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Thread: Exercise

  1. #1
    Octorok Glenn the Great's Avatar
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    Exercise

    Okay, so here's a topic that doesn't usually get a whole lot of love from members of the gaming community and really from Americans in general.

    We're always hearing stories in the news about how fat Americans are compared to the rest of the world. Some of the more pessimistic figures put it at 1/3 of Americans being obese, and 2/3 being overweight.
    I live in one of the worst states in the nation for obesity... when I go out and look around, I can confirm that folks at a healthy weight are quite rather the exception. Usually I see them running along the sidewalk on my way to and from work.

    For most of my life growing up I was quite a shrimp compared to other kids my age. Fast metabolism, didn't put on much fat or muscle (not that I tried). I was moderately athletic when it came time for PE class thanks to Tae Kwon Do class 2 nights a week, but I never played any of the team sports, mostly out of lack of interest, but also because I would have been too small for football or basketball anyway, though I probably would have been okay for track & field, something I kind of regret not considering at the time.

    When I stopped growing at around 18 years old, I was 5'7", 140 lbs. Then I started having a lot of mental issues, junk food helped me cope, started seeing a lot of weight gain which was exacerbated by the anti-depressants I was on.
    Within 2 years I had ballooned to a weight of around 220 lbs. Some of you oldbies may remember some of the pictures that were passed around from when I was at my heaviest.

    I was never the fat kid growing up, and the first time an IRL friend called me "fat" to my face, even though I knew he was joking, it lit a fire in me where I knew I had to change something, and fast.
    I cut out all the junk food, reduced my food intake to 2 meals a day, and then started going out and run-walk interval training every other day, slowly building up to being able to run 1 mile, and then 2.
    The results were dramatic, I lost 100 lbs over the next 2 years, but my anorexic eating habits caused me to briefly become underweight. Later that year (2007) I contracted Cat Scratch Disease, which killed my ability to work out, the stress from a new job didn't help either, and I went up in weight to about 160 lbs. over the next year.

    About two years ago I decided to get in shape, and this time to keep up with it. I started running again, built up via run-walk to running about 3-5 miles 5 times a week. Then as this summer started rolling around, I started looking for a different kind of exercise that I could do indoors for bad weather days, or when it was just too hot outside for running. A lot of my friends were doing Beachbody's P90X, so I started looking on Beachbody's website and saw Insanity. It looked attractive because (unlike P90X) it required no equipment, and has mostly a focus on cardio, which has always been my strong suit. I'm a hard-gainer when it comes to muscle mass. Right now I weigh 130 lbs. but I can only bench 140 lbs. It's more than my body weight, but it's still pretty meh and I don't enjoy it. I do weight lift very occasionally with friends, but I hate seeing my 200 lbs. out of shape buddies bench 180 lbs. and then be all in my face about it.
    I like to feel like I'm doing something, and the constant fast moving around of cardio gives me that enjoyment. Plus nobody I know in real life is all that great at it, so it's something I can be the best at, which feels good.

    So I've been doing the Insanity videos for about 4 months now, and boy do I feel better than at any other point in my life. The running thing was great, but it was a limited workout because you only use less than half the muscles in your body when running. Insanity is a much more well-rounded routine, so I'm going to keep trucking with it for awhile, but I'm thinking I may give P90X a try, or maybe even graduate into Insanity Asylum.

    Okay, so enough about me, I want to hear what you guys do for exercise. Any stories about struggles/achievements with fitness, sports, or just physical activities in general is welcome.

    Shattered Earth, coming soon!

    Mappers needed. If you want to help, send a PM to MasterSwordUltima.

  2. #2
    How many licks to get to the center Chris Miller's Avatar
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    I have about a thimbleful of natural athletic ability. I've always been blessed with massive brute strength, which came in handy in the weight room at high school, and the jobs I've had. But running has always been a huge chore, and I was simply too slow to do well in college football. Part of that has to do with my bone density. When I've been thin, as in borderline underweight, I weighed about 240 pounds. People thought I weighed about 180 then. It's hard for me to break a bone, but I always had to work harder to have strength proportional to my weight. For that reason, I've never been able to do pullups, even though I could max out the stack machine without a problem. Same thing with pushups; I could do those, but it was no fun at all.

