Topic: The Health, Fitness and Exercise Thread

Oh yeah I don’t like excessive heat for sure. But 20 degrees is great, even if you do get a bit sweaty doing exercise.

And hey I’ll take 30+ if I’m just chilling in the garden with a beer.

@ralphdibny Yeah I think low impact stuff just stresses the joints and surrounding muscles a lot less so always good to do something like that as well as running. In years gone by I always did a more level amount of cycling and running however what with family life etc I've just ended up focusing on running as that's usually easier to get out to do for me. Where I got into the standing desk thing for work I've seen a few pictures of people adding exercise options to theirs like a treadmill or an exercise bike. I don't think I'd be able to concentrate at the same time as use either of those though.

Ahhh to hell with it, I've ordered 6 pairs of Danish Endurance socks for £35 total. Taken out a 30 day prime trial so they will arrive on Thursday. I've just spent hours looking at socks and I'm always drawn to the negative reviews so it's really hard to choose. These seem to have mostly positive reviews so hopefully they are decent. They have padded toes and are aparently moisture wicking. The twinskins were a bit too expensive, looked like there was a 2 pack for £14 so would have come to £42 for 6 pairs. There were some other brand that were 6 pairs for £20 but the pics in the reviews looked like they had less cushioning than the pics on the listing.

I did a double socker today and while my regular blisters are clearly healing, I ended up with a blood blister on my big toe. I didn't use the silky street fighter 2 socks today, I tried double socking some more cottony cookie monster and sonic the hedgehog socks which didn't work as well unfortunately.

But yeah, sock saga finally over hopefully! Went for a 7.5miler today. Managed to hit 3x30 (which is the goal) ring pull ups finally but it is a real struggle. I think I'm going do this amount of reps maybe 4-5 more times before I steepen the incline because I find it so difficult whereas I only did the wall push ups goal (3x50) 3 times before moving on. Speaking of push ups, I think I hit the steeper incline with 3 sets of 20 yesterday - goal for this difficulty is 3 sets of 40.

@render Ive seen the pics too, but I really can't imagine someone on a treadmill at a desk. Well I can but it looks like it would be a trip hazard for anyone else passing behind that desk.

True about the concentration. When I played Spyro on the exercise bike I found myself slowing down when I had to concentrate more on the harder bits of the game. It's a bit of a mixed bag, I imagine in an office environment you'd probably get more cycling done while you're staring at your pencils wondering if they need a sharpen rather than when you're cross checking entries across multiple spread sheets lol.

@ralphdibny "I'm always drawn to negative reviews"

This is so me. Thousands of positives and a couple negative but I'm just there like well if this worked that well shouldn't there be no negative reviews. Takes me forever to shop online.

@ralphdibny lol I wear the danish endurance cycling socks, I really like them

Did another 9 miler today. Struggled with another 3x30 ring pull ups again early in the walk. Definitely need to do that amount of reps a few more times before moving on.

Yesterday had yoga and also did 3x 20 incline push ups, same as last time, still quite hard. Will try and add a rep or 2 to tomorrow's sets.

@zupertramp same here. Anything I'm not familiar with results in hours/days of umm-ing and ahh-ing until I purchase or actually don't purchase lol. I like recommendations for these sorts of things but usually if someone is familiar enough with the product to recommend something then they will probably have a top tier product anyway that will be out of my price range!

@kyleforrester87 nice one! Good to hear about a positive experience with the brand. They arrived today. I've tried them all on to make sure there's no obvious faults before I put them in the wash. They look good. The padded toe area seems a bit short though, doesn't go over my little toe. Looking forward to trying them out with a walk at the weekend.

@ralphdibny nice well done.

I’m at 33 miles for the week. Need to get another 67 in by Sunday evening to keep my 100 mile week run going for a 7th week. Shouldn’t be an issue as I am pegged in for another session in the hills on Sunday.

I am noticing a difference to my fitness now that I’ve upped my regular miles to double what I was doing last year, hopefully I can keep this going. 1362 miles for the year so well on track to smash my 3000 miles in a year goal (finally!) 💪🏻💪🏻

@ralphdibny incidentally I do plan on getting into a bit more walking. Once the shops are open I’m going to get some decent clobber and drive out to the country for some regular rambles, I think it would do my calves a lot of good.

@kyleforrester87 sweet! Can you feel your fitness improving in the sense that activity that was a struggle before is now a bit easier? I think I'm getting that too but it's a bit hard to tell from day to day depending on other factors like food and sleep. I think I'm looking a bit skinnier too, from the front at least especially after yoga lol. It can leave your belly in like a permanent flex afterward sometimes haha

I've got walking boots, didn't spend too much on them...maybe £40 from decathlon? I think they are decent enough. Not much arch support but I'm not noticing any plantar fascitis pain (obviously my feet are painful all over after a ten mile walk but they are normally better by the time I go for my next walk). They do have high ankles though so they do give a good amount of ankle support which is good.

