There has been some chatter lately about exercise and fitness. I will be the first to admit I am slacking off right now but will be ramping my routine back up shortly. The poundage is starting to really creep up.

OK, when I'm serious about diet, I make a philosophy change in my eating habits. I cut portions and make healthier choices. I don't deny or starve myself. It never works. I just stop and think two seconds and pick the wiser food choice. My biggest problem. Eating everything on the plate. It's from growing up in a house where you ate everything on the plate or else. So now, I use a smaller plate and takeout gets cut in half right away and boxed for home. I up my water intake and break the meals down from 2-3 large meals to 4-5 smaller ones. No eating after 8:00pm at night. If I want the cookie, I eat the cookie. Meat choices are leaner and breaded deep fried is kept to a minimum. Amazing how much alone this helps.

Exercise is always a part of my life since I ride horses. Trust me, a full horse training session burns a lot of calories. However, I'm doing a lot of Western pleasure right now and that does not burn nearly as much as when I'm doing English. For me, it's all about endurance. I have to be able to get up at 4 or 5 in the morning, get a horse ready to show, stay on my feet all day with maybe showing 4 or 5 classes, finish the day by 8 at night, maybe. and then do it all over again for another 2-3 days. There is periods of rest, periods of moderate exercise and periods of intense exercise. A dozen 110lb bales of hay do not move by themselves. So my exercise routines have to prepare me for that. This is what I do in the gym to help me when I get back up to full routines.

Mon, Wed, Fri.
40 minutes of Treadmill at 3.5mph level 4-7 hill routines. Jogging sometimes during the lower stages.
20 minutes of moderate weights. 3 declining sets (Start highest weight and exhaust. Immediately drop weight and exhaust again. Do it one more time. Note: I do everything with dumbbells. It's all I need since I can do about 30 different exercises with them.

Tue, Thu
20 Minutes of treadmill at max level 12 hill climbing at 2.0mph
10 Minutes of heavy weights. 3 reps/2 sets. 1 rep of max+ weight.

I vary what I work on. One day will be upper body. One day will be core and another day will be legs.

Results: I lose about 1 pound a week until I hit a wall. That will last anywhere from 2-4 weeks. My body adapts quickly. This requires a routine change. Usually, flat speed interval jogging on the treadmill or maybe a series of core board or step routines.

The biggest problem? Staying with it. I have so much going on it's hard to find the time and my family as a rule, has horrible eating habits and they don't want to change. That leaves me to work around them. It's not easy but it's worth it when I can put it together.

thanks for sharing Rich ,

sounds your quite the healthy type, seems like a good excersize plan you have there.
In fitness there are no rules. what works for your body might totally be wrong for mine so if it works for you keep at it

I am assuming your doing this at home , and not in a gymn ? and perhaps you should clarify what machine your using for the running/jogging and how much the weight is on your dumbell .

pretty Hardcore im impressed ! its all about keeping oneself HEALTHY not to be able to bend iron with 2 fingers..

I try to stay away from fast foods as much as I can but when you travel as much as I do sometimes there is nothing else to eat. I play competitive baseball with former pro and college players 2 to 3 games a week so that helps me stay at a constant weight. I still think I am overweight for my frame (6ft 215lbs). I would like to be around 190-195 but at my age it is difficult to loose the weight. The season is almost over but then the fall league starts so I play all year round.

Raf

Oh far from it but thanks anyway. When I'm on, I'm on. When I'm slacking like right now, forget it. I have always carried extra weight and right now it's way over the limit. Family obligations are even cutting my ride time down. Underneath the large bulge though you will find some muscle. Shocks everyone who pokes a finger in my overly large belly and says "gaining some weight there?" and finds some very hard abs and diaphragm. I never make the excuse I'm big boned. I come right out and say it. I eat too much and I don't get enough exercise!

