Fitness & Health Thread

I was surprised I couldn't any thread on this topic. If there's one and I missed it, please let me know.

So, I've been yo-yo-ing with my fitness and weight gain for the past 2 years now. I've lost around 25kg initially, then I put back on 35kg. And now I've been trying to get back into the groove of things, to lose it all again.

And I've also restarted my cold shower routine. I did only cold showers and baths for about 2 years, and then one day I just gave it up. I guess I wanted some comfort. But now I want to keep this up again, since there are significant benefits:
- helps with muscle and joint recovery and reduces tissue inflamation
- it puts me mentally in a different mood
- you get an awesome rush of adrenaline after the initial shock from the cold wears out.
- another benefit, is that during those 2 years I only caught a cold once. Not exactly scientific, but I assume a lot of that is due to the cold exposure in the shower.
- and I'm able to wear very little clothing even in the winter. During the last year of my consistent cold showers, I was walking out in training shorts in december at close 0 degrees Celsius.

Anyone else want to share something about their fitness journey? Anyone a fan of cold showers like I am?

I used to love cold showers myself, oddly enough when I lived in Canada. Now having been in Florida for almost three years, even a cool shower is almost painful to me. I've also lost a great deal of weight over the past same amount of time, so that might be a factor as well. I remember taking minus forty celcius temperatures for almost twenty minutes three years ago, and laughing it off. When it dips below twenty now, I find myself reaching for a sweater.

When I sit out on my porch I like to use my little barbells, and take a break from reading now and then. I don't walk well, but I do my best to keep my arms in shape.

Carnifex said:

I used to love cold showers myself, oddly enough when I lived in Canada. Now having been in Florida for almost three years, even a cool shower is almost painful to me. I've also lost a great deal of weight over the past same amount of time, so that might be a factor as well. I remember taking minus forty celcius temperatures for almost twenty minutes three years ago, and laughing it off. When it dips below twenty now, I find myself reaching for a sweater.

When I sit out on my porch I like to use my little barbells, and take a break from reading now and then. I don't walk well, but I do my best to keep my arms in shape.

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Yeah, it's amazing how much adaptation plays a role in how feel about various painful stimuli. I used to spend 10 mins under a cold shower and besides the initial ghasp for air, I was calm and fine. Now, while trying to ease myself back into it, I only spend time rinsing myself with cold water and I really find it painful for the first seconds. Then it becomes bearable.

But damn, -40C? Holy shit that's hard core. I think the lowest I experienced was around -20 or so? And I remember my eyes hurting like hell, and constant tearing up in the eyes.

I should make a counter thread called Fatness & Heath...bars.

I mentioned the other day that, a few years back, I piled on the pounds. I'd never been overweight before, and, my god, did my body let me know it didn't like it. I had no energy, was foggy headed, started snoring and sleeping badly, developed weird rashes. My body was pretty much saying, "OK, matey - if you think you're going to go through life like this, you're in for a rough ride." I do think that some people who suffer with mysterious health conditions should really consider seeing if they could get down to a healthy level of body fat, and see if it makes a difference.

I always try to keep things simple with health and fitness. All I did was give up booze, and stop eating anything that could be considered junk - fresh food only. Then I went for a good long walk every day. Didn't take that long to sort it out.

A hard no to cold showers, though.

Ripper said:

I always try to keep things simple with health and fitness. All I did was give up booze, and stop eating anything that could be considered junk - fresh food only. Then I went for a good long walk every day. Didn't take that long to sort it out.

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I'm more of an extremes person. I can never manage to be balanced. I either go all out on working out and having a clean diet, or I binge on anything under the sun and just let myself go. Not a healthy approach. I would not recommend it.

If you ever hunger for true cold, just visit Alberta between Jan-March, and you'll likely find some very low dips. And to make it more amusing, since that's prairie country, you can expect some serious wind to go with those frigid temps!

