Walk a mile...

[habernac]

well done, HD!!

[red sky]

On my 64th day of the P90X program. Absolutely love it and have seen great results thus far. I am looking forward to doing another phase once I am done this one.

[GreenTeaFrapp]

While I haven't followed it strictly, this article has plenty of good advice.

http://stronglifts.com/fat-loss-101-...at-loss-diets/

[Winsor_Pilates]

You can't fool us HD, we know your photoshop skills and I think the after picture is a fake

[HOOT]

Originally Posted by Winsor_Pilates

You can't fool us HD, we know your photoshop skills and I think the after picture is a fake

Next week sometime HD will start a thread selling his "fitness" program for only 4 easy payments of $19.99.

Great work HD stories like that always help those struggling and the ones who say they can't do it because insert reason.

I actually have a story I read back in the day that helps motivate me when I don't feel like getting up to work out or anything. I have to admit I have slipped big time because of an injury and never got back on it.

If I can locate a "copy & paste" version of the story I will post it for the rest to see.

[Dion]

Good to see you back HD!

[HOOT]

Kinda long but here it is:

"So, what are you doing for a living these days?" Bob asked me. We're sitting on the couch at one of those tedious holiday get-togethers, you know, the ones where you're supposed to be nice to family members you never see except during major holidays and funerals. I think Bob is my wife's brother-in-law's second cousin or something.

"I'm the assistant editor and a writer for Testosterone magazine," I say. Bob looks at me with a blank expression on his face, as if I'd just told him I sell handmade testicle warmers beside the freeway and was looking to open franchises across the nation.

"It's a bodybuilding magazine," I say.

Blank expression. Deer caught in the headlights. Ronnie Coleman doing trigonometry.

"Oh," Bob finally says, "I heard you were, like, one of those bodybuilder guys or something. So, what's that like, you know, working out every day and stuff? I just don't have time to lift weights all day, but I have been meaning to get rid of this beer belly." He takes another sip of beer. "What do you suggest?" Sip.

At first I was a little offended. I wanted to grab him up and say, "You can't tell I'm a bodybuilder?! Look at my ass! Now, if that's not a nice round squat-built piece of sirloin, I don't know what is! You think that comes naturally? I can crack walnuts with this puppy! Wanna see? Huh, punk? Do ya? Do ya?"

Then I realize this just might cause a scene and could cost me several Christmas presents. I was planning on returning any presents I got and using the money to buy a power rack, so I didn't want to jeopardize this gift getting opportunity. I also realized that old Bob probably had a certain preconceived image of a bodybuilder and I just didn't fit that image. I'm not gorilla huge; I weigh about 205 at 5'11" right now. (When I first started lifting I was a pudgy 159, so that's not too shabby.) Also, I wasn't wearing clown pants, a fluorescent string tank top, a hanky on my head and one of those little fanny packs. And isn't that what real bodybuilders are supposed to wear?

Bob continued to sit there drinking his Natural Light, smoking a cigarette and waiting for an answer, oblivious to the fact that he'd come this close to seeing some serious walnut- crunching ass power. I tried to figure out how I could explain to the average guy what the typical T-Man does and why he does it. How could I get him to understand what it is we do, how we feel, how we live? So I took a deep breath and told him something like this:

"Well, Bob, I guess you could use the term bodybuilder if you really need a label for what it is we do. Most of us actually don't stand on stage and compete, though. We lift weights and manipulate our diets so that we'll look good naked. Sure, it's healthy too, and we'll probably live a longer and more productive life than the average guy, but mostly it's about the naked thing. Truthfully, it goes beyond even that.

"Let's be honest here. We do it because of people like you, Bob. We look at you sitting there with your gut hanging over your belt and we watch you grunt and groan just getting out of a chair. Guys like you are our inspiration, Bob. You're better than Anthony Robbins, Bill Phillips, Deepak Chopra, and Zig ****ing Ziglar all wrapped up into one. We love it when guys like you talk about not having time to exercise. Every time we see you munching on a bag of potato chips, you inspire us. You're my shot in the arm, Bob, my living and breathing wake-up call, my own personal success coach.

"You want to know what it is we do? We overcome. We're too busy to train, too, but we overcome. We're too busy to prepare healthy meals and eat them five or six times a day, but we overcome. We can't always afford supplements, our genetics aren't perfect, and we don't always feel like going to the gym. Some of us used to be just like you, Bob, but guess what? We've overcome.

"We like to watch 'normal' people like you tell us about how they can't get in shape. We smile and nod sympathetically like we feel your pain, but actually, we're thinking that you're a pathetic piece of **** that needs to grow a spine and join a gym. You smile sheepishly and say that you just can't stay motivated and just can't stand that feeling of being sore. (For some reason you think that admitting your weaknesses somehow justifies them.) We listen to you ***** and moan. We watch you look for the easy way out. Because of people like you, Bob, we never miss a workout.

