What should I do for managing my time? I'm an obese person who recently started going to the gym, and I actually feel better now. But as my semester have started, I have 5 courses this semester along with my thesis. I'm struggling a lot, please help

 College can be stressful. Trying to fit in exercise can be tough. In fact, during my undergrad, I only found time in the last semester. But for Masters, I got smarter and used to crush the exercise with 1 hour elliptical. I was used to 30 min but I saw the machine left at 1 hour by a previous person and was instantly motivated to try it myself. Use scheduling, calendars, reminders, study buddies, rewards.

Do you change your way of losing weight? If yes, how and why? If not, why?

 What got you here wont get you there

At some point in your getting healthy journey, you will have to change some things. What works at one age might not work at another.

When I was a teenager, I would do yoga but obviously not enough due to time constraints for studying and I didnt know why I had to (more from the rebel sense of when nobody else my age has to).

Late teens again busy studying. Only in the last year of undergrad, I had time to go to the gym, by then I had learned some things from friends.

From those, walking and counting my calories helped a lot. It changed my persona to a fit person. At this point in life I was doing 30 min exercise in the gym everyday.

My next level of breakthrough came when I saw an elliptical left at 60 min done. I couldnt believe that. I picked that miracle from there and lo and below I dropped a pound every alternate day and lost about 25–30 pounds in around 3 months time. Dont ask me what I was eating. I was on a losing weight high.

Later when trying to lose baby weight, I figured weekends were the culprit. The inconsistency of the weekends in diet and exercise was washing away the week’s good behavior. That was a big aha for then.

Depending on different stages in life, you will realise that you need a different tactic to get to your next health goal.

I read on Reddit that if you have been overweight your whole life, you are likely to be obese in your 30s. Even if you lose the weight now. Is this true?

 I have been overweight from the age of 13 to 22. I have been exercising regularly since age 21. During 23–24, I lost lots of weight. Initially as astudent, i didnt find time to exercise but after that it became my priority. I even made my environment work for me. When office provided food, I would only eat chapathis so that it is easy to count. I had also achieved a good relationship with food. There will always be changes in body weight due to hormones and other factors. But the best gift that we can give ourselves is the knowledge of nutrition and movement and sticking to it through the thick and thin of life.

It is possible to maintain a good healthy weight if nutrition, exercise, sleep are all taken care of.

My initital weight loss was from 1 and half hour of walking up and down to office each day. I have never crossed that weight other than during pregnancy. Ingrain good habits into your life. Maintain a healthy relationship with food with mindful eating practises. If you cook your own food, then you will crave less of the fancy foods as you know how to make them as well as learn more about what goes into each food.

After that I started working out on the elliptical. Between 21–23, I used to still workout for 30 min at the gym. A friend introduced me to the elliptical. I started with the usual 30 min but one day I saw the machine was at 1 hour done by a previous exerciser. I could not believe that the exercise could be done for an hour. Thats it, in the next 3 months I lost so much weight. It was like a fat melting machine. After I reached a maintenance weight I would alternate with 30min gym and 30 min yoga.

You have a good chance of making a good gift for yourselves that grows with each year, making you stronger and healthier. 

I know other people who were overweight in their teens and now learn weightlifting and go to competitions.

Hashimotos and exercise

 Earlier, I could do P90x. I could do an hour of elliptical and now I aim for 15 min and sometimes stop at 12min. Even the core synergetics which I did ok till the lunge exercise halfway, I could feel the upper body aches in the night. YogaX felt like a great relief. Cant tell which of the standing exercises in the first half of core synergetics caused the legs ache. Usually I go for yoga only when I need calming but today needed it more for the stretching. It is strange how our body changes with time.

WK 14

 Welcome to WK14.

I wondered how this was ging to be different. It moved from 2 days Leg work to 3 days Leg work of the 5 days.

I have to figure out the right combination of cardio to strength ratio. 50-50 or 60-40.

10/26

Legs - 30 min Elliptical and

30 min Legs & Abs

10/27

30 min Elliptical and 

chest & biceps

Flew into the next week.

11/3

30 min Legs & abs + 10 min elliptical

11/4

Shoulders, Triceps and Chest

11/5

Legs workout

WK 13

 According to the plan .. its  a rest week.

Going to give the elliptical a spin.. hopefully an hour a day...

Wk 5 Day 2

 Back & Biceps

There's two choices, 40 minute Back & Bicep

or 24 Minute Back & Bicep + Abs

Went with the 40 minute. Its from HASfit, they have many more videos and are ar patreon hasfit too. It was good. I couldnt do some sets with 8lb so went with lower. I felt sweat. I loved the focus on breathing and I didnt have to maintain the count. 

