Main Menu

challenge yourself!

Started by sheridan, 01 April, 2021, 01:24:25 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

sheridan

As Buttonman's thread will go on haitus until munros open and their other goals get more attainable, I thought I'd start a more general thread for the rest of us to challenge yourself (as everybody knows, if challenges and resolutions are made public then you're more likely to attain them - wether through guilt, shame or support from the people they're been shared with).


I'm mostly copying and pasting what I put in that thread...

Lose Weight / Get Exercise: I think a good proportion of the readers of 2000AD nowadays have that challenge - the demographics mainly being people in middle age or fast approaching. The NHS tells me this:
Healthy weight range for your height: 10st 4lb - 13st 13lb
Your health would really benefit from gradually losing just 5% of your current weight. The best way to lose weight is through a combination of diet and exercise.  Aim to lose 11lbsRecommended daily calorie intake: 2051 - 2637 kcal. 
To lose 1-2lbs a week stick to the lower end of the range.
First challenge I have for this is that neither of the electronic scales in the house currently work, so I'll focus on getting some sort of exercise every day.


Update Blogs regularly : as luck would have it I also have a blog that I need to keep updating regularly.prog slog hack and prog slog hack forum thread
I've had runs where I managed to update pretty every day, for almost six months but this can get challenging at times, either through not having time to write or from encountering publications which take longer to read then the average weekly prog.


Get a Letter Printed: I've not had anything published yet (I think I've sent in a total of about 10 letters and/or emails over the past 35 years) so if I send a letter a week perhaps the constant drip, drip, drip will force Tharg to print one just to shut me up?
This was somewhat harmed by lockdowns and not being able to get the weekly prog in the same week that they come out (I support my friendly local comic shop, so have been having them delivered once a few months worth of progs and megs stack up).

Draw or write something at least once a week: doing a blog commenting on other people's creativity makes me want to spend some time creating things of my own.  Especially when I see the clumsy world-building and art from some early appearances - they might be world-class creators now, but they leant by doing - and in the case of some people all the learning was on public display (I won't mention names, other than what I've already done in my blog).
Not been doing too well at this, but as April is Camp NaNoWriMo month I hope that acts as a kick-start.


Read all the unread comics and graphic novels I've got lying around:  Getting my excuses in early, I've moved house a few times in the last couple of decades and so some issues have got misplaced with all the moves.  I'd hate to read the next issue without having read the preceding one.  It's only this year two years ago that I've managed to get all my reading material in one place and been able to start organising it.  Along with runs which are partially read I have three boxes of comics to read through...  I've made a start with Sandman: Overture, which had had a few issues in one place, one somewhere else and the rest in a third place since it was completed... er... four years ago!
As I mentioned over on the other thread, I managed to read Overture (I even partially compiled a playlist of what the artist said they were listening to while drawing it - available on Spotify.

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: sheridan on 01 April, 2021, 01:24:25 PM
Your health would really benefit from gradually losing just 5% of your current weight. The best way to lose weight is through a combination of diet and exercise.  Aim to lose 11lbsRecommended daily calorie intake: 2051 - 2637 kcal.

This is an admirable goal (I've been on weight loss and fitness kick since last May, mainly as way of trying to salvage something positive from this fucking disaster of a year) but I'd honestly treat the NHS advice on weight loss with some suspicion. Their reliance on BMI is baffling — it's a statistical model that's so vague it ends up being usefully applicable to no one.

The only time I've ever been within the NHS's 'healthy' BMI range was almost thirty years ago when I had a bout of glandular fever and lost two stone in a fortnight*, and at that point I was so thin, I could count my ribs by touch, through a suit. I likewise checked the NHS site a few months back, and it advised me to lose weight (which I absolutely still need to) and suggested that at my age/weight/activity level, I should aim for 2300-2700cal per day to lose the necessary weight.

If I get anywhere near a 2000cal/day average (including booze), I put weight on. And that's working out seven days a week, burning ~1100cal/day in exercise alone.

There's a certain amount of trial and error in this (especially since a diet that makes you miserable is pointless, because you won't stick to it) but I'd go low for a week — as few calories as you can manage without making yourself ill, and see what the scales tell you. From there, you can calculate up to a more acceptable calorie range that will still deliver a weekly loss.

Obviously, I'm not a qualified dietician, so treat everything I say with a pinch of salt (or low-sodium alternative) but I've struggled with my weight my entire life, and since last May I've managed to shift 13.7kg... so I've done something that's working.

*My throat was so inflamed that I couldn't eat solids, not even thick/chunky soup.
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: sheridan on 01 April, 2021, 01:24:25 PM
Draw or write something at least once a week:

On that note, might I direct your attention to the monthly sketch comp? This month's comp, Sidekicks, will open for entries tomorrow!
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

Barrington Boots

Sheridan, you can totally achieve the stuff on your list and it's all admirable stuff too.

