When I was in high school I ran x-country, and long-distance events in track & field (1600 and 3200 meters). Then I went to college, and to pay the bills I got a job with the campus IT department. Combined with my computer science classes and computer programming assignments, this meant that I regularly spent 16+ hours a day sitting on my butt. This, as I’m sure you can imagine, was not kind to my waistline.
In the spring of 2005 I started running again and dropped 40 lbs, nearly getting myself back to my old high school weight. Then I took a job in Chicago where I worked the night shift and spent 2 hours each way commuting. The cycle began again, and I gained all the weight I had lost in 2005, while putting on an extra 10 lbs.
A month or so ago, I decided to get serious about getting back in shape, and being the nerd I am, I looked into how my fellow nerds were working out. I discovered a running program called Couch to 5K. A new pair of running shoes and a month later, I’ve already dropped 6 lbs.
To keep myself going, I’m using two iPhone apps. One is a Couch to 5K app which I bought for $2.99, and the other is a free calorie counting app called “Lose It!”, which I have been using for the past week.
“Lose It!” asks you your age, height, weight, and target weight, as well as your weekly weight loss goal (up to 2 lbs. per week). It then estimates your calorie “budget”. You then track everything you eat, both using a fairly large list of foods that are already entered into the system, and also adding your own. It’s not exact of course, everyone’s metabolism is different, but it does give you an approximation of how many calories you should be taking in and gives you a way to monitor your calorie intake to keep it at a reasonable level. Keeping track of what I eat also keeps me more mindful of my diet, which is a good thing. Knowing that having one of the leftover brownies we took to the family get-together on Easter will put me over my calorie limit kept me from eating it, and I settled on a banana instead. Exercise gives you negative calories, so I find that this app also keeps me motivated to go out and run, so that I can keep myself under my calorie limit.
So, anyone else struggling to get back into shape? What are you doing to help keep you motivated?
I’ve never been a runner but I’ve been looking at the link you posted above and some of the articles and I’m thinking about trying this. It scares me a bit, as I’m pretty overweight and I’m worried that my joints will cry foul. I always see runners and wish I was more conditioned, though. The last straw was finding an old friend on Facebook recently who was really overweight when we were kids–she’s running marathons and doing triathalons now. I never would have recognized her. I thought to myself, why not me?
I have a podcast called “Couch to 5k” if you’d like me to send it to you. It’s a great tool for the first time runner. I am hoping to do my first 5K this summer!!
I know what you’re going through, when I was in grade school I was on a million different teams (two different soccer teams, basketball, softball, as well as boy scouts) then in high school freshman year during gym class I broke my finger and ankle within about 10 minutes of each other, yeah it wasn’t a great day.
I didn’t do too much after that, and from sophomore through senior years I was home schooled and at the same time got addicted to MMOs (for me it was dark age of camelot…) Well I had gotten use to before that to essentially eating whatever I wanted when I wanted because I always burned it off, but I started doing nothing and I put on weight pretty dang fast. Fast forward a couple years I was 320lbs, but I got angry enough at myself that I decided to do something about it and with my dad’s help we started going to the gym every day of the week, even on off days where I wouldn’t exercise I’d go to sit in the hot tub or steam room.
I ended up losing a ton of weight, at one point late 07 I was down to 178, but I started bulking up a bit then doing more strength training, settled at about 185, and I got into doing distance runs for the first time in my life last year. At about mid May last year I was running about 8.5 miles then I sprained my ankle something fierce (same one I had broken a few years before, its been pretty weak ever since) and was unable to run for about a month. It sucked, I went from doing the 8.5 and getting back and not being out of breath at all to doing 2 and about ready to die.
I started working in July again last year where I’m on my feet all day, so I haven’t been running as much, I had been doing a couple miles a couple times a week and that was about it, but after the Christmas holidays I hated how I was feeling again as I was about 220 then, I’ve been running again now in fact I did 6 miles today and I’m at about 206, I’m hoping to get back to my 8.5 miles by June and hopefully back down to 190 or so at some point this summer.
