Slashdot Mirror
How Do Geeks Exercise?
An anonymous reader writes "I have always been thin but all the sitting in front of the PC is taking its toll now that I'm getting older. I have begun to get a little heavier around the waist. I don't eat a lot but the weight seems to stay on these days. Most of the time I don't have the luxury of just getting out of the house/office. And being an introvert, I'm not enamored of the idea of exercising in full view of *shudder* people. I regularly do press-ups (60 per night) and sit-ups (30 per night) and some fetching and carrying, but that is all and these days it isn't enough. I need a solid and effective routine that will tone all my muscle groups efficiently. Do any Slashdotters have a regular workout routine that can be performed in the privacy of the home to stave off those pounds?"
Bike to work. (Make living close enough to bike a priority.)
Pretty much what the title says. Leave the car at home if you can. If you take public transportation, walking to the bus stop (rushing so you don't miss it =P), running down the stairs of the subway station (not using those fancy high tech automated ones! /cough), and so on, the pounds go away quite fast.
That is if you live somewhere where its possible. I've melted a lot doing that.
Seriously. It's actually pretty nice out there, or at least it was the few times I've had to go out.
My grandmother used anecdotal evidence all the time, and she lived to be 120 years old.
Wii Fit. If you're a geek looking for a half-way decent workout at home, that'll fit the bill quite nicely.
Hindu push-ups, Hindu squats, back bridge. For more information: http://cbass.com/Furey.htm.
Lemmings are silly; dinosaurs are extinct.
Get an exercise ball and a set of adjustable weights and you can do a lot of different muscle exercises. Google can give you details.
check out some john stone
Jesus saves souls and redeems them for valuable cash prizes
It's even more fun when you have an exercise partner.
I can't run because of medical problems, but I do push-ups, sit-ups, curls, and leg lifts. I do enough to keep my heart rate up for half an hour every other day and it's put me in much better shape. (hello belt buckle! long time no see!)
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
You have to get out of the house, but to suit the introvert, you can go where most people can't. You also get to wear PFD as well as and a baggy dry suit to cover up the unsightlyness if you need it in your area.
If you voted for Nader, THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!!
You very much need aerobic exercise to supplement your muscular-oriented exercise. Aerobic exercise works the heart, lungs, and circulatory system--very critical subsystems.
I'd recommend a treadmill or a bike with a trainer hooked up to it. Have a TV in front of you. After reading a couple books about it, use a heart rate monitor to keep from pushing too hard or too easy.
Try to build up to one hour per day. Don't discontinue your calisthenics. Read about exercise.
They're cool enough to do in front of other people, no matter how bad you are, and you have something to show off to your friends. It's a win-win scenario.
Did you know that "FTW" ("for the win") is a direct translation of "Sieg Heil"?
You can pick those up pretty cheap in the spring after everyone has given up on their new year's resolutions.
I went and picked up a cheap yet sturdy bike ($500.00 Specialized Hard Core Comp), and I take the train to work. from train stations in either direction it's about a 10 minute ride (20 total one way), however I can bike down to farther train stations to get a real benefit from it.
So the next train station from my work is about a 45 minute bike ride away, while the first one is ten.
The one after that is about an hour and a half away, and so on an so forth.
You can do this with bus stops too.
It's uncomfortable at first getting used to the bike, so pick up Mtn Bike shorts (They aren't the spandex ones, they look like regular shorts), and get used to it, then have at it. I love it now, and I royally hate working out in front of people.
Good luck!
If you play it right, it's a workout. You won't get as good scores at the weenies who sit on the couch and twitch the controllers, but who cares?
#1 - Yourself Fitness. PC, PS2, Xbox all options for it (and the ps2 and xbox titles are both compatible with their "upgraded" counterparts).
#2 - Wii Fit. Surprisingly effective if you discipline yourself to doing it. Downside: not as organized.
And now we get to some of the better stuff.
#3 - Find a local swimming pool, strap on a pair of rollerblades, get a bicycle.
#4 - Join a sports league. Your local parks & recreation department is a good start here and can steer you to local team sports if nothing else. This will also help with your "introverted" problem.
#5 - Once you take care of the "introverted" problem... get a girlfriend and do a lot of the world's #1 calorie-burning exercise.
Find something that YOU enjoy...
e.g.
- Yoga
- Pilates
- Weight Lifting
- Martial Arts (not really indoors, but it is a great and practical way to stay in shape)
--
"How can you understand Life if you don't even understand what happens after Death?"
I don't think there's anything especially nerdy/geeky I can think of besides maybe DDR that you'd do for exercise. Really spirited cosplay? Find a gym that's open really early or late if you don't like other people around. Or just run/bike/walk outside by yourself with some music to drown out all the other meat-avatars. I like rock climbing at the indoor gym, which seems to have a geekier-than-average following. That does involve people of course, but why not exercise the social muscles at the same time?
If you live in a city with a rowing club, you could take up one-person sculling. It's non-impact, relaxing, and you get out in the fresh air. Unfortunately, you can't do it in the winter, and it's really difficult to carry the boat to the water on your own, so you have to have some social interaction. The solitude out on the water is nice though.
Buy some weights - real weights, ones that you can actually add pounds to - and gradually build some muscle. Push-ups and sit-ups won't do much.
It is a bit intensive and takes someone who is dedicated to do it. But it really gets me into shape. just google air alert pdf and it should be the first link. If you have bad knees or back I wouldn't suggest doing it. Also do it on carpet, it makes it harder, but not as much strain on the bones.
Get your own treadmill in a basement and out of site and do techie stuff while on it. Videogames that you... *huff, puff* ...that you can get sucked into are the best. I can easily walk miles while staring at a DS or PSP or TV screen with a wireless controller for my console. It doesn't have to be video... *huff, puff* ...doesn't have to be videogames, though. A properly mounted laptop could be used actual work or just... *huff, puff* ...or just for web browsing.
"A witty saying proves nothing." - Voltaire
Quadruple the repetitions that you're performing for starters. Do them in sets of 25. Add a series of squats (even if they're without added weight). This will build muscle...which just existing will burn calories.
Most importantly, add cardio to your exercise. Whatever activity you choose, do it for a minimum of 30 minutes. Walk with speed, jog, run, jump rope, do jump'n'jacks. Whatever you're comfortable with at your current state.
Finally, take a critical eye at the foods you're eating, the portion size, and how much snacking you do. Cut trans fats, saturated fats, and empty calories. Eat more veggies and fruits. Snack on small portions of healthy things to help with appetite control.
I found that martial arts are an excellent way for geeks to stay in shape. It's hard work, but a good way to create a good training and workout discipline.
There is a large variety of martial arts, some easier than others. My personal choice: Kung Fu.
frisbee. I realize you want to exercise alone, but ultimate seems to attract more geeks than any other demographic. It's a hell of a lot of fun and the people involved in the sport are some of the most accepting I've ever met. You'll be whipped in to shape quickly and it'll improve your social life.
Two body parts that get much work out is a hand and d*ck
:P
Ride a bike as much as possible - if you need to run a local errand, hop on the bike. After a few weeks it's easy - often much easier than dealing with a car.
For more regular workouts, 3-4 years ago my girlfriend discovered Yourself Fitness - she hates gyms, is in good shape, but wanted a more structured way to work out at home - like the gym, but in private. Yourself Fitness is an Xbox title - not sure if it runs on Xbox 360 - and is like having a personal aerobics and yoga instructor at home. I was little shy of aerobics in general at first, but once I got into it, learned the various moves without looking like an idiot, I was hooked. In the first year I lost 30 pounds (which was my target) and I felt 1000 times better.
I'm sure similar results could be found with any aerobic exercise, but as someone who hates the gym scene, and for whom time is tight, Yourself Fitness was a godsend.
Both of our old Xboxes are dying, the disc itself is a bit scratched up and sometimes flakey, so we're just hoping for a new release on one of the current consoles. We've got a Wii and Wii Fit too, and like it a lot, but don't think Wii Fit is as convenient - a lot of time just navigating the app, haven't found a really good guided training mode... we use the Wii Fit to break up the routine of Yourself Fitness now and then, and it's a blast too... but at least for us, nowhere near as effective as YF on Xbox - and these days you should be able to pick up both items for $100 or so total.
Is not a heavy activity, helps you to relax, give problems another point of view and enjoy fresh air/view/whatever, even know *shudder* people.
I usually workout at the gym next to work. Honestly if you do push-ups, situps in the morning and night then go running (or biking) every other day the pounds will drop. The diet is the most important though. In order to lose weight the recommend eating around 5 meals a day. Each meal around 500 calories which consists of 40 % carbs, 30 % protein, and 30% healthy fats. This is at every meal. If you don't eat enough your body may begin storing fat to use as energy later on. If you would like more information, I would check out http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/index.html If you have any questions about workouts or diets, the site above has it all. I hope this helps.
I know you asked for something in the home, but honestly, riding a bike is so much fun, and the fresh air is nice. You only need about 30 minutes of physical exercise a day to stay fit and maintain a healthy weight. Try it--it'll clear your head and help you think better too.
"Sufferin' succotash."
.....Dosent exist.
Seriously, there is reason you need to exercise in your house. Get out, go jog, get a bike, join a gym. Who knows, you might meet a female.
Capoeira, 3x a week. Fantastic workout, and you learn a lot about yourself. Every time you go, you get slightly better, which a satisfying feeling.
Remember that it doesn't matter how many sit ups you do - if you aren't keeping the fat down, you'll just look chubby. I run 8.5K every couple of days and that makes a huge difference.
Granted, regular sit up and push up routines are required as well... just make sure you are doing your push ups with push up bars (or three even chairs). For sit ups, I love the bicycle and jackknife techniques when I feel like alternating my routine.
Here, I can attest that this routine was what worked while I was with the Marines; there's no reason you couldn't do most of it indoors. Find a doorway in your home where you can hang a pull-up bar. Do the pushups and crunches at the recommended intervals and train up. You might even work in reverse crunches while laying facedown halfway off the bed with your feet secured by a friend.
The only thing you might have to do in public is running. For me, there's no better exercise than running.
http://oneweb.utc.edu/~semperfi/physical.htm
From what you're saying, it doesn't matter what equipment you buy because you're determined to hole up at home. Health and any degree of commitment to it requires.. commitment. You *know* what you *should* be doing. A minute part of the population is actually unable to do the things they should be doing. It's just a matter of choices and priorities.
Sounds like seeing the sun sometime might do you some good too.
It also sounds like you're beginning to acknowledge that health might be a bigger priority than it used to be.
The main thing you need is aerobic exercise, not weight training. Get a little weight training in at the same time by doing things like walking to the grocery store.
I find walking to the grocery store gives me a little exercise, sunlight, freaking awesome arms, and better decision making (I'll carry four litres of milk home instead of four litres of Coke)
Your requirements aren't well-defined:
vs.
Do you want to burn calories ("stave off those pounds"), build/tone muscle, or both?
Any cardio program (elliptical machine, bicycle) will help burn calories (and of course, eating fewer calories will do just as well). You can get decent machines for this for a few hundred dollars, and your bicycle makes an effective solo-friendly device for going around your neighborhood.
I recently discovered indoor rock climbing. It's geek-friendly in the sense that you don't need to be an all-star athlete, just a good problem solver. Most indoor climbing gyms have climbs suitable for all levels of skill. I've found this to be a great work-out, and it's not boring, since there's a strong mental component to a climb. As a bonus, you improve balance and flexibility in addition to strength. I consider this to be a "gateway workout"; once you've established your physical limits, it's possible you'll want to start working out properly to get the strength or stamina needed to finish that one really hard climbing route, and if your climbing gym is fully-featured, you'll have access to everything you need to do that. Lastly, climbing requires a partner, so you're sort of forced into a buddy system. Find someone and give it a try. Any climbing gym should be welcoming to newbies, and there's virtually no barrier to entry.
I've done jogging, which can be pretty encouraging because it gives you good-looking muscle tone as well as weight loss. But as one gets older, jogging typically gets more painful. Also, bad weather (including winter) can derail you from a jogging routine, and make you get off the wagon.
I find that until you run out of good content, Netflix + a home treadmill is a pretty good combination. I found that walking 8 miles/day takes about 2 hours and burns one pound of fat. 4 miles/day is still pretty good, and unless you eat like a glutton, should do great.
There's also the walkstation, which might be an awesome solution if you can put it in your workspace.
Then, at least, you know you're supposed to look stupid doing it :P
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
This way my left leg/foot gets more exercise when driving an automatic, otherwise a heavy clutch does the trick.
Getting rid of fat all boils down to this : burn more calories than you eat. I've been doing the situps + pushups thing, building some muscle mass helps lose fat, but you need to add some good carb burning exercise. Wii fit is OK for getting fit, you'll have a healthy heart and toned muscles but it will all be hidden under the layer of fat you haven't burned off. You need to break a good sweat to really burn some fat.
Biking to work is good if you can do it, cos it's 10 workouts a week that you can't get lazy and miss :) Otherwise, get an exercise bike and do that at home watching TV or listening to podcasts or whatever. Real bike riding is better though, you can get lazy with a fake bike.
You can also try to cut out carbs and replace them with protein or fibre - sugary fruit, drinks and snacks will get burned off before your body starts on stored fat. Make sure you are still eating healthy though, Atkins diet burns fat quick but it's hard on your whole nutritional intake...
Never look back at the carnage.
Just click here and follow the official U.S. Government approved directions.
Unless you've got the luxury of a huge amount of space, the only way you're going to come close to exercising all groups is via free weights.
Multi exercise machines don't even come close (more on that later). Treadmills/stationary bikes are great for burning calories which'll do most of your weight loss goals but you're asking about all muscle groups. BOSU balls, steps, jump ropes are all more limited in application. The other great full body exercise, swimming, isn't really an option in the privacy of your own home unless you're rich enough to have a good sized pool.
The problem with free weights, and this comes from being married to a physical therapist who's also an ACE certified personal trainer, is: You're doing it wrong.
Don't feel bad. Just about everyone does. From the Navy guys I've watched prepping for their PRTs by holding a dumbell in one position and flapping their elbows like chickens to those who swing weights and let the momentum carry them through the weak spots to those who only really focus on a few core groups.
This is what a good personal trainer will do for you (and, yes, I hate the idea of paying the meathead ones too). A good one will slow you down and perfect your form: meaning you're actually building the weak points not just swinging past them. A good one will start you on machines (really good for isolating the exact form you need but lousy at exercising all of the supporting groups) and then slowly move you over to free weights (really good at exercising a lot of supporting groups, lousy at teaching you good form). A good one will also teach you a whole range of exercises so you're not just bulking your biceps with no work on your triceps, strengthening abs without matching your lats, working on your upper body with no attention to your chicken legs (yes, you, 95% of guys in gyms).
Look at it this way...
How good of a coder would you be if you never learned from other people's code and never had anyone review yours? Sure, you might be a prodigy and do some cool trick most people have never thought of. More likely, you'll write messy, inefficient code that seems like it works while leaving memory leaks everywhere.
In the same way, you might manage to learn everything about lifting from message boards and videos. More likely, you'll get a fair amount right but still be doing a few gastly things that it never occurs to you they're wrong.
This is why we suck it up, venture in to a gym, find a good trainer (being willing to fire the bad ones until we get that one we vibe with), and learn the technique first... so we can then get it right in our splendid isolation.
Lets see:
A set of barbell weights in the office - launch a program and lift a weight or two while waiting for results.
A set of roller blades in the back of the car ready for grabbing and going on a skate.
Sex, with a friendly and willing partner, great cardio! :)
Walks (briskly!) along the beach boardwalk.
Biking.... (need to get more time for that)
Floor exercises, crunches and push ups.
Sometimes to the gym, for cardio on a treadmill or elliptic trainer.
Trying to find time for tennis!
If you enjoy doing it, then you are more likely to stick with it. I was a total blubberball who used to sit at a computer all the time until one day I realized that my inactivity was slowly killing me. Decided to get fit and stay that way.
www.effectiveelectrons.com "chips that work" Analog, RF, Mixed Signal
If someone has not patented it already, I put the Idea of an aerobic keyboard and aerobic editor into the public domain! An aerobic keyboard's keys are huge, can be activated by arms an feet and require large leg and arm movements to press them. Such a keyboard will allow a geek to continue to edit while doing his exercises!
Of course specialized editors will be used to take advantage of the aerobic keyboard. I can hardly wait till emacs is modified for the aerobic keyboard, but I expect some atheists will want to use vi.
How do I publish this idea so no one else can patent it? Or is there prior art?
Tai Chi is essentially a form of Kung Fu slowed down to maximize the exercise potential and lessen the strain on your body.
Once you have learned the essential 108 movements (its all one long cycle that puts you back where you are started, but is learned as 108 or so individual moves), you have a routine that will exercise pretty much every muscle in your body, looks cool, and requires no equipment to perform in, any stretch of ground/grass/parkinglot with a roughly 15x15 ft area free would probably do.
Its been very popular in China for centuries and obviously works quite well, given the number of old people you see doing it in droves there.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
One word for you... sores
While I'm definitely a proud geek, my job is very physical in nature and I exercise many hours a week to stay in shape.
I have a gym routine, which I will not cover here, and a home routine.
For starters, determine your goal. Weight loss, cardiovascular health, and muscle tone are all distinct goals with different workout types to most effectively reach each area.
A weight loss workout should focus on muscle extremities, core muscle groups, and long-term cardiovascular exercise. Light weights for the arms using a bicep curl is a good start. Doing sit-ups and sitting on an exercise ball while at your computer will provide good core muscle strength. Skipping rope or jumping jacks provide a cardiovascular and leg muscle workout. Try to go fifteen minutes at once in a slow, easy pace. You want to be sweating when done, but not out of breath.
For cardiovascular health, skipping rope and jumping jacks should be done at a faster pace. You *want* to be out of breath when you're done, and keep increasing the speed and time worked out as much as your body can stand.
For muscle tone, add a light protein shake or supplement to an after-workout snack. Work with heavier weights, and use them on pectoral muscles in addition to arms. Do push-ups as well as sit-ups. Try to get a chin-up bar and use it.
As a former introvert (the mind and emotions *can* be trained, believe me!), I understand the reluctance to try a gym, and suggest that maybe you find a friend who will be a "work-out buddy" and act as a private trainer. It helps to have someone help keep count and encourage you not to cheat yourself out of a better workout.
Aim for twenty minutes a day for your first couple weeks. Try to push it to 45 minutes by the end of the second month. Bravo on a choice to be healthy and fit!
Rock climbing/bouldering has dual benefits:
1. It's a slow endurance/strength excercise
2. It excercises your hands/wrists, which counteracts RSI
Get a climbing partner/group and hit the closest climbing gym. Go easy at first, and remember that the legs should be doing most of the lifting. Go easy on the hands too, you don't want to sprain anything :) Any RSI from typing/office labour should go away, and you will become comfortable enough to start doing more exertive excercises such as weight lifting or cardio.
There's been some great suggestions already.
I have a treadmill as I find running is the best aerobic workout for my body. I got mine off craigslist for $200 and it works really well for me especially during the winter months. This nut job took it a step further and integrated it into his workspace: http://lifehacker.com/software/contest/coolest-workspace-contest--the-treadputer-171537.php and this guy thinks he can make a business out of it: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2005-06-07-office-fit_x.htm
Weights are just as important as running. You burn more calories just by having more muscle. Don't worry about how big they look just get them toned and stronger and they will burn calories while you're standing in line at the Taqueria.
Riding bicycles is fun and if you're less than 5 miles to your office it may be feasible unless you live in Bangkok.
Calisthenic exercises are easy to do in private and you get the benefit of aerobic and anaerobic at the same time.
Softball is a good excuse to get outside and meet some overweight middle aged guys from the community. Just don't drink all the calories back on after the game.
For me running and weights are the best combination to remain fit but any of the other things that you can do for fun will help out and let you keep eating whatever you want.
Agree; I used to bike to work until I moved too far away from work... Now it's car to work, however have a gym nearby so try to go there 3-4 times per week in lunch breaks.
Also Hip Hop dancing is a great way of exercising. Whilst the audience here might initially laugh at that, there are a number of great benefits:
1) Improves memory and co-ordination; is great fun & challenging :)
2) Improves lower back/core strength, thus making you better able to do all those hard hours in front of the computer. No joke, this messes with your back!
3) Is a great way to meet people outside your normal day to day routine. If you are single you will probably notice that they also tend to slew towards the more attractive range of the scale. Even if you are not [check] there's always value in this
ISO certified == THX certified
My preference is running. It's rather cheep to start, all you need are a good pair of running shoes. (But get a good pair, from a running store, fitted to your foot and stride type.) Other than that, you really only need a track or some roads. I hadn't run since high school, and now, 15 years later i am thinking about trying for a half marathon before the end of the year. I also love the fact that just about every weekend there is a 5k or 10k race near me, which not only helps to motivate, but also are usually created around some charity, so it is good karma as well to help raise money for a cause.
If you want some guidance getting started, cool running has a great starter guide. Link
I have also become a big fan on the Nike+ sport band, since i can check my distance and pace while i am running. I find that instant feedback about having run farther and or faster than my last run helps to motivate me during the run, and the ability to track my run history online helps motivate me between runs. I think that this ends up being one of the most important things about exercise, make sure you like it, because if you don't then you won't stick with it.
My advice, get out and run. But short of that, just make sure your doing something. That is the really important bit.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
tho make sure you have backup plans for long rides... I realize some people can regularly do 75-100mi rides in a day, but I am not one of them. got a little too far from home and had to stay the night at a friend's. but made for an enjoyable 2 day weekend nevertheless and somehow got through it without feeling absolutely destroyed come Monday.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
If you want it make time for it. As someone who spends a significant portion of my week trying to stay in shape, it's become a huge pet peeve of mine for people to complain about being out of shape or overweight and never do anything about it. The fact is that people will make time for what's important to them. If it's not important enough for you to take a half hour out of World of Warcraft, then just accept that it's not really that important to you and quit complaining about it. That's all for my soap box.
I think everyone's touched pretty well on the fact that just doing away with conveniences can add a ton of exercise to your day--taking the stairs instead of the elevator, parking at the back of the parking lot instead of circling around to find a closer spot, walking when going between any two points that are acceptable walking distance (I usually think if it's less than a mile I should probably be walking it; it may be different depending on your circumstances) etc. If you make these things habitual they add up, and while they don't do much if you only do them once or twice every few months their cumulative effect when done as a natural routine is significant.
If you're really worried about getting in awesome shape but don't like to work out, consider taking up an active hobby. My first suggestion would be a martial art. Brazilian jiu-jitsu and judo are both very physically active, burning as much as 900 calories an hour (compared to 300 for jogging and 600 for rowing). They're also great forms of self-defense, great ways to meet new people and make new friends, and they don't require you be a 20 year old athlete to make the moves work. If you prefer something like racquetball, that's fine as long. Just get a hobby that will help keep you in shape that you will actually enjoy doing.
Sounds like we're in the same situation - I've always been slim, but a couple of years ago started putting on fat around my waist.
My solution has been talking a 45 minute walk up and down a local hill each day. Walking is the exercise we're designed for, low impact and can be sociable if you want. I think you need to be pushing yourself though - I take a stop watch to motivate me to try harder each day. My other tip is to do it first thing, before breakfast - you get most of the hard part (going up the hill) over with before you are properly awake.
You also end up with a great start to the day - blood pumping, mind alert, and you've had time to plan your day and chew over problems without disruption. I've got back to a good weight, and seem to be sticking there, so it works.
Do as you would be done to.
More than that: bleeding.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
If you live in the city, my best advice is to not drive anywhere within a ten-mile radius. Walk pretty much everywhere you go and over time you will start shedding the pounds. I was slightly overweight when I first moved here (5' 11" and around 180lbs). It has been slightly under a year now, and I am down to 158lbs. Granted I am also vegetarian and I count calories (it all boils down to calories in/calories out) and do about 50 crunches each morning, but walking wherever I go (including to buy groceries if you are a bachelor like me) has made a world of difference. Also, if you live in an apartment building with elevators, use the stairs. I do, and I've found that it is actually faster most of the time than sitting there wasting your time waiting.
Most of all, whatever plan you choose, stick with it. The weight does not just come off a week or two after you begin. If you do it right, you should expect to see a pound or two drop every couple of weeks at most, and sometimes you will go a month without seeing a noticeable change. It takes patience, more than anything else, to lose the love handles.
"We may face a scorched and lifeless earth, but they're accountable to their shareholders first."
Does anyone read TFS these days?
"Do any Slashdotters have a regular workout routine that can be performed in the privacy of the home to stave off those pounds?"
Considering the question, I doubt hiking, running, biking to work, base jumping, etc. really qualify as applicable answers. But seriously... i have to ask... why would you want to limit your exercise to the privacy of your home? That I don't get.
I get 35-45 minutes of cardio per day via the inclined treadmill. It doesn't really matter how fast or how far, so long as I am breaking a sweat. Two or three times per week (depending on the schedule) I work out with weights. One day is upper body (Curls, flys, benchpress, etc), the second is lower body (squats, leg ext., leg curls, lunges, etc) and if I get a third, then I work the core (plank, inclined situps, crunches and so on). Alternatively, the P90X program is killer if you can spare an hour or two per day for your workout. It's the only exercise program that I have ever run across that actually EXCEEDS what it states. And it should go without saying that your diet should be somewhat better than jelly donuts and Red Bull...an no - glazed donuts are NOT better for you than jelly donuts.
If it's a concern for you then don't muck around, get into heavy weights and mix it up with some cardio like running or biking. Increased muscle mass will help you stop storing energy as fat while you're sitting around.
I had your same problem and got into a regular weights/cardo routine and have managed major positive changes in 12 months. (That's right, it won't happen overnight) I work from home in a relatively small apartment too. I never thought I'd fit a weight bench in my place along with all the weights but I did, it was just a matter of convincing myself it needed doing. Tucking my small weight bench in beside my chest of draws and wardrobe is a work out in itself!
If you've never done heavy weights before you might be worried about getting TOO big and looking like a steroid abusing jock. Don't worry, it'll never happen! (unless you do get into the roids) It will take a lot of dedication to make much a noticeable difference to your physique but it will help you keep fit and keep your weight down. Give it a go, you can do it from home and it will make you feel much better about yourself both physically and mentally
For advice on routines and general body building advice I recommend t-nation.com and bodybuilding.com (Don't let the muscle head nature of these sites put you off, they have some very good advice on general workouts suitable for beginners). Good luck!
ogglelog
Really if you don't want to get out you can always use an elliptical machine and maybe a bowflex for strength training in your home but eventually you just need to get outside.
Endurance sports are a great way to stay in shape. www.amateurendurance.com covers all kinds of sports from Triathlons to Marathons and 5k runs to Century rides and Ultra-marathons. It's really not that hard to get started. There are literally events happening every weekend. You can train on your elliptical at home if you want and just participate in events on the weekend. You'll be surprised at the wide range of people who participate in these events. You have overweight teens to 75 year old women and everything in between. Trust me, just finishing an event will get you cheers and that's a good motivator to keep doing it.
But maybe you should try to exercise outside a bit. I would count myself as an introvert, and I run and bike regularly. If you make time to get out early in the morning or go out in the country, you can ride or run when or where most people aren't out. Maybe instead of trying to avoid exercising outside, you should just go ahead and try it. You may find that it isn't as uncomfortable a situation as you think.
Or just stay closer to home. You can do plenty of long rides without ever going more than a few miles away from where you live. If you're a geek (and if you're reading this, you're a geek) then you should be able to handle the concept of planning a trip such that you are less than half tired when you're halfway done.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
All the fun of Guitar Hero, but it was something you could do and still be Geeky before Guitar Hero became "cool". And it actually works your ass off. This is a dumb question. That is the only answer. The rest of you can go to hell.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
p90x works for me!
See subject.
Between allergies to pollens and dust, having zero interest in being around other people (particularly in a setting like a gym), and having never found even the least joy in any kind of physical activity, I have to say that there are many kinds of invasive surgeries that I would rather undergo without benefit of anesthesia rather than undertake an exercise plan.
I suspect I'm not the only person on Slashdot with that attitude.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
Pick a route about twice as far as you can run and keep at it every day until you can do it. Add a mile every couple months until you're happy with where you are. You can run anywhere (good for consultants) and you'll find it makes you better at all sports (even if im not the most skilled bball player i can sure as hell run them ragged)
Russian kettlebells are really great! I had never been physically active, yet at 50 I got a trainer who taught me how to use them. Unlike regular weightlifting, kettlebells (like a cannon ball, only with a handle) increase your strength AND your balance and flexibility. Highly recommended.
Dance Dance Revolution is something I can attest to. Being from DDRNL and all. It's a great game, unless you hate the music, please stick with Guitar....something. Whden you DO get into DDR, keep playing over and over until you reach what's currently still graded as 10 footers. Difficulty scale will soon change. Once you reach the highest levels, it'll work as a very intensive cardio. Oh, it trains your sense of rhythm as well.
So you're an introvert. Big deal! Exercise in front of people anyway.
Look, no one's going to make fun of you for going to the gym; in fact, they are more likely to make fun of someone who needs exercise and doesn't go to the gym.
The gym isn't Counter-Strike. No one cares if you're an exercise n00b. In fact, in my experience if you screw up at the gym, someone who knows what they're doing will show you the proper way to exercise so you don't injure yourself.
If you can afford it, and if you really care about your fitness and attractiveness, there is no reason not to go to the gym.
the MOST effective exercise is the exercise you don't even know you are doing. park the car at the far end when you go to the shopping centre, walk to the corner store. these all add up.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Have you considered the 5BX program that was developed for the Royal Canadian Air Force? You can download the PDF manuals from http://www.gettingfitagain.com/5bx.php - and it's only supposed to take 11 minutes a day. Usual disclaimer about consulting a doctor before starting with a new exercise plan of course.
IBM doesn't play chess with the Universe.
If you're going to be at all serious about toning up/getting in shape/exercising one of the most imporant things you need to look at is WHAT you eat. Diets that are high in fats and sugars are destined to be more difficult than a carb-rich, protein-rich, vitamin-rich diet. That means, instead of hotpockets for breakfast try to get a complete protein and some carbs, 3-4 scrambled eggs and some wheat toast with jam is a perfect breakfast.
Both lunches and dinners could consist of something like chicken breast and brown rice, with some steamed broccoli.
You can even go into subway and get a $5 footlong of chicken breast with all the veggies to get all your necessary nutrients.
If you're trying to lose some weight, keep in mind that more muscle mass = more calories burnt. Try doing pushups, pullups, and situps (very important not to do 'goofy' situps, instead try to put your legs on something so your thighs are perpindicular to your body, stare at your belly button and try to 'roll' your shoulders off the ground WHILE exhaling, the inhale on your way back, make sure your arms are crossed on your chest NOT behind your head).
Unfortunately a lot of the weight we put on in our later years is much more difficult to shed than when your younger, so if you're at all serious look at getting some kind of cardio, albeit running or jogging up some stairs for 30 minutes.
So quick recap:
1. Don't eat bullshit. (Notice I picked whole wheat bread over white bread, brown rice over white rice, etc).
2. Diet should be 55% carbs, 30% protein, 15% fat. Keep track of what your eating, try to stay away from foods in which the calories from fats/sugars are over 45% (carbs/sugar & protien = 4cals per gram, fat = 9 cals per gram. (grams of sugarx4)(grams of fatx9)= total number of calories. Divide that number by the total number of calories in a serving to find your percentage.
3. Exercise! Run, dance, jog, roll around, do anything to get your heart rate up. Your body will get used to the same exercise over and over again to try to mix it up.
Sorry for the rant
Just want to put another nod out there for crossfit, I'm going to a crossfit gym but if you're the introvert type and can handle being extra careful to observe good proper form on your own, doing the WOD (workout of the day - scaled to your fitness level) will give you a good all around workout over time.
I watched most of the theory vids before deciding to try it out:
http://www.crossfit.com/cf-info/excercise.html#Clips
I'd recommend starting with the video "intro to intensity"
l4h
How come nobody has mentioned this one yet? I mean, come on! It has fitness tips as well as diet since you really need both to get the pounds off.
Hacker Diet
Tonights forecast: Dark. Continued dark throughout most of the evening, with some widely-scattered light towards morning
I'd make sure you're getting enough Essential Fatty Acids.
Flax seed oil (ALA, EPA, DHA) is an omega-3 fatty acid complex that will help reduce your inflammatory load.
There is a good deal of evidence that taking Conjugated Linoleic Acids (CLA's -- specifically the Trans-10, Cis-12 or T10-C12 form) will actually help you lose weight. It does this by causing your preadipocytes to die (apoptose), before they can become fat cells. There is also good evidence that it helps keep fat cells from filling. And it probably (although the evidence isn't as solid) forces fat cells to empty.
Either way, you need to also make sure you're getting antioxidants (resveratrol, selenium, etc...)
Disclaimer: IANA Doctor (although I'm training to be one)
I refuse to engage in a duel of wits with the unarmed.
Stop lifting weights. It will not necessarily burn fat. You need
an aerobic workout. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerobic_exercise
Walk, jog or run if you can. Swim. Bicycle. Basically, get
your heart rate up for at least 15 minutes at least once a day.
And, as always, see a doctor or an accredited professional before
you try anything new.
What turned me on to regular, healthful exercise was to have the right gadget. I worked for an outfit that makes consumer-grade heart rate monitors, so I got to keep one for myself while I wrote out the documentation.
I was very impressed with this gadget. It did wonders for getting me off my duff and tracking my exercise.
Seriously. It's the toys, guys. Having a little bleeping widget on my wrist made a huge difference.
So, even though I don't work for them any more, I'll totally shill for the Polar F11 HRM. It figured out an appropriate exercise schedule for me, it monitors the intensity of my workouts to keep me on target, and it tracks my progress over months. It's geared toward cardio, so it really excels at aerobic stuff like cross-country simulators and standing bikes. The pounds just melt away, though, and I'm toning up nicely.
If you're interested in getting one, I recommend going to your local gym to see if they have a partnership with Polar, because the personal trainers there will help you learn how to use the thing to maximum effectiveness. The thing is pretty simple to use anyway, though.
Okay. Done.
Right, let me first address your direct question:
To lose body-fat and gain muscle mass you will most likely need to cycle between the two objectives; food is of paramount importance here, without going into much detail to gain muscle you need to actually (image that) eat more than you waste, and to lose fat the opposite. The amount and type of exercise you do, plus your diet, is what determines if you gain a lot of muscle and just a bit of fat or the opposite.