After T Swings, I couldnt do any of the I swings with the same weight.

TIY could also Tone it yourself.

The last back exercise on the plank had a great range of motion. Seems like a good one to do, if you ever have muscle knots.

8/22

Core and Abs

Done with plank exercises in the morning. Will tackle core and abs in the evening.

some elliptical.

Monthly Reflection - Month 1

Initially your goals bring energy to you and as you make progress, your energy improves. For the last 4 weeks, I was doing cardio twice, upper and lower body for 4 days of the week and walking on the alternate days. 2-3 months of weekend inactivity has taken a hit on fitness. Today's surge in energy has made me take on more. Good chance to insert core workout and some abs workout. With the abs, I could feel it.

Probably I will add the abs workout to everyday's especially when that day's workout is in the 24min timeframe. 

Its been a month since I came across The fitgurl Total Body Turnaround program. Since then, I have been watching my macros. For a long time now, I have been fitnessie. Sometimes, alesson that comes across sharply is the need for intensity which Jillian Michaels identifies as one of the four tenets in her The 6 keys to unlock your genetic potential for Ageless Strength, Health and Beauty.

Of the four tenets, Intensity, progession/variety, recovery and consistency, adding one extra like intensity with 60 min elliptical workout compare to 30 min has worked wonders for me. I had consistency pat down before that. But during the pandemic, weekend consistency wasnt there. But now I  am in a place where I can bring the energy required.

Success doesn't come from what you do occasionally, it comes from what you do consistently. - Marie Forleo

Knowing when your consistency is dropping down is the key.

A Stanford study identified the top four reasons for weight loss goals as being kids role model, lifestyle, health and clothes. Antony Lolli is a raw story where he wanted to be healthy and enjoy family time. Brittany has to run, its doctors order - meaning for health issues. Unsupersize me in Cuba opens whole new world for Ridiel. 

I have heard some stories of people who went into fitness competitions or went on to become fitness instructors, because they wanted to change and be role models for their kids. Clothes fitting well is a bonus.

What makes us go on this journey? There is an innate desire to be able to do something that you are not able to now. For example, a pull up. When skies open up, you are exhilarated to keep going on. When its cloudy you make your own sun and energy with all the emotional, mental and physical prep. Its not always about adding things, sometimes its weeding out bad foods, habits and beliefs. 

Consistency is the soil. Intensity is the water. Nutritious food is the rain maker. 

There will be hurdles. Jumping over them hurdles and continuing to run makes you stronger. 

Value based goal reaching - Authenticity

Our values can determine how we reach our goals.

 Authenticity as your guide can lead you towards intuitive eating. Developing authenticity, can lead to acceptance and self-compassion. Authenticity is not a starting point. It is when you get somewhere closer to your true self, through the journey. Having found that true self, it will get easier to find people who you gel with, whose struggles you can understand, empathise with and relate to and offer support. If you get comfortable and open yourself to receive support and motivation from others, you will be off to a great start in reaching your goals.

You need a good milepoint that you can reach for the beginner's high to stretch a bit further when you start. Like Maya, you can find you inner warrior, but first you have to deal with the demons and myths weighing you down.

Setting the goal is not the hard part. We already have our goals in mind. Its saying it loud and confidently that we want it and it can happen. Own the goal, before you can get it. 

In this story, she wanted to be the 'fitness girl'.

In reaching your goals

Lessons from Maya:

Is there someone to push you?

Imagine, someone like Shaun T rallying yout to push and dig deeper.

Are you excited?

If not, find that route. Find out the bus number.

When someone acknowledges that your achievement ( reducing body fat percentage in this case) doesnt come easy, it is motivating to keep going on. You need that cheer leader on your bus.

Identifying discrepancies between your adaptive self and authentic self can develop authenticity. If you find that you are not as consistent as you would like to be, look at the million data points, consistency can be downgraded to 50-70% to still see results. Looking deeper at this distance between your 'belief' eg. I am a fitness person and 'action' I workout consistently, you can see where the dial should go.

In various stages of life, your priorities are on a lazy susan. There was a time when on that movement dial,

I was a 9 - working on the elliptical an hour a day, each day for a whole year

I had to dial it down to 7 - when I was maintaining weight.

Pre-pandemic I was at a 4

But looking at the effect of change in lifestyle, I have dialed it to 5 now.

Through all of this journey, at the core, I am person who enjoys exercise, fitness and now I am trying to be more mindful about the macros. It is good to unleash yourself in different dial positions.

