Unlimited How Not to Be a Fat Fucky Bastard thread: now 100% more fat free

[Bruno]

I've managed to carve 4 inches off of my gut while my waist stayed the same, and I went from 265 pounds to 271.

How, you may ask?

Easy.  I hired an expert torturer.

Do you mean...

...a personal trainer?

Those people are MONSTERS.

They're like physical therapists that don't have to be careful.  It's like finding out that your surgeon is on crack, or the pilot is huffing paint in the cockpit.  He just smiles while he doles out the pain, like maybe a Gestapo interrogator on valium that doesn't really want answers, he just wants to ask loads of questions.

I remember the time I tried to fire my personal trainer.

HOLY SHIT I almost had to get a restraining order. That woman was relentless.

I ain't gonna fire Gary, on account of two reasons.

1.  He's more than likely going to be my new boss, and

2.  It works.  It's horrible and awful, but it works.

I think I've taken to liking intense exercise because it's one of the few areas in life where working harder and going through hell is actually pretty much guaranteed to get results (barring, like, malnutrition or overtraining).

huh, I was thinking the exact opposite with the same reasoning.
That was in the specific case of an exercise bike-machine-thing¹ though, not so general.
My idea was that exercise bikes are depressing because the resistance is not dependent on your previous effort, so there is no equivalent to sprinting to the top of the hill so you can coast for a while. The effort/reward relationship is all wrong. This is based on my assumption on how those exercise machines work and that has no basis in experience with said machines. So I'm probably full of shit again.

How DO those things work anyway?
Is resistance straight friction based, is there some level of simulation in them? I can imagine a version with resistance based on some kind of friction-limited flywheel that could get pretty close to reality.



¹ Can you tell I haven't been in a gym since I was a kid?

My bike thing uses magnetic resistance. As far as I can tell, it's just a small electric motor connected to resistors, the lower the electrical resistance, the greater the mechanical resistance.

Also, it's a "semi-recumbant" bike, meaning that it isn't very good at either recumbant, OR bike.

I've set up my own little exertainment system with the bike, and a tablet propped up against a box fan so I can watch videos with a cool breeze while I "ride" it. This also has the unfortunate effect of making the sound all funny.

I do vary the speed and resistance, working in a little High Intensity Interval Training along the way.

[Reginald Ret]

<Snip>
My bike thing uses magnetic resistance. As far as I can tell, it's just a small electric motor connected to resistors, the lower the electrical resistance, the greater the mechanical resistance.

Also, it's a "semi-recumbant" bike, meaning that it isn't very good at either recumbant, OR bike.

I've set up my own little exertainment system with the bike, and a tablet propped up against a box fan so I can watch videos with a cool breeze while I "ride" it. This also has the unfortunate effect of making the sound all funny.

I do vary the speed and resistance, working in a little High Intensity Interval Training along the way.

I never considered magnetic resistance, I really don't know what I'm talking about.

I had to look up recumbant.

Sounds like you got a good set up.

Have you considered alternative ways of placing the tablet so the sound stays good? I hear sticks are multi-purpose.

[Bruno]

I never considered magnetic resistance, I really don't know what I'm talking about.

I had to look up recumbant.

Sounds like you got a good set up.

Have you considered alternative ways of placing the tablet so the sound stays good? I hear sticks are multi-purpose.

I push it all the way over to the bottom right corner of the fan, which is substantially better than in the middle. It works well enough.

When I was a kid, we had a exerbike that you could adjust the resistance by turning a knob that would crank down another smaller wheel on the big wheel. Problem was, if you forgot to un-tighten it when you were done, the next time you used it, it went  THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP.

Recumbant mite B cool. Semi-recumbant, not so much. I got it because it could be folded up, and at the time, space was very limited. It also has all these "features", like telling you how many calories you've burned, distance, duration, and heart rate. None of which mean anything except heart rate. The calorie counter just counts rotations, and converts it into another number without even taking into consideration level of resistance, and of course distance is just irrelevant on a stationary bike.

