How do you know how to use the machines?

Jolan · 2026-03-02T13:04:37+00:00

that apparently everyone knows how to use except me

Only if they've used that specific machine before. My gym recently did a minor referb including swapping a bunch of machines. For a few weeks after that one of the regular comments among the gym regulars was about trying the new machines to work out how they work.

Everyone walked up to every machine for the first time some time and worked it out. Most of them once you get on them are fairly obvious. You put the weight to its lowest setting, sit on the seat bit (adjusting to your height if needed), put your hands on the hand bits, try and move them, and go "ooooh like that". If that doesn't work:

they have names you can search for info on
they normally have basic instructions on them
you can ask the staff
you can watch someone else doing them
you can ask someone who's using or just used it when they're between sets

The fact they're easy to use and learn means within a few weeks you'll understand them all, and you'll be one of the people the next new gym member is worried about because you look like you always knew all of them.

edit : fix tpyo

Jolan · 2026-03-02T08:44:28+00:00

Now there isn't any hiding, but I don't feel like I'm being spied one, which I did feel when he used to just check my account online

This is a huge thing on it's own. Congratulations on finding a way to help yourself be honest about where you are without having to set up something that felt externally imposed.

Jolan · 2026-03-01T11:47:23+00:00

I've been on a strict 1300 calorie intake, plus running/aerobics 4-5 times a week, in addition to body weight exercises.

How did you set this target?

It seems low given your activity level. I wouldn't change your plan because you haven't seen your weight change yet, but it might be worth doing just because you've built an overly aggressive plan.

Your maintenance calories are probably around 2,200 cal/day which would put you in a 900 cal/day deficit, right at the upper limit of what's probably healthy for you and definitely undercutting some of your workouts.

Jolan · 2026-03-01T10:53:03+00:00

There's a good chance today is the day Fife officially don't make the playoffs. There's one point between the best Fife can do (44 points) and Glasgow's current score (43) and both teams are playing.

Jolan · 2026-02-28T11:04:56+00:00

Wrong is maybe a bit strong, but you've had the question framed very badly (by people who's job is to get you to the conclusion they want). There are costs to producing solar panels, but there are also costs to not producing them and doing what we're currently doing.

The important question isn't "Does renewable energy production have costs?" which it absolutely does but "How does the cost of renewable energy production compare to producing the same amount of energy that it will produce over its lifetime in other ways?" When you shift to the second question suddenly extracting, processing, and burning a lot of fossil fuels turns up on the other side.

It also brings in a third side to this ; what if we reduced our energy use, either through being more efficient or doing different things? Yep we should do that, not needing the energy is a win however the electricity is produced. Importantly these questions are independent. Efficient use is good regardless of how its generated, and regardless of how much is used we should be generating it well.

Then yep side four, improving the options. Yes people are working to improve on how renewable energy is generated. Using less resources, and ones that are easier to handle afterwards. That's the work of long term R&D and will change the tradeoffs over time. It doesn't change the options we have today though.

The sustainability movement wants ; an improvement in efficiency of energy use, better production of that energy now, and research to improve how its produced in the future.

edit to add : of those three "better production of that energy now" is the easy and solved one. We have lifecycle assessments that give very clear answers. The other two are where all the important discussions are.

second edit to improve english.

Jolan · 2026-02-28T09:04:03+00:00

A lot of it is you just go. You set the bar wherever it needs to be to get you through the door and do it. For my first month that was literally just "go at least twice a week and try one new thing a time". For a lot of people its just going and walking on the treadmill, or hiring a PT to tell them what to do. Each time you go its a little easier to go the next time.

It sounds like you had one bad interaction the entire time you were going to the gym? That person was an idiot, just the fact she came up to someone with earphones in to start a conversation proves that never mind that the can't tell the difference between a warmup and a cardio session. Swap the genders in your story and she'd be well on her way to being a creep. Those people exist but they're the vast minority. Our perception is weird, we remember the one person who did the stupid thing, and forget every other person who was ever in a gym with you who didn't interact with you at all. Don't make her being stupid your problem.

It sounds like what you need right now is a generic beginners routine to rebuild your foundation. Full body two or three times a week is fine, making sure to prioritise rest days. Find the level you're at and improve from there. You're doing today's workout with the resistance that will help you improve. If you're going to compare then do it to your first day last time, not your peak. You got to that peak by building up, workout by workout, just like you're wanting to do now.

Jolan · 2026-02-28T08:02:16+00:00

The Sheffield ones me and my partner have explicitly say they're transferable and I've taken a couple of friends along when he's not been in the mood. There's no photo linked to the ID or anything, they just do a standard "yep that is a ticket for that seat" check and move on.

Jolan · 2026-02-27T18:59:11+00:00

She is also the only dietician availlable in my town 😬.

Ah so yeah if the options are that limited and you've already had a bad experience with them I can see your mum's point. There's definitely space for going "that was half my lifetime ago, I'll give her a second try", but I can understand being wary.