As for exercise routines, I would recommend heading to bodybuilding.com. Yes, I know, sounds like something you don't want to do but these guys tend to be the ones who actually know about these stuff, more so than the "fitness" crowd. Even if your objective is "merely" to become more agile, with less fat and "harder" and not a gigantic mammal with muscles coming out of your ears that site has lots of routines and explanations; think of them as the Debian or BSD crowd: even when people just want a pretty desktop they are generally the crowd who has the answer to the questions.
Just to complement, that site as lots of routines to do without any fancy equipment. You might invest in some dumbbells though, there is little you can't do with dumbbells, a bench and good posture.
This brings me to the second part of my answer, which is that is generally easier and better to pay membership in a gym, regardless of initial feelings of inadequacy. They have the right equipment, other facilities that are nice to have (think sauna) and it's not like they are a social club where you actually have to talk with people. You could even by surprised to start talking with people from very different walks of life and getting along just fine. There is a self-promoted ghetto thing in the "ahh we're geeks and nobody understands us" mantra.
On top of this I know that I'm personally much more prone to actually do stuff in the gym than at home, maybe because I'm paying for it. Regardless of motivation I do think it is something you should consider, even if you don't care for the classes (I mostly don't) the weight-lifting equipment alone is important for a good routine.
HTH.
Bicycle
Baoding balls (I think it'll prevent RSI/carpal tunnel)
Walking (more exercise for the dog than for me)
Light exercise with free weights
At some point I want to get back into running again, but I never did have the discipline to keep with it on my own. I need a group or a partner to run with, and never can find anyone who wants to do it.
I *love* the baoding balls. I just started them a short time ago on a whim, and I can't say enough about how good it feels to work my forearms with them.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
How could you have two Popeye arms from browsing with one arm?
Oh...
There are no drugs that can fully fix this, though metformin can help if your syndrome is advanced. You mainly have to adopt an atkins-like diet which avoids anything that spikes your glucose level over 140 mg/dl. That will cut out just about all bread, pasta, potatoes, and other starches. But in my case the gout was also a consideration, so I'm highly motivated to stick to it.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
http://www.bronzebowpublishing.com/trinity-health-and-fitness-dvds These guys are cheezy, but the workout really works. It is super-portable and easily private. It's got a Christian flavor which you can ignore or enjoy, as you like. I get great results with this, and I feel good when I do these machine-free exercises. I'm not commercially or personally associated.
There's a great program at www.crossfit.com. Check out their FAQ and the page on their philosophy. It's great, I agree with most of their philosophy, but not all. I've been doing it for 3 years now and I've never been more fit. Generally a workout takes 20 minutes. Sometimes there's a longer one, but that's rare. Most of the time you could do the workout at your house, however I use a gym because I like the better equipment. If you go to the gym a couple of times you'll get used to it and it won't feel so weird. I'm a bit of an introvert myself, so I understand where you're coming from, but give the gym a try, it'll do you more good in the end.
Do any Slashdotters have a regular workout routine that can be performed in the privacy of the home to stave off those pounds?
I literally just got back from a cycling workout - for me this means thrashing around town for an hour during the evening/night. OK, so it isn't in the privacy of the home, but regular cyclists know too well that nobody pays much attention to them :)
Cycling is familiar territory for geeks since it involves a machine that's easy to tweak and upgrade components for performance and a lot of technology surrounds it. Cycling also suits introverts since it doesn't require much human interaction or a gym.
I did Karate for several years until I moved and couldn't find my style taught in my new location.
It's a great workout, but more than that, it's actually *engaging*, unlike endless hours on the treadmill or pounding pavement, both of which I find incredibly tedious (despite being a runner in high school).
That said, weight gain has a lot to do with diet as well. If you're curious about the biology of nutrition and how your body reacts to different foods, I'd highly recommend Taubes' "Good Calories, Bad Calories". It's a dense but very interesting read.
I got one (Wii Fit) gifted to me a few weeks back. I used to be a weight lifter, so the exercises don't really compare in that respect. The Wii Fit does manage to get your heart rate up, helps with balance, and helps a bit with flexibility.
I ride the local bike trails near my home while listening (thank you Leo Laporte) to tech podcasts. So far I've riden 700 miles this year.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Check out the exercise section at about.com. For instance, there's a great low-impact cardio workout that takes only about 15 minutes, but it will leave you sweating and winded if you're bad shape.
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
I found the easiest thing to do is just run once or twice a week for the length of your favorite podcast. Start out walking once a week, and ramp up the intensity over time as you feel comfortable. My personal favorites for such a run include GFW radio / 1up Yours, which usually have a multi-hour runtime and enough geeky distraction that the time doesn't feel wasted. Eventually it'll just becomes a habit, which is what you want.
You want muscle mass. The more muscle mass you have, the more calories you burn while at rest. So ideally, you should do some weight lifting.
I bought a home treadmill about two years ago for about $500, and I really like it. I've mostly been using it for regular workouts until recently, when I injured my ankle and have to take it easier. So I made a detachable 'desktop' mod that fits over the arms, that will hold a laptop, mouse and bookstand. I can type or browse the web just fine while walking at 2.5 mph -- very satisfying!
Oh, and I got the idea from the 'walkstation' recently -- a professionally made treadmill and adjustable workstation. Looked great, but at $6000 it was a little rich for my blood.
Swimming is the best all over muscle workout, combine that with a 10% decrease in what you consume and you will loose weight and tone up all over.
Until the start of 2008 I was about 90 lbs overweight and morbidly obese. Throughout the year I have lost 70 lbs, and I am on my way to having a healthy BMI.
Here are my thoughts:
You don't have to go to a gym, but it really helps to have access to nice array of equipment. Get over your fear of going to the gym. No one gives a crap about you --except for when you may be using equipment they want to use. If you want to avoid socializing, wear headphones or go during off hours. If you are afraid of the locker room (that's normal it takes sometime to get used to), then don't use it.
Now on to to the technical stuff: You need to do a moderate to strenuous aerobic activity at least ~30 minutes a day 3 days a week (5 is better) for the rest of your life. I like to run, row, hike up mountains and occasionally use the elliptical machine. This is necessary for good cardiovascular health, and will help you in your later years. It will also as a side effect help you loose weight.
You need to do some basic weight training. You seem to favor body weight exercises, keep doing push ups, try increasing the reps, or difficulty by doing them on an incline. Learn to do pullups/dips also. Finally buy a few dumbbells, going up to 35-40 lbs in weight. Learn to do basic curls, and some presses. Later on read some fitness books, or go to a couple of fitness blogs to learn how to do lifts and presses that work your big muscle groups --think squats, and dead lifts. Doing this won't make you a huge muscle guy (believe me the gains are not that great) but you'll be happy with your increased strength. It will also help to keep you from looking flabby.
One more thing. The key to loosing weight is your diet. Good weight loss is slow, and steady. Cut 500-1000 calories from your diet, and you'll loose 2 lbs a week. However, you need to combine it with exercise or you'll have to keep "dieting" for the rest of your life to maintain your weight. That won't happen, so creating a nice caloric deficit through working out 3-5 times a day will help you maintain a healthy weight once you've reached it.
As is my wife, but we both have gotten over it in a desire to lead healthier lives - I now do distance running and triathlons (more the triathlons, as it works more of the body, and is easier on the legs) and my wife does distance running and is thinking about the triathlons too. I understand completely about doing this stuff in front of people, but I just had to get over it - better than to be dead early! (And in the long run, it saves a ton of money by being healthy) I have lost 30 pounds, brought my blood pressure down, my overall cholesterol down, and my HDL (the good kind) way up. It really works!
I recently bought a water rower which simulates rowing very smoothly. I used to run a few years ago but am getting older and running is getting more difficult. The water rower workout is very low impact and good cardio. It can be hooked up to your computer to track every aspect of your workout (thats the geek part). The bad news is that it cost a little over $1200 but like you I wanted to workout at home.
One Word:
CrossFit.
Seriously.
The best thing you could ever do for fitness. Try reading their What is Fitness? article to see CrossFit's foudation and philosophy.
3.2.1. GO!!
Sig* sig = theOneSig();
Seriously, full body tone, stress relief, its even a cardiovascular workout if you do it right. On top of that, its low impact (good for those old joints) and its an ancient practice that has nothing to do with technology (also a bit of a relief).
As an added bonus, most yoga classes are full of chicks.
Personally, I go to a gym. But then, I live in a small town so I don't see very many *people*. Incidentally, I've always gone to a gym, even when I lived in a slightly larger town of Philadelphia.
The key to the middle parts is: it's the last fat to go.
You don't say how old you are, but the fact is you're getting older and your metabolism continues to slow each year. You can combat that by moving (aka exercise) and eating. Yes, eating. If you don't take in enough calories - the right calories - your body will react by storing what it can, usually in your middle. Unfortunately, your middle is the last place you lose from.
Muscles burn calories. You can increase your resting metabolic rate by building muscle. Just having more muscle mass == more calories burned sitting on your butt. It's a vicious cycle though, if you don't maintain the muscle (aka exercise) you'll lose it through catabolism (body breaks it down for energy).
There's a godzillion things you can do at home, but the easiest way to start is with push-ups and sit-ups. Buy an exercise ball, one of those big funny-looking rubber balls. There are dozens of different exercises you can do with those. They're cheap and they're extremely versatile. You don't necessarily need weights if you're a beginner, or even intermediate. You just need to use your body as the weight and do _something_ to trick your body into building some muscle mass. (You won't build a ton just doing pushups, but you'd be suprised how quickly it works) Consistency is key - 3 times per week on the "weights". You need a day in-between to allow your body to recover and actually build the muscle.
This one goes without saying: Eat healthy!
If you have the means, i.e. space and money, get a treadmill. Use it 30 minutes a day, 5-6 days a week.
The bottom line is, you have to burn calories and build some muscle. The only way to do either one is to _move_ a lot.
If you do what you always did, you get what you always got.
Weight lifting and bicycling/walking everywhere.
My only problem is I'm starting off at about 6'3", 330lbs (Yeah, I'm a fatty.) so I have a pretty long way to go. I'm down a few pounds, but not enough.
The Geek Nation's fingers are lean, mean, typing machines!
With a whole brigade of specialists in one-handed operations.
--
make install -not war
Get a good book on Yoga and practice at your own. Or, gather up some courage to go to a Yoga session and learn.
After the doctor told me that unless I started to exercise more, I was going to have to go on blood pressure medication (at age 25), I started cycling. I found the best way to get me going was to buy some geek gadgets to help me get excited. Garmin make some nice GPS bike toys which monitor your heart rate, altitude, position, etc and allow you to load it up to your PC afterwards via USB. They also make a wrist watch version.
I work in an area that gets ULTRA-congested during rush hour(Plymouth, MN). So I instead drive 3 miles from my workplace, hit the gym, and then after the gym, it's a smooth ride home. I figure my time is better spent burning calories at the gym, than burning gas waiting at Hwy 55's 100000 stoplights(and yes, you will hit each one).
Mind you, my biggest weight loss(9 pounds) happened recently over loss of appetite, due to depression over not having a job for 2.5 months prior. Being in an office environment, I gotta compensate it by hitting the gym more often.
1. Go to park
2. Turn on PSP/DS
3. Walk & Play
4. ???
5. Profit!
Sure you'll keep bumping into people (and trees) in the beginning, but in time you'll manage to subconsciously evade them.
Another theory is that they learned to evade me...
Exercise is good for many reasons, including improving muscle tone, reducing your risk of heart attacks, improving your aerobic capacity and so on. However, my experience is that it's virtually impossible to lose weight by exercise alone unless you go to the lengths of Steve Vaught.
I managed to lose 60 pounds (and have now kept it off for about six months), and the key was combining the exercise I was already doing with eating less. Initially, I ate a lot of those not-very-tasty diet meals; long-term, I've largely cut out things like fries and cola from my diet, and just gotten used to eating smaller portions and not snacking between meals. Now that I've lost the weight, I still eat nice food; I've just learned that I have to eat less of it if I want to maintain a reasonable weight.
As far as exercise goes, I echo the suggestions to try riding a bike. Can be as solo, or as social, as you like.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I know that you specified doing things on your own, but I recommend that you consider team sports. I'm an old geek in my fifties and participate in team sports. You'd be surprised how tolerant people are with others who are non-athletic and getting started at something. You simply need to find the right group. Some teams are for the hard core, but there are many that are not. Ask around. I guarantee that there is something you can get into.
I say this because I find individual workouts so boring that I cannot keep up with them.
I'll second the comments about choosing to live reasonably close to work and biking. Not everyone can do that, but many can.
I bike about 50mi or more a week.
...or other martial art. Shaolin styles are most highly recommended. Our school curricula includes lots of stretching and calisthenics (pushups, hindu pushups, half-squat, splits, bricks etc) along with coordination drills (punching & kicking) and forms. Two one-hour classes a week will make you into a different kind of geek.
Cycling is also great, but not as comprehensive - it is cardio and legs mostly.
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
They also sell anti-slip stuff.. sometimes at the dollar store. I got a few "placemats" made out of these and put them on the bottom for more anti-slippage.
I've seen the $20 mats simply attached to a piece of plywood of equal size. You could just replace the $20 mat when it wears out.
If you play daily, they WILL wear out. Gamestop has a nice $5 2 year replacement policy. I would open mine up every 3-4 months and use a good 5 feet of electrical tape shoring up the rips so they don't get worse. I'd do this 2 or 3X before the mat would just suck and have to be replaced.
It's really not that bad. Especially if you have a low ceiling with stucco on it that you can grab on if you lose your balance :) hehe
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
like a lot of you (i assume), i live in the burbs and have to trek to the shitty every day.
ride a bike instead of driving. if its too far for that, ride your bike to a bus stop. preemptive apologies to those of you in cites with piss poor public transportation.
The primary reasons martial arts are my preferred form of exercise:
1. You have to actually think about what you're doing quite often. You're not just doing mindless aerobics.
2. The group situation pushes you farther than you'd normally push yourself, and encourages you to reach new plateaus.
3. Classes are generally directed at all times. It's kind of like having personal trainers with you at all times, in that there's always a series of directed activities and you're not casting about for what to do next.
With that said, there are MANY bad martial arts schools out there. I generally avoid any place that doesn't seem to have any women or older men participating, that sees fit to display huge numbers of trophies on entry, or that has a master whose personality I don't think I could get along with. There are a lot of arrogant pricks in the martial arts world, and there's no need to pay for and encourage them. Similarly, there are plenty of schools out there that seem to exist so that young 20s males can beat the crap out of each other. Let them... and go somewhere else.
http://shovelglove.com/
The theory is: It's dirt-simple, dirt-cheap, and you'll keep doing it for the rest of your life.
Except I haven't actually done it; just going to buy a sledgehammer tomorrow.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
One word for you... sores
One word for you... lube
Unfortunately the commercial audiobook options aren't great: CDs are expensive; Audible is moderately expensive and DRM'd. Fortunately, some public libraries have a good selection of books on CD.
Somewhere in fourmilab.ch, there's a free book about weight loss from a geek perspective which includes an exercise program which is
o quick, under 15 minutes to complete
o private
o works with no special equipment
o is not suitable if you have back problems, get professional advice if you do.
If you live in a hilly area then walking can get your heart rate into the aerobic training range. Aerobic exercise has cognitive benefits too.
Lots of people have reported good results from Dance Dance Revolution.
Sounds like you've solved the #1 problem, motivation. It's a miracle that any geeks retain any interest in fitness after the physical "education" classes in school. But you're already familiar with the fact that your brain feels better in a body that goes when you step on the gas. The other way to look at it is that your body is like a Swiss Army knife, it's the tool you always have with you, so it might as well be functional.
fap fap fap.. :)
I run an hour a night (after the sun goes down), and do about 30 miles of trail riding on a mountain bike every weekend. the thing about running is... it SUCKS to get into, but it's awesome once you get over that hump. And of course, biking is just plain fun. I really enjoy my exercise and wouldnt trade it for a whole day of sitcoms, let alone the hour a day I "give up" for this awesome feeling.
Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
Indoor bike /w resistance + walking (cardio), also some weight training at home. You should brun at least 800 calories a day worth of workout, and keep yourself eating just under 1800 cals for the first week to see results on the scale. Cut out ALL sugary drinks, move to water, and just eat what you do normally. You don't have to radically change your diet, but you DO have to burn off more then you take in. Cardio (biking, walking, running) combined with free weight strength training are the best ways to lose weight.
If you're going to walk: At least 2 hours a day 7/days a week + freeweights + indoor bike (note that distnace is more important then time, you can walk faster, do more distance, etc)
If you're going to run, google articles on running, you have to build yourself up slowly to learn how to sustain yourself running over time, it's basically similar to the above, except you do less time running once you've gotten up to a full hour at least without stopping too much, add in some freeweight training, etc.
Great sites to get you started:
http://www.fitday.com/ (tracking what you eat)
http://www.johnstonefitness.com/
That is pretty much the way to go!
cerebral
Fit body, fit mind. Seriously.
"The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
Consider calorie restriction. Suppose your base metabolism is such that you burn 2000 calories per day. Let's hypothesize the (apparently obvious) premise that any calories ingested beyond this value will be stored as fat (and conversely, if you eat less than 2000, you'll burn fat).
Well, how the heck do you manage to eat exactly 2000 calories per day? It's very hard. Suppose you're off by 100 calories, which is not hard to do (eg, a slice of white bread has 80 calories). You consistently eat 100 calories too many, every day. Well, after 365 days, you'll have eaten 36,500 calories too many, and since one gram of fat has 8 calories, you'll have gained 4.5 kilos, or about 10 pounds. Keep this up for 10 years, and you'll have gained 100 pounds. Amazing!
Conversely, if you consistently eat one slice of bread too few, you'll lose 100 pounds in 10 years, and die of anorexia!
Silly, isn't it? Let's make it more random, and assume that some days you eat 100 calories too many, some days 100 too few, at random. There is a substantial probability that the surplus and the deficit will not cancel out exactly. After all, the odds of tossing a coin 365 times and have it come up HTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHT... heads and tails alternating exactly, cancelling each other out, is 0.5^365, which is a very small number (about 10^-110). ANY OTHER OUTCOME LEADS TO WEIGHT LOSS OR GAIN!
So, you'd expect to see people walking around weighing thousands of pounds, or being skeletons and dying in droves.
But this doesn't happen. The observed fact is that most people hold the SAME weight for many years. The body follows a "set point".
So, something else must cause weight gain. It's certainly not calories.
http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/
Has online and Palm tools to track you weight and completion of their exercise ladder, based on exercises that can be done in a small space with no equipment.
Steve Cline http://www.clines.org, http://www.objectbap.com
Comment removed based on user account deletion
When I applied for grad school at the University of Chicago in 1983, their catalogue claimed that they had "marital arts" courses.
Cool, but I still don't want to do them in front of other people.
- - - - -
Did you know that well before it meant anything else, "FTW" meant "Fuck the World"?---at least that's what it meant in "Stickboy" comics.
Just get your ass outside and run.
I'm introverted, and shy (not the same thing), and I went through the whole "I don't want people to look at me" thing, too. Being 60lbs overweight didn't help, either. Not wanting to be seen was one of the excuses I used to use for not exercising like I should. Get past it, and do it anyway, because it's worth it.
If it bothers you that much, just run early in the morning or late in the evening. Or go find yourself a secluded area or trail to run nearby. After a few weeks, when you stop dreading your runs, and when you start making real gains in your distance/speed, you'll stop caring if other people see.
I like swimming even better, especially because it's 90+ most days when I go running now; but since you have to get half naked for that, and the facilities aren't as readily available as a sidewalk, you should just start with running. Besides, running is one of those fundamental movements that you should be relatively proficient at because it opens up a whole lot of other fun activities for you.
Anyway, the internet is full of people in your shoes (or much worse off) who have gotten themselves in great shape (I'm not there yet, but I can look in the mirror without being ashamed now). You just have to decide you want it enough to make the first few steps until it becomes enjoyable. Start now. That's the beautiful thing about running: you can do it whenever and wherever you are.
Game... blouses.
STOP lifting weights? What kind of silly advice is that? A proper workout incorporates aerobic and anaerobic workouts. That being said, its entirely possible w/ weight training to keep your heart rate insanely high for 15-20 minutes straight. It's called circuit training. Basically, you chain exercises together. So if your doing body weight exercises, you could do pushups, situps, burpees, dips, chinups (or w/e you want), repeat 3 or four times. By the end, you'll be dying, your heart rate will be skyhigh, and most likely be dizzy. But you've burned your calories. And you will get stronger.
On that note, if you have space you can try hanging a heavy punching bag and working it. Find someone who knows proper technique, have them teach you, ask them for a nice routine to follow (eg:3x3 minute rounds with 40 seconds breaks in between).
I've stopped drinking pop (soda), at least most of the time. I still go to fast food restaurants sometimes but I've tried to take my lunch to work. When I do go to a fast food restaurant I will get pepsi to drink or if I go out on weekends I'll do the same but I try to make it a special occasion so I cut down on the carbs. I can keep 5 pounds off just by sticking to water. I try to drink water now as much as I can especially at work with my lunch. I haven't changed my diet totally yet but I'm working on that.
As far as my workout, I used to do just weight machines but I started to use the treadmill too. On the treadmill I started by walking for 20 min then I gradually worked my endurance up so that now I can run 25 minutes straight at 6mph (that's over a 4 month period of building endurance). Not record breaking but it burns about 350 calories and if your daily intake is low and you are building muscle (which burns more calories than fat) then your overall caloric intake may end up being negative. I read that having a negative caloric intake of 1000 calories burns 1 pound of fat over any time period. Keep that in mind if you are running the numbers.
It helps to do a workout everyday, at least for cardio, but for weight training you need a good day's rest. I think the secret is changing your diet to more protein and less carbs if you haven't already. Some diets recommend 25 carbs per meal with 3 meals and 3 snacks a day. If you already are okay in that area then as soon as you start working out and/or doing cardio workouts then you are sure to lose weight, possibly a few pounds a week depending on how much you push yourself.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
I started a yoga practice about five years ago, joining my wife who's been doing yoga for many years and I've come to like the metaphysical aspect to it in spite of myself. Oh, and I'm almost always the only guy in the room, which is cool. Yoga is cheap, beneficial and easy to maintain in anyone's schedule. Namaste.
Say hello to my little sig.
I have this routine with my wrist that burns a lot of calories each time I do it, I'm sure... www.free6.com is a great source of workout material.
I want to play Free Market with a drowning Libertarian.
Buy some dumbbells. Add military presses, curls, and "rambo rows".
But you need some cardio, too. Either get the treadmill/walker/skier/whatever that you like, or... you're going to have to go outside.
What makes biking even more fun for me is putting my kid in a bike trailer, and running errands with him... but it sounds like that isn't really compatible with your situation.
And if you can get past your fear of people, find a nice girl, and have sex until you both drop.
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
If you can stick to doing push-ups and sit-ups regularly, more power to you, but I wouldn't bother too much with any of the advice regarding work-out routines, weights or even jogging. That stuff is boring, and the average person doesn't stick with working out for very long.
Wanna know the secret to my toned nerd body? Sports. That's right, just like the jocks play. As much as Slashdotters love to play up the pasty-faced, 2-liter-of-Mountain-Dew-and-bag-of-Doritos geek stereotype, it's actually a bunch of horse%$@#. Pick up a sport or two, and you won't have to think about how much cardio you're getting or whether you're sticking to your workout. You'll stay thin and healthy because you have passions that keep you active.
Pick some sports that your friends do and ask if they'll teach you. Or just go for something. Could be an individual thing, like surfing or biking, or a team sport like soccer or softball (you'd be amazed by how active even softball can be). Once you're hooked on it, then you'll lose the pounds and feel better generally.
My other
There's no secret that makes this easy.
Go run for half an hour on a treadmill every other day. Start slow--slow enough that you can go for half an hour. Build up speed over time.
If that's boring, a more fun option is to play raquetball four times a week.
Whatever you do, make sure your shirt is drenched in sweat by the end of it.
Type one handed. Alternate days.
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them.
If the goal is to keep the excess weight off then it's really quite simple. Burn more calories than you take in.
45 minute "walk" every day in rural area.
GPS in pocket to track route.
Digital Camera/Cell Phone in pocket to record whatever is worth it - can also be used to threaten cars on crosswalks to stop for you by pointing it in the oncoming car's direction.
Heart rate monitor (Polar-type) running to stay in elevated HR range and dump data onto computer to see how we are doing - calories burnt, HR curve, exercise calendar etc.
Keep HR elevated between 65 and 75 % of max HR (can be determined in serveral ways - does actually not matter much which way).
HR monitor can be set to beep when in/out of target range.
If you get too much out of the upper range in one run, notch the HR window up by 5 clicks.
If you get too much out of the lower limit in one run, notch the HR window down by 5 clicks.
Try to keep the HR in the middle of the two limits.
Keep serval ranges in HR monitor to switch to one's liking (sometimes not feeling too well or having a lot of juice).
Several challenges can arise - some may be related wanting to go faster - even run?:
- actually meet friendly people doing similar activities
- need to increase route due to speed increase
- need to change route due do getting bored
- weather, need to adjust to cold/warm rain/snow
- injuries - can happen
- overexcercising
- getting greedy in attaining higher heartrates
etc.
Takes one hour/day and it's self-perpetuating/addictive after about 1 month i. e. gives so much juice to one's live that one does not want to stop.
I am on it for over a year now and think the actual challenge is to integrate the routine into one's life - midnight or early morning and to get over the first month to feel the boost.
Interesting side-effect: My aim at the waste basket surprisingly got much better.
eof.
Dealing with lawyers would be a lot less tedious if they all looked like Casey Novak.
Although home workouts can be done, and done well - in my (experienced) opinion, it's often better to get yourself down to the gym. I've always found that when I train at home, I eventually lack the motivation to carry on working out at home, but if I joined a gym - I'd feel I should go there because I'm actually paying for it. Also, once down there, I'd feel that I had to actually get a decent workout to make the commute worthwhile.
:P
You'd be surprised how easy it is to find a good local gym, without all the muscle heads screwing up the atmosphere these days, and you'd be surprised how effective a good 30 to 45 minute workout is during a lunch break, provided it's done maybe three or so times a week (provided you can't make the gym after work).
However, as you said that making it to the gym isn't exactly your cup of tea, a good website is:
http://fitness.scoobysworkshop.com/
I can honestly clarify that Scooby does provide some good information, and provided you study the technique and take the time to do some good reading, you should understand the proper concepts and technique - which after all matter most. Also, I'm not trying to wein you into becoming a body builder, I'm just saying that more muscle really does help. Not just socially, and mentally - but the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn doing nothing at all!
I'm just as much of a geek as any other guy, but I'm also a qualified fitness instructor and personal trainer - so I know how to stay fit. Good luck.
-Lynx
Just get a treadmill and do two or three miles a night, every night. Don't skip days. You need at least thirty minutes of exercise a day. Take some vitamins, and eat something every couple of hours (not a full course meal.
There is no real need to go out at all as long as you get stay active and eat consistently and in moderation. Try to avoid the obvious pig-out foods like pizza or cheetos.
You will lose weight over a long period of time, so don't expect spectacular losses. If you lose a pound a month you'll be doing fine and in a year you'll have lost quit a bit.
My two cents.
The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY
...I was looking for the Shotokan (S.K.A.) practice session. I saw a bunch of people warming up in a a very familiar way...but they had coloured belts, so I thought, "Nope...J.K.F. or some other Shotokan group."
Next, I saw some guys in gis, and only black, brown, and white belts...but then I saw that their moves were kind of slinky....hmmm, Kyokushin, Oyama's people.
Next, a big group repeatedly kicking at shoulder-height or higher, coloured belts. Tae-kwon doh. Another bunch of people kicking at shoulder height...Tai Kwon Do? Some people in gis I couldn't place _at_all_. Some Chinese practitioners, I think they were Wutang.
Finally, I found my group...but before then, I thought, "There's something about M.I.T. that makes you want to put on a costume and KICK THINGS."
(Next: Back at Caltech, watching veteran and inveterate dopers and acid heads come back to practice after a few years, looking pleased and desperate.)
Gyms can be intimidating, but they are much better late at night. Way less crowded and with a group that is pretty focused.
Find someone who wants to get in shape, a 24 hour fitness, and hit the gym 2-3 times a week. The most important thing is going regularly, even more important than what you do when you get there.
According to my high school biology teacher, this is true. Muscle cells are rich in mitochondria, which constantly consume "food" to create energy -- hence, burning calories. Weight training leads to more muscle cells. More muscle cells leads to more mitochondria. See where I'm going? (Disclaimer: I'm no scientist. Well, a computer scientist. But that doesn't apply here.)
Parkour. Most exercises require only an urban landscape and a minimum of equipment.
First off, it is good to keep in mind that men's bodies are programmed to do that as they get older (look at most men over 40). Dieting and exercise routines are one thing but what you really need to do for long-term and sustainable body change is to look at your whole lifestyle.
Rather than trying to force yourself to go to the gym 3 times a week, get involved in something that you have an interest in that involves physical activity. Ballroom dance/Swing dance/Tango dance is amazing for this. You get to meet people in an environment where the goal is not just to socialize like at a bar or something, your are being very physically active but not in a way that will tire you out, I promise it will invigorate you. On top of that, it will improve your posture and self-confidence. Who knows, you might even make some really great friends! I used to teach it and let me assure you that there are plenty of geekier sorts there (I swear half the men are engineers and 25% are computer programmers). Walking to work, around downtown, to get the groceries, walking the dog for at least 30 minutes twice-a-day, etc. are good ideas. Don't make it a chore though, consider your daily lifestyle in such a way that you are active without "having to make an effort". If it is a struggle, you will give up eventually.
Audio books at the gym definitely help for spending time on the treadmill. There are loads of science fiction and fantasy books on mp3/cd and it is a perfect opportunity to go through classics that you don't have time to sit down and read.
Finally, think about your diet. Cutting down the amount of meat and dairy in your daily diet will work wonders. Eat lots of fresh produce and fruit, avoid things loaded with saturated fat. Try getting into pizzas without cheese on top (they are delicious). Find snack foods that you love, like cashews, almonds, dried cranberries, raisons, carrots, etc. and replace your less body-friendly snacks with them. If you don't cook much, try cooking more at home, it can be amazing fun (and intellectually stimulating too) and a way to really embrace healthier eating into your lifestyle.
Finally, although I know you don't want to exercise in front of others, joining a casual club that gets together once a week to play frisbee, go biking, walking, golf, tenis, etc. can be a great way to be physical without forcing yourself too.
Good luck, remember that you aren't alone and you can learn what not to do by watching other folks going through the same thing!
A more heavily muscled person doesn't burn any more calories at rest.
As a Certified Personal Trainer I can tell you that an increase in your lean body mass (LBM) does increase your metabolism. Just look at the formulas for calculating Basal Metabolic Rate.
I got a dog. He likes introverts and gets my heartrate up. Plus he indirectly socializes me, at the dog park. Who knew!?!
Nobody is really looking at skinny/flabby geeks. They are all looking at the hot chicks. The most serious people at the gym (the ones getting the results) are introverts too, at least for those few hours each week, and would prefer to be left alone while they train.
7 or 8 years ago when I was in your position (self conscious about exercising) I decided that it was time to do something about my physical state. I found a gym that was affiliated with our local university hospital system (it was the cleanest of the 3 or 4 I looked at in my price range). I made an appointment with a trainer, learned a few exercises, and then began to go during off hours. I consider the gym membership to be one of my most worthwhile expenditures. Having that membership is encouragement to go, and gets me access to equipment that might not otherwise be available (e.g. power rack, a shitload of plates, dumbbells in a much wider range than practical for home, and so on.)
Once you have pushed yourself into a routine, make a point of lifting heavy weights and eating real food (100 calories portions of junk food are still 100 calories of crap). Go easy at first. After a few months, switch said routine (google WSFSB). Don't be intimidated by new exercises and barbells and assorted machines. Watch other people, and if you have to, ask a staff member for instruction. Stick to compound exercises. The thigh abductor/adductor machine is for chicks wearing spandex.
Finally, go have a look at t-nation.com. Skip the forums and just read the articles for now. Get a thicker skin if you are going to read the forums.
The progress that comes with even just 6 months of decent gym time will absolutely change your life for the better. (Yes, you have to keep going.) Read up, lift heavy, eat real food, improve physique, become more self confident.
--
Actually, each pound of muscle you pack on burns about another 50 calories per day. Pack on ten pounds of muscle, and burning up to another 500 calories per day can *really* help cut the weight, if you combine it with other exercise.
Few people that I've known have lost weight with either weights or cardio alone - but of those I know who have combined the two, every single one has lost considerable weight.
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
There is another healing martial art that you can lose weight with. Kimoodo is much simpler than Tai-Chi and can be done sitting or standing. I have some paralyzed folks that do quite well. The founder started off paralyzed from the hips down from pain. I have lot 179 lbs in less than a year. You will sweat! http://www.kimoodo.com/ Disclosure is that I take classes from the man and work on his computers, but that pays for the classes :).
[from http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141278&cid=11855885 ]
Mail order for $800.00 from Concept II [concept2.com]
Rowing is low-impact, aerobic, and you can start
as slowly as you like. 30 mins a day while you
listen to the radio, watch TV, or just ponder your
latest bug.
The unit I mentioned above is suitable for
beginners through elite athletes.
Definite nerd appeal with a USB connection and
a wireless heart monitor. Lots of builtin
stats and uses a plug-in memory card.
Regenerative power means a D-cell lasts years.
I'm on my 2nd rowing machine (the first was
a competitor but it did last a dozen years
and thousands of kms). I'm about to hit 1000
km on this one.
No other $800 piece of exercise equipment will
dissipate enough energy (without self-destructing)
to give you a decent workout. You'd have to
drop more than $3K to get a treadmill anywhere
neare as durable. And getting on your feet to
walk/run requires a lot more motivation than
sitting down on the rower.
Well things didn't go even remotely as planned. I intended to go out in the afternoon and return late in the evening, But I forgot a cable necessary to attach my large 2nd battery to the bike light, and didn't realize this until after I'd passed the commit point for returning with usable light. So it was long haul for the weekend, or try to drive many miles on a very dark bicycle trail cross-country with NO light.
Was one of those "murphy's rules" weekends too. The destination had recently flooded badly so there were NO vacancies at any hotels, I didn't bring my cell phone, (my bad) and my palm pilot decided to sync the wrong way last time so I lacked current numbers/addresses. The entire ride was full of almost-deal-breakers the entire time, but nothing catastrophic. Not even a flat. Overkill on the food and drink packed too. Arrived at the lot and was hit with a sudden severe thunderstorm before I could drive the short distance to my house too. Only reason I found my friend's place was I happened to mark his house on my GPS last visit. (and even that I had to use my spare batteries, thank god I don't pack light)
What a weekend...