But yeah, I've been walking up to that woods I used to drive to. It's urban for the first half of the journey and then woodland for the next half. It's about a 10 mile round trip

@ralphdibny yeah I just have more stamina and I am finding hills that were previously a challenge a little bit easier. Plus although I am knackered after getting home I am not having to go to sleep for an hour like I was previously, even after doing 80-100 miles on 5 hours sleep I am able to stay awake for the rest of the day. I’m also getting used to what I need to eat/drink and how regularly while I’m on the mood, and I don’t seem to be getting so nauseous anymore. Previously after 2-3 hours of riding and eating/drinking carbs I was getting a bit of “gut rot” lol.

Did 30 miles today cruising speed with my girlfriend, we went round Richmond park and then got some ice cream and coffee - was nice not going at max speed for once!

I do plan on getting my walking gear from Decathlon, the stuff they sell is genuinely phenomenal for the money. It’s as good as gear from other suppliers at many times the cost.

Gone to visit my gf for a week (covid test negative). Managed to keep up with yoga OK. Still doing the incline pushups but her counter is a lot lower than my window sill so I am struggling with 3x15 of those. Pull ups have taken a hit as I can't find a public pull up bar down here. There's one that's a couple miles away but the area is always packed with other exercisers or just kids. So yeah, unless I work something else out, I won't be doing any more ring pull ups until next week.

Walking has been OK. Got in 6 miles on Sunday and 9.5 miles yesterday. Hopefully will get in another 10-ish miles on Thursday but not guaranteed. I think the new socks are working well! No blisters so far, not sure if moisture is wicking or not - I'm obviously not getting the friction to cause blisters but my feet still feel pretty sweaty when I get home.

@kyleforrester87 nice one! Yeah the food to exercise ratio is a bit of a learning curve. I'm trying to keep my eating quite lean and using bananas for top ups but it's quite difficult. I've done the various diets that come with exercise plans in the past and they are just a massive ball ache, not to mention gross. Shaun T should be ashamed of his peanutbutter, jam and cottage cheese 🤢 bagels from the Insanity workout lol. I ate them but I hate cottage cheese so much lol. I did discover, begin to like and then become totally sick of Quark during that period though so there's that I suppose.

Walks with my gf have been a bit lower intensity. Not sure why really, whether I am not feeling it because it's more of a wander than a keep walking to a goal type thing. My backs been hurting a bit too since I got here so it could have been the drive or sleeping in a different bed.

I like decathlon as well because of how the labels on the product shelves give you a detailed run down of what the product is good for in terms of application and intensity. Ive noticed a small hole on the inside of my walking boots but they are for light hiking, had no idea if be doing semi regular 10 mile walks in them when I bought them!

@LieutenantFatman are you still knocking about? Thought I'd give you a shout because I haven't seen you post in this thread in a while. Still keeping fit? Still on the kettlebell swings? I hope you are well anyway!

@ralphdibny
Hey matey, I've been keeping up with the kettlebell swings and cycling, thanks for asking. Doing a bit of running too but that's a struggle, I really should do it more regularly to try and improve, I run out of stamina quite quickly doing that.
Sounds like you're doing well, glad the new socks are helping!

It gets ridiculously windy this time of year here which makes jogging a real struggle. I never know if I'm just being lazy or if this is a justifiable reason to skip run days. Like today, wind speeds around 32kph with gusts up to 48kph. What's the consensus? Just suck it up and do it or is this reason enough to stay in?

Cycling against the wind is, obviously, a real pig. Of course if you are doing a loop you usually ride against the wind for a while and then with it, which is a treat. Overall I’d prefer it to be as close to still as possible. Sometimes I totally smash a regular route and think I’m superman until I check the weather and realise I had a 20mph wind pushing me along 🙄

I have, maybe foolishly, agreed to 2 back to back century rides on 17th and 18th April. They’ll be relatively flat compared to my usual weekend rides but waking up on the 18th to knock out another 100 miles is going to be interesting. I have a week off work from 19th onwards, which I am sure I will be very happy about on the evening of the 18th!!

Not sure what my tactic will be. Eat really well on evening of 16th and 17th. Maybe some pain killers before bed on 17th 🤷‍♂️ Too early to know what the weather is going to do.

@zupertramp I try to make myself go out on similar days in any weather other than heavy rain or if it's too icy. I don't mind the wind so much! I aim to get out after work on Tuesday, on my day off on Thursday, and then a longer one at the weekend.

