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Chat talks, as it is wont to do - and while we spoke we all talked about how we need to get into shape and eat better. So I figured, let's make a thread to share goals, trade recipes and workout ideas, and give general encouragement to our fellow LRRmn!

I will start, and I will be unashamed of all of this information below.

Fitness Goal: My insecure teenage girl wants me to lose 50 pounds. My brain is telling me to start with 30 and see how it goes from there.

How I will achieve it: I have a couple of different ideas. First, I joined a gym. I've been doing cardio on the elliptical five days a week, and using the weight machines when they are terribly busy. I'm also going to try and get my diet under control. In general I try to eat a low carb diet of mostly unprocessed foods (or Paleo for short). I'm keeping myself accountable by using an app I used a couple years ago, Lose It! to track my weight loss and force me to deal with what I'm eating in a day.

Feel free to post your own goals and leave updates below!

I'm on board.
At the moment I only have the last small goal open that is to finally loose the last 9 Pounds (It's a wiered conversion rate to the KG I'm used to^^ )

Those are the last pounds left to reach the final goal, but they are fighting me for 2 years now.

I've manged to loose around 55 pound already, mostly with changeing my eating habits and the stationary bike, I have at home.

I'm on board. I have to get fit. Not really in shape as I have one, but some sort of fitness level above None. It would probably give me more balanced energy-wise.

I need to exercise a lot more. I'm playing indoor soccer once a week and bouldering infrequently but I feel I need to be doing something three or four times a week.

There is probably some room for improvement in my diet as well. I need to cook for myself more often and make food that is not so cheese and carbohydrate rich.

I need to get in better shape as well. It's not so much losing a lot, just a little so everything fits the way I like it. I already do Ju-Jitsu once a week and that will go back up to 1,5 to 2 times a week once my writing class is done.

But I also want to do elliptical machine training, but I can't for the love of me figure out when they have set-up days at our gym (which is required before you can use anything). I'll figure that out once I'm at my parents house this weekend, should have time then.

Goal is very simple: a 5km run in my maille corselet (about 12kg of it), as well as a gambeson (long sleeved duvet, basically) and medieval shoes in under 35 minutes. By April

I LIKE challenges.

How fast can you run a 5 km unarmoured?

Lord Chrusher wrote:How fast can you run a 5 km unarmoured?

25 minutes, less on a good day. I'm not running regularly, but I keep fit through other means- I do need to build up the muscle groups necessary to deal with the weight, but on the plus side it's heavy enough that it shouldn't jump around as I do so. I set 35 minutes as a seemingly achievable goal.

I want to second what hacofo mentioned, which was that diet played a major role in weight loss. In 2013, I weighed a little over 190 pounds. These days, I'm in the low 150s. Changing what and when I ate, and trying to stick to those changes as best I could, aided the most in losing the 40 pounds. Exercise helped, too. But I don't think exercise alone would've mattered without the change in eating habits.

Of course, fitness isn't solely or even necessarily about weight loss. But I wanted to second that point about diet.

One source of advice and commentary that I generally enjoy is James Fell. He's incredibly snarky, just fyi, but he can also be good at dispensing fitness advice with zero BS. Yoni Freedhoff and Tom Holland are worth reading, too.

Livestrong is another solid resource. As is Men's Health, the mag and its independent guides. And Popsugar's fitness section can have ideas that're useful for people of any gender.

When I need inspiration, I often turn to Dr. Nerdlove. While dating advice is his raison d'être, he also offers a lot of excellent self-improvement ideas. Including ones that regularly describe the ways in which progress is sabotaged by one's own habits of thought and behavior. The subreddit Progresspics can also be inspirational.

Please excuse the link dumpage. I hope at least a few of these resources are helpful to others. They've been useful to me.

Good luck.

I'm in as well. I am pretty much at my ideal weight but I need to get in shape more than I currently am...

In terms of tangible goals this means that I will aim to get from the 15% body fat that I have been stuck at for a few years to below 13% by Easter and keep it below 13% from there on out.

What I'll do to get there: Exercise more regularly (3 sessions of I-don't-want-to-call-it-crossfit-but-it-is-effectively-crossfit-just-without-the-douchebaggery per week instead of 2 and more walking), stop eating when I am no longer hungry instead of when I'm full, and less alcohol.

I'm also in!

So, a few years ago I managed to lose about 30 lbs. The problem was that I didn't stick with it. Also, I moved in to a house with a meal plan and the inability to control the snacks in the fridge or what I ate (and my own lack of self control) caused me to gain it all back in the past year.

