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[Rowanas]

That's a lot of fasting.

Suggestion: keep doing your fasting but give yourself a refeed day. If you fast too much your body will start trying to resist further fat loss, because it doesn't see nearly enough calories coming in.

I'm ok with that.  Willpower is the problem, not patience. If it takes a little longer and I have to work harder to keep my muscles from being eaten, it'll be worth it.  The other option is to give in, just once, and then I'm buggered and it'll be six more months before I try again (and i'll be trying from 16st again, instead of 15).

[nenjin]

Just saying, burning the candle at both ends does have a price. Daily calorie intake isn't such a big deal, but weekly calorie intake is a number to pay attention to. If you're coming in at under 14k calories a week by a significant margin, say 2k to 3k under, you may actually be working against yourself. Grain of salt though, you know your own body better than I do.

[Caz]

I want to visit Scotland and have one. Will you take care of me?

Yes, we can go and chase the wild haggises in the highlands.

I want to visit Scotland and drink my bodyweight in Tennent's super.


...Also, uh, I'm totally getting fit. Yup. Uh-uh. Every day the journey continues. At least, I have actually managed to gain five kilos. How many cans would that be?

2.4. but tennant's super is for junkies only. aint nobody got time for that shit.


this thread is making me want to get back into shape. my fitness level is horrendous atm.

[Rowanas]

Just saying, burning the candle at both ends does have a price. Daily calorie intake isn't such a big deal, but weekly calorie intake is a number to pay attention to. If you're coming in at under 14k calories a week by a significant margin, say 2k to 3k under, you may actually be working against yourself. Grain of salt though, you know your own body better than I do.

I... have no idea. I occasionally check the calories of the things I eat and then modify that up to the nearest hundred.  I'm keenly aware that people tend to underestimate their intake of calories, and I'm trying to overestimate to balance that out, but it means that my overall intake is probably still error-prone as hell.

[nenjin]

Here's the thing: if the goal is fat loss, the next question to ask is "how fast do you expect to get lean?"

Really, really cutting your calories will get you lean faster, but you run the risk of going so low you feel like shit or depriving yourself to the degree your willpower gives out and you start binging. That or you starve yourself to the degree that your metabolism starts fighting against you. The mental energy and stress of worrying about food or actively staving off hunger makes it that much harder.

Youtube fitness people (that are legit) are very circumspect when trying to tell you how fast you will lose body fat because it depends on a lot of factors. All of them promise you can lose 20 pounds in three weeks or a month on their workout and nutrition plan though. Which, if you're really strict, probably isn't unreasonable.

But the shysters in Youtube fitness will post videos with thumbnails of guys at 15%+ body fat, and then a side by side photo where they're at a very lean 10% or lower and say they did it in a month. That shit is pure clickbait, for the most part, photo-shopped just enough that it becomes unrealistic. Maybe someone could drop 5% body fat in a month when they're ALREADY in the lower end of the body fat ranges, but it's pretty unlikely for most people and may have even taken extreme and unhealthy measures. Fitness models need to live by those kinds of time lines but the average person DOES NOT. People fantasize about losing weight in that short of a time period because they don't actually want to do the work it takes to lose that kind of fat, keep it off, and actually live a different life style. They want to get lean and then go back to what they were doing before, and subsequently put the fat back on.

It's taken a year of straight effort for me to get where I am. That is basically maintaining a slight calorie deficit all year. And the only reason it's a slight calorie deficit is because of the demands I've been placing on my body. Without constant training, my daily calorie requirements would be lower and I'd be maintaining my body fat % instead of lowering it with how much I'm eating.