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Find a social sport. It's a lot easier to get exercise if you can tweak your competitive spirit and hang around with other people.
e.g. I know someone in her late 30s who recently took up ultimate frisbee. She lost a lot of weight and is loving it.
(sports that involve running around are best. e.g. touch rugby, soccer, netball, ultimate -- I'm not sure what the sporting landscape is like in your part of the world)
Repton.
They say that only an experienced wizard can do the tengu shuffle.
There are few people around my office with desks where they stand all day. I have no idea how much this helps, but I've got to think it's better than sitting on your bum all day.
I just recently started cycling regularly. Cycling and computers go together very well. I have a computer on my bike! There are also lots of biking websites to plan out your routes and log your distances.
Three simple tips: 1. use a bike to get to meetings, go to the store 2. have weights in your office and use them while programs compile, during conference calls etc. 3. walk to get lunch every day. Why this combination? Weights grow larger muscles. Larger muscles need more calories so your base metabolic rate goes higher and burns more calories on a daily basis. The stronger muscles help avoid injuries if you go skiing, snowboarding etc. I use to be a world cup mountain bike racer before immersing myself in high tech. It just about killed me the first 3 years. Find balance - be happy - live longer and healthier.
"Question everything, including this!" - http://technoracle.blogspot.com/
I don't know why that would be offtopic. It certainly can build up a sweat and burn calories - which is generally the reason why people want to exercise, isn't it?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Seems to work for xkcd guy
Smoking accelerates your metabolism, stimulates your brain and can be done without leaving the monitor. What else can a geek wish for?
Yoga (hire a tutor if you want) and Plyo can easily be done in the home.
Most people don't need free weights, they are all the weight they need. See here for specific exercises and examples.
Start with the Sun Salutations (lots of youtube links, but be sure an actual instructor sees you do it before you begin your practice). Flexibility and range of motion is important. Relax into the stretch, don't actively stretch. Learn to breathe (yeah, I know, sounds dumb, but most people do it wrong... diaphramatic breathing aides in relaxation among other things, and is more efficient). Move on to (any of a dozen different kinds of) pushups, canoe/reverse canoe, one-legged squats, wall sits. Start walking in the morning before your shower.
Change it up. Your body adapts really quickly to stress loads it has experienced before. The hardest part about working out isn't exertion, it's figuring out what to do and how to do it.
Also, before you start trying to get ripped by maxing out and doing pyramids, keep in mind that time under tension is far more important than percent of maximal effort, and you can efficiently tear muscle down with less injury risk just by dropping the weight and increasing the rep duration.
Supplements are a waste of money. The correct diet is safer and far more efficient. Don't overdo the protein grams. Most people get too much protein as it is (and not nearly enough fiber, dark leafy greens and good fats).
Also, give the Shangri-la diet a try. It worked for me.
I actually have rigged up a PVC pipe frame on my wife's elliptical machine, so I can put a board up, and set my laptop on it, then commence WoW! Not only does it help with the repetition of doing daily quests, but it quickly passes the time where I might find myself walking on it for 90 minutes or more, and not even realize it. I can now balance myself well enough that I've healed a few 5-man instances while doing it. That's how this geek gets his exercise. I can post an URL with the pictures of said elliptical if anyone responds to this post with interest.
cosin() is more fun than sin()...
Aside from the stupid name, it seems to be a decent workout, and the 14 minute strategy is pure genius. Given the number of people claiming success on the forums, it might be worth a shot.
Worst case,at least you end up owning a sledgehammer.
I quit the George Jetson life-style. After years of sitting in front of monitors pushing buttons and eating Chinese for lunch I got my 5'4" self to 200lbs; the only heavy lifting I did was racking routers and severs every-so-often.
Now (since I have my mortgage paid off) I don't have to make the six-figures and took a blue-collar job installing DirecTV systems. It's still kind of geeky and requires good trouble-shooting skills so my mind is still active. But no more pagers off-hours, no budget forecasts, no longer am I the only one that can take care of a problem (we have about 100 I&R techs in my shop.) Hauling ass all day with ladders, dishes and cable outside in the weather (Puget Sound rain), training customers on how to use their TV, each job is a new challenge. And I've lost 30lbs in the last year and don't get winded ever.
All I'm saying is that it's worked out great for me. I interact with new people everyday, have a nice ladder-van to take home that is full of RF toys, have a great excuse to buy "tools" and am actually damn happy most of the time. I may be tired when I get home but my home-life is great now that I don't bring the job home with me.
Hell, cheap beer is even starting to taste good!
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
Getting out in the Big Blue Room is always a good idea. If you drive to work, don't park right next to the entrance to your building; park a bit out where you have to walk a ways, both morning and evening. If you don't work too high up, use the stairs, not the elevator. On weekends, get in the habit of going for a walk, at least once a week, if not twice. You don't have to go a long distance, especially at first, but try to work up until you're going a mile or two at a time. It's not hard, and in good weather it can be very pleasant, but it helps you keep in shape and burns off some extra calories. For that matter, if you don't live that far from the market, walk there and back instead of driving. After a month or so of this, you'll wonder why you weren't doing this years ago.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
Put a treadmill in front of your computer instead of a chair. The Masai have a high fat, high protein diet just like North Americans but they don't get heart disease as a result. The recently discovered reason is that they walk and stay on their feet all the time. No word on their fix for fallen arches though.
eight ball and a hooker every weekend.
"You can kill the revolutionary, but you can't kill the revolution."-- Fred Hampton
I'm not sure how geeks do it, but hackers do it by following the hacker diet of course:
Hacker's Diet
Complete with exercise routines!
While you can get by at home with just free weights and body exercises, there are certain muscle groups where you will have to resort to funky positions and additional effort if you don't have machines.
Yea, I don't like "public exercising" much either. But if you have a flexi schedule, you can pretty much have the gym to yourself at non-peak hours on work days; most people only get in after work or during the weekends.
Choosing a gym
http://life.familyeducation.com/exercise/fitness/35978.html
C'mon out ya'll! Got plenty to get you in shape!
Cutting and hauling wood...
Shoveling and stacking manure...
Digging in the garden...
Chopping and burning weeds...
Clearing path thru brush...
Repairing barns and fences...
Iffen you git around all of that, we'll come up with something more!
I was starting to encounter similar problems a year or three ago, and I'm also pretty introverted. More than that, I got sick of the wasted hour spent getting to the gym, back again, and getting changed before and after.
So I hired myself a stationary exercise bike -- I go pretty hard (HR 160) for 40 minutes, 3 times a week, generally in the mornings (apparently makes it easier to get into fat-burning time). I was doing 5 times a week when I was wanting to actively lose weight. I'm guessing that 3 times a week will do for maintenance.
Beyond helping my weight and self-esteem and suchlike things, it means I actually feel healthier, get sick less, recover from nights of drinking better, and sleep better. Highly recommended.
I hire the bike I've got, as I tend to sweat a lot, and salt's pretty corrosive in the long term. After I wear this bike out, I'll just get the rental people to replace it. You could just buy one, but which ever way you go, make sure you physically try it out first -- don't just buy online.
Learn about interval training and start doing it. Bike, run, whatever. Once you get used to it, really push yourself. Running at the same speed for an hour burns lots of calories, but doesn't increase your aerobic capacity much. Interval training does, and in doing so sets the stage for future weight loss. It's not much fun, but if you work hard, it will give you the best results.
Push ups and sit ups are good (and can be used as your active rest phase during interval training) but if you want to add muscle, you need to do resistance training. Focus on exercises that work large muscle groups, like squats, bench presses, dead lifts, and pull-ups. Get a personal trainer for an hour to show you how to do them properly.
Also, you're probably not eating often enough. Try to get 5 smaller meals per day, rather than 3 (or even worse, 2) big ones. Going without eating sends your metabolism down.
Most of the time I don't have the luxury of just getting out of the house/office. And being an introvert, I'm not enamored of the idea of exercising in full view of *shudder* people.
Do any Slashdotters have a regular workout routine that can be performed in the privacy of the home to stave off those pounds?
Restricting your workouts to the privacy of your home severely limits your good aerobic options unless you have the space and money for a treadmill or stationary bike which you might stop using a year from now. If you go that route, I'd start with Consumer Reports. If you're an American with a local library card, you can probably search and read CR articles at your library's web site.
I can understand being a bit self-conscious when exercising. I can also relate to not having the luxury/time/means to commute to a gym or other workout location. That's why I jog (not run) almost every day starting from the front door of my home.
During the winter months, I almost always jog in the dark because there aren't many hours of daylight, but I guess this can also work for introverts who don't like exercising in front of other people. The two main reasons I went from 170+ lbs to my current range of 135-145 (maintained for at least 5 years) are: (1) I stopped trying to run like I was training for competition, and (2) I stopped limiting my workout times to specific times of the day. I used to occasionally jog around midnight during my college days.
Get a hat to hide your head, find a reasonably well-lighted 45-65 minute jogging route near your home, maybe get a head lamp. For early morning jogs, try some cheap lightweight exercise sunglasses.
TO START
PRESS ANY KEY
Where's the 'ANY' key? I see Esk, Kitarl, and Pig-Up...
Some things I've found:
- Find forms of exercise you enjoy, because if you're bored or not engaged by it, it's hard to stick to it.
- Many geeks have had a life-long aversion to the "jocks", and don't want to go to the gym, or play organized sports with them. So... don't. Exercise with your geek friends. Bike. Play Ultimate Frisbee or go disc golfing, hike, whatever. Start a nerd soccer league.
I played soccer for years in an adult recreational coed league, and had a blast with it, until my knees couldn't take it any more. Now I bike with friends, and do some of the other things above.
IMHO, bikes are a great geek exercise tool. They can be fun to geek out with gadgets, to tinker with if you want to, it's fun & easy to ride with your geek friends and talk about coding, or the latest games, or debate who's the better captain, Kirk or Picard. And as an aside, they can keep you in shape, and work as cheap transportation.
Check articles (videos) on http://www.rosstraining.com/ and forums. If you find useful you can buy his Never Gymless, which covers mostly bodyweight exercises. If you are interested in a bit older free books check http://www.sandowplus.co.uk/
It doesn't, in my case. I used to do a lot of it, but decided that the life extension and health benefits weren't worth the nausea, dizziness, and depression that inevitably came with exercise, as well as the horrible feeling of wet skin.
Fasting is easier.
I rock climb. My clients seem horrified or amazed at it, but I pull down rock like a mean SoB. It's mentally challenging, as each new problem has a unique solution, it's social but geeky (few people do it, lots of esoteric gear), and I get great exercise. I've been injured for the last year, though, so I run now, sometimes kayak. Climbing's for me, though. All that being outside in the fresh air with a good buddy or two? Sounds fratboy-ish, but with a physics teacher as a climbing partner we never run out of things to talk about.
-
I have a health condition that makes it extremely difficult and stressful for me to leave the house to exercise... I do enjoy a good cardio workout, and was feeling quite unhappy about being unable to engage in a regular routinized exercise session that I enjoyed (because aerobics, yoga, pilates, etc. tapes just aren't that much fun to me), so I decided to see what the hype was about last Christmas and I picked up a DDR game.
Now I'm an avid DDRer, and I must say that it can be a fantastic workout, especially if you play doubles (i.e. two mats) as you move your centre of gravity much more often, and if you work yourself up to the harder levels, which get you moving faster. I can burn an estimated 1000 calories per session, and those sessions just fly by because I'm really enjoying myself. You don't only see your improvement in the game, but the improvement in your appearance, too. My stomach is trim now, and I have that nice abdominal V that some fit people get.
If you haven't tried DDR, I highly recommend it. Get a PS2 game, get a couple cheap mats, and give it a go. If DDR isn't your cup of tea, find an exercise routine that you can do at home that you enjoy so that you actually feel inclined to do it more than a few times. You'll never keep up a regime that bores, intimidates, or embarrasses you.
Exercise? You're new here, right?
I just went for a 15 minute run. 3.2km. Using a laptop carrier like RMS you don't *need* to stop working! lol.
Realistically though, I'm fit for a geek. My BMI is 20.2 (despite that not mattering for shit).
Get some anklets and weighted bracelets and wear them around the office.
Seems like a suitable tag for the article. If not, you can lose calories while chasing me down to beat me with your keyboards.
Maintaining muscle mass is a significant energy expenditure, about 50 calories per pound of muscle per day. For comparison, running for half an hour burns about 350 calories. It's certainly possible to lose fat through aerobic workouts alone, but it's not as efficient as doing a mixture of aerobic and anaerobic workouts.
Set some goals. For instance, tell yourself you want to work up to 500m, or 10 laps in the pool, without rest. Don't worry that you can only do one or two right away. Shoot for 5k run, and again, don't worry if all you can do is alternatively walk for 5 minutes and run for 1 minute. Pretty soon you'll adapt, be eating like ten people, and feeling dead tired all the time. That, too, will pass =) Oh, and try to push yourself in other ways. I'm an introvert too, but the benefits of having a workout partner can't be overstated. Barring that, start a work-out journal and document your progress, even if the entries read "Too lazy to go out in the rain." =)
The best way I can conceive is to use one of these fixed bikes providing electricity (Ragonots,they are called here) as a power supply for your PC. In that way the more tou are in front of your PC, the more exercise you get in order to use it. I strongly suggest you use it coupled to a good UPS. Things should now stay at complete equilibrium :-)
Signature omitted in order to save space. Thanks for your understanding.
Being a geek and keeping your weight under control can be a HUGE pain. I started at 440 lbs and finally got down to 300 before bouncing back up to 360... and now heading back down. It takes a lot of work, but there's a method to the madness. Check out the podcast over at www.geekfit.com.
Steven "xinu" Klassen http://www.xinu.org/ http://www.geekfit.com/ (podcast)
do kung fu
When you can use a jet-pack:
http://entertainment.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/29/1929201
and become "Rocketeer..."? The most seriously introverted (having no warm-blooded or cold-blooded biped/quadraped companion) can become "cockateers"...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0135216/
Subtitles, supposedly, at:
http://www.mysubtitles.com/movie/cockateer-the_79672.html
(No, i have not seen it... yet or otherwise..)
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
You are completely wrong.
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1827342,00.html?cnn=yes
Even 30 minutes does almost nothing.
Weight lifting is much better than aerobics. It actually gives you cardiovascular benefits like aerobics does, plus a few:
- Muscle burns fat even when you're not using it, where fat just sits there doing nothing at all. Your basal metabolic rate increases when you build muscle.
- Everything you do, EVERYTHING depends on muscle, having more makes all of it easier.
Those exercises are not for beginners, though. If you aren't already in pretty good shape, two of them are outright dangerous: the bridge will wreck your neck, and squats with the heels coming up will wreck your knees. And even if you're in good shape, I've never met either a qualified doctor, physio or professional sports coach who advocates bridging, because of the risk of neck injury.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
My routine:
- Lift weights once a week for 2.5 hours
- Trail run every other weekend or so
- Racquetball once a week or so
Honestly, attending the gym isn't all that bad. When people are at the gym, they are attuned to their body and not the bodies of those around them. After one attends a gym for perhaps a week's worth of sessions one realizes that there is a surprisingly great sense of anonymity and privacy involved.
Trail running is nice, primarily because it is quieter (no cars), less smelly (no cars), and better on the joints (soft running surfaces). It's a good mood elevator for me as well as it allows me to enter an undistracted and introspective state that I find very healing.
Racquetball is great because of its three-dimensionality and demand for great mental concentration. I find that it helps attune my reflexes and sharpen my awareness of my environment and body. Sitting sessile all day tends to make one become static and slug-brained.
If I may impart some anecdotal evidence of what the parent described:
// Lost Weight // Gain Weight
I weighed 225lbs with a 36" waist @5' 7.5". I joined a gym and I worked out for 8 months there (through early Fall and through late Spring). My legs were already massively muscular; but, my arms are disproportionately sized WRT my lower frame. So I spent a lot of time on the stair master for aerobic activity and of course hit the weights to increase my arms' diameter. I was able to curl about 70lbs with each arm before I quit. I mixed it up so as not to enter a rut so quickly, too. My arms got strong but never big - that is, the increase in size wasn't that much.
I lost no weight at all.
Not being a terribly social person anyway, I grew bored of all the hotties being too hot to, gasp, look in their general direction nor could I stand every guy in the place trying to size you up or being aggressive to impress the ladies. So I quit - I wasn't having any fun anyway.
So, I went back to mountain biking - I lost 27 lbs in two months and I thoroughly enjoyed myself! I never looked or felt better about my own self image. I've stuck to biking ever since and have never regretted the decision. The people you meet biking are the most interesting, intelligent and easy-to-get-along-with people I've ever met.
Now, time to be a hypocrite: STOP DRINKING COLA PRODUCTS - I'm sure that factored in there a lot, too.
Just remember: If you're trying to lose weight you must ensure that energy spent grossly outweighs energy consumed.
Here:
If(CaloriesConsumed < CaloriesSpent)
--m_weight;
else if(CaloriesConsumed > CaloriesSpent)
++m_weight;
else
__noop(m_weight);
And you've got to keep this up for a long period of time - hopefully, for your entire life (exercise, that is).
Seriously. I play COD4 - mostly Search and Destroy. A typical round lasts 5 minutes and I'm alive for an average of, ohh, maybe 1 minute per round. That leaves 4 minutes/round of sitting and specing other players.....or doing push-ups, sit-ups, lunges, jumping-jacks while I'm waiting for the next round to start.
In an hour long gaming session I can get in about 200 push-ups, 50 pull-ups, 100 leg-lifts, 50 lunges. Do it after dinner when you're winding down for the night to help burn off those extra calories. No equipment required, no people around.
That said, get a bike and ride instead of drive when you can. Save some money on gas too!
-KB
Squash is the greatest sport in the world (no exceptions) and possibly one of the highest calorie burning. (Badminton is similar). You're also stuck in a closed-off room so only your opponent can see you haul your arse around. But really, who gives a stuff what people think. It's also terrific fun bashing the crap out of that little black ball, and you'll soon forget that you're exercising. There's no better motivation than trying to beat a friend : )
Don't bother with racquetball, that's for clueless Americans who don't know any better.
If you want to walk/jog, try taking up Geocaching. Gets you outdoors and there's hundreds of interesting caches out there.
... resistance training (multiple sets of situps, pushups, crunches, bicycle crunches, bench/military presses, etc.) followed by cardio (interval training on a real bike mounted on a trainer), not the other way around. This basically guarantees that your muscles will be toned but will not bulk up plus your metabolism rate will increase so you continue burning calories even while inactive. I do this 2 times a week indoors... the other 2 or 3 times I either cycle to work or participate in a group bike ride.
Another key to losing weight is to sleep at night feeling a little hungry.
I second that. I work out at a gym (and also teach there.) The group is incredibly supportive - we know who's on vacation, and who's screwing off. And we pester each other to show up - and to make sure everyone is OK, doing fine, etc. If you don't show up for a few days, someone will call or email you to make sure you're OK.
Oh, and just a handful are true athletes. The rest of us are pilsbury doughboys - but that doesn't stop us from having fun.
do you have stairs? run up and down them in intervals.
do you have a backpack? fill it with books or anything heavy and use it as a weight to lift.
increase the number of pushups and situps; google around for core body exercises; when I swam in high school we did a lot of that stuff that involved no weights. If thats not enough wear a backpack full of text books while doing the pushups... another good one is to get a chair and put your feet up on that and then do the pushups (now on an incline/decline depedning on how you look at it) Might involve jumping though. google up some plyometric exercises... or get into tai-bo or something
one of the geeks i work with just got into kick boxing oddly enough and he really likes that.
one thing i have to say as a geek who is a part time jock; is that gym's arent as bad as you might think. I've always found that the quickest way to get respect at a gym isnt by looking like a body builder, or by lifting more than everyone else.
It's by looking like you belong there; that you have a purpose. That you aren't there to relax. If you go there regularly and push yourself you'd be surprised how many people would offer pointers. Like many other things in life, you learn the most hen you have the most to gain, when everyone else is stronger than you.
its a lot of random stuff i realize but thats how i pick up a lot of it; random tid bits here and there; rearrange them to form a good circuit later :-)
"Jazz isn't dead, it just smells funny" ~Frank Zappa
EdelFactor
Try Yoga. It will tone you up mentally and physically.It will regulate the thyroid so that u don't eat more.And you keep up the shape, provided you are consistent. If you have a busy schedule and you believe the gymming will help, put in a mail to Arnold, asking how he manages to a Governor role and gymming together !!!
No, i'm not kidding. Kickboxing training, for example, is very aerobic, and tones your muscles aswell. I've been doing Kick & Thai for years now, and it has done wonders for my health.
Just give it a try. If you find a good teacher, chances are you'll even probably end up liking it :)
You need to no longer do sit-ups. Do crunches, and do about 200-300 per day. Mountain Climbers (look it up).. do about 2-3 minutes. Push-ups.. good for upper body, and continue at about 60 per day. Several kinds of jumping jacks, do as many as you can for about 10 minutes per day. And as we did in football, up-downs, do about 5 minutes per day. You should be sufficiently tired afterwards. Lower your calorie intake, drink LOTS of water and you will increase your metabolism, lose body fat while increasing muscle mass. :-)
If you don't get into the ring, then how do you box? Are we packaging items for shipment to faraway lands?
---- Watch out for snakes!
It all boils down to the fact that you've got to move. Sitting all day destroys your body. After almost three decades of sitting in front of a computer, I decided two years ago to start moving and I can honestly say that despite a few temporary set backs, life just gets better.
Start small if you need to; I started with a fifteen minute walk every day. When things started to get easier I did more. After two years I'm at the point now - though I'm not (yet) the finest example of physical fitness - that CrossFit (www.crossfit.com), strength training (www.startingstrength.com), and rowing (www.concept2.com) are the best tools in my fitness routine. You gotta change things up regularly if you find yourself bored.
The key is to move. Do new things all the time. Challenge your body and you challenge your mind.
You'll find that living life upright is much more enjoyable than life sitting down.
-Fred.
I went to my local pool wearing roller blades, on a bicycle... and they would not let me in the pool. What gives?
Pick up fork
add weight to fork (I prefer steak myself)
raise to mouth
repeat.
I am 6'2" tall an this routine has kept me at 170lbs for the past 16 years.
Oh hell. Ignore above link.
http://hundredpushups.com/
---- Liquid was a patriot ----
Might not tone your muscles, but it'll keep the weight down.
Stasis is death. Embrace change.
Years of sitting at a desk have screwed up my L5-S1 disc, which in addition to my L3-L4 have now herniated and caused a month of excruciating pain. A number of things relevant to this thread contributed to this: Sitting at a desk all day Poor posture Choosing the wrong exercises at the gym Being about 20 lbs overweight. Going through physical therapy taught me a fair number of core exercises which in addition to helping me lose an inch or so around the middle, have strengthed all my ab and lower back muscles including the core ones the machines and traditional situps don't touch. I've since purchased a Swiss ball to do core exercises at home to keep my core toned. You would be amazed how much that alone will do for your health and your back. Oh, and get up from the desk every once in a while.
I used Robert Ullery's 9 week running program podcasts to start running again. They're great because although the music is a bit cheesy, they increase very gradually and tell you the intervals of walking/running to help you get started.
Its = possessive. It's = "it is"
Become a Ninja - you're not meant to be seen by people, so that could work out well...
I'd suggest kettlebells. 20-30 minutes of actual work 2-3 times a week will work wonders. He'll build whole body strength, increase flexibilty, and burn that wonderful Geek lifestyle paunch right off of him! Yoga is excellent as well. I attend Hot Yoga regularly, and the people are friendly but subdued. The women are hot, and the amount of interaction in the studio is limited. The health benefits are amazing. And of course, there's cardio and hiking! Getting out on a trail and meeting folks 1 or 2 at a time is a great way to get some activity and sun, thus hiding the Geek's true nature....
I saw one of these at The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. It was in the smart house exhibit. They said that biking for 20 minutes will power a T.V. for 30 minutes. http://www.scienceshareware.com/bike-generator-using-a-car-alternator.htm http://www.msichicago.org/whats-here/exhibits/smart-home/
Very carefully.
Why are you so worried about being in front of people? Seriously, go to the gym and look around. Chances are, you aren't the worst looking guy there. And even if you are...who cares? Do you honestly give a crap about what any of the other people there look like? Do you think they care what you look like? Of course they don't.
Now then, all this stuff about Wii Sports and DDR? Come on, do you want to play a game or do you want to get in shape? We're geeks, which means we value specialized knowledge and correctly applying appropriate tools to accomplish a goal in an efficient manner. There's nothing that's going to get you in shape better than cardio exercises and weight training. Cardio because it burns calories (and fat), and weight training because it makes your muscles toned and increases muscle mass, and muscles (which require more blood and oxygen than fat) burns fat.
My gym has this great feature called "The Line." They have 8 or 10 machines all in a row that give you a full general body workout. You have a card that records all your machine settings and weights. You give the card to one of the staff members, and they go down the line setting up all the machines for you. You can do the complete line in 20-30 minutes and get a good general strength workout. Are you going to get huge? No, but that's not the point. "Toned" is fine.
So, Monday-Wednesday-Friday, go to the gym for 1 hour. Do 30 minutes of cardio on a low-impact machine, like a stationary bike. My gym has the bikes with TVs attached to them, so I time my workouts so I can watch The Colbert Report while cycling. Then I do the line. The cool thing about the card system is you get to see your reps and weights going up every time. Basically, if you get more than 12 reps, the staff ups your weight for next time. Relevant xkcd
On the off days, run in your own neighborhood. Don't run every day, because high-impact exercises like running can cause bone loss if you do them too often. So alternate. Regardless, do that for 2 weeks and you'll start seeing results, and then it's just a positive feedback loop. You're doing it right, you're doing it efficiently, the results are obvious as your weights go up and your times to run a mile decrease (tonight I ran 3 miles in 27 minutes).
Just sayin'...man up and do it. You can spare an hour a day to stay healthy.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3TJRpbVmqg
THINK! It's not illegal yet!
I've done T-TAPP for the past 9 months in the privacy of my own home and it's done wonders. It's an innovative isometric workout for the whole body by Theresa Tapp that's easy and very effective, requiring no equipment whatsoever.
For the first six months, my workout consisted of 15 minutes a day, 5 days every week (2 days off). Lately, I've upped two of those days to her 50 minute routine (which will crush anyone who is new to T-TAPP, I don't care what else you've been doing). You'll end up working muscles that you didn't even realize you had.
Bottom line, I've lost a bunch of weight and look like I've been lifting weights for all that time. I don't have numbers, as I don't watch the scale, but I've dropped about a waist size and a half.
Oh, and it's important to mind the food, too. It's hard to lose weight without a healthy diet.
I've also been doing a sort of Southbeach program for almost a year, which I've found works fairly well. I'd strongly recommend some low-carb solution (Atkins is okay, but fairly impractical, in my experience).
The combination of religiously doing T-TAPP workouts and eating a low-carb diet has been tremendous. I'd highly recommend it to anyone.
Find something you enjoy doing and enjoy it, and you'll do it. As long as you think of exercise as a chore you'll never be motivated to do it. It shouldn't be like flossing your teeth or taking out the trash.
Myself, I bicycle. I rode 4,000 miles in 2007 and loved every minute of it. I ride with the local club and go on group rides. I'm 42 and this year I am the fastest I have ever been and am finally able to ride fast enough to keep up (barely) with the "fast" speed groups.
If there's no form of sport or exercise you can find that you like, then the least you can do is approach weight loss in geeky fashion and check out http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/www/hackdiet.html "The Hacker's Diet."
Garbage in, Garbage out.
All that said, it really is best to find some sort of good aerobic exercise you enjoy, an hour a day, every other day at least. It helps manage weight, kills depression, clears your mind, increases self confidence. Yes, all that. ...and I -am- a geek.
-- I am. Therefore, I think!
I have just started getting into a nice routine of using 10 lb ankle weights at work, in front of a computer so I do leg lifts and it makes getting lunch work, and playing a weekly game of Airsoft in the woods for hours. That and nightly crunches, I have been seeing some good results.
If techs didn't disagree with each other, then Microsoft would rule the world.
You will find it difficult or impossible to lower your weight by excercising. Our bodies just dont work that way .. All your 'pressup's etc probably equate to the calories in a single piece of bread.
You gain weight cuz of many factors: the most important is that you eat more than your body need; it is also likely that you eat the wrong foods.
Note that its taken years for your to get into this 'lack of shape'..
so why not take an equally gradual change in lifestyle, to counter and even reverse the gains? Eg, eliminating butter, a single item, could. over years completely bring you back to your previous weight.
"Portion Control" seems to be the 'trick' these days ... DONT EAT UNTIL YOIU FEEL STUFFED! and DONT SNACK ON WORTHLESS HIGH-CALORIE JUNK FOODS!
then: be PATIENT .. weigh yourself no more often than ever few weeks, at teh same time of day, say upon wakening.
Such simple changes can work wonders without inconveniencing you to the point where you give up the program!
It's worked wonders for me .. its taken over a year to lose 35 lbs.
tkjtkj, md
"There are 11 kinds of people: those who know binary, those who don't, and those who could not care less!"
I had the exact same problem almost a year ago. Since then I have lost 30-40 pounds by just walking (2 hours a day, 5 days a week) but if you use an elliptical machine you can probably limit this to 30-60 minutes a day and get the same effect. It takes a while, at least 3-4 months to loose all the weight but it is definitely worth while.
Walking is the best way to keep in shape, it's normal to walk unlike jogging/running, doing that for long distances can be pretty hard on you, walking is better for your knees than jogging.
Consistency is important too, even if you can't walk far at least do a bit, even a step or two, just do something!
I went to the gym for years and never progressed much but walking is fantastic I've never been in better shape. Although it's tough to increase muscle mass by walking, you need some light strength training too.
So long as you don't cheat and rise up and then go back down with each step. That ends up watering all the hard work down to nothing. (I've seen a few people claim that taichi was too easy thanks to their cheating.)
At least stay level on bended knee for most of the routine (20-40 mins depending on how fast you go) and you should feel the actual 'training' happening.
In addition to what was quoted above, taichi is a non-impact exercise like swimming, but without the need for a pool of water.
This is pretty much the same thing that a certified personal trainer and fitness competitor told me regarding metabolic rates and calorie burning in aerobic exercise versus weightlifting. She didn't go into the details, but she did say weightlifting burns calories a lot longer than aerobics.
do it one handed
I do weights with dumbbells at home. I exercise at my convenience while listening to the radio or podcasts. Its not that expensive. My "kit":
1) The Great Dumbbell Handbook: The Quick Reference Guide to Dumbbell Exercises. Great book, 4.5 stars on Amazon.
2) A basic weight bench.
3) 2 pairs of dumbbell handles and weights. 2 pairs to have 2 different sets of weight, because you don't want to stop to change weights during your workout.
4) An exercise mat for stretching.
5) A swiss ball for stretches and some exercises.
In Australia, all this cost about $250.
I have a personal trainer 3-5 times a week for an hour, and a ball at home for cardio on the weekends. I found that I didn't get committed until I started spending money for it. It's important to understand your physical and psychological needs to engage in a workout plan.
I have a synthetic aortic valve and ran for a very long time after my second aortic surgery at age 9. I was not allowed to play contact sports for fear of a clot traveling to the valve. By age 12 I had blown a knee. By age 20 I had blown out my back doing physical labor. Now into my 30's I do weight training. My blood pressure maxes out and I reach up into 190 beats per minute for about 45 minutes with 5 minute warmups and 10 minute cooldowns. The cardio that you get from pushing weights is no worse or better than full elliptical cardio if you have the endurance. Your heart doesn't know the difference and you are simply working different muscles more intensely (depending on your routine). I use a large ball to do gravity cardio during the weekends for 30 min/day. The biggest problem with my weight training is a specific diet and routine that must be maintained or I will end up vomiting after the lifting workouts due to decreased bloodflow (synthetic valve) leading to my body reacting to exhaustion as trauma. If you start working out hard enough, your body will react similarly for a time until your nutrition and vascular system catches up.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
I do capoeira, a brazilian martial art. It is a good aerobic workout, and a great (the best, in my opinion) strength workout. Since the art puts a lot of emphasis on maneuvering in small spaces, I can practice on the floor of my lab when I need a break from coding. In my first year I went from being moderately overweight to looking like an athlete, it is really quite effective for getting in shape, because it works your body in every possible way.
As you are probably the analytical sort, you can definitely have a very efficient routine. One thing is everything helps each other - a good diet of food lets you maintain or even lose weight, while still having plenty of carbohydrates to burn during cardiovascular exercise and protein to build muscles in the day or two you take to recover from muscular exercise. Muscular exercise builds muscles which helps burn fat when you do cardiovascular exercise (bigger muscles actually cause a weight gain, but this is a good thing - while people talk about losing weight, what you're really trying to do is lower your BMI - body mass index so that you go from obese/overweight to the normal BMI range).
Most muscle groups have an "opposite" - quadriceps have hamstrings, hip adductors have hip abductors and so forth. You should begin workout routines with your largest muscles and go down to the smallest ones - from largest to smallest it is quadriceps, hamstrings, hip adductors, hip abductors, pectoralis major, latissmus dorsi, deltoids, biceps, triceps, lower back, abdominals and neck. This is because quadriceps are large and need a lot of energy, but abdominals are smaller and don't so you'll have energy to do them.
If you have not done muscle exercises for many weeks (or months, or years) - do not exercise one muscle. Do not exercise just your biceps. Do exercises that use more than one muscle groups. Chest press uses the pecs, the triceps and the deltoids (the anterior deltoid). Leg press uses the hamstrings and the quadriceps. So beginners should begin with exercises that use several muscle groups. Once you've built your muscles up a little (in a few months), you can start concentrating on just your biceps, or just your pecs etc. Also don't kill yourself. You build muscles by TEARING your muscles. You do not want a giant tear, that is an injury. You want small tears that protein will rebuild and which in 2-3 days you can work on (and tear, slightly) again.
