrats on your success isn't it exciting to know that this stuff actually works?

[Althamus]

I've heard protein is good at keeping you full, so eat some protein with every meal too.

I've heard this too. In addition, having a high-protein diet will make it easier for you to put on muscle-mass.

And OUCH. I went off on my LARP this weekend. While I'm getting fitter, I can run and walk for half an hour without any real ill effects afterwards, when running in the LARP it's a LOT of quick movements, quich changes of direction etc. Basically, compare marathon running to playing tig. Marathon running I'm getting better at, but tig is a LOT more demanding on the muscles as repeatedly changing direction or speed makes the muscles work a lot harder.

Consequently, when I got back yesterday, by the end of the day I was having trouble walking upstairs while holding a glass of water. Srsly.

(Also, my arms are burnt to all hell xD)

On the up side, one of the reasons I was doing 100PU was to get my arms a bit stronger for LARP fighting, and that DEFINITELY worked exceptionally well. I was using a tower shield and 5' spear, and admittedly they were lighter than I was expecting, but I was swinging them around like I was holding nothing at all, so that was a great success
I also wasn't getting winded during the fighting at all, it was just the muscles in my legs weren't used to all the exercise.


Which brings me wonderfully back to EC25K.
I did week 1 the week before, took a break last week, and currently my legs are knackered out. I'm intending to let them rest until at least Wednesday-Thurs, then do W1D3 either once or twice before the end of the week, ready to start W2 next week

[Walrusfella]

Small update: I just got back from running week 2 day 1 of Bridge to 10k (3 15 minute blocks with 1 minute walk in between). I was able to complete it alright, but it was difficult at the end. I guess that's the point. Time dilated out in the last 10 minutes and it felt like much longer. Feel good that I finished, though.

As for push-ups, I'm still bashing away at week 5 day 2. Hopefully I'll be able to progress soon.

My wife is now on week 2 of Couch to 5k, and is finally coming around to the fact that running is indeed a thing that she can do. I may have created a monster, however; she's got two colleagues and a relative running it now. They were wondering who the cutesy encouragement girl on chart was.

-

Congratulations on the weight loss, DrNonookee! That's a really good briefing on how it works. My own weight loss has slowed down - I'm at 227 now, but I've only lost one pound in the past couple of weeks. I've got to adhere a bit closer to your advice about eating.

Althamus, that LARPing sounds like a good workout. You'll be the fittest warrior on the field. Good luck on week 2!