Posts by ftay

I also played field hockey in high school, and thru a lot of hard work, managed to get onto Varsity my sophomore year. We had the same problem with coaches - shipped us off to training camp over the summer, and then did nothing to improve skill sets during the season. Just there for the paycheck. Maybe worse than your coach, but I know the feeling. The last straw was when I was badmouthed by the JV coach for "faking" a terrible ankle sprain that left me in an air cast for weeks. I quit the team.

Field hockey was really fun, and there are days when I think back and wonder what would've happened if I stayed. But unless you are good enough to get a college scholarship, don't put yourself thru so much misery. You're supposed to be enjoying life right now. Other sports are out there. Other teams are waiting. It's more important to get good grades and get into a good school.

You can find guidelines from CC under your 'Account Settings' tab for 'My Account'.  I would not recommend eating that same amount of calories on nonworkout days.  On days when I am not working out, I eat at a sedentary caloric level, which usually equals about 100-200 less calories than my workout days.  If you want to maintain your current weight (i.e., not lose any more weight) eat roughly the same number of calories that you burn each day. Keep in mind that these are recommendations derived from mathematical calculations. Depending on your own physiology, you may want to experiment with slightly different numbers of calories after trying out the recommended caloric levels. But for an average height woman (I think around 5'6"), it's best to eat at least 1200 (for shorter ladies you can get away with 1000-1100 calories, but remember this is your absolute minimum!) Weight loss is usually best achieved at higher calories than that absolute minimum, believe it or not. I wouldn't want to diet on the absolute minimum - then what do you do when your diet is over? Keep starving yourself to maintain? Not fun :)

Sedentary

• At work - you work in an office
• At home - you're usually sitting, reading, typing or working at a computer
• Exercise - you don't exercise regularly

Light Activity

• At work - you walk a lot
• At home - you keep yourself busy and move a lot
• Exercise - you participate in light exercise or take long walks

Moderate Activity

• At work - you are very active much of the day
• At home - you rarely sit and do heavy housework or gardening
• Exercise - you exercise several times a week and push yourself pretty hard

Very Active

• At work - you hold a labor-intensive job such as construction worker or bicycle messenger
• At home - you are very active with heavy lifting and other rigorous activities
• Exercise - you participate in physical sports such as jogging or mountain-biking each day

Incorrect.  Your sedentary burn is based upon your statistical information, i.e., starting weight, height, age, etc.  An extremely overweight person will have a higher sedentary burn than someone approaching their goal weight.  As a corollary, as your weight decreases, so does your sedentary burn. That's why people typically have to decrease their caloric intake as they lose more and more weight.  It's a personal figure for every CC user. For e.g., with my stats, my sedentary burn is 1800.  Your BMR, if I am correct, is your caloric burn at complete rest - think sleeping for an entire day. Sedentary burn is higher than that. It takes into account normal day-to-day functions like walking to your car, typing at work, etc. HTH!

Ha! For what it's worth, I'm 26! Anyway, no hard feelings toward anyone.

Sigh. He filmed himself jumping over his friend's moving car, jumping into some guy's face off a wall, ripping his clothes off, etc. I mean, come on, workout routine? I think one should also be a little more realistic about the impressionability of young people and how difficult "parental control" can be for a parent. It happens. And parents aren't omnipotent.

Yes, I do think it's lame when someone uses their athletic talent to engage in cheap stunts like that. That's just my philosophy about the body, and my own opinion that some of them were, in fact, cheap stunts. I just don't see how it's a constructive use of the body. He's not working in controlled stunt conditions in a lot of the clips, and the ridiculousness of some of the stunts struck me as immature. Anyway, that's my personal opinion, as it relates to my beliefs about the athletic endeavor. I have no desire to further argue about this. I think you're giving me too much credit by claiming you need to rebut any "implied assertions," but please, feel free to rebut at will as these assumptions develop in your psyche... or provide more movie references. You really dated yourself with Trainspotting, there.

Um, a lot of that actually looks really dangerous.  I don't know, call me old fashioned, but I think it's lame when people misuse their athletic gifts.  Hope to gd some 12 year old doesn't try to jump off a building now...

Hi! I have very similar stats, and perpetually go through the same stress/boredom weight gain during finals. I'm down to 142 today and working on maintaining. I find I do best with loss at around 1800-1900 cals (on exercise days). Your maintenance at 2400-2600 sounds about right, if you're active.

