Motivation

[butt-eze]

The short of it...I have gained 70lbs since being discharged from the hospital 18 months ago. I just got off steroids a month ago.
I believe that the weight gain was a combination of steroids, depression, and zero self control.
Now that I am off steroids I cannot get motivated to lose the weight. I have every excuse in the book.
Is there anybody who is in the same/similar boat and would like to try to work with me to be a motivation for one-another?

 

[drew_wymore]

I'd be happy to work with you! I have gained 50 pounds due to the steroids since November and I too have come up with every excuse to not work out despite the fact that I have a gym membership.

PM me and we'll work out something =)

 

[Wiles]

I've been gaining weight slowly, but surely since my surgery. I have gained 30lbs so far. There's a home gym in the basement... I just haven't been motivated enough to use it regularly. Sign me up!

 

[katiesue1506]

im about 15 lbs heavier than I'd like to be... I went down to 125 when I was at my worst and I looked horrible... now I am 155 and looking a bit plumper. I have no motivation, but I started a diet... basically watching what I eat. I would like to get to the gym... but this time of year its SO FULL of tiny little tan chicks and big huge buff guys that it disgusts me.

 

[Jeff D.]

Well I have to gain weight but to do that I have to work out so I'll join you. I have to gain about thirty pounds so hopefully this will get me motivated as well. Do you have a plan for your workout? Are you going to use free weights or body weight? Are you going to run, walk, or ride a bike? How many times a week are you going to workout? Are you going to count calories? If you want I could help people out with a workout plan. I have a very good knowledge of health sciences as that is what I am going to school for. I have some good websites I'll post later if you guys are interested. My problem is I know exactly what I am supposed to do to gain weight but I never take my advice so hopefully this will help me take my own advice.

 

[Wiles]

One of the things that has stopped me in the past is I'm really not sure what to do! Your input would be very welcome, Jeff!

I have access to a treadmill, exercise bike and one of those home gym weight machines. I don't think I need to lose a lot of weight (10-15 pounds), it's mostly getting back into shape. I've been sick a long time, but I lost more strength post surgery than I have the whole time I've had this disease. I had to help my brother move and I was stuggling to lift the heavy things that I wouldn't have had as much trouble with before.

 

[Jeff D.]

Hey Wiles, you seem to have some good equipment to start out with.

Try a three day a week schedule: Monday, Wednesday, Friday with the weekend off. You need to give your body rest and it allows you to do your hardest workout last with a longer rest period.

Start off with a 15 minute walk on the treadmill. It will be about a mile and will get you warmed up for the rest of the workout. If your treadmill has an incline start out at no incline and try to raise it by 1 degree until you get to 10 and lower it the last 5 minutes by 1.

For those trying to lose weight I would suggest doing a high speed workout, which means not taking a break.

Start out with 20 pushups-if you can't do that then use stairs or do granny pushups and do 40 of those

Next do 50 crunches, leg lifts, and other ab work

Do three sets of each one after the other

Now hop on your bike and do 15 minutes of that, raise how hard it is every 2 minutes for 10 minutes and back down by two after 10

Now you have some decisions, do you want to work full body, upper body, lower body, etc.

Good luck and have fun

 

[Jeff D.]

How are people coming on their workouts. I wasn't able to do anything today because I was too busy but tomorrow I will be working out for sure.

 

[butt-eze]

Wow! Thank you all for your support. Sorry, I didn't get back to you sooner. My two year old is battling an eye infection/fever.

So, how to get started? I tried dieting with my friends but we didn't really encourage each other. We just sort of laughed when we had a bad day and ran out for fast food.

 

[Jeff D.]

Don't try to diet. It will never work out. Whenever you diet you just make yourself want to eat more and more. Just try to start working out slowly. Don't push yourself too hard but you still need to push yourself. One rule I use is that I have worked out when I have been sweating for a half hour. Not a sweat from bein hot outside but real workout sweat. Be careful in winter not to be outside for too long though because you can become hypothermic rather quickly if you are outside and you sweat.

Start out with some body weight exercises, they are the best to gain lean muscle fibers.

