Obligatory weight and fitness related post

[mousse]

Okay, so it seems like everybody else on my friends list is gearing up to get back on their diets and start exercising, and given that my New Year's resolution to do the same kind of sputtered and died midway through the year, here's my own list of stuff I'm going to try to start accomplishing.

DIET

Caffeine is once again out the window. I need

Comments

[so_low]

Man I think I need to get on making a Weekly Weigh-in community. But I'm glad to see you joining us! I need to go with you to Walmart and buy a scale that doesn't suck.

If you want to go to the gym once a week to start, let me know. It'll keep me from slacking on my attempting to run on the elliptical once a week. I do enough walking but I should do that too. I just really, really hate it. DX

[mousse]

Actually, apparently Wal-Mart doesn't sell scales. I walked all over that goddamn store after work today looking for one, to no avail. Of course, I didn't actually ask anyone if they had scales, but shit, man. They weren't in the Home section, they weren't in Fitness, and they weren't in Health & Beauty. Where the crap else would you hide a scale?

[so_low]

I bought one there! It was in one of the aisles near the speaypaint. It took me and Vic forever to find them too.

[mageraine]

Yeah, I was going to say, they're over in hardware. No freakin' clue why, but there they are.

[flurid_cube]

Unfortunately most cereals are incredebly unhealthy and the ones that are cost like, 6 bucks a box. If you like oatmeal just buy a tube of the plain oatmeal and put some fruit in it, plus you can use milk to make it and combine everything into one happy, colorless mush!

[gothic_lupus]

I disagree on the cereals. Frosted Flakes has six kinds of sugar in it, and 60 grams (a double serving, a reasonable amount of cereal) is only 226 calories. Whereas, a single piece of bread can run you into the 200's depending on the kind. I use soymilk, and (200ml) it has 114 calories. Depending on your kind of milk, that number can vary, but especially skim milk isn't that bad for you. Plus, despite all the sugars, the big cereal companies are very good about spraying vitamins onto their cereals. That means if you don't drink the milk, you don't get the vitamins, so it's an incentive to ;)

Many cereals out there will run you less than 400 calories a morning (on a double serving), if you aren't eating half the box and dehydrating a cow for breakfast.

[flurid_cube]

It's not necessarily the calories that make it unhealthy though! The 5 grams of sugar that is in a serving of Oatmeal, which isn't added, is going to be processed differently than the 11 grams of sugars in Frosted Flakes, which comes mostly from the added sugar and HFCS.

While you still shouldn't eat over your caloric needs for a day, how the calories are taken in have a huge effect on how you body deals with it. Highly processed foods and food with lots of added sugars will be stored more readily as fat since your body doesn't spend as much energy digesting them as other, less processed foods.

Also box cereal is really expensive so I don't buy it =/

[gothic_lupus]

I understand what you're saying about the sugars. I think it's up to each person to ensure they get their proper mix of foods throughout the day, but I don't think cereal is a bad way to go for breakfast. Especially with the vitamins they spray on the cereals, I think it's a good way to start the day, AND it's a reasonable amount of calories.

Who buys box anymore? Cheap cereal bags for us poor folk! (Though I do loves my Peanut Butter Crunch and Cracklin' Oat Bran).

[blank0]

If you're lazy about going to the gym, you can just exercise at home and save yourself some cash too. I mostly do pushups and situps right here.

[mousse]

Problem is, situps are just going to make my back worse (or so my chiropractor told me), and I am laughably terrible at pushups.

[mousse]

I have off and on pain in my lower lumbar region. Most of the time it's fine, but every once in a while it flares up. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night because it hurts, and when I get up in the morning I'm really stiff. A few months back, the pain would also manifest in the upper parts of my legs and thighs, but I haven't had that in a while. Stretching would probably help - it's technically what I'm supposed to be doing anyway, but I got lazy about that too and stopped after a little while. Mostly I just take naproxen sodium when it acts up, and that does the trick in fairly short order.

Protips from the functioning alcoholic.

[inajiraarijani]

Be sure you keep an eye out for sugar. Most yogurts are effing packed with the stuff.

Also avoid energy drinks for the same reason - if you really want a soda/magic potion to restore your mana, go for the blue cans of Monster, available at Sheetz, I think? The stuff is pure chemicals, but no shoogar.

Also, consider burpees. In my day we called them "Squat thrusts" but kids these days, amiright?

[gothic_lupus]

A good way thing to help out with this is by keeping a food journal, as lame as it sounds. I've been reading "Taking Control of Over-eating (something something super long title)" about why Americans get so overweight so quickly. Most people substantially underestimate the amount of calories they're eating