The Official 2017 Healthy Habits Challenge/Goals!

[Lark]

I have to clear a lot of other reading before I can get to my books on sleep but I am going to research what are the minimums of sleep, I read about some guy who managed on four hours sleep and would regularly wake up to go running at about 5.30 in the morning. I'm considering whether this is or isnt a goal worth progressing. Anything adding time to the day I think could be useful if I can also be more disciplined with the time it adds to the day.

 

[Lark]

Been doing well this week, just about to hit the gym, missed monday and wednesday but that's fine, killing it with dumbells in the house when I'm not in the gym and also reading a huge amount, reading a chapter, pumping the iron, reading the chapter, pumping the iron again.

Though my breathing isnt good, I'm thinking that the Dr was probably right with his diagnosis of the adult onset asthema, I just didnt want to hear it, what with already having diabetes and stress fucking my head up.

Got a couple of good books on ninjitsu in the post, also a few days ago got a good one on meditation I'm looking forward to reading, its prefaced by Jung into the bargain.

 

[Lark]

WENT TO HEMA MUTHAFUNKERS!!!!!

 

[Lark]

Having done 20,556 steps today I'm considering upping my step goal daily from 10,000.

 

[StrawberryBoots]

I'm going fit-to-fat-to-fit to gain 15 pounds in three weeks and lose it in 4 weeks to see what fat is like. My health challenge for today is to eat a box of twinkies, a pint of ice cream, a double cheeseburger with a large fry and a large strawberry milkshake... a feat that's surely never been done before.

 

[Lark]

I'm going fit-to-fat-to-fit to gain 15 pounds in three weeks and lose it in 4 weeks to see what fat is like. My health challenge for today is to eat a box of twinkies, a pint of ice cream, a double cheeseburger with a large fry and a large strawberry milkshake... a feat that's surely never been done before.

Sounds kind of unhealthy, fine if competitive eating is your thing, I've watched man Vs. food but that might be bad for you.

 

[StrawberryBoots]

Sounds kind of unhealthy, fine if competitive eating is your thing, I've watched man Vs. food but that might be bad for you.

You're right, my health challenge is unhealthy and it's been done before. I'm trying to learn empathy towards folks with addictions to things that harm them. I won't be working out during my weight gain. In 3-weeks, I'll either be on my way to getting fit again or addicted to food and getting fatter. Worst case, I'll have a health problem. Whatever happens, let's hope I'm humbled.

For those trying to lose weight, don't worry, I'll refrain from posting my entire food menu for the day, every day.

 

[Lark]

Wins/victories

Made it to HEMA again, trained this time, didnt just spectate. I am officially the shitest swordsman and pugilist but everyone starts someplace.

Two of the guys there understood the reference to Lovecraft in my Miskatonic University T-Shirt. Cool group of people. Its good to meet new people and not decide I'd rather be home reading after ten minutes.

I did 8,000+ steps.

Tis' But a Scratch/losses

I didnt do 10,000+ steps or 20,000+ like yesterday.

I didnt make it to the gym, I was busy all morning with walking the dog and getting to a bank appointment but still, I'm trying to be more uncompromising about it and I didnt make it because I took a nap, I'm suspiscious of my blood sugars being high and therefore my feeling shite and needing to sleep. Ironic as strenuous exercise could have done the trick. I wont repeat this bullshit if I can help it.

 

[Lark]

I'm not sure if I'll create a seperate thread in case no one reads it in this one but what martials arts does anyone do?

I've discovered a recent interest in HEMA but I am interested in them all to be honest, there's actually a Judo or something like it class which goes on simultaneously in the hall that the HEMA takes place in and my first thought when I saw this was that it was a shame as I wouldnt be able to do that class while I was learning swords.

I think Disco said that he used to do a bit of MMA, I'm not sure if it was a stand alone effort or as part of a gym regime because he mentioned lifting too at a time, I know a couple of people who train martial arts as one aspect of a physical strength, flexibility and fitness regime so its possible.

I think Arnie trained swords with some eastern masters when he was training up for Conan (which is ironic I guess, not the right era or the right weapons but you know) and I've heard from different body building friends about trying to integrate martial arts or even dance into their training to achieve pose, grace etc.

Besides Disco I remember someone else telling me about their martial arts training and it as a seriously finessed skill set, like I think they were a ninja or something, could knife fight properly as part of their discipline. Would like to hear from them in this thread again.

 

[kyuuei]

Hema is something I do as well and enjoy it immensely.

As for me! Lots of miles bike riding each day and walking in the heat. Damn it feels good to experience a real summer. <3

Mexico is bad for my wallet, good for my health with the exceprion of eating a wee bit too much, and great for my legs.

 

[Lark]

Hema is something I do as well and enjoy it immensely.

