OT | Official Fitness & Health Thread

[Chuck Diesel]

My goal is to get in as good a shape as the most out of shape NBA player.

[Nebula1]

My goal is to get in as good a shape as the most out of shape NBA player.

Like good enough to be a fringe League player? That's quite a goal.

[Thunder Muscle]

Is there any truth to gaining muscle = weight gain/slow losing weight? I'm guessing throughout the last couple weeks I've added muscle.

Sure, its pretty common advice to keep an eye on how your clothes fit in addition to the scale. Over time couple of weeks to a month you could be swapping a fair amount of fat for a smaller amount of lean mass and see not much change on the scale or at least not as much as the deficit would suggest. If you are at a modest deficit and nutritionally doing the right things you can still build muscle. Once I finished dieting and hit the bottom of what I thought was pushing healthy limits at 135, my waist was 28-29" , I started working on adding lean mass back through bulks and cuts, I'm currently about 150 and the waist is exactly the same as the bottom end. On the way down originally 150 looked very different. Its why those height to weight only body mass charts aren't very good for a body builder.

I tried to minimize looking at the scale anyway, once a week or every two weeks max. You can drive yourself nuts. Eat a salty meal and gain a pound of water, switch pre-workouts and try one with Creatine monohydrate and you might gain 2 or 3 pounds of water. The daily swings just due to sodium intake make frequent weigh ins a bad idea if the swings bother you.

Yeah, sometimes it's better to just take a "before" selfie and know what you want it to look like. Then it simply becomes a matter of getting there.

Yeah I think this is the way to go. I did my weekly weigh-in, didn't see a ton of progress but then took selfie compared to my "before" and noticed visible results (e.g. more trim).

[Nebula1]

^ no kidding.. in fact, the deeper I get into the training, the more I find it's actually harder to keep weight on rather than off.

[averageposter]

^ no kidding.. in fact, the deeper I get into the training, the more I find it's actually harder to keep weight on rather than off.

I'm there now too after dropping so much and then starting the climb back up I find it harder to add it back then I did to lose it. Part of it is probably the eating clean, I eat a lot now ,volume wise, but caloric-ally its probably not quite a lifters diet. I probably need to add a small meal or two or cut a little cardio. Though studies now seem to be showing not a lot of difference between the muscle added at the Buck wild bulking type diets and maintenance plus a few hundred calories.

[MartyConlonOnTheRun]

Any suggestions for late night activities not at a bar? Been pretty good in getting in shape still trying to kick the bar scene. I am pretty social so wondering if milwaukee had anything at night that was active and didn't include pounding beers.

[Thunder Muscle]

My wife decided to do t25, so I'm doing it with her and have lost 14 lbs. Currently halfway through the 4th week.

Nice work! Have you dieted in addition or strictly been losing due to t25? I need to clean-up my diet slightly. I've been doing a little more fast food for lunch and snacking more than I should. That's fine if I am working out in addition, but I haven't really been. Is t25 pretty hard? I believe that is the one that the workouts are 25 minutes or less which would be great.

Not really dieting, just being a little more mindful about the amount of garbage I eat and when I'm eating it. For a while, I was having late night snacks pretty much every night, and they were never healthy snacks. I haven't stopped that, but I've made it more of an exception.

I've also tried to make lunch my biggest meal of the day. That's more a functional thing as I've been doing t25 at night, and it sucks to try to do it on a full stomach.

T25 is challenging without being murderous. If you've done the more advanced beachbody stuff like Insanity or p90x, it would probably seem like an easier version of those. The workouts that include a bunch of different pushup and plank varieties are still, in week 4, too taxing on my shoulders for me to do every exercise. But I'm getting better at it. What I've been doing is, when I have a workout that I don't do really well at, later that night I'll hit those muscle groups again in a different way to try to kind of expedite the muscular endurance gains a bit. Seems to be working.

Did you do the "Beta" program on T25? If so, is it a ton harder? I am scheduled to start that tonight. I have a feeling like it is going to be too much. I am a ton better in all of the "alpha" workouts but I still don't think I "nail" them 100%. But the pushup stuff is a little taxing. I feel I hold my own in cardio related ones.

[WRau1]

Any suggestions for late night activities not at a bar? Been pretty good in getting in shape still trying to kick the bar scene. I am pretty social so wondering if milwaukee had anything at night that was active and didn't include pounding beers.

How do you feel about dirty park bathrooms and glory holes?

[AussieBuck]

Lost all the weight I wanted to in less than a month (around 15 pounds) with minimal excercise. Intermittent fasting FTW.

[MartyConlonOnTheRun]

Any suggestions for late night activities not at a bar? Been pretty good in getting in shape still trying to kick the bar scene. I am pretty social so wondering if milwaukee had anything at night that was active and didn't include pounding beers.

How do you feel about dirty park bathrooms and glory holes?

Like I said, I'm trying to change my ways.

[Matches Malone]

Lost all the weight I wanted to in less than a month (around 15 pounds) with minimal excercise. Intermittent fasting FTW.

But...food.

