For ZOOM.....
I have to quote ye, so as to explain in reference to your different points.
Perfect! Let's [FINALLY!] do it!
So! On the points to remember about
you, they may be applied to
me as well.
Essentially what I like to do for weight lifting is go in knowing what muscle groups I wish to work and pick from the many exercises I know to do so. I'm looking to expand my repertoire of exercises, but that's another matter.
I
watched others at the gym from the age I started (13) and tried out things as I found out what was effective and felt good.
Your style and mine are very similar. It works, it's simple, it lets you focus on execution and not the minutiae of excessive details.
We'll expand your exercise repertoire later...
Counting calories or planning to the hilt is indeed a surefire way for me to fail.
This is where discipline and common sense prove their worth tenfold. If you know what is HEALTHY to eat, what is UNHEALTHY to eat, and build up a list of foods you can regularly prepare, eat, and enjoy without too much fuss, then I dare say 90% of your nutrition is taken care of, and factored INTO your routine AS YOUR ROUTINE.
So! On your list, perhaps I should explain bullet-point style the way I eat.
- I drink alcohol but once a month, avoid prepackaged and heavily processed foods, and haven't had candy (dark chocolate notwithstanding), soda or fried foods since I was... thirteen?
- I don't eat white flour or sugary things unless I'm specifically having a dessert (which is rare)
- What I eat primarily is fruit, vegetables, random grains (did ye know how good Quinoa can be? Mmm), and meat (Mooo. Cluck, cluck. *fish noise*) - more white than red meat, and fish. Sushi is Goddess Divine.
- I had to actually add fat to my daily food because I naturally did not eat enough of it. So, occasional cheese, olive oil for cooking, and cream in tea.
- I drink a lot of water, especially in the form of tea - green, herbal, and occasionally black.
- Really the only vice I have is caffeine, and I cut back to one cup of black tea a day, so...
- So the primary thing which dictates my weight is my activity level, which has dropped recently due to life. Hey, I just realized that!
- I haven't weighed myself in ten years, and primarily go by how I look and what I fit into.
Your diet sounds remarkable to me. Seriously.
I mean as to what shape/body composition one's body is happiest at, fat-to-muscle-percentage wise. Women have a bit higher of fat naturally, but really the concept is the same.
Does that make sense? I wish to know what level of lean body mass is best for what I want to do and what is feasible. Is this essentially something only I can figure out through experience? I know the sky is the limit for those dedicated, but I wish this to be part of my lifestyle, not a fitness routine I do just to lose fat.
There are two things that I conisder in deciding the bolded above, and of course they are diametrically opposed to one and other:
(1) PHYSIOLOGICALLY: Your body is dynamic, it will show you how happy it is according to your diet, exercise, and amount of rest over a given interval of time. It knows nothing else than to be at equilibrium, to form itself in accordance to what it is given to work with, your DNA is in charge of part of this, your habits (exercies, nutrition, and rest) are in charge of the rest.
(2) PSYCHOLOGICALLY: How does your mind feel working with and observing your body in its current state of equilibrium? For many, including me, this is the greatest battle.
Now let's add an interaction term. Let's assume you wish to change something about your physique as it exists according to your current mode of operation (which sounds damn solid to me, dude).
(3) EFFORT to PRODUCE CHANGE: Identify the change you wish to make. What amount of effort is required (in terms of diet, exercise, and rest) to produce the change you wish to realize?
(4) ASSESS the DIFFERENCE: Compare the change you want to the effort entailed in achieving it. Is it worth it? If yes, then adjust your routine accordingly. If no, then adjust your psychological perceptions accordingly. If you are doing everything right, but not happy with the end result, then one of the two must be changed...
I highlighted the ones I do not do in red.
Got it.
I hate indoor cardio and wish to beat it with a stick. I am currently trying to find fun activities that happen to be cardio to do on a regular basis. Dancing or martial arts, in all likelihood. Hiking, as well.
Cardio is all about intensity. I am big on interval training. I do weird shit. I max out in something, walk it off, change gears and do something else, and at the end of it all I am drenched in sweat, and the people around me are dry as a bione reading their magazines.
If you can, do your cardio first, THEN do your weights immediately afterward, and keep that fat burning going on through your weight training. That is the way to be most efficient with your efforts...
Also, in the winter, outdoor cardio is hard to come by as compared to the warmer months. This is where indoor work is good. Otherwise it blows, I agree.
I do need some more free weight exercises that work out multiple muscle groups, but a rep plan that does not involve the really high weight and extremely low reps - I tend to do full-body exercises, possibly because I started out that way and also because I like it. It feels weird to do just one area ("back" on day, "legs" another) per workout, and I stretch a lot and just like feeling warm all over. Is doing full body workout routines (lifting, cardio notwithstanding) three times a week a bad way to go about it?
You prefer CIRCUIT TRAINING, aka working your full body in one session, and not isolating muscle groups on certain days.
There is nothing wrong with that. Bodybuilders even do it, but they call it something different: "Pre-Contest Workout."
I actually do circuit training at times: (1) When I am extremely busy, (2) When I am injured and trying to maintain/stay off atrophy but allow myself to heal, (3) When I have plateaued and need to take a little break, but wish to stay limber.
Circuit training is great if you do it right. I can help you with a couple of great free-weight + dumbbell based circuit workouts. I basically have two I perform:
(a)
Bottom to Top (Start with the legs, then major muscle groups of the upper body, then minor muscle groups of the upper body), and
(b)
Top to Bottom (Start with the major muscle groups of the upper body, then minor muscle groups of the upper body, then the legs (quads, hamstrings, gluteas, calves).
I'll write these up for you after my class tonight, I'm off to drive there now.
Please let me know if the info above was helpful in answering your questions, sorry for the delay!
Cheers!
-Halla
it's a good way to get extra butterscotch chips AND extra milk chocolate chunks 
His response particularly got to me, because I could have chosen to not tell him anything at all. He would have been confronted with the situation anyway, but because of the nature of the incident, there could potentially have been other people who spilled the beans and named him as someone tangentially involved and who was in possession of the information. And, if he'd come to me asking if I'd spilled the beans, I could have lied and said no. So considering I'd at least been honest, a response like that was particularly nasty and especially his manipulative attempts to make me feel like I was the big sinner.
At least I fought back. Well, a little bit. 
