<p>I went paddle boating today at my friends lake and whew, what a workout! I did a little research and they say that it’s more effective for leg toning than any other exercise!</p>
<p>how do you keep yourself motivated?
i need help sticking with a routine…
i’m considering cutting out pictures of people with bodies i admire and taping them up where i’ll see them, but i’m concerned that i might become too obsessed with that kind of perfection… i only need to lose 10 pounds and get in shape.</p>
<p>Haha, idwatkwia…that is my exact problem. Today I managed to get to the pool, but definitely did not eat right. My dad grilled out for lunch today which was a little too much temptation and I ended up eating 2 hamburgers, a ton of coleslaw, and 2 slices of apple pie…OOPS!</p>
<p>How do you guys deal with temptation? It’s difficult to resist when everyone else is eating unhealthily (3 brothers and dad who eat everything in sight and don’t gain a pound).</p>
<p>i’ve gained 25 pounds this year as well. I’m a senior and this has happened every single year for me and I’ve managed to lose it all during the summer except last summer when i took a summer course. I lost more of it but i gained the same amount I usually do resulting in my being fatter than ever. </p>
<p>To lose the weight during the summer i play lots of tennis (4 times a week) and bike to work. Last year i worked far from home so i biked 1 hr each way. But this year i only live a 10minute bike ride from work. </p>
<p>“How do you guys deal with temptation? It’s difficult to resist when everyone else is eating unhealthily”</p>
<p>I tell myself that i won’t get a girlfriend unless i stop eating unhealthily.</p>
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<p>Uh say what? I always cook more than that for myself (rice … curry) and I don’t really get fat and I can lose weight even gorging myself on meals at the dining hall.</p>
<p>Again, it’s all about exercise. Eat a high-protein diet. Some oils/fats are fine – it’s all about balance. The plus side is you get to maintain a high-energy lifestyle because your body isn’t on starvation mode and it isn’t in a state of catabolic stress. It’s in a state of anabolism.</p>
<p>The easy way to always ensure you get some anabolic steroid stimulation (the natural, drug-free way) is to do the leg press several times at near-maximum strength. Optionally (you can ignore this if you want to keep it simple), you can alternate routines with power – e.g. cut the weight by a bit but then try to do sets of 20 reps within a single minute – weight training that has both aerobic and strength elements. This trains your muscles for power, and quite importantly, releases anabolic steroids into the bloodstream. Think of this as lifting a “global cap” on muscle gain (or imposing a global inhibition of muscle atrophy), and combined with some localised exercise (in the arms, etc.) you get a very effective workout.</p>
<p>Legs are your most powerful muscles, so really if you are lacking in time and want to lose fat, skip the chest press and work the leg extension and leg press. Takes less than 5-10 minutes. (Other leg exercises are good too, but they are more time-consuming.) Wooooosh. You can feel the anabolism everywhere (all over your body) afterwards, and it amplifies whatever local work you have done.</p>
<p>Did I mention … ENDORPHINS?</p>
<p>You want to trade your body’s natural high for starvation? Oh come on.</p>
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<p>I always tell myself the first ten minutes is pain, but if I persevere, the rest of the workout (well till my muscles start giving way) will be orgasmic.</p>
<p>No really. Even the Governator has said that if you do it correctly, exercise can feel better than sex.</p>
<p>i just ate 8 piece sushi for lunch everyday and stopped eating snacks. i lost 10 pounds</p>
<p>Yes, but it doesn’t necessarily make you fitter.</p>
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<p>WRONG. A balanced diet and a good amount of regular exercise is needed. BOTH. For most people, having one but not the other will not get the job done.</p>
<p>How do you guys keep going through those 10 minutes of hell until the supposed high kicks in? I’ve yet to experience it so I guess I just give up before…</p>
<p>10 minutes isn’t that bad…it’s just about endurance. you have to build that up…and if you stop, you can lose most of it quickly.</p>
<p>i stopped running after xc season…where i could do an 8-9 mile run no problem. yesterday, i ran about 4 miles and almost died.</p>
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<p>The endorphin release won’t occur if your heart rate is too high or your pace is too unstable; aim for some pain and a “wow, this is hard!” feeling but not a “I’m going to die” pace. Hit for middle ground – you want to be panting and sweating quite a bit but perform at a pace that you would as if you were starting a marathon, not a sprint. This is why it’s good to know your own pace and what heart rate correlates to it.</p>
<p>And how do you know all that? Running is such a miserable experience for me that I don’t think I would be objective enough…</p>
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<p>Okay, but how do you make your body endure it? Music? Happy thoughts? Reciting the alphabet over and over in your head?</p>
<p>Reading about exercise mostly. </p>
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<p>Breath control. This occupies some of your attention. Deep, forceful breaths. Carbon dioxide is actually a greater factor than oxygen levels in the initial pain, and also affects blood pH more significantly than oxygen (bound to haemoglobin) does, so you want to work at expelling that carbon dioxide. Remember also that expelling CO2 is the energy-consuming process; when inhaling, it is atmospheric pressure doing most of the work. So basically you always want to couple your exhales with your most forceful actions and inhale between your most forceful actions.</p>
<p>This draws some of your mental attention, as you can imagine.</p>
<p>I also have other coping techniques, like closing my eyes and envisioning myself in a combat scenario, or that I’m running away from mobsters, or reliving fun childhood stuff, among other things.</p>
<p>If I’m getting on the treadmill… I put in movies. Specifically the old classic Disney movies or fast-paced musicals. Whenever there is a song I always try to speed up. Keeps me happy and motivated to want to see the end of the movie.
Otherwise it is waaay too boring. I’ll turn to workout mode on DDR instead. If you can actually do DDR its great for burning calories while having some fun!</p>
<p>I lost several pounds during my first year. I made it my habit to go to the gym to run for around 30 minutes every day (I ran 2.5-3 miles each time). I also stopped eating the fried stuff at school, and watched how many calories I was ingesting.</p>
<p>I also chose a rather slow speed to run at (10 minute mile) so it was pretty easy to run the 3 miles each day. This was coming from a person who never exercised in high school</p>
<p>I hurt my knee at the beginning of my freshman year and gained 35 pounds! (I went from running 6 miles every day to very little exercise) But now I swim everyday, and I’m losing my injury weight. For anyone who doesn’t like running or it seems too intense for them, try swimming! It’s an amazing workout and lots of fun (and refreshing, if you’re in warm weather).</p>
<p>jkelley2 - The problem with swimming, though it sounds much better than running, is lack of distractions. Unless you have that underwater iPod thing, which… no. I get bored quickly, that’s my curse…</p>
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<p>Awesome idea, thanks! I used to watch whatever movie I had available but it doesn’t work if the movie is slow or requires concentration. A cute, fast-paced musical could probably really help… I agree, otherwise it can get boring.</p>
<p>What is DDR?</p>
<p>Are you kidding? Swimming has way more distractions than running. Feeling the glide of the water, watching that streamline, performing perfect execution of your strokes, blowing bubbles, making smooth turns, doing wave-style dolphin kicks in breaststroke, taking breaths …</p>
<p>Usually I end up forgetting something when I’m trying to sprint, so actually remembering to do everything correctly is a challenge when you want to time yourself. It’s like I finish a set only to realise that I was probably less efficient than optimal because I had skimped on blowing bubbles as hard as I could, or that I was taking too long (or too short) breaths, I started pulls prematurely, etc.</p>
<p>Boon for motivation: you are going swimming with some of your female friends. Motivation to perform well (and you won’t get bored).</p>
<p>On the flip side: they swim slower than you, so they don’t make very good competition. <em>sigh</em></p>