As for me! Lots of miles bike riding each day and walking in the heat. Damn it feels good to experience a real summer. <3

Mexico is bad for my wallet, good for my health with the exceprion of eating a wee bit too much, and great for my legs.

What was/is your HEMA like? Do you use bastard/sparring sword or long sword or some of the short swords like cutlass, messr schmitt or do you do knife/dagger and pugilism? Our trainer is great, he's got an idea about making the school generalist, like armsmasters in might and magic is all I'm thinking, so we do a mix of all techniques.

I'm eager for quarterstaff to come up, I've got an idea about training buckler and dagger too but I dont know if everyone thinks like me.

Advanced Dungeons and Dragons style fighting fantasy books is what brought me to this interest, I think I'm a sort of real world version of the cleric character. Though I never read the song of roland.

 

[EJCC]

Preface: I understand how calorie counting can be damaging. I understand how bad it is for people, how much it can mess with your head - I understand how inaccurate and flawed it is, and I understand that different bodies metabolize different ways, meaning calories affect different people differently. I also understand that calories from carbs, fat, and protein are very different from each other in how they are metabolized and what they become.

All that said... using My Fitness Pal and weighing myself daily has been really good for me. Can't speak to how it works for others, but it works amazingly for me.

The reasons for this are as follows.

1) Using that app means that "calorie counting" does not involve obsessing over food, because it's so easy to enter food - and because I don't actually care enough to put in a super accurate number (entirely because of the caveats above). Usually I'll look up a dish on the app, scan the first 10-20 results, and choose the one with the closest to average calorie count, and will only spend time on entering the recipe myself if there's too wide a range of calorie counts to find the median.

2) With numerical backing and overwhelming amounts of data support, I now understand
a. the ebb and flow of my weight from day to day and week to week,
b. how food affects my energy,
c. how exercise affects my energy,
d. how my monthly cycle affects my weight,
e. how exercise affects my weight,
f. &c.
This has helped me eliminate a lot of misconceptions about food, calories, weight, &c, and has helped me remove irrational feelings and stigma from health data analysis. (Basically a Te-user's dream.) Not only that, but it has helped me associate meals with exercise with weight with mood - giving me a better grasp of what gives me energy, what takes away energy, and how that looks in the long term.

3) I have a tendency to undereat under stress, and then allow that undereating to affect my psyche in compulsive and damaging ways. Having a daily structure in which I determine my food based on how I feel physically and how I have been known to feel physically has been amazing for self-care. Thought processes like "You like exercise, and exercise will be impossible unless you have energy, and you need to eat X and Y in order to do that" become much easier when that structure is in place. (Having workout buddies who force you out of the house is helpful for that too, but I digress.)

An example of the above: I realized the other day that, even taking into account my usual weight ebbs and flows, I gained a few pounds. I've been at my daily net calorie marker (give or take a few hundred calories) for the past few weeks. All my clothes still fit the same way, with the exception of one shirt, which fits better in the waist and is now too tight in the shoulders, arms (forearms included), and upper back. I'm physically stronger, and have been doing more easy V2s and difficult V1s at the climbing gym than I ever have. Meaning: I'm gaining muscle. Which I have no problem with. I don't feel bad about gaining weight because my goal was becoming stronger, and I know that this is a sign of progress. None of this would have been possible if I hadn't been tracking my nutrition and exercise.

When I started using My Fitness Pal, it was an experiment to see if I could track my calories and learn about how I eat without spiraling into body image problems and disordered eating. The result is that I've never felt better about my diet and exercise. Not because I've been eating better or exercising more - even though (for the most part) I have been. It's entirely self-perception. I don't stress about food or exercise to the degree that I used to, and as a result I feel better about myself.

Per the preface, I'm not evangelizing this, and I wouldn't recommend this to most people. If you've got obsessive tendencies, self-destructive tendencies, or body image issues, handle with care or avoid altogether. But I've come away from this feeling pretty amazing.

 

[Lark]

I wonder why people are not more interested in the health and fitness part of the forum or in improving their health and fitness.

 

[kyuuei]

What was/is your HEMA like? Do you use bastard/sparring sword or long sword or some of the short swords like cutlass, messr schmitt or do you do knife/dagger and pugilism? Our trainer is great, he's got an idea about making the school generalist, like armsmasters in might and magic is all I'm thinking, so we do a mix of all techniques.

I'm eager for quarterstaff to come up, I've got an idea about training buckler and dagger too but I dont know if everyone thinks like me.

Advanced Dungeons and Dragons style fighting fantasy books is what brought me to this interest, I think I'm a sort of real world version of the cleric character. Though I never read the song of roland.

Haha, quarterstaff is so brutal though. So many people talk about how quarterstaff is just as savage as montante.

We mostly train longswords and viking-style combat (dane axes and hand axes, short swords, and shields) with some messer/buckler thrown around here and there. I don't do the last one at all really, I try to focus on longsword and shield wall formations.