20 pushups
50 crunches

Is a good start but do them one after the other. Don't allow yourself a break in between and do 3 sets of each. When you get bored of these try different variations and you will build different muscles with each variation.

Squats and lunges are good but don't do them if you feel like you may be sick as you may go in the middle of the exercise.

Walk or run a mile if you can.

Try aerobic activities and not anaerobic activities because you need to get off weight and create lean muscle mass. After the lean muscle mass it is easier to get bulk after if you want. Once you start exercising and do it for a few weeks you will be hooked. It's always hard to get started.

Best of luck and God bless

 

[Jeff D.]

How are people coming with their exercise. I'm going to be asking every week to see how yall are doing. I've missed the past few days because I have forgotten until now and I have been busy. Tomorrow after I finish my packing duties, I'm moving soon, I'm going to get onto my old martial arts training regime. If anyone needs help with exercise plans don't hesitate to pm me or put it onto here.

Good luck and God bless everyone

 

[butt-eze]

Just being honest....I haven't done well. No good excuses, yet again

 

[Jeff D.]

Yeah me either. I have some spare time but I rather play my guitar instead. But tomorrow I'm getting my mom to work out with me.

 

[butt-eze]

Ok...I promise that tomorrow I will get on my elliptical for at least 10 minutes. That is a lot more than 0 minutes!!!

 

[Jeff D.]

Yep

 

[Wiles]

Thanks for posting the info for me Jeff.

I haven't been able to start yet. I was away from home and couldn't get back because of snow and ice for several days.

I'll probably have to start with granny pushups, I haven't been able to do more than 3 pushups in a long time. Not sure how many situps I can do either, after a few I start to get pain where I had surgery (which was around 7-8 months ago now)

I'll probably have time to start up on monday, I'll see how it goes.

 

[drew_wymore]

I am going to start going to the gym Tuesday of the upcoming week. I have a procedure Monday and I'm prepping today so I'm holding off until then. I've been eating better the last few days though.

 

[Jeff D.]

I started a little yesterday. I did 20 pushups and about 100 crunches.

Drew is it a drink some make you go prep. If it is do some crunches and you will be flying to your bathroom.lol Yeah don't do that.lol

 

[Wiles]

I started today.

I did 10 minutes on the treadmill... I didn't bother stretching first, by the end my left calf was killing me. Then I did 3 pushups. That's all I could do! So I did 37 granny pushups. After that I did 25 situps and then hopped on the the exercise bike for half an hour.

 

[butt-eze]

I did my ten minutes on the elliptical machine. It feels good to have finally done it! Thanks Wiles for doing yours so I could have the push to do mine!

 

[Wiles]

I've been keeping up with my regime. I'm surprised I haven't missed a day yet.

I'll be going on again tomorrow. I'm still having trouble with the treadmill, no matter how much I stretch I still get a burning pain from just above my ankle to just below my calf muscle. I try to stay on the full 10 mins but I'm usually gritting my teeth by 9, and off before the time runs out. I have no problem on the bike though.

I need to start eating better... Since I've been feeling a bit better I've had a monstrous appetite. I just want to eat and eat all day long. Which is a lot different from before when the thought of food made me feel nauseas. I'm not making the best choices in what I eat either.

 

[Jeff D.]

Thats great that people are starting excercise programs or doing excercise at all. Just remember to stretch first, forgot to put that in Wiles lol. I have been doing a little myself and tomorrow am hoping to do a little more than normal.

Keep up the good work guys.

 

[BWS1982]

some tips

just to add, situps are only useful for developing the abdominal muscles, it takes roughly 100,000 situps to burn a pound (3500 calories) of weight.

pushups are good, but only if they are harder for you, for some people they are so easy it's not very useful. For most people they are fine though...

If you want to trim fat, high intensity cardio is the quickest and most effective method, and adding resistance training (weights) will speed things up even more. I'm an advocate of dieting since I've done it and had great success with it. Trimming out the simple carbs works the best usually, and high protein no matter what your goals are will aid things. Do the weights first if you do both in the same workout, as you burn more calories and don't pre-fatigue the muscles. (I am a bodybuilder by default, when this stupid disease isn't interfering).