"You ask us for advice about diet and training and usually we politely offer some guidance, but deep inside we know you won't take our advice. You know that too. We smile and say, 'Hope that helps. Good luck,' but actually we're thinking, 'Boy, it would suck to be you.' We know that 99% of people won't listen to us. Once they hear that it takes hard work, sacrifice and discipline, they stop listening and tune us out.

"We know they wanted us to say that building a great body is easy, but it just isn't. This did not take five minutes a day on a TorsoTrack. We did not get this way in 12 short weeks using a Bowflex and the Suzanne Somers' 'Get Skinny' diet. A good body does not cost five easy payments of $39.95.

"We like it that while you're eating a candy bar and drinking Mountain Dew, we're sucking down a protein shake. You see, that makes it taste even better to us. While you're asleep we're either getting up early or staying up late, hitting the iron, pushing ourselves, learning, succeeding and failing and rising above the norm with every rep. Can you feel that, Bob? Can you relate? No? Good. This wouldn't be half as fun if you could.

"We do it because we absolutely and totally get off on it. We do it because people like you, Bob, either can't or won't. We do it because what we do in the gym transfers over into the rest of our lives and changes us, physically, mentally, maybe even spiritually. We do it because it beats watching fishing and golf on TV. By the way, do you know what it's like to turn the head of a beautiful woman because of the way you're built? It feels good, Bob. Damned good.

"When we're in the gym, we're in this indescribable euphoria zone. It's a feeling of being on, of being completely alive and aware. If you haven't been there, then it's like trying to describe color to a person who's been blind since birth. Within this haze of pleasure and pain, there's knowledge and power, self-discipline and self-reliance. If you do it long enough, Bob, there's even enlightenment. Sometimes, the answers to questions you didn't even know you had are sitting there on those rubber mats, wrapped up in a neat package of iron plates and bars.

"Want to lose that beer belly, Bob? I have a nutty idea. Put down the ****ing beer. I'll tell you what, Bob. Christmas morning I'm getting up real early and hitting the iron. I want to watch my daughter open her presents and spend the whole day with her, so this is the only time I have to train. The gym will be closed, so I'm going out in my garage to workout. You be at my house at six in the morning, okay? I'll be glad to help you get started on a weight training program. It'll be colder than Hillary Clinton's coochie in there, so dress warm.

"But let me tell you something, Bob. If you don't show up, don't bother asking me again. And don't you ever sit there and let me hear you ***** about your beer belly again. This is your chance, your big opportunity to break out of that rut. If you don't show up, Bob, you've learned a very important lesson about yourself, haven't you? You won't like that lesson.

"You won't like that feeling in the pit of your stomach either or that taste in your mouth. It will taste worse than defeat, Bob. Defeat tastes pretty goddamned nasty, but what you'll be experiencing will be much worse. It will be the knowledge that you're weak, mentally and physically. What's worse is that you'll have accepted that feeling. The feeling will always be with you. In the happiest moments of your life, it'll be there, lying under the surface like a malignant tumor. Ignore it at your own peril, Bob.

[HOOT]

"Don't look at me like that either. This just may be the best Christmas present you'll get this year. Next Christmas, Bob, when I see you again, I'm going to be a little bigger, a little stronger, and a little leaner. What will you be? Will you still be making excuses? This is a gift, Bob, from me to you. I'm giving you the chance to look fate in those pretty eyes of hers and say, 'Step off, *****. This is my party and you're not invited.' What do you say, Bob? Monday, Christmas morning, 6am, my house. The ball's in your court."

Okay, so maybe that's not the exact words I used with Bob, but you get the picture. Will Bob show up Monday? I don't know, but I kind of doubt it. In fact, Bob will probably take me off his Christmas card list. He probably thinks I've got "too much Testosterone," like that's a bad thing. I think Bob is just stuck in a rut, and as the saying goes, the only difference between a rut and a grave is depth.

The way out of the rut is to make major changes in your life, most of which won't be too pleasant in the beginning. The opportunity to make those changes seldom comes as bluntly as I put it to Bob. Most of the time, that opportunity knocks very softly. What I did was basically give Bob a verbal slap in the face. You can react two ways to a slap. You can get angry at the person doing the slapping, or you can realize that he was just trying to get you to wake up and focus on what you really want and, more importantly, what it'll take to get it.

If you're a regular T-mag reader, I doubt you need to be called out like Bob. But maybe you've caught yourself slacking a little here lately. Maybe you've missed a few workouts or maybe you started a little too early on the usual holiday feasting, like, say, back in September. Just remember that the time to start working on that summer body is now. The time to get rid of those bad habits that hold you back in the gym is now. You want to look totally different by next Christmas? Start now. This isn't because of the holidays or any corny New Year's resolutions either. The best time is always now.