I wonder why people are not more interested in the health and fitness part of the forum or in improving their health and fitness.

Sometimes people just have other priorities, or are interested but are not interested in sharing. It's alright to me.

 

[EJCC]

There's no way I'm going to accomplish my two fitness-related New Years resolutions (doing a pull-up and running a half marathon). But I did a Spartan Sprint, and I'm hoping to do a 10k at some point before winter.

What matters is that I'm a hell of a lot stronger than I was a year ago - and I'm still very capable of achieving those two goals, even if I don't achieve them by January 1, 2018.

 

[kyuuei]

Looking around at my year so far, it's been very hit-and-miss. The year isn't over yet, though, and I've got my eyes on some recent prizes.

There's no way I'm going to accomplish my two fitness-related New Years resolutions (doing a pull-up and running a half marathon). But I did a Spartan Sprint, and I'm hoping to do a 10k at some point before winter.

What matters is that I'm a hell of a lot stronger than I was a year ago - and I'm still very capable of achieving those two goals, even if I don't achieve them by January 1, 2018.

( Just in case you wanted to aim for a pull up soonish: How to do a pull up finally! | Nerd Fitness )

Absolutely fantastic outlook! Overall, looks like you didn't forget the things you set out to do.. which is the most important thing, I think, when setting goals. Having them in mind and incorporating them into your year.

 

[Lark]

Looking around at my year so far, it's been very hit-and-miss. The year isn't over yet, though, and I've got my eyes on some recent prizes.



( Just in case you wanted to aim for a pull up soonish: How to do a pull up finally! | Nerd Fitness )

Absolutely fantastic outlook! Overall, looks like you didn't forget the things you set out to do.. which is the most important thing, I think, when setting goals. Having them in mind and incorporating them into your year.

This is my thinking too.

The pull up thing is interesting, since when I finally get rid of the persistent belly fat I want to kind of specialise in pull ups and some leg raises and the like accompanying it.

At present I'm just doing a lot of cardio, like an hour and a half when I go to the gym, and dumbells at night and in the morning. 8KG on each dumbell, if I've read that right.

 

[kyuuei]

What was/is your HEMA like? Do you use bastard/sparring sword or long sword or some of the short swords like cutlass, messr schmitt or do you do knife/dagger and pugilism? Our trainer is great, he's got an idea about making the school generalist, like armsmasters in might and magic is all I'm thinking, so we do a mix of all techniques.

I'm eager for quarterstaff to come up, I've got an idea about training buckler and dagger too but I dont know if everyone thinks like me.

Advanced Dungeons and Dragons style fighting fantasy books is what brought me to this interest, I think I'm a sort of real world version of the cleric character. Though I never read the song of roland.

This is my thinking too.

The pull up thing is interesting, since when I finally get rid of the persistent belly fat I want to kind of specialise in pull ups and some leg raises and the like accompanying it.

At present I'm just doing a lot of cardio, like an hour and a half when I go to the gym, and dumbells at night and in the morning. 8KG on each dumbell, if I've read that right.

Wow! Lots more cardio than I'm willing to do hahah!

My typical work out week currently looks like this:
- 30 min 3x a week weight lifting/cardio mix
- HEMA 1-2 days a week
- Stretching 2-4 days a week 10-30 minutes at a time
- Running... ehhh... still needs to happen haha.

 

[Lark]

Wow! Lots more cardio than I'm willing to do hahah!

My typical work out week currently looks like this:
- 30 min 3x a week weight lifting/cardio mix
- HEMA 1-2 days a week
- Stretching 2-4 days a week 10-30 minutes at a time
- Running... ehhh... still needs to happen haha.

I've been trying to do it daily, it allows me to get my step count up over 10,000, my brother regularly does over that, like 11,000 and he's thinking of upping that to 20,000 to place additional demands on himself. I cant run on the treadmill because my balance is shot, so I just walk at a rapid pace on the maximum tilt. In addition to the diabetes I think I probably do have asthma/damaged lung capacity, so it makes it hard but also makes me determined to push the limits and improve my health.

I do a core of 30mins cross training but sometimes use a stair master and sometimes I dont, its hard work now, also a popular machine, there is a climbing machine which is horizontal and similar to the hill climber exercise when done as an aerobic work out but I havent used it yet and need someone to tell me how to use it.

At present I have the time for all this, which I know is a privilege, I'm trying to improve my fitness for the foreseeable time when I have less time to allow me to get to it.

HEMA's on fridays but I know I get winded during the exercises, warm ups and wrestling component at the start, I feel like a bit of a dick about that too. So I really want to improve my fitness to avoid that.

 

[Smilephantomhive]

That awkward moment when eating less vegetables is one of your health goals.