 

[Jeff D.]

Well the thing is that if you are doing pushups and crunches without a break you are doing cardio as well as doing body weight exercises. It allows you to burn a little more calories and add to your gains.

Pushups can be increased in difficulty by doing different versions of them.

Have you ever heard of burpees. You start standing up and quickly go into a pushups position, then after one pushup you immediattely go into standing position. It is extremely hard if you do them correctly. I have been an advocate of body weight exercises since I started do Parkour. But now that I have been to some classes I hav found that body weight exercises are best for people trying to lose weight or to stay trimmed. It gives you useful muscles, I can't think of another way to put that.

BWS1982 check out http://www.bodyweightculture.com/

 

[AbstractDonut]

I think you guys shouldn't worry about the weight. Gives you more padding if the problems come back.

 

[BWS1982]

Well the thing is that if you are doing pushups and crunches without a break you are doing cardio as well as doing body weight exercises. It allows you to burn a little more calories and add to your gains.

Pushups can be increased in difficulty by doing different versions of them.

Have you ever heard of burpees. You start standing up and quickly go into a pushups position, then after one pushup you immediattely go into standing position. It is extremely hard if you do them correctly. I have been an advocate of body weight exercises since I started do Parkour. But now that I have been to some classes I hav found that body weight exercises are best for people trying to lose weight or to stay trimmed. It gives you useful muscles, I can't think of another way to put that.

BWS1982 check out http://www.bodyweightculture.com/

Yeah bodyweight exercises are a beautiful thing, no equipment needed, just ingenuity. To make pushups harder I simply raise the height of my feet, almost sometimes to the point that it's emulating a military press or incline bench. Doing them rapidly in a circuit style is similar to cardio, correct. But still the best way to add pure mass is to lift heavy, and for some actual weights is the only way you're going to get that. For me when I'm adding muscle I do very little in the way of aiming to cut fat/weight, only enough to possibly minimize any fat gain (since I'm hypocaloric and eating more than maintenence).

I only recently found out about "parkour" I am still not sure what all is involved but what I saw intrigued me.

 

[Jeff D.]

Oh yeah I was just letting them know how they could lose some weight and not add. I need to add a little muscle but I think I'm going to do it the parkour way and do body weight exercises.

Parkour is extremely hard. You have to do everything in little steps and it involves every part of the body. When I first started I gained 10 pounds. Then winter came and I coudn't do it so I lost about 15 and I"ve been sick since then. Now I am about to move to Alabama and should be able to do it all year long so hopefully I can gain some weight and keep it up all year long. I don't want to gain bulk I'm just looking to be lean and very fast for parkour.lol

 

[butt-eze]

AbstractDonut!!! You're too funny! Sometimes I think a flare wouldn't be so bad but only because I want to loose weight. Then again I would hate to have another flare so I'll just have to cut back on my abstract donuts

 

[Wiles]

So how is everyone doing?

I have been slacking... I was doing really well for a while, but then I had to go away for a week. I couldn't keep up with my routine while I was away, and when I got home I didn't start back up again. I'm going to be busy this weekend, but come Tuesday it's back on the bike for me!

 

[butt-eze]

Just call me a slacker without motivation!

 

[Wiles]

Speaking of slack, I think my pants are running out of it!

 

[Kit]

Hi all,

I got in this late, but I hear you on the motivation part. Mine is distracted by fatigue. I feel I need to keep energy for work, so i don't want to do too much. I am a Physical Therapist Assistant, so my job is somewhat physical. I have found that Yoga and Tai Chi have done well for me. I only do 20 min at a time. I also try to do a little core work. From what I have read: Cardio will burn fat, but weight training builds muscle to burn fat even when you are not working out. This is info I have found out from reading health magazines. The other thing my husband says is just do something. I sometimes only walk on the treadmill 10 or 15 min because that is all i can handle. The goal i keep telling myself is to be healthy.

All that said and done. I struggle with wanting to eat a lot at times and not doing anything. Hang in and pat yourself on the back for doing anything.

Kit