You can build a muscle with only 16 exercises a week. And it does not have to be all-out exertion - just 75% of what your body is capable of. More than 100 exercises of a muscle (at 75%+ capablity) a week is unneeded and may even be counterproductive. Meaning only 16-100 repetitions (at 75% maximum capability) are needed a week to build it. The best thing to do is look on the web or in an exercise book for how much a person your age should be able to do for each exercise (chest press, hip adductor, row, leg press etc.) Then get on the machine and do one or two repetitions with 0 pounds (or very little), just to warm up your muscles. Make sure the seat and everything is adjusted to your height. If you're supposed to be able to do an exercise at 50 lbs., start at 30 lbs. or so. See if you can do 8 repetitions of it, with each repetition being 6 seconds - 2 seconds positive (pushing out or up or whatever) and 4 seconds negative (a smooth move of 4 seconds of the weight coming back down, with some muscle resistance against the weight). Eight 6 second repetitions of 1 or more muscles and you are doing muscular exercise. If you can't do 8, start with less weight. If you can do eight keep going. Up to twelve 6 second repetitions is still muscular exercise. If you are able to do 12, then increase the weight in the next set of exercises. Wait a minute or two (or more) between sets to relax your muscles. Form is very important, if you are doing it in a jerky and uneven manner you are not getting a benefit. You usually get more muscle from the 4 second negative/resistance phase of the muscle exercise since pushing out or up is inherently prone to be done in a non-smooth or jerky manner. Usually what I do is do 8-12 reps of the maximum I am able to do 8-1
I think you may have misunderstood the meaning of the word 'introvert'. All it means in simplistic terms is that someone tends to be more relaxed and recharge themselves by getting away from others for a while. This is opposed to extraverts, who tend to be more relaxed when they're surrounded by friends and talking a lot (or some similar variant). Being embarassed to exercise in public, I think, is quite a different thing and I can easily relate to that.
I'm definitely an introvert, but I talk to people easily if I feel I actually have something worthwhile to say, and I get out a lot. I walk 35 minutes to work (down a hill), 45 minutes home (up a hill), and I invested in having some decent rain gear so I can comfortably do this irrespective of the weather, which is an important consideration where I live. Every 2-3 weeks I'll typically spend a Friday and Saturday night out on a weekend hike up or around a mountain somewhere, usually with friends. (I joined a hiking club to get into this properly, since before that none of my friends were really interested.) I guess this is a fortunate benefit I get from where I live and being interested in doing it, but I do it primarily out interest in going to look at places rather than getting exercise.
I have to admit that going to a gym or jogging down the street or generally going out explicitly to exercise doesn't appeal to me at all. Personally I just try to arrange my life around making sure I do enough walking, and the exercise I get is a side effect rather than a conscious effort to stay fit.
Shovelglove is clever, extremely effective, and extraordinarily elegant in its simplicity.
I've been "shugging" for 3 years, off and on. When I'm on, I feel great, I have more energy, more muscle tone, etc. When I don't do it regularly, all of the above gradually go away over a matter of days or weeks.
Once I pick it up again, I'm feeling great within a couple of days.
Go slow at first. You will use muscles you didn't know you had. I recommend starting with an 8# sledge, maybe a 10# if you are already strong. I also got a 16# hammer after about a year of steady shugging. I also use a 4# framing hammer for one-handed moves.
JWL.Freakwitch.net
I was in a similar situation. The first thing I did was try to figure out how to ensure that once I started an exercise routine, I could continue it. It had to be a lifestyle change.
Initially I bought an exercise bike, but later I bought a treadmill. Since I did not want to spend thirty minutes staring at a wall while I ran, I bought a 13 inch flat panel TV and attached it to the wall in front of my treadmill. I attached a DVD player and watch rentals from netflix. Watching something with lots of action makes it easier to push yourself harder.
The most important thing to maintain my routine is that I do my run as soon as I get home from work. I do not let myself get sidetracked on anything else.
I have been following this routine for about 5 years now.
In addition to keeping the weight off, it has really helped with stress levels. I have also found that the days I usually feel worn down and tired after work are the days that I have my best runs.
My estimates are a 380 pound crocodile can get by on about 1000 calories.
So maybe it's not impossible to do what you do, however it means your metabolism must be really efficient for a mammal.
But have you checked your calorie calculations? Or you're leaving something out - like drinks?
Play any 1st person shooter on the Wii. Resident Evil 4 or Metriod Prime 3 are good choices. I'm all over my living room every time I play either game.
If you want to do some exercise that is just way cool become a traceur (a traceur is someone who practices the discipline of parkour). With proper exercise and training you pretty much become an urban ninja. Check out the 3 Doors Down music video "It's Not My Time" and you'll see what a traceur does (check it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHU9dN0Itrk ). I've been training for a few months and love it and yes I am a major geek myself.
A treadmill will provide the aerobic workout required to get the body pushing the calories out. It also stays in your home and, as an added benefit, you can jury-rig it to a generator to recharge your laptop so you can use those calories burned to power your slashdot habit.
Get yourself a recumbent stationary bike and a cheap computer. Put the computer near the bike and you can bike 'n surf. I do it all the time. It's amazing how fast the time flies and it's the perfect geek-er-cise. BTW, I rigged a keyboard holder to the handlebars to make things a little easier.
2. Try getting half a sandwich plus some vegetables for lunch instead of a full sandwich. Note what I said half a sandwhich plus vegetables. The following are NOT vegetables: cheese. Chicken/shrimp/other meat. Dressing. You get a salad with cheese, chicken and french dressing and that is a full meal by itself, not something you can eat with a sandwich. I personally have found that I do NOT miss the other half of the sandwich. As long as I get half a sandwich, I feel full.
3. To lose weight you need an extended light exercise, not short duration heavy stuff. I.E. Aerobic not cardio. Forget about weight training, push ups, sit ups, etc. Try instead:
Jogging/running
rollerblading
Dancing. Yes, DDR does count, but only if...
You need to do these things for a long period of time. A total of 7 hours per week.
Note, do not try walking or bicycling unless you are physically unable to do something stronger. There are lots of overweight people that walk or bicycle, but you never see an overweight serious jogger, runner, or rollerblader. Overweight dancers are sometimes possible but rare.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
One thing I might add - if you're an avid gamer, or a competitive person (if nothing gets you going like a game of Halo, or Starcraft), you might try translating that into a workout. Find a friend, and go play some 1v1 basketball at a court. Race bikes. Something, anything that is competitive. Even if you're bad at the chosen task, if you find it fun, that's all that matters - you'll get better overtime, and you'll get in better shape.
If you're afraid it'll be embarrassing, make sure you try this with close friends - no matter how bad you are, they'll just be happy to see you and be happy to be playing with you. After all, the best part of the this work out is at the end of the day, it's just a game.
Two words... Wii Fit.
I run 40-50 kilometers a week. If you can start, the running high will have you looking forward to your runs. 4 times a week is great.
I lost 25 lbs in two months when I started.
No equipment needed.
nothing is real
I found this to be the best way to get fit and stay fit. You can do all of it at home. One hour a day for 90days.
It was a chance find as well since I do not live in the US, I was staying at a hotel when I saw the ads late at night... I usually do not pay attention to infomercials but it was interesting enough to give it a go. Love it.
Cheers, A
~ ~ ~ ~ I mean - you're a geek no?
This is my setup: A "desk" made from a sort of bookshelf (purchased from Target and Container Store), plus an exercise bike.
Looks a lot like this:
http://www.madsloth.com/Desk/ComputerDesk.jpg
Almost every night, I bike from Harvard to MIT (couple miles), and go play an hour or more of DDR before going back.
I play DDR on doubles (both sides at once), on heavy. It burns a _lot_ of calories.
I've gone from a 36 inch to a 32 inch waist in the past 2 months, and dropped over 40 pounds since I got here. Unfortunately, I'm not trying to - being 6'10" and 170 pounds isn't healthy. It is great exercise, though.
A friend of our gave us his NordicTrak when he and his wife decided they liked a treadmill better. I like the NordicTrak since it's zero impact so there's less chance of injuring my knees. It's also a full body exercise since you use both your arms and your legs. I set it up where I can see the TV and I put in about 15 minutes a day on it plus I walk another mile and a half with the dog. This gives me about three miles of exercise every day. I'll probably bump the time on the NordicTrak to 20 minutes this fall.
I like having the NordicTrak since it means I don't really care whether the weather is good for whatever outdoor exercise I might try instead (walking, running, biking, etc.). Also, since I don't have to go out to a gym, there goes another possible excuse for not exercising. Putting it where I could see the TV means I can workout and watch something so I don't have to give up too much to still fit in a workout. This works even better if I work out first thing in the morning so a little unscheduled overtime doesn't bump the workout either.
Seems to work. I'm not as thin as I was when I was in college thirty years ago but the inseam on my pants is still greater than my waste size (33 x 34) which isn't too bad for an old fart like me (52) who eats and drinks pretty much whatever I want. And, yes, I like good food, good wine and good beer (current favorite is New Belgium's "1554" black ale).
Oh yeah. Lots of coffee to boost my metabolism probably helps. And, yes, fidgeting burns lots of calories.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
My solution to it given IT often has long and somtimes odd hours with various maintenance windows, events, late night coding sessions and what have you is to use my 24/7 gym at off hours. In general, I see 4-5 people acutally in my gym at night, not including myself and one other buddy I go with. So that leaves plenty of space, equipment and stuff for you to do at nights without the mass of folks using the gym like say at 6AM or 5PM time frames. With this huge 60'000 sq ft gym, 4 people is nothing at all and its very comfortable. After all, those that go at 2 or 3 AM in the mornings, tend to mind their own business.
root 10956 5164 0 Oct 22 - 0:23 sendmail: rejecting connections: load average: 70 (isn't sendmail just too kind)
I like running for lots of reasons but here is a few: - I can do it anywhere, just throw on my gear and I'm off. - If I don't have much time, I can run fast for a short period of time. If I have a while I can slow it down and stay out for a while. - With a GPS watch (I use a Garmin Forerunner 305) and some software I can map where I've run, how fast & my heart rate - When I get home I can see when I start to tire and if it was because of hills, etc - This info is perfect if your training for a goal, 5000 meter, 10k, Half-Marathon or THE MARATHON(TM) - Runners are annoying nice people, they wave and wink when you pass and are happy to run with you for a bit. - Chicks dig guys who run marathons...
What is this "exercise" thing I keep on hearing about?
Make SELinux enforcing again!
A 2-week study at a Canadian University (McMasters?) suggested that 6 minutes of very intense exercise was better than 6 hours of moderate/regular exercise. It came froma small sample, but 8 people did 4 each of 30-second sprints, 3 times per week. In two weeks their Aerobic capacity and endurance showed marked increase, and their mitochondria count increased 35% (which is an indicator of the energy-burning capacity of the muscles).
Geriatrics (ages in their 70's and 80's) regained musculature equivalent to persons in their 30's in Florida after exercising for 13 weeks by supporting weights so heavy they could only hold them for 30-60 seconds. (Two programs, "Static Contraction Training" and "Max Contraction Training" resulted from this study.) In the first 13 weeks I used the Max Contraction training, my doctor and I figured out I lost 14 lbs of fat and gained 9 lbs of muscle. I do this program for about 14 minutes a week. (It takes about a week to allow your muscles to recover at this intensity, despite what so-called "Physical Trainers" say about exercising 3 times/wk.) I'm 60 years old and have some joint problems, so it helps that I don't have to move weights repetitiously through a great range of motion.
I walk 1 hour a day 4-5 days a week using a heart rate meter according to a program by Phillip Maffetone in his book,"The Maffetone Method". He trains bicycle racers and super-long-distance runners, so I suspect his program is pretty good. (It seems to work for me.) The end result: My doctor still wants me to lose another 50 lbs (I've lost 30 over the last two years), but my resting heart rate is less than 70, my blood pressure is 110/70, my total cholesterol is usually between 150-170 with real good ratios, blood sugar runs between 105 and 111 over the last two years, and I have lots of energy.
The biggest drain on my energy is carbs. I was on a low fat diet for four years and gained 10 lbs/year. As soon as I started moderating my carbs instead of my fat, my energy levels picked up and I started losing a moderate amount of weight. I've looked at a number of books on the market, and since I can't distinguish one set of superstitions from another, I've resigned myself to sort of following the guidelines in "Protein Power" by Eades and Eades. YMMV. It is important for me to bring healthy lunches to work, avoid the soda and snack machines, and limit the number lunches I go to with the other developers. (For me, the difference between wishing I was fit and getting fit is using some of the talent for focusing I developed for programming, and applying it towards habits that work for my physical success.)
I have my best success when I get into the pattern of exercising early in the morning. I don't do contract work anymore; the Electronic Sweatshop is detrimental to my health, even though the money is good. I take regular breaks from my desk, walk or do Tai Chi during my lunch breaks, and within a couple of weeks I will be biking to work instead of driving. Theoretically, I need to be active 90 minutes a day in order to lose the 50 lbs. When the joint problem gets corrected I will go back to doing martial arts 3 times per week or more, and that ought to do it.
Good luck, and I hope you find something that works for you.
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
Jump rope is highly highly underrated. It is pretty much a total body workout.
Try jump roping for 3 minutes straight - you'll definitely feel like you've just been jogging for about 15-20.
If it becomes to easy - wear some weight. You could probably do it without even buying dumbbells. Just be creative.
I am in a similiar situation to you. I was very worried about going to the gym and didn't want the outsiders to see me. I'm an IT nerd that lives and works where others don't want to see.
I started working out in a local gym and just had to say "fuck it" if anyone judged me. They are going to judge me worse on the street that at the gym.
Since starting 5 day a week ellpytical (700 or so calories per go) and cutting my caloric intake I've dropped 30 lbs. I feel a lot better, more confident and a lot more virile. I've also noticed that I get along with women better.
I still have a long way to go (70 or so lbs) but it's getting there.
I suggest the elliptical. I was nervous at first because I had never used one, but it's extremely low impact and I can burn a lot of calories and still feel good in the morning. The treadmill hurts quite a bit. On the other hand I've dropped my 2 miles time by 4 minutes since starting working out, and I'm feeling a lot better in physical situations.
I suggest all geeks do it.
Also, if this post didn't make a lot of sense, I'm sorry. I've been out drinking with a woman! Yes, an actual woman, Slashdotters!
Another reason to work out!
http://shovelglove.com/
No sig today...
I lost 50 pounds before I even thought about changing my eating habits. There are a lot of muscle groups that cycling doesn't help. For those there's Yoga.
There's more to it than this.
I don't have to exercise, I was born this sexy.
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
What's the first thing you learned to do after walking, talking, and coding... probably running!
Cheap (you have a pair of shoes that aren't Homer Simpson slippers, right?)
Solitary (you can run down back alleys or in circles around your house/apartment/cubicle)
Still hang onto your geeky side (track your miles with an exercise log and graph and analyze your data)
My exercise is to try and burn up bicycle brakes on the way back from a 6000 foot to 8500 foot climb.
A boring video of part of the ride back down is here, where I hit 40mph.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
I would suggest performing a series of small steps to improve all around health. Like...
My top weight was 197 when I was in my late twenties. I knew the longer I waited the tougher it would be to lose weight. I'm 33 now and weight 157 and feel awesome. I lost the first half of my weight through exercise, but the second half was due to quality eating once I was married.
Good Luck,
Brian
Maybe you still have a skateboard in the basement? Or rollerskates? A BMX? The most important thing is that you are having fun.
Then find a way to do it someplace where no critical mass to make you feel uncomfortable gets together.
Personally I chose BMX Flatland. I hardly ever find anyone to do it with. And there always is a parking lot empty enough to just go out and give the same trick try after try after try... Most introverted sport I can think of, too. It's just you and your bike.
It's good for engineering geeks, lots of right angles, physics, and sometimes weapons. Practicing kata can often resemble programming in logo.
There's plenty of stuff for your mind to focus on, so it's not boringly repetitious like I find other sports like jogging or going to the gym.
If you're not into competition, try to find the more traditional "ITF" style, which is more into practical self defense. The "WTF" style ("world taekwondo federation") is more focused on scoring points in competitions.
A lot of the meditation and focus stuff resembles overclocking your body... if you think about it, you're only using a fraction of your lung and brain capacity most of the time. So if you start with concentrating on breathing fully, you'll find that you get more control of the involuntary bodily functions such as circulation to your brain, internal muscle tension, and how to clear out that and other blocks that just add stress and impede you.
the thing that kept me from straying from my exercise routine was to get a cross-training treadmill with a suitable bookholder that could hold a laptop. i put a piece of foam to cushion it to keep the vibrations from interrupting the hard drive. if it wasn't for this, i would be way to bored to stick to my regimen. don't use your shiny new macbook pro tho. foam or not, i wouldn't advise using any laptop that you really care about. i typically have a really old skinny vaio at any given time that i use for this purpose. i use it till it craps out and have had to replace the hard drive periodically. but the entertainment value has been worth it. i took about 30 lbs. off this year.
Get one of those high tempo pilates videos, and follow along. Oh, and don't forget to close the blinds...
Do what I call the Balboa Exercise Program. Forget machines, run around the streets, randomly do pushups, pullups or situps to the side, randomly grab a heavy log to carry on the back while running, run up stairs, and--of course--finish your workout with a burst of sprinting ending at the top of the local mountain!
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
Find and join the closest local rowing club. You might be surprised to find that there is one pretty close to you even if you live far from a major body of water -- it doesn't take much.
Crew is one of the most intense athletic sports that activates pretty much every muscle on your body. You will learn a new level of pain and suffering while you push your VO2 max to new heights and you'll love it. The aerobic/anaerobic demands and technical complexities of rowing seriously challenge both mind and body.
It's also curiously one of the most GEEK-laden athletic sport activities anywhere. Most of an 8-man boat will be introverts just like yourself, most usually highly educated, and most highly obsessive-compulsive on technical proficiency. Rowing is also in the minority of sports where you can be competitive well into old age given how much a factor experience plays -- e.g., a 50 year old rower with 20 years experience can often wipe the floor against a 24 year old that has only a couple years experience.
"Athletes row, everyone else just plays games."
Cheers!
Sean
I had not worked out for years, and I guess I just needed some fun in doing it. I got into one of the Les Mills programs. Inexpensive and fun. I'm now into Body Combat and Body Attack.
www.lesmills.com
Find a gym that offers a boxer's workout. If you're a huge introvert, maybe you can just observe. Or use the below as a starting point for a home work out, although I find having a trainer/instructor shouting "no loafing! on your toes! guard up! relax those shoulders! give it all you got!" at you and giving pointers on form is invaluable. The ones I've participated in do a really good mix of cardio/strength/resistance exercise. They are usually based upon some sort of work/rest period, kind of like rounds. You do work for 2/3 minutes, then rest for 30 seconds, then do it again.
It varies depending on what condition you start with and there are modifiers for almost everything if you can't do the full motion for any given segment, but a sample workout might be... Stretching, then 5 minutes of shadowboxing to warm up. 2-3 rounds of jump rope or sprinting around the gym. 6-12 sets of 10 pushups with some variations like planks and three steps thrown in. Sometimes they'll break it up so you do 30-60 up front and then 30-60 at the end when your arms are exhausted. 5-6 rounds on various heavy bags, working combos, and concentrating on good footwork, breathing, and keeping your guard up. Sometimes the instructor will have you do the last 30 seconds of a round in a constant give-all-you-got punching on the bags. A round or two one-on-one with the instructor with him wearing focus pads and leading you through combinations. A round or two of speed bag. Some TRX or other resistance training. 3-4 laps of lunge squats or barrel-crawls up and down the gym. Then there are the crazy exercises like "pick up chickens" or "chase the rabbit" that are just excuses to have you move around, wear yourself out and increase endurance. During most of this they put emphasis on staying on your toes and keeping your guard up, i.e. keeping your hands up to protect the face, which are most of the time wearing 16oz gloves. That alone is harder than you think. You will be sore the next day. I keep thinking I'll get used to it, but what tends to happen is I'm just able to go a bit further and harder in the workout than the week before.
It is the only workout I've never grown bored with. Some are more seriously oriented to boxing and some are more of a toned down aerobics kind of thing, it depends on the gym and the trainer. The equipment doesn't cost much (basic equipment such as gloves, wraps, and a jumping rope will set you back $60 or so, if you want a home gym a heavy bag and mounting equipment maybe double that, a round timer costs $20 for a personal one that works well, and then you can add speed and focus bags if you want). You don't need weights or lots of special equipment. It does an excellent job getting you into shape, toning, increasing muscle mass, and I find it is a good confidence builder and healthy outlet for aggression. I tend to do it Mondays and Fridays, which is good for dealing with a crappy Monday and blowing off steam to relax before the weekend, and I find that's about the recovery time I need in between the full workouts. I do some heavy bag work, pushups, and jump rope on the off days.
Again, you can do it by yourself but working with a trainer and some fellow "boxers" is the most fun. At my gym it is a nominal add-on fee to my membership to take the courses.
Like my comments? Try my podcast: http://www.baldmove.com
If you don't enjoy it, you won't do it. I used to run because I enjoyed the competitive aspect of it. My knees got bad. Now I hike. Sometimes I take pictures when I hike. When I lived in the East, I drove to the Blue Ridge and hiked it. Now I hike on the beach. I go where I want to go. I don't need anybody telling me to do it.
The best excercise plan in the world falls apart in short order if you take no pleasure in it.
It's not quite so convenient to have to drive to a hiking spot though. So yes, I'm always on the lookout for some activity that's good excercise; but it's also got to be fun, otherwise I know I'll just get bored and/or frustrated and quit.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
yup, that's what i do. i have the similar problem of putting up weight while sitting all day long at home working. therefore, since the past three weeks, i have been waking up early in the morning to jog on and off for anywhere from thirty to forty-five minutes. i can already perceive the difference.
Swim, bike, run. The swimmers are the geeks of the athletic world because swimming efficiently requires good analytical skills. The same can be said for cycling, especially if you build or repair your own bike, learn to true wheels, calculate gear ratios, etc. Then there's the planning for each transition and how to distribute your effort throughout (or on a really long course, how to eat while you're on the go [mostly on the bike]). And you might be surprised how many really overweight people are out racing in triathlons. It's very inspiring, even though I've always been underweight to average. I also used to have an aversion to the outdoors. I liked swimming because it was indoors. We have a treadmill, exercise bike, and trainer (to use a real bike) in the basement. Now I can't stand working out indoors (even when it gets well below freezing out). There also seem to be disproportionate numbers of engineers and IT/IS types in triathlon. Ditto for bicycle commuters.
Programmers in mirror are brighter than they appear
Do what I do... get some poundin' beats happening and just dance away at home to them. The neighbours might not fully appreciate your choice of music, but stuff 'em! If you're not into that, could always go to a rave / dance club and dance away. I also walk to and from work every day and own a bike which I take out on weekends.
Ok forget the gym, it's a waste of money. If you want to do weight training I suggest you get some free weights. If not biking is fine. Get a decent mountain bike. You can bike wherever you go the longer the better. The key here is length of time not always the speed. If you can't talk while you bike easily then you're working too hard. You want aerobic exercise. If you live where there is snow in the winter than you can walk during the winter, trust me you get a good workout walking int the snow. A mountain bike will help you with lean long muscle mass. Try to get at least 30 minutes exercise but one hour is preferable. On the weekend you could go for a few hours it is such a good feeling. Now the most important is the diet. First of all drink at least 8 cups of water through out the day. Start taking coconut oil this will increase your metabolism. Avoid processed foods, especially with sugar and high fat. Stay away from cheese and other high fat foods. Flax oil and olive oil are other healthy oils you should consume. When you first wake up you should drink a cup of water. Then make something to eat. Oatmeal is nice, so is Quinoa. You want high fiber/protein foods which includes grains, fruits and vegetables. Eat plenty of vegetables and fruits. Learn to eat every 2 to 3 hours, 5 to 6 times a day this will increase your metabolism. This trick alone helped me lose 10 lbs with no exercise at all. So let's say you will be consuming 1900 calories which pretty lowest you should go. So you divide that by 6. So you will want to eat about 316 calories every 2 to 3 hours. Fruits are very easy to carry with you so those would be great in between the mail meals. Also when you do exercise do different ones don't just stick with one exercise your body will get used to the same exercise and you won't see the benefits as much. Good luck!
I have become a fan of the Kettle Bell - which is a cannonball with a handle. I have done (and continue to do) intense cardio exercise including marathons,triathlons, etc.. and they are great. Off season I have taken to using the kettle bell as my exclusive fitness and it is amazing. Russians have used them for two centuries, and there is a fair amount of hype around them ("Secrets of the Soviet Supermen" ) but the essential fact of swinging a 15-50 pound weight over your head is fast, fun and works both aerobic and anaerobic systems. More info (and hype) here: http://www.dragondoor.com/ You can get similar things for half the price at Target, Sports Authority and such, it is just a lump of lead..but the instructional DVD from Pavel is the best so you may as well pay him the extra $20 or so. I can get a great workout in 15-30 minutes with one piece of equipment the size of a grapefruit and about an 8-9 foot high space to work out in.
Fidgeting burns calories..
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
You've hit the nail on the head. I've been doing this for several months and it is the perfect exercise for geeks (or anyone else). I can't believe more people haven't suggested it.
Personally, I find that volunteering at a wolf centre each Sunday does the trick for me. A couple of hours spent walking the wolves through woodland seems to keep the weight off!
I notice that geeks are either blobs or superathletes. One of the simplest things to do is get a dog. That gets you off your but and gives you a social playing card that makes people like you automatically. Otherwise, dont just join a gym, or your interest will wane for a while. Some basic light exercise every day is really important, and you have to do it for quite a while to see any benefit. Then start looking at your diet and increase your vegetable intake. Identify the crap you are eating and get rid of it. Dont be too hard on yourself on this whole process. It will take much longer than you expect.
I also wanted to get in shape and I didn't want to end up at a gym. I decided to go geocaching,, which gives me a reason to go and walk and it uses a high tech item for the search.
I have slowly lost weight but the biggest difference is increased stamina, i.e. I don't get out of breath going up and down the stairs at work. And I've discovered some nice places to walk in my city. I also walk on a treadmill at home but the outdoor hikes are what has done me the most good.
I used to be an adult but then I grew up.
It's the only time my mind actually shuts off. And it covers all the bases: cardio, strength training, and flexibility. 1.5 hours 3 times a week. And the classes are 75% women.
Once you conquer this idea that being a geek and an introvert makes it difficult to exercise, you're home free. Consider an elliptical, they're low impact, compact, and 30mins four days a week does wonders. Beyond that, Find yourself some open space, a nearby nature preserve or hiking trail for example. It's great for the mind as well as the body.
Just as much as you can't develop a full blown application while on the bus, you can't expect incredible results from working out for a few minutes at home. You need to put in some serious effort to see changes. I go four times a week to the gym. I understand that this isn't possible for everyone, but even going just once a week and putting in a solid workout would be better than doing a few situps and pushups every night. Of course, if you are gaining weight, you need to eat less/use more energy. If you want more muscle or more toned muscle, you need to weight train. I'd recommend a three day plan: two days to spend with weights on your entire body, a few sets for each body part, and a third day for some light cardio. Don't forget that with the extra exercise, you might need to eat a little more. Aim for more frequent, but smaller meals.
Endless, screaming hot sex with supermodels and starlets.
Mmmmyep.
You *did* cash in your options before the tech bubble burst, right?
I do many kinds of exercise (biking, weights, cardio, regular yoga etc.) and have been physically active for many, many years. By far the most effective and pleasing exercise available is Bikram Hot Yoga. It's growing in popularity, so there should be a studio near to you.
The routine is carefully designed to work from the inside out, top to bottom, and to increase flexibility, strength, and circulation. Almost any ailment you may have will be addressed - its hard to oversell the benefits as it engages the entire body.
If you google 'hot yoga' or 'bikram' and your area I am sure you can find classes. However, not all hot yoga is Bikram (I have also tried Moksha, for example), but the Bikram routine I find far superior. I would strongly recommend it for everyone as it sheds weight, strengthens muscles, and improves joints considerably.
The only exercise I get is walking along railway platforms. When you're commuting for a total of five hours a day, on top of your eight hour working day, there's not much time left for anything other than sleeping and eating.
Unfortunately the lack of exercise is my major problem.
Yeah, I had a sig once; I got bored of it.
To quote Dogbert, I think you misunderstood your question. If you're exercising to get in shape, you're already setting yourself up for a failure.
You must find something that you enjoy doing, and then do it because it's fun!
I never exercise. But most weeks I play badminton once, floorball once and volleyball once. During vacations I often go downhill skiing or windsurfing. And somehow I miraculously manage to stay in shape!
For a more concrete recommendation; take a beginners class in Lindy Hop. It's fun, it's a good workout and you get to meet girls. And there's always a shortage of guys.
Have fun!
Installed the Bubblemon yet?
Well here's your answer
NEEEEERRRDDDS!
They run from that
Drink less beer. *shudder*
I've done http://simplefit.org/ for a while, and am now doing the 100 pushups (http://hundredpushups.com). Both done easily enough in the privacy of my own home office, neither take tons of time, and virtually no gear required (I did buy a $19 pullup bar at Target).
Before you design for reuse, make sure to design it for use.
How do geeks workout? Well, with the Geek Workout of course. All it takes is a couple of bottles of Mt. Dew as weights!!!
Geek Of The Day, "A geeky place for geeky faces."
I second this. It's especially good if you have to travel a lot. You can get a roll-up dance mat, put DDR or the open-source StepMania on your laptop, and then just do 20 minutes of DDR in the morning at your hotel.
660 posts and its only the third story down? Wow. Hope you get to read this.
I work in the JAG Corps for the US Army, so I don't get the benefit of long mandatory ruck marches every other week or dismounted patrols, and since I'm not allowed to get in trouble, no "extra" push-ups. So I had to self motivate a bunch to improve my fitness level past the mininum standards.
The military has all kinds of free resources online if you want to find out what their workout recommendations are. Its good enough to have made millions of people physically fit and lean enough to fight over time. I recommend going here where they break down the actual manuals the US Army and US Marine Corps use. In standard Army fashion, its broken down into super bite size chunks of instructions so any officer can do it.
Also, check out this PDF file where it outlines a day to day Army regimen for 3 months. It's aimed at people who haven't yet joined the military, but are waiting for their time, like high school seniors, or people waiting on wiavers. It's group oriented, but the majority of it can be done alone.
Also, most of the exercises are done without anything to assist you. The only two things in the Army they ever use for exercise in addition to your body weight are your weapon, and someone else. So when I exercise in my house, or CHU in Iraq, I do timed sets in this order: situps, push-ups, crunches, wide arm pushups, obliques, close hand push-ups, flutter kicks, dips (on the edge of my bed/cot). I repeat until I can't do 5 of a given exercise. Doesn't take 30 minutes, since I don't rest between sets.
And for running? Go get a treadmill and listen to podcasts. My wife sends me a CD with a month worth of podcasts that I put on my iPod to listen to. I am entertained enough where I don't mind running in place. But the ideal is to run outside since your joints become stronger from actually running on surfaces that are not perfect, just like free weights versus machines.
You need to run more than you do muscular endurance training. It's the only way to shed pounds. Run 4 times a week, and do muscular endurance 3, with the third day being when you do both running and muscular endurance on the same day. Rest on Sunday. I've gone from 220lbs in June 2005 to 170lbs today. I could drop to 160 if I didn't have to do any work at all, just exercised and prepared all my own meals, instead of eating at the chow hall.
My last PT test, I did 80 pushups, 75 situps, each in two minutes, and then ran two miles in 13:45 minutes. And I trained up to that in as little as 4 months while being in Iraq. It works.
The article you reference seems to mostly refer to weightloss
for obese people and additionaly the difficulties in keeping that
weight off in the long-term. The OP doesn't have that problem,
he's just getting a little more spread out in his older age.
Although, everyone here is right. I shouldn't have said
"stop lifting." I should have said "Balance your excercise
out with some cardiovascular routines or other types of
exercise."
What I have noticed is that people have differing needs when
it comes to working out to stay healthy. Which is why I
consider it a good idea to talk to a professional about your
own needs and tailor a plan specific to your body.
1. Bike to work
2. Do 30-60 minutes of Wii-Fit every day.
So far I have lost 10 kg over the last 90 days this way.
It sounds like you want to weight train. Clearly there are problems with doing that at home. There are gyms that cater to women's sensitivities about being observed during exercise (eg Curves) but none for men, as far as I know. If you are a woman, then go to Curves. If you are not a woman, and you have flex time, I recommend going to the gym about 10 in the morning. I think it's likely you'll be virtually alone. If you are resolute about staying home, then it sounds like you need something like Bowflex, or a small private "garage gym." Consider getting advice from a professional, such as a personal trainer. This is a one-time expense that may have lasting benefits.
I just ran across this website a few days ago. The author also has a diet-related website: The No S Diet Both seem reasonable to me (although I'd personally rather exercise more than 14 minutes a day just because I like it).
It sounds kind of non-geeky at first, but for the past several years I (and many other geeks) have found swing dancing an excellent way to take care of both exercise and socialization with one stone. I actually started with DDR, and somehow ended up transitioning from that to actual dancing...
For whatever reason, there seems to be a surprisingly large amount of overlap between the populations of geeks and swing dancers -- maybe it's because swing dancing is a rather interesting finite state machine? In my experience the number of IT and programming folks in the swing dance community is quite high compared to the general populace.
Swing dancing involves a wide range of muscle groups, and can be quite athletic, especially when one is dancing the more fast-paced variants like Lindy Hop or Jive. Also, many of the best swing dancers are rather heavy-set, so having a large amount of weight isn't thought of negatively in the scene. An added bonus to swing dancing is that there's usually a drastic surplus of women and a shortage of men, so it's an excellent way to meet women. ;)
except that it's over-sensitive, making it less fun. I can do medium on most songs in DDR, but give me the exact same arrows on stepmania, on the exact same pads, and I can't do it. I then have to go to easy level, which is less challenging, and less fun. So much for the $15 I spent at Lik-Sang on that dancepad-to-PC adapter....
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
It doesn't matter too much what you do, just get your heart rate up for at least 30 minutes per day.
I recommend getting out of your house, walking/jogging/running/bike riding.
If you really can't bear the sunshine, you can try the 5bx program, it was developed by the canadian military for desk bound people who need to be fit.
http://www.gettingfitagain.com/5bx.php
As a side note, I joined a gym this year, and am really enjoying use of the machines and classes as well as the childcare to give me the time to do it in the first place.
Not all gyms are scary places, there are often local gyms that cater different audiences, and you could probably find one where you would fit in.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
Use a threadmill with 2% incline. Or go outside and run. Many many IT people are running these days. It is good execise, gives blood to the brain, more daily energy etc.
And if you run more than about 45 minutes, your body will actually start prioritizing fat over sugar as energy (being afraid the muscles will steal all sugar from the brain). The first 5-10 times you go over the magic point, you will probably feel dizy and very tired. Try to get at least one 10-15 km run in per week, and then 2 times 30-40 minutes to keep in shape.
(Disclaimer: I'm no scientist. Well, a computer scientist. But that doesn't apply here.)
Don't you mean "Damn it, I'm a computer scientist, not a doctor"?
