AverageGuy

On 7/27/2022 at 11:34 AM, Toth said:

This is a hard no on that one. My current regimen shows results and I am happy with that.

I'm going to slightly disagree with the crowd here and say that's fine. Yes, you may have a more negative impression of the gym than is warranted, but if you can be consistent with home workouts you can make progress. I used to go to the gym a lot, got out of the habit for a few years and was out of shape. Started to go again right before covid hit and closed all the gyms down, was forced into home workouts.

As a result I got in much better shape over the past couple years with body weight exercise at home and walking. Posted a progress pic somewhere earlier in the thread, I've made some more progress since then. It's slow progress, but I'm generally happy with it. Haven't been to a gym since February 2020, and honestly I don't miss commuting or waiting for a rack/bench/machine to open up. I've recently started running again because I like running and I'm no longer worried about whether my knees can handle my own weight, but the exact form of cardio and strength training doesn't really matter. As long as long as you enjoy it, are consistent, and don't quit, home workouts can be great.

On 4/11/2022 at 6:18 PM, Iskaral Pust said:

I went on a sunshine vacation for spring break in mid March.  While I was there I swam and/or lifted weights every day.  It felt great.

Since I’ve returned home, I’ve struggled to exercise more than once or twice each week.  Part of it is always being so busy at work, but my motivation is just lower at home these past few months.  I show a lot of signs of burnout.

I’m returning to the office two days per week.  Hopefully getting out of this isolation will give me a fillip of energy. I need to get out of this rut.

That happens a lot, but as long as you do a little bit it makes it easier when you get out of the rut. Change in routine is usually helpful  And if not, maybe a change in workout routine? Motivation's a bitch, something to get excited about can help.

On 4/7/2022 at 9:52 PM, Crazy Old Guy said:

I'm starting a gym work-out next week.

Anything I should expect?

An hour. Lots of weights. Apparently guy's pretty good and it's near where I live, but I haven't done this in a while.

DOMS? Expect a good amount of muscle soreness for a couple days after your first workout. If you're getting a coach hopefully they won't push you too hard, but in the first week or two recovery is always a bit of a pain. Literally. It really does go away after that though.

Beyond that, if it's a one-on-one session you'll probably go through a few different exercises to get an idea about where you are. If you're going at least four times a week, they may split up the exercises somehow, but if 1-3x a week I'd probably expect full body. At the beginning the exact exercise matters less than figuring out your current strength and conditioning. If you're doing weights, there are six basic movement patterns, so maybe one exercise from each:

1. Vertical push (overhead press, military press, shoulder press, handstand pushups)
2. Vertical pull (pull-ups, lat pulldowns)
3. Horizontal push (push-ups, bench press, chest press)
4. Horizontal pull (Rows)
5. Knee flexion (squats, leg press)
6. Hip hinge (glute bridges, deadlift, barbell hip thrust, kettle bell swings)

There may or may not be auxiliary stuff or isolation stuff depending on what you say your goals are. 

Good. I feel like it's pretty well-known that car accidents, strokes, and heart attacks rise with this change every year. This literally kills people. I don't really care if they pick DST or Standard Time, but stick with one (though DST, counter to its original purpose, tends to be more energy intensive in the modern world).

9 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

So the the first leg of the Grand Prix series is over.

Nakamura beat Lev in the finals. Congratz to GM Hikaru deserved winner - altho, I was rooting for Levon.

But that was an organizational shitshow, with the Chinese players (Ding Liren and Wei Yi) both unable to obtain visas, thus defacto eliminating them from this cycle.

Next stop Belgrade.

Apparently his next stop is home in the US. He has a real job to get back to.

16 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Congrats on a great turnaround.  That’s a pretty severe calorie deficit to maintain though, but good for you if you can sustain it.

