The problem I have with weekly weigh ins is that you have no idea if you’re catching yourself at a bad time or a good time.
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Isn’t that why you’d want to look for the trend over time, in either case? i.e., whether daily or weekly, wouldn’t both sets of data show the same trend, even if they don’t match exactly point-by-point? (I’m not a statistical expert—someone more knowledgeable than I am will point out the flaws in my thinking, I’m sure of it!)
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Same way you do, but with 1/7th as much data.
I like your system, but [quote=“yankindc, post:61, topic:71475”]
Why are you afraid of data?
[/quote]
Is the sort of one-upping thing that I think this thread is trying to avoid. Mutual support seems more the order of the day, not stories of personal triumph and superiority, plus ridicule.
We can do ridicule if you like, but I’ve resolved to work out more in the gym, and less online.
Those arguing for once per week weighings are cowards.
Not helpful. ^
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You’re right. My response was over-the-top, and the mockery was inappropriate. The tone of this thread is indeed “supportive,” and I don’t want to drag it into the gutter. On the other hand, if somebody posted their plan for their new “chocolate muffin diet” for 2016, they should be called out, not praised.
I am passionate about daily weighings because this simple habit has helped me immensely, and I wanted to share my experience. One can learn a lot with measurement, and the more sensitive the assay, the more you learn. Seeing those daily spikes and troughs teaches you not to get upset about any one particular reading from the scale. Since we are mostly water, our weight will fluctuate during the day. Moreover, I have learned that certain behaviors (such as bingeing on a bag of chips) will reliably produce a higher reading in me the following morning. By contrast, the effects of exercise seem to occur over periods of days or weeks. There are also seasonal changes in weight that I never would have appreciated without careful monitoring, over periods of years.
On a more meta- scale, daily weighings help to keep the goal in mind. Changes in thinking come before the changes in behavior that produce results. Peace.
Thank you, for the chocolate muffins.
Best of luck with your goals!
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Sure, since I’m already in the middle of it. I’ll probably want to lose another 5-10 pounds before doing maintenance.
I lost most of my weight in the last six months calorie counting with a food scale and using cron-o-meter to log everything, along with some light biking/strength in the morning. The amount of calories burned in the morning from exercise was negligible (only around 200 cals) but was worth it anyway for the mood boost and metabolism kick.
Since people have a finite amount of willpower, I’d say take it slow and keep a vice or two. For example I budget in calories for wine with dinner, and eat out when socializing.
Your weight can fluctuate dramatically over the day, or a few days, depending on where your glycogen stores are at and how much water you’re drinking. So don’t be afraid to log your weight and look at the general trend.
Good luck everyone!
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The important take away is … do what works for YOU. Listen to advice, try things out, and do what makes sense and feels right, and what you enjoy. There’s a LOT of wiggle room in getting fit and losing weight. Some people swear off certain foods altogether, some find that limitation too much to bear and take the moderation route.
The important thing … keep at it. A bad day doesn’t mean a bad week. A bad week doesn’t mean a bad month. Stay the course. Best training advice I was ever given when I did my “couch to half ironman” was “TRUST IN THE PLAN”.
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I too am trying to work on my fitness this year. Partly because as my metabolism slows, I start getting too flabby. And also because of specific Tae Kwon Do goals with regard to leg and core strength, stamina and speed. As I have been learning, I often feel that I understand what seems like the best form for doing something, but lack the flexibility and/or strength I would need to do it that way. And also, for sparring, I waste too much effort in being tense, so then lack the energy to keep fighting more than a few minutes at a time.
One of my main ways of staying fit has traditionally been lots of bicycling. But I have been doing less and less over the past ten years mostly because of both crazy work schedules as well as a strong dislike for the area where I live. Lately, I can’t really see well enough to do it safely, either. I made up my mind about a month ago to do some cycle training indoors this winter. At first I was bummed to have confirmed that my parents had given away my old bike rollers. But today I scored via Craig’s List a cheapo magnetic trainer with an extra 30LB dumbbell for $30 total, so I’m psyched. So now I can practice my spin indoors - and even listen to music while doing it, which I can’t do in traffic.