[AussieBuck]

Lost all the weight I wanted to in less than a month (around 15 pounds) with minimal excercise. Intermittent fasting FTW.

But...food.

It really wasn't hard. I'd rather some meals and eat well during others than eat less than I want all the time.

[emunney]

Nice work! Have you dieted in addition or strictly been losing due to t25? I need to clean-up my diet slightly. I've been doing a little more fast food for lunch and snacking more than I should. That's fine if I am working out in addition, but I haven't really been. Is t25 pretty hard? I believe that is the one that the workouts are 25 minutes or less which would be great.

Not really dieting, just being a little more mindful about the amount of garbage I eat and when I'm eating it. For a while, I was having late night snacks pretty much every night, and they were never healthy snacks. I haven't stopped that, but I've made it more of an exception.

I've also tried to make lunch my biggest meal of the day. That's more a functional thing as I've been doing t25 at night, and it sucks to try to do it on a full stomach.

T25 is challenging without being murderous. If you've done the more advanced beachbody stuff like Insanity or p90x, it would probably seem like an easier version of those. The workouts that include a bunch of different pushup and plank varieties are still, in week 4, too taxing on my shoulders for me to do every exercise. But I'm getting better at it. What I've been doing is, when I have a workout that I don't do really well at, later that night I'll hit those muscle groups again in a different way to try to kind of expedite the muscular endurance gains a bit. Seems to be working.

Did you do the "Beta" program on T25? If so, is it a ton harder? I am scheduled to start that tonight. I have a feeling like it is going to be too much. I am a ton better in all of the "alpha" workouts but I still don't think I "nail" them 100%. But the pushup stuff is a little taxing. I feel I hold my own in cardio related ones.

It's different. In some ways, it's easier. I had similar feelings when I moved over and I've had a similar experience with beta that I had with alpha. Just go for it, it's not going to be too much.

[Newz]

Lost all the weight I wanted to in less than a month (around 15 pounds) with minimal excercise. Intermittent fasting FTW.

But...food.

It really wasn't hard. I'd rather some meals and eat well during others than eat less than I want all the time.

What program did you use for fasting? I've read like... seven different methods I think? I was considering trying it out.

[Ill-yasova]

I had dropped down to right around 200 lbs a few months ago, which was actually a pretty good weight for me. Then I started experiencing back problems which took me out of my basketball routine quite a bit and made it hard to draw in breaths while I was running. I also got a promotion around the same time which increased the number of hours I was working and took up a lot of my focus and free time. I'm just starting to get back into it again now because the job is settling a little and my back is at about 75% now.

This is my first time back in this thread in a while because I've felt like a little bit of a turd reading about everyone else but it's time to get back to it.

[Nebula1]

Any suggestions for late night activities not at a bar? Been pretty good in getting in shape still trying to kick the bar scene. I am pretty social so wondering if milwaukee had anything at night that was active and didn't include pounding beers.

Reading books?

[AussieBuck]

But...food.

It really wasn't hard. I'd rather some meals and eat well during others than eat less than I want all the time.

What program did you use for fasting? I've read like... seven different methods I think? I was considering trying it out.

I just did a bunch of reading then figured that the easiest thing to do would be to not eat until lunch time. Then about once I week I try to go 24 hours without food. Drinking a bunch of cold water keeps the hunger manageable.

[Newz]

I just did a bunch of reading then figured that the easiest thing to do would be to not eat until lunch time. Then about once I week I try to go 24 hours without food. Drinking a bunch of cold water keeps the hunger manageable.

So you pretty much just ate between like... noon and 8PM, then never ate any other time? That's the one that I saw that seemed like it was most realistic for me.

[ReasonablySober]

I just did a bunch of reading then figured that the easiest thing to do would be to not eat until lunch time. Then about once I week I try to go 24 hours without food. Drinking a bunch of cold water keeps the hunger manageable.

So you pretty much just ate between like... noon and 8PM, then never ate any other time? That's the one that I saw that seemed like it was most realistic for me.

A few years ago I did something like that (stopped around 7:00 at night) and went from about 225 to 190. Two meals a day and lots of water. I didn't necessarily eat only healthy food, but I wasn't eating a lot of deep fried foods or pizza either. Didn't go nuts exercising, just stayed relatively active by walking while golfing and going on daily walks.

As for the current regimen, I'm eating a little better, getting more sleep and running twice a day, before and after work. My wind sucks right now but it's getting better.

[averageposter]

Toward the end of my diet, I did a form of intermittent fasting on the weekend. I would stay on my normal diet thru Friday, On Saturday and Sunday, when I woke up I'd do a one scoop protein shake mixed in water. Then I'd fast until the evening and have a protein heavy meal that was a little larger then my normal weekly night time meals.

I'd credit it with pushing through the plateau of losing the last few stubborn pounds.

As a long term plan I'd recommend the morning shake just to get a little protein in. 24 hours is a long time to go, between meals and if your active a small shake would help protect the muscle while your catabolic. I'd recommend a GNC Amp Wheybolic 60 as mixed with water one scoop is 90 calories and 20 grams of protein. Chocolate and Cookies and cream are good even in water.