Stronglifts 5x5 - http://stronglifts.com/stronglifts-5x5-beginner-strength-training-program/
The Hacker's Diet - http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/www/hackdiet.html
I used these two as a guide and have gone from 6'2" 165lbs squatting 100lbs to squatting 210lbs in less than three months. Feels awesome.
I got a newer Exercycle, only cost $350 NZ, lets say $300 American, and I have lost an incredible amount of weight, I couldnt be more grateful. And now I dont even notice my feet pedalling at 35+KM an hour, I just read my Wikipedia entries etc that have built up :)
I hope at least one person who would like to lose weight reading this decides to give this a shot :) Its easy, just start with say 10KM a day and work it up over a few months. Good luck!
---
Just *do* something that you find fun enough to keep up. Unless you're really into pushups, they won't last. I play tennis (hard!) for at least an hour a day and I walk or bike to work.
Also, don't be a lazy ass. Walk up the stairs.
Do you really need someone to tell you this?
When you start it looks for all the world (at least the legs portion) like aerobics with barbells, but it's an incredibly good workout, both for cardio and resistance training. Plus your class is likely to be all women, most in good shape, except perhaps for the odd male elite athlete. As a side benefit, the all women thing will help tone down the pathological introversion a bit.
Everyone here keeps talking about weight lifting or other types of exercise. There's a better way.
...
Shoplifting
Hear me out
If you get away with it, your heart rate will be racing so fast. That's got to count as some kind of super workout (without the physical strain!).
If you do get caught, you'll have REAL motivation to RUN, RUN, RUN!
Good suggestions from the comments, and I'll add one that I'm trying as a start:
A Hundred Push-ups
The intent, if I read the site correctly, is a simple regimen to (re)introduce fitness training principles into one's life, and to build confidence. After struggling to lift water bottles at my office, I figured this would be a good way to start.
Emphasis on start, as neither I nor the site will claim that this will turn you into Conan-era Schwarzenegger, or Richard Simmons.
"We are Microsoft. You shall be assimilated. Competition is futile."
Archive the data on a couple old Amigas. Place the Amigas on one side of the room (A 2000 and a 4000) and locate your primary computer opposite of them. Then proceed to archive both Amigas' harddrives to your primary machine via floppy disk. When you start to find the workout becoming less challenging, begin moving the Amigas farther away, perhaps even to the bathroom. If even this starts becoming effortless, limit yourself to one diskette. Oh, and don't forget the 2000's other SyQuest cartridge in the box I provided.
I'm 61. Squat 150, dead 150, curl 45 ... I'm a strong old man. Go here:
http://exrx.net/WeightTraining/Instructions.html
Use a standard deck of playing cards. Each suit represents an exercise, and each value represents the number of repetitions.
Shuffle and enjoy.
An example: http://www.ehow.com/how_2100794_cardio-circuit-workout-deck-cards.html
Yes, I too find it completely effective to dismiss stated the preferences and core personality characteristics of others rather than taking them seriously.
He is taking them seriously. The gym is the perfect place for an introvert.
Put on headphones. No-one there wants to talk to you, at all. Many of the people there are already introverts so it's not like you're alone.
It would be ideal to go to a non meat-market gym (like Ballys), find something like a local community gym. They are cheaper anyway. If you don't have to talk to a trainer to join, you've found the best place.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"Do any Slashdotters have a regular workout routine that can be performed in the privacy of the home to stave off those pounds?"
No. And frankly, that would be really rather damn depressing, wouldn't it?
You live (I guess) in the United States, so - let's see, how to put this - even if you're a tad over the optimum weight for your height, you are hardly going to represent a shocking sight to the local populace, let's face it. Get your ass outside and do something in the open air. Also, I find it a bit odd that just because you self-identify as a 'geek', your exercise must be geeky. Huhwha? I work for a Linux company. For exercise I play tennis most days and swim 2-4km every two to three days. Exercise isn't rocket science - just do something that tires you out, for an extended period of time. Voila, exercise! Best make it something you enjoy, otherwise you'll start to hate it in a remarkably short period of time, which for me at least rules out just about every form of 'indoor exercise' because they're repetitive, restricted and involve absolutely zero mental effort.
BTW, when people say they 'don't have time' to exercise, this usually means they don't want to, and not having time is a convenient excuse. It's amazing how few people 'don't have time' to watch TV, or read Slashdot.
I know, this sounds funny for any US citicen. But just walk to your office, don't take a car or bus. And walk home for dinner and back to the office again. And walk for shopping in the supermarket. No fake, I do all this here.
Motivation is the killer. I found the only way to workout at the home was to completly internalize it as a habit. That means I get up and flop on the floor for push ups and other exercises first off. The only times I don't do it is when I wake up hung over. A great motivator is if you keep with it enough to see results. Once that happens it's like a chain reaction where you can't stop exercising to see what else gets unveiled by the receding fat.
Heres something I haven't seen mentioned yet: cycling while intoxicated is like barely illegal. I often engage in bar hoping on a bike. The only problem is your bike can go missing, and you have to convince the women to take you to their car. Though seeing as you're an introvert that probably isn't a problem.
Ohh and you might get killed. I forget that part a lot. Thats kind of a selling point to me though.
You won't necessarily burn off fat to the same extent as other exercises, but as a group we tend to be sitting in front of computers for years and getting really bad posture. If you combine that with exercising hard now without correcting your posture you are going to hurt something.
The other advantage of Tai Chi is that you will become more aware of your body and what your body needs (e.g. diet and exercise).
Make sure you get a good school and don't be afraid to ask about lineage, there are a lot of iffy teachers out there and you can damage your body if you do it wrong.
Be prepared to learn patience though, this is not like picking up a manual.
Be lazier, I simply can't be arsed to eat most of the time so consume only about a thousand calories a day, given my sedentary lifestyle this results in me being a twig.
Having greater muscle volume does lead to greater calories burned without doing anything. This however is a pretty small gain. With aerobic exercise you can burn a ton of calories and most importantly you directly burn fat. When you burn the short term energy stores (sugar) of the body it effects you hunger. When you directly burn fat you feel less hungry after working out. This is why aerobic exercise is best for losing weight. Resistance training will work but it takes more will power.
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
John Walker, one of the founders of Autodesk, has a pretty easy looking plan in his book, The Hacker's Diet . I haven't tried it myself, but I would if I didn't have wooden floors. :-)
There have already been about a million comments about aerobic vs. weight training exercise, so I won't repeat that too much, but one thing I "discovered" which really helped is the Les Mills group exercise programs, especially my favourite, Body Combat.
It's basically doing martial arts moves to dance music. I'm a highly self-conscious introvert as well, so I could never get into any group exercise in the past, but BC is kind of "cool enough" that I feel less like some dick doing aerobics and more like a Shaolin monk doing a monastery training routine.
You might find it a little intimidating at first, so I would recommend, uh, grabbing some of the recent videos via bittorrent *cough* so you can check it out and get up to speed on the kind of moves you'll be seeing. I recommend grabbing the latest (36) off mininova or something. Watch it, go along with the moves until you're comfortable, and then find a gym nearby that supports it.
You might be surprised by how fun it is - and you can't beat doing it at a gym, with the super loud music and peer pressure to put in the effort. You will feel a lot less gay doing martial arts moves to music than the usual aerobics fare. Plus the people you'll find there are also usually pretty cool.
Plus, as everyone said already, ride everywhere you possibly can. If you can't ride in your area, vote with your feet (wheels?) and *move*. When I used to live in Japan I was about 5kg less than my current (western) location simply because riding everywhere was actually more convenient than any other method. That is the way it should be and now I try to match my lifestyle to the Japanese "experience" as much as possible. There's a reason fat Japanese are rare; less cars, basically.
Don't eat food which is ridiculously laden with fat - especially savoury fatty foods which are deceptive because you don't think of them as sweets. Chief offenders are things like pizza and crisps. Any food which is actually physically heavy is suspect and should probably be limited. Turn down all of that, and turn up the salads, and you might be surprised just how easy it is to keep the weight off and stay decently trim.
Eat reasonable food, ride or walk around as much as possible, and go to the gym a couple of times a week - chances are you'll have lost the weight and keep it off pretty quickly.
Let my new 7-digit UID be a lesson to all - write down your passwords.
I haven't had that much fun exercising before I started my Krav Maga training.
Kicks to the groin & elbows to the face FTW!
--Coder
If it's only about loosing weight - skip dinner. it's not easy sometimes, but do that a few months and those pounds will be wiped. Plus you have more time in the evening.
this sig is useless
I have been addicted to working out the last 9 years. There is no substitute for getting out of your house and going somewhere to exercise. Getting started is the hardest part, but after you start showing up regularly for a few weeks it will be old hat. It might also be helpful to keep in mind that nobody is paying attention to you anyway.
I suggest joining a gym and making a commitment to yourself to show up 3x a week. It might be a good idea to find a time when the gym is less crowded, for example after 8, when the after work crowd is leaving.
Start with machines, do a little of everything hitting all body parts. Finish off with 20 minutes of cardio. At this point it is getting your body used to weight training. Meanwhile, start reading about weight training on the internet, books, magazines. You can then start incorperating what you learn and figure out what you are trying to accomplish.
For me, working out regularly has given me a more positive outlook on life, a better body image, and less stress. I am not a super social person, but just going somewhere with other people around gives me a better feeling than spending the night sitting around my apartment.
Bike. Don't do it at home, get some sunlight/fresh air. You won't crumble to dust.
I don't do it on a very regular base, just about once a week, but if you get to something like 30km twice a week, you'll gain a lot of stamina, and of course loose some weight.
I like biking (fresh air, not some nonesense machine in the basement) because
- you can do it on your own
- it's really simpel, you don't even have to do a lot of warm-up - just start slowly
- it's fairly easy to keep the strain at good levels for your training, pulse between 130 and 140 and stuff
- you almost never will have any problems with muscle ache the next day, even if you drove a longer distance
Of course, this is not an option if you live in central New York, because of, well less fresh air and no really nice riding places?
~:-o
I can easily walk miles while staring at a DS or PSP
Until getting run over :)
I use the gamercize that I got from thinkgeek after reading about it on slashdot... 'Gamercize' Cardio at Our Desk
One of the best exercise thingies ever is the
Bullworker.
I've had one for around 30 years and it (and me) are both still going strong. It takes about 10 minutes a day, you can do it at home in privacy.
Great invention!
Smivs on the intertubes!
Climbing Mount Everest, K9, Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn all in a space of 2 months without the help of 200 carriers.
On a serious note, doing strenuous exercise in a place where there are lower levels of oxygen in the air will do wonders for your metabolism and stamina, and it will make you feel like a God down in the city.
As long as you don't live in La Paz, that is.
After finishing school, I was convinced I hated sport. What I actually don't enjoy are team sports, but that is all I really encountered at school. But there are a whole selection of sports that are a lot of fun by yourself, far more suited to an introvert. I used to orienteer - dashing around the woods by yourself with a map is fun, physical and works your mind at the same time. Trekking is often done best by yourself (or at least I prefer it that way) - you can spend days without meeting another sole if you can find the time. Cycling is also perfect. I've never got into road racing, but touring and mountain biking are fun and it easy to do a few mile after work in the summer. Get outside - there are less people around than you might expect and it's good for the sole. I find it gives my eyes a break and helps me focus on things further away than a monitor too.
From Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5BX
"The 5BX (Five Basic Exercises) Plan is an exercise program developed for the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) by Bill Orban in the late 1950s.
The RCAF asked Orban to develop a fitness program for their pilots, a third of whom were not considered fit to fly at the time. The plan was innovative in two respects. Firstly, it did not require access to specialized equipment. Many RCAF pilots were located in remote bases in northern Canada, with no access to gymnasium facilities, so it was important to offer a means of keeping fit without their use. Secondly, the plan only required 11 minutes per day to be spent on the exercises."
The program can be downloaded in PDF form from the following location:
http://www.adam.com.au/wedesign/5bx.zip
James Bray
http://www.reeb.freeserve.co.uk
Self-resistence isometric and isotonic training. Costs nothing, builds muscle efficiently, surprises your friends and balances your life. Also, you can do it while posting to /. from your basement ;)
Find someone else who has more or less the same time of attendance. The idea is that you both get each other to go, so on an off day you will still get a call. Helps when your motivation isn't quite there that day.
Alternatively, find a sport you like. If you want your head to work as well as your body, do Tai Chi. If you want a physical workout but hate a gym, find a place where they teach climbing. Etc etc. Adjust your activity to suit yourself because if you don't like it, even the best motivation wears thin after a while.
And good luck :-)
Insert
Read the book Escape Your Shape by Edward Jackowski. He's the original guy who divided people into four body types (hourglass, cone, spoon, and ruler). The whole book's worth reading, since he talks about why warm-ups and stretching are actually important, and helps you sort out which body type you are. Then for each body type he describes (and has pictures) of 3 workouts that are beginner, intermediate, and advanced. All can be done at home or in a hotel room. You sound like a ruler, 'cause you were naturally thin but started to gain weight (probably in the stomach and butt) as you got older. So your exercises are designed to take off the extra weight, build up your muscles, and strengthen your abs and hamstrings, since rulers tend to have a bit of back pain caused by weak abdominals. I really can't recommend the book enough. It takes about two hours to read and you can do all the exercises from home. Give it a shot for a month or so and if you see good results, stick with it, if not, you didn't do any harm.
http://simplefit.org/ This program is based on crossfit principles (worth reading up on) but uses simple exercises that you can do in your house (no equipment). By geeks and for geeks! You easily track your performance and there is a supportive community. Great way to get started if you're not near a crossfit gym and all the olympic lifts looks a bit daunting.
It's quite obvious, and I'm not trying to a smart ass about it... the best way to lose weight is to EAT LESS. It's really that simple. More exercise doesn't usually help people lose weight because people generally eat more when the exercise more. However aerobic exercise does make you healthier.
When I started to do yoga, I rediscovered my body.
Previously it was just a means to transport my brain from point A to point B and to control my fingers as brain-computer interface.
Now yoga showed me that there is more.
Choose the right style though, there are from simple meditation to strong aerobic styles.
In my opinion Power, Ashtanga, Iyengar are most demanding. In the USA, Power Yoga is well established. In Europe look for Ashtanga Yoga.
Atari rules... ermm... ruled.
Depending on how much weight you want to lose, something like Ballroom dance can be a great way to get some extra exercise. It's nowhere near as much of a workout as biking, running or lifting, but it is also a lot more interesting, and can be a surprising amount of exercise.
While I wouldn't say that being introverted is necessarily a "problem," if it's something you want to address, being more confident in your physical presence (especially in relation to another person) can make you feel better about being out in front of people.
It's a life-long skill, and I know of at least a few people who have started dancing competitively at around 50 to 60 and done quite well.
Play Ultimate (http://www.ukultimate.com/what) It's so fun that I make time for it and I don't even notice the great work-out I get while playing.
Lindy Hop.
L.A., Seattle, San Francisco, New York, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Victoria, Melbourne, Sydney, Stockholm, Seoul, Tokyo, and scores of other cities around the world have dance nights that are swarming with engineers.
Lindy Hop challenges both mind and body. As a Lead, you have to be aware of where all the other people around you are dancing; you have to choreograph an interesting sequence of moves in real-time (sometimes to songs you don't know); you have to know how to lead a variety of moves; you have to make the movement fit the music; you need to be creative; you must be responsive to the Follow (usually female).
Lindy Hop is simple on the surface, yet you can spend years learning its nuances and depth. When two great dancers find each other on the floor, a piece of art, three-minutes long, is created.
YouTube it. Find your local Swing Dance scene. Do it.
So long as you're doing it right. Knee alignment is crucial in Tai Chi, and doing all those slow movements in a low stance over and over with your knees wrong will damage them very quickly. If you do do it, make sure that 1: You don't feel any soreness or aching in your knees during or after a session and 2: That the instructor teaches the importance of alignment and not stressing your joints. If he/she doesn't then I'd assume they don't know or don't care, either is bad.
Take your bike anywhere you go, and get a GOOD bike to make the it more enjoyable. Sell your car, and don't use public transportation. Your heart and mind will work better. Also, try to be more extrovert and you will be happier.
Beauty is in the beholder of the eye.
Get fit, while having an excuse to bring a GPS and Palm into the great outdoors. After I started, I found myself wondering why I didn't start earlier. http://www.geocaching.com/
I had to find out a system that works before i could commit to exercising. While I still don't like to exercise i have been able to keep it up 3 times a week (1 hour) for the last year.
Basically i treat myself to something i like during the exercise. While my method might not work for you in the same way, it has helped me greatly. They way i kept this up is by saving all the series i want to watch and only watch them during the workout. It might seem a bit weird, but it helped me a lot.
I do a start up of stretches, then some crunches after wich i hit the crosstrainer for half an hour. I finish up with 15 minutes of rowing and some cooling down stretches.
All in the comfort of my home, while watching my favorite series (i'm currently into Eureka) using second hand equipment. You'd be amazed how cheap second hand exercise equiment is, and most of it is allmost new.
Keep in mind though, that you will need to do this for as long as your have work that's not physically active.
"The Hacker's Diet" is another view, with commentary on how to manage what you eat as well:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/
"C'mon freedom cage, roll me to safety!" - Philip J. Fry
Swim, bike, run. Mostly bike since I like biking the most. I like the variation.
Sometimes I do a little strengt training, and when I do it is mostly core strength.
(Disclaimer: I'm no scientist. Well, a computer scientist. But that doesn't apply here.)
Don't you mean "Damn it, I'm a computer scientist, not a doctor"?
I guess he has PhD in Computer Science.
Also I've heard: the reserves of your body (fat) will only be used after about 20 minutes of constant increased energy use. So any fat burning will only start working after that time, before that your are just burning directly available energy (blood sugar, liver reserves, etc.). Make sure that you start biking and bike for more then about 15 minutes. Also, don't take the elevator is possible but that is just for fun ;-)
It may also be nice to draw a 30 minute radius on the map from your home and just bike to and from a random position on the map.
Good luck!
I was born slender and frail, and despite various attempts at sports and physical activites a a kid, I'd miss a lot gym classes due to illnesses.
;).
While shopping at a mall with my kid brother, i was beaten up around the age of 15. I guess i felt pretty weak and the knowledge that i hadent been able to defend my brother knawed at me since that incident. A friend who had had a run in with the same miscreants, suggested we took up karate: and so we did. It only lasted two years; but it taught me a bit about pressing myself physically.
Later my family moved to germany and my brother and I took up Kung Fu at a local school; that too only lasted a couple of years, but i felt fit and confident. I was still a geek, but a geek with a physical hobby (and a girlfriend
Karate and kung fu were great settings for physical training: Seeing others pushing themselves and managing inspired one to do more - and perhaps basic group instinct was enough: You felt you had to be able to cope too. There was also an air of mutual respect and acceptance: You felt rewarded for will and effort; not physical prowess.
Starting my studies in denmark, I stopped exercising. Due to a decently metabolism, i didnt gain much weight, but I lost stamina and strength. We dont have the same fastfood cultur here as in the US, but we're getting closed to it. Most students still cook their own meals.
Needing a break from the books, and getting a surprising mail from the army (prior to the draft being abolished), i decided i'd give it a go - in mycase it meant 8 months. Refusing, would just mean 8 months away from the uni else where. The draft instructions suggested to get in shape, prior to joining up: and so i started running and doing pushups and situps (something that karate and kungfu had taught me well).
This meant i was fairly prepared for the regular physical training at the army. It still turned out to be the most grueling physical experience i've been through, but that was mostly to painful marches, lack of sleep and stress (fear of heights + obstacle course = bruises and dread). It would have been hell, had i not shaped up for it. The army too, gave you that sense of "if the others can make it, I can too" notion: and that's what keeps you marching, or climbing some insane ladder to nowhere. We had an LT that loved push ups; so much in fact that our general training defeated other CO's attempts at intimidating us with such physical training: we could easily outdo the sergents and officers that put us to the test - and that gave us some basic pleasure. Spite - too - can be a great motivator.
Since the army I've tried to keep my fitness. Most people bulked up in there; and expanded their notions of limits. I've returned the uni, and work is close by: so I dont have the long walks i used to have, when i tended to lectures.
The way I keep fit: Twice a week (sometimes trice) I play badminton with a coworker. It only lasts and hour, but we've gotten really competitive. This does result in frustration tied to defeats (my coworker is better technically), but it also makes for great exercise. It's said to be the most energetic racket sport, save Squash. We work up a sweat every time.
Every other day i exercise at home, and with few means I've made my room a makeshift gym:
When i wake up, i do diamond pushups (40), while resting my feet on a chair. Then i handweigh lift (7 lbs each) I manage between 30 - 40. This is followed by 100 situps, which in turn is followed by 40 regular pushups, while resting the feet on the chair. Finally I do another set of handweights -usually only 30.
If you attempt something like this, and you're new at it; start off easy; with few brief sets. You may not be able to do regular push ups, but you can do them while resting on your knees. That's how most people start out. Handweighs are good because you can adjust them - and they dont take a lot of space. Home training takes a lot more disciplin: It's very alluring to skip ones program; and noone's monitoring you - but it's cheap and fairly effective and you dont have to worry about others looking.
Fitness does give one sense of added energy, and it doesnt hurt ones confidence. I recommend it.
- Mad, ingenous - they've both left you puzzled -
But of course they won't produce lots of energy for no reason. Anyway muscle do use more energy at rest than fat mass, even if it's in the tens of kilocalories/day and kg muscle.
Do something outdoorsy that you've never done before. Hell, do them all: Rock climbing, kayaking, surfing, backpacking, skiing.
I'll toss out an idea that I latched onto a couple of years ago: Geocaching (www.geocaching.com) Combines a variety of level of physical activity, gets you outside into the big blue room, lets you play with a really cool piece of technology AND is a 'competitive' game, especially if you have friends/co-workers into things as well. (As much as a Geocacher says it's 'not about the numbers', it certainly can be! :D)
And if you DO get addicted and happen to live in an area where Old Man Winter arrives far too early for your liking, you'll start to think about trying snow shoeing and cross country skiing just so you can keep going.
Give it a shot - it's a great way to get outside and see some REALLY cool spots that you'd never were there. And they're probably in your backyard!
First off, it's good that you're doing regular exercise. But, you have to push your body to get stronger. What I usually do is increase my count by a small amount every day or week or so. If you think you'll be discouraged by too strenuous a workout, then keep your upgrades modest in size and rate. I learned in ROTC that you can really push yourself much further than you think. Most people instinctively stop at the slightest sign of discomfort. I bet you could do 35-40 situps right now if you really pushed yourself (don't hurt yourself though).
I use this DVD called 8 Minute Abs which you could probably find now for pennies. The exercises are 45 seconds each, but again work yourself up to the full 45. Sit-ups are good, but a better ab routine will give you better coverage.
Last, I HATE running!!! The only comparable replacement I've ever found (since running is such great exercise) is an elliptical. I like a more clinical approach to running where I can make slight tweaks to my routine and closely monitor my progress. It's great exercise and I enjoy it so much more that just looking at it sometimes makes me want to jump on.
I'd also add, just get out and move around. When you have a sedentary job like IT, you're not getting much exercise as work. So, walk as much as you can. Park at the back of the lot wherever you go. If you get breaks, go for a short walk around the building.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Circuit training for boxing is great. If you go to a good gym/take the right classes you will mix running, weights, press ups, skipping and bag work to work out the frustrations.
:-). If you ever wanted to compete in "white collar boxing" as it is termed then whatever weight you end up at shouldn't matter too much as the tiering is obviously there to make a fairer fight.
You can also utilise what others said about martial arts - if you're off somewhere with a pair of boxing gloves it doesn't matter how bad you are, you look better
The key is to keep doing it for the rest of your life. So find stuff you like. And change every few years.
I do the basic run/ride/swim. Run for the local annual fun-run (and keep the knee ligements working). Ride because it's more fun than driving in traffic. And swim because I love being in the ocean. The pool bores me, but there's a local squad whose coach make's it interesting (not _quite_ torture). But I've also been doing fencing for a while. Before that, snowboarding. There's been a rockwall installed near home and the little'uns love it. And someone at work is making noises about a soccer team.
If you're obsessive, then a single sport might do it. But for most of us, the fun part is working to get to the level of a "competent amateur". Try stuff out; make sure you get the basics and use it as an excuse to enjoy life.
-- Butlerian Jihad NOW!
I agree with those who said biking to work. I ride a bike on the weekends, though, since I live too far from work to ride a bike in and I also have a 12 year old son that I drive to school near the office.
For myself, I run every morning. 30 minutes on a treadmill or outside depending on the weather. Our office has a small gym with cardio equipment (elliptical machine, rowing machine, treadmills, stationary bikes) and nobody else goes in there when I do in the morning.
Darryl L. Pierce "What do you care what people think, Mr. Feynman?"
It's low impact (which is good because geek knees probably can't handle it) and it's got incline and resistance. I can burn off 900 calories in an hour if I push it. Do that 3 times a week and you'll be trim.
--
Luck is just skill you didn't know you had.
The easiest thing to do at home is what you're already doing, but with more intensity. Calisthenics, if high intensity, can actually be a decent aerobic workout that will result in strength gains.
I personally spend a great deal of time exercising right now - mostly resistance training, interval training, and dancing. However, when I first decided the chub had to go I started with about 20 minutes of calisthenics a day. Just that little bit of exercise every day helped a great deal. Knowing what I know now I would've started with a routine more similar to my current one which requires a gym, but if you want to ease into the idea of a fitness program...
At the simplest, I would recommend doing something like:
pushups
squats
chin-ups (odd sets) / pull-ups (even sets)
crunches (odd sets) / reverse crunches (even sets)
calf raises (odd sets) / lunges (even sets)
Do all exercises to failure, don't take any significant breaks. Start with two sets and work up to four sets. That should cover all your muscle groups and make you sweat.
You get out what you put in as far as getting in shape goes. If you just want to feel better 30 minutes of calisthenics a day will do. However, if you want to feel great it'll mean time, effort, and a program that balances resistance training and cardio with your goals. There isn't a 'get rich quick' scheme for fitness. Though, finding an active hobby you truly enjoy can make it feel quick.
I know it's not the specific question you asked, but I have to comment on diet if we are going to discuss fat loss - it's simply too important. For weight loss, diet and lifestyle changes will have the biggest impact. When it really comes down to it weight loss is painfully simple. To lose fat you MUST burn more calories in a day than you take in. Online tools for determining how many calories you need to cut to lose weight abound. Figure out what your needs are, and target about 500 calories under that to lose a pound a week.
I strongly recommend logging everything you eat. Write down the amount of calories, protein, carbs, alchohol and fat. Try to hit your target calories with 30% protein calories, 50% carb calories, and 20% fat calories. Opinions widely vary on these percentages, but you probably won't hit those marks exactly anyway and my opinion is that the exact right balance doesn't exist anyway. To determine the calorie percentages use: protein/carbs contain 4 calories/gram, alcohol 7 cals/gram, fat 9 cals/gram.
I know it sounds anal and annoying, but seriously, log everything you eat until you get the point. It'll really show what makes for a bad diet (soda is the devil) and a good one (up with fish). You can quit logging after you've forced yourself to really think about what you're eating and your tastes shift to healthier foods.
Good luck!
and before you know it, exercise is just a twice-a-week thing.
Actually, twice a week is what my gym recommends. They argue that it is frequently enough to maintain good health, but seldom enough to not take over your life and force you to quit. In other words, exercising twice a week is sustainable, ideally for the rest of your life, while more frequent exercise usually leads to quitting exercises completely after some time.
You think you're the only weird-looking one on the planet? Newsflash: the sport centers in your area are full with people like us.
My advice would be to go 2/3 times a week with a friend. It might cost a few pennies more in the long run, but you get to do a full workout within a short timeframe, with advice from people who actually know how to optimize your exercise routine.
You don't have to go to the flashy expensive ("Globo-gym") sport center. More important is going together with someone motivated and taking exercise seriously (don't deviate from your schedule, plan around it).
You won't become a hunk overnight, you will feel more healthy and slowly rid your body of that excess weight.
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Eat
Less
Food
-
Exercise
More.
For the ELF part you make sure you eat a generous bowl of oat porridge for breakfast - be sure to serve low fat milk, and only one teaspoon of sugar. It fills you up so you don't feel hungry, yet has virtually no high energy fat. One slice of bread or toast - go easy on the butter. A piece of raw fruit too. Avoid corn based cold cereals,
Lunch - you won't feel like much. A small sandwich with lots of lettuce, a stick of celery, a pottle of yoghurt and another piece of fruit.
Dinner - Chinese and Thai style foods are both tasty and nutritious. Eat lots of lightly cooked fresh green veges, over cooked veges are revolting and bad for you. Avoid huge chunks of meat, and anything made from flour or fat, i.e. pastry or biscuits. Go gently on the grog.
It's simplicity itself to effect the EM part. You just knock the petrol or gasoline habit on the head. Gather courage and cold turkey out of it. Just get rid of your car. Walking and using the 'bus, tram or train will not only save you a fortune, but also provide much needed exercise. I know it seems hard at first, but I feel so much better in myself now that I walk to do my food shopping and walk home carrying the stuff. It's just amazing how much less sugary shit, foul fat, and high calorie carbohydrate crap you buy when you know that you have to carry the wretched stuff home in a bag or basket.
Honest that's all. I lost something between 15 and 20 kilos without even really trying.
Surya Namaskar, or the Salutation to the sun is a extremely powerful yoga exercise that will train all your muscles, improves your condition and you will burn a lot of calories as well. Best of all you don't need any equipment, don't have to get outside, just 2 square meters space is all you need.
It's a succession of 12 postures that flows into one fluent movement. Google will show you lots of pages on how to perform them, but I recommend taking a few lessons at a yoga school because if you do it wrong or force things too much, it *can* be harmful. I once hurt my back cause I was too enthousiastic.
I successfully used this exercise to battle my RSI and still use it to keep my weight and condition. Highly recommended.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surya_Namaskara
Exercise?!?!
Mommy, he said a bad word!
Karma? We don' need no steenkeeng karma!
Start off exercising easy and work your way up to the 300 workout (see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggiYjRelWgc)
Go for intensity, not duration... this workout takes 10 to 15 minutes.
I take a walk during lunchtime every day, and when I get back to the office I take the stairs up to the 15th floor. It does wonders for your stamina (and buttocks).
That's funny that so many people should think that geeks don't exercise because like half of the people I know at various gyms were CS college geeks, engineers, teachers, doctors, etc.. The other half were mostly construction workers and dope dealers (but that probably had to do with the city I lived in).
You just got troll'd!
Turns out to increase that ratio, you have to get yourself (at least slightly) out of breath, and stay there 20 or more minutes, 4 times / week. To get out of breath, you've got to get your legs involved in a big way. Jogging, biking, and swimming are the most common ways.
If you have a staircase, run up and down for 20 minutes (booring). Or get up early and explore your neighborhood at 6AM on a bike. Or get an exercycle. Fancy ones make you turn a generator, and by measuring your output, can tell you how many calories you've burned.
Dr Cooper raised the ire of the weightlifting community because by his measure, weight work alone did not increase fitness, and sometimes reduced it. Since Cooper, Aerobic or cardiovascular exercise is now considered an essential part of any exercise routine.
--- Often in error; never in doubt!
Basically I stretch everyday. MWF focus on upper body. TR focus on lower body. SSu rest. I throw in cardio less than I should. Don't push too much! If a muscle is still sore, give it rest! There are other exercises to do. All the exercises I do involve only dumbbells. The only other purchase was a cheap simple bench that could incline. I bought the lightest ones at walmart and picked up heavier ones weekly as I could. This is cheap and doable. I do decline, regular, incline and military presses on my bench with my dumbbells. I also do bicep curls and butterflies. Don't forget you can change the position of your wrists in a lot of these to mix it up. An mix up curls with concentration curls every now and then. Crunches and push ups and pull ups for sure. Lunges are great, but my favorite exercise is one legged squats. These are amazing! I also do like 45min-1hour of DDR for cardio sometimes. And stretch for an hour (which is not that bad because you can read a book or watch TV and stretch)
One last thing: Sometimes I wonder; "Is that someone's signature? Or do they type that at the end of each post?"
On the practice level where you can kick some ass with Kung-Fu you will have regular bruises, occasional joint dislocation and some probability of concussion. That's ok while you are under 30, but could be quite hurtful as you are becoming older. And not helping productivity either.
Not quite; T'ai Chi is performed slowly to start with because the movements are complicated and require precision to be effective when applied.
It's very difficult to perfect a precision movement at speed, so they are practised slowly. When everything is in alignment and can be performed in a relaxed manner, then the movements can be sped up and applied in a martial context.
Done properly, it can be one of the hardest workouts for strength and stamina you'll experience; power lifters have been known to quit before completing a form.
The other advantage is that, being primarily a set of principles, T'ai Chi can be applied to all activity. If you're not concerned about the martial side of it, the movement principles can make any movement into excellent exercise.
So do that.
I've seen a lot of people try a lot of things over the years. Most fail. What i have observed is that walking is fine but there also needs to be some violent running where one gets seriously winded. A thirty minute walk followed by a flat out three mile run will bring you into shape if your health is strong enough to take it.
There is some sort of shift in metabolism for people who get completely winded while running that one can not get from less violent exercises.
..my friends swear by P90X. It seems like the real deal. The say they are always challenged and that it runs the gambit between weight lifting and yoga. Seems like an overall fitness kinda program. But I can' vouch for it personally (see my other post for what I do). Oh, and apparently there is stuff they want you to buy apart from the videos. My friends say buy the off brand stuff to save money.
One last thing: Sometimes I wonder; "Is that someone's signature? Or do they type that at the end of each post?"
I personally prefer something that is non-impact and endurance - swimming, cycling and rowing. You probably don't like the idea of swimming if you hate exercising in front of people. Cycling should appeal to geeks for the amount of equipment you can play with, and you don't have to be a lycra-clad road racer - try baggy mountain biker instead, but you have to cycle *up* the hill first. You often get rowing machines in gyms, but if you don't want to set foot in such a place, you can buy a rowing machine yourself - but for pity's sake, don't get a cheapo one, you'll regret it. Concept 2 are the best ones I've ever used, a second hand one of them is far better than a new one of cheaper models.
I went from ~35% body fat to ~15% last year using primarily strength training (4-5 hours a week) supplemented by 2-4 hours of cardio. That translated to about 35lbs of lost fat. I didn't diet. My weight stayed relatively constant. That meant I added about 35 lbs. of muscle. I got to eat a lot of food. I had the doughnuts I love (only right after lifting). The better physique started drawing a lot of attention from women and I got picked up several times. People think I'm five to ten years younger than I really am.
To those who say that aerobic exercise will lead to muscle mass increases, you only need to look at marathon runners' legs to see that isn't really true. more than an hour of cardio a day leads to muscle loss.