So, the regimen I will eventually work up to is my standard maintenance routine and takes about 2 months to get to. My starting cardiovascular regimen will be about 1/3 of what I will end up doing. My target is 700-800 calories per workout and my heart rate at 121 at it's lowest level and 165 at it's highest during the working session. My workplace has a well stocked fit zone of equipment and exercise classes. My knees don't like hard impact stress. I never jog on a street. I use a professional grade programmable treadmill.

Typically, my dumbbell work will start with 20-35 lbs per dumbbell depending on the exercise. After 2 months of progression it will be at 30-50 lbs per dumbbell. At 4 months it will be 40-80 lbs per dumbbell. I'll stop there and start getting creative. Even at being age 48 I know my body well and what it can take. Less since my bad wreck on a horse 3 1/2 years ago but I'm getting that back too. I was not able to do any hard exercise for a year after that. I had no balance for 6 months. The hardest part of all? The first week on the treadmill. I'm already working on the weights again. I have to say to myself, "get your ass out of the chair and get on the treadmill" and mean it. :rofl

So, no, I am not a fitness/health food junkie. Just the opposite. I just know my body, I know what to do and how to do it, including the stretching, warm ups and cool downs and proper hydration and calorie intake timing. I don't own a weight scale and I don't get on one at work. It can sabotage an exercise regimen in a hurry and be very depressing. I know what to eat and how to eat healthy and I know how to cook healthy. I take no supplements. They are a total waste of money for what I do. Eat right and you should get everything you need. Water is my friend. It's a series of lifestyle choices that I am well aware of that I have to make. I don't smoke and I drink extremely little. I do on occasion have a cigar or pipe or a couple fingers of something. Life's little pleasures for me. I'm not anti-smoking. Your choice. I just have two rules. No smoking in the house or car.

Each person is different and their exercise and diet needs and goals are different. What works for me may not work for you. Therefore, you have to find your own path.

Now, to take that first step....

For exercise:
I lift weights.

For diet:
I cut back from lifting 16 oz to only 12 oz at a time ::

For exercise:
Nothing special. I ride my bike or walk whenever possible instead of driving my car. In the winter I love downhill- and cross-country-skiing and am a downhill-ski-tutor for kids. I don't do much sport (except for cycling) in the summer, though

For diet:
Nothing - why should I do something? My weight stays fairly constant all by itself

IMHO, diet fads never work. I know people who do Weight Watchers, South Beach, Jenny Craig, etc...lose some pounds & get off the diet & put it right back on. It's about a steady exercise plan & a dietary lifestyle change...not fad diets. Everything in moderation.

Although there are some people who cannot gain weight even if they tried (God knows I'm not in that camp!!!). I went to college with a guy that had such a high metabolism that there were times when I've seen him eat 4 Big Macs at a meal while drinking beer at the same time...then pull up his shirt & show you his ribcage.

Brad,

It's because people like us gain the weight just watching them eat that crap. I have known quite a few people that could eat anything and everything except healthy foods and after the pizza and cheetos they could still run a marathon without training for it........these people make me sick!!!

It's all about consistency for me.....20min a day works out alot better for me than 60 min 3x a week.

OK, here's my deal. For diet, I eat whatever my wife cooks for me. I know; life is rough. She follows a diet from some web site, and it involves very little processed foods, hardly any fats other than olive oil or whatever fats are in the fish or meat we eat. And it involves only small portions of meat. In my wife's world, a serving of beef is 3 ounces.

For exercise, I do cardio five days a week, usually a combination of walking or jogging, and using a heart rate monitor to keep in a certain training zone. I'll warm up for 5 minutes or so, then spend 40 minutes in my zone, then warm down for 5 minutes. On three days a week I also do strength training. I do lunges for my legs; plank for my abs; chest presses, curls, and some sort of shoulder thing lifting my arms straight out to the side all using dumbbells; and rows. I have a trainer who I meet with once a month or so to keep me on track and give me some new exercises.

I'm no bodybuilder or athlete, but I'm completely healthy in all respects (6ft, 173lbs), and I hope to keep it that way for a long time.

Whew...at least I'm not alone.

