Ya rly. Sometimes, especially when there’s traffic, I marvel at how I’m getting places faster than people in cars.
So are you in some big, hairy super-rush every time you leave your house?
It’s called training. If I’m reading your description of your PE classes correctly, you were required to run so few laps in the morning, that you never improved your conditioning. How are little mini jogging sessions ever going to get you to run a mile?
It’s not about running for the sake of running. It’s about adopting a different lifestyle that isn’t sedentary, getting more physical activity into your life as a rule so that you can be healthy. These modifications to your life will likely result in weight loss and the retention of your foot. As has been said (by you as well as others) American lifestyles have shifted from daily labor and eating fresh, whole foods to sitting around all day and eating processed pre-packaged non-food. So now we’re saying, “Hey, here are some lifestyle changes that can get you more active, that don’t involve wrestling bears for food , or cutting an entire field by hand with a sickle. Incorporating walking, running, bicycling, or swimming into your routine are perfectly ordinary things that people do, and are good for you.”
I really do wish you well in your weight loss endeavour, but this fucked up celery diet you’re on and seeming unwillingness to become physically active are discouraging. If you end up not attaining the results you’re looking for, I hope you don’t conclude that diet and exercise are a “waste of time.”
Probably I’m fooling myself that there is some altruistic useful sharing of experience going on here, when really all it is is 'dope wanking. Woo hoo!
Hmmm. Once I lived in this area, I felt like there was no choice but to inhabit the mountains and so forth. So for me, there was effectively no choice but to become more fit.
It isn’t as if Nazis shackled me and put me on a train to this region. No, I’m here on my own. This ‘no choice’ business isn’t some kind of oppressive factor, it is a consequence of other choices that are my own responsibility. For this thread the point is that it was never about weight loss, even though I did in fact lose 50 lbs.
So. I picked running. I can tell you how to do it. Quit worrying! Forget all these stupid accusations and etc. Don’t measure your progress with a bathroom scale. Use a watch and a yardstick. It’s pretty basic really.
So I started running. I ran to such and such landmark in so and so time. Then I could go to the landmark after that, lookee there, I ran for a few more minutes. And so on. At some point I started to enjoy running, because it makes you high folks. The distances became longer and longer, and at some point while I was literally high I thought I would try to run a marathon. Because I was trying to get fit after all, so at what point would I say I had got there? Surely if I ran a marathon I would be fit, no? And that would be that!
The reality is that I only thought I was training for a marathon. I could run pretty far, sure, but this race is way too far to run. I dropped out of the first one halfway- too far. Five months later I was back for another one. I got to a certain point and thought that I really ought not to give up at this point, but grind it out and be done with the entire retarded stupid mission.
So I learned that there is an element of horror to running a marathon. First of all, yeah I didn’t run the entire way. I had to stop and walk and various points, though toward the end even walking hurt, when all I wanted to do was find the first grassy yard and claw into the earth and rest at last in my own grave.
It was way too far to run. I hurt everywhere. My legs hurt so much I couldn’t tell the difference between the parts of my legs. My neck hurt. My arms hurt- didn’t expect that! My lungs and my heart hurt. Brain? Barking mad. And there was still more to go. Christ.
But I did go all the way to the end. The time was bad. Fuck it, I’m fit now, bitch about my time all you like. But there was one thing so remarkable that I remarked about it- I could produce witnesses- that I’m not making up just to reply to certain people in this thread. I hurt all over, but my knees didn’t hurt. I thought that was kind of weird, considering. Really!
I do still enjoy running, and I do still enter races, but I’m not running any more marathons. (Unless I think I could qualify for Boston)
My ex-girlfriend has bad knees. She never ran with me, not even a single time. Apparently she destroyed her knees getting her black belt. Then she became a yoga instructor. I always thought she was more fit than me. Smaller, but more fit. Talk about abs!
If you don’t like running, start walking. Since it’s cooler*, I’m going to start going along with my dad when he takes the dog for a walk. He goes walking everyday up at a local park – it’s an old estate and he usually does about a mile or two. I used to accompany him a few years ago, and I got in pretty damned good shape.
I lost about five or ten pounds last spring/summer when I’d take the bus to work, and if the weather was nice, I’d walk to work from downtown instead of waiting for the second bus. I’d take the 6th Street bridge, (aka the Clemente Bridge), and walk along the Allegheny River. I could walk past PNC Park and Heinz Field, and the view along the river is absolutely GORGEOUS.
I too hate running. I’d rather take long walks or go swimming. Plus, wouldn’t swimming be good for your knees? (Physical therapy?)
*Why haven’t I gone now in warm weather, you ask? Because the last time I went with him during the summer, I saw not one, but TWO snakes. One was just a small garter, but the other was a big ass black snake that was stretched over the entire path! I’d rather balloon up to two-thousand pounds than go anywhere near another snake like that!