I could have gotten here faster, probably a lot faster, by eating super crazy clean, and doing no cheat meals. But I would have never made it this far if I'd taken that route. I didn't deny myself the things I like (Sugar, delivery and restaurant food), I just really attenuated how much I eat. (Stopped eating any sugary snacks period, no cookies or candies.) I controlled my sugar intake (I add sugar to three things only now: coffee, tea and cereal and never more than 1tsp a serving. No more than 2 sodas a week.) I make the healthiest choices possible when I eat out. (I avoid McDonalds entirely now unless it is literally my only option. The worst fast food meal I let myself have is Arby's, because for the most part it's just bread and meat (with a shit ton of nitrates unfortunately) and maybe some cheese, or 1000% of your daily recommended salt intake via their Au Jus for their french dips.) Have I been a master of doing this? NO. I eat like a pig, always have. Always eaten vast amounts of food that shocked people even before I started trying to get fit. Now at least I do it with a purpose. I eat a straight up _pound of roast beef_ and two baguette rolls for _lunch_ from Arby's, because it has like 50g of protein. It's also about 1500 calories, which sets the tone for the rest of my eating for the day. I know that if I ate big and rather unhealthily in one meal, I need to make up that amount somewhere else. So instead of a full dinner, I'll do a decent portion of raw and simple ingredients.

Now, if I wasn't doing that every week pretty much? If I was boiling chicken and rice and broccoli and packing it away to take to work? Zero sugar? No cheat meals? I'd have met my fat loss goals already, I'm sure. But that ain't no way to live, and only the most committed or obsessed can survive or maintain that regime for very long.

At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter WHAT you eat, just HOW MUCH of it you eat. Yes yes there's the questions of the nutrient profiles of food, insulin sensitivity, cholesterol, good fats vs. bad fats, inflammation and yadda yadda....but it over complicates the attempt for most people. They dive in trying to adapt to all this and get overwhelmed, rather than selectively easing their way in to it. In truth you can straight up survive off of pizza and icecream and still lose fat if you know how to track your calories correctly. Although I wouldn't advise it because you'll feel like shit the whole time and you won't look very good when you do lean down.

If you can be patient, I think a smaller calorie deficit over a longer period of time just leaves you feeling better than more extreme methods. Doing it with clean foods actually allows you to eat more while acquiring fewer overall calories, since whole foods and things we make ourselves are not nearly as calorie dense as processed food. You can eat 6 large carrots and be stuffed to the gills, and only pickup maybe? 250 calories and enough carbs to be the equal of an entire sandwich worth of bread. But most people aren't single minded enough to approach food that way, and variety in nutrition is both healthy AND wired into our psyches as the need for variety and change.

It's really true what most fitness professionals say: fitness is 80% what you eat. Master your relationship to food, learn to have a healthy relationship with it (as opposed to a fearful, guilty, or thoughtless relationship.) Care enough to think about what you eat and how much it you eat and the rest will eventually take care of itself. You don't have to be a food nazi that is popularized right now by the whole gluten-free low carb low fat no dairy all veg mindset. While there's value to all of that depending on what you're looking for or what your body is about....for most people it's a distraction and an unnecessary complication that eventually makes them not want to try at all.

For me, lifting weights rather than just doing steady state cardio, I've also had something else to look forward to besides steadily dropping body fat. For people that are just doing SSC and ONLY have the lower body fat to look forward too, I can see why they might get discouraged when they see very incremental fat loss, and either quit, fall off the wagon or start really depriving themselves and working 3x as hard. To hell with that noise.

Again, it's faith in the process that's kept me going because I see myself losing a little body fat every week, week after week, doing something I can demonstrably get better at (lifting weights.) Knowing it's working helps keep me straight, keeps my discipline high (within the framework of nutrition I've created) because I know it's being rewarded by results.

[nenjin]

Bump just because I found a video that pretty much dials in to what I was talking about with fat loss:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugXKtdM96N8

The beast before you is Alan Roberts of Every Damn Day Fitness. I like him, although his swearing and intensity sometimes become way too much. (He does a lot of videos where he rips on other fitness youtubers and there is a lot of shouting.)

Anyways, he's done the math I probably should. In like 30 days he dropped 28 pounds of body fat, and talks about the arithmetic of fat loss. The magic number is that a single pound of body fat is 3500 calories. You can do the math from there. I'm not going to say it's 100% accurate, there are all sorts of factors around body weight like muscle loss, muscle retention or growth (I've been about 186 pounds for the last couple months, despite continually losing body fat at a slow, steady rate), water weight, how many calories you actually burn during your workout and so forth. But you can get a pretty accurate measurement of fat loss by actually doing the calorie math.

