Getting fit again

I have heard many people saying the pandemic slowdown has helped lead them to gaining weight etc. Has anyone one else used the extra free time to lose weight and get in shape? I started taking a little better care of myself mid summer 2019. I was doing some walking and not eating a sub and bag of chips for lunch anymore. The weight started to come off so I hit the gym in Nov of 19. By around March the Covid thing hit and shut the Gym down. So I had to make a decision quit and waste all my hard work or keep going at home? I kept on walking and bought some dumbbells. So now the routine is 150 push ups 150 sit ups and dumbbells 5 or 6 days a week 3mi walks a few times a week.

So far at 53 I'm still enjoying the workouts and the new healthy lifestyle. I was 275lbs now down to 200 at 6' 2". Bonus is I'm now off the bp and cholesterol meds too. Has anyone here done a similar transition and were you able to maintain it long term? I have to say it also really helps your outlook with all the depressing news these days. Even the Wifegod like the new me better

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Yep. In October 2007, I weighed 357 pounds. By June, 2008, I was down to 200 pounds. I ended up getting down to about 162, stayed there for 5 years, burned out on the workouts I was doing. I put some weight back on by design, got back to 200, been there ever since. I work out 6-7 days a week, every week, sometimes (like today) twice a day. Gave up fast food and soft drinks.

Below on the left is me in September 2007, 3 weeks before I started Weight Watchers and began working out. On the right is me at boxing class a few months ago. And yes, I know my right hand is low, and that's an invitation to get punched in the face. Thankfully, the heavy bag doesn't hit back, but if I did that doing mitt work, my trainer would've popped me in the side of the head.

Can't report either of your success but yeah, with Covid I put on about 30lbs. Doctor gave me the word. For 2 1/2 months I'm been doing a lot better, started walking several miles a day, trying to not each as much and have lost about 8lbs. Not where you guys are but one has to start somewhere. I keep it up and I'll have lost 20lbs by the next checkup. I work in an office sitting 9 hours so am making it a point to get up and move. We just moved to a much safer area so I may be able to go for walks during the day also. Nobody watches my group so no problem there as long as the job gets done.

Is there a specific plan you guys are following? I don't have a sedentary job, but its not as physical as the previous one I had. My diet isn't the worst, but am not 100% sure what to eat.. Best change to my diet I've made was to go gluten free. This made a huge difference in how I felt, but I didn't lose any weight at all as others have claimed from going gluten free. I'm 5'-10" and have been 210-215 for the past 12 yrs or so and recently crept up to 220. Would love to be below 200 again.

I would suggest meeting with a dietician or nutritionist. What you eat is important, but so is when you eat it. For example, your metabolism slows down when you sleep. You need to fire it up when you wake up. Eating a breakfast that includes lean protein is the way to do so. You also have to make sure you get sufficient protein during the day, and sufficient fiber as well. Cut out any sweetened drinks, too. This has been a universal truth among everyone I know who has had and maintained a significant weight loss/health improvement...eat your calories, don't drink them.

Exercise is important. Get your heart rate up. Sweat. Be uncomfortable. That's where the improvements are. A casual stroll around the block is better than sitting on the couch, but it's not going to help anyone lose weight. Also, do strength training. You don't have to be a power lifter or bodybuilder to benefit from strength training. You can get a great strength training workout done in under an hour. I enjoy group classes, like my boxing class. It's a hard class, but we feed off of the energy in the room. We push each other. For example, the heavyset woman behind me in my picture talks trash the entire class. We'll finish a round, and she'll look over at me and say, "You HAVE to have more than that, son." It's a lot of fun, and it makes the class easier. No matter what forms of exercise you do, don't worry about what you can't do. Focus on what you CAN do. I guarantee you that if you go to a class, or go to a gym to lift, and you are working hard, no one there is paying any attention to how fast you are, how much weight you lift, etc. We respect the fact that you're there to begin with.

No matter what exercise you do, you cannot out train a bad diet.

If you don't want to think, but want to improve your diet there are some basic rules. Try to stick to food. Things you can look at and actually know where they came from. You can't grow an oreo. Keep your protein up, each meal have a protein portion. What's protein? Something that used to make noise but doesn't now because it's on your plate. Try not to take in excess calories through liquids. Stick to no calorie drinks or water. Start there and you should get yourself on the right path.