Another thing I did today was bolt a pullup bar into the joists in the basement. I was looking forward to trying it, and was disappointed to only manage two pullups, which just confirmed that my physical condition had been let to lapse a bit.
One thing I don’t have, or usually use, is a scale. My philosophy has been that weight is a diversion. When I work to get fit, my weight takes care of itself. I think that metrics such as exercise performance and time are more interesting and practical. After all, I am more concerned with my ratio of lean mass to fat, rather than total body weight anyway.
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A couple years ago I discovered that I really crave the fizz far more than the sugar. Since then I’ve switched to seltzer, either plain or flavored, as my preferred refreshment.
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Mineral water for me. A [cough] good beer replacement at times as well. o_0
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If you were to decide to work toward a fight, are we talking exhibition, amateur, professional? Striking, grappling, MMA?
Man, I’d love to get deeper into striking but the CTE stuff scares the crap out of me. One whole instance of getting my bell rung was enough to convince me I didn’t want to be getting punched in the head too often (burst eye socket).
I’d love to get into some proper grappling, there’s a decent Gracie school very close to where I live but I’m dealing with spine issues right now and don’t want to tempt fate. But I get where you’re coming from, working toward a competition sharpens you like nothing else. I’ve only properly competed in swimming, so can’t attest to the extra I’ll-get-badly-injured-if-I-fuck-around factor but I imagine that provides one with a sense of extra urgency.
Mind you, if you don’t act like an asshole and tap out when you should, there’s not much chance of permanent brain-stem injury in grappling anyway. I guess striking is a double edged sword, real, lasting consequences to motivate you but… a real chance of lasting consequences even if you do everything perfect.
*shudders
Update:
Or, at least, more accurate/timely data. According to the scale, I weigh 210 (fully clothed, with shoes). So that’s good. Or, at least, not quite as bad.
I’ve been doing somewhat better with food, too. Eating real breakfasts & lunches & dinners, and eating out less. Getting out and walking at lunch, too (even though the cold(er) weather has finally shown up in New England…).
I’m going to try to get the bikes ready for the spring to be able to capitalize on the weather (as soon as it gets here). That’s a fair bit of work, as they’ve mostly just sat for a couple of years now- but it will remove a hurdle for later, so that’s worth it.
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Exhibition for now. The Muay Thai gyms in my area regularly hold show matches between students to improve networking and create some rivalries. I’m not sure I want to join the amateur circuit again and I definitely don’t want to go pro. I’d only consider pro fighting if I was 10 years younger.
I’m sorry to hear about the burst eye socket. If that was during a sparring session or even a match, it just tells me that your gym was extremely irresponsible. There’s no chance of that happening if you had headgear on, which you should have unless it was a pro fight. If you somehow did still get a burst eye socket even with headgear on, it means you were fighting someone way bigger than you or way better, both of which shouldn’t have happened.
Scary thing about CTE is that it’s basically a lottery. There are guys like Julio Cesar Chavez who went pro at 17 years old and fought 115 pro matches. He’s 53 years old now with no symptoms. And JCC fought like a bull. He took tons of the shots to the head as both an amateur and a pro.
Then you got a guy like Muhammad Ali who was only taking shots to the head at the tail end of his career. Ended up with a severe case of Parkinson’s.
Bernard Hopkins is still competing at 50. Everyone thought he’d be okay cause he’s a slick boxer that doesn’t get hit much, but now he’s finally showing signs of being punch drunk. Manny Pacquiao? Got rung in the head plenty of times. Still completely fine.
I know don’t know of any amateurs or hobbyists with brain damage, though. There’s a lot of factors that go into incurring brain damage in combat sports, it’s just that it’s magnified on the pro level because all those factors are coming together.
Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu has nearly 150 pro fights now, most of them against opponents bigger than her, and she’s still sharp as a tack. Again, lots of factors here. She’s a small lady fighting other small ladies, so most of her opponents aren’t going to have concussion-inducing power. She gets plenty of water, she’s eating right, she isn’t weight draining for every bout, etc.