Christmas day I want you to enjoy being with your family and friends. I want you to open presents, sip a little eggnog and have a good meal. But if your regularily scheduled workout happens to fall on December 25th, what will you be doing at six o'clock that morning?

That's what separates us from guys like Bob.

[Azure]

Is that an actual article from T-Nation?

I love that site. Don't care about the advertisements either....just simply the best site for weight lifting info on the interwebz.

[HOOT]

It could be when I found it, it was part of www.t-mag.com I just noticed it now redirects to http://www.tmuscle.com/

One of my favorite articles ever though. Kinda funny but slaps you in the face if you are "Bob".

[flip]

Hoot, does t-mag.com have any affiliation with t-bag.com? I'm a member at the latter. Let me know if you are too!

[Top Shelf]

Originally Posted by red sky

On my 64th day of the P90X program. Absolutely love it and have seen great results thus far. I am looking forward to doing another phase once I am done this one.

Kind of interested in this, I keep hearing bits and pieces about it. Do you or does anyone have some good info on where to start?

I'm kind of a Bob type right now, but wanting to start somewhere. Was going to the gym regularly before I had kids, now finding the time is bit more difficult (i know, i know, a bad excuse)

[red sky]

Originally Posted by Top Shelf

Kind of interested in this, I keep hearing bits and pieces about it. Do you or does anyone have some good info on where to start?

I'm kind of a Bob type right now, but wanting to start somewhere. Was going to the gym regularly before I had kids, now finding the time is bit more difficult (i know, i know, a bad excuse)

You can check out the Beach Body website and even read some of the succuss stories. They have a good forum as well with a lot of before and after pictures.


There are a variety of workouts which keeps it interesting and believe me, you need to be in pretty good shape before starting this... well it helps anyways. It comes with a "diet" guide as well to go along with the three phases (30 days each). I was using resistance bands at the beginning but decided to go for powerblocks instead (5-50lbs) which has resulted in a much more difficult workout. Let me know if you have any questions after you are done doing some research.

[Top Shelf]

Azure, you're the fitness guru around here, do you have any suggestions on a good routine or program?

Mostly interested in weight loss at first and then toning up. Is the P90x a good place to start?I have a few hours after the kids are in bed or potentially a few hours early in the morning to dedicate.

[moon]

Is that "Bob" article for real or is it supposed to be a joke?

I have a hard time telling sometimes with these workout losers. If that is real that writer is a huge loser.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Top Shelf

Azure, you're the fitness guru around here, do you have any suggestions on a good routine or program?

Mostly interested in weight loss at first and then toning up. Is the P90x a good place to start?I have a few hours after the kids are in bed or potentially a few hours early in the morning to dedicate.

For what you're looking for its probably perfect.

It teaches you from both the diet and fitness aspect, and can really kick your ass if you keep it up.

It is a tad bit expensive...over $100 at Walmart, if you can find it(usually sold out)....but well worth the money.

I'm a big proponent of the P90X program, even if it doesn't involve heavy weights simple because of the educational experience. It TEACHES you proper diet, it TEACHES you how to stay motivated, and it helps build a solid base from where you can progress further once the program is over.

People quit their 'routine' because they don't have someone telling them what to do each day. P90X does that for you.

Also, I like....a lot, what HD has done. As someone who has been actively researching 'nutrition' for over 2 years now, I actually agree more with the 'make simple choices'....instead of the 'perfect diet starting tomorrow.' From my experience, people who try to the perfect diet last about a month if they're lucky....while those people who start off by making 'smart choices'....which involves cutting back on after supper snacking, junk food(not all at once either)....eating more protein, less carbs.....less seconds(like HD said).....no gouging(big problem for most).....and no weekend benders either(another big problem).

More and more research is showing that 'bad carbs'....because of the insulin problem, is what is creating obesity and severe weight gain. Look up what bad carbs are(usually junk food)....and stay away from it.

And read the book Good Calories/Bad Calories by Gary Taubes. He is the one pushing the whole 'bad carb' angle, something the government, for over 40 years has been ignorning, which is why we're still stuck with the whole 'low fat' garbage, when 'fat'....healthy fats, not transfats, are a very important part of our diet.

Here is a quick summery of what Good Calories/Bad Calories is all about. Article from T-Nation, which despite their crazy advertisments, is the top weight lifting website on the internet.

TM: Let's get to the most controversial point: You say that eating extra calories won't make people fat.


