In 2006 I was in a really bad accident that caused me having to have my right leg reconstructed. I spend over a year on my back majorly depressed, unable to walk but a few feet from bed to bathroom.. The only thing I had that gave me any enjoyment was food. I went from 175 lbs to 470 lbs the next handful of years. I attempted a handful of times to lose the weight, but never serious enough to actually do so. In November of 2019 I finally had enough and set out to lose the weight. A few weeks ago, I did my monthly weigh in and have officially lost 200 lbs. I still have a ways to go of reaching my final goal of 200 lbs but I'm very proud of my progress. August 6th is my 45th birthday, I'm stronger then I've been since High School, I still can't walk great, but I try to do a couple miles a day on the Treadmill.
I can get my 5k in under 30mins with incredible effort. My stride and pacing are terrible.
I watch people smash a 5k in 20 mins. that's a bit of a goal for me. Struggling at the moment to run 2k at a 12km/h pace. Tooooooo fast for me at the moment
It's so fuckin hard to run even 5k. Every time I feel like someone who just learned how to breathe- afterwards I wanna run some more tho
Nice! Have you found that adjusted your sweetness tolerance? Meaning, do you find less sweet things satisfy a craving for sweets more now?
It definitely allowed me to be more sensitive to sweetness. I don't know if my cravings are always necessarily satisfied, but there are far fewer cravings. But it was really hard going through withdrawals for the first month or two.
no huge fitness achievements, but i started doing some basic strengthening and toning on my upper body a couple of years ago.. just low-impact stuff, but i've managed to really stick with it.. the benefits are starting to stack up now a bit, so i'm very glad i started..
thank you, man.. i feel at least 100% better and counting.. and i hope it helps somebody else get started, i really do..
remember to stretch, everybody
I don't know anything about running but that seems like a lot of minutes to shave off a 5k
Been years since I exercised regularly. Now that I'm older, I can't get away with bad form without really feeling it later. Learnt mostly by myself and from youtube. A little while ago I was complimented on my form while squatting, and today I figured out what was wrong with my shoulder (nerve impingement from an unstable rotator cuff) and now I know what to do, day 1 and it already helped immensely.
Though I guess the real win here is that I'm going to the gym regularly. Tried many times before but I always ended up quitting. It was probably the depression doing me in. Guys, therapy works, no cap.
Not personal at all. Sorry for the wall of text, btw. I've suspected that I had depression since I was a teenager, at least. And it only worsened with time as I experienced life. I had been coping through the years with escapism and later, smoking (so, so much of it), until those didn't work and developed GAD on top of my depression, szpd and adhd (possibly auadhd, want to get a second opinion). Around the time I developed GAD I stopped going regularly. Had enough last year and booked an appointment.
I won't lie and say it's all due to therapy, I've also been seeing a shrink and part of my daily dose of meds are antidepressants, which work well enough but are such a low dose they don't do much by themselves. Still, going to therapy helped me realize what my defense mechanisms were. I had grown to value a stiff upper lip (like, unfeeling), and avoided anything that posed a challenge and could disappoint me in the future. Having lost all the work I put into the gym, I knew the work I would have to put in just to reach my PRs from years before when I was younger and didn't smoke. So, fear of failure lead to not doing anything, leading to basically no positive reinforcement. Nothing gave me joy because I wasn't stimulating myself with interesting shit. I was a husk going through the motions. Tried to buy a ticket on Charon's boat but fucked it up and gave myself 7 years to get better, otherwise I'd try again.
