Working on my physical health

[bejapuskas]

I finally feel satisfied with my mental state and I've decided to start going to the gym with my friends 3 times a week. I really fucking love it.  Now because of that, I want to work on my diet at the same time, so that I can get some weight and be healthier. Do you guys have any beginner tips?  My friends teach me the techniques and build my plans, so that's no big deal, I am mainly interested in the other stuff, like diet, running, intensity... Are there any courses? Should I maybe visit a nutrtionist?

[mandyjw]

Running does double duty as a powerful meditative opportunity and communion with nature. Okay not double it's a trifecta.  Don't make the mistake I did and neglect to stretch, it's best combined with a little yoga and core strengthening. I really need to start doing some strength training again.

Kettlebell swings are an awesome high intensity training workout, just make sure you get your form right before you try. It's hard to find the right weight at first. I use 30 or 35 pounds and I'm really small. 

As for diet I always flip flopped between strict restrictive diets and just eating how I wanted. Hone your intuition and try to tune in to what your body craves. I'm still working on that too. All diet advice is all over the map, so with diet I believe "There's no good nor bad but thinking makes it so." I got so caught up in trying to find the perfect one. Even so, the basic guidelines, not too much sugar, salt or caffeine, processed foods are always good to remember. Drink a lot of water and add in more veggies. I still love grassfed butter on my veggies and so I eat a lot of them because I truly enjoy them. I don't eat wheat and dairy but I have stomach issues right now so that's not my choice. 

[bejapuskas]

@mandyjw  Oh yeh, I stretch before and after sleep and also before, after and during the training.  I'm 180 cm and 65 kg by the way and I use a similar weight for kettlebells, they are really nice... 

With diet I mean, I am really committed, I wanna do it 100 %.  I haven't exercised for like 2 years, because I was feeling like shit, so I didn't go to the gym, but now I wanna take it really seriously.

When I use my intuition, I usually eat like very similar food everyday and I don't think it's unhealthy. Maybe I should just eat more, I don't know... I mainly eat fruits (mostly bananas, grapes, raisins, pomelos and apples, I wonder if it's a problem if you don't mix it up a bit more) with oatmeals, sometimes I add nuts (my grandpa gives us organic nuts from his garden), then I usually have likes eggs or meat with a big salad (mostly cucumber, lettuce, pepper and tomatoes) as the main meal... I also eat vegetable soups quite often and legumes. That's what most of my diet consists of, I still eat nonsense like sugar, bread and dairy, but it's making me sick, so I am cutting it off intuitively. I might also look for a different way to prepare meat, as the oil we are using in our house seems to give me a sore throat. 

What do you think about intermittent fasting? I watched some videos about it and it seems really interesting, people on this forum use it from what I've read and also Wim Hof does it, so it seems legit to me. It just looks difficult to handle correctly, like what are you supposed to eat at that one meal?!!

 

[Michael569]

@bejapuskas  congrats on your progress ! It is not easy to adopt all these habits at the same time. 

The best fitness tips for exercise I got was after I started following Athlean-X on yotube. I realised that for years I have been using wrong exercises and often not even doing them correctly. Jeff Calaiere, the founder is incredible and has 100s of amazing videos. It may be worth buying one of his paid programms such as AX-1 if you need some structure and motivation. I got AX-2 now and can;t praise it enough. 

In terms of diet, you can get a lot from books but perhaps having one consultation with a nutritionist to make sure your needs are covered is not a bad idea. There is a lot of "self-hacking" you can do by adding things like B-vitamins, beet, some mushrooms, maca, rhodiola etc that have all been shown to boost performance but generally diet comes first. 

Edited April 8, 2019 by Michael569

[bejapuskas]

5 hours ago, Michael569 said:

@bejapuskas  congrats on your progress ! It is not easy to adopt all these habits at the same time. 

The best fitness tips for exercise I got was after I started following Athlean-X on yotube. I realised that for years I have been using wrong exercises and often not even doing them correctly. Jeff Calaiere, the founder is incredible and has 100s of amazing videos. It may be worth buying one of his paid programms such as AX-1 if you need some structure and motivation. I got AX-2 now and can;t praise it enough. 

In terms of diet, you can get a lot from books but perhaps having one consultation with a nutritionist to make sure your needs are covered is not a bad idea. There is a lot of "self-hacking" you can do by adding things like B-vitamins, beet, some mushrooms, maca, rhodiola etc that have all been shown to boost performance but generally diet comes first. 