I hit a plateau recently because I wasn't eating enough calories, thinking 1600-1700 was enough. I pushed things up to 2000+ for a couple days, then dipped back to 1800-1900 and it got back working again.

As for avoiding hunger, protein protein protein. And fiber. Try to restrict your sugar - I find that spikes hunger and cravings for me. Protein will be good for you anyway, if you're exercising as much as you are, and it's also great for keeping you feeling full for longer periods. Think lean meats like white chicken breast, couple tbsps peanut butter, yogurt cups. Fiber also fills you up at relatively low cals - I love snacking on popcorn, apples, celery, etc.

Oh, the treadmill vs. elliptical debate haha. There is actually a thread about that somewhere on here. They're both just fine - it's all about what you're comfortable with and enjoy using. I prefer the elliptical bc my knees are shot from field sports, and I like being able to mess with the resistance and incline levels. Some people use both!

I would check again to make sure you're reading the elliptical correctly. I have very similar stats to you (5'9" 144lb) and on a light use of the elliptical I use resistance 5 at 160 steps per minute. This is usually enough to get my heart rate up, but not enough to really get me working. But again, everyone is different. I use the elliptical for cardio, so I would lean toward faster pace at a lower resistance. Some people like using the elliptical to build up their leg muscles, so they go slowly at 10-12 resistance levels. Again, all about preference. But personally, if you're looking to build up your leg muscles, I think you're better off doing squats or lunges than wasting your time on the elliptical.

Your biggest bang for your buck would be doing HIIT on the elliptical. Go as fast as you can for 30 sec-1 min, then slow down and go at a reasonable pace for 1-2 min. Repeat for a total of 10-15min. I do this every so often when I really feel like torturing myself. Most people start off with 30 sec fast, 2 min rest. I go 1 min fast, 1 min rest. Do that for 15 minutes and you'll feel it. 

For the first time on the elliptical, you did just fine. It takes a while to get used to a machine. Just play around with the settings. Almost all cardio machines overestimate your caloric burn. If you want perfect calculations, buy a heart rate monitor. Other than that, just keep track of the settings you use on the machines and use the CC burn calculator to get a reasonable estimate. Hope that helps!

Ditto to what ds1973 said, but if you're looking for a movement, I suggest dumbbell rows. You don't need a gym membership for this: just find something heavy and start lifting:

 http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/BackGener al/DBBentOverRow.html

If you're already doing back exercises and finding no progress, you either have more fat to lose (this is 99% diet) or you're not lifting enough weight. Reps with 5lb dumbbells is going to do nothing. Go for higher weight, lower reps.

Oh, they do. *Allegedly* only 18 year olds can access the main gym unattended by an instructor, though I think the management doesn't even follow that qualification judging by how many teenagers I see there playing on the weight machines for hours on end (yet another gripe I have). They have a separate room and training area for child's exercise. I could understand a fitness "camp" environment, but this is pure circuit training this guy has these poor babies doing. Why in the world you would do that to a perfectly healthy child, I don't know, but to stand there while they do it incorrectly, risking injury, is just beyond me.

If I work out too late in the evening, I have problems sleeping. Example: Late visit to gym, ending 8 or 9pm. I'll crash at 11pm no problem, and then wake up at 3 or 4am ready to run a marathon. Try working out earlier in the day.

I kind of have to agree with the people who say to keep mum about it. Although you yourself have suffered from an ED and may feel competent to discuss the issue with another individual, you are not a trained psychologist or a physician specialist capable of properly addressing the myriad shades of ED and their attendant issues. I know it can be heart wrenching to observe another person (allegedly) in a condition you once suffered from yourself, but it's improper to project your own assumptions and experiences on another individual like that. For all you know, your confrontration may have been a trigger for her to engage in more destructive behavior. It would have been best to alert the gym staff to this concern - particularly if you work out at a university gym where psych staff can intervene with much more ease than in normal public gyms.

Paripurna Navasana (Full Boat Pose)

http://www.stumptuous.com/abdominal-training

I love http://allrecipes.com/ bc there are just so many recipes, and you can narrow things down to healthy or low cal categories!

I also love love loooove http://www.101cookbooks.com/ bc the recipes are usually very healthy and often organic, but also so interesting and easy to make. For example - Sunday's recipe was "Baked Sweet Potato Falafel" - YUM!!!