The Official Gym & Fitness Thread

I actually don’t watch any of that guys content. On the week days I just usually lift weights on my lunch and have a coffee for energy before I go to the gym. Cookies & Coffee taste good together

 

Said it before, let the summer get away from me this year, so we're back on it. My wife and I are doing goals together - Net calorie goals over stretches, with a reward at the end (worth it) if we make it. First one up is next Friday the 26th, between now and then, if so then Saturday the 27th we do a day trip to the cape (we drive, we're close). Most are 10-14 day stretches, rewards being donuts, cereal night for dinner, whatever else. Whatever works for us, we in it together.

And because it's me....
I have a chart

"AM" being weight in the morning, I used to have AM and PM for a short while for funsies.




I'll be back, hopefully with success.

 

Ended my cut on Sep 13—low energy and late-night hunger made sleep and training suffer.

Now eating 2700 kcal on training days, 2500 on off days. After a week of higher carbs, energy’s much better.

Training and recovery are 5 days on, 2 rest. Increased workouts from 1hr. to 1.5 hr. Training includes 15–30 min jump rope plus weights, alternating order. Logged 6 sessions in 5 days—jumping improved, lower legs, feet feel stronger.

Macros adjusted: more carbs, less protein (was overdoing it), fats unchanged. Stocked up on oats, sweet potatoes, and other solid carb sources.

Added some muscle, and some fat. Will continue to monitor and adjust. Goal remains the same, build muscle and cut fat.






I get this whole studio to myself for jump sessions on most weekends

About to get busy

 

Heck yeah. Was it this thread that talked about jumping and being like holy hot damn it burns calories? If not, I'll spread it here. If in doubt, break out a jump rope.






I'm on the opposite end - time to cut. I wasn't in a bulk/cut phase, just a fat phase.

 

that was probably me. There was not much talk in this thread about jump rope, once in 2024 and then back in 2020.
I'm still new to the sport, having started in June. I like it because it brings intensity in a short time period, and it's challenging. Learning new tricks is fun. I am working on my side swings and boxers skip variations.
Other qualities I like are that its cheap to get started $10-$15, highly portable the rope fits anywhere, can do it almost anywhere and anytime. Also I hate cardio for the sake of cardio. Jump rope being fun takes care of "cardio" in a home run style and all other sports or physical endeavors I engage in--my performance is better as cardio endurance is built up already.

I continue to do strength training and still push myself. One of the reasons I lengthened my training sessions from 1 hr to 1.5 is so I can get all my strength training done and do a monster cardio session. I also shorten my recovery between sets to as little as 30 seconds and at most 1 m. That subtle change helped keep my heart rate in a higher zone during training. A very long way to say "more intensity"

What are you doing for exercise? Are you working towards your goal with diet alone?

 

This is part of why I like running. Let me rephrase that - this is part of why I respect but hate running you only need shoes, and then you can just...go. I haven't jump roped since I was probably in single digits for age, I'll have to give it a whirl sometime soon.

1.5hr or just jumping or other stuff mixed in? I would keep recovery between sets when I was lifting longer, but in cardio I don't like to stop. I ride bikes with coworkers every other week, and they like a good stop every couple miles. Mid ride we'll stop for 15+ minutes, and that's ROUGH to get back going after that. The mid-ride ice cream stops are rough, I appreciate an end of ride stop more so than a mid ride stop. We rode the bikes into town one day and stopped for a beer, and that was NOT fun getting going again after that.

Almost all cardio. Run, walk, bike. No swim, and I have a kayak but only got out a couple times this year - might pitch that off, don't get enough use out of it. Getting into the winter I'm looking to get an exercise bike again. I have an indoor trainer but it's a budget one so not great, and I don't want to use my "nice" road bike on that (also, I'd need a thru axle adapter now). We can use my wife's bike on it still (QR axles) so we might do that so we can both have something come February when it's 4 degrees out.

I've been a bike bike person all my life, so that's helped. Even when fat, I still keep up.

 

Yup. Makes a lot of sense. I've had a couple ankle surgeries so I don't run for exercise, but I do walks on recovery days. The jump rope routine can supply a "runners high" which is nice.

I will do 60 minutes of weights, and a jump rope session after. Or start with jump rope, and when cooked, go lift weights. I also do a real boxing class for 1 hour each week. I get to learn the sport, and get a cardio work out. It's pretty fun. I was swimming once a week, but haven't done that for a while.

Awesome! Biking is fun. I rode twice this summer after I restored my bike and I felt really good about that since it was down for a long time.

Keep up the good work!