[nenjin]

So I had a realization.

This whole year, I've been doing circuit training. 1 set of each exercise, done in rotation, until I get through three sets of everything.

It's been great for conditioning my whole body, getting everything worked without tiring it out completely.

But it's part of the reason my workouts have stopped giving me the response I needed. It's partly why I haven't experienced the growth I expected.

Because the truth is....I've been avoiding the hard work doing it the way I devised myself. I've been avoiding the pain. Doing 3x10 sets back to back for one muscle really creates muscle hypertrophy to the highest degree possible; you really drain the muscle in its entirety, which is something I was only belated achieving doing circuits.

So I went back to my workout and reorganized it. 3x20 pushups before I go on to 4x10 curls, before I do 4x10 side lateral raises, etc and so forth.

I also started actually timing my rest periods, setting a minute timer between sets and really sticking to it. I actually managed to shave almost 10 minutes off my hour long workout while doing slightly more volume.

It's tough. I had to push myself harder than I have in the past, really digging deep to finish my sets, using rest pauses where need be. I thought my fucking arms were going to fall off.

But in actuality the pain is temporary. It's a few minutes of intense suffering which after an hour, you get over. And the after effects? I got the burn back, baby. Two days later and my biceps are still sore. I've got a path forward for my future workouts now.

So I guess just remember....you can always optimize. You can always put out more effort. You're trading momentary suffering now for results later. In the heat of the workout you will want to give up, tell yourself you can't do another rep, another set, that the last couple sets don't really matter.......don't give in. Dig deep. Adapt. Withstand. You will only be stronger for it.

[Rowanas]

You can always put out more effort. You're trading momentary suffering now for results later.

I'm going to print this out and stick it to my wall with blu-tac.  When I wake up and don't want to go for a swim, I'll read this again.

[MrRoboto75]

You can always put out more effort. You're trading momentary suffering now for results later.

I'm going to print this out and stick it to my wall with blu-tac.  When I wake up and don't want to go for a swim, I'll read this again.

My middle school's gym had a sign that read "seven days without exercise makes one weak!"

-----

Meanwhile I've been upping my gym going.  No real goal in mind TBH, just sort of winging it and just trying to enjoy myself.  I'm going three times a week MWF.

Most of what I do is upper body stuff, various weight machines, with some core and leg stuff thrown in in between.  No real structure to it, although I try to hit a variety of muscle groups.  Half my hour is usually spent on cardio, steep incline walking on a treadmill.  The stair steps and elliptical tend to be too hard on the knees.

Recently I've been trying to increase the intensity.  I try to start with the most weight I can barely get away with for reps, then lighting up in later sets.  The lighter sets should still be difficult because I've already worn out the muscles.

I take a protein shake after my workout (muscle milk, like 20g of protein).  It's mostly to reduce soreness, any bulk building is just a bonus.

[nenjin]

Consider going the other direction: start with a very light set to get blood flowing to the muscle, and increase to 85% or so of your max by the last set. No method is really wrong but I’ve found the best results when I ask the most of my muscles when they have the least to give. I use drop sets (lower weights) when I’ve finished my sets and know I can’t squeeze out another rep at the current weight, but know I have a little juice left in the muscle I could spend.

[Hanslanda]

I've started doing basic calisthenics again so I suppose I should be here.

First day was:
2x10 (barely) push ups
3x20 sit ups
3x20 sit ups for each side dunno whatcha call em
3x25 squats

[Doomblade187]

I've started doing basic calisthenics again so I suppose I should be here.

First day was:
2x10 (barely) push ups
3x20 sit ups
3x20 sit ups for each side dunno whatcha call em
3x25 squats

That looks pretty good.

[nenjin]

That's a solid start.