Bottom line:
Put identity in the browser.
doing aerobic kind of activity produces more mitochondria in the cells than doing weight training. Hence, cyclists and runners don't choke when they run, unlike body builders.
Aerobic training is metabolic training. You push your metabolism to its limits and it produces adaptations to become more efficient at delivering energy, oxygen uptake, heart stroke volume (i.e. how much blood is pushed by heart with each heart beat) etc, but you never get stronger (as in ability to lift more weight).
The only difference between the winner of the Tour de France and couch potato is that couch potato can only push the pedals with the force equivalent of 20 kg sitting on the pedal a few times and he will fatigue because his metabolism is not able to deliver energy, whereas the tour winner can keep doing it for hours and hours.
People often think that aerobic sport winners are "stronger" (as in able to push more or lift more). But that is not true. They are equally weak in relative terms to untrained people (certainly compared to people who lift weights), but can sustain the activity for amazingly long periods, because of their amazingly efficient metabolism.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
A friend invited me to an indoor rock climbing gym a few years ago, and I found that I really enjoyed it. Between the climbing and cutting sugar out of my coffee (easy to do if you order fresh as-in-roasted-today coffee) I got my weight back down to between 160-170 depending on the month (I'm in Florida, and far less active in the summer because I sweat a LOT above 85 or so). For a 6' tall guy with broad shoulders, I'm pretty happy at this weight.
I must say that exercise for the sake of exercise just bores me to pieces.
Climbing is really a puzzle that you're solving with your body -- it keeps your mind occupied, unlike most other forms of exercise that I've tried. It also resulted in serious muscle tone on my arms and legs (very quickly), without building mass. Two hours, two days a week on easy to medium climbs (5.9 and under). And at the end of it all, we go have a few beers to help with the muscle soreness.
Anyway, a lot of climbing gyms have started installing what they refer to as "auto-belays" -- basically, you don't need a second person to hold the rope on some of the gym routes. Once you get a little more advanced, you'll want to find a climbing buddy though -- for encouragement, and also to belay you on the more difficult climbs, and if you get into it, you'll need a buddy or two for the occasional outdoor climb as well. Side benefit: you end up seeing places that you'd never see. Or you may end up just taking a pair of climbing shoes with you when you travel to do weird stuff like bouldering Rat Rock in Central Park, or climbing on all of the artificial rocks at Disney (I've done both).
You don't need any equipment to start out besides a ratty t-shirt and some cargo shorts. A chalk ball is handy ($2ish). You can rent shoes, a harness and a belay device at the gym for cheap ($6-7ish). Eventually you'll want your own, and you can pick up the whole set for about $100 -- about the price of a decent set of running shoes.
Another benefit:
I don't know about you, but in addition to not getting enough exercise, I also generally have a lot of "chatter" going on in my head. I can't stop thinking about random things, and at times it can be very difficult to concentrate well enough to code or focus on work.
Well, I'm here to tell you that the primal fear of falling will turn all of that chatter off instantly. I've never experienced anything like it, and when I lose focus I find myself heading into the gym for an hour or so.
Remember this rule: spend more calories than you take in... period. It does not matter the exercise AT ALL. I'm living proof.
I was in the same boat for years... got out of the Marine Corps at 155 lbs... starting writing code for commercial companies... within 10 years has gotten to 220 lbs. I'm now 172 lbs. thanks to one tech-friendly gadget:
www.bodybugg.com
This thing is great. You strap it on your upper-right arm (under a t-shirt, if you wish) and that's it. It ACCURATELY tracks how many calories you burn every minute of every day. Then, sync with their web site and viola! You now have a solid understanding of what tasks you do that burn calories. Once you have this info, you will always have it available in your brain and, as you move through your day, you will probably alter your patterns because of it.
The best "feature" of this device is that it allows you to NOT take on any activities that you do not enjoy OR that do not fit into your schedule. In fact, you will finally learn how inefficient certain exercises really are. For example, I stopped running since I picked this up. I replaced it with a few sets of rope jumping throughout the day and have better results.
The problem for me (and with most of us, I assume) is that we don't realize the impact of our actions. We also are not conscious about our body changes since they occur so gradually over time.
Is this a costly approach? Sure. The price is $400-$500 depending on what you buy. However, I assure you, it is one of those devices where, after a few weeks, it will feel like the best decision.
I hope this helps.
Thanx,
Fred
P.S. You can pick up used Bodybugg units on eBay for $100-$200 savings. A replacement arm band is roughly $5 and is the only part that COULD possibly retain any sweat of the previous owner. The only down side is that you'd have to pay for the web site membership ($99) which is free for 3 months if you buy it new. If you're gonna use your bodybugg for longer than three months, then you'll have to pay for it anyway, so going the eBay route would save you money long-term.
I was in much the same situation as the original poster about a year ago, and I set out to do something about it. I started off doing simple things like push-ups in the privacy of my home, and once I'd got into that habit, and made myself a little fitter in the process, I considered my next move.
Much like the OP, I get self-concious when jogging in public. However, I observed that cycling gets much less attention than jogging, so I went and bought myself a nice new bike and started a regime of cycling every day after work. (I did try cycling to work a few times, but there isn't really a good bike route to take and I don't like cycling on major roads.)
I found after I'd got into cycling maybe 5-10 miles around my neighbourhood that I was getting bored and demotivated, so I slacked off for a while and started to get tubby again. Recently I've re-awakened my interest in contributing to OpenStreetMap, which has proven to be the perfect excuse to bike around with a goal in mind other than just biking for biking's sake. For those who aren't familiar with the OpenStreetMap thing, basically I bike around with a GPS logger fixed to my handlebars and use the tracklogs collected as the basis for maps of my local area. These last few weeks I've been doing more miles per day than I ever did before because I'm thinking about something else while I'm doing it.
If OpenStreetMap already has coverage for your area then this isn't a very helpful suggestion, but I'm sure you could find other excuses to get out and about and get exercise without that being your primary goal.
Check out www.stronglifts.com . It is the perfect site for a beginning strength trainer. You can lose fat and gain muscle quite rapidly with the correct diet in place (which is also detailed at this site). I've been doing it for 4 months and have gotten noticeably stronger and bigger.
Actually 45 minutes of aerobic training will burn less calories over a 24 hour period than 45 minutes of weight training over that same period. It is a huge misconception that many have the aerobics are better to lose weight, which is why I guess so many fail at it.
When I saw your posting "I don't eat a lot but the weight seems to stay on these days." jumped out at me immediately. Working in the IT field as well, I have the habit of eating health but not enough. You'd be surprised at how much you should really eat in a day; 12 oz of meat, 6 full cups of vegetables, etc... After adjusting my eating to eat more, I've recently lost 26 lbs in 9 weeks and that was without changing any sort of related exercise; I currently go to the gym 3 times a week for an hour. First step is to see a dietitian and get some customized menus which will help get your metabolism back to where it was a few years ago. I know it sounds crazy but I think ultimately you probably have more of an eating problem (eating too little) more than an exercise problem.
Fun Activity, recomended for hackers
If sitting is the problem, walking is the answer.
Try a treadmill desk: http://www.treadmill-desk.com/
It combines your desk with a treadmill. The idea is to walk at a slow steady pace, I use 1.2mph for an average of 4 hours a day and I've been losing a pound a week since I started using one with no change in eating habits.
All good advice.
However - I thought being an introvert was about drawing energy from themselves, rather than others. Introvert Defined
Scared to go outside or exercise in front of people is self conscious or shy.
www.crossfit.com Think of it as an Open Source movement to the workout world. Most of the routines you can do in your own home with some free weights and a pull-up bar.
As others have mentioned, walk or bike to work if you can. At least dedicate 30 minutes a day to some physical activity.
As for myself, I was a gym rat but with young twins, going to the gym became more and more difficult. So I invested in a set of Selecttech Dumbbells from Bowflex. They're adjustable dumbbells and don't take up much space at all. Gives me 90% of what I was able to do in the gym for weightlifting. I plan to start riding a bike to work this fall when the kids start kindergarten and ride a schoolbus. No more dropping off at daycare, so no excuse not to ride the 4 miles to work on a bike.
What about jumping rope. You don't need to go outside (if you're comfortable this way) your house. Just ask a specialist on how many time would you need to excersice according to your age/weight/activity.
I joined a local rock climbing gym less than a year ago. Filled with geeks(I seriously can't go 10 minutes in there without overhearing somebody's discussion of the merits of linux vs. osx, or NetBeans vs. Jdeveloper, or semantic search vs. mathematical search) it takes a lot of brains and an intuitive understanding of physics. Plus, its very fun and will get you in fantastic shape. (provided you cut out the sugar from your diet: can you say DIET mountain dew?) If you live near a mountainous area you can do it outdoors, but a rock gym allows you to get a quick 90 minute session in after work.
I read "108 minutes". /childish_offtopic_remark
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Look up the workout "Death By Bodyweight". It's amazing what kind of workout you can get with only your body weight.
The submitter mentioned pushups and situps. Those are okay, but on their own not very effective. You need to add squatting and some sort of row or pullup.
Anybody who reads my nsfw /. journals knows my favorite form of excersize, but I don't have a lot of opportunity to get much exersize that way. So I usually settle for the "twelve ounbce curl". Good for the forearms and biceps, not too good for the gut.
Living alone I get exersize mowing the lawn, sweeping, cleaning the toilet, etc.
I think I'll actually go to the Y and work out for real today. If I don't talk myself into goiing to the bar like I usually do.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Here is an idea. Hook the treadmill up to a generator and have that generator power your laptop. Laptops, when they don't have enough power, start downsampling the speed of the GPU/CPU, etc. So if you are playing a video game and your FPS starts to drop, start running faster!
Frag and Burn fat at the same time.
NOTE: This can also be done with porn videos. Porn is not as fun as you think when you can't view it at its intended speed.
A morning without coffee is like something without something else.
It does leave you with an asymmetric though
If you go to the gyn early in the morning or late in the evening then they tend to be empty. Also you could also buy your self a weight set and then pump your own iron. I have to agree with the running. Just run for 20 mins and you will notice a difference. In reply to the Bikes running the red lights: In the state of Idaho: Bikes can run red light if no cars are in the intersection.
How Do Geeks Exercise? Two words buddy: Speed Typing
Can't help but notice that anytime Karateka's spar (on the rare occasions they do) all the katas go out the window and it devolves into some weird kickboxing match.
Might as well take up Kyukushin or Sanshou ...
In World of Warcraft, run between zones instead of summoning a mount or taking a hippogriff (and make sure you set the option that makes your character run instead of walk). That should burn some extra calories.
I'll just continue using my ski machine which allows natural motion of my legs, combined with natural arm swing, to exercise muscles from shoulder level down to my feet. The oblique muscles at my waist get exercise, and by exaggerating the arm swing and shoulder motion, I can increase the exercise level of the obliques. An interesting thing I have noticed is that, when I reach my target heart rate, if I increase my speed along with the exaggerated arm swing and shoulder motion, my heart rate decreases. I'm guessing that the increased contraction of those large oblique muscles is helping to pump the blood and easing the work load on my heart.
Registered Linux user # 170078
Try Crossfit. It's an open-source style method of fitness where the workout of the day is posted every day, using (mostly) simple equipment, is easily scaled to your needs, and is meant to work your whole body instead of focusing on just cardio or just weights.
My experience (which admittedly may vary) is that you can do these exercises at home, or go to a gym/dojo that offers Crossfit and get a very affordable trainer in a very easygoing atmosphere. Usually there are lots of other beginners so there's very little macho BS and everyone is helpful.
Have you ever noticed that when soldiers fight they hardly ever do so in a firing range and never police up the brass?
(note for the humor-challenged, this is sarcasm)
To specifically address the question posed (what do we, the Slashdot readers, do to stay in shape):
I eat vegetarian; low dairy, lots of beans, tempeh, and seasonal fruits/veggies. I bring my lunch to work every day which is cheaper and more nutritious than buying it.
I lift weights three times a week for an hour emphasizing multi-join and body-weight-resistance exercises like pull-ups, push-ups, dips, incline and hanging crunches, etc.
I bike to work whenever the weather permits.
I run 5 km at least once a week (though bad knees sometimes demand that I go for a long walk instead).
All of this combined yields a weekly time commitment of about 3.5 hours of exercise plus 90 minutes of biking to and from work (2 mi each way). I'm 185 lbs, 6'1", and I fill out my nerdy T-shirts in the shoulders, not the belly. I don't have six-pack, but I certainly don't have a gut. All around I feel very health even though the vast, vast, majority of my time is spent sitting on my ass in front of a computer at work.
I don't care whose biology teacher told them what about which calories are burned by how many muscles, but my whopping 3.5 hours a week of exercise entitles me to all the beer I can drink and stuffing my face with burritos to my heart's content without gaining a fraction of an inch around my waste line (which hasn't changed in 15 years). And no, I'm not one of those skinny nerds than can eat Taco Bell every day and still look like a bent coat hanger.
I think that the big trick to staying healthy is sticking with your routine, whatever it is. Don't just go on a diet and start running in response to feeling fat and out of shape. Biking to work is a great way to start and, depending on where you live, has the added benefit of being faster than driving.
Actually, I wrote my thesis on life experience.
Then why bother? I'm sick and tired of McDojo's run by pudgy Sensei's who's never seen a cardio workout in the last fifteen years. Punching air and doing elaborate kata's don't burn enough calories and you don't condition yourself doing that.
Go take up Muay Thai or Judo (or both). That'll do you some good.
Take up an outdoor hobby that involves motion. You say you're an introvert? Take up angling and buy a Kayak. I don't know where you're from, but there is a GREAT guy in Maryland, Jeff 'Yakfish' Little who teaches kayak fishing. He's certified across the board when it comes to kayaking. While I don't recommend kayaking solo in unfamiliar territory that may include dangerous Class II and above waters, if you have relatively calm waters--even a large lake or reservoir paddle the shoreline. You can paddle year-round with proper gear
Shameless plug for Yakfish.
In America today you can murder land for private profit. You can leave the corpse for all to see, and nobody calls the c
For me, the exercise-at-home thing just doesn't work. Rather than getting lost in the long long thread about bike to work, I'll say that I've been biking just a few miles around Milwaukee every other day or so, with one long 15 mile ride on Saturday. It's far better than trying to ride an indoor bike, which is frustrating to me, as it doesn't go anywhere. Whereas on the real bicycle, I get fresh air, which is possible even in The City, and much more satisfying exercise. Those bike machines are useless to me now. I'd rather walk or run around an indoor track a dozen times than sit atop a bike machine going nowhere. At least on the track, the scenery slightly changes with every step.
-- haaz.
I play football (soccer for our yank friends) 4 times a week, one hour at a time in 5vs5 fields. There's *PLENTY* of those here in Buenos Aires. Dunno where you live, but maybe there's another sport you like that you could practice. The hard part is getting your friends to agree on a schedule, but it's good exercise and we have a good laugh too.
I hate the idea of just running (especially on a machine) but having an objective, and playing with a team is lots of fun. Kinda like playing CS ;)
"Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, indistinctly. "Mind you, my first name is Bad." -- Terry Pratchett
Monday: 100 reps Mountain Dew Curling Tuesday: 100 reps Phone reciever lifting Wendsday: Take the stairs to your meetings (both up and down) Thursday:Roller Derby with office charis (good leg workout) Friday: Nija sneak out of office an hour early then run across the parking lot to your car (cardio workout)
Somewhere in a dark place you will find:
www.m1
Pretty huge number of sporty guys for a nerd site. Seems even more than total number of apple worshipping penguins.
For a good cardio workout you can do at home I can recommend the video from Tom Holland.
http://www.teamholland.com/
It's a no nonsense workout, no weird edits or pep talks, just a 42 min workout that does it all.
It's not expensive also, except if you buy some adjustable weights which I can recommend.
It just requires discipline. I do this 3 nights a week plus some extra activity and I can really notice the difference. Yes this sounds like a sale talk, it just happens to work for me, so I hope it will for you.
Hmmmm?
Buy those Bowflex Free-Weights and an adjustable bench. Plenty of exercises you can do with those.
Sorry to be pedantic, but I've been studying Taiji in Beijing for the last three years, so here it goes.
First, using the modern pinyin spelling of Taiji instead of Tai Chi helps reduce confusion. Chi is most often pronounced "chee", but in actuality should be pronounced "jee", especially since qi (pronounced chee) is a difference concept, that of the energy flow in the body.
Anyway, there are several forms of Taiji, one of them being Yang style, which is what most people are aware of in western countries, and what you are practicing, since you mention the 108 form.
There's nothing wrong with the Yang style, but it is an offshoot of the original Chen style, which still exists and is practiced today. It is much more athletic and trains actual fighting technique. If you learn and practice the 83 form properly, you will be in a 90-degree knee bend for more than 20 minutes, and find yourself soaked in sweat by the end of the routine. You also need to do extensive stretching in order to achieve the kicks involved in the routine.
A classic video demonstrating a well-known master, Chen Xiaowang, can be seen here. This video displays the "cannon fist" routine, which is a fast version of the 83, and starts picking up about one minute into it.
Read more about Chen style Taiji if you are interested in some serious athletic and martial training along with your meditative movements. Taiji teaches you to play your body the way you play a musical instrument, and is thus a difficult and long process, but as with an instrument, the results are amazing after a few years...
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
I find weight lifting, jogging around tracks and the like to be incredibly monotonous.
I find grinding in Stranglethorn Vale to be incredibly monotonous too, but I gotta get to level 40!
I'm sorry, but your friend is being milked by his teacher...
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
I'd third this suggestion. I think the best way to keep healthy is to just have a good diet and stay active.
I skydive, kayak, ride motorcycles, have a rowing machine in my home(which either gets a lot of use or none). But just going out and doing stuff is the easiest/best way to stay fit.
http://meetup.com has a lot of activities to choose from and they don't cost a lot. Hiking, dancing, bike riding, rock climbing, rollerblading, etc. Just pick up a couple activities that requires some muscle power and do them. And on the plus side it keeps you from being a shut in in the apartment and you meet a lot of interesting people.
Whatever you do, don't join a gym! So many people pay a monthly fee but just don't go often enough.
I used to cycle, but that did very little for my upper body. Nowadays I row on an indoor rowing machine. Rowing has a lot going for it:
1) Low impact. Less wear on your knees than running or cycling. Swimming is another low impact exercise.
2) Works every major muscle group in the body - arms, legs, back, stomach, chest. http://www.rowsport.com/rowsport/index.php?page=get_page&id=XJSC4F8-UHUNAG0-93C15ZR-SL280W1 Swimming, Nordic skiing and Nautilus machines do this too.
3) Uniquely, when rowing you work both legs together, then both arms together. Other exercises work your limbs alternately. I theorise that you can expend more calories this way. Rowing with a sliding seat has been the best way to get maximum work out of a human body for the last couple of hundred years. It's stood the test of time.
4) Since it's an expensive machine just for exercise, that's an incentive to make use of it. It's sort of a gadget, like a PDA. Boys like toys and enjoy playing with them.
5) As you refine your technique: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXnKyJdA01w you can achieve new personal records, then try to beat those records. That helps with motivation.
6) Unlike running or weight training, rowing provides a dynamic load to work against. The harder you pull, the greater the resistance.
7) Having a rowing machine at home means you don't waste time commuting to the gym. That makes it easier to exercise every day.
I've been rowing since February 2007, and at one point I lost 14 pounds in four months. This isn't much compared to some, but slow and steady is better for you than crash dieting.
Rowing is not for everyone and some people really do well with a gym membership, I'm sure. This is just IMHO - YMMV.
Environmentalism is the new Victorianism. Everyone ties on a green corset and pretends we're virtuous.
Another vote for Crossfit. I started to workout and keep in shape a couple years after getting out of college. It was getting pretty obvious that I was doing way too much sitting and fast food eating.
Although I used to just do traditional weight type workouts (3 sets of 10 type stuff), I was getting really tired of it. Found Crossfit and have been doing it for over a year now. It is hard, but it will get/keep you in great shape. It also can be done at home if you buy a few pieces of equipment and sub exercises when you have to.
GO rockclimbing or sit out on cold nights looking up at the stars. You will burn calories either way.
http://hundredpushups.com/
I've recently started on this routine. It's as simple as you can get, you can do it anywhere, and it only takes a few minutes out of your week to do. And it works.
I also recommend buying some simple weights (should be able to find some at Wal-mart even), and just lift whenever your hands are free, such as when your reading a big article online. Some Googling can find you some alternative routines you can do with the weights too, so you work out different muscles.
As some people have mentioned, Karate is a really fun way to exercise, and it has tons of other benefits such as discipline and self-defense training. There are other options too if you wanna get out of the house, such as Swimming or Kendo.
Maybe it's too intense a workout for you. But it's exactly what I needed. I, like you, didn't want to go to the gym. And I abhor the treadmill. It's a great mix of strength training and cardio. All you need is a few dumbbells. And a chinup bar. There's lots of variety in P90X. There's 8 or 9 different push-ups, 9 or 10 different ab exercises.
Yes, the strength training burns more calories.
But in my experience, the strength training will make you dramatically hungrier than the aerobic training. If you have a will of iron, the difference is irrelevant. But if you have a will of iron, staying thin is easy regardless of your choice of exercise.
I'm not knocking resistance training. I greatly prefer it. But I've never been able to lose fat while doing serious strength training several times per week. My shoulders, biceps, and other muscles got bigger, but at best my waist stayed the same size as when I started.
Statistics I heard many years ago from a sports coach:
1 lb of fat requires 10 calories a day to maintain
1 lb of muscle requires 40 calories a day
So even you you didn't lose any weight in a strength training program, if you swapped 10 lbs of fat for 10lbs of muscle, you would not only be thinner, but would be burning an extra 300 calories a day just by breathing (the equivalent of 2 cans of soda).
"Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live." - Mark Twain, "Taming the Bicycle"
If you want to add some geek to the workout, on light days go geocaching. Some of the caches around my area are a 2+ mile hike from the closest parking lot. Good way to get some walking in without that "I have to do this" feeling.
If you don't have a hand held GPS the Garmin eTrex Legend has worked well for me and goes for ~100 online.
Although people will try to over complicate things, it's a simple of matter of expending more energy than you take in.
How you accomplish that is up to you, but there is no mystery to losing weight. The mystery is finding something that you can keep doing on a regular basis.
Please take a close look at orienteering.
This is a perfect sport for a thinking person, where you start individually, run/jog/walk around in the forest for some time trying to visit a number of control points (marked on the map you got at the start), before ending up at the finish line.
The main point is that you have no spectators at all, you move around at your own speed, and while running you have to concentrate a lot on finding the best possible route to the next control. (In very steep uphills I often find that I need to walk a lot "to check the map". :-)
Since a lot of orienteers are geeks, we have software available to organize events, custom RFID tags used to document each control point as you visit it, and lots of software to do post-competition analysis of your run.
I live in Oslo, Norway where I can take part in 'O' events 3-4 times each week, but in the US (if this is where you live) there are active clubs in all the main geek areas (Bay Area, Seattle, Portland etc).
When I visited Seattle in April I contacted the local club and got electronic copies of three maps in the area that have permanent courses on them.
Good luck!
Terje
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"
I'll admit that I don't stick to a routine as much as I should, but I have three things to help me exercise:
1 - a small pedal machine stashed under my desk. While at work, I can pedal away turning a completely sedentary activity into one that burns some calories.
2 - WiiFit. Yes, this is actually a good workout. (Though lately I've been distracted by a borrowed copy of Super Mario Galaxy.) You might want to get some wrist/leg weights to improve the workout.
3 - Two small children. You'd be surprised how active a nearly-5 year old and a 1 year old can keep you. Between running around while playing with them, lifting them up, or running to keep them out of trouble, they never fail to give me a good workout.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
All summer I like to visit the local disc golf courses. If you walk fast and its warm out you can burn off some of the flab, and it's easy to make a habit of the game.
My poetry site welcomes the unusual.
I like to eat too much and on occasion consume too many beers. I'm trying to cut down on the amount of calories I ingest, limit my beer intake, and walk or bike 5-6 times per week. It is slowly working, my gut is shrinking:-)
I do Bowflex, Dance Dance Revolution, Wii Fit, yoga, and floor exercises (pushups, situps, etc).
I also stopped drinking sodas (no diet drinks either), and stopped eating deep fried foods (i.e. chicken, tortilla chips, fries, etc). After four years, I now occasionally eat fried chicken and I might have had three sodas in the past four years.
I read labels on food and make informed decisions about what to eat. If something I eat is high in fat, it's also either high in protein or other nutrients.
I stopped refilling my chocolate drawer at work and stopped putting three tablespoons of sugar in my coffee.
I don't deny myself anything, but when I indulge, I do so with restraint.
I went from 225 to 180 and have kept my weight between 180-185 for over two years.
I personally follows this http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/ There's a useful training program in it
The Men's Health magazine website has some really good workouts - with weights/equipment and without. They have workout directions you can print and videos you can download to your iPod. Men's Health Fitness
"No prints can come from fingers / If machines become our hands." -- Jack Johnson
That's not entirely true.
When you move, you only use some fraction of the fibers in each muscle at a given time. Your body constantly alternates which muscle fibers it uses to give them time to rest and recharge between uses.
Consistent aerobic exercise strengthens the muscles involved enough so that the individual fibers can do a lot more work. That gives the resting fibers more time to relax before they're called upon again for effort, which makes it easier for your heart, lungs, and blood system to remove wastes and provide additional energy and oxygen.
Serious strength training hinders aerobic performance because you add so much mass to the muscles that the improved fiber strength is offset in long duration exercise by the extra work of moving more muscle weight. But moderate strength training will make you dramatically better at aerobic activities than a sedentary person, even if you don't workout for long periods. Your body may not have the improved aerobic efficiency of an endurance athlete, but it can rotate among the muscle fibers more slowly like one.
The sedentary individual gets hit from both sides. They lack the aerobic efficiency to recharge the fatigued muscles quickly, and they lack the muscle strength to give individual fibers long breaks between use. The individual muscle fibers are called upon often and poorly rested between uses.
I'm a fat guy who neglected aerobic exercises for many years, but I did squats as a routine part of my strength training. I can walk up five flights of stairs without taking a break or gasping for air or even run a mile (with effort) despite my bulk, because what I lack in aerobic capacity is mildly offset by leg muscle strength. ( But I've been punished for my obesity with a back injury, and now weighted squats are off the schedule and aerobics are back on it. That's just as well, since I find it easier to control my constant overeating after aerobic workouts versus resistance workouts. )
Do Burpees (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burpee ) Developed by the other class of people who stay in a small room for much of their day. Get into a habit of doing a set when you wake up and another at night. I started them because of a long series of traveling where I needed a way to get an effecient workout done in a hotel room. I supplement these with biking to work and long walks with my dog.
Long walks with a dog. Solitary, at your pace. and the dog has many other benifits to your life (just owning one has been shown to lower your blood pressure).
Dance Dance Revolution won't work all your muscle groups, but it will provide a great aerobic exercise and do a good number on your leg muscles.
Personal success story: Using only DDR, I went from 230 to 180 lbs and a set of solid legs I could strangle a horse with. Once I reached 180, I decided to try jogging and was able to start off doing 3 miles (3x farther than I've ever jogged in my life).
Best part is you can do it from the comfort of your home with the PS1 and PS2 versions. I recommend the basement or a sturdy floor, quite a bit of jumping is involved. I also suggest better dancing pads than the Konami ones, RedOctane.com has a great padded one that is easier on the joints and moves around less.
Most people eat much more than they need to. If you eat more slowly, you may realize that you do not need to eat quite as much.
I bought a 'wee' and have been playing 'wee' sport, particularly boxing. I've lost a few pounds alreay, my wife wants to get wee fit, but is it worth anohter £70?
Triathlons.
You can really maximize the geek factor when you work all three disciplines. Swimming is very technique oriented and non-impact.
Cycling has a huge array of toys. You can get fairly affordable carbon fiber or titanium bike (esp used). Training by power is all the rage, so that's more toys. What is your functional threshold power? normalized power per ride? correlate with heart rate (you are wearing a heart rate monitor, right?). At least one new power meter will hook into your Garmin or PDA with open source software coming out in the next year or so (e.g. http://www.quarq.us/). Dozens of software package let you over analze all this stuff with great charts and things.
Running allows you to justify additional toys like the Garmin or Polar cadence/pace/gps/time/heartrate systems, with associated analysis software.
Plus when you get into longer events like half or full iron distance events you can play with nutrition as well. Maximizes digestable calories on the go with custom-designed gatorade (http://www.infinitnutrition.us/).
Surely that's geeky enough!
You do have to actually exercise though. You can't just mount the bike on the wall. All that exercise, might make you more fit and lose weight too, but that's just a side-effect.
Go here and read and learn:
http://www.johnstonefitness.com/
It has changed my life in the last year.
The person that runs it is an IT guy that decided to change his life (see link for pictures)
http://www.johnstonefitness.com/php/pictures.php
Rex: At Rex Kwan Do, we use the buddy system. No more flying solo. You need somebody watching your back at all times. Second off, you're gonna learn to discipline your image. You think I got where I am today because I dressed like Peter Pan over here?
[points to Kip]
Rex: Take a look at what I'm wearing, people. You think anybody wants a roundhouse kick to the face while I'm wearing these bad boys? Forget about it. Last off, my students will learn about self respect. You think anybody thinks I'm a failure because I go home to Starla at night? Forget about it!
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Get a decent pair of running shoes for your own good and get out there.. There are a number of "couch to 5K" programs on the web. They usually take 6-8 weeks and have a slow ramp up to the 5K goal. The 3 times a week routines can be quite detailed (run 1/4mi, walk 1/4, run, 1/2, walk 1/4 etc etc) which may keep you interested.
There are also some gadgets that may make running more interesting to you. There are a number of heart monitor and pedometers out there. Nike+ is kinda cool as it records your distance and time into an ipod, uploading all data to a nike website to track trends and motivate you.
It may interest you as to WHY running is so hard at first (I mean it's just shuffling you legs right?). Read a little about endurance, strength, the physiology of running, and heart rate - then get a heart rate monitor (a cheap watch one will do). You'll learn all kinds of things about your body. Record data every time you run and you'll soon be running just to collect more data and make nice reports.. go nerds.
Take it easy though.. Part of the problem is that many people go out way to hard. Follow the couch to 5k program. It's deliberately slow. It is designed to get your muscles, joints, connective tissue prepared for running. You may be able to propel your body 3 miles at first go, but your body is really going to bitch about it later, possibly in the form of injury.
One you get into the habit of going out the door rather than turning on the TV in the early evening you'll find it much easier. You'll have alot more energy to boot.
-t
I am a fairly regular anon coward here (I don't troll though). I am also a jock. I would recommend taking a look at the book "Naked Warrior" (goofy title, I know but only startup costs are the book) or google "body weight culture" and there is a group all about solo exercises based off of the body. If you don't mind spending money, kettlebells rock out but are also quite intense.
Seriously though, at any grown up gym no one is judging you if you are polite and not dressed like an idiot.
I say get outside. Go take martial arts, hit a gym, go running, do anything! If you MUST stay inside, then do pushups, changing the position of your hands to cover all directions eventually. Also, be sure to do plenty of stretches; make yourself hurt. If you have a bar, do pullups. Goddamn it boy, not everything can be done from home. Get your ass outside! No point in looking good if you can't even show it off.
It'll just give you toned muscles. If you want to burn fat, you have to spend more calories than you consume. You need cardio: get the heart rate up, and keep it up. Sit-ups are also bad for you: do crunches instead.
First, check with your doctor before beginning any diet or exercise program. There are many ways to reduce unwanted pounds. Eating sensibly is number one. If you simply eat less calories, you will lose weight. This will shrink you stomach, but it will not shed (much) body fat. However, this means that whatever food you do eat must be good for you. Excess sugar (soft drinks), salt, and fat (deep fried foods) should be avoided as much as possible. Eating 5-10 servings of fruit and veg will help. Fruit is mostly water, but contains a lot of vitamins and minerals your body needs to function. The actual size of a serving is never clearly defined. I typically, treat a serving as half the size of my fist, but I do lean more towards 10 rather than 5 servings. Nutritionists are constantly finding new things in food. So I try to keep the variety high. Also, try drinking a cup of water before every meal. Drink plenty of water (6-10 cups a day). The signal for thirst and hunger are the same. You may think you are hungry, but in fact you are thirsty. Try drinking a cup of water when you feel hungry. wait 5-10 minutes, if you are still hungry, then you probably are hungry. Running on a treadmill, elliptical, arc trainer will burn fat. Depending on your age, training will vary. Get a trial membership at a gym. They typically, offer an assessment, and a beginner program. Then cancel after the trial is done, and workout at home. The trainer will help you find exercises that work for you. If you are in your 30s, eventually you will want to be burning 500-1,000 calories per session. This is a lot! Shoot for 300, and work you way up. 500-750 should be a target, but you should be able to do a session at 1,000. You won't know this value unless you're running on a machine. Which you can use in a gym.
Swimming laps, or running 5 miles a day.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
http://www.p90x.com/ I personally have done P90X before with great results and am on my second run through now. Even if you don't follow the program to the letter you can use the workouts individually on your own schedule and the diet planning is very helpful. The DVD's are available in numerous locations (wink, nudge) but the program is legitimately worth purchasing. Of course the success of any workout regimen comes down to having the discipline to keep at it.
What you are saying has some merit, however strength training increases fast twitch to slow twitch muscle fiber ratio, i.e. you have more fast twitch fibers.
Fast twitch fibers rely on a completely different metabolic reserve which is depleted in a minute or less. So if the activity is longer and esp. if it is 20 min or more long your big fast twitch muscles do not help you at all (as a matter of fact they hinder you since your slow twitch fibers have to carry that extra weight around :D).
Look up on physiology of cycling for example here: http://www.midweekclub.ca/articles/coggan.pdf
It's fascinating.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
Fuck you.
Bikes have the same rights to the road as you do. The taxes you pay on your vehicle contribute mostly to the bureaucracy of automotive maintenance, not road maintenance. Everyone pays equally for road maintenance, and truck drivers destroy roads thousands of times faster than cyclists ever can.
You can share the road, or you can go to jail.
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Calories Burned for Activity: Standing - Light
136 calories per hour
Crank up the vibes and move your feet.
I work standing up at my keyboard, the World's Fastest Keyboard.
I walk to and from the bus to work.
I cycle to work sometimes.
from the "father of the perfect keyboard"
Here is a free weight loss website comparable to WeightWatchers and the like. www.sparkpeople.com
If you insist on not joining a gym, or can't afford to build your own home gym (most people can't), there is still a way to do what you want.