So, 6 years later on the very first real session with my therapist she laid it out plain to me: if I really wanted to get better, I needed to get back into the gym. She recommended the shrink I'm seeing so she knew I would likely end up taking pills, for which I'm grateful, but she wasn't lying about the gym. There's a world of difference between the days in which I work out and the ones I don't, even with meds. In the following sessions we discussed stuff I've experienced and hadn't processed, because I didn't value experiencing emotions. I've come out the other side much better, definitely more emotionally mature, and sure of myself. In terms of quantifiable progress, I now spend 0 days in bed all day, which is pretty damn good. Through my therapist I've learnt how to deal with panic attacks, which I didn't know before. Two months ago I ran out of my anxiety pills and had the worst panic attack yet in the middle of the night. Managed it as the therapist taught me and was chill again in 30 minutes.
I'm now about a month away from the 7 years being up, and while I'm not 100% there, I'm still making good progress. Don't think I'll end up trying to cross the Styx just yet.
TL;DR: going to the therapist helped me realize I had been dragging a ton of baggage that wasn't letting me improve myself. She taught me how to deal with that baggage in a healthy way, which included the gym. Now I'm much better.
Oof, relatable. Especially the sleeping thing, we experience basically the same thing. It was my understanding that my issues with sleep come from GAD, if I let my mind run wild I just won't get a wink of sleep, no matter how long I stay in bed.
Have you tried a different therapist? I've had 4 different therapists so far and this last one really clicked and honestly gave me enough motivation to keep going to therapy. It takes a lot of work to get better, unfortunately, it can be a little disheartening to say the least.
Have you gotten a diagnosis for what you have? It might be worth doing tests, I had to get three done to get my diagnosis. Once I had those tests in hand my shrink could just issue meds (which still took a lot of work to find the right mix).
Ik that meds are a little icky. I wasn't very comfortable at the beginning, but at least for my adhd, I don't have a choice. It gives me a chance to catch up to everyone else. In regards to my GAD, maybe in a couple of years I can get off it, but it would take an incredible amount of CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy, not cock and ball torture) to reprogram how I respond to stimuli, same as my SzPD. Nowadays, Ik that meds help me, and save for one, a benzodiasepine, I know I can take every day and be fine. Benzos are the nuclear option, so to speak.
Sorry if my response seems a little disjointed, I just woke up.
I transitioned from an elliptical to the treadmill. Knees are in rough shape and it took about 4 weeks for them to get sore after pushing a little too quick and not getting proper rest. Probably wasn't doing enough stretching either. Inside of my knee is where it hurt so don't think it was an IT band issue.
Listened to my body, that's the fitness victory. Knee feels better 7 days since my last run and just in time to set off of a thru hike of the Uinta Highline Trail on Sunday. Hella excited for the adventure too!
The knees are soooo delicate and I really struggled pacing myself while I started running. As an outdoor runner I always have to have the right shoes for the surface. Getting gel insoles and knee sleeves definitively helped a lot.
I went from doing all my sets "to failure", to first set 8RPE (rate of perceived exertion). So three sets, all the same number of reps and weight.
I work it backwards. The third set should be very close to 10RPE if I get 8RPE right on the first set. If it's under then I do extra reps to get there. The next time I do that exercise I can see the extra reps and adjust accordingly.
This is SO much better on my aging body, and I'm still able to keep up progressive overload at the same rate as I was with "to failure".
For those who don't know RPE is a self assessed evaluation about how hard a set was to complete. It's a scale from 1 to 10. 10 means there's nothing left, complete fatigue at the end and no hope of any more reps. 8 generally means that you have about 2 reps left in the tank.
Nothing formal. Pull, pull, legs and a rest day. I stick to fundamental exercises like bench press, chin ups, squats, leg presses, cable rows, lat pull downs, preacher curls, lat raises and Arnold presses.
I start off with about half my normal weight and comfort 20 to 25 reps as a warm up for most exercises. I aim for 8 to 12 reps, of the same weight for 3 sets of the same number of reps in each set.
I use the free version of an app called, "Strong". It lets you keep three different active workout routines, which is just enough for pull,push,legs. It makes it easy to keep track of progressive overload. Personally, I aim for 1 more rep each day until I get to 12+ reps. Then add more weight. Rinse and repeat.