Thanks Michael  

[bejapuskas]

@Michael569  I watched some of his videos, I really like them, maybe I will even buy AX-1 later  You're vegan, right? How do you go about it in the programme? Do you create your own meal plan, or do they have a solution for that? How do they adapt in general? 

Now I often think about what can I do better. I mean, there are many things that I could do, like real yoga, Wim Hof method, but diet is like so complex. I think I can follow my feeling pretty well, but I need some more concrete facts. Do you have some good book recommendations or tips that I could use to solve this problem? Maybe I am too much of a perfectionist, but I mean, it's my health...

[Michael569]

@bejapuskas It's definitely worth the investment if you can spend the extra money. AX-2 also comes with a daily abs-shuffle which is absolutely brilliant, not sure if that's feature of AX1 as well.  I don't follow Jeff's meal plan, that is one thing I don't  agree with him the ungodly consumption of animal foods 4 times a day. He does have a plan in there but it's more of a "side product", the training plan was the key for me. I don't really follow any meal plan, I mostly use Dr Greger's Coockbook for meal preps and just try to make sure to hit all my micros, eat regularly and stay in slight protein excess on my workout days.

[bejapuskas]

@Michael569  It kind of hit me into the eyes, because I know you are more about hollistic health and he is more about looks and strength. (in my opinion at least) Later in my life I'd also like to stop consuming animal products, but now it is hard. Also I am not really that much concerned about my micros, even though maybe I should be... It's just that now I am making this transition and exercise and overall diet is more important to me  I am excited to bring it to the next level though.

[mandyjw]

On 4/7/2019 at 5:06 AM, bejapuskas said:

@mandyjw  Oh yeh, I stretch before and after sleep and also before, after and during the training.  I'm 180 cm and 65 kg by the way and I use a similar weight for kettlebells, they are really nice... 

With diet I mean, I am really committed, I wanna do it 100 %.  I haven't exercised for like 2 years, because I was feeling like shit, so I didn't go to the gym, but now I wanna take it really seriously.

When I use my intuition, I usually eat like very similar food everyday and I don't think it's unhealthy. Maybe I should just eat more, I don't know... I mainly eat fruits (mostly bananas, grapes, raisins, pomelos and apples, I wonder if it's a problem if you don't mix it up a bit more) with oatmeals, sometimes I add nuts (my grandpa gives us organic nuts from his garden), then I usually have likes eggs or meat with a big salad (mostly cucumber, lettuce, pepper and tomatoes) as the main meal... I also eat vegetable soups quite often and legumes. That's what most of my diet consists of, I still eat nonsense like sugar, bread and dairy, but it's making me sick, so I am cutting it off intuitively. I might also look for a different way to prepare meat, as the oil we are using in our house seems to give me a sore throat. 

What do you think about intermittent fasting? I watched some videos about it and it seems really interesting, people on this forum use it from what I've read and also Wim Hof does it, so it seems legit to me. It just looks difficult to handle correctly, like what are you supposed to eat at that one meal?!!

 

I wasn't able to do intermittent fasting with regularity, but it's not the same for women for some reason. I would definitely give it a try. 

For cooking I only use grassfed butter and macadamia oil. They seem to be best for taking high heat. Too much fruit can make you hungry quickly, try to swap some veggies for your fruits or just add in more veggies anyway. I buy a lot of organic canned (no BPA) green beans so I have veggies ready quick when i need them. 

Honestly it sounds like you're doing amazing. Try not to get too religious about it, for me controlling what I ate religiously turned into an obsession and wasn't good for my health in the end. it can be a lot of fun though, just don't go too far with it. 

[bejapuskas]

12 minutes ago, mandyjw said:

I wasn't able to do intermittent fasting with regularity, but it's not the same for women for some reason. I would definitely give it a try. 

For cooking I only use grassfed butter and macadamia oil. They seem to be best for taking high heat. Too much fruit can make you hungry quickly, try to swap some veggies for your fruits or just add in more veggies anyway. I buy a lot of organic canned (no BPA) green beans so I have veggies ready quick when i need them. 

Honestly it sounds like you're doing amazing. Try not to get too religious about it, for me controlling what I ate religiously turned into an obsession and wasn't good for my health in the end. it can be a lot of fun though, just don't go too far with it. 