Some options for you:

-Planks to get started on ab work. I started at 2x30 second planks and after about 6 months I was up to 2x60 second planks.
-Side planks. Videos of this are easy to find.
-Glute bridges. (Lay on your back. Place the heel of one foot on a raised surface like a bench, bend the knee and use that leg for balance. Take the other leg and point it straight out and up. Then try to raise your hips directly to the ceiling, focusing on your glute and hamstrings while you do it. BEWARE OF HAMSTRING CRAMPING.) People do very, very little glute work and the more I work out the more I realize it's one of the most important muscle groups for both feeling good (not having back pain) and performance (Glutes are a secret spot of weakness in many, many compound exercises.)
-Leg raises. These are tough. Murderous even. But it will work your core better than many other movements.
-Windshield Wipers. Will really work your obliques (that muscles you couldn't remember the name of.)
-Get an Ab Mat. Or use a pillow underneath your lower back. This will really put the stretch on your abs as you do your situps and they will ache like nothing else the next day. (I prefer full sit ups to crunches, what people say about your back be damned. That is almost always an issue of form, technique and weakness, not the actual exercise jeopardizing your back.)
-Russian Twists. Can be done without weights but I find adding a 15pnd dumbbell to the exercise really taxes me.
-Chris Heria demonstrates some of these movements and a few others here.
-Stomach vacuum. Couresty of Athlean-X. While some may consider this an exercise for "stage models", we rarely think about contracting our abs using the diaphram and a lot of the other "non-show" ab muscles like the transverse abdominis. But the exercises is dirt simple to perform. I use it as a finishing exercise after my workout when my abs are already good and tired. I do 3x15 seconds, which is what Arnold Schwarzenegger recommends to get started.
-Standing bicep curls using a door frame or post. Biceps are pretty hard to work in calisthenics but not impossible.
-Hand stand shoulder press. These are pretty tough starting out and you'll absolutely want a wall to balance against. Depending on your shoulder strength and stability this may or may not be doable starting out.
-Side lunges. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUX6Pz8vV0s. They're not just for women, it works the outside of your glutes and helps you with your flexibility and core stability if done for a long enough time. What is key is to balance on one leg as you bring the other up, that really increases the demands of the exercise on your body and particularly your core muscles to stabilize you.

Also don't underestimate "plusing" your exercises. For example you can do a push up plus to work your serratus anterior (those little rippling muscles under your pec along your side.) There are so many "pluses" you can add to various exercises to get more work out of them.

The nice part about a lot of these exercises is you can add a dumbbell for added resistance too. I do a 15 pound dumbbell held against my chest during full sits up, for example, because after a year of planks and situps with the ab mat I was finding none of these exercises were giving me the challenge (or delayed onset muscle soreness) I desired.

A couple other good calisthenics youtube channels for you.
Fitness FAQs. This guy does 99% calisthenics, peddles no bullshit at you, keeps his videos short and on point and isn't annoying to listen to. I would put him at the top.
Training Pal. I haven't watched as much of his stuff as when I started but it's still a no nonsense calisthenics focused channel with good information.
Chris Heria as mentioned. Also a channel that is about 90% focused on calisthenics. While you can't argue with his physique, he's pretty advanced and is in the game to make money. So you have to deal with him often promoting their training gear, programs and shit while you're just looking for some training examples. But in the scope of things he keeps it to about a medium. And he often makes incredibly difficult movements look easy due to his experience in training.....but takes the time to show you the lower level progressions and where to start.
Tapp Brothers. These twins are more focused on Parkour than anything else, but all their exercises qualify as calisthenics. I find their delivery a little on the amateur side but they've got some good tips as well.

And always try to keep your rest breaks between sets to a minute or less to maximize both fat loss (by keeping your heart rate elevated in the fat burning zone for longer, consistent periods of time) and muscle hypertrophy (shorter rest periods = less time for your muscles to recover = maximum muscle fiber recruitment because they're working while already tired.)

[Hanslanda]

Thanks for the advice and resources. I appreciate it. Hopefully I'll be able to get back into my former running shape. I wasn't built but I was lean and wiry. And I could literally run for miles.

[nenjin]

Depends on your goals. Running is great for fat loss, bad for muscle retention. I have to date done exactly zero running and lost.....20, 25 pounds of fat in addition to all the muscle I've gained. If you just want to be trim, run. If you want to look a little built though, less running. And as always, nutrition supersedes any work you'd do if you want to look trimmer.