    Since the injury I picked up at the end of last December, I've pretty much been lucky not to be wheelchair-bound. I've put on weight from a normal 250-ish up to about 285. Junk food probably hasn't helped. >.> If/when I do eventually get better, I'm going to shed these pounds for sure.

    An awful lot of people seem to be subsisting on McDonald's(blech) these days, and paying the price for it. One wonders how they would survive if they had to go out every day and catch their own food.

    Download Lands of Serenity today! You will be knocked comatose by its sheer awesomeness.
    The Titan's Quest, best played in the bathroom as the excitement can be somewhat...overwhelming.





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  3. #3
    Admiral Zim's Avatar
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    1/3 && 2/3 always factored me out of reality completely (and most other people I've actually met, for that matter). I suppose people who do these stats don't like to pay any attention to me at all, and like to pretend that I'm not real. I can still throw a roundhouse kick over 8' high though, and when I focus enough, displace electrostatic energy to the point of raging winds and lightning or thunder. I always (usually) avoid this aspect of living with you other people for I wouldn't like to be blamed for every global catastrophe that happens.
    I've never been a tumbler, but can still do precision flips on trampolines (when I'm sober), and various cada with the nunchaku.
    I enjoyed long stints of marathon drumming and guitar playing... Some people said I was the fastest and best, other people hated my guts for it, I was doing it because I thought it was a safer thing to do than many of the options I was presented or thought up myself.
    I've found that dancing and flexing my abs even for a few hours a week keeps my stomach in 6/8 pack shape, and my muscle structure isn't like a lot of people's I've analyzed. My lats go all the way down to my waist when I flex, for example, almost like fins instead of arm support.

    Aside from that, someone once told me that using the brain actually burns more calories than most other exercise, so I decided to make attempts at hitting myself with lightning bolts during thunderstorms as a past time.

    I also used to skateboard, although I was never that good at it, so the semi-consistent amount of healing I had to undergo probably kept my weight down, filling in bones and gashes all the time.

    Massive amounts of caffeine and nicotine also contributed to the slender 6'2" 160 lb guy I am today.

    I can imagine that without those hobbies and talents I'd probably be 9' tall and 400 lbs.
    Last edited by Zim; 09-03-2013 at 03:08 PM.

  4. #4
    A is A Mercy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Glenn the Great View Post
    Right now I weigh 130 lbs. but I can only bench 140 lbs. It's more than my body weight, but it's still pretty meh and I don't enjoy it. I do weight lift very occasionally with friends, but I hate seeing my 200 lbs. out of shape buddies bench 180 lbs. and then be all in my face about it.
    Tell those buddies to EABOD and appreciate that they are only benching 90% of their body weight while you are benching over 100% of yours. Being smart can even give one an advantage in athletics so own it.

    I do one to four hours of physical yoga, six days a week. It became necessary to skip one day a week when I hit a flexibility wall. The focus shifts from day to day between upper body and lower but core is always worked, hence the skipped day. It is full-body, there is no equipment required (I do have a few props/mat), weather is never an issue, and I can set my pace and routine according to my immediate mood. That last part is important because it means no criticism or avoidance. Most days I look forward to "my time" because nothing short of a life-or-death emergency can claim my attention. And it feels really good. Strong feels good but flexible and strong feels better.
    "The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius."

    Glenn the Great: I just think I'd be happier as a pretty lesbian girl.

    "Live and Let Live" is an excellent, tree-hugging philosophy, but it doesn't do much when the ones you refuse to kill are dragging you down with them.

  5. #5
    How many licks to get to the center Chris Miller's Avatar
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    I tried yoga stretches for a time. The result was...unpleasant.

    Download Lands of Serenity today! You will be knocked comatose by its sheer awesomeness.
    The Titan's Quest, best played in the bathroom as the excitement can be somewhat...overwhelming.





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  6. #6
    Patra Beldaran's Avatar
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    Achievements It's over 9000!
    I am a somewhat inconsistent practitioner of P90X and I eat a vegan diet. I have a decent body because of it. The biggest thing about exercise for me is that it seems to improve my mental acuity, which is important to me for both work and hobbies.

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