Oh yeh, I see... I get hungry really quickly after eating like a banana or something, you are right  I will probably get back to using cronometer... I stopped doing it, probably because I was working on my spiritual and mental development more. (my mind wasn't free enough to work on anything else) How do you run? I usually do like a mile before training, but I think that's too little, I can definitely do it better and more often you know... 

[mandyjw]

I like to do anything between a mile and five miles depending on how I feel and what else I do that day. Normally I do around 2 -3 miles. Just go by what feels right, running is really enjoyable once you learn to relax into it. 

[bejapuskas]

@mandyjw  Oh yeh, thanks  Do you know something about why do people wake up at night? I have a regular sleep schedula (8 pm - 6 am) but I often wake up at like 1 am or 4 am... 

[mandyjw]

@bejapuskas That's really funny that you ask that because that has been happening to me a lot lately. 

Apparently we used to sleep in two shifts. I've been embracing it. The key is not ignoring the urge to go back to bed when you get it, if you get too wrapped up in what you're doing you won't get enough sleep. 

https://www.sciencealert.com/humans-used-to-sleep-in-two-shifts-maybe-we-should-again

You can also use the time to stay in bed and meditate. 

Edited April 13, 2019 by mandyjw

[bejapuskas]

@mandyjw  It might be caused by being exposed to electronics before sleep, overeating or too much excitement probably. I usually fall asleep right after  

[mandyjw]

@bejapuskas When I overeat I also oversleep.  Yeah electronics are problem. You can wear those blue light blocking glasses if you want, they might have the added benefit of making you feel so stupid when you wear them that they also burn up the ego. Maybe I should get some. 

[bejapuskas]

2 hours ago, llumi said:

Recent studies show you should not expose yourself to electronics, blue light or bright lights 4 hours before sleep! One hour is ok but 4 for the win I struggle with this...

@llumi That sounds hardcore...  

51 minutes ago, mandyjw said:

@bejapuskas When I overeat I also oversleep.  Yeah electronics are problem. You can wear those blue light blocking glasses if you want, they might have the added benefit of making you feel so stupid when you wear them that they also burn up the ego. Maybe I should get some. 

@mandyjw  Yeh, I should probably wear them to school also, so that I don't get electrified by the dataprojector.

[Good-boy]

High fat(good) low carb diet is dope.

[SgtPepper]

https://www.westonaprice.org

my go to resource on nutrition.

I'd be wary of any diet that has you taking supplements, including whey protein. In my opinion, an optimal diet will have a variety of foods and will not require supplementation. 

[Moreira]

1 hour ago, Shiva said:

Why? What's wrong with supplements that improve your health?

In the case of B12, for example, I think supplementing it make sense if you are a vegetarian. 

Neither plants nor animals make it by themselves. B12 is made by microbes that blanket the earth. In today’s modern, sterile world, we usually chlorinate our water to kill off any bacteria. In the past we would've probably gotten all the B12 we need by drinking from some mountain well or eating food from the ground, like animals do. But that also exposes you to many potentially harmful bacteria.

While we don’t get much B12 in the water anymore, we don’t get much cholera either, which is a good thing, isn't it?

So, supplementing B12 is not strictly necessary, but simply a lot safer and more civilized than getting it the "natural" way.

Whats wrong with supplements ? Its wrong that there are a fraud. Buecause yes, they contain vitamins and aminoacids, but the thing is they are in a mollecular form that is not profitable for the human body so they end up wasted. They only supplem,ents that work is food.

[SgtPepper]

7 hours ago, Shiva said:

Why? What's wrong with supplements that improve your health?

Supplements are tricky. If one needs to take them, do it. However, I do not think they are an adequate substitute for food, and most health professionals agree with that (see the links below).

My issue with supplements is that they are synthetically produced, don't contain other enzymes and compounds found in natural foods, could be sourced from low quality foods, and most are not FDA approved.

https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-smart/nutrition-basics/vitamin-supplements-hype-or-help-for-healthy-eating

https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/dietary-supplements-do-they-help-or-hurt

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/harmful-effects-of-supplements-can-send-you-to-the-emergency-department-201510158434

Animals like cows and sheep also make b12 through their own gut bacteria, and can absorb their own b12 from their gut. 

https://nutritionstudies.org/12-questions-answered-regarding-vitamin-b12/ 

 

Edited April 15, 2019 by SgtPepper