I’m perpetually amazed by these kinds of stories, and it’s kinda eye-opening. It takes me about eight to ten minutes to do a half mile at what I perceive to be an easy, casual stroll.
It helps to make exercise competitive or fun. I play 8 to 10 hours of racketball a week. I also walk my 2 beagles twice a day, every day. They go nuts if I am not ready . They can tell the time.
I have a group of about 15 guys who play racketball . We play some singles, some doubles and sometimes cut throat. We range in age from 23 to 79. It is exercise that we look forward to doing as opposed to something you have to do. Our group has played together summer, winter for nearly 30 years. I would think we are far healthier than the average. It is social as well as exercise.
There are reasons to work out. There are excuses not to.
I’ve never been fond of swimming - I always sank, and could never get anywhere, despite several years of lessons. Despite those lessons, I consider myself still unable to swim.
Of course, now that I’m a great deal more spherical than I was then, logically speaking I should probably float a lot better; however I still think “I’d go straight to the bottom” every time I see water. It’s a testament to the permanence of youthful learning, I guess, but the lasting effect is that physics be damned, I am still convinced I sink like a stone! (And of course the fact that I never test this theory doesn’t help change it.)
And, of course, there is the ego thing. Most of the time I don’t think about my size or appearance much, but stick me in a pair of shorts and no shirt (or even with the shirt) and I become acutely conscious of it. So I do all my exercising in the privacy of my own home. And my bathtub is a wee bit small to do laps in. (My hallway’s a bit short to run miles in too, for that matter.)
Congratulations - you have succeeded in your goal of being immature and annoying. I hate you big much. So be happy and proud of yourself now, you have achieved the pinnacle of your existence.
To reiterate the uneditorialized version, I have never seen any directly observable detriment from my lack of physical conditioning, so it should make perfect sense to the rational crowd that I see no anticipable benefit from getting physically conditioned. Seriously: I can’t run a three minute mile. Oh no! What a tragedy. Better get in shape right away, so that I can run three minute miles, which I don’t need or want to do.
Until recently, there were no directly observable detriments from my weight, either. Seriously! All you people who are like, “I got ten pounds fatter and really felt it”, you are speaking a foreign language to me. Myself I never felt any different as a result of it. I barely noticed it happening - buy a new belt every few years, no biggie. They wear out anyway.
Of course, when this diabetes thing hit, that was pretty noticeable. Of course, diabeties isn’t about fitness, it’s just sheerly the weight, so far as I know. So I have a new incentive to lose the weight, but not to get fit in general. So I will naturally approach it from that perspective.
Keeping all that in mind, I’ve found portion control to be highly effective at dropping the pounds, even with only cursory effort - though of course there’s not that much more effort involved in using a cup to measure out your breakfast cereal. Quite clearly, cursory effort don’t cut it if you want to use exercise as a weight loss strategy, at least not when I’m the one doing it. So given that I have an easier, more effective approach available, why should I exercise at all? There is literally zero incentive.
But I’m a silly person who occasionally does useless things just because other people have the silly idea that they’re a good idea. So I sometimes put in a little time on the bike. But I have only the barest reason to do it in the first place, and the relatively minor discomfort of mild exercise, and the boredom of it, is enough to override that pretty quick, if I’m not making the time fruitful with the TV. So shamely I’m the only person in the world who ever watches TV while on an exercise bike.
There. I’ve now spent a hundred times longer responding to you than your post was worth. Be proud.
When I go to work in the morning, pretty much yeah. I have carefully timed my morning to squeeze the last minute of sleep possible. (Sleep good.)
And of course, as we’ve discussed, speed isn’t the only reason to drive rather than bike. (Though I’m still skeptical that the bike would be any faster. Traffic isn’t bad around here, and bikes have to stop at stoplights too.)
I don’t want that lifestyle. And with the demonstrably more effective method of watching what you eat available, that removes weight loss and foot retention as a reason to put up with it. So what’s left? Running for the sake of running. Training for the sake of training. Being fit for the sake of being fit.
Now, if you’re a person who wants to be fit, who really cares about being fit, then more power to you. You are free to waste your time any way you want. Heaven knows I do - I’m about as flush with unproductive hobbies as a person can be and still hold down a job. But just like I don’t expect you to want to engage in my hobbies, you shouldn’t expect me to want to engage in yours.
Diet control works. Demonstrably. Exercise on the other hand doesn’t, at least not in token amounts. I suppose if you’re on some fucked up marathon regimen it might be a little different - but even then, I seriously, seriously doubt that it’s anywhere close to being as effective as putting the twinkies down.
Meh, don’t worry about it.
If I’d been walking, I’d have been faster! I walk pretty good. It’s when I try to run that my body says “to hell with that” and forces me down to a sub-standard trudge, considerably slower than walking and a great deal less pleasant.
Or at least it used to - this is not something I make an effort to test on a regular basis. Given that I’m only older and fatter than I was then, I’m not inclined to think things have changed for the better though.
