The Official Gym & Fitness Thread

Thanks Brother!

This is great to hear. I think routine helps build skills in this space. We recently went on a family camping vacation and I had to eye things and did pretty good.

Let's go! Double-Double® W/ Onion for the win! I like to go once a month. I don't do fries though, and holy jesus, sodium / salt in fast food is wild! I heard you can get their fries unsalted, but I have not tried yet.

 

I had a 3x3, salted fries, & drink for lunch today

 

That's what she said

 

Ohh yeah I've been running into the same issue this year. Eyeballing is tough on trips, but at least you're generally more active to help offset and fudging of numbers.

I've started making a soup, stew, or chili (something home-made that freezes and thaws easily) the week before a trip and then pre-proportioning 400ish calorie servings into mason jars.
It helps when you don't have to think about at least a few of your meals when you're on day 3 without a shower. And freezing them ahead of time helps keep cooler temps down for longer.

 

The best tool is one you'll use/know. If what you're doing is working, and isn't broken, no need to jump around. Consistency is key. Never hurts to check them out but hopping around is annoying.

My last hop around was when Strava put the kibosh on direct linking to apps (cronometer included) with bananaland API fees and weird rules against using the data in almost any way. I had to change to using the apple watch native app to record which then pushes the workouts to both Strava and Cronometer. I mostly use strava as a journal, so I don't really care if that gets a big red X eventually.

 

I found a new definition of hard. Jump rope. I've been practicing for a few months now about 1-2 a week. Fucking blow through calories like never before.

My goal is to level up to learn a few different techniques. Had to watch a few YT videos for beginners and lots of practice. I got the basic 1 pass, 1 hop down pat and can go backwards too. 15 minutes is about the most I will do in one session. Great way to add cardo after a lifting session.

 

I am now using the Amazfit Active 2 sport watch for wearable tech, and I am blown away how awesome it is for sleep and workout tracking. I'll include a jump rope report at the end of this.

That is good app advice. I am continuing to use Fooducate App and I have a newfound appreciation for the app. It is very easy to export data in batches and then copy paste into excel / gsheets which I like.

Below are two graphs of like 3 weeks of tracking both total kcal, and macros. I went on vacation with my family and what happens on vacation doesn't get tracked (lol), but it was a very active vacation, mild weights, swimming, soccer, walking, etc. When I returned I cut kcal a little bit more, kept protein same, and continued to train. It slow, but works. However, I may have to eat more to reach my goal of gaining muscle and burning fat.

 

Is your sport watch doing the "DEXA scan" type analysis? (The second group of charts.)

I use a Hume Body Pod (Smart scale) to track my body composition on a daily basis. It has a nice app that tracks and graphs my progress.

My current weight and body fat levels say I'm 3-4 months behind you...just need to keep it up to get there! Goal is to get down to my high school body fat level...lol

 

Try carnivore for a few months. It’s good nutrition plan for that.

Once you get down to 10-12% though, it gets kind of hard to maintain that diet if you lift. The protein is great, but the energy and even some of the recovery is diminished.

 

I'm currently doing Keto, and I'm just maintaining my muscle mass. Once I drop my visceral and subcutaneous fat down to an "acceptable" level, I'll gradually increase my complex carbs and work harder at building muscle mass.

Don't know if you follow Thomas DeLauer on YouTube, but he does a great job pointing out what ingredients to eat, and what ingredients to avoid. I've used his videos to create a "cheat sheet" on my phone to help when shopping.

One example of what I've learned is that we should avoid consuming polysorbate 80. Research suggests it may cause inflammation, affect gut health, and lead to other health issues.

https://thegoodhuman.com/what-is-polysorbate-80/

I'm a much better food shopper than I was just 3 months ago, when I started this journey. I now shop for "clean products."

 

I don’t watch anything on nutrition. I don’t have a problem with cutting fat, the technique part of building muscle or optimizing energy.

I’ve seen his YouTube stuff on a few supplements, I really thought that was his only content like a lot of Huberman stuff. I don’t even remember which supplement I was looking for. Probably something for sleep like ksm-66.
Sleep and optimal recovery usually where my fight is.

 

Nice, I use the apple watch for everything but outdoor cycling. I would go from 80%ish battery to near dead by the end of a 15 mile ride some days, which is no bueno when I want to do 25 or 62 (metric century). I got a bike computer for the rides, but no HRMs for it. Cost benefit didn't make sense for me. It's cool, useful, but I would have ANOTHER thing to keep charged, this time with a proprietary mag charger of some sort, and the data I get out of it that I use is calories, which I get from the GPS ride tracking. I'm out here for fun/exercise, not trying to set any records, so I don't care about HRM and watt meters, etc right now.

Maybe one day, but today, meh.

But apple watch for kayaking, running, walking, hiking, etc.

Just to throw in .05 cents (adjusted for inflation), Cronometer does that too.

One thing I did was export everything from Jan 1 to today, and look at drinks consumed. I've had a wine summer, so I wanted to see how bad.... Not proud of it, but hey, this is reality. I use R for plotting stuff and doing deeper dives, here's standard drinks per week (week numbers of the year). The horizontal line is 14, or a "healthy" amount (disregarding anything >0 is unnecessary and unhealthy). Week 6 and 7 was when we were on vacation in the Caribbean and basically nothing but day drinking, and some of the bigger spikes otherwise were camping weekends - but long of the short, whoopsies.



But then you can do math and see what this looks like for calories from alcohol:

Caloric intake just from alcohol, by week (it's the same chart, but calculated for calories instead of standard drinks)





So, not a huge surprise my weight got away from me this year, alongside our scale malfunctioning and then being replaced with one that works and suddenly being up 15lbs from where I thought I was....