Getting regular runs is definitely key to what you're saying @LieutenantFatman Having a routine makes me more likely to get out too rather than just doing it every now and again. If it's an after work run, I need to go out before I sit down or I'll never go!

Keep up the good work though @ralphdibny and I'm glad the socks are making some difference. And good work/good luck with the diet changes too as that's almost harder to find something you enjoy but is sustainable.

As for me, another good 15k route at the weekend around a new route which was lovely. I reckon that route with parts of my normal loops might be what I finally use when I go for my first half marathon.. maybe even this month!

@zupertramp
Maybe swap it for some burpees? Burpees autocorrected to burgers, so make if that what you will, lol.

@Thrillho
Thanks, i will push myself to run more often, has to be done! Not much use having decent strength if I have the stamina of an inebriated hedgehog.

@LieutenantFatman nice one 👍. What's your running distance like now? I forget exactly what you said a while back but I thought you were getting in some decent distances, by my standards anyway 😅. Maybe I mixed it up with the cycling.

My yoga tapes come to an end next week. I know I said I was just going to pick and choose from now on but I think I am going to carry on and do the "intermediate" schedule. It's another 13 weeks, the first half of which has a similar frequency of tapes but it gets bumped up to 5 tapes a week by the second half.

I'm going to step it up a bit though, definitely considering getting on to that couch to 5K app again. Might do it on the same days as yoga (while I'm still doing 3-4 tapes a week) and carry on with 5-10 mile walks on my off days depending on how knackered my legs are.

@zupertramp honestly hard to know to be honest! I have no concept of wind speeds. It's either knocking me off my feet or it's not. I also have little concept of jogging so it's hard to say how I'd handle it. I'd probably just wrap up warm on the windy days so my ears and teeth don't hurt so much and skip the days where it's a struggle to stay upright because of the wind. Or just eat a stack of burgers as @LieutenantFatman suggests! 😂 (I know they said Burpees lol)

@Thrillho cheers! And nice distances, that half marathon is in sight! It's easier to eat better at home I think at the moment, my dad is on a proteinous diet (so meaty dinners) and it's been easy to limit myself to cereal and toast for my other meals. But having come down to my girlfriend's for the week, she gets like a veg box delivery but hasn't suggested anything appetising so I've been cooking with it instead. Of course that means lots of olive oil, garlic and salt so even though a veg box is supposed to be quite healthy, I have definitely made it unhealthy when I've cooked it haha. I think she's glad to not have to cook dinner for the whole of this week though lol

@ralphdibny
Levelling up on the yoga sounds fun, good luck!
I'm just doing 5k runs currently, pretty low. But if I do a few more of them I reckon that should give me a much needed boost.

@LieutenantFatman 5k is a good distance and a great base to build from. Once you start doing a little extra distance you’ll find that original distance gets easier. I find I need to be doing at least two runs a week to keep my level up but going to three since the weather has improved has seen me really push on. Keep at it!

@ralphdibny I’ve never known how good the high protein diets are. I’m a traditionalist of just reasonable sized healthy meals and the more it’s cooked by you, the better.

@Thrillho they don't look great to me to be honest lol. My dad just has a plate piled up high with meat for dinner. I'm not a great meat eater and I would love to cut it out completely based on the ascertainment that red meat is carcinogenic. I only really like one meat which is pig, so sausages, bacon, ham, pork belly, other pork, salamis, chorizos etc. but I love that with a passion and it's unfortunately the most carcinogenic of the lot!

I could take or leave other meat though, I find beef is only palatable when it's fatty-break-apart-in-the-mouth from being in a well cooked stew or casserole. I don't mind steak but I could live without it. Lamb, same again really. I prefer it to beef on its own but is better in a stew/casserole. The mint sauce is what makes lamb though. In terms of white meats, Im not a fan of birds, only one of my mates cooks chicken well in such a way that I look forward to eating it. Otherwise I really don't like chicken at all. Not big on fish either but I love fish fingers/fillet'o'fish (tartar sauce is what makes this great) and I also like tinned anchovies on pizza.

But yeah lol, normally I just eat what I'm given. I hate being asked what I'd like because it's normally a choice between meat and meat and I'd rather just eat whatever is put in front of me without having to think about it. I don't think I could ever give up milk, eggs, yoghurt and cheese though. I just love them too much haha.

@LieutenantFatman as @Thrillho says, 5k is a decent distance! I'm sure it's a good amount to just maintain a decent standard of fitness. Most people don't run at all and I'm sure that people who keep fit but don't have time for mega long runs probably just maintain a schedule of 5K runs (wild guess, I have no quantitative knowledge to back this up lol). Even if I do that app, I'm still 2 months away from getting to a solid 5K so I don't think that distance is anything to be sniffed at. Keep it up and don't get disheartened!