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Lifestyle advice? Spot the zillion fuck ups in my daily routine.

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I was going to post this in "Flab To Abs - Workout Topic #1,293,982,910,001"...
but then I realised.. I'm not even working out. And there are serious problems besides even that IMO. My problem is one of entire lifestyle. Lack of exercise just compounds the situation.

Anyone care to look at my situation?

I'm not an expert on exercise in any way: So if after reading this, any particular exercises or regimes spring to mind, let me know!


OBJECTIVE - What I want:

I don't wanna be defined, I don't wanna take anything new up as a hobby particularly. But I'm prepared to do whatever it takes to get myself into the condition I should be. I can get quite into running... although for a number of reasons I prefer to do it indoors: bad weather really fucks with my chest and I really hate the fucks who live in my neighbourhood. As for what exercise tools I have at my disposal - I'm thinking of picking up a bike soon and we have a basic bench & weights sitting in the house.


STATS - What I'm like:

I'm 22 in two weeks. I figure I'm 5'8" / 5'9" and I weigh ~190lbs (unless my scales are sorely fucked... which I hope is the case). This puts my BMI at around 76% - which is overweight. As for how I actually look - the way I'm built hides the reality of things. I'm not a big guy, but everything basically looks in proportion. I have a reasonably strong right arm :D ahem.. I don't feel badly overweight in that I still feel comfortable in calling other people fat fucks. As of right now though:

I can tell karma is out to get me, and I'm at risk of becoming an obviously fat fuck myself. I've put some weight on in the past few years on my face, which is a little bit chubbier (I think this looks healthier than it used to incidentally), I've got a little beer belly and a bigger arse than I used to have. The latter things are unacceptable.

I'm convinced this is a lifestyle issue. Other people I know drink more than me, smoke weed more than me, eat more than me, generally do less than me and NONE of them are exhibiting the same kind of change my body has in the past 5 years. I MUST be doing something wrong. There are so many obvious ones that it could be so I have tried to change some of the bad habits I have. To give you a rough idea of those past four years I'm going to basically outline my daily routine for each period :

==================================================

Radioheadrule's DAILY ROUTINES OF SCUM

College - 2 years

• Wake up, get dressed, go to college - no breakfast
• Get a snack / bottle of coke or water whenever hungry or thirsty throughout the day
• Go home and have a meal that involved fried chips and other shit most of the week. Ocassionally I'd have a proper meal.
• Saturday, have a fried breakfast
• All throughout, spend a lot of time sitting on computers, playing video games, watching movies etc.
• ^^ ie. A true slob
• Friday or Saturday - goto a rock club, get absolutely wasted, sometimes to the point of vomiting, and throw myself about a lot like an idiot -- all in all having a great time

Believe it or not, up until a year or two ago I lived this lifestyle with no outer signs of ill health. Granted, I was spottier (I think) and looked sickly from time to time.

==================================================

University - 2 years

Since College, I have done two years of University. It's a three year course. I'm taking a year out and raising money to hopefully reduce my debt a little and buy things that I want.

A year of those two years was spent away from home. It was at this point that I favoured spending money on drink and good nights out rather than on trivialities like food. Bare in mind at this stage I used to be able to get drunk off about 4/5 pints of lager. Often I drank Vodka or Jack Daniels with coke instead and this got me drunk even easier. I barely ever ate at all. Since coming home from living like that, and dropping off heavily on the drinking (I barely ever drink to this day) THAT'S when I actually noticed myself putting on weight.

==================================================

Work - this last year

So from that regime I've changed to:

• Wake up, get dressed, go to work - no breakfast
• Drink water all day, easily 6/7+ pints of it. Occasionally I have a Lucozade or Coke
• Spam / Cheese / Ham / Salad sandwhich for lunch. Ocassionally I'd eat at Subway instead of home made.
• Come home... meals on any given day: spaghetti bolognese, chilli, chicken curry & rice, chips/beans with burger or pizza, sunday roast etc
• Work has brought a lot more kinetic energy into my life: I have to walk to the train station into town, walk from there to work, I spend some part of every day lifting heavy contracts, filing, walking documents around the building. Having said this, it is an office job and I do still spend a part of it sitting on my arse.
• Saturday - I've dropped the fried breakfasts. Some weeks I'll have one sausage barm. And I begrudge doing that now..
• I don't go out as much anymore, thus I don't drink as much anymore.
• When I do drink, it takes more drinking to get me drunk.

About half a year ago I started refusing to eat anything that was fried. I'll be totally honest: there have been occasions in the past year where I've been out with friends and ended up eating chips, McDonalds, Pizza hut or shit like that - sure. But I could probably count those occasions on one/two hands. I now don't like eating white bread, and I've been increasingly pissed off when I don't get a choice in family meals - sometimes making food for myself or not eating at all.

On the seldom occasions where I've been out with work for a meal: I've had smaller portions than everyone else, and on one in particular - a tiny salad. I'm now always thinking about what I'm eating. It's completely taken any pleasure I used to derive from eating completely out of the equation. It's become something I basically don't like doing and don't like thinking about. Sometimes if I've got the willpower/delusion to do it, I just don't eat. This results in me turning up to work in the worst, most fucking useless state ever. So I know that's not the right thing to do either. With that in mind.. I've changed things up again and started having breakfast...