 

Did my weekly scan. Getting closer to my goal. It's wild to me that I had to eat more, but its working and I feel a f'ton better. Sticking to 2,700 kcal on training days, 2,500 for rest days and eating high quality nutritionally dese foods, and pizza & burger

 

When I started a carnivore diet back in January, I planned to do 30/60/90 day updates. Figured I’d use the material to do a 9 month update, today. Low carb has been excellent for me.
https://youtu.be/addYIoKGqrM?si=lx-2ZF9GWie8FpIy

 

You've lost 82 lbs. since you started, but is only part of the story, I surmise, you cut even MORE fat as you built pounds of muscle by your strength training. Right on brother! Are you still working towards a specific goal?

 

Thanks dude! Have a goal of 220 lbs in mind and 16% body fat.

Other lofty goals include 18” arms by 48 years old (June 2026 ….. have just under an inch to go) and 285lb bench.

Goals keep changing as I progress and that keeps it fun

 

Hey man, goals don't need to be set in stone. I used to care about my road bike speeds, now I care more about endurance than speed. Giving up on goals is one thing, but changing them around changing things in life is fine.

 

I recently became aware of the Constrained total energy expenditure model.

.

That is the body's way of fighting back during a calorie deficit and is very sneaky about it. Anything outside of sleeping and active exercise energy is called NEAT non-exercise activity thermogenesis.

In practice, one would think that a 300 kcal of extra exercise would result in a 300 kcal deficit all things being equal in terms of diet (intake). But the body finds ways to be sneaky and conserve energy in other ways so the relationship is not linear. The 300 kcal of extra exercise, at the end of the day may only result in a small fraction.



Getting to 12% BF is a tough road, even though I am close at 15%.

The only viable path is a carefully planned deficit, patience, and consistency.

For the last two days, rest days, I kept protein sufficiently high to protect lean mass, and restricted carbs so my intake was 2234 and 2328 kcal. Man was I tired. I got through the days and sleep was fine, but during the day it was really tough to walk around and get my steps in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok-AZtt33Bo&list=PLcgrIM8RlfI4yHRp1HbXUvonQB143hhvc&index=36

The video above has some solid advice about losing fat and eating foods you like. It outlines the important benefits for strength training to protect lean mass during a cut. And has a sleep / recovery component. Sleep is so crucial.

 

Holy crap I didn't know this thread existed. A little background. I'm 52 and had quadruple bypass 3 years ago. That was my wake up call. After I recovered I started getting more serious about my health and fitness. I've always lifted but never consistently. I started lifting consistently 2 years ago. I also started running this year. I've trained Brazilian jiujitsu for 10 years. I workout 6 days a week between those three.

This year by goal was to run a half marathon by December. I did that early, I ran the half marathon leg in an Ironman relay last month. So far I've run 5-5k, 1-8k, and a half. I'm running a 10k this month since just to round out my year. Not sure I'll ever run a full marathon.

Here's a pic of me at my heaviest and one from my half marathon.

 

Badass results!

 

Don't. The entire point of it is that it killed the first guy that did it. my take is that anything I need gatorade to keep going for, cool. Food to continue an exercise for the sake of an exercise, meh, not worth it. I'd ride a century for charity or to get from A to B as a goal, but if I'm out for a workout, gatorade is my limit on what I need to intake vs just regular water.

...I say, as I am considering a metric century later this month (in part for a charity 300mi/October).

But seriously - badass work my man. Sometimes a wake up call is what it takes, sorry you had to go through that but happy you're here to share the victory.

 

Thanks!

 

Awesome results! You can see this is a lifetime pursuit, so keep it up! I wouldn't worry about trying to run a marathon. Recommend looking at Dr. Sean O'Mara's videos on YouTube. He's the "visceral fat" doctor who is against running or biking long distances. He believes short "sprints" are far better to reduce visceral fat.

 

Training like an athlete; eat, train, eat, sleep, recover, repeat, rest. etc. I made it to 14.9% body fat. Training abs better now to focus on growth. Also hitting all muscles at least twice a week and doing more endurance training with higher reps and fewer sets. Really making effort count; no junk volume. I am reminded of legendary bodybuilder Lee Haney who says: Train to stimulate, not annihilate.

Carbs are my friends, helping fuel intense work outs. I started exploring the "Lose it!" app. It's primary focus is on helping people lose weight, but it does allow for customization. It's a pretty polished app and robust compared to Fooducate.

A friend who had not seen me in a while remarked, you're looking jacked!



Sleep and recovery is really good. I am averaging 8:15 sleep per week. Sleep quality is really really good. Sleep is one of my favorite things.


How are ya'lls sleep and recovery?

 

Just hit -40 pounds since early May. Roughly 20 to go to get me down to ~175.