FG Fitness Challenge

Love the idea, but it's a litte late for me to join in. I started to get my lazy ass of the couch at the beginning of 2011, and I have lost 30,7 kgs until today (from 114,0 to 83,3 kgs) by eating less in general, eating healthier stuff, regulating the carbohydrate input and doing some sports. Nothing serious, just some brisk walking here, taking the stairs instead of the elevator there. Generally, I tried to be as least efficient as possible to be forced to move as much as possible. I just lived by a simple formula: everything counts! Every extra move you make will make you use energy. People have laughed at me for that, but my success is proof enough that in the sum, it does make a difference, the difference.

I have done some jogging lately, but I am pretty useless at it. Cycling however is my thing. Just this weekend, I made a trip to my dad's house with a total distance of more than 100 km. I covered this distance in less than 6 1/2 hours. If you do that regularly, you can laugh any type and amount of stairs right in the face. So besides making every step count, I simply changed my eating habits. I ditched the very worst stuff for better versions (diet coke instead of regular coke, Pizza with tuna and onions instead of salami with extra cheese, avoid any kind of mayonnaise and gravy if possible (if not, simply minimize the amount), avoid deep-fried stuff, and so on. I also decreased the size of each serving. My stomach started to shrink, and so I was full earlier. Again, a lot of little steps which made a big difference.

Everybody, and I mean e-v-e-r-y-b-o-d-y, can do that. There's no witchcraft, no hidden deeper meaning, no predefined fate. It's all in your head. I wrapped mine around it, and I wish all of you the willpower to do just the same.
 
...by eating less in general, eating healthier stuff, regulating the carbohydrate input and doing some sports. Nothing serious, just some brisk walking here, taking the stairs instead of the elevator there.... Again, a lot of little steps which made a big difference.
This. Walking seriously is the best exercise ever, and is really the only one you should consider if you're a true couch potato. Go out and jog on your first outing? You'll either injure yourself or get so exhausted that you'll demoralise yourself and give up before you've begun.

Everybody, and I mean e-v-e-r-y-b-o-d-y, can do that. There's no witchcraft, no hidden deeper meaning, no predefined fate. It's all in your head. I wrapped mine around it, and I wish all of you the willpower to do just the same.
Thank you :D
 
diet coke instead of regular coke
Diet coke is not exactly healthy neither. It replaces real sugar with artificial sweetener, which, if consumed in too high doses, has also bad effects. Plus, it tastes less good (pro tip here: Coke Zero tastes better (IMHO at least) than Coke Light - the only difference between the two is what sweetener they use).
If you do want to go easy on the coke but don't give it up completely, replace it with really healthier drinks (water, fruit juice) and occasionally treat yourself to a glass of real coke and really enjoy that.
About the only valid reason to drink diet coke is if you can't handle sugar.
 
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Diet coke is by no means healthy, but regarding the calorie input, it is better than regular coke, which is a catastrope. I also do recommend water or juices mixed with water, but regarding that I know quite some people who simply will not accept to stop drinking coke completely, diet coke (or Zero or Max or whatever) is, in my experience, the only alternative.
 
Hey is there a trick to getting your breath going properly while lifting.

Sometimes I feel like I'm not getting enough air when breathing in through my nose.
 
Eating garbage is easy: your body loves it, and it's easily available at any time in whichever form you prefer. That's the trouble: eating healthy needs a certain effort. But it's doable. Just think of everything you like and try to come up with a comparable type of dish that is better. Doesn't have to be the complete opposite, just better (= less sugar, less fat, less calories, better ingredients, and so on). Then try that, and if you don't like it, try another similar dish. Variation is a key to eating better. I used to dislike a lot of things I eat today, so I simply tried different variants until I found one that I like. At no point during my weightloss did I ever have to force myself to eat something that I don't want to eat. That probably is the key in changing your eating habits: if you manage to replace things with better stuff which you still like to eat, you can keep eating and make a difference at the same time. The moment eating healthy becomes a strain, there will be a point in time on which you will stop doing it. Therefore, that is only a temporary solution, if one at all.
 
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Not that anyone is gonna care but workout today: 1 hour 38 minutes, 1403 calories. Lifted 2.5 lbs more on bicep lifts, same weight on triceps but I think I'm ready to increase the weight by 10 lbs on skullcrushers. Woot.
 