Google: "Death by bodyweight"
This is a great starting place: Death by bodyweight
You may find that you'll start to really enjoy working out...in which case I'd highly recommend joining a gym. I've been doing a MWF split at my gym the past 18 months and it's really been fun. Learning what works, what doesn't, seeing progress etc.
Also, I'm as introverted as they come...I have paranoid schizophrenia. Going to the gym has been great for me because I can be in public (i.e. around people) but not be obligated to interact with them at all. I just put on my headphones and lift, no problem. It's fun, and it's healthy for me both mentally and physically to get out and exercise.
Btw, here's a great resource for beginner bodybuilders: Bodybuilding.com forums
Good Luck.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
I'm slowly losing the battle with the bulge as well but I've had some success over the last couple of years. Last year I trained for and ran the Chicago Half Marathon. I used the Smart Coach from runnersworld.com New city, some excitement and a goal really made it all worth it. I ran it alone and didn't get the greatest time in the world but I finished. I'm glad I did it.
This year I got some workout videos and am now doing a very rigorous program called P90X in the mornings every day. It is making a big difference. If you don't want to go out you don't have to. I'm a big fan of the workout routine at this point and would recommend it to anyone who is relatively in shape and wants something more. It's a 90 day program which is nice for the goal setting as well. And it changes up once in a while so it doesn't get too stale.
Ellipctical! It thoroughly rocks--very low/no impact on the joints (good if you're a bigger guy or have knee problems) but it still kicks your butt 9-ways from Sunday--works your heart, and your legs, arms, and chest at the same time... Efficient! And it'll tickle your geek-gadget-gene to put it together. (Here's a hint, though... Pay for "inside delivery" as this device will come on the back of a truck--not a UPS truck but an LTL freight arrangement. Trust me, they're REALLY heavy and, while in the box, difficult to move solo.)
My elliptical is a schwinn and I paid just over US$600 for it, but its been a great investment. I've lost weight and have more energy, and my waist is smaller which has made buying clothes for my "Dress-formal" office a lot easier and cheaper.
The bicycle is more for recreation than for aerobic exercise... I just like tooling around the neighborhood, or maybe doing a little paved trail riding... I'm not into the "extreme" bicycling that some of my friends do, I just like it as an option... "So do you want to get some dinner and then go for a bike ride?" sounds way friendlier and less... loaded... than "Let's get some drinks and go back to your place."
Who did what now?
http://crossfit.com/ is a fitness "blog" that posts a new workout every day, which, with the right equipment (some can be gleaned from household items, some can't) can be done in the privacy of your own home. They also have videos of how to do all the movements. OR, if you want some *serious* motivation, find a Crossfit gym near you (they are all over the country... just search Google for "Crossfit Affiliate ." You have NO IDEA what you're capable of, physically, until you've done Crossfit regularly for a few months. Check it out, seriously.
I won't provide any links, so I don't come off as shilling for any particular company. I happen to like the stuff that comes up in the top hits in Google, though.
I've been using kettlebells off and on for most of the last 5 years. The exercises seem kind of crazy, especially when compared to the typical gym machine or freeweight exercises, but they're effective.
Using kettlebells won't give you a bodybuilder (booby-builder) physique, but they will make you STRONG. Like, scary strong. Can you pick up your 50lb child with one arm and lift her over your head? I can (if she's wearing something strong enough, like a snow suit). You wouldn't know it to look at me, though. I'm not overly developed, but KB exercises strengthen core muscles (abs, obliques, back, shoulders, etc.) and force you to learn how to use all of your body to lift things.
The target audience for KBs is usually martial artists and other such folk. I'm your typical computer guy who values his finger dexterity way too much to get into that stuff. But I hated going to the gym, and push-ups weren't doing enough to keep the flab off. Plus, I've always suffered from chronic lower-back pain. My brother (who is into martial arts) introduced me to KBs, and I've been throwing them around ever since.
I'd better stop before this starts sounding too much like an info-mercial. I have no connection to the people selling this stuff, other than that I'm a very happy kettlebeller. Oh, one last thing. Unless you have someone to train with and learn from, make sure that you buy a book, and/or a video. The exercises are incredible, but they take time to learn, and you can hurt yourself if you don't learn proper form and technique. I've never injured myself, fwiw.
A host is a host from coast to coast...
Unless it's down, or slow, or fails to POST!
Check out www.crossfit.com. Most of the "Workout of the Day" workouts take around 30 minutes, some as little as 5-6 minutes, a few as long as an hour. They are all self scaling or scaled by the BrandX guys and they are heavy on MetCon which will take weight off of you with a quickness.
The minimum equipment requirements are pretty low. It's nice to have a pullup bar and a bench and some freeweights. But you can sub bodyweight stuff for most of the weighted stuff and still get great benefits out of it.
Try it and see.
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
Here's what I do: I bought a cheap ($180) treadmill from WalMart. I put it in front of the TV, and either put in a movie I want to watch, or some game on the 360. Turn the treadmill on, and work out to your favorite movies and some good games. It keeps you from being bored, and the time seems to just fly by.
As long as you are the type to not give up easily, find something athletic-ish that you're interested in doing but seems a bit too difficult, something that happens maybe 4-6 months in the future, and sign up for it. You'll have a financial, emotional, and strategic commitment.
Then train for it not just to 'get fit', but because if you don't, the event will physically kick your ass. When training is not the goal in itself, you are working to get yourself fit for some functional purpose that you can measure the progress toward, and it's much easier.
It's similar to the way headphones can make a particular workout go faster, but on a larger scale.
After 27, the pounds (or kilos for the rest of the world) started piling on uncontrollably. I did several things that really helped.
:)
1) Stopped drinking sugar sodas. All my energy drinks are crappy tasting but low calorie and do the job.
2) Found and old XBOX and started playing DDR. This had the unexpected side effect of my teenagers wanting to play (thus they were exercising).
3) I tried any group work out routine (most will let you try for free once). The one that I bought into was LA Boxing's 1 hour workout routine (www.laboxing.com). Basically.. I go to work, take a 1.5 hour lunch (work out), then I don't feel guilty sitting on my tukus for the rest of the day. They also allow you to take a free class.
The best thing about this is you can try experimenting for free until you find one that you can tolerate
I run a min of 3.1 miles (a 5k) a day (with the exception of Sunday) at around a 8.5 min pace, on the weekends I usually do 9.3 miles (15k) plus I go to the gym to weight train 3 times a week. I'm thinking of training for a triathlon... Yes, I'm a fit Geek... Wasn't always though - 2 years ago I was pushing 290lbs & now at 40 years old, I weigh 183 with 11.1% body fat. BEST thing about all that exercise is that I can pretty much eat what I want.
Having tried Cycling, White Water Kayaking, Hiking, and the standard aerobic equipment at the Gym. I must say going to the rock gym 3 times a week for 30min - 1 Hr had the largest positive impact on the shape of my body. Most of the other exorcizes tended to bulk up different parts of my body. If you have problems with your hands or wrists I would talk to a doctor before trying it. When climbing there can be tremendous strain on your fingers and hand injuries that could impact your ability to type are common.
"I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions."
Everyone seems to be suggesting THEIR answer, which is OK but might not be YOUR answer.
For instance, a few people have said that going to the gym is the perfect solution. I *HATE* gyms, and if I relied on one for my fitness, I'd be dead by now (either from bad health or suicide). Ditto for elliptical trainers and treadmills, and really anything that is exercise for the sake of exercise.
Personally, I cycle and fence. The key is that I _enjoy_ the activities, which makes it far easier to get motivated to do them. If you hate what you're doing, you won't do it. Never schedule misery into your day.
So find something that you like doing, and stick to it.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
I'm still pumped from using the mouse.
Well, some time ago I weighted in at 115 kg. That's a *lot*, and I was not happy.
I found a nice trainig idea at http://bodyforlife.com/ - while I did buy the book, I found this not to be necessary: you can find all required data at the site. And no, there's no need to buy their advertised food-stuff.
Now I'm at 92 kg, and feel much better. And yes, it did go rather quickly. And I'm certain I'll reach my aim of 80 kg, even if it'll take some time yet.
Yes, you probably need a Gym, although you might find enough info on the net to do your muscle training at home, perhaps with just a few dumbbells. ;)
If you worry about being in a Gym, it's easy: use a walkman, set it to relatively noisy, do your training, ignore everybody. Simple
Here's what I do:
* Monday: Upper body muscle training.
* Tuesday: Cardio (20 minutes, spike-form)
* Wednesday: Lower body muscle training
* Thursday: Cardio (fast walk for 68 minutes at 5.0 km/h and 15 to burn 1000 kcal)
* Friday: Upper body muscle training
Would be good to do some cardio on Saturday, but I usually don't get around to it.
Some basic points about muscle training:
* The BFL program is pretty good. You do a set of 12 movements, wait 60 seconds, do a set of 10 (with more weights), then 8 (more weight), then 6 (max weight), then 2x12 (less weight, but without any pause between them). The idea is to see your muscles fail on the second set of 12, no matter how hard you try. Yes, do this as hard as you can, curse at your muscles, try for juuuust one more... it really helps.
* Perfection is if you can upgrade the weights on one of these movements every time.
* Give your muscles an entire day to recover. Do not do the same training two days in a row, it's pretty useless as the muscles need some peace and quiet to grow.
* Training is hard: you train to the absolute limit of your muscle capability. This is the best way of making sure your muscles feel the need to grow. Because:
* Your body hates muscles. They are expensive to build up, and they are expensive to maintain, as a kilo of muscles consumes about 100 kcal per day, even if it doesn't move at all.
Cardio:
* Spiked Cardio is nice, too. You start at a low level (imagine level 0 being in bed in the morning, and level 10 running away from a pack of wolves), slowly grow each minute, reach a spike, drop down to relax, and build up again. The whole thing takes about 20 minutes, which each level running for 60s. The levels look like this:
6 6 6 7 8 9 6 7 8 9 6 7 8 9 6 7 8 9 10 6
* You can use any form of cardio for this (running, swimming, skating, rowing, etc), but I prefere the Crosstrainer. Nice.
* The long cardio is useful for flushing your body, loosing a lot of kcal in the process. It's not too hard (my heartbeat being in the high 150s), and I view a nice (short) movie while a walk fast.
Food:
* I use low fat stuff, and avoid anything white (bread, potatoes, cheese, milk, etc).
* Eat 4-5 times per day, about a handful of meat and a handful of greenery each time. Concentrate on proteins (meat).
* Fish are good, turkey breast, Bananas, Apples... (check the BFL site for full details).
Ü The amount of kcal you need per day varies (they have a calculator). I need 1800, thus this is what I eat every day - don't eat too little.
* Sunday is your Free Day - eat what you want. Choclate, Pizza, Ice Cream - no problem. Yes, yes, you'll overdo it the first time. And the second. But you'll learn to limit yourself and not eat too much, and then it works very well.
* If you see a nice munchy choclate bar in a shop - no need to think "Aaaarghm I'm not allowed!". Think: "Heeey, only two days until Sunday, then I can eat it!". Don't buy it yet, though - wait till Sunday (or Saturday afternoon in case the shop would be closed).
Good luck!
Ciao,
Klaus
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
You will have a new toy and when exercising you can keep your heart rate up there by maximizing you results. 100 bpm for beginners is a good target rate regardless of what your doing the most important thing is to keep it around 100 bpm for an hour. Once you in better shape interval training works wonders 150bpm for short periods and recovery until your rate is at 100bpm again repeat for a half hour with 15 min warm up and cool down. Interval training will give you more of the prolonged BRM increase you would get with weight training, which you still need to do.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
Get a concept II rowing machine - it hits most of your muscle groups while giving you an aerobic workout at the same time, and it folds up against the wall while not in use. http://www.concept2.com/us/default.asp [I'm not affiliated with the company]
I think you might have mistyped?
"Strength training destroys muscle mass: your body spends extra energy for days after the session is over rebuilding the damaged tissue."
Actually it's the opposite but since you seem to know that already I am assuming you made a typo? I've done the same thing as you but starting BF % was lower I think around 20-22%.
I love my gadgets as much as the next geek, but it's nice to rely on nothing but a solid pair or shoes and an old pair of shorts. I can't buy or upgrade myself into being faster or running further, it's just me and the road.
It's a good way to balance out all the use of technology in my life.
Steal my band's record! Seriously,
I do both weights for 1 hr and cardio right after for 30-40 mins. Not doing cardio didn't work for me for cutting fat down. Doing the cardio does one good thing which is it creates a demand for glucose that must be filled either from your liver storage of glycogen or your next meal. That means that when you eat next you are going to have a lot more of the carbs you eat go to your muscles rather than to your fat cells.
Http://www.CrossFit.com I found this in January, workouts take 20-30 minutes.
"It's only work is somebody makes you do it." --Calvin, Calvin & Hobbes
Before I started biking to work I did...nothing. I've been the same weight since I graduated high school 15 years ago. I do pretty much the same things now that I did back then with the exception of chasing a 20 month old around now.
I don't eat a lot of junk like candy, doughnuts, candybars, or any other crap like that. I eat some, but I don't eat it all day. Other than that, I eat pretty healthy meals.
Now that I ride a bike to work I still weigh what I did before I started, I'm just in better shape (my legs are anyway).
If you're having trouble keeping weight off, check your diet and your exercise. It looks like you're already exercising a bit, so you probably need to take a closer look at what you're eating.
The GI for watermelon is very high but that does not really matter because the amount of sugar you get from a regular sized portion is not much. Even a small slice of watermelon once per day isn't going to do anything to your blood sugar levels if eaten with other foods such as meat or lower GI carbs. The most important thing is glycemic load which has an effect on how much insulin is released. Insulin also causes fat cells to take up glucose not just muscle so the more carbs you eat the more insulin is needed to get rid of it.
Also there's no reason to limit carbs too much on workout days because this can ultimately affect your performance and ability to work out harder. If anything at least have one higher carb meal before your workout but not too much as to be counter productive. This may take some experimenting but you will find that overall you are going to be better off. If you don't have any energy for your workout you're going to be lifting less weight for less reps.
or some other fighting sport
Jog in place while you masturbate. It'll take you longer to finish, so you should get a good 20-30 minute workout. Plus, the payoff at the end will be awesome.
Dance Dance Revolution!
You're mixing two separate things - weight gain/loss and calorie intake/usage. They're linked, but not the same.
Regular weight training builds muscle mass assuming you eat properly. If you don't eat properly you can potentially LOSE muscle mass instead of fat mass which is even worse (especially from a 'visual' perspective).
However muscle weighs more than fat...so you potentially eat MORE food and GAIN weight (or at least maintain) while still achieving the goal (assuming it is) of looking thinner and less fatty, more muscled, and overall being in better shape.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
If you decide on an elliptical trainer, make sure you try a few out. They are designed for different stride lengths, and it makes quite a difference how they feel for you, and how pleasant the experience is. The correct stride length makes quite a difference.
I thought about using a stationary bike as a generator and using it to power my TV or computer... that way if I want to use either one I would be forced to exercise. And it would be a fun project to actually implement.
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
To specifically address the question posed...
You must be new here.
Now, if you don't mind, can we please get back to our tangential side conversation? It hasn't yet devolved into an all-out flamewar between the Aerobic Nazis vs. the Weightlifting Trolls.
You aren't doing enough exercise. 60 press ups (push ups??) is ok, but doesn't really target your waist line. 30 situps... if you are doing them everyday isn't going to do very much after a short time. You need to be increasing your numbers. You need to focus on improvement. If you can do 30 situps, try 2 sets of them. Then try 3 sets. Once you can do 3 sets of 30 sit ups increase to 40 sit ups or 50. Eventually you may have to do resistance exercises such as doing them while holding a medicine ball.
You need to be constantly pushing the envelope until you get to your target. Once there, you can stay at a constant routine. If what you are doing isn't working, then you need to push yourself to do a little bit more.
Cardio workouts are a great way to trim the mid section as well. Running, biking, speed walking, and swimming are all great for this. You need to be getting your heart rate up to about 120 beats per minute (to start, higher as you get more in shape).
If you really don't want to exercise in front of people then get a stationary bike or a treadmill, or an elliptical machine.
Don't forget diet as well. You may not be over eating but what you are eating may not be all that healthy. When good diet and exercise are combined you will get great results.
The discussion I have been reading is all about work outs? I personally cant stand a work out! However, why not take up squash ladder, join a soccer team? I started riding motocross (yes I am a programmer) I was 5' 10" 205 lb, 47 year old. twice a week I ride hard (dripping sweat hard). Now I am at 182, and having a ton of fun. I have found that most adult "fun" sports are very accepting to new members. Its what keeps their "club" going. The other thing a team will do, is put pressure on you to attend as you have made a commitment to the team as well as yourself. There is also the benefit of the social aspect of the requesite beer after said event.
I know of one geek who exercises well(I know it's MySpace, but he's not a computer geek).
My fellow Americans, let's restore the death penalty for child rapists. Let's do it . . . for the children.
It's my personal opinion (and direct experience) that if you have to exercise to stay thin, there's crap in your diet that's making you gain weight. I used to be 230 pounds, now I'm 185 (which is about right for my height). The only exercise I get is 11 minutes of weight lifting (arms & legs only) twice a week. This I do for vanity only. But diet? That's where the magic is. Remove all man-made food from your diet, return to raw fruits & veggies & nuts & berries, cook 'em sometimes if you have to, cook your own meat, and avoid, to the greatest possible extent, anything that went through a manufacturing plant (you can tell because this stuff comes in boxes and cans). And keep this in mind: Almost anything you eat in a typical restaurant these days went through a manufacturing plant and arrived on a freezer truck.
With this incredibly restrictive diet (which consists of the stuff humanoids have been eating for hundreds of thousands of years, rather than the chemicals and such invented in the last 100 years), your body will return to the weight it naturally prefers. http://darwinshealth.blogspot.com/
- The Kessel run is for nerf herders. I can circumnavigate the entire Central Finite Curve in a lot less than 12 parse
1300+ comments and 99.9% of them revealing and encouraging. We've collectively put a MOUNTAIN of thought into personal health. Our bodies get a lot of focus. --The medium is the message, eh? Says a ton about our society.
You can pull a Veidt, (Watchmen) and just skim over this vast field of posts and within a few minutes know pretty much every solution there is when it comes to balancing a sit-all-the-time job with trying to keep the body healthy.
I might as well pitch in with my own little story, since the motivation to share IS almost overwhelming. (People put so much thought into this and are so rarely asked what their solutions are).
1. An Interesting Observation Everybody has a different body, but in the geek world, there's a big generalization one can make; we're either tall, skinny guys, or we're tubs. Don't really know why that is, but that genetic skew seems to be a fact. I'm a tall skinny guy, perhaps this post will be useful for two-thirds of anybody skimming over this.
2. Quality and Quantity. By Default. Being just this side of some sort of condition other people get drugged for but which I've been lucky enough to be able to live around, I tend to get so into whatever it is I'm working on that I forget to eat. Hunger becomes just this annoying thing which I'll deal with after I tinker with this one line I'm working on for just ten more minutes. . . Eventually the stomach stops complaining. So long as you don't spend a lot of time in this state, (you'll make yourself sick if you do. I know.), and when you do eat, go out of your way to eat the good stuff, so that when you do eat the junk it doesn't tend to cause a problem. --As for the Good Stuff, nutrition-wise, that whole "Listen to your body" thing really, really works, I find. If people quiet down long enough to hear the internal cues, and if they bind that with some basic nutritional research, then 95% of the grocery store becomes off-limits, as do fast-food joints and the like. I live in a city with a LOT of fat people who are fat as a direct result of their diet and because they are simply not paying attention. The body doesn't want to feel bad, and so if you only eat that which makes your body feel better after having eaten it, then you're a long way to where most people want to be.
3. Exercise. I happen to own a bike instead of a car, and so when I need to get anywhere, I'm stressing the body in a good way by necessity. In the Winter, I'm on foot. Beyond that, when I'm feeling a little too thin upper body-wise, I might do some push-ups or exercises of some sort, but that's only for aesthetic reasons which I soon give up on. Girls seem to find me attractive enough, so I figure as long as I'm happy and healthy enough to experience life however I need to, then why waste time?
Okay. That's my two-cents. Thanks to everybody for sharing! These kinds of questions remind me of the Big Common Connection. Despite my sometimes-grumbling, I really do think you're all pretty awesome!
-FL
IANA dietitian but from my own experience a geek lifestyle coupled with a steady diet of energy drinks is not a good thing. The amount of sugar alone should steer you away.
I think eating proper portions is something to consider. Since I sit in front of a screen all day and burn few calories, I try to eat smaller portions but savor every bite. One thing to consider: if I'm going to eat less, I want to eat better tasting food as well. So, I downloaded a cookbook and started learning how to be a better cook. I'm turning into a food geek.
Finally, 30 minutes of exercise is all you need. I do pushups, pullups, and situps while I watch TV. I got a GPS and started exploring every trail I could find. I intend to do a GPS + Google Maps mashup eventually; that should be geeky enough for me.
Yoga for 1 hour, then Masturbation with Pr0nimation for 3 hours, rest and shower, repeat.
The Power of Pr0nimation in the Palm of Your Hand! Pr0nitor by Pr0nware
You say you already do push-ups and sit-ups. sounds like you just need to add a few more exercises to your routine plus some cardio. I like to do martial arts after sitting at my pc all day and it's a really great workout. I will go to the dojo because it helps me to be consistent and the instructors push you further. Sounds like this is not what you are interested in. However, martial arts have produced some of the fittest people in the world... For home training I recommend checking out http://www.akban.org/fitness/ There you can find exercises to round out your routine and also cool self defense techniques.
I totally agree. One thing I'd like to add is to maybe get two pairs of running shoes if you're serious about it. Letting one pair air out while you use the other pair actually extends the life of your shoes. Also, it's a good way early on to figure out what brand fits you best. A lot of people recommended Asics, but Mizuno fit me much better.
Got a PL-bar, squat rack, bench and eventually some dumbells.
Use the, done.
The first thread got so high focus on what to eat from retards who have no clue.
Actually weight training doesn't lead to more muscle cells. You end up with the same number you started with, they just get a lot bigger. They're multi-nucleated cells, and will add more nuclei, mitochondria and other organelles as needed.
Two old men were sitting in the park, one said "it's nice out", the other said "in that case I'll get mine out".
Olympic barbell, sandbags, kettlebells, treadmill, chinup bar, exercise bike, jump rope
Seriously just because you are a geek doesn't mean you can't have muscle.
Forget the bowflex or other machines. Just get a pile of weights, some dumbbell handles and a bar and go nuts.
A lot of the posts here seem to have a lot of ways of avoiding any real exercise.
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
I can't have been the only person to have combined a treadmill, some lumber and drawer hardware, two computers and a Sega Genesis system in their basement?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26445696@N04/2717347744/
Linux -- the Ultimate Windows Service Pack
I lost 40 pounds through a combination of a low carb diet (no bread, potatos, rice, pasta or sweets) and walking about 4 miles each workday. To make the walking more interesting I listen to an iPod filled with audio books from Audible. I used to get this exercise by walking to work, but now I live close to my workplace, so I take an hour off for an afternoon constitutional.
Wii Fit. Man do I feel like an idiot playing it, but it does an OK job I suppose.
I think that it depends upon the type of strength training you're doing. Typical weight training is focused on building muscle mass and bulk rather than improving strength-to-weight ratio. Dynamic anaerobic training such as that in rock climbing or gymnastics, which require high strength-to-weight ratios, tends to build smaller but still lean and strong muscle mass.
Basically, the body adapts to the type of activity. Since ordinary weight training doesn't impose a penalty for having a low strength-to-weight ratio, the body doesn't optimize appropriately for weight loss.
Now eat less, and walk.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Swimming doesn't usually have much effect on weight for the same reason - it really wears you out so the tendency is to have a big meal afterwards. If you can control your hunger then it is good exercise though.
I'd assume that swimming and other aerobic exercise is better for your heart than pure weight training as well? I find it pretty easy to do weights, but my lungs suck (no pun intended). I used to have an inhaler for asthma when I was a kid, and I still have hay fever. I lost to a fat chick on a 200metre race at school! When I was at university I started doing a bit of jogging at the gym and managed to build myself up so that I could jog/run for 20minutes without stopping, but at the moment I could probably only manage 2 or 3 minutes of jogging at a time depending on how warm it is (cold air is better as it has more oxygen).
which is totally what she said
Best exercise I've ever done.
CROSSFIT is awesome.
It's just a simple (ha!) 20-30 minute workout a day.
In the last six months I've gone from 1.5 to 13 pull ups, from 210 to 285 deadlift, and other similiar gains.
Most of all, I feel better, I have more energy during the day, I sleep more soundly, and even though I work out by myself in a home gym, I feel connected to the crossfit community through the message boards.
The workouts will hurt you, but you'll get an amazing sense of accomplishment.
C'est pas apres qu'on a fait dans son pantalon qu'il faut serrer les fesses.
Your comments are spot-on.... but I'd also add that the reasons most of these "diets" fail is precisely BECAUSE they're designed with being a "temporary measure" in mind.
People follow these weird diets that encourage eating an abundance of a particular category or two of food, while shunning many others. Obviously, that's going to get BORING after so long, and the dieter is going to slip back out of that routine. (In some cases, it may even deprive them of a needed vitamin or mineral - forcing them to give it up.)
Others offer well-balanced mixes of tasty food choices, but they encourage "laziness" on the part of the dieter, letting the company (Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, etc.) do the calorie counting for them. Once they tire of spending that much of a price premium to purchase everything from them -- they usually again fall into eating patterns of taking in more calories.
By the same token, there's considerable evidence that it's not even necessarily "bad" to be a little over the weight some chart claims is "ideal" for an individual. (Remember grandma's old thing about cleaning your plate, to stay healthy? Some studies show slightly overweight people get sick less often.)
As long as you stay reasonably active and make healthy food choices (not too many trans-fats or processed sugars, etc.), it's probably both natural and "ok" to gain a little weight as you age.
In the discussion of calories you might also consider what foods you are eating. Just over 30% of people have a glycemic responses that causes them to gain weight more quickly when eating foods high in sugar and simple carbohydrates. It's an insulin balance thing. The glycemic response is probably why the Atkins diet can be so successful for many people.
I have to watch my pasta, bread and rice along with some fruit like bananas. Alcohol and soft drinks are high glycemic index foods and need to be taken in moderation.
UPS over 50kg, massive servers, old school 21' CRT monitors, ...
The upper you go into the sysadmin stuff, heavier stuff you have to lift.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
There is a school of thought that believes if you short your body on calories more than a certain percent, your body goes into survival mode and burns anything it can but fat. Given your activity level, and assuming you are a male, have you tried upping your caloric intake into the 2000-2500 range to see if you start losing weight?
Also do you have lots of extra skin or fat? Perhaps you need to speak with a plastic surgeon about removing some of your extra skin (but not liposuction). Skin can weigh a lot and has a limited ability to contract after being expanded greatly.
On a more general note, you had this routine for years and not got the result you wanted? Have you tried changing it up in any way? What is that saying, "Insanity is continuing to do the same thing and expecting different results"?
...without gaining a fraction of an inch around my waste line...
I don't know whether that typo was intentional or not.
I just know that I like it.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
I have my notebook mounted on my treadmill. Every night after my toddler goes to bed I game while walking for an hour or two. It's set for a 5 degree incline and 1.5 MPH. It doesn't affect my playing abilities and I burn a lot of calories. Also, my heart rate doesn't get so high as to affect getting to sleep afterward. As a bonus, if I want to play more (for those long WoW raids) I burn more calories!
I built a monitor stand and keyboard tray for my treadmill so I can burn calories while surfing slashdot. It's somewhat similar to this: http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ol-images/la/uploads/10_07walkstation.jpg
Vary concentrated, efficient exercise.
The complete answer: Eat less. Move more.
Bottom line:
You forgot something:
There, fixed it for ya.
Slashdotting since 2000
Once you've got the PDF, go to page 7 of the document (page 1087 in the printed journal). Right hand column, second paragraph reads:
It is reasonable to assume that persons with relatively high daily energy expenditures would be less likely to gain weight over time, compared with those who have low energy expenditures. So far, data to support this hypothesis are not particularly compelling ...
In other words, there are no good scientific studies that prove that exercise leads to weight loss.
Of course, exercise is good for you. But it won't help you lose weight.
So there. The big authorities (who surprisingly enough show scientific integrity) have said it.
Walking, bike riding to work is some of the least intrusive exercise and it makes you work out regularly. You can even determine your distance by getting off the bust/train one station earlier than you usually would or using a parking lot farther from your office.
And it has other benefits like being exposed to the elements once in a while, which strengthens your immune system.
But my favorite is to go for a 20 min walk after lunch. It helps not only as exercise (although it might be to short to make much of a difference on weight). But it does help with not falling into the early after noon trap and you will be much more productive, making up for the "lost" 20 min.
Busy helping non technical users of OpenOffice.org - http://plan-b-for-openoffice.org/
Yes, running in a team sport is one of the best solutions for a geek, except when you don't like any sport.
My solution?
http://groups.google.com/group/soccerlunch/
and in addition I usually join a Saturday pickup game plus get invited all the time to local leagues, and I play as time permits.
Football ("soccer" for you gringos) is the best sport in the world! Oh and vi rules too.
Slashdotting since 2000
I do Arnel's training and it works like a charm: http://www.iwantsixpackabs.com/abs.html. You'll have to pay special attention to the foods suggested in this site and in related sites.
I need a solid and effective routine that will tone all my muscle groups efficiently. Do any Slashdotters have a regular workout routine that can be performed in the privacy of the home to stave off those pounds?"
It's an engineering problem. You can solve it with a technical fix, or by altering behaviors.
1) Get a pedometer. Measure how many steps you take in a day to establish a baseline. Calculate how many more steps you need to burn off x calories. Adjust your routines to accommodate those more steps. I dunno, right shoes stored in attic, left in basement?
2) get a device that lets you pedal power your computer or tv. Buy off shelf at zapworld.com if they still have those or google for it or make your own from an exercise bike, generator and inverter.
3) get a personal trainer or a mistress.
4) a kirby vaccum cleaner weighs about 50 lbs. vaccuum your floors twice daily. This is not the option I would choose. But find tasks that take work, and do them routinely, to fill the gap in your calorie budget. Learning new dance moves counts as work - how's your samba?
Now, on to the non-responsive answers:
Hypnosis or medication to address either your exercise goals or social issues. Medication to adjust your metabolism. A tapeworm.
Get a dog, take the dog for a walk every day.
Mumble a hello back when people say hello - they will.
Adjust your caloric intake. Several ways to do this:
use chopsticks instead of a fork.
become vegan - on average, vegetarians are 20 pounds lighter.
use more whole foods that take more time and work to prepare. example, peanuts in the shell instead of peanut butter. veggies grown in your garden - which can even be a hydroponic indoor garden are effectively calorie free because you work to grow them.
become more conscious of your eating. keep an inventory of what you ate, why when, etc., at least until you've adjusted to the point you are looking for.
Bike at night? In disguise? Not riding my bike is one of the main reasons my weight has gone from 170 to 195 in the past year.
brazilian jiu-jitsu :-)
I was going to suggest that! I'm currently mid-way through week 2. :-)
Boundless Expansion, Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Spontaneous Order- BEST DO IT SO!
Climbing gym = awesome.
Traditional exercise to me is boring. Lifting weights, treadmills, rowing machines, it's all repetitive motion. Tedious, boring.
Climbing, on the other hand, is like physical puzzle solving. The real challenge in climbing is figuring out how to get to that next grip, not necessarily just getting that extra repetition. There's also a Guitar Hero style difficulty grading and it can be very satisfying to successfully climb a course of the next difficulty.
Climbing. Is. The. Shit. I'm in the best shape of my life and am loving it.
whore's bath
Don't you want to be less sticky?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
It's a great way for geeks to exercise. You get grouped with people at your general level of ability, which mitigates the anxiety of being around people in better shape or higher degree of skill. Also, it allows you to play a game of sorts and hone your skills at something, rather than repetitive biking or jogging, which can easily leave you bored and uninterested.
The Hacker's Diet
Provides statistics, weight tracking, and a simple, yet rigorous workout plan. It works when one sticks to it, heh. I need to get back to sticking to it.
find ~your -name '*base* | xargs chown
I picked up a roman chair and a jump rope from big 5. I do dips, pullups wide, chin ups and leg lifts to failure. Then I do some jump roping for cardio . . . all very doable at home.
Listen to Reality!
... or 5BX. Developed by the Royal Canadian Air Force in the 50s. No equipment, done in the privacy of your own home, and effective. 11 minutes a day. There's a download link at the bottom of the Wikipedia article for the 5BX charts.
Harness the analytical and the fastidious.
John Stone Fitness really impressed me. He applied an almost OCD level of detail to his diet and exercise regime and kept records of the results.
iirc, he works at home and has a home gym. Check out the animated gif of his first results. Very impressive.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
./ers will no doubt want to set the "wii fit instructor" to the female and watch her demo yoga for additional "exercise".
Body For Life is an excellent introduction to fitness and eating. I highly recommend you read the book.
Want to get fit in a hurry? The people advocating Parkour, running, or boxing all have part of the solution, but combine them all with calorie-burning adrenaline and you've got the ultimate workout plan: crime!
Start out small. Breaking and entering works all of the major muscle groups, especially if you're going for large items, and the rush from your first job will have your heart racing before you've even taken crowbar to window! Plus, since you'll likely botch your first job you get the added workout of fleeing from the scene.
Once the "newness" wears off, increase the cardiovascular component by only breaking into 2nd story windows. Eventually you can even move up to 3rd floor or higher. Bigger challenge and potentially bigger profits!
There's more than just B&E, however! Join your local underground fight club? No such thing? No problem! Just pick a fight with a random stranger! The punching and dodging will give you a great upper body workout to balance the sprinting you've been doing to escape from police and light-sleeping homeowners! I suggest starting light- find someone unsuspecting with their guard down (in line at Baskin-Robbins is a good start) and just start pounding on them. Move up to bigger people, and then finally people with lots of friends around for the ultimate workout! You can keep a small weapon like a kubotan or a roll of quarters handy in case things get out of hand, but that's bad form and will potentially reduce the effectiveness of your workout.
Getting busted? Well, fitness comes with a price. On the other hand, a trip to the big house is like a trip to a 24/7 gym, and at the same time it'll solve your "I don't have time to exercise" problem! It's win win!
Boundless Expansion, Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Spontaneous Order- BEST DO IT SO!
