Porce--I'll have to work on stretching. Which is better: stretching before, after or both? (I'm new at this...) What kind of stretches are best?

Stretch before and after. I don't know how heavy of a work out you do, but I know I can stretch for a good 15 minutes before hand. The good ones are the ones you feel. They don't hurt, but you can feel them.
You should hold any stretch for 20-30 seconds, otherwise you might as well not have bothered. And don't bounce what you're stretching! You can really hurt yourself doing that.
Afterwards, do I nice warm-down, and then stretch out all the muscles you worked on for another few minutes. How long? How long do you have?
Generally, the more you stretch, the less it hurts the next day.

All you guys that want to do free weights make sure to start small, even if you can do a lot more. Sure you'll look like a wuss for a few weeks, but hey you just started deal with it. If you start small you'll know how to do the excercise correctly. When I was younger I almost threw out my back since I decided to try and rep 500lbs for the dead lift, I'd only been used to 350 so I sorta killed myself ( I was 17 at the time so sue me)

Make sure to keep your blood sugar up. I used to have a bad habit of eating nothing for the first part of the day then working out like a mad man and passing out. As much as I found it funny, its actually rather dangerous. From then on everyone called me Jay the Juicer as I was forever drinking apple juice when I lifted weights.

You shouldn't be able to do squat with the muscle group you worked out the day after unless you've been at it for a long time, and even then you should be really sore. Too many people work till it hurts a little bit and stop. Personally for me the idea is to push weights until I feel like crying or run until I can't talk right. Its sort of funny when I drink a bunch of caffeine the night prior and drink no water then run 6 miles. I'm a blabbering idiot at the end.

If you want to start running watch out. You should go see if you have high arches, normal arches, or flat feet so you can get the correct shoes. I tend to be a moron and run too long with a beaten up pair of shoes and put a lot of strain on my ankles ( well that and my running in boots ). Make sure to have good rest periods when you first start and make sure to get lots of calcium. Your muscles will grow faster than your bones and you'll get stress fractures if you push yourself too much as remember you can run ten miles before you can take ten miles. I've personally messed up my ankles a little bit doing that.

Don't smoke or drink alcohol. Once I stopped drinking I felt soooo much better. I have a pal who stopped smoking, his run time actually got worse at first, but now he is improving. Smoking 3 cigarettes before a long run like all my pals is not a healthy thing to do. Not to mention the fact that you can smell alcohol at the end of the formation sometimes during Monday morning PT.

Personally I'm not big on dieting to lose weight. I feel if you can't build up your body to just burn off the fat you shouldn't be that thin. Though I suppose not everyone has half the time that I get to do stuff like that. I've always thought that women with some muscle tone looked a lot better than all the Christinas in the world.

Pullups , chinups, etc are all cool excercises if you can do them. The fact is I know too many people who don't have the upper body strength to do more than one or two of them. I'll be honest when I started Basic I could do two or three. Now its a lot past that, but I won't brag as I'm some people will see this as bragging enough as it is ::laughs::

Most of all to me the peak in physical fitness is the super foot. You should be able to walk 12 miles without a single blister. Yeah so I'm a dork about that. Though in all honesty make sure that whatever you do that its fun. MY idea of fun is doing ten pullups every time I walk into my bathroom and to do 50 of whatever excercise whenever I leave and come into my room. I'm simply retarded like that, find something that you enjoy and will smile. Plus the greatest thing in the world is to keep track of your progress. Its great sometimes to look how much you've changed and improved. Its a lot like looking at stories you wrote when you were younger. : )

I'm still in the planning stages of things here. I can certainly start eating right and exercising now, but need to figure out my goals and set a real routine. My problem is that what I want might not sit well with that little thing called "reality". For my goals, I'm going off of when I was in the best shape of my life. Luckily that happens to be post kid-I don't know what I would do if I were trying to envision myself going back to what I looked like when I was 15.

Anyway, if I want to go back to that long forgotten figure, I'll need to drop at least 15 pounds, and if I'm being honest with myself it's more like 20. And I'll have to blast away about 4 inches from the hips, and 2 from the waist. That seems like a lot to me. Quite scary. I guess it's possible, but it seems like my whole frame has changed in the past three years or so. I hit 20 and got all wonky. I guess it's fat, though-I don't imagine I can pass this off as growth.