GT: The assumption that fat tissue isn't regulated at all is almost naive beyond belief. Every other part of the human body is well regulated, but fat tissue is just this garbage can that all these empty extra calories get dumped into. And it just happily expands, despite having these deleterious effects all over your body. The idea of homeostasis, where you want to keep the internal environment stable regardless of what else is happening, was first discussed in the 1860s by a French scientist named Claude Bernard. Are our fat cells somehow exempt from this? As you get fatter, homeostasis gets thrown out of whack, because among other things, fat is a good insulator. So your body starts getting hotter. Now you have to cool it down in ways you didn't have to before. You start sweating, and when you lose body fluids, the salt content in the blood gets higher. All kinds of things start going awry when you start getting fatter. It makes absolutely no sense that your fat tissue wouldn't be regulated, and yet these people believe that obesity is all about calories. If you look at animals, all animals regulate their fat tissue very carefully. You can't just force animals to overeat and make them fat.

TM: Really?


GT: They won't do it. The only animals that will get fat by dietary means are very carefully bred rats in laboratories, and house pets that don't eat the foods they evolved to eat.


If you've ever looked at cat food, it's packed with carbohydrates. And yet cats are carnivores in the wild. Felines don't eat carbohydrates. They eat meat. That's what they do. And yet we take then into our homes, we feed them carbohydrates, and lo and behold, they get fat.


The argument I'm making is that [obesity is] a disorder of excess fat accumulation, not of sloth and gluttony. Overeating is the side effect of the disorder, not the cause. What you want to know is, what regulates fat accumulation?

TM: This sounds like some sort of semantics game. Isn't the problem just that they were overeating?


GT: Yao Ming has been growing for much of his life. Until he got to 7 feet, 6 inches, he was in positive energy balance. He was overeating. Nobody considers his height to have been caused by overeating. He was secreting growth hormone, and that also prompted the secretion of something called insulin-like growth factor, and those things made his bones extend and his muscles extend. He got heavier and heavier because he was getting bigger, but he didn't get bigger because he was overeating. He was overeating because he was getting bigger. He was getting bigger because he was secreting hormones. So if you're talking about growth, all you care about are what hormones and enzymes control growth. As soon as you get into fat tissue and horizontal growth instead of vertical growth, suddenly the causality slips. Hormones and regulation go out the window, and now overeating is the problem. Instead of a metabolic defect, which the research clearly points to, we assume that it's a character defect.

TM: So what's regulating the growth of the fat tissue?


GT: The answer, which we've known since the early 1960's, is insulin. Insulin is the hormone that primarily regulates fat accumulation. If you want to get fat out of your fat tissue, you have to lower your insulin levels.
And insulin is regulated for all intents and purposes by the carbohydrates in our diet. That's the simplest possible hypothesis. The physicist would call it "the zero-order approximation." Other hormones play roles, and most of them work to get fat out of the fat tissue, but they can't do it if insulin levels are elevated. Adrenaline, growth hormones, all these things work to make you leaner, but they don't work if insulin levels are elevated.
And this has never been controversial. That's the weird thing.

TM: That's never been controversial?
GT: No.

TM: That carbohydrates make you fat?
GT: Well, that insulin makes you accumulate fat, and that carbohydrates regulate insulin levels.

http://www.tmuscle.com/free_online_a...getting_leaner

Very interesting stuff.

[HOOT]

Originally Posted by moon

Is that "Bob" article for real or is it supposed to be a joke?

I have a hard time telling sometimes with these workout losers. If that is real that writer is a huge loser.

Someone got beat up by the jocks in high school.

[HammerHead]

I walked a mile and a half to save a dollar on a pay phone......thats about it. Thank God for high metabolism

[ben voyonsdonc]

Originally Posted by moon

Is that "Bob" article for real or is it supposed to be a joke?

I have a hard time telling sometimes with these workout losers. If that is real that writer is a huge loser.

I agree. I spend a few hours at the gym pretty much every day but that article reeked of smug superiority. I think that it shows a sort of overcompensation for some sort of insecurity. I probably would have kicked his ass if I was around him when he allegedly had this conversation.

Go to the gym to make yourself feel better...not to make someone else feel worse. It is an awesome experience to see how your body adapts and changes.

I personally would recommend that heavy people start out with doing as much physical activity as they can...this may only mean walking for a mile or two. It might not increase extremely active people's heart rates too high but it will increase substantially the heart rate of someone who isn't in great shape. Walking is fairly low impact and will keep you from getting injured. At this stage it is crucial to modify your diet so that you can start shedding pounds. As you start shedding pounds you'll be able to work out more vigorously because it will be less stress on your joints.

BTW, I once weighed 230 and now weigh 160...I'm 5'9. Doesn't mean I'm an expert though!

[Azure]

The article still does have a point though.

I hear complaints daily about people who are tired, sore, lack energy, lack motivation, hate life, hate their job, hate everything basically about their life....and the majority of them are overweight.

But, they don't understand the 'overweight' part....its as if society has made it 'okay' for people to be 'fat.'

Walking around Lethbridge on a normal day is starting to scare me. Almost 75% of the people I see are overweight.