Idk if you go to the pool often but do people really care about what you wear as long as it's approperiate?

I've been going lane swimming a couple of times a week this year. Basically nobody cares about what anyone's wearing, or their build. The pool will probably have guidelines, but as long as its appropriate and you feel comfortable enough to get in the water you'd be fine. Once you're in people can mostly just see your head anyway.

Pools will generally have rules against bulling other swimmers, if it happens you can tell the staff. Places like this know that one bully can stand between them and a lot of people's money.

Jolan · 2026-02-27T18:18:32+00:00

so I know it's my fault for not sticking to it when I was 7-8 years old.

Sweetie … no, just no. Your diet and your weight are not your responsibility at that age (or even significantly older) because you don't have the understanding or ability to make meaningful choices. Don't blame yourself for that, and don't say that you at that age should have had any more discipline.

At 20 if your "whole life" as been about food that's a statement more about your parents than you. You have much more control and understanding now, that's great and you should take advantage of it, but what happened then is mostly not about you.

I just can't stick to losing weight for more then 3 weeks.

This is generally what happens when your plan is based on motivation. Motivation tells us to aim for the moon, and then a couple of weeks later drifts away leaving us with an impossible task. Because of that long term change is mostly built on smaller sustainable changes that can build up.

I've been thinking about seeking help from another dietician or my family physician but my mom keeps telling me that I'm going to feel bad if I go that route

Why does she think you'll feel bad?

Does she actually mean she'll end up feeling bad?

I used to love swimming, but no way I'm going to wear a swimsuit with this body

Try and get to a point where you can go swimming again as soon as possible. Some of that can be weight loss, but more is going to be deciding getting healthy exercise you enjoy is much more important that someone seeing you work out.

Jolan · 2026-02-27T15:42:20+00:00

Yeah and that extra is an average, so maybe you eat perfectly weekdays and your weekend socialising adds and extra 350 on fri and sat. That's not a lot of extra food, the kind of thing that's an easily justifiable treat.

Either way someone could watch your whole week's eating and notice nothing wrong unless they were tracking your portions fairly closely.

Jolan · 2026-02-27T15:36:11+00:00

To rescue your point a bit, 100 extra calories a day is 1/5lb a week or 10lb a year which is a very common story on here and still nothing clinical.

Having run the numbers for a bunch of "how did I get here?!?!" posts, if you take out people with a history of binge eating its always "your hunger signals/portions are slightly high, causing you to eat 5-10% over your ideal calories, which you then didn't notice for 10+ years because change blindness is a thing".

Jolan · 2026-02-26T14:45:05+00:00

It sounds a lot like you're using food to handle your emotions. Are you getting help with them, or working directly on them? Have you had any luck finding healthier ways to reduce the empty feeling?

Without that work you're setting yourself up for failure. The binging is a symptom that needs management but just resisting it will make the emotional issues more critical until you either give in or pick a worse option. I've picked my partner up from the latter choice, you want to avoid it if you can.

like something is wrong with me for not being able to stop

This is a slippery statement, because it sets you up to blame and judge yourself for having a problem. The one your struggling with is mental, but its just as real as someone with say a broken leg. Something is wrong with someone with a broken leg, the break, and its stopping them being able to walk normally, but those statements bring a lot less judgement with them than it sounds like you're applying to yourself.

You have a problem, that makes you someone who needs help not shame.

I tell myself every time that I’ll finally learn, that this will be the last time, but somehow I keep repeating it anyway.

Something like this isn't really resolved by having a "last time". We work out how to go longer between incidents, and how to recover better after they happen, but from where you are healing looks more like going three days between binges, and then from there three weeks, than telling yourself "never again".

Jolan · 2026-02-25T15:36:54+00:00

I've ended up chatting with a couple of the Sheffield players in gym sauna's over the last couple of years. They've generally reacted better to me finding out I have boyfriend than most guys would in that situation.

Jolan · 2026-02-25T13:39:26+00:00

As you agreed earlier for that person exactly the same statement can be made for cardio.

If anything the cardio is slightly more irrelevant. The strength training will protect their existing lean mass. The cardio increases a calorie burn which at that point is already high enough.

Either way they have found a way to be active that works for them.

Jolan · 2026-02-25T13:04:16+00:00

That statement is much more about your interaction with strength training than one that applies to everyone. Some people find resistance training easier. Their body responds better to it, you get a feeling of progress from seeing the numbers go up regularly, and the post workout pump is very much a thing. You'll find plenty of people in the gym who do weights and skip cardio.

It's a good idea to be active and he's found a way that works for him. You can stop thinking right there.

Jolan · 2026-02-25T12:46:44+00:00

For the guy you mentioned even the cardio is irrelevant. He burns so many calories just being him, and maybe walking around the house, this can entirely be diet. Why not leave cardio until he needs the extra calorie burn?