Anyway, I'm going to the store tomorrow to get back up supplies and good food. Trading in the Chunky Soup and cold cut sandwiches for lean cusine for lunches at work, and in general eating like my little turtle. Getting happy new tapes for working out at home. Woo hoo. Have been planning to get the kid into swimming lessons-perhaps they have something for mommies as well.

I've gained almost 20 pounds since last summer, i was 112 and i'm now roughly 130. It's not happy.

But i'm going to start eating better and (not running, cause its COLD out there, sheesh!)maybe doing Pilates, although so far they've seemed ineffectual...*shrug*

How's it going, guys? Does the fact that this thread keeps dying mean I'm trying to lose weight alone?

Troubs? blackwolve? dkw? Narnia? Anna? flyby? Tammy? porce? Belle? Noemon? aretee? Lead? ladyday? Leonide?

Are you still with us?

[brag]In two months, I haven't broken my diet one single day![/brag]

Still haven't had anyone whom I haven't told I was dieting comment, but 15 pounds is not a lot when you're as overweight as I am (was). I'm thinking that in the next couple of months it should become more apparent. The jeans that I bought at the beginning of this month are snug, but not uncomfortably so. My wife says they look good on me.

The past few weeks have been tough. The rush of enthusiasm from starting has worn off, but I'm not yet getting the validation of people noticing. But I've been good! When I get frustrated at what a long road I've started upon, I try to calculate what fraction of the way to my target weight I am, and when I think I'll get there.

It's not really that long a road. I've spent years wishing for a quick fix...if I'd spent that time gently changing my habits, I'd be in better shape already! But it does feel like a long time, sometimes.

Blackfox, I would agree with you if we were talking about starvation. But what I'm talking about is training myself out of unhealthy eating habits and into healthy ones. I just celebrated with ice cream...but I haven't cheated. What I'm relearning is moderation. When I was in college and grad school, I didn't work at staying in shape, and I enjoyed the foods I ate, but I stayed skinny. Somewhere along the line, as my professional and family life changed, my own attitudes toward food slowly did. I was eating out more, and the quantities were bigger, and the desserts more tempting, and, where I used to be satisfied with getting a taste of something I enjoyed, I started needing to feel full of something I enjoyed. What I'm doing is relearning my old habits. In the past two months, I have found myself being more and more able to leave some food, to put less on my plate, and I have found myself not really fighting temptation because I'm not really being as tempted by food anymore.

I don't want to be so fatalistic as to say, "Oh, well, maybe I just shouldn't be thin." I'm seeing the results of that in my father now. He had quadruple bypass surgery three years ago, and we give thanks for every day we still have him. I want to watch my grandchildren grow up.

Anyway, this is a weight-loss ENCOURAGEMENT thread, so SHOO!!

I don't agree, by the way, that there's any one right way to lose weight. Everybody I know of who has successfully lost and kept off weight preaches their own particular method as though it's the only way. I think each person's life is different, and each person who struggles with weight does so for different reasons and with different problems. I think much frustration comes from saying, "Well, Oprah says I have to do it this way, so I won't even bother with anything else, and if I can't succeed this way I'll just give up." I think people who need to lose weight need to keep trying until they find the method that suits their issues, their needs, and their personalities.

The only thing I think is a certainty is that there is no shortcut, and that determination is pretty much required.

I've got a nasty cold and it seems like I should have lost at least 10 pounds just in snot and phlegm, but it doesn't seem to be affecting the scale any.

Before the cold kicked in I was still sort of stalled - didn't gain any back, but stopped losing. I think that means it's time to concentrate on increasing exercise. When I get to the point that I can go two minutes without blowing my nose, I'm gonna give that a try.

The last time I was on a set of scales, I had lost more than 60 lbs. Gauging by the way my clothes fit (or in most cases these days, don't fit), I'm somewhere around the 70 lb mark by now. I don't own a set of scales, and don't want to -- I have no desire to follow my weight fluctuations too closely.

Well, I got to enjoy the fun of walking into the party in a clingy dress on the arm of a hot guy. In the course of the evening I received quite a few comments about how great I was looking, received more complimentary comments passed along by a good friend, and got hit on twice. All in all the evening was a huge boost to my ego.