It wasn't too bad, though I tended to stick closer to 250 kcal. I went with the three small meals and one or two snacks strategy, aiming for a good combo of protein and fiber whenever I ate since those help you feel full. Lots of veggies to up volume, tried to keep down butter/oil. Got rid of soda and alcohol (for the most part, I would have a drink or two socially, but pandemic meant being social was pretty rare). Leaving some calories each day for treats helped, too.

That said, I've definitely switched over to maintenance calories in the past couple months. I'm happy with my weight at this point, time to figure out how to sustain it.

Figured I'd share. I'd kind of let myself go a few years back. BP got to 160/90 in November of 2019 and was 206 at 6'0, wanted to make some changes. Didn't do anything, January rolls around and I'm 211.

So I start working out. Of course gyms all shut down a couple months later, so I settled into a 3 days/week walking, 3 days/week body weight routine for the past year. Along with some diet changes, good old fashioned calories in/calories out. Left myself some room to have desserts on weekends, but overall went for a 250-500 calorie/day deficit. At this point I've lost 45 pounds, added a little muscle back (though bodyweight only means I'm not big by any means), and BP finally hit 117/79 (without meds), which is probably the biggest success. I'd still like to get that a little lower, next step should really be to cut back on caffeine and lower my sodium intake. Maybe up my cardio, I used to do triathlons and might try to get back into them now. Overall though, in line with the "marathon" part of thread title, patience and consistency have paid off.

For reference, 0 month/10 month/20 month transformation:

https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/aa114/averageguy_shoe/SideBySide.jpeg?width=450&height=278&crop=fill

14 hours ago, red snow said:

It's always dicey introducing new lore as it has the potential to diminish rather than enrich previous material. I think korra tread a fine line with some of the spirit stuff but overall felt it added.

1 hour ago, fionwe1987 said:

Beginnings 1 and 2 are excellent flashback episodes, and nothing they reveal contradicts the previous show in any drastic way.

I think Beginnings was incredible on its own. Loved the animation, story was interesting. However, I do feel it was inconsistent in the greater context of the show. TLA shows the spirits interacting with the mortal world and being part of it, more akin to what you'd see in Native American animism or Japanese Shinto. Wan Shi Tong (the librarian owl in the desert), Hei Bei (forest/panda spirit in Winter Solstice), the legends of the Painted Lady, Tui and La/Princess Yue... none of them were locked away in the spirit realm. In Korra spirits feel more like strange beasts, which doesn't make them that unique in the Avatar world (what makes an Air Bison or a Badgermole different from a spirit? They have the strange shapes and magic abilities). There was also a hint that there was more to energy bending when the Lion Turtle talked to Aang, but we only see it as their granting people bending-- and with their involvement less of a direct role in teaching from dragons/bison/badgermoles. YMMV, but to me it felt like bad lore.

I felt like that about a lot of Korra, though. So many things that were amazing on their own and then failed to come together. Granted there are rumors Nickelodeon was heavily interfering.

On 8/13/2020 at 4:23 AM, red snow said:

Netflix should drop the live-action show completely and just hand the money over for the potential third avatar animated project. They could probably pay for the entire animated series for the cost of one live action season. And if they are only making the live-action show off the heat of the existing animated series surely this is a safer/less risky way to go?

I'm leaning more toward sometimes it's best to let stuff go altogether. Korra was pretty uneven. A lot of the scattered spirit lore in season 2 and Korra angst plus that clips episode in season 4.

The Lions of Al-Rassan is a ferociously readable terrible book. The further I get from it the more it annoys me. Everything is too pat in the worst, most David Eddings sort of way. Everyone is too witty, the two main characters are too perfect

Sorry for the tangent, but who do you consider the two? I'm asking because I thought of there being three, and I'm curious about which one doesn't stick out in other people's minds.

Almost done with River of Stars and it's another very good read from Kay! :)

And I have a copy up for grabs on the Hotlist if anyone's interested!

Patrick

Does it end with a little bit of magic going out of the world?

The big castle in Edinburgh, in Martin´s beloved Scotland, is called Castle Rock...does that ring a bell...?