This is my first time posting here, so I'll give a bit of background,
Start Weight: 303 lbs/137kg Goal Weight: 220 lbs/100kg
Height: 6'4"/193cm
My whole family decided more or less together to get our shit together and start being healthy, my brother was the first, and he's almost 40lbs down now, then my parents joined him, then my wife, and finally I got off my butt and joined them
My routine has changed a lot from the start, but where it sits now is this
Workout Sun-Thurs - alternating gym days and running 5km - at the gym I do 35 mins on the stair stepper doing interval training, basically just doing the highest level I can manage without cheating, currently at 100 stories in those 35mins, then weight training afterwards. My 5k times are currently clocking in around 40mins, I'll be running an actual 5k next month and my hope is to get down to 35mins by then, but we'll see!
Nutrition - On a typical day I aim for around 2k calories with a macro ratio of 40% protein and 30% carbs and fat. I often miss my protein goals, but I do my best - my main concern at this stage is weight loss, so I pay more attention to the calories than the macros. On my rest days I bump up to 3k calories, which is just a bit below my TDEE. To help manage my calorie intake, I've been using Huel's Hot & Ready meals pretty much every day for lunch, mixing in Costco rotisserie chicken breasts for extra protein/flavor. It helps to have my lunch be low calorie and consistent because I enjoy having a big dinner. I also have two scoops of Whey after every workout with 2 scoops of creatine for muscle growth.
The first 15 pounds shed off really quickly, in the first few weeks, but from there I hit a bit of a plateau hovering between 15-20lbs, I was finally able to break the plateau by introducing refeed days - which I originally left out because I figured CICO was all that matters and that refeed days were just working against myself, but it turns out they help a lot as long as your long term calorie intake is still a deficit.
Right now my main focus is to drop pounds until I get to around 220, then I plan to focus mainly on building muscle and lowering my body fat % while more-or-less maintaining weight
Still a long ways to go, but I'm further along than I dared hope I would be at this stage!
https://imgur.com/aO905Sa
I'm re-reading the City Watch series via the new audiobook (pro-tip, listen to them at 1.2x-1.3x - I really disliked them when I listened at 1x, but speeding it up a bit really improved them). And I can't help but feel like STP went into the series with an entirely different expectation of what he was going to be writing about.
I'm talking, of course, about Carrot. Now obviously, anyone whose familiar with Sir Terry Pratchett's writing style knows that Carrot was never going to be crowned King of Ankh Morpork. His story was, right from the get-go very clearly supposed to be a subversion of the old "Long lost king from humble origins saves the city and comes into his crown" trope.
I still do get the impression though, that Carrot was planned to be the main protagonist of the series, and that Pratchett just fell in love with Vimes as a character early on and pivoted. It sure seems like the original plan was for Carrot to eventually wind up as the commander of the City Watch, with Vimes retiring, which would play into the theme of Carrot's character that he can do the most good for the city by not being King.
But it reads as though along the way Pratchett saw the potential in Vimes and had so much fun writing his character that he changed his mind. It would explain why by the final few books in the City Watch series, Carrot goes from having one of the largest shares of "screen time" to being a barely present side-character.
Thoughts?
Side Note - anyone else catch the multi-layer pune (or play on words) for Carrot's name?
A Carrot is an orange (see hair color) vegetable that grows underground until it is plucked out from underneath the soil to fulfill it's true purpose
And
Carat as in diamond, as in diamond in the rough, as he's a King living amongst "commoners"
Right now the user count Lemmys is comparatively tiny when held up against reddit - but the user count isn't the thing that makes a social media site, it's the engagement
So even if you're used to lurking, try to get a little more active! Post memes, vote on posts, talk in the comments, whatever!
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