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Out of gym. A dunderheed attacked me on the streets of Scotland when I was walking home, drunk out of my mind. Other than that I have Homer Simpson syndrome, not to minimise the effects of being punched in the head, but it’s the only time I’ve ever experienced any negative effects from strikes to the head, and I’ve absorbed some doozies.
For sure the whole weight cutting thing is a travesty. The sooner it’s phased out the better. But I think with CTE, the horrible thing is you can seem fine, get really good at compensating for it in the early stages and then once it gets beyond a certain threshold, all your coping mechanisms start to degrade as well. Duane Ludwig, bright, intelligent guy, speaks super fast, almost can’t get the words out quick enough, but he’s slurring and mispronouncing words and phrases under cover of that speedy speech.
Do you notice Nate Diaz is speaking much more lucidly and deliberately since his time off? Before that he was slurring and barely pronouncing ‘209’ properly in his last run at the title. So maybe there’s an argument for plasticity with enough recovery time…
I think the constant, cumulative effect, especially ‘just’ sparring and maybe even more especially if you’re wearing headgear and feel protected, builds up from all those small shocks into this meta-cumulation of one giant head trauma spread out over time.
I see the new treatments coming out of the military hospitals, the protein replacement stuff and the stem cell stuff but man, I don’t want to roll those dice. Sucks though, I really love the thrill. 
I have literally never rolled a day in my life so I’ve got my fingers crossed to rekindle some of the thrill in grappling. Fighting for your life as somebody tries to choke you to death sounds like just as much fun, right? Also tried rock climbing before I injured my hand, and I gotta say it’s close. Solving a problem, fear of death or injury nagging away at you as you try to calm yourself and perform at the same time… good stuff! 
Also, you must be fucking crazy! Muay Thai!!! Have you seen what those people do to one another!? 
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The actual implementation of this scheme, seems rather masochistic
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A short documentary about antarctic core sample drilling for climate history I saw talked about the provisions some. They can and do eat multiple candy bars a day as they burn off that much and more calories just from their body dealing with the cold. I wonder if I could qualify to do tech support for McMurdo for a few months?
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I read about some of this initial research in Wired a few years back. It inspired me to switch my daily bike rides from the evening to the early morning - I can’t say that I noticed any significant weight loss, but my endurance was much higher on my morning rides.
Edit: My mistake, I was thinking about this research from Stanford about how your muscles over-heating is the true cause of fatigue.
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It’s completely anecdotal but I for sure feel like a large part of my cardio is determined by my body’s ability to manage heat generated by the work.
It’s maybe just that I’m perceiving the low cardiovascular health at the same time as heating up too much whilst being unfit but I seem to feel like I have much more ‘fuel’ to burn over a longer period of time if I’m in the pool. Again, that might just be because my body is much more used to swimming than to running but I can’t shake the feeling that there’s some kind of correlation of heat management with output capacity,
Down 6 lbs in 4 weeks… here’s what’s working for me
- an 8 (or 9) day “week” … with 3 days of cardio, 3 of strength training , and 2-3 days off per “week”
- acknowledgement that I cannot work out 6 days in a row followed by one day of rest. the extra 2 days of rest needed are not a sign of weakness of lack of commitment. got a job, house, wife, kids, and I travel for work sometimes so I just can’t make it some days. I plan my off days around travel days and other days where I know working out will be difficult or impossible
- walking dog as weather, time. and travel allows … 3-5 miles 0-5x a week …
- counting calories on myfitnesspal … I overestimate calories of stuff I don’t know (by like 25%) and UNDER estimate calories burned (known 15% off readouts from gym), and strength training doesn’t count
- daily weigh ins … I don’t freak out about going up a pound but like overall trend down.
- limited alcohol - went from 2 a week (more if travelling) to once a week and only if I’m travelling that week
My “reward” for getting down to 190 is that I’ll start phasing in running for cardio … not all at once, but will ease into it.
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179.9! But for how… long…? For various reasons I haven’t been doing (all of) my daily walking like I should be.
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