TIME TO GET RRRIIIIIIIPPED!!!!! - the exercise thread

Midnight yoga! I downloaded a bunch of videos from free yoga TV and while I eye roll at the spiritual woo they have some great balanced sets. I've been so low energy it was good to get some in.

@liminal I'm basically you, with the push ups but carrying all the things, the latter has to do with core strength but I have noodly arms. I've been able to get my arm strength up with a combo in their videos that goes Downward dog to plank to staff to cobra. I could only manage like one or two at a time at first but it's good.

 

Yeah I have like no upperbody strength (which is sad because I want shoulders the most) and I can do pushups okay, I mean they're hard, but what I can't do is a chinup or pullup. I can barely even hang on the bar.
Hanging on the bar does help you develop some muscle though. and it's good proprioceptive (sp) stimulation. so I actually bought a chinup bar that I hang from all the all the time that I have set up in my door.

 

I really want one of those bars but I'm terrified that I'll buy the wrong one (cheaply made or whatever) and it'll collapse while I'm hanging from it and injure me

 

A tip if you are using a public gym: put a sticker on your lock, or paint the dial with nailpolish, because 99% of people use the exact same Dudley lock.

 

I got the golds gym one, you don't screw it in or anything, it uses body weight to stay in the door frame (up to 250 lbs i think). i just don't swing around on it and it stays fine

 

I'm training for a half marathon in March. I did this last year with the DC Road Runners and I felt mighty, so I'm doing it again, this time with an actual time goal beyond just getting over the finish line without dying. Weekly long runs are on Saturday mornings. They started at 3 miles in mid-December and tomorrow's is going to be 9 miles. So far I'm injury-free and everything's going well.

Except. This week I've started having the same problem that hit me at about this time last year. I'm hungry ALL THE TIME. An hour after a meal, I'm starving again. I wake up in the morning ready to eat my pillow. I need to eat more (and more fat), but changing my food habits is hard. :/

 

I started this program today. And moved the pull-up bar from the closet door to the bedroom door where I might actually walk past it and use it just because it happens to be right over my head.

Also if any of y'all are on Skimble and want a friend here I am!

 

I'm curious (and I'm not googling this, because my odds of getting a useful result is almost literally zilch), is there any science to "lose [area of body] fat best with this exercise!" stuff, or is it all fake? I'm kind of assuming the latter, but...maybe I'm wrong?

Edit: I did google it. God, the people who write clickbait articles are so bad at correlation and cause.

 

I assume your googling confirmed that it's bunk?

 

It didn't bring up any reliable evidence to support it.

 

It doesn't match up with my (limited) knowledge of how fat works, so I'm inclined to scepticism

 

@EulersBidentity from the lofty height of my two physiology classes, no, that's pretty much complete shit and not how fat catabolism works in the slightest. Any actual medical professionals feel free to correct me, but my best understanding is that the pancreas detects low blood sugar overall, which then triggers glucagon release, which causes the liver to break down its glucose storage mechanism and also triggers gluconeogenesis, the process by which triglycerides (among other things) are broken down for energy. The nervous system and the pancreas don't give a good goddamn about which set of tissues are hungry, the receptor system only looks at overall blood glucose levels. Afaik adipose tissue is broken down evenly throughout the body to reduce stress on systems; uneven fat distribution tends to be bad for you for a number of reasons.

 

Strongly recommend side-eyeing v. hard at anyone who claims their wacky device/supplement/magic cabbage soup recipe/whatever will selectively whittle fat off specific parts of you because yeah, that's baloney.

(now there may be some hormonal influences that will tell your body "need moar/less fat right here" but I'm not sure that's a thing, and if that is a thing then that would fall into the realm of stuff the average person really should not tinker with except under the advice and supervision of an actual medical professional)

 

Today I had ridiculous amounts of anxiety about completely irrational things. I probably would have just gone home right after class, but I had a personal training session scheduled, so I dragged myself to the gym. Holy. Wow. The amount of difference a hard workout makes in my anxiety levels is amazing. Plus, I get these really strong surges of anxiety way less when I go to the gym regularly.

I've almost got my squats over 100lbs, too! Maybe next week...

 

I've noticed gym visits helping anxiety levels too. Unfortunately I haven't been in a while...
There are a lot of sensory advantages to working out though, joint compression, weight,, stretching, etc., so it makes sense that it would be relaxing.

 

i'm incredibly overweight, but we recently got rid of our old exercise bike and got a new one with a desk attachment. so i've been doing some light cycling every day, and slowly upping the amount of calories i burn per exercise. the least i do is 130 on days when i've already exercised some via walking, most i've been up to is about 250. the problem is that the seat really sucks so it reaches a point where my ass just literally hurts too much for me to bear sitting on it any longer.

it came with a resistance band also but it's really awkward to use while biking.. you pretty much have to warp it around your thighs and it just, doesn't feel that great. i might just grab some weights or something to do separately just to build some arm strength

i have noticed since i started biking that my knee started to hurt very rarely vs hurting almost every day. i have had only one episode of knee pain in the past couple of months and it corresponded with my period starting, which i've heard is when pain tolerance is overall fairly low due to hormone fuckery. tbh if that's the only time my knee is going to hurt, i can deal with it. it feels nice to not be in pain, and building leg strength has helped.

i haven't however really changed my diet that much though. tbh when i started this journey i started cutting what i was eating down a bit, but then i realized that even before that i really wasn't eating that much? a lot of days i barely cross the 1000 calorie mark. i eat when i'm hungry, and i eat until i'm feeling not hungry (avoiding feeling stuffed), and when i do that i just don't eat that much. and it feels gross to -force- myself to eat more. should i be, though? i've started working some small things in, like i've been eating a piece of fruit or 2 per day, or a cup of greek yogurt when i'm not hungry but not full, but i really don't think i can manage more than that.

would appreciate some input though.