Not that anyone is gonna care but workout today: 1 hour 38 minutes, 1403 calories. Lifted 2.5 lbs more on bicep lifts, same weight on triceps but I think I'm ready to increase the weight by 10 lbs on skullcrushers. Woot.

how do you calculate your calories this accurately? i'd love to get a few proper numbers, but it seems with my gym it can't be done.
they'd always only give me some strange-sounding sort of numbers for different activities, never anything you could rely on in any way. i was even sceptical about the numbers given by the cardio-bikes... (and to be honest, the damn thing can't possibly know because the actual burned energy should differ from the energy put into the bike differently from person to person).
 
how do you calculate your calories this accurately? i'd love to get a few proper numbers, but it seems with my gym it can't be done.
they'd always only give me some strange-sounding sort of numbers for different activities, never anything you could rely on in any way. i was even sceptical about the numbers given by the cardio-bikes... (and to be honest, the damn thing can't possibly know because the actual burned energy should differ from the energy put into the bike differently from person to person).

I have a polar FT4. It's a chest strap with a wireless transmitter that buttons onto it, and it transmits the data wirelessly to a watch that you can wear (which looks stylish I might add).

Thing is, you can never know what your cells and organs and DNA are doing, so you can't like PRECISELY measure your caloric expenditure. However, something that measures your heart rate and has biometric information that you can keep updating is far more accurate than anything else.

Do not trust any of the machines and what they tell you. They basically set it for a 135 lb dude who's like 5 foot 10 inches, and then based on some basic information they provide you the median caloric expenditure. It's not accurate by any means.

I highly recommend something like that if you love biking and need to keep track of your heart rate, but it's also great if you're not biking. The only thing it doesn't obviously account for is afterburn when you do more lifting than cardio and its algorithm is only accurate for when your heart rate is above like a sedentary level. So if you wear one of those things all day, chances are you'll get something highly exaggerated.
 
Hey is there a trick to getting your breath going properly while lifting.

Sometimes I feel like I'm not getting enough air when breathing in through my nose.

I sometimes have this problem because my nostrils will like suck in if I breathe in quickly or heavily. Half tempted to wear a breathe right strip or something.

Speaking of which I got another work out in today. No real running, minor weights with the legs since I ran yesterday and lifted friday, mainly did upper body. Also picked up some new kicks on sale, Nike running shoes. I figured my basketball shoes that I've been wearing were getting pretty old and flat.
 
I have a polar FT4. It's a chest strap with a wireless transmitter that buttons onto it, and it transmits the data wirelessly to a watch that you can wear (which looks stylish I might add).

nice, i was thinking it might be something like that, but i wasn't sure there even was stuff like it or that was possible. sounds like a good way to keep track, what with updating biometric information and all.
i'm actually just curious, i'm not too bothered about how many calories i burn or how much i eat, but having a number attached to it satisfies the german in me :p
 
Just thought I'd throw this out there... I've lost 46lbs (~21kg, ~3 stone, or 33,600 feathers*) since the beginning of April. So I'm in for further fitness goals of a full marathon by April 2012 and a triathlon by summer 2012.





*average weight of feather being .00125lbs...
 
Hey is there a trick to getting your breath going properly while lifting.

Sometimes I feel like I'm not getting enough air when breathing in through my nose.
It's the opposite of whatever I think is "normal". But I can't tell you what that is because... if I think about it I don't know if I'm remembering the "normal" way or the "right" way. I hate my brain, sometimes.

But basically, it's either breathe out as you push/lift, and in as you bring the weight back to rest, or the other way around. And I always, always, always get it wrong.
 
I know its breathe out as you lift and breathe in as you bring it back down. The problem is just volume. I hope it's not taboo to be sucking in air through your mouth, because as the FG So-Cal meetup video might indicate, I have a huge fucking mouth.
 
Was busy today too...... 10 min warmup cardio, 70 minutes upper body & legs, 20 minutes treadmill (first time ever, that. Because of back problems I set it to "really quick walk" instead of running (did short running parts though)). Damn I am not used to that, at all, my Achilles tendon keeps starting to hurt after some jogging, need to slow down after ~2 minutes max. to "quick walking". I hope that gets better over time...... :)
 
I know its breathe out as you lift and breathe in as you bring it back down. The problem is just volume. I hope it's not taboo to be sucking in air through your mouth, because as the FG So-Cal meetup video might indicate, I have a huge fucking mouth.
Mouth breathing is not just acceptable, it's suggested.
 
Started up, slowly, but started up anyway. Did some sit-ups and back stretches on a couple of mornings and ran some errands by cycling here and there. Tomorrow I'm gonna get the key for the resident's gym (20 eur deposit, no other costs) and have a look at the equipment there and maybe even plan some sort of exercises.
 
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