zompist bboard

soo yeah, discuss strategies or recent workouts here: I don't think it'll get much traction, since the zeeb doesn't seem to be filled with exercise enthusiasts, but what the hell.

I went for a 40 minute bike ride, which is hard because I'm pretty out of shape and because I haven't ridden a bike more than twice a year since, I don't know, ten years or so. and then I got home and chopped some wood with the axe, and then threw a big rock around. all in all a very manly workout XD

so what do you do ?

I just walk, that's all. I used to bike, but my old bike got too worn out (and rusty), and the area I live in now is not very bike-friendly at all.

What is thing you earthlings call "exercise"?

I bought a bike a few weeks ago, and I've been trying to cycle to work as much as I can. It feels good. I dunno how quickly I'll lose weight, though. Also, I've been waking up a lot recently with intolerable back pain, and I'm wondering if it's related to the cycling, because that's one main thing that's changed in my routines fairly recently. It's in my upper back, and it tends to go away once I get out of bed for a while. The other main thing that I do that's bad for it is using my laptop; that's either in bed, which is bad, or it's (like now) on a very low Japanese-style table, which you can't sit at properly. I bought a chair but I'm now higher than the laptop. I have a wireless keyboard and mouse and I can balance these on my knees, but I still often have to bend down for one reason or another...

I go to the gym five days a week and lift weights and do some cardio. I really enjoy it; it's quite satisfying doing something that you are constantly, measurably, getting better at. I sweat more than the rest of the gym put together. I used to be self-conscious about it but now I don't care. If anyone makes any remarks, I'll stand next to them and they'll drown.

I'm also on a fairly strict diet at the moment to try my stomach flab. I forgot how strangely enthralling it is to calorie count and monitor ones protein intake. I had approximately 140g of protein yesterday. True fact.

Torco wrote:soo yeah, discuss strategies or recent workouts here: I don't think it'll get much traction, since the zeeb doesn't seem to be filled with exercise enthusiasts, but what the hell.

I went for a 40 minute bike ride, which is hard because I'm pretty out of shape and because I haven't ridden a bike more than twice a year since, I don't know, ten years or so. and then I got home and chopped some wood with the axe, and then threw a big rock around. all in all a very manly workout XD

so what do you do ?

I regularly lift a large glass, and then put it down again, and lift it again repeatedly.
It keeps my elbows healthy.

I also maintain a morning exercise routine, consisting of running from the bed to the shower, while swearing profusely, from shower to pantry and then from home to the subway station.

I've got a feeling that this isn't the kind of answer you're looking for, though.

finlay wrote:I bought a bike a few weeks ago, and I've been trying to cycle to work as much as I can. It feels good. I dunno how quickly I'll lose weight, though. Also, I've been waking up a lot recently with intolerable back pain, and I'm wondering if it's related to the cycling, because that's one main thing that's changed in my routines fairly recently. It's in my upper back, and it tends to go away once I get out of bed for a while. The other main thing that I do that's bad for it is using my laptop; that's either in bed, which is bad, or it's (like now) on a very low Japanese-style table, which you can't sit at properly. I bought a chair but I'm now higher than the laptop. I have a wireless keyboard and mouse and I can balance these on my knees, but I still often have to bend down for one reason or another...

Learn to sit on the floor! It's good for your flexibility.

When I'm at my mum's I exercise maybe once a week or less by walking the dogs up a hill or two. In Manchester I walk everywhere, and when I'll be in Jerusalem I'll do the same and get even more exercise because it's hilly whereas Manchester's mostly flat. Maybe once a month I'll do a couple of pressups or something... Maybe.

I eat huge quantities of meat and never exercise except for occasionally taking short hikes in the woods. I must be blessed with a fast metabolism because I haven't really gained weight, though I've known people who are thin and have high cholesterol so I suppose I should be watching out for that. Avoiding junk food certainly helps keep my weight down, though. I think it's okay to eat lots of meat and other high-fat foods (1 tbsp of olive oil has as much fat as 1/4 lb of prcoessed beef!) if you balance it out by also eating lots of vegetables and avoiding junk food such as potato chips and cookies and sugary sodas entirely. I've read that people are drinking 64oz sodas these days, both in restautants and movie theaters. If you assume that those mostly are sugared ones, people who drink them will be getting an average of 800 valories and 8 oz of sugar per drink ... which is HUGE ... equal to about two "king size" packs of M&M's according to http://quitehealthy.com .

I'm trying to start playing tennis again...it's been about 3 years since I last hit, so I'll be awful when I start again, but it will be fun.

Since the beginning of the year, my older sister has been on what's called the "paleo diet", and it's really been working out for her. In essence, you eat only meat, fruits, and vegetables (not counting beans and legumes), just like primitive man would have, because our bodies are supposedly not equipped to handle grains and sugar, which apparently lead to obesity.

On the other hand, I eat mostly grains and sugar, and I'm underweight.

Hubris Incalculable wrote:Since the beginning of the year, my older sister has been on what's called the "paleo diet", and it's really been working out for her. In essence, you eat only meat, fruits, and vegetables (not counting beans and legumes), just like primitive man would have, because our bodies are supposedly not equipped to handle grains and sugar, which apparently lead to obesity.

I'm very sceptical of things like that. Our bodies are made, above all, to be adaptable and make the best of what is available. Then again, it does sound like basically any other low-carbohydrate diet, which give very good immediate feedback (carbs = glycogen stored in water = body retains water = look larger, fewer carbs = less glycogen stored = less water stored = look thinner = OMG this diet works so well look how thin I am after only two days) and people probably do eat too much starch. Cutting out starchy foods is a fairly easy way of lowering your energy intake, as well.