Cronometer blocks a lot behind a paywall, not sure if this is even something they would do, but they let you export all the data on the free plan - and I have a degree in stats and know R, so I can play with it from there.

One thing I do like about Cronometer is net calories report.

I'm just in an average joe camp, so I just use BMI as a metric. I'm not going to get into macros and such, it's not worth it - same as above with the HRM on the bike. It's cool, and would be good data, but long of the short - I wouldn't really see a huge benefit out of it.

Recent diet method that worked for me (and then I abandoned ship) was volume eating - which is basically just eat vegetables, but also potatoes have been a great addition. I do a bunch as baked potatoes in a pressure cooker and then just go from there. Did well for me, and then I gave up on it.

If I stick to Cronometer's schedule, Jul 2026 I'd hit goal. I'll probably be accelerated to that. %BF would just be "average male" calculation.

 

No, sorry I should have retitled that set of chart data, it came from an Inbody 270s body analyzer at the gym. But it does exactly the same thing as the Hume Body Pod, which looks very cool. Thanks for sharing about it. You can do it! Fit at any age!
I was 200 lb. in May 2022, got a gym membership and got serious, and by Jan '23 I was 185 lb. Then in May '25 I hit 175 lb. I am now at a place in my journey where I feel the key is diet. Today I had 2700 kcal. I am going to eat more and see if I can grow muscle and still burn fat.

Its nice to see another data person. I was amused when I learned that alcohol has it's own calorie, it's almost as dense as fat at 7 kcal per 1 gram. But alcohol is a terrible thing when it comes to dieting. As I understand it, the body prioritizes metabolizing alcohol over carbs, fats, or protein. Alcohol inhibits fat oxidation, making it harder to burn fat. It can increase hunger and reduce dietary restraint. Even small amounts can fragment sleep architecture, impairing recovery and hormonal balance. Not trying to change anyone's opinion, just research I came across regarding nutrition.

Personally, I don't drink, almost 27 years sober now. If you ever decide to stop, and can't, there are people that can help with that and it's free.

Keep on it!

I just bought and Instapot and did exactly that. Steamed a bunch of medium sized russet potatoes. I eat one every day for breakfast with a 4 egg omelet and a bunch of other veggies with cheese, salsa, and avocado.

I also cooked up some rice in bone broth (9g of protein for 1 cup) and separately I cooked a few pounds of chicken in it. Pretty useful tool for reducing cooking times.

 

I weighed 235 pounds the first of May, and I weighed in at 202.7 this morning. My weight was coming off fairly constantly until the last month or so when I hit several week long plateaus. Plateau, then drop ~6 pounds until the next one...and so on... I stay the course with diet and exercise, knowing I'll eventually start dropping weight again.

I adjust my "end goal" based on the amount of subcutaneous and visceral fat I'm carrying. Initially I set 190 lbs, but when I was around 210 I revised that down to 180. Last week I'm thinking I need to drop that to 170 (or below). I'll shift my priorities by adjusting my diet and weight training as I approach my body fat goal. Thought I was ~3 months away, but that could easily extend to 5+ months if these plateaus continue. Frankly I don't care, because I'm in it until the job is done! Once there, I plan to stay there!

The Hume is the best tool I've ever used to track my body composition, and I'll continue using it indefinitely. It's the only body composition tool I've used other than a mirror (and mirrors lie...lol).

 

I know it's not healthy, that's why I had to add the tagline that, some site said 14 drinks (male) was the "safe" amount, but being realistic, anything >0 is not healthy. It's like saying there's a healthy amount of cigarettes. I actually used 7 cal in my calculation! Cronometer only gave me grams

Snapshot of what Cronometer gives you (this is as already pulled into R)


Then calories = that * 7
and the standard drinks is 13.45 grams. According to somewhere. (Listen, I'm not a pro athlete, "close enough" is close enough for me)

Consistency is key.

I've lost significant weight twice. Maintenance is where I fall off the rails. I thought I had a good handle on it this time around, but the summer got away from me.




I love the instant pot. I think I need to add a disclaimer - it makes good food, and makes it quicker. BUT it doesn't make GREAT food. I've seen people on youtube say things like it's the best ribs they've ever made, amazing chicken, etc etc - bupkiss. I've made ribs in it, I didn't hate them, but they're just fine.

I don't aim for the crispy skin on baked potatoes so I do 6-7 at a time and then chow down.

this is why I stick to BMI. I'm (again) not a pro athlete, I'm an average joe who enjoys riding bikes. I'm not setting records on my bike, just out here with a speaker and having fun. An apple watch is enough for me (and if the battery lasted, I'd keep it for rides, only reason I got a bike computer is because of battery life).

But to think - this thing on my wrist - only 10-15 years ago, the stuff I get every day was the realm of pro athletes and Olympians. Now Sandra from around the block tracks her VO2 and heart rate zones on her nightly walk with Toto the dog. I think sometimes too much data is harmful too, losing the forest through the trees.

 

This is 53 years old...
2 years in after leaving the gym behind for about 15 years...
No juice, just consistancy & high protein diet...

 

Another update. 14 month change from 315 lbs to 233 this morning.

 

That last pic is Chuck Norris.....
kidding aside, youre doing the work...

 

Anyone watch Remington James on youtube? Have been following him since quarantine, and some of his anabolic recipes make it super easy to hit your protein goals.

edit: Also, great work to the two studs above ^^

 

I eat Oreos & drink Coffee before I go to the gym