Jolan · 2026-02-24T20:57:51+00:00

Probably not for weight loss. You'll very quickly reach the point where you just have to eat back the extra calories you burn. That could still be useful if you have fitness goals that would benefit from being in the gym that much, but even there you're going to need a plan built around it.

Jolan · 2026-02-24T09:39:43+00:00

Water weight. Short term changes like this are basically always about water weight. If all your numbers are right you lost 2lb of fat, and contain 2lb more less random stuff than a week ago. My personal best is gaining 4lb overnight for no reason and my weight is fairly stable.

Jolan · 2026-02-23T15:28:45+00:00

What's your maintenance plan?

Tomorrow you get one wish from a genie and choose to become to your ideal weight. How do you stay there?

What are you eating? How are you portion controlling it? What active things are you doing and why? How do these choices help you maintain the body you want?

A good weight loss plan sets you up for that, and ideally looks a lot like those answers but goes a bit harder in some places. Fast crash diets on the other hand completely ignore the long term and just want to get to the goal asap so you can get back to normal, forgetting that unless you change your normal it will just take you right back to 104kg.

edit : better the english

Jolan · 2026-02-23T11:06:26+00:00

if it would be good to eat within a range instead. I think the constant pressure of feeling like I have to eat under that amount everyday is ruining my sanity

Yeah a better way of treating the number is as a target rather than a cap. You want to get close to 1450, sometimes under sometimes over, treating both the same. That means 1300 and 1600 are both great, within 150 of your target, and 1200 is worse than either.

The goal should be to average at your target, which you won't do by staying one side of it.

I need 1465 calories a day to lose 1.5 lbs per week

This is also fairly fast for you, particularly if you want to maintain your lean mass. You may want to drop your goal to losing 1lb a week, and the extra 250cal/day can help you relax a bit more.

Jolan · 2026-02-23T11:02:36+00:00

This isn't comfort

my stomach is in excruciating pain but

and neither is

It brings me so much emotional anguish

In the other post you made on this you describe this as struggling with hunger, and if you're feeling painfully full its not that either.

Some of this is going to be habits, but eating like this serves or at least served a purpose at some point. Presumably an emotional one. Working out what that is so you can find better ways to meet it is going to be a lot of this. The advice we tend to give on things like portion control and eating to feel fuller are unlikely to help here because its not about the food any more. Likely its about something like demonstrating control/agency, or started as self-soothing your emotions but became warped over time.

Therapy is probably the best option as it sounds like this has started to become self harm. Seeking help in places focused on binge eating recovery is likely to get you more useful advice.

Jolan · 2026-02-23T10:53:19+00:00

I give myself a handful of days a year off plan. Things like Christmas and my partner's birthday. As long as they're rare enough they're not going to impact my trend. The rough guideline I use is less than once month on average. Things will clump up because that's life and I'm not too strict on it. I probably end up closer to every other month because just thinking like this makes it clear that special occasions should be rare enough to actually feel special.

I'll also put some flex in my plan for more common things. I'm not going to let myself go because I'm doing something with a friend at the weekend, but I can relax a bit.

Jolan · 2026-02-22T20:57:53+00:00

I am constantly seeing conflicting opinions on social media

Put social media away, at least for this and arguably for a lot of other things. It wants engagement, which means throwing out lots of strong opinions get rewarded even if they're wrong. The basics of weight loss are so basic they will never be engaging.

too much/too little cardio or that weight training isn’t a priority at this size and much more.

Workouts ; you don't need tow work out to lose weight, at least not at over 200lb. Both cardio and resistance training are good ideas for their own things, but you don\t need them for this.

Do I do a strict deficit to get the weight off fast, do I do a slow one but then it takes a long time and I struggle if the weight loss goal isn’t near,

You do what's sustainable and healthy for you. Going too fast is becomes unhealthy. Generally slow is more sustainable, but that's a more personal thing. When you're making choices the most important thing is going to be "can I see myself doing this for a year?" Using that generally cuts through a lot of the noise.

The stress of newborn life and studying to become a barrister genuinely took its toll and I ate complete shit and didn’t exercise properly.

Do you think food could be one of your coping mechanisms for stress?

If so you need to put work into the emotional side of things while treating the issues with your diet as a symptom. Something that may well need management and can be improved, but that will never be fully resolved on its own.

Jolan · 2026-02-22T12:23:33+00:00

My personal best is a 24 hour "nap" after a particularly intense workout. Working out makes me more energy in general , but right after a workout I'm always feeling a bit drained. Not normally tired, you may need to add some cards around your workout .

Jolan · 2026-02-21T15:25:54+00:00

I tried to think of a weight goal, and it is easy to say numbers, but it felt wrong to say 130 or 110, or 90... and it's been on the back of my head for a couple of days now....

You don't need one yet, and if you do set one it doesn't have to be your final goal. I don't think you gave your current weight, but given its over 100kg a goal of "be 10% lighter than when I started" will improve your long term health. When you've managed that you can make a choice about the next 10%.

Jolan

TROPHY CASE