I'm all over PA for work, and worked during the "outbreak". I saw record numbers of people outside exercising, front street in Harrisburg looked like there was a marathon being run almost daily, even yoga classes overlooking the river ( insert Beavis laugh)

Couple of years ago, I had a triple bypass, but on 30lbs due to my physical activity dropping substantially. Plumped up to 260.

Got back to my pre bypass weight just before Covid, put 10 back on and I can feel it. What keeps my weight down is keeping busy. I don't have to work out but just not sit around grazing from the fridge. Bet if you wrote down everything you ate for a week you'd be surprised how much grazing gets done. Also, I quit buying snacks, sodas and other crap food so when I do get the urge to eat I don't have junk to choose from. When I got off the ship I was on I weighed 185, within three months I got up to 215, no fridge or pantry to raid on a destroyer, lol. Stayed at 215 for years but as I got older I gradually got up to 230. I would love to get back to 215 or even 200, but at 185 which is supposed to be my max weight for my height I'd look like a stick.

100%. Writing down everything you eat is a great way to get yourself on track. "If you bite it, write it."

I have taken up biking (indoor and outdoors) and have entered many mountain bike races (29 mile ICEMAN) in northern Michigan. I have a routine where I am getting 10 miles in every other day staying under my target time of 40 minutes (under 4 minuted per mile). On days I do not ride, it is light weight training for flexibility.

My left knee needs replacement at some point (I am 57 YO). However, I feel the burn and feel great doing it. If you are resting, you're rusting, just like your car.

I still eat like sh!t and drink, but I can burn it off now.

Yes.

I've been doing a 30minute, online workout thing, with cardio alternating with strength every other day, and I do them 3 times a week, Sun Tues Thurs.
I do it because it helps prevent injury and pain from the work I do.. At 56 my lower back and knees get painful if I don't exercise and keep their strength up.

I heard of the increased home-exercise activity from online news coverage about Covid...
My wife got a Peleton exercycle thing with a screen and online link to training sessions.. she absolutely loves it.. So I took some advice and looked up the companies involved...
.. and bought stock in Peleton (equipment) and Lululemon (exercise sportswear) back in April. They have both done really well, even thought the stock values tanked a little when the vaccine was announced! .. LOL..
Cheers,
- Art

Yep. Got up to a whopping 260 (5' 10"). Changed my diet, getting some exercise (need more). QUIT DRINKING - that was a big one for keeping the weight loss going. Down to 230 after 3 months, hope to get to 180. We'll see.

I don't have time to work out but since the corona virus I have lost 20lbs.

No more drive through food, I have to live off my own cooking. Considering the weight loss from eating my cooking I can now honesty say that people can not survive my cooking. LOL

Keep up the good work.

Gotta find something you can stick with long term. If you hate the gym then you might not stick with it so you have to be open about other options that you like if your plan A doesn't work. Just don't throw in the towel.

Not everything requires a gym membership. Jumping rope a few times a week to get your heart rate up is great and dirt cheap. Boxers do it and they are fit as can be.

Bicycle = fun + it gets you outside.

I play tennis up against the local school gym wall sometimes. Running back and forth keeping up with the ball will work up a sweat really fast.

There is a townhome complex a few blocks from my office. And since covid hit, wow, the chicks that have been hiking past my office window! I never saw them before because they were all at work during office hours. But all summer they were out getting their exercise. It's been a treat!

But back on topic, I've gained 15lbs in the last year. I need to get to slimming down.

If any of those babes are into old fat guys, let me know, lol.

Already tried. There is an especially bodacious blonde who had been going by about 4 times per day, usually braless. The old fat guy timed his visit to the mailbox just right. When I said hi, she never looked up from her phone and kept walking.

Take your trunk monkey along for a decoy!