I'm going through this is in steps. My first step is just get used to tracking my calories and sticking to eating less than a certain amount each day. Also making sure I'm eating nutritiously as well.

Step two, start working out at a gym. Also to get a fitbit to compete with my brother. My natural competitiveness with him can only help me here.

Step three -- magic?

So, small update from my side.
I managed a small victory, and lost an additional 2 kg since first posting here.
Mostly by once again beeing more aware of the amount and type of food I eat.

I'm in, I have a LOT of weight I want to lose, my goal is to get into the low 300's within the next 6-9 months (I'm about 450) I'm 6'5" so I mostly focus on Strength training since cardio (running etc) is hell on my knees.

I'm also going to second Mothra Fighter. In some part it does boil down to calories in vs. calories out. I found that I do best when I aggressively count calories and determine how much is in every meal I make such as including the oil I use in a pan, the fruit I might snack on in the afternoon, everything gets counted. I also don't assume I'm burning anything exercising because I find most programs that give you calories burned almost always over estimate it. So not counting that means I'm always going to be safe as far as daily calorie intake.

I realize this won't work for everyone, but it's what I find works.

As a separate note - Kthanid - have you ever used an eliptical machine? I find those to be much easier on the knees.

I have signed up to run the Liverpool half marathon in mid March

Let's see if I can go from not running to running a half marathon in three months. I have run two half marathons in the last two years but I have only run once since I moved to Liverpool four months ago.

It is day four without crisps or chocolate. Situations look dire, send help.

I've been lifting again - getting those gunnssss. Mostly just because I want to be stronger and more visibly strong than for any other reason.

I am trying to transition into bouldering twice a week, running twice a week and playing indoor soccer once a week.

The climbing and soccer are easy to motivate myself to do due the social element. The running, however, is harder to motivate myself to do. Part of this is the lack of good places to run in my neighbourhood. I do need to start running regularly if I am going to run a half marathon in a little over a month and a half.

I am seeing improvement in my bouldering now that I am doing it more regularly.

I should probably lose at least 15% of my mass, and soon before diabetes sets in, and I figure if I just cut candy out of my diet that'll get rid of 30-40% of my carb intake. So that would be a start right? Only I'm counting on our wonderful community's support when I'm constantly hungry, sleepy and cranky for however many weeks it might take to adjust.

I have managed to exercise four times a week for the last four weeks. I think I am going to fall off the wagon next week as I will be in the Netherlands for a workshop.

On Wednesday I was quite happy to finally do a bouldering problem that I have been trying to do for months. Today I ran 11.9 km in the pouring rain.

My diet (a bit carb rich) and my sleep schedule are definitely places were I can improve.

Lord Chrusher wrote:I have managed to exercise four times a week for the last four weeks. I think I am going to fall off the wagon next week as I will be in the Netherlands for a workshop.

Even if you fell "off the wagon" after that four weeks, that was still impressive. Consistently sticking to a goal, like your exercising 4 days a week for a month, is one the biggest challenges to achieving better health. At least, for me it is.

Speaking of, I'm curious to know, how do other Runners here find the motivation or willpower to keep going? With an exercise plan, a change in diet, or any other lifestyle change related to this thread's topic? Because a plan is easy to create, but following through is harder.

For example, I learned to think of exercise as something to enjoy, instead of treating it as a chore or a job. Exercise isn't the grueling thing one must do to enjoy other things, it's pleasurable in and of itself; or, at least, the positive effect on mental health aids in making life more enjoyable.

How about you guys?

Now that the weather is again approaching reasonable, I've gotten back into the habit of going for a run in the mornings. There's a large park about two minutes from my flat, running a circuit around the main parts of it takes about 30 minutes. Usually around 5am (early bird), there's nobody about and the morning scenery is gorgeous.

For me it is absolutely the positive effects on my mental and physical health that keep me doing it. And its overall a much better pre-work routine than sitting in my kitchen drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes.

I'm still skinny as a rake though...

I did the Liverpool Half Marathon this morning in a time of 2:23. My legs ran out of gas at about the 14 km so it was quite an effort to finish. I have now done half marathons on three continents (Melbourne, Victoria and now Liverpool).

Nice work Chrusher!

In other news, I went for a mailled-up run this morning and MAN the warmer weather makes running with a gambeson unpleasant. I've also decided that I need to add an extra hole to both my maille belt and the backstrap on my shield, otherwise both jolt around too much when I'm running.

So it turns out the last time I went for a run until yesterday was the half marathon I mentioned above two and a half months ago. After running 5.7 km yesterday and bouldering today for the first time in three weeks, my body is not happy with me. Carrying home the bouldering mat I helped buy today didn't help either.