So, I just wanted to share, and figured this was a good spot. I shall now return to preparing to leave town to visit family.

~~~Lead

Congratulations!

I need to remember to write in the darn journal...so that I can keep myself honest.

It's just so easy to eat junk/fast foods. Eating healthier does take much more of an effort.

I've not given up yet. I'll do better!

Yeah, still with the crew on this one. I've been slack with end of year busy-ness, and despite everyone commenting on how much weight I've dropped during the year (many of my closest friends and family only see me once a year) I'm comitted to the process of losing a lot more.

My plan for this is simply to get good at rollerblading, go for more jogs and continue the healthy eating regime I've been enjoying so recently of late - and which is responsible for my keeping the weight down when not exercising.

I think that I need to readjust my focus.

I focus on getting us all fed, in the most efficient way time wise. I need to shift that focus to quality. That's not easy for me. It takes alot of consideration and planning prior to the fact.

I've checked out a few books at the Library. Books that focus on saving time, and others on eating healthy.

A while back some people commented on whether or not it was wise to begin a weight-loss plan before the holidays. Having now weathered my wife's birthday, Christmas, New Years, and our anniversary, and having not only NOT gained weight, but actually LOST weight, I have to say that before the holidays is the best possible time to start, because if you can stay on it, then you are that much further ahead than if you first gain weight, and then try to lose it and more. (WITALS: new 'net abbreviation for "Wow Is That A Long Sentence!")

My goal this year is to perfect my tummy...*eyes stomach, irritated*

First of all I want to say LOUDLY. CONTGRATS LEAD, YOU LOOK AWESOME!!!!

I know I need to lose 10-15 lbs. It is hard for me because this first winter in the Chicago area I haven't been able to be outside like I was even down in Oklahoma. I have been coming home from work at night and sitting on my butt watching TV. I know I need to become more active, but I'm still trying to figure out exactly how. The Pilates stuff sounds interesting but we have no floorspace in our tiny apartment. My bf bought a piece of excercise equipment that is like Chuck Norris' home gym but it just doesn't appeal to me. And we have no room when he sets it up but are reduced to clambering from furniture item to furniture item without touching the floor. The dogs manage to weave in and out but they are considerably smaller. I have genetically bad knees, so I should do low impact activities. But, due to an injury, I am unable to swim, which is my favorite sport because it requires one to move one's neck to breathe and will give me migraines in short order. But I need to do SOMETHING... I'm open to ideas if you have any.

I noticed something rather strange though. My boyfriend totally cut out soda/caffine (we are die hard coca-cola drinkers) to help him lose weight. For him it has made a drastic difference. But for me if I don't have the caffine and sugar combo I don't have any energy (and I have gone without Coke for several months as an experiment to see if my metabolism would come back). I have started drinking it again recently, and my energy level has gone back up, which is also why I am now feeling motivated to start excersising. Do any of you know if this some sort of metabolic paradox?

Went on the scale this morning, and i have gained 20 pounds since last summer. This is due to my failed attempt to quit smoking and, of course the fat filled holiday season. Bleh, I feel pretty lousy.

Today I will start my new workout regimen and diet. I've always found that cutting down carbohydrates of any kind melts the fat off.

I want to lose at least 12 pounds. I haven't been in the 130s since 7th grade! I'm going to post my progress here. I need to be accountable, and telling others about my goals will help me with that.

I pledge to take my vitamins and eat balanced meals. Most of all, I want to feel energetic while I lose weight. This is my main goal.

One thing I've been working on is my water intake. I've been chugging the water.

I'm not sure if it's due to the weird stomach stuff and the exercise and diet, or a combination of the three.

At any rate, I had breakfast with a nurse friend of mine the other day and she said, at first, "You've lost weight."

I said, "Most likely."

We went on to talk about other stuff.

THEN she said, "Okay, you've lost a lot of weight. You aren't turning anorexic on me are you?"

Me. "God no. I love food."

I also carry myself differently and wear clothing that fits better, too. I suppose it's because I have confidence in my body.

I'm hoping to lose another 10-15 pounds, but I'm not really concerned about it. I am pleased.

I've lost 20 pounds since Halloween, and I thought that was pretty drastic! 27 since Thanksgiving.... ::shakes head::

quote:

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I no longer feel man-boobs shaking when I'm driving on a rough road.

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woo-hoo.