My authenticity take - I was blind to macros and thought that cutting down food would do, another mindset problem I had as a cardio first person was to move to weight training which I have done successfully over the last two years but had great hesitation in focusing on the food. My friends who have followed Taub's or the low carb and intermittent fasting would say how 80% of weight loss is chalked to food, I wanted my way to work. I had to realise that it didnt. It has always been about the 'how-to'. That extra knowledge.

Seeing the sheet where people write down how satiated they were after each meal or even Maya paying attention to what she is eating is akin to meditation, being aware of yourself in relation to the food you take.

All these ups and downs can be taken as a good gauge of self care, to keep our body and mind in balance.

Fitness Myths playing a musical chair.

While reading this seven of the biggest myths in fitness debunked, I wondered how do I as a fitness person react to stopping old moves and picking up new ones. One of the recent craze is the HIIT move. It is more about finding out which is more effective than the ones that need to be forgotten.

Crunches are something that have fallen off the fitness wagon. HIIT is on.

Even though strenth training should come first, cardio is so much fun but if it doesnt work then I can train myself to do less of it. That elliptical, I love it, but strong body and fitness that works first.

I just bought into the 'dont squat past your toes'. Need to tread back on that. Or is that forward?

Day 5 training

Its 2.5 mile today.

I was very prepared to do the remaining of what I cant do, later in the day at home.
I started with elliptical. After 20 min of it, when I got the treadmill, I finished about 0.6 miles. Today's improvement is not increaisng 0.1mph only at the 0.1 mile increment but also when the time hits the next minute.
I took a semi fake bathroom and water break. And then kept my golas as 1.7mi atleast as that was the last reached. Somewhere along the way, I realised my runners hold free up and I knew I was going to finish it all. There was another runner in the background, which gave me extra phillip.
When I was looking at some benefits of cycling, another runner said that yes it has all the benefts of running minus the impact. When I told him about my training program, he thought that I might become a runner.
Other friends are asking me to join them. They are saying things like improving time. Here I am, making it barely. 

Burning fat in gym

Lately I have been worried with an increasing trend in body fat % but I think I found the magic which keeps it at bay. Cardio. 32 min of elliptical followed by Standing Abs workout - 10 minute fat burn. That seems to have done the trick.
Standing abs turns out to be a good choice as a suffice to the exercise. Usually its a 5 min workout repeated twice. Its funny to watch the momentum drop from the first to the second set. The first jumping jacks - I put too much vigor into them. In the second one, my reaction time slowed down so much that it was time for the next move. I didn't miss it. Loved the different take on woodcutter. it almost seemed like a dance.

Training to run a 4.2 mile.

I happened to run in place for a mile on a whim
Did another 0.5mi another day
1.7 mile at 4.8mph, 0.3 mile jogging in place

Volte face workout

I thought I was getting into the pattern of 10-15 elliptical and then 20-30 min stregnth training. Surprise, Surprise, I wanted to do The perfect Total Body workout. Started off well with the lunge warmups in different planes and then when i went to squat, I could feel the strain in the back of the upper arm. Reduced weight, still the same feeling. Thats it for strength training. Its recovery time. Who do you call, in times like these? Shaun T with 8-Minute Flat-Abs Workout was a good change. While waiting for the next exercise to start, I was using bridge as my neutral waiitng posiiton. After that. Then it was this 10 Minute Standing ABS WORKOUT // No Equipment. Liked it with the music. I could feel that I was doing an exercise with impact. I was sweating and feeling the heat. This repeated but I was into it and didnt mind it one bit. Loved the standing pike exercise. Even in Shaun Ts the first exercise takes you from bridge to pike laying down. Its the reverse of  another of his pike pushup where you are on your all fours. Shaun T's exercise had some chair exercises which were fun and you could feel the core. Great workout all in all.

Around the World

Continuing my kettle bell mania, I had fun with the around the world move where you have to move the kettlebell around you. For this and the russian swing I used 25 pounds but for the American swing where yout ake the kettlebell overhead, I only used 15 pounds. For the deadlift when I had to activate the hips and legs, I could feel the effect. The workout did get tough, but it was empowering too without being too easy. I liked it that the other direction in the around the world, counted as another move. Happy exercising.
I started with 10 min elliptical and possibly 12 min of the kettlebell workout. It was fun to feel both athletic with the elliptical as well as strong with the strength training. 

Happy red

For a quick wakeup, we did about 10 min of game day. I dont know how Shaun T comes up with all these oh so tough moves, but thats the challenge. wonderful part of it. Some are hard to imagine with speed and doable only slowly and even that gets tiring.
After that p90x total body seemed like being fair to all parts of the body. I skipped some of the moves as I had done them already in the preceding section.
It was fun that you do some strength training and then you do other moves where you dont hold anything, just your body weight. I did about 20 minutes of it and was all red in the face. Good, happy red.
For a good measure, I did elliptical to cant stop the feeling.

