Topic: The Health, Fitness and Exercise Thread

@ralphdibny yeah I'm very lucky to be in a good surgery that is proactive. Others in my area aren't so lucky.

Sounds interesting, I might give oat milk a go actually. I don't drink much milk, just use it for tea, so it'd be an interesting alternative! Bratwurst and Belly Pork, you're talking my language... But sounds like it's going well!

Good luck with the new role, hopefully you can get into a good routine when you start!

@NedStarksGhost haha yeah I could probably live without all other meat except bratwurst and pork belly. Also black pudding I suppose. And a certain casserole. Not all casseroles are made equal but my dad makes a really delicious one. Crispy hoisin duck is another one actually. I love bacon but maaaybe I could live without it. Salamis and chorizos would be another story though hmm. To be fair, there seems to be a lot of meat I actually like lol. I just don't really like roast dinners or just generic slabs of chicken, beef or pork. Just a bit bland for me really. Even lamb needs some heavy mint saucing before it's palatable. Could just chuck some mint sauce on anything though.

Sorry just went off on one there. Sometimes this thread makes me very hungry 😂

Yeah I think the oat milk is decent in tea and coffee. It tastes different but it's nice still. if you shake the carton then it goes all frothy too so you can make a simple cappuccino style drink 👍

@ralphdibny Keep talking, there's a reason I'm the weight I am! One thing I'd struggle to never eat again is Smoked Meat. I don't have it very often, it's more a treat. But when I have it, oh my do I feel happy. Some of my favourite food. I would really struggle to live without meat personally.

Had a bad weekend though, takeaway pizza Saturday, and then went out for lunch at 1pm to what was an amazing fish and chips from a cafe/bistro. Then had the leftovers from Saturday for tea. My calorie count went quite high!

So making up for it over the week by lowering my calories by another 100-200 a day. Don't want to let calorie counting get in the way of life, but will try and work around it!

@NedStarksGhost hahaha I'm so sorry. I just don't think I can have a conversation about diet without mentioning the foods I love which then reminds me of more food I love. It's just a never ending spiral 😅

Not sure I can think of any smoked meats right now. I guess there's smoked bacon. I'm probably just being dumb because I'm tired! I like cured meats like the chorizos/Salamis and I also love jerky too. Don't mind a bit of smoked cheese every now and then!

I'm sure you're not but don't worry too much about your "off" weekend. When I was calorie counting a few years back, I took a short holiday in the Isle of Wight and had the hotel breakfast, then some more food, then some beer, then some rock, then some yadayadayada. I ended up searching for "everything" on the myfitnesspal app and there was one option that was like 999999999 recurring calories. Maximum calories that the app could handle. 😂 I just settled for that and gave up for that weekend and honestly, I was back to a responsible calorie intake the following Monday. Just a small dip in an otherwise healthy diet

I made the decision to give up sugary sodas and candy / fatty snacks almost entirely about 6 months ago and lost nearly 8kg since, despite not changing anything else in my eating habits and only getting a little bit of exercise (mostly taking the bicycle to work until it got cold) 🙂

I’m going to walk home from work today because the weather is nice (it’s 6-7km, I believe).

@Voltan noice! Have you switched to the diet/zero fizzy drinks?? Not something I can cut out unfortunately as I've been drinking sugar free fizzy drinks since I was a teenager! Generally I prefer them anyway

@ralphdibny Nah, it’s pretty much just water and coffee for me now
I don’t really like the sugar free ones, although I suppose it might be something you get used to.

@ralphdibny Cheers dude. Yeah not worried, logged it and was like "Oh that's a high number" now back to it today. Sometimes it will happen, that's just how life is. Just have to not feel guilty and then spiral! But thanks for the encouragement.

@Voltan that's awesome. I've grown up drinking diet/zero as my mum cut them out when I was about 10. It makes such a huge difference. I would struggle to give them up entirely. I limit myself to 2 cans daily. One is zero cola and the other is usually some sort of diet fruit drink (like diet fanta, or sprite).

Good on you thought for cutting them out, just goes to show how much it helps. Reducing sugar in take is something we should all do.

I'm pretty happy with my running totals for 2021 now that the year is almost over. I managed to clock up 1,061km and 16,213m of climbing. Really pleased that I finally made it to half marathon distance with my final one this month being a 1:44:26 which is under 5min/km pace.