I've installed two apps on my phone (six pack and arm workout) and I routinely do exercises each night. It lifts my energy and spirit and I rarely have back pain now. It's a series of 20-30 min exercises, you start with basic ones and progress to harder and longer ones. No need for any equipment, just get one of those thicker yoga mats.

As far as apps or tech used in working out, I've been doing part of my cardio using either Beat Saber for something very light, or BoxVR/FitXR. BoxVR in particular is fantastic as cardio. It's basically shadowboxing in VR, set to music.

And I've recently discovered that the Steam version of BoxVR supports custom music, so I can load my own songs there. The bad news is they plan on updating BoxVR to FitXR (which is currently available on Oculus, but not on Steam). And in FitXR there's no more custom songs feature. They just took it out under the bullshit reason that they can't control the quality of the experience. I'm not sure what the reason is. I imagine they're being pressured by lawyers, in that they could be facilitating pirated music? I'm not sure, but it's insane.

So I've pretty much had to back up my steam copy of the game, in the current state, investigated how you can block a steam game from updating itself, and hope that this way, when the FitXR update does come along, I can still go back to the old version. Unless something breaks, and I'm no longer able to. I hope not.

This is such a bullshit thing we're accepting with digital goods. That after we buy something in a certain state, the developer can just change it or even take away features which are important to you. I wonder if there's any legal battle being done against this.

I wouldn't think legal risks around piracy are the problem. I'd say it's safe to let people add their own legal copies of music to a game. Might even be recordings of their own music.

I'd guess that it's more just that it would have a cost to implement the feature on their new platform.

Ripper said:

I wouldn't think legal risks around piracy are the problem. I'd say it's safe to let people add their own legal copies of music to a game. Might even be recordings of their own music.

I'd guess that it's more just that it would have a cost to implement the feature on their new platform.

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If that's the reason, it's an embarrasing one. They've really hit it big. They're pretty much the biggest fitness app on VR. So if they can't afford to do this, which they already did in BoxVR version, they're real scumbags. They just have to port the same code.

Once again, I'm trying to get lifting weights and get in good physical shape. Usually, i go way too hard and end up hurting myself, stopping, and being unable to go back.

This time, I'm sticking to dumbells for a while. No bench pressing, no machines.
Light dumbells to warm up, slightly heavier to work out.

We'll see how it goes…

I played a lot of sports and wrestled for ten years when I was younger. Have lifted weights since I was in the 8th grade. The only time I was out of shape was when I was 29 years old and blew out my left shoulder bench pressing. I stopped lifting weights for around two years because when you go from benching 380 to having a hard time lifting 225 it was embarrassing.

I started packing on the pounds and not eating as healthy in those 2 years. I decided to switch my workouts and not go for the heavy reps and do more body exercises like push-ups, sit-ups, dips, and pull-ups. Do lighter weights with more reps and less rest between sets. Also, started a stretching program. Very important as you get older.

I have been the same weight for the past 20 years. What I weighed in college, 190 pounds. I don't eat fast food anymore but I still, get pizza sometimes. Can't imagine living without pizza.

xSamhainx said:

Once again, I'm trying to get lifting weights and get in good physical shape. Usually, i go way too hard and end up hurting myself, stopping, and being unable to go back.

This time, I'm sticking to dumbells for a while. No bench pressing, no machines.
Light dumbells to warm up, slightly heavier to work out.

We'll see how it goes…

Click to expand...

It's so important to very gradually increase the weight you handle. I learned the hard way. Muscles usually adapt quite fast, especially if you're a beginner. But the tendons which attach those same muscles to your bones adapt a lot slower. So it can be very dangeous to handle a lot of weight quickly. You might be able to for short bursts, but they can lead to serious injury.

I'm also guilty of the same explosion of enthusiams, going 110% and then burning out. Consistency is so important, but unfortunately it's quite boring and monotonous to achieve.

As for myself, I seem to have somehow managed to catch a cold. Even though I'm staying mostly inside, and only going out with a mask. Weird how that works. I wonder where I caught it from.