Less is more

Sometimes finding the right workout for the time that you have, can make it feel like you won the Tetris game. I was trying out an isometric workout (I was warm by then with a 30 min elliptical). when I realise dthat I had t repeat what I had just done 2 more times, I looked for kettlebell workouts. At first I thought 20 min, but there wasnt that much time. 10 min kettlebell workout seemed just right. It is well structured too. You end it with three sets of kettlebell pull throughs. I was silly the rest of the day that in technical terms I exercised the posterior chain. Between these sets was a tricep, what else can you ask for? And I am still in the high of feeling that I am an athlete and getting stronger.

Image Courtesy: marioAshley

I remind myself of this, but nah not there yet. Sometimes I am just glad that someone else does the hardwork of counting in all the exercise videos. Heard of it in Arnold schwarzenegger speech.

Later I was thinking of why BodyFit by Amy felt good to work with. Well, its better than a book even with wonderful pictures. Especially with strength workouts. Real people, not too televised.

I think its the neuron mirroring part of having a person workout alongside, even though you are the one trying to do the atchup. Attic Mystery no. 7 at 5:57 is a very funny riddle of how you think the world is like you and vice a versa that you are like the world you are in.

After a week of cold and no exercise, I started elliptical yesterday and I knew that I was going to feel it this morning. Its just weird to have to feel that as a person who worksout atleast 4 days a week.

To commit or not

Usually I am very up about exercise at lunch time each day. But an hour into the day, I started feeling funny in the mouth. When you are start getting aware of your body, that you normally take for granted, then you know that you are not feeling well. I tossed the idea in my head, of calling it a day. Last week, as the usual habit of rallying group forces for the afternoon exercise, I got everyone gung ho about exercise but had to bow out because of involuntary running nose. I didnt want that to happena gain. I had to wait a great deal of time before even saying that I am on the fence. Then in that moment of getting comfortable on the fence, I realised how we might like to do something a lot, but because of circusmtances, like here not knowing if I would be fully well by lunch time to exercise, I couldnt commit to one of my favorite activities, I understood all the ones that sit on the fence.
After an Activa cherry activation, helping a colleague prepare for his first review, when I realised that it might run longer and I might have to help him after gym/lunch, I knew I would exercise today. While reaching the gym, I realised I felt very happy at having helped the colleague even without asking which was later appreciated before the beginning of the meeting.
The exercise itself is Kenpo P90x, which went well. I used 3 pound weights intermittently, dropping it as needed for the speed.  After watching this video, and having heard a speech on weight lifting a while ago, I want to push myself with atleast one move. I love elliptical a lot to not get on it, but one move is easy to add right.

Full body Weighted EMOM

I’m finding I have less time in the mornings. Which means my #workouts take a hit. So much of the time I’m opting for a shorter version like this EMOM!

👉Back squats x6
👉bar pull ups x4
👉lunge with parlof press x5
👉inverted press x4
X 4 rounds#fit pic.twitter.com/oBeZJPND9K

— Fit As A Mama Bear (@FitasaMamaBear) November 5, 2019

The other day, I did dumbbell snatch from Get strong for Woman by Alex Silver Fagan.

                                                                Courtesy: steemit
This picture shows in red, all the muscles you workout. I definitely felt it in arms. Today I did the press with dumbells held as a barbell. with 10 lb I couldnt do more than 3 at once and more after a break. That felt good, as I know that I couldnt get past that, but thats the starting baseline.

Full Body toning and weight loss workouts

Even with stuffy nose, enjoyed this Full Body toning and weight loss workouts. Had done 10 min elliptical in the day. This exercise video tries your balance. Squatting and lifting onto your toes. curtsy lunge.

Will It Be Easy? Nope. Worth It ? Absolutely

Will It Be Easy Nope Worth It Absolutely - Motivational Quote Wall Art Decal - 23" x 34" - Life Quote Wall Decals - Inspirational Gym Wall Decals - Office Vinyl Wall Decal (23" x 34", Red)

Only when you surmount a challenge, do you feel its worth it.
I heard some not good news, so instead of going to the customary Toastmasters, I headed to the gym, to clear the head. Thanks to it, I was ready for another not so good news after it.
I gripped the elliptical too hard, rnough to shrivel a layer in the pl. Its all good now.
A 1hour elliptical is what I used to do 13 years ago, whenever I can redo that, I feel great.

Image Courtesy: inspiration.allwomenstalk.com

Squat on elliptical

Schwinn 430 Elliptical

Today I got sweaty at the elliptical. Turns out that you can do squats on it. Here's how.