 

@Soul I didn't even think of the sensory advantages! You're right, those are super helpful aspects too; I was just thinking of how burning off energy means I have less to put to anxiety.

@Aniseed I am not certified to give Professional Eating Advice, so take anything I say with a grain of salt (ha). But barely crossing the 1k cal mark does sound pretty extreme. Do you have any sensory issues/allergies/intolerances? Assuming not, there are some pretty easy ways to increase the caloric value of what you eat, like stirring some honey into your greek yogurt, keeping a bit of trail mix by your desk to nibble on, adding cheese to scrambled eggs, that sort of thing.

 

@budgie some minor texture squicks when it comes to leafy vegetables (i at least have spd, maybe autism, so that's tied into that) and only really some lactose intolerance. yogurt has been good for that because that doesn't trigger my stomach issues the way that something like ice cream would. i do have lactase though that i take before i eat anything with a lot of dairy in it.

i am also like, legitimately extremely depressed. the only way i've managed to hold on to doing this workout is that my health was starting to suffer and i made it a routine in order to lose weight. i live with 3 other people who have their own problems going on but unfortunately that makes 90% of the cleaning fall on my shoulders which i can't always handle. sometimes the difference between me having a cooked meal vs a cup of yogurt is a pot that i would have used being left dirty by someone else and me not having the emotional energy to wash it.

i'm just sort of ??? about food and what to eat and how much to eat. i'm legitimately thinking that i may have ballooned up in weight so much because i eat low calories and was sedentary and my body was just like 'well we're going to die so let me hold on to allllll of this'. i'm at a point now where my doctor was also concerned about my blood sugar, not diabetic but maybe pre-diabetic. and that complicates things because a lot of what is easy and affordable to eat and make is carby and thus sugars. i've started getting brown rice, whole grain or veggie-based pastas, and wheat bread, but idk if that's really good enough if i have to worry about blood sugar. idk if fruit is good to throw into my diet if i should be careful about carbs and sugar. idk if the fact that i am now actually exercising will be enough to burn that energy and balance that out for me. like everything is a lot of question marks for me and it makes me anxious and i alternate between cutting shit out out of anxiety fear that x food is literally going to cause my to die, and just eating whatever during the day because in my mental map it's already just way too low calorie anyway, does it matter if i eat 2 pieces of 300 calorie a piece pizza when that is the only thing i'm going to eat all day?

anyway that was a ramble. i'm just at a loss. i've mostly just been crossing my fingers and hoping that the exercise i'm doing and gradually amping up will be enough to help me lose weight.

 

Hm, so, avoiding intentionally adding sugar (like my honey suggestion) is probably a good plan. (I think fibre-rich fruits are ok when you're watching your blood sugar, but you should probably talk to your dr/a nutritionist.)

A super fun feature of depression that I have experienced is it killing your normal hunger signals, so you kinda have to retrain yourself into eating. Don't force yourself to eat, but if it's been half the day since you've eaten anything and you still feel not-hungry (as opposed to full), it is time for something to eat.

A couple low-spoons ideas that are higher in fat/proteins and also fairly cheap:

- see if the greek yogurt you buy comes in a version aside from non-fat. You'll be eating the same amount but getting a little bonus to your intake.
- There are little cans of seasoned tuna that go on sale at my grocery store fairly regularly that are yummy, and all you need to eat them is a fork or some flatbread.
- A spoonful of peanut butter. It's small enough that hopefully it won't make you feel gross, but it's relatively calorie-dense and it'll give your body something to work with.
- Nuts = yum
- If yogurt is ok on your stomach, what about hard cheeses like cheddar?
- Hardboil a bunch of eggs at once and they'll keep for about a week so long as you don't peel them

 

yeah it really could be depression causing me to just.. not feel hungry. i try to notice the time and if it's been about 3 or 4 hours since i've had a meal i'll have something small. i'm just kind of.. idk, even that isn't enough to really boost my calorie intake significantly. but at least i assume if i'm getting nutrients okay it won't really matter too much if my calorie intake is low. i really need to figure out a way to get more vegetables in though.

yogurt is kind of hard to find in non-fat. :/ i also go for the 'light and fit' option because it uses sucralose as a sweetener, which i already like and am used to, in order to avoid too much excess sugar. and of course because it's 'diet' it's also nonfat. i have been preferencing greek yogurt over regular yogurt though just because it has extra protein and i've been hoping that that is a good thing to do, it definitely makes me feel fuller.

cheese is sort of a toss up. i mostly have trouble with greasy cheese or just excess cheese. like pizza will absolutely annihilate me from the cheese + grease combo, but putting shredded cheese on top of chili or eggs doesn't make enough of a difference to hurt me.

i've been considering picking up some almond butter or cashew butter or something since it's something i can eat with like an apple or another piece of fruit to get some protein in. i'm a little eh on nuts in general though so hopefully i can find something that i'd like.