I liked using it since I was running outside and it was nice knowing what I was doing distance wise, I moved in December now and since it’s getting warmer out again I can’t wait to get out to some of the areas around here for some jogging, there’s a nice path right along Lake Michigan that I’m about a block away from that I’m going to do first.
I think the key is just to remain positive, and a good helping of podcasts/audiobooks help make the run go by faster (for me doing music actually makes the runs seem longer because I tend to know the length of each song and end up thinking “oh crap that was a long 3 minutes I’m never going to finish today”)
Long, but worth it. Your ‘on your feet all day’ bit reminded me of a story I read somewhere about someone who did the ‘back to the land’ farmer routine. In spite of the fact he was busting his stones all day long he found he was out of shape because he never had time to work out properly.
I’ve been going over this kind of thing in my head. I am significantly overweight. My wife and I had a conversation not to long ago and I realized that I have always thought of myself as fat, in spite of being in pretty good shape for quite a long time. I’m a programmer now, and don’t eat healthy, so that results in overweight.
Anyway, I’ve been trying to push myself to use my apartment complex’s workout room. There’s an elyptical machine in there.
I’d say set small, realstic goals, and do your best to achieve them. I’ve been rolling around the idea of a “Galactic Weightloss Cooler” in my head, we could do a ‘race to the bottom’ so to speak…
I love those elliptical machines, those were the only cardio machines I used when I was doing my weight loss, I used to put episodes of BSG on my PSP and watch while I worked out
I’d be interested - I’ve been overweight my whole life and while I’d like to think I can do it on my own, 38 years has proven that I can’t. :o Does “Lose It” work on an Ipod Touch? That definitely sounds like something helpful!
According to iTunes it is compatible with iPhone & iPod touch-unfortunately I have neither, but I am sure I can find something similar. Looks pretty interesting & user friendly.
My biggest problem is staying motivated. I can usually do well with any diet and/or fitness program for the first few weeks, but going it alone begins to suck (for lack of better way to say it) after awhile. It’s no fun working this hard alone, so if we can all help eachother-what an inspiration that would be!
Some thoughts-One person could be in charge of posting losses each week, one could be in charge of posting activity reports (like how many minutes you worked out for in a week) etc, etc. And everyone checks in once every 2 days or so, maybe more, maybe less. We could even have one person in charge of our 'before" pics, and then another every so often?
See what I mean? I get all gung-ho and then SPLAT !! Regardless I think it is a great idea!!
That might not be bad. I’m telling you guys now, there is NO WAY I’m admitting my true weight. At least not 'till I’m down to a size 8 (or dead, whichever comes first).
I won’t even tell my husband my weight never mind anyone else. :eek:
The only number that would be posted is the loss that week. I like the 365 idea also. But if I am responsible for my own postings, I won’t keep up; I need someone to kick my butt & keep it going.
That’s the idea. You could post your goal (e.g., -25lbs.) to keep yourself honest.
I like the 365 idea also. But if I am responsible for my own postings, I won’t keep up; I need someone to kick my butt & keep it going.
This sounds like a popular idea. Anyone want to be the GWC life coach? I’m guessing it would entail asking people to report on their progress, say, once a week?
That’s the idea. You could post your goal (e.g., -25lbs.) to keep yourself honest.
This sounds like a popular idea. Anyone want to be the GWC life coach? I’m guessing it would entail asking people to report on their progress, say, once a week?
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I’d like to be in on this, I’m not so sure about being the coach though I’d probably forget unless I set up a calender reminder every week or something
Is there some kind of email program that could automatically send an email out to certain people every week with a generic “ok time to report in!” message?
if we can’t get one going and nobody wants to do it I’ll set up a reoccurring calender alert for my yahoo email to get it set up and send the emails out