What Jim says about BMI is true, it's useless. When I lost weight for my wedding (10 years ago mind) I found one of those calorie counting apps useful for simply telling me what the content was for the stuff I was eating, which meant I started making more informed choices and it worked wonders without needing to resort to a strict diet regime. When you know a Mars Bar is the equivalent to half your dinner, or that it'd take you 4 hours to work it off, then you feel less inclined to have one unless you really, really want it.

I'm in awful shape nowdays, perhaps I should challenge myself here too.
You're a dark horse, Boots.

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: Barrington Boots on 01 April, 2021, 03:15:01 PM
I found one of those calorie counting apps useful for simply telling me what the content was for the stuff I was eating

Yeah. The thing is, 2000 calories is actually a lot of food if you only eat three meals a day. In fact, I think most people would struggle to eat the full 2000 if you, say, divided it up as 500 each for a proper breakfast and lunch, then 1000 for your evening meal. It's snacks, non-diet soft drinks, and booze that quickly fill up those 2000cal, but don't leave you feeling full.

Also: carbs. Not your friend. Try to get more calories from protein and fats, which your body is pretty good at burning, and fewer from carbs, which your body is less efficient at processing and just converts to body fat to store the calories.

The health industry's decades-long war on fat in our diet needs to stop — the real enemy is sugar and processed carbohydrates. We've been cutting fat in our diets for as long as many people have been alive, and we still have an obestity crisis, and Type 2 diabetes is rampant.
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

Trooper McFad

All the best on your endeavours Sheridan 👍🏻
Citizens are Perps who haven't been caught ... yet!

Woolly

'Draw or write something at least once a week'

I'm halfway through trying to complete 6 fanart requests today - it's going well so far, but I fear it's going to spill into tomorrow...




JayzusB.Christ

Aye, best of luck all. Me, I'm getting much more physical exercise in these days and meditating twice a day into the bargain.

Still having trouble processing the idea that fat has never been the cause of obesity. I mean I believe it, but I've been conditioned for decades to suppose otherwise. You'd think the clue was in the name.

And I see that Woolly has posted while I was writing this. Utterly amazing work. You just get better all the time.
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

Funt Solo

I need to get back into a stronger PT routine for my dodgy knee. I've managed to lose 10lb since July, in an effort to take some weight off the knee and get my blood pressure back into the normal zone. But, since I stopped regular PT classes, my knee regimen has gotten patchy as all get-out. It will regress if I just sit here typing all day...
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

Buttonman

Good luck with your endeavours Sheridan - I found a thread or blog or any sort of record helped keep things on track. You can lie to yourself but it's tougher with an audience!

The Enigmatic Dr X

On BMI, I vividly remember a critical article that started with a full page photo of Lennox Lewis (who was champ at the time).

The guy was ripped . All muscle. I mean, he was the epitome of physical perfection.

The caption was (paraphrasing) "This man is morbidly obese."
Lock up your spoons!

paddykafka

Considering the advancing age demographic some of us Squaxx are in, I fear that all this "challenging yourself" stuff should come with a Health Warning.  :)

https://www.facebook.com/grumpyoldgits/photos/a.232717906790512/3970692862992979/


dossa1uk

For what it's worth, both a thread, and a subject, to kick me out of the shadows and contribute. 

Good luck (and well done) to those trying to make a change with their fitness or their body shape or their health - I bounced around as overweight for years, despite being incredibly active, finding all kinds of excuses or reasons as to why I wasn't making any progress. 

Everyone is different, but what worked for me was being forensic with my calories, understanding the difference between carbs, protein and fats, and adding a significant amount of weight training to my exercise. 

I lost three stone, got down to a dangerously low weight (gaunt!), and was able to run for miles and miles and miles.  However, I went too far - since then, I've put another stone back on thanks to weight training, and have allowed myself to relax when I tick over my self-set calorie limit every now and again.  I'm now as healthy, and most importantly, as happy as I've ever been with my health. 

So, in short, watch out for carbs, especially sneaky ones like booze and biscuits, don't cheat yourself (if it's been a bad day, log it anyway), don't beat yourself up if you go off piste every now and again, and don't get down-hearted if your gains slow down after that initial improvement.

sheridan

End of the first day and I managed to get a blog post (including an annual featuring a text story) out.

I'm not too fixated on weight (or BMI), that was just a starting point.  Not having working scales means weight isn't going to be an issue for a while :-)  Though all the local stables do have a weight limit and I think I'm just the wrong side of it - riding a horse this time next year, or even at the end of this year, would be a good goal.  For the time being getting regular exercise and not eating too much unhealthy food will be good enough.

Hoping that a four-day weekend will allow me to spread my time among some of my other goals too...

sheridan

Oh, and I've had issues with my weight for most of my life, but up until the age of forty it was generally that I was under weight and couldn't put it on.  How things change...