Had a buddy that went to work for a friend that pour/laid concrete. When I saw him 3 months later I HE HAD LOST ABOUT 60lbs. And he's actually doing productive work to lose weight. He admitted and I agree we all THINK we "work" every day but most of us have jobs where we do nothing physically. When I worked as an EE I sat at a desk (like a slave) for 6 of 10 hours a day. I work my REAR off, physically, 6 days a week 12 hours a day and am exhausted when I get home. I couldn't even wrap my head around doing anything physically. If I did it'd have to be a treadmill hooked to generator pumping electricity back into the grid so I at least got paid

PS Congrats on the weight loss. I'm 5' 10" 215 but have legs like a linebacker. Think I was 180 in high school when I lifted weights. I don't know if I would survive getting back to that weight

March of 2019 I was 235 and muffin topping out of my size 40 jeans. By fall of 2019 I was low 150's. I work a sedentary desk job. Biggest change was my diet. I decided to limit myself to 1700 calories per day. I think most days I was closer to 2000 but I made sure to keep it below that. Also I lift weights 40 mins x 3 days per week. Between those two the weight just fell off. Once I hit 150 I just could not make any more strength gains from weight lifting, just no fuel in the tank at that point with the body fat all gone. I upped my eating to around 2500 calories and began making strength gains again and now I'm low 160's from muscle growth. I try to keep on my routine however what I do is nowhere near a serious workout effort. I do the high protein, low carb diet so I aim for .8 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day. So breakfast is a protein shake, lunch is meat and vegetables, supper is meat and vegetables. I do still eat bread, pizza, burgers, etc but I try to keep it in check. I've found this is kind of the point in which my body seems to balance and stays in shape. In the beginning I definitely had to use a calorie counting app to keep myself on track. After 6 or 8 months I was able to stop with that after having made the adjustment in my head.

Good for you for finding out what works and not giving up.

Many people do the gym thing full force and then quit when their goal doesn't happen fast enough. Fitness is not an overnight thing. Don't get caught up staring at a scale every day either.

I agree with exactly what not_a_charger wrote. As far as a dietician or nutritionist, I'm not all that confident they all are that up to date, but some are I'm sure. Lean proteins and some wild Salmon, lots of leafy greens, a little fruit (not too much and no juice). Plenty of water, sweet potato, slow cook some beans such as Pinto. Avoid fast food of course, grains (bread, pasta, crackers, etc. Just think of them as sugar, which you need to avoid too). And as he wrote, find the exercise that you don't hate. For me it's an elliptical machine, and free weights.

And finally, so true; you cannot out-exercise a bad diet! I've watched so many people try. Unless you're a teenager of course.

I swear I've met you before.

You probably did at 42, or at Mike Ross' place, or maybe at Rick Gorski's place, or Bob Harwell's place.

Sadly, I never made it to any of those... It'll come to me.

Maybe the Wooster Mopar show?

Very possible. Hopefully I'll be able to post some progress on this thread in the near future. I'm making some changes myself.

Nice! Keep at it, sir!

As a teen I didn't even need to exercise to beat a bad diet. I had a hummingbird's metabolism.

I agree completely. This weekend was bad. I hit the Christmas cookies and beer pretty good. I gained a few pounds from Fri and Saturday nights transgressions. I went from 198 to 203 that quick. I hit the weights hard Fri before the beer and cookies. Then did it again Saturday beer and cookies that is except no workout. I finally got back on track Sunday with a salad for supper sit ups pushups and a leg workout. Today was good again chix breast for lunch sit ups pushups again. Weights sit ups and pushups again tomorrow. I can't get away with eating junk and not gaining weight at 53. I know it would be worse if I wasn't working out 5 or 6 days a week,but wow I can gain it quick.

It really doesn't take much (Says the guy that currently isn't doing anything... lol) to drop 8-10 lbs a month.

I have a couple of friends that dropped 50 lbs in 6 months with nothing more than a diet adjustment that consisted mostly of changing what they ate more so than how much, drinking a bunch of water and the biggest thing, a non stop 30 minute walk every day.

Before my heart attack in 08 I was pushing 260 at 6'1" and my diet was heavy on dead mammals, easy on the potatoes and heavy on the chocolate.

Post infarction I was off work for several months so my diet changed to mostly dead fish and birds, easy on the potatoes and the sweet tooth got put on a leash. I did 20 minutes every morning on the treadmill and I was down to 220ish by the time I went back to work.

Once I got back to work the daily walk disappeared and within a year I was 245 again and that is where I'm currently at.

Kevin

I hit 10 miles in 37 minutes 13 seconds yesterday. A new best time Now I need a sub 37 minute time.