Damn Bob, I'd starve on your wife's plan!!!

But it sounds like you got a good diet/workout plan. That explains why you weigh 173 and I weigh two hundred [*cough*cough*] lbs.

somebody quick post an LBS to Kilograms calculator for us Europeans folks :rofl


We use meters ,centimers , grams and kilograms here. and height wise we use the meter system. so teh only Foot,Feet we know is the ones we use for walking

Treadmill ?

By the By Rich whenever you mention the word treadmill, I see this horrible machine in front of me where you stand on and you press the button and you fly off the machine with lightening speed backwards ? why is that ? :rofl

all seriousness ! I think you have something there because I know my knees get an enormous beating running on pavement ,the best training is running on the beach but I dont have a beach behind my house minor bummer. I have grass but the dogs do their thing on them so that would get extreme messy.

I've always played sports. In college, I'd play 2-3 hours of basketball 3-4 days a week in the school gym. I was also a member of the school crew team. Man, I looked good.. I have a big frame and I gain muscle, and for that matter fat , very easily. I never ate healthily but I exercised so much, it balanced out. After graduating, I wasn't playing sports as in the past so I gained weight.

I've always hated weight training. I find it painfully boring. People thought I worked out but I guess I'm what Southern people call "country strong." I decided to get a Bowflex Xtreme2 machine anyway. I still don't enjoy weight training but it's not as bad as before. Well, this thing is great. I follow Dr. Ellington Darden's High Intensity Training (HIT) and the Bowflex does it all. Not to get too deep into HIT, but it's basically circuit training to failure. For example: If you were going to do bench presses, you'd do a max of 10 reps at the maximum weight you can do. So by the time you reach your 9th and 10th rep, you can barely do it. If you can do it easily, then it's time to add more weight. You take a max. of 30 seconds rest between exercises and that's it. It's all about high intensity over a short period of time. My body has changed immensely in a very short period. I do have an elliptical trainer that I use sparingly. If you follow the Bowflex exercises and the HIT plan perfectly, you really don't need anything else.

Of course, to get results I did have to increase my water intake and reduce my food portions. I do take a multivitamin and I use a juicer.

I've always wanted to go to an Asian jungle and have some Chinese Sensei train me into perfect fighting shape.. oh well. For now, the P90X program is what I'll use to get more defined.

Push ups
Sit ups
Bowflex Select-Tech Dumbells
Treadmill

As for food, I (over)eat whenever I'm hungry :rofl....which is constantly

Wish I had a set of these or the Reebocks for home.

Yeah, dude. Aside from my shaving stuff, and my camera, that is the best purchase I have made in many years

I feel the same way about my Bowflex X2. The Bowflex line is expensive but if used properly, they are great. Yes, you do actually have to use them. Sorry, having it sit in your basement or garage doesn't count.

My whole life has been a series of ups and downs...weight wise. I've always been a "comfort" eater. Some people drink, some people do drugs, I ate.
The last 10 years have been pretty good, no more than 10 pounds and we're back on it. About 2 months ago my lovely wife (SWMBO) decided it was time again to work at it. She still cooks great meals (carefully prepared) we just limit our portions, we don't eat out as often and we exercise. We usually walk in the mornings and ride bikes in the evenings. Bike riding has always been my favorite. I have one replacement knee and another one that is almost ready. All those baseball years as a catcher I guess. We have a stationary bike that we ride when it rains. Years ago when we lived in snow country I got into riding my regular bike on rollers, that's an experience! All in all it boils down to limiting your intake and exercise. They go hand in hand. I'm down nine pounds.

Exercise
Nautilus machines
Free weights
Bike (in good weather)
Treadmill (in bad)(I f*&*@#*& hate treadmills)

Diet
When I eat well, a mix of whole grains in breads and pastas, greens (salads and/or lightly cooked veggies), fish or soy for protein source, only olive or grapeseed oil for cooking

When I eat badly, add in more junk and fast food because I think I don't have "time" or "energy" to cook a proper meal.