==================================================

Present day - last few weeks

• Wake up, get dressed, goto work
• On the way in - buy something to eat. Usually one thick piece of toast (A "doorstep") and a cup of tea.
• Drink water all day. Lots of the shit. Try not to drink coke / lucozade / energy drinks so much. If anything I drink Orange juice or a milk shake instead.
• Work remains the same.
• For the past two weeks nearly every meal (barre one or two days) has been Salad and something else. We only buy low fat salad dressing and I don't use much (if any) of that. Whats on the side varies: potatoe, baked chicken, pork, turkey, an applicable sauce etc.
• Still not going out as much as I used to... limited entirely to going around to someones house with a few beers and watching everyone smoke pot. If that sounds boring, sometimes it is, but a lot of the time you'd be surprised how entertaining it can be. I'll say this though: I really miss the energy I used to have, I miss going out.


==================================================

BASIC POINT TO THIS THREAD:

I'm completely lost as to what is the right way to live. The one thing I know for sure is that not once in the last 5 years have I lived the right way - and my body has eventually changed to show me that fact.

I've been eating the exact same meals as my mother for the past two weeks, and she's lost 5lbs eating the way we've been eating in one week. My weight has stayed completely static... I'm not going to let that frustrate me into eating like I used to but it is annoying me. I'm starting to think that I need something even more extreme. Maybe having a post average lower than 7 a day would be a start :) Or maybe even a better education as to how the relationship works between diet / metabolism / exercise.

I should probably also point out that during the week I don't get enough sleep. This has never changed in the past 5 years. Could this be a part of the problem? I stay up until 1am or 2am, sometimes later. This is every night.... then between the hours of 6.30 - 8.00 o clock I'm getting out of bed for work. I feel rough all week, so I know I'm not getting enough sleep, but I don't change. :(

Somethings gotta come to a head, but I honestly don't know what to do. IF you know something I can do, whatever it is I should be doing, tell me and I'll stick to it as rigidly as I can... hopefully then, I could report back months down the line that I'm happy with myself for once and there's been improvement. I just can't interpret vague things like "eat healthier" and I'm not about to leap into unrealistic weight training programmes. My day just can't sustain radical change like that.. I know I have to start small.

Any takers?

Thom
 

bjork

Member
Eat better.

Excercise a little bit daily.

A lot on days off.

All the advice in the world isn't gonna matter if you don't like how it sounds, since it won't be adhered to.

Just start out with minor changes, then gradually ease into a better way of living.

Note: I didn't read the first post, but I'm sure this is applicable.
 

siege

Banned
ducard_wayne.jpg


Your training is nothing. The will is everything.
 

hXc_thugg

Member
Oh shit! A method of attack my training has not prepared me for!

I'll just curl into the fetal position and hope you lose interest!
 
Try buying a healthy whole grain cereal and eating that every morning. Also I'm going to guess by your use of the words college and university that you're not from America so I don't know if you have these or not, but the Dannon Frusion Smoothie is healthy and doesn't require any preparation.

Choose a bedtime 8 hours before you have to get up, and stick to it. Shut out the excitement of the world and relax and get some sleep. If you want to stay out late with friends, do it, but not too often.

You'll need to exercise. You can even start out by going on a 15-minute walk everyday and build from there. That helps you phisically and also gets you in the habit of setting aside time to exercise. Maybe you can get an exercise bike or something once you are able to stick to a routine. After a while you should add weight training to your routine. You don't have to do Arnold Schwarzenegger's workout, just 10-15 minutes of weightlifting 3 days a week will help.
 
Space Age Playboy said:
Try buying a healthy whole grain cereal and eating that every morning. Also I'm going to guess by your use of the words college and university that you're not from America so I don't know if you have these or not, but the Dannon Frusion Smoothie is healthy and doesn't require any preparation.

Choose a bedtime 8 hours before you have to get up, and stick to it. Shut out the excitement of the world and relax and get some sleep. If you want to stay out late with friends, do it, but not too often.

You'll need to exercise. You can even start out by going on a 15-minute walk everyday and build from there. That helps you phisically and also gets you in the habit of setting aside time to exercise. Maybe you can get an exercise bike or something once you are able to stick to a routine. After a while you should add weight training to your routine. You don't have to do Arnold Schwarzenegger's workout, just 10-15 minutes of weightlifting 3 days a week will help.

I like the funny replies too but I appreciate the first proper responses. Triste nailed it on the head without even reading the entirity of the post pretty much as well.

I'm in the UK. I haven't seen Dannon Frusion about but I'm sure there are other smoothies I can check out... I've really got a problem disciplining myself with regards to getting to bed/sleep.

The exercise is a given, I'd obviously fully expected that I'd have to do some. I guess I just wanted examples of other people like me who've magically been skinny no matter what shit they shoved in their mouths, no matter how much or little they did. People who've never had to have an exercise regime before and then suddenly realised they'd better get one. Those that started slow what actual things did you do?... any examples?

I think I'm gonna start doing a couple of miles jogging each day when I get home from work or something. Thanks again.
 
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