There’s a pretty big difference between being fit and being fat - more than you might expect from a single letter’s difference. When you are heavy, sports aren’t competitive, and they’re not fun, and they’re not social. They’re a chore. Now, I readily concede that there are likely numerous exceptions to this, and ways for heavies to allevieate this somewhat, but I’m pretty confident in general it’s true that the fitter you are, the funner it is to engage in fitness activities.
The only difference between reasons and excuses is that I have reasons, and you merely have excuses.
I’m a type 2 diabetic and have found that a good cardio workout – which can be as little as 15 minutes of brisk walking – can significantly lower my postprandial blood sugar. (I.e., if I checked my blood sugar an hour after eating and it was inappropriately high, like around 200, I would go for a brisk walk immediately, and usually after coming back in and rechecking, I’d be down at least 30-40 points.) This effect is not true for all diabetics, but it is true for many, and I thought I would mention it. When I was on insulin during my pregnancies, I always made sure to carry hard candy with me at the grocery store, because just the simple exertion of pushing a grocery cart around the aisles for 30-40 minutes would often be enough to cause a hypoglycemic low.
Also, as a type 2 diabetic, heart disease is what is likely to get you, assuming you don’t get hit by a bus first. So anything you do to improve your heart health is a good thing.
PS: I don’t know if you have run across these already, but there are two great books about diabetes by Gretchen Becker. One is targeted at people who are “pre-diabetic” and don’t yet have the full-blown disease, and is titled, Stop Diabetes. The other one is for people who have recently been diagnosed, and is called Type 2 Diabetes – The First Year. Either is a good read, whether you have been diagnosed with the full deal or not, IMO.
I’m type 2, and pretty shamefully ignorant - I don’t know if I’m “full-blown” or not. Mostly what my docs have said about it is “Yep, you’re diabetic like you thought” and “Get your weight down.” Currently the blood sugar stuff is being completely controlled by pills, and my blood sugar never, ever gets high. Or low, for that matter.
Presumably this will get worse with time, but for the moment the consensus seems to be that losing the weight is the priority above all else.
Yeah, it will likely help. There seems to be a small percentage of people for whom weight loss doesn’t help much, but it’s a small percentage. Are you testing your blood sugar at home? I found that testing at home was helpful as far as knowing what I should and should not be eating. Good luck to you - as someone on a forum said to me once, “Welcome to the club that nobody wants to be a member of.” (Rueful smiley here.)
There are more benefits to being fit than just “being fit” or losing weight. Do you ever find yourself puffing after stairs? Could you use more energy? Wouldn’t it be nice if the grocery bags didn’t feel so heavy? It’s silly to say people exercise just to exercise - there’s a host of benefits that have nothing to do with how fat you are or how fast you run a mile.
I’m testing my blood sugar occasionally at home, though not as often as I’m supposed to (which is “once or twice a week”, at last instruction). It’s hard to remember when there’s no sense of urgency, and there’s no sense of urgency when the value never seems to move much, no matter what I eat. (Not that I’m complaining - that means the pills are working.)
I don’t climb many stairs (and don’t puff after one flight), I don’t have a problem with the grocery bags, and I don’t need more energy.
Of course diet control works, and yes, eating better will do more to help you lose weight than riding a bike three days a week while failing to change your eating habits. You should still exercise, though. All right, all right, I’ll stop pushing exercise (with you, anyway). I still don’t know what’s up with the celery diet. You can eat leaner, healthier foods in smaller portions, and that should help.
Marathon regimen? I wish! I don’t have the will power for that.
Well, I don’t just eat celery - heck, that’d probably kill you. That’s was more a throway comment to avoid listing out my entire diet in painful detail. Suffice to say that I still eat a small assortment of low-calorie foods, in quite smaller quantities than I am accostomed to, with a switch to fruits (and celery) and beef jerky as snacks as opposed to, say, cookies, potato chips, gummi bears, and ice cream.
It’s not as tortuous as I might occasionally imply - mostly because I’m not as rigid about is as I oughtter be. Sometimes I think I get half my calories through snacks - especially since I pretend that beef jerky has no calories at all, which is certainly not actually the case. And that’s not even mentioning the times I crack and pick up those cookies…
I hate celery. (Ick, all those nasty little threads!!!) If I had to do an “All One Veggie” diet, I’d go with tomatoes.
And I hate running. Like I said, I went walking with my dad today. The only real downside is, he’s a foot taller than I am – so he has a longer stride. And thus, even if we’re walking at the same pace, it’s hard to keep up. Well, that and today I stepped in horse poop.
So I’ll do that a couple of times a week. I’m also lucky though, that I have a relatively fast metabolism. But it’s still worthwhile to exercise. Diet can help you lose weight, true, but I’m still a wee flabby – I’d like to tone up.
(Not that I want to get one, but what’s the deal with those “exercise belts?” The ones that you wear that claim to exercise your abs so that you shape up? Where the hell do they come up with this shit?)