You're in your ideal fat burning zone when you're watching tv on the couch. Caring about the fat burned during the exercise is about as smart as carrying about the amount of muscle built during a strength training session (hint: you're destroying the muscle). When you do aerobics, you're making yourself more efficient. Good, huh? Well, it's good if you want to run a marathon or something and you want to use less energy doing it. However, if you're trying to lose weight, you want to be less efficient. You want to burn more calories with less effort. You want to burn calories 24/7. Interval training and weight training can raise your metabolism for 20 hours or more. Long slow running doesn't raise your metabolism very long.
Kramer, Volek et al.
Influence of exercise training on physiological and performance changes with weight loss in men.
Med. Sci. Sports Exerc., Vol. 31, No. 9, pp. 1320-1329, 1999.
Overweight subjects were assigned to three groups: diet-only, diet plus aerobics, diet plus aerobics plus weights. The diet group lost 14.6 pounds of fat in 12 weeks. The aerobic group lost only one more pound (15.6 pounds) than the diet group (training was three times a week starting at 30 minutes and progressing to 50 minutes over the 12 weeks).
The weight training group lost 21.1 pounds of fat (44% and 35% more than diet and aerobic only groups respectively). Basically, the addition of aerobic training didn't result in any real world significant fat loss over dieting alone.
Thirty-six sessions of up to 50 minutes is a lot of work for one additional pound of fat loss. However, the addition of resistance training greatly accelerated fat loss results.
The second key "ingredient" in fat loss programming is high intensity interval training (HIIT). It burns more calories than steady state and elevates metabolism significantly more than other forms of cardio. The downside is that it flat-out sucks to do it!
The landmark study in interval training was from Tremblay:
Tremblay A, Simoneau JA, Bouchard C.
Impact of exercise intensity on body fatness and skeletal muscle metabolism.
Metabolism. 1994 Jul;43(7):814-8
This study pitted 20 weeks of endurance training against 15 weeks of interval training:
Energy cost of endurance training = 28661 calories.
Energy cost of interval training = 13614 calories (less than half)
The interval training group showed a nine times greater loss in subcutaneous fat than the endurance group (when corrected for energy cost).
References grabbed from: http://www.alwyncosgrove.com/hierarchy-of-fat-loss.html
jogging doesn't look so great any more does it?
The university software development group in which I work has been developing yet another free-to-use nutrition/fitness web site for the past year or so. Beta testing has meant recording everything I've eaten and all of the exercise I've performed for that year. (Well, first it meant *finding* some exercise to do.) It's remarkable what an impact the simple act of journaling can have on (at least my) behavior: one year later, ~35 pounds down, and much more energy.
Not being a runner -- not even when chased -- I walk 5-6 most days, and lift some (very) light weights just a few times a week. The biggest surprise to me has been how much the body seems to *enjoy* exercise.
To echo what others have written here: Losing weight and getting fit are definitely a matter of shaping your lifestyle. The mental boost that results from taking control and choosing to live in a healthier manner is a substantive perk.
And now, for the shameless plug: Please feel free to visit http://411fit.com/ We are still working on this daily -- principally trying to find ways to make it easier to use -- and appreciate constructive comments. Thanks!
Seriously! It's REALLY good exercise, you can do it indoors any time of year (unless the rinks around you are seasonal), and for an introvert it's ideal because it's very introspective, just you and the ice. It also appeals to perfectionists because there's always something more to improve, more to perfect. Things can always be just that little bit better. When I started skating I lost 20 lbs or more and got in really great shape. Downsides are mostly that it's rather expensive compared to more 'conventional' sports, sometimes ice availability is limited, and instead of being hot and sweaty, you'll be cold and sweaty :-). Oh, and there's the whole "falling" thing, but you get used to that.
The odds are very high that the original poster could not possibly do better, in terms of an exercise program, than to start doing CrossFit. Most posters have suggested long-distance endurance workouts, weight machines (ugh!) and/or non-functional, bodybuilding exercises (curls, anyone?). CrossFit is functional, varied, and fun! It self-selects for a certain type of highly motivated individual, which the original poster may be. CrossFitters can do many, many things very well.
A geek bonus is that it's open-source and internet-based. IMHO, it is one most important sites on the internet. For fitness, nothing else comes close.
I agree with you completely, the devotees are a bit much, I've never really liked the "work out till you puke" attitude, I understand the value of hitting the wall, but if you're puking you've gone too far IMHO.
I'll back up the unpretentious'ness of the crossfit gyms, you'll generally not find any mirrors in them and lots of whiteboard space, which, if you're like me, is a good sign. I went to my first crossfit in november of last year, i'm 35lbs lighter and a whole lot healthier now. I'm aiming for another 20lbs off and I think I'll have it before my one year of crossfit.
For reference, I could not do a single pullup, had difficulty with the second set of 5 situps, and was generally out of shape when I started. Recently I did my first completely unassisted dead hang pullup (hanging from bar, feet off ground, chin completely over the bar), I've front-squatted my body weight, and yesterday I knocked out more situps than I want to count doing Annie (http://www.crossfit.com/cf-info/excercise.html#Girls).
I hate gyms. Stinky, cold air, artificial light, boring non-well-rounded exercises; what's to like? I had a friend who tried to convince me (like others here) that weightlifting was the answer because it increased overall metabolism. I was willing to go to the gym for a while, but not for the rest of my life, and that's what you should really be asking yourself: what life change(s) are you willing to make? Because only things that you like will you keep doing, and that's what it takes to become fit and stay that way.
I bike to work, and no I don't mean "ride a motorcycle". Sure, I don't ride my bicycle every day, but I figure some days is better than none. You can ride your bike in snow and ice (with the right equipment) and in extreme heat (with enough water). The only valid excuse is illness, in which case, if you are that sick, you should stay home. It's good for you, it's good for your pocketbook and it's good for the environment. Win-win-win!
I also recently started hiking again. Hiking is an excellent, well-rounded exercise. You get tons of aerobic/cardiovascular, lots of stamina, a decent amount of "weight training" (which, let's face it, who needs to bench press 250lb everday? weightlifting is for bodybuilding nerds), some flexibility, and one that many people miss, balance. Show me a machine in a gym that can do that, and give you gorgeous sights, fresh air and sunlight.
The climbing, well, that's just fun. But it does give more focus on "weight training" and flexibility than hiking. It all depends on what you like to do. Find something strenous that you enjoy, and you will get into shape.
Nathan's blog
Well, I did mention that in what I wrote. If you have huge muscles, they hinder your aerobic capacity because the extra weight often adds more work than the extra strength can help you handle.
And I still maintain that within reason (i.e. below the threshold where the extra mass hurts more than the extra strength), additional muscle helps tremendously in aerobic exercise. Aerobic exercise is not purely about lung and heart capacity/efficiency.
Just get a Honda Fit.
Yes I know it was a joke, no I don't work for Honda.
Experience teaches only the teachable. -AH
If you just want to lose weight, all you need to do is change your diet. I'm a zone diet fan, but there are lots of other ways to go. Just keep your carb/protein/fat ratio to around 40/30/30 and cut out refined carbs, replacing them with fruits and vegetables. If you want to get more fit (stronger, faster, more agile, etc.), you can't beat CrossFit. It's highly effective, and you can do it at home. http://www.crossfit.com/ - go, read, watch the videos, and get some.
First, thank you for given me motivation enough to post my first reply to slashdot in years!
The Past:
I could have written this very "ask slashdot" 2 years ago. I was around 30yrs old, weighed over 230 pounds. I have always thought my health to be "good", but I'm in a high-risk category for heart disease, and had been gaining weight steadily since late college. When my wife told me we were implementing family+=1, I became (for the first time) aware that my health was very important to the health of my family, and decided I should try to do something about it.
The Present:
I weigh about 180lbs. I'm in the best shape of my life (in the cardiovascular sense) though I probably wouldn't break my personal bench press records I had in high school. But then again, I can do 50 push-ups, which I guarantee I was never able to do in high school!
With similar thinking to the user who wrote this ask /., the breakthrough (for me) was to be able to exercise in my home. Career and personal obligations as well as, sure...personal insecurity, made me very unlikely to succeed in a fitness center environment. So, I bit the bullet and bought a midrange ($1500) elliptical trainer. I found this ideal for me because:
1. High calorie burning aerobic workout.
2. Fairly natural motion, very little fatigue (but I should mention it is crucial to try many different models from various manufacturers...I tested about a dozen and found all but a few to be awkward).
3. Privacy. Less important for me now.
4. Convienience (somedays, 5am is the only time, others, 8pm). I don't want to go to make a long drive to a gym (for me) on icy roads just to workout.
5. zone-out-ability. I listen to the radio, watch TV, or sometimes, just think about my life. Try doing that in a gym with activity all over the place. I literally "lose myself" during my 50 minute workout, and making the time go by quickly and painlessly is probably the most important reason it has worked for me.
At first, I started with 3-4 30 minute workouts a week (okay, at "very first" they were 20 minutes). At my peak, I was doing 5 50-60 minute workouts a week (that was insane!). Now, I do 3-4 50 minute workouts a week. My machine tells me, based on my weight, that I burn about 900 calories. I started this when I got to around 175 pounds (which I thought was as small as I needed to be) and have bounced back ever so slightly (but generally maintain 180) at this current level.
I have also been incorporating crunches/push ups/ and 5 or 6 sets of free weights a few times a week, just to get a little balance. The pushups and crunches definately have toned my chest and abs, and the increased muscle there makes me look a lot better without a shirt than I did even 5 pounds less ago. Speaking of that, the most positive unanticipated side effect was becoming more attractive to the opposite sex...I might be in a monogamous relationship, but getting a flirtatious look from an attractive, young woman stranger can turn a bad day into a great day!
The Future:
I've been starting to try to incorporate other things. On days where its nice, I might trade an elliptical session with a 40 minute, 5 mile jog. Bad knees run in my family, so I'll probably never try to run a marathon. Might try biking. I have also begun to try some yoga to help with flexibility and back pain issues I've had for many years...just started that a few days ago, as a matter of fact.
Anyway, this is what worked for me. I hope whatever you do, you stick to it. Once you see some results, you won't find that very difficult to do.
While I don't agree that a gym is absolutely necessary (small set of free weights, one treadmill/exercise bike/eclipse machine, and doing pushups, situps, etc. is enough for me, I think) I do agree that finding some activity that you enjoy really helps. The real key is being motivated to exercise. Just wanting to be healthy or look good are often not enough to keep you going week after week.
I played sports when I was a kid (soccer, basketball, little league, etc.) but I never stuck with any of them because it turns out I don't really enjoy playing (or even watching) those particular sports. Well into adulthood I started watching ice hockey and really enjoyed the fast-paced non-stop action. That motivated me to go down to my local ice rink and take hockey lessons. Then I joined the adult beginners league after the classes were over and here I am 7 years later and I still look forward to my game every week. And since I'm motivated to improve my abilities, I channel that motivation into working out during the week to keep up my endurance for my games.
If you're not really into competitive sports, there are always other activities out there as well such as martial arts, kayaking, windsurfing, biking, etc. that can be enough fun that you're not even that aware that you are getting exercise. Some of them you can even do by yourself if you really are that much of an introvert. The important thing is to find something you enjoy doing so that you will stick with it, and as you stated a lot of that does require going outside which isn't such a scary place.
Muscle cells are rich in mitochondria
Woah! Does that mean people with muscles are more likely to be sensitive to the force?!???
Don't laugh - it has been very good to me. I really only needed some dumbbells and a pull up bar and I was able to do every exercise at home - the exercises are varied and sort of fun (especially the plyometrics.)
In general I would prefer to exercise a bit harder rather than giving up dark beers or the occasional pint of Ben & Jerry's.
One thought - drink water, coffee or tea. Other soft drinks are capable of providing a lot of empty calories.
In Colorado the police can charge you with a DUI if you are caught BIKING while intoxicated. Happens in Boulder all of the time, usually to some poor schlub who crashes their bike and is too drunk or hurt to ride away. What's odd is this only revokes your Automobile driving rights, there's no biking license to revoke.
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
do one hundred pushups
This is a very easy program to follow. So easy in fact, I organized a 100 pushup challenge at my work and got 32 out of 40 people of all starting levels to participate.
Tai Chi is a great thing to do in the morning - during the time that you are most likely to have a heart attack, it's good to do some gentle, all-body movement that will use your muscles as pumps[*] to give your heart a rest. The gentle, fluid movements sloosh around all that lymphatic fluid and interstitial fluid (this is mostly what is referred to as "Qi"), which otherwise have nothing moving them and stagnate, causing pain and discomfort.
I recommend the book The Tai Chi Book: Refining and Enjoying a Lifetime of Practice By Robert Chuckrow; reading from someone with a Physics PhD makes it quite palatable to your average geek. (It would be even better to have been co-authored by an MD, but still very good)
As others have pointed out, Tai Chi Chuan is not "slow kung fu"; it's more like applied biomechanics, and can be practiced at all speeds.
Best progress and effect is made not from schools which teach the whole form as quickly as possible, but those that emphasise building up each of the basic principles of Tai Chi doing very basic movements, and then "inducting" these principles into one of the many forms. So it pays to check all of the schools in your area, and look for the one which has the students which have been going for the longest, but learned a relatively small amount of the form. The ones that tend to favour spending entire classes going over minute details. Those that call themselves "Tai Chi Elements" schools are certainly a good bet.
Tai Chi Chuan is the perfect martial art for the geek - it is the one where the mind can be fully put to work towards the problem at hand. Eventually you load Tai Chi Chuan as a subroutine into your grey matter, so that you can be benefiting from it during every exercise you do. It is low-impact, a self-sufficient practice. Then you can appear to "walk" or "run" about your daily activities, but you are actually practicing Tai Chi Chuan.
And it takes a long time (say, 3 years or so - but a blink of an eye in terms of the length of your life, really) to get proficient enough in it to get like that. In the mean-time, swimming is the next best thing to Tai Chi Chuan to help the cardiovascular system. 20 minutes of this or other exercise every week is a good beginning level; increase as you feel is beneficial and enjoyable. The number one thing is not to stress - not about your training, nor stress your body unduly as you exercise.
* - I can't find a good online reference to this action, but can be found in eg. Chapter 19 figure 19.6 of _Human A&P_, Elaine Marieb, 6th ed.
Not true. It is more important to be able to do a handful of moves correctly than to be able to do 108 moves badly. Otherwise you are not practicing Tai Chi Chuan, you are merely imitating it.
One of the best ways to get excercise is to have motivation. Rescue a Golden Retriever or any other medium to large dog. They will guilt trip you onto the end of a leash every day. I never thought I had time to walk a dog, but seem to have no problem getting it done.
By biting the heads off live chickens.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
How do we know the OP was male? Pilates might be right up her aisle!
No, I'm not kidding... I'm female too.
I don't find that -- I find that because swimming exercises so many muscle groups simultaneously, I don't really feel like I've done anything. I don't get all that hungry afterwards, but I do find that I never feel full after my next meal....
HAL.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
They tell me the calorie count of nuts is wrong. They measure calorie content by burning things. Nuts burn well -- they're practically wood. Much of that energy is in indigestible fibres.
HAL
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Breast stroke is pretty easy, but a brisk front crawl shatters me pretty quickly and gets my lungs going (if I went swimming more often I'd get used to it but the last few years I've probably only been swimming 3 or 4 times a year on average!). I don't have a problem using my muscles when exercising, I'm fine with stuff like weights, walking, kayaking, anything that doesn't get my lungs going, but things like swimming and running both get me feeling like I deserve a big meal :p
As for the swimming thing it was just something I read recently while looking up how many calories different exercises burn. Apparently a lot of professional female swimmers have had "well publicised battles with their weight" or something. That phrase stuck in my head as a bit strange.
which is totally what she said
A couple years after college, I had the same problem with weight. One day I just decided I was going to start running to get rid of it. I started running about a mile before work everyday, however fast (or slow) didn't matter as long as I finished. Eventually what seemed almost impossible the first day, became easier and easier as the weeks went by. I registered for some 5K races (3.1 miles) which gave me some goals to train for, and a couple of years later I actually finished 2 Chicago marathons.
All you need is a pair of shoes to start, eventually you'll learn about the different shoes and clothing to wear, but you don't need to really worry about that stuff until you're able to run a couple miles without thinking it's far. You don't need anyone to train with, you just need enough of a drive to say you're going to do it -- in the rain, in the snow, you run. I find it best to do before work because if you get in the habit, you don't have an excuse not to do it.
I'm still running, did 5 miles this morning at about a 7 min 30 sec per mile pace. I don't know if I'll do another marathon, but if I don't run in the morning now the whole day just doesn't feel right.
I'm resolved to the fact that I will most likely keel over and be dead before I hit the floor unless someone invents the 1,000-calorie-a-day burning keyboard and the 500-calorie-a-day mouse. Between now and then, my goal is to fix as many problems as I can while consuming as many pizzas as possible. God have mercy on my soul.
...and you had to expect the Wii Fit suggestion. An old standby: Dance Dance Revolution. A close geek friend who never touched a weight in his life lost 15 pounds in just over a month through conscientious DDR, and it was noticeable. Just like the Wii Fit, it is challenging to beat your own records, and thus in a way you measure not only your progress against your midsection but also against the "game." Since you are asking for suggestions for workouts for geeks, something tells me you aren't simply looking for formulaic workouts, but strategies for staying motivated, as well, or else you'd simply download a few workout plans and proceed. So try the game approach, and if that doesn't work, fall back on the ballroom dancing and similar approaches that are geek-friendly and self-maintaining in terms of interest. Good luck to you. Now I need to follow my own advice.
The way I keep myself interested is to track my workouts with a GPS/HRM and software tool I'm developing. Since I'm a software engineer/geek I find it pretty fun, interesting and education to learn how to instrument my own workouts and dietary habits. What keeps me motivated is to log every workout and keep track of all of my biometrics, meals, and workouts in a web app. I also take the xml from my gps/hrm and generate maps and graphs of all the relevant date. And yes, I bike to work. Every time I ride, I strap on my GPS/HRM and head out. Some days I'll take the same route and when I'm done I hook the gps/hrm to the computer and then compare it with the previous time I rode that route. Some days, I'll take different routes and the fun there is to create new maps/routes and elevation profiles. It makes it fun to experiment with new routes and combine them into longer routes when I have time. The web app is a work in progress, but is definitely getting cooler. As I ride I think about the app and new features or methods of handling the data. I now have a database of routes and workouts and history of commutes, workouts, exercises and meals. I can embed youtube videos in the exercise section so proper form can be referenced. I can export my routes to Google earth and manipulate it there. I'm Continually refining it, and it helps me to stay motivated and interested. I tend to wear my GPS/HRM when I'm doing stuff around the house to figure my exertion and calories burned. How geeky is that?
Lots of great ideas already, I'll repeat a few, but mostly I want to say that you may find having a selection of things to do will keep working out the most fun. Resistance training (with weights of some sort) is important to get or maintain bone and muscle mass, so I'd buy a curling bar and some dumbbells. Buy a decent (comfortable, light, fast) bicycle, aerobics help the heart & lungs, having a fast bike you love really helps you get excited about riding it. And diet is a huge contributor to health/illness: I recommend you seriously consider becoming a vegan and quit eating junk food. Finally, mix up your workouts if that keeps them from getting boring, the body likes you to throw different challenges at it, ride 10 miles plus several times a week, lift weights hard twice a week, eat healthy 80% of the time, you'll definitely feel and look better.
Q: "How Do Geeks Excercise?"
A: Nintendo Wii.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
I love my weight vest. I use it to add twenty to thirty pounds (doesn't sound like much, does it?) for pushups, pullups, burpees, kettlebell work, lunges, etc. I love it for two reasons:
First, it gives me more variety for pushups and an occasional insane challenge for pullups.
Second, my shoulders and wrists are always the first link to give out when I'm doing kettlebells, and my lower body and core are more important for performance in my sport of choice, soccer. The weight vest lets me work my core, hips, and legs beyond the limits of my wussy upper body.
For 300 pounds(english currency), probably a lot less in the states. You can get a squat rack, and an incline/decline bench, and a load of wieghts(plus barbell and dumbbells). This will fit easily into a medium sized room and you can do just about anything you can do at the gym. There are many websites that will outline the various exercises you can do with freeweights. I have heard from many sources that freeweights are beneficial to gym machines anyway. Losing wieght is helpful but muscle training is the best way to fight the general sag that comes with ageing. Consistency is the key, and if you get into it you will find yourself looking forward to a workout.
I have heard a lot of people talk about how cardio makes you more efficient. It is a tiny reduction. I am a competitive cyclist and i WISH i could get more efficient easily. Instead i have to train very specifically for 6 days a week for hours a day just to go from 23-24% efficiency. If you are not training to be more efficient it wont happen. This whole argument again cardio stinks. Yes you burn slightly less calories for the same amount of work when you train cardio but consider this; Once you are in great cardio shape you go from burning maybe 100 calories an hour to several times that much. That is a much bigger difference than just saying you go from burning 100 calories an hour to 198. Oh sweet you gained efficiency and burned 2 less calories. That doesn't hurt your plan at all.
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
I got into kite flying about 4 years ago. All you need is a (nearby) park or field ..... and a kite!
You can do it on your own so you don't have to worry about talking to people.
As you master your kite-fu you get to move to bigger kites in stronger winds, or even onto a mountain board or into a kite buggy.
Is it time to go home yet?
The reason for the discrepancy between the nutrition information on the bacon and the weight on the front of the box is that the nutrition info applies as typically consumed. A substantial amount of the weight of bacon cooks off as grease, which (hopefully) you don't eat.
You are cooking the bacon before you eat it, right? :-)
...without gaining a fraction of an inch around my waste line...
I don't know whether that typo was intentional or not.
I just know that I like it.
To quote a friend of mine from years ago: "I'm not too bright, but I can lift heavy things"
Actually, I wrote my thesis on life experience.
Listed in order of importance.
1. Clean Diet
2. Weight training
3. Interval Training
4. Aerobic Exercise
There are many resources on the web where you can find simple body weight exercises you can do in the privacy of your own home. Hell, Ive trained people using only a 6"x4" space and no equipment before. If you're a beginner I wouldn't even recommend venturing to the more complicated exercises until you've mastered body weight squats, lunges, push-ups and the like. These are just movements that the human body should be able to perform on a fundamental level.
I know putting weight training before aerobic training seems backwards but within the last few years research has been finding that the ability to preserve lean muscle and stimulate EPOC (excess post oxygen consumption) is of much more importance in a weight loss program.
Before naysayers come at me, this is how I make my money. Full time, not part time. If it didn't work I wouldn't be able to pay the bills.
Google me if you like. My name is Jamie Nischan
http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/168/14/1550
Try to exercise when you can. When I'm at work, I try to eat my lunch at my computer and then for lunch I walk for an hour (usually while listening to language lessons or music). Immediately when I get home (after work or class) I pop in an exercise DVD. I strip down to my underwear and pop in aerobics (Power 90, Tony Horton) or Pilates (Anna Caban). After I do those I do pushups and pullups (with a bar in my doorway). On average it's about 30 minutes. Not much time at all. As a result, I'm pretty fit for a dude who spends a lot of time sitting in a cubicle or at a desk in school. The benefits of working out at home is that it saves a buttload of time, as opposed to going to the gym. You don't have to transport yourself, change, or think about transporting/changing yourself. You exercise, and you're done and on to the next thing. Simple.
KETTLEBELLS...... And im an ex-special forces type...they work GREAT for me.
Joe Investor
Someone invented a stationary bike with a platform that you can put a laptop on -- you pedal and program at the same time. Now isn't that a typical corporate solution -- the boss saying, "stay healthy, geek, but don't stop writing the damned code!"
Development is programmable; Discovery is not programmable. (Fuller)
One of the things that I do to help stave off the occasional hunger is to drink more fluids. I've found that the low-calorie Crystal Light...
On that note, it's not everyone's cup of tea, but I prefer, well, tea. Specifically, hot brewed tea. Most teas are unprocessed and certain varieties are allegedly beneficial, (green teas). Of course, it's not so healthy if you load it down with sugar and cream, so you're better off finding a variety you like straight-up.
As far as exercise goes, running can be a very solitary exercise if you live or work in a sparsely populated area. It can also be a very geeky venture, especially if you train for a race. There's tons of research on the physiology of performance and lots of race training regimens based on the acquired knowledge (caveat emptor, though, some are more well grounded than others). I've been partial to the Furman Institute's programs for foot race training.
To answer your question directly, yes! There are a lot of opinions going around, but I remember a saying, "A man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with a theory." Granted, half of my routine involves running. I also have a very simple weight gym (free weights). Here is my routine: I run 3 to 4 miles every other day (e.o.d.). 90 push-ups (30 regular, 60 incline) eod. 45 pull-ups (3 sets of 15) eod. 90 sit-ups (30 regular, 30 oblique, 30 leg lift) eod. 45 reps on bench press (3 sets of 15 @ 182lbs) eod. 45 reps (3 sets of 15) pulling my body up while in a horizontal position (opposite of bench press) eod. 60 reps verticle arm raises to work top of shoulders (3 sets of 20 @11lbs each arm) eod. 45 reps curls (3 sets of 15 @ 40lbs) I also take the stairs when possible and take every opportunity I can fit in for outdoor activity. So, I highly recommend getting outdoors. I hike, kayak, rock climb. Some of my upper body work is done on a small finger board (rock climbing training board). Finally, while diet is very important, this lifestyle allows me to drink a beer or glass of wine every night and enjoy eating just about anything I want. Peanut Butter is among my favorite things to eat. The result - I am 35 5'8" weighing in at 161lbs without health issues and very low stress.
What range do you compete at?
I'm talking about the reduction in resting heart rate and the increased efficiency at rest. I doubt you care about any of that, but if you're trying to lose weight, burning fewer calories 23 hours a day is not going to do you any favors. Your average person is not going to push themselves to the point you've reached where they can ride for more than 10 hours a week. Even if they did, why bother when you can lose more fat in less time with interval and resistance training?
I'm not sure that training for hours a day 6 days a week is going to be the answer to your efficiency problem. Have you had your technique analyzed? What sort of periodization are you using, if any?
yes, but 8-9 years to not even finish the routine is NOT correct under any circumstances. I'm not speaking out of my ass either - I've trained 8 hours minimum every week in Beijing for the last three years as a formal apprentice in the Chen lineage. We practice traditional Taiji as designed by the originators, including fighting skills.
Correct form is absolutely important. I'm only debating the time scale. I learned the 83 move New Frame Yilu routine in a bit over a year. And definitely with proper posture, rhythm and grounding. A peach-wood stick to the body painfully indicated where my posture was incorrect and allowed me to fix it. Also, if basic training isn't being done (leg strengthening, stretching to full splits, etc), then proper posture in Taiji will never be achieved.
I can tell you with confidence that the large majority of Taiji teachers, especially in the west, are teaching a watered down version for non-apprentices and treating their practice like a business. They will keep students in the dark and stretch out training as long as possible to make money.
Sorry to have to make this so blunt, but it's a truth that people need to know, because the art is being destroyed while building a bad reputation.
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
Sometimes I move my wireless mouse to my left hand.
loose: not fitting closely or tightly != lose: to suffer the deprivation of
http://www.mattfurey.com/index.htm Do what this guy says to do and everyone will fear you.
I think you're attributing far too much of this to malice, when really the thing is that the teachers just have a different emphasis on training. To many, completion of learning the form is simply not as important as good practice. They focus on minute details of movement and get everything correct to a high precision. It takes only a few moves before a skilled master can pick the mistakes which it is important to correct before moving on to the next stage. If the focus is on keeping to a timescale, then precision is necessarily compromised. Learning the sequence of moves is simply not the hard part, heck you can find many books which describe them and videos which display them.
Your assertion "NOT correct under any circumstances" is simply your point of view.
furthermore I'd just like to comment on this statement;
We practice traditional Taiji as designed by the originators, including fighting skills.
You make it sound like being true to some nostalgic past is actually important. In reality the science of tai chi has moved on considerably since the early days.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I completely understand not wanting to be in public - I have the same concern. In my case running at night works out - the kids are in bed, and I can get out and pound down four miles in less than 40 minutes.
The sidewalks are almost completely deserted after nine o'clock, and I've never felt like I was being observed. It took a bit of gumption to go the first couple of times, but now it's part of my routine.
I strap on my MP3 with some good spoken word audio - books or tech talks usually - and my run is a very nice, quiet, private time for me. I have gotten to where I really like it. But what you're doing is far better than nothing. Keep up the calisthenics and weight training but add some aerobics like running, biking or swimming to your regimen. Your cardiovascular system will love it. It's not easy, but it's worth it.
You make it sound like being true to some nostalgic past is actually important. In reality the science of tai chi has moved on considerably since the early days.
It's not nostalgia. You can learn physics from Michael Talbot, or you can learn from Niels Bohr. Physics is defined by physicists, and requires great rigor and learning from those who were trained with the same rigor. Taiji is the same. It is not the scattered dense incomprehensible jungle that many people believe it to be - there are very specific principles and milestones that should be present in a proper practice. Others can take fragments of Taiji and change it and teach it and call it Taiji, but it really is something different and should probably be called something different. I understand that what you have found may be a legitimate practice but it should probably be called something else. You can take basketball and switch the rules around and it may be just as fun and just as interesting as basketball, but is it fair to call it basketball?
Check out Chen Xiaowang, Chen Zhaokui, Chen Fake, Chen Yu, Zhu Tiancai, and others to see what proper Taiji is about.
Life is limited in length. There is a vast body of knowledge and training to learn in Taiji, and spending that much time on form is unfair to your friend. There are weapons forms, jiben gongfu (basic strength training) chenjin/yatui (stretching), silk reeling exercises, and of course several forms of tuishou that are to be learned to complete the Taiji practice. I know your thoughts - it's not about the myriad of practices, but about the correctness of the practices themselves. But you can build one wall of a house perfectly, but without the other three walls and the ceiling, it's a useless house. With Taiji, you aren't going to achieve the great health benefits, and one of the major goals that basically defined the art - fighting skills - if you are focusing on one thing. It's like spending all your time on trigonometry and never moving on to calculus. anyway enough with the analogies, i hope you get my point.
If what your friend wants is meditation, he should look into zazen. Taiji is something else
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
We're all busy, right? The _only_ thing that has _EVER_ worked for me is something that is _meaningfully_ integrated into my daily life.
I suspect all the advice about doing an hour of home exercise bike/night, going to the gym, setting up a weight room, blah-de-blah will squirt through many minds faster than crap through a goose but a whole lot cleaner leaving hardly a trace. So I'm heavily biased toward the advice to walk, run, bike to work, to the mall, for groceries and such. Put _purpose_ into the motion.
I started out walking to work instead of busing. Sort of like, "Hey, the bus isn't here yet. I bet I could walk a block toward work. Nope, still not visible down the street. I could probably walk another block or two." Then it was more like deciding if I left 5 minutes earlier, I could usually make it to the transfer without the first bus at all. Then it was looking around from there and seeing that I could take a pedestrian shortcut (a little funky including a block of railroad tracks) and walk myself to work about 5 minutes later than the wide loop the bus would wind to get me there. So, why did I need the bus at all? Adding an _extra_ 20 minutes/day to something I had to do _anyway_ got me four miles of walking 5 days/week. I think you have to agree that 20 miles of walking/week for 100 extra minutes/week is quite a return on time investment. The walking became jogging and the jogging became running. Eventually, I could actually _almost_, but almost never actually, beat the bus I would have taken home anyway. Rather hard-core fit at that point but it was a bit magical -- the time difference of adding exercise to my life literally shrunk to negligible.
Now not so young. Biking. Must have been some intelligent design somewhere. The uncool collapsible wire carriers I put on the Trek each hold a paper grocery bag perfectly. Those, and a backpack for another bag or two worth make for a decent payload. Fortunate to live near access to an extensive network of bike highways -- if they are paved, striped, and have road signs and rest stops are they really "paths"? It's cool to discover stuff like, "Gee, I didn't know those strip malls have paved back bike entrances and racks off their own road."
This continuously confuses me. So you've created a system to achieve a particular goal, let's say you made yourself a router out of an old 386 box back in 1995 and whacked two ethernet cards and a 56k modem in the system to serve as a rudimentary firewall for research purposes. As time goes by, do you continue to maintain your esoteric and outdated bygone relic of prior eras, because that's the way that it's always been done? The obvious answer is that no, you replace it with some other technology better suited to meeting the goal of the original system, either a virtual system on a higher powered computer that you can sandbox with or a cheap wrt54g router attached to a dsl2 line for internet access, or probably both if you're anything like me. We're engineers, hackers, technical masters, call us what you will, but we have a particular philosophy that always seemed to be fundamentally disconnected to that of the everyday sheeple that make up the vast majority of the human population, engaging in meaningless ritual to placate some imagined deity and achieve a circumspect goal related only vaguely to the actual action in question as almost the sole defining factor of their lives. Why here though, are we just the same? Our bodies are just machines, like the tools and creations we tinker and modify without care as to ritual, and yet we insist on behaving just like the plebs when it comes to this facet of our lives, going through the ritual of diet and exercise to achieve the goal of health. Yes it works, rebooting the computer often works too, or turning an option off in the bios, or tweaking a setting to skip an iteration of a loop resulting in a segfault, but all of these things are simply ritual rather than engineering, and I'd assume of all audiences, this would be keenly aware of that fact and pursue alternative avenues? Where is the genetic engineering? Basal metabolic rate restructuring, genuine "I don't want to waste time on bullshit like jumping up and down when I could be writing code, but I don't want to die of a heart attack before I can accomplish what I'm aiming for either" type entries? Who has retrofitted a virus with genetic mods to delay insulin release or some weird stuff like that?
Calisthenics are not your answer, you need to burn off carbs. repetitive exercises are the way, eg. cycling, jogging, swimming.
daily:
100 situps
50 pushups
50 pullups
in the morning for two reasons, 1 to get it out of the way & 2 for stamina/endurance purposes.
I also have a treadmill in my living room and some free-weights next to my couch. If I'm ever not doing anything (watching the boob tube) I'm either pumping iron or on the treadmill.
I was ~150 all my life until my wife & I started having kids then I BALLOONED up to 210. I was a bit lean @150 and round @210. These days I'm at my perfect weight, 165, I look great and I've gained TONS of self-confidence from the way I look.
I found this from a publication in our "reading room" (bathroom) at work:
http://www.bestlifeonline.com/cms/publish/health-fitness/Get_Back_in_the_Game_printer.shtml
You'll need free weights and a bench, at least. However, as for running, it gives this tidbit: "A recent study of cyclists at McMaster University, in Canada, found that those who exercised intensely for just 18 minutes a day (four 30-second bursts of all-out cycling separated by four minutes of active rest) experienced the same gains in performance as cyclists who pedaled continuously for two hours a day."
Sounds promising, though I've just started.