As for duration, I usually go for one episode of Coding 101 on TWiT.  Right now, I'm Sweat'n to Python. In two more 45+/- min sessions, I'll be Sweat'n to Perl.

In the 4 weeks I've been using it, I've lost six lbs, four of which, for some reason, decided to show themselves just in the last week.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I have found that I like the IDEA of exercise machines far more than I like the reality. The only forms of exercise I've been able to stick with involve going outside and either covering a large amount of ground, or moving heavy things around.

Also I like digging.

[LMNO]

Yeah, the only regular type of excercise I got/get is when there's another purpose to it.

Like, riding horses is exhausting, but I don't think of it as excercise, even though it's one of the toughest core workouts I've ever experienced.  Yet I could saddle up every day if I could.







Damn, maybe I really could have been a cowboy.

[Cain]

That sounds like an excellent plan!

What is the elevation going to be like in Peru? Colombia's thin air was a real challenge for me, making moderate activity much more difficult.

Huaraz is over 10,000 feet, which means I am guaranteed a few days of elevation sickness. I was born and raised 300 feet above sea level, so unfortunately elevations over about 8000 feet can be brutal on me, although my past experiences in Colorado and mountain camping indicates that I should adapt relatively quickly, perhaps in part due to my Chiricahua and White Mountain ancestry. Part of my summer hiking plan involves high-elevation camping, since we do have all these convenient volcanoes around here.

Yeah, Peru's high altitude is a bit of a bitch at times.

Admittedly, I grew up at sea level, so I didn't exactly have a lot of advantages when going.  But even the Peruvian "lowlands" usually exceed 7000 feet, with places like Cusco and Puno nearly reaching 12000 ft.

The most I had was shortness of breath and occasional nausea, but we had people blacking out at times.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

That sounds like an excellent plan!

What is the elevation going to be like in Peru? Colombia's thin air was a real challenge for me, making moderate activity much more difficult.

Huaraz is over 10,000 feet, which means I am guaranteed a few days of elevation sickness. I was born and raised 300 feet above sea level, so unfortunately elevations over about 8000 feet can be brutal on me, although my past experiences in Colorado and mountain camping indicates that I should adapt relatively quickly, perhaps in part due to my Chiricahua and White Mountain ancestry. Part of my summer hiking plan involves high-elevation camping, since we do have all these convenient volcanoes around here.

Yeah, Peru's high altitude is a bit of a bitch at times.

Admittedly, I grew up at sea level, so I didn't exactly have a lot of advantages when going.  But even the Peruvian "lowlands" usually exceed 7000 feet, with places like Cusco and Puno nearly reaching 12000 ft.

The most I had was shortness of breath and occasional nausea, but we had people blacking out at times.

I've never had nausea, but a definite general sense of fatigue and kind of like my head was in a bubble, lasting the better part of a week. Thinking back to staying with my sister when she lived in Winter Park, it really wasn't too bad, but then again I wasn't doing physical labor, either.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Weighed myself this morning and so far I'm on target. I'm not shooting for anything huge, just five pounds a month. I'm looking forward to minimal homework this summer, so I can really get some hiking in.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

If I bump this, the fat fuck thread, and original fat bastard thread, does anyone want to merge them? It makes sense to just  have one thread.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Bamp

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Boop

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I hate 2011 "Oh I fit into my size 6/8 pants but I want to lose ten more pounds" me.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I still have a drawer full of size 6 miniskirts, which is what I was wearing when I was complaining about not being able to lose my "post-unhappy-marriage chub".

[Cain]

Done

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Although, ironically, that belly I couldn't get rid of turned out to be due to the soccer-ball-sized uterus full of tumors that I had surgery for, and the surgery is why I'm now actually fat for real.

So in theory, when I get back down to size six, I won't have the belly.