I managed to stay relatively injury free with just one lay off and a couple of rests but I definitely need to be getting some new shoes soon as these ones are barely hanging on!

Any progress/proud achievements from the rest of you in the end?

And I'll reply in here @lolwhatno but if you're running at 15km/hr then I'm not surprised you're so tired!

12km/hr is 5mins/km and that is a pretty good pace so I'd say you're going waaaaaay too hard at the moment. It was something I struggled with when I started but if you're only just getting into running, then I'd recommend trying to slow things down.

If you've got an app that can tell you your pace, maybe aim for 6mins/km to start and see how you feel. You should be finishing a run feeling comfortable to start with and then slowly increase your pace from there, or keep to the slower pace and throw in some intervals (i.e. short bursts of sprints) to build up stamina.

If you don't have an app, consider what you're doing now 100% and try running at like 60% instead. It takes some getting used to but feeling like you're going to be sick at the end of a run is a guaranteed way to put yourself off going again and it's not really sustainable.

Just heard about high-intensity interval training so thought I'd give a beginner video a try. I didn't do the whole thing as I find it's usually better to ease yourself into these things. Interesting experience, intense is definitely the right word! Anyone else tried this sort of workout?

@LieutenantFatman looks like a good vid! I skimmed through it but it looks cool. Ive done intervals training before back when I used to do muay Thai when I was a teenager. It took up most of the session to be honest. Then I did that insanity workout, probably about nearly 10 years ago now which I think would be considered interval training. Both things were really good though.

I did think Joe Wickes was Gona do a fart on that first sumo squat though 😂

I been meaning to give you a tag just to see how you are doing anyway. How's things? Everything all good with you?

@ralphdibny
Oh is that Joe Wickes? I'm not good with celeb names. Good to know this sort of exercise is worth trying out. I went back to the kettlebell yesterday which I haven't used in a while. Sore today but in a good way!

I did have a break from games for a while, not something I've really done before. My mental health took a hit and the usual hobby wasn't digging me out of that hole. So I joined a wargaming group and did lots of miniature painting, really threw myself into it, and that helped me a lot. Back into the video games again now and back on track.

How have you been?

@LieutenantFatman I think so lol. I did have to watch a bit of the video to make sure. I think he introduces himself at the beginning. He reminds me of a muscly Russel Brand... Or perhaps a Muscle Brand... 😅

Ahh good stuff mate. Shoot me a message on PSN if you wanna have a chat or something. I got a couple of friends that are into wargaming. I can't say that I have partaken just yet. Got enough ridiculously expensive hobbies as it is 😅.

All good here, just been super super busy for ages. Just moved into a new apartment so been getting that ready over the holidays. Looks nice now. We've sorted out the living room and office. Now just the bedroom left for us to make look more homely. Also gota bring up a few more boxes from my parents. Mainly retro games and DVDs... Just gota find a bit of space to slot them in around the stuff that's more "in use" lol

Went for a run this morning, fourth time this week. That's two more than I did in December lol.

@ralphdibny
Yes, painting miniatures isn't cheap, it's true! Sounds like you're doing well, mate, glad to hear you're enjoying the new place.

Just getting into Deep Rock Galactic at the moment, give me a shout if you fancy teaming up, it's good fun.

@Octane
Wow, that is impressive, good skills in this weather, nice work!

@Octane Wow, impressive. Especially with how cold it is right now. Walking the dog hasn't been fun these last few days.

@LieutenantFatman @Kidfried The weather is what did me in last year. I used to be an avid swimmer, but since the pandemic I haven't been able to, so running seemed like a good alternative. Except that it isn't indoors haha.

But I decided F it, let's do it anyway this year. I do 5-6 km maximum at the moment, cause my ears are freezing by the end of it, even though I'm sweating like crazy.

I’m eyeing up my first “races” this year too with some great half marathon routes nearish to me but they’re all rather hilly!

I got a load of new gear turn up today which is all great. I found this website https://www.happystride.co.uk/ and ended up buying quite a few thing including this top;

@Octane Nice one! I only get out twice a week these days because of mine and my wife’s working patterns but try to do 25k between the two. Have you got any goals for distances etc or just enjoying it for now?

@Thrillho Not really, I'd like to do 10 in under an hour some day. I've noticed that I'm a bit slower during the colder months, so that's definitely not happening anything soon!