It's a generally sound diet, I think, even if it sounds like it's the express train to constipation. Any "OMG it's more natural" diet like that makes it sound more stupid than it is, in my opinion. Like raw foodists who seem to think that eating only raw things that have moar enzymes is the only way to live healthily; eating lots of fresh fruit and vegetables is probably a fairly sensible thing, but to damn every other food is foolish.

On a forum I frequent filled with misanthropic vegans like as myself, we refer to paleo-evangelicals as paleotards" (The corresponding term is vegangelical, in case you were wondering).

since you think that man is alone among all animals in that although we *can* eat and enjoy meat, it is bad if we do, then your scepticism is to be expected

I run a couple of miles twice a week. I like to do my running outdoors, fresh air, changing view, etc. which I prefer to indoor treadmills. Don't like it so much in bad weather, so I vary my days to avoid bad weather if I can.

My wife and I began T'ai Chi Ch'uan in the Spring. It proved surprisingly enjoyable, and helps us stay supple. I for one will be back for more in the autumn. I also try to take one walk a week in lunchbreaks at work.

And then there's the alcohol rule. I used to drink a lot, so I went without for 18 months and now limit myself to one bottled beer or two small glasses of wine a week.

I began the drink thing in 2005 and the running in 2006, the others are more recent.

on the topic of ethanol, I'm perhaps drinking too much: I'm averaging some 700 ml of beer per day, and a bit more when I go out with friends for beers: then, it's closer to 2 or 3 liters... beer here has something like 3° to 7°.

Pthug wrote:since you think that man is alone among all animals in that although we *can* eat and enjoy meat, it is bad if we do, then your scepticism is to be expected

I don't object to eating meat full stop, but I think it's better to eat something that has minimal death involved and it's incredibly easy to do so. So, I do that. If I can cope with my partner eating meat, I'm fairly sure I can cope with people I don't know doing it. Also, milk is for babies.

I just think that any diet that uses that kind of thou-shalt-not approach encourages people to oversimplify their dietary and adhere to rules, rather than employ common sense and self-educate, which I think is fairly important when you are effectively self-medication through food. It's how like Weight Watchers encourages people to simplify food to just being points, rather than literally the material that future-you is made of.

Ketumak wrote:T'ai Chi Ch'uan

Wade-Giles mneeds to go die in a fire. Relatedly, I've always wanted to try Taijiquan

Gulliver wrote:I don't object to eating meat full stop, but I think it's better to eat something that has minimal death involved and it's incredibly easy to do so.

No it's not. We are heterotroph. Everything we eat is dead (or living!) organic matter.

Legion wrote:No it's not. We are heterotroph. Everything we eat is dead (or living!) organic matter.

Bitch, please, I photosynthesise.

Anyway, I'm off to the gym shortly. I'm doing a plan that is very loosely based off Stronglifts 5x5 but exercises I like that work the same muscle groups rather than the ones they give, and a bunch more. I highly recommend using it as a template; the principle behind it that you are constantly slightly pushing yourself seems to have worked out for me.

There's two trouble spots with the whole paleo diet thing: first, the biggest healthy thing about the actual ancestral diet was not so much the list of foods consumed as their proportion to each other: the bulk of the diet for most of the year was leaves, leaves, fruit, leaves, root vegetables, nuts, and leaves. Huge amounts of vegetation. Meat tended not to be a daily food item except in northern climate winters when there might be nothing else available.

And second, "healthy" is a relative concept here: it was a diet highly suited to the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, but it doesn't follow that it would be just as suitable for ours - for example, they tended not to live past their 50s and 60s, so the red meat and animal fat that they did eat could easily have resulted in high rates of heart attack and stroke if they had lived as long as we do.

That said, even the modern-hippy version of the "paleo diet" is still way better than the average American fat, salt, TV dinners, and junk food diet.


As for exercise, I find the whole gym phenomenon to be bizarre. Not that I couldn't stand to exercise more, but paying money just to move my body parts around when this is available for free, I just don't get it.

Radius Solis wrote:As for exercise, I find the whole gym phenomenon to be bizarre. Not that I couldn't stand to exercise more, but paying money just to move my body parts around when this is available for free, I just don't get it.

Running and stuff I can see a reason for not bothering going to the gym for. The outside world is, after all, quite a nice place to run around in.

I partly go to the gym to get myself out of the house. I have a bunch of weights that I got at a scandalously low price, but I find that I actually stick at it more if I go to the gym. That said, I blew off my squats today. I hate squats.

I have eaten about 1400 Calories today, and around 150g of protein. In theory, I did 450 calories-worth of cardio stuff today as well as well as weights.

Chibi wrote:Taijiquan

I knew somebody would say that! But, yeah, I'd recommend joining a class, it's good for suppleness and helped me sleep better. Proponents also say do Taijiquan for calm, alertness, etc - I'm not so sure about that, but it's early days. Perhaps I got a bit the morning after.

I walk everyday, and do a lot of gardening and other physical work outside. But walking is what makes me feel good.

Thing is I eat whatever and don't put on weight. Still, I tried a diet that was about not mixing certain stuff like acids + carbohydrates, carbohydrates + proteins and proteins + acids. It seemed to work for my girlfriend, she lost some weight. The effects on me were less smelly farts (hooray) and less of a feeling of laziness.

Both the scales and the mirror seem to confirm that I'm a bit less fat than I was a week and a half ago! Hurrah.

Gulliver wrote:Both the scales and the mirror seem to confirm that I'm a bit less fat than I was a week and a half ago! Hurrah.

less fat?
get out of here, skinny. that's like Ronnie Coleman jumping for joy, shouting "I'm less tiny".