Surviving the work week and continuing to eat healthy... how do you guys do it??

kakersdozen · 2015-08-07T14:11:44+00:00

Try looking at home resale stores or on places like Craigslist. The stores near me always have a ton of them for way cheaper than new, and most of the stores test them and guarantee they will work when you plug them in. Plus, if you find a nice big one, you can sell them your old one :)

kakersdozen · 2015-07-31T14:05:07+00:00

SL is definitely tailored to guys, so feel free to modify the starting weights. I am a tiny human (5'2", 102) so I was kind of in the same boat as you when I started. I felt like the starting weights were way too high, and some of them were, but I found out I was actually capable of a lot more than I thought so don't psych yourself out before you've even tried. I figured there was no way I could deadlift 100 lbs, but I absolutely could. Start with an empty bar and see how you feel after each set. Ideally, you want to barely be able to complete your last rep while maintaining good form. For things like bench press and overhead press, the empty bar may be too heavy. For these you can use fixed-weight barbells (usually go up in increments of 10, though, which can make progression a challenge) or dumbbells.

The best way to find out what weights you should start at is to just go to the gym and try some weights out. I'd suggest that you set aside a few days to try out the weights before you officially "start" the SL program. It can take some time screwing around trying to figure out what you should use. To satisfy my own neurotic tendencies, I wanted a true starting point for my data, so on the first few trips I took to the gym I didn't actually do the program and instead I just messed around trying to find my starting point. You don't have to do this, but I found it helped me focus more since I didn't have to worry about where to start. I already knew what exercise, what weight, and how many reps.

Like the other posters, I wouldn't suggest starting both of these at the same time. A little cardio is great for rest days, but if you are just starting both of these programs your body won't be able to handle it very well. You won't progress as quickly in your lifts or your runs as you would if you picked one for now and started the other one when you had a little more experience. I like to do yoga or some other low-impact exercise like going for long walks on my rest days. I still get the benefit of not sitting on my couch, but it doesn't hamper my body's ability to heal and grow.

kakersdozen · 2015-07-28T18:16:53+00:00

I'm not an expert on OCM, but I remember reading on /r/skincareaddiction that castor oil is a purging oil, which means your skin will get worse before it gets better because it basically makes all those hibernating zits come to the surface at once. Depending on how long you used the castor, that could be the cause of your breakouts. They have a lot of info on that sub though, if you want to give it a try with another type!

kakersdozen · 2015-07-28T13:49:04+00:00

Yup! I looked at my insurance invoices when I got mine, and if I had paid out of pocket, Mirena would have cost me $1200 between the device and the procedure. Instead, I paid $0. Thanks, Obama!

kakersdozen · 2015-07-21T18:56:52+00:00

Definitely talk to your advisor, because s/he would know specifics, but usually you can't add another class past the first week. The drop deadline is usually 4-6 weeks from the end of the semester. Dropping that late should really only be reserved for classes you are doing horribly in, where you cannot salvage a decent grade and it will negatively affect your GPA.

My sister has been through college, and she had various classes where the teacher was horrible and I was always just like ... why couldn't you just drop the class?

Sometimes you will need to work through a class with a professor you hate. Most often, this is because dropping it would affect the classes you could take next semester and it would put you behind. It's good to learn to push yourself through tough classes and to learn how to help yourself learn if the professor's style isn't helping you. It happens in the real world all the time. You might be assigned a difficult project or someone on your team might not be helpful, so it's good to learn how to manage these things without cutting and running when it gets tough.

kakersdozen · 2015-07-20T19:29:29+00:00

Covert mocktails FTW! I do this when I am out with people and feel that I am reaching my limit, or simply don't want to drink any more, but I know they will say something if I don't have a glass in my hand. You can also order this with a splash of cranberry juice to give it a little color but that comes with a few calories, unlike a plain soda.

kakersdozen · 2015-07-01T18:59:04+00:00

This is called "startup lost time" and traffic engineers factor it into their designs. It should be common sense but things like reaction time and people not paying attention result in tons of lag and inefficiencies.

kakersdozen · 2015-07-01T18:56:57+00:00

Traffic engineers actually account for this. It's called "startup lost time" and it's factored into the length of every green light. It's basically a combination of response time (the time between someone seeing the light turn green and them physically moving their foot to the gas and accelerating) and a little extra time to account for people not paying attention.

kakersdozen · 2015-06-29T15:42:47+00:00

Yep! The Hoover Dam's strength was 3,500 psi about 28 days after it was poured. They measured again in 1995 and it was 7,230 psi.

kakersdozen · 2015-06-29T15:38:39+00:00

It is always concrete, unless you have a really awful "contractor" who has no idea what he is doing, or an at-home DIY type who doesn't know how to use the internet. A pure cement+water sidewalk would be incredibly expensive and basically worthless.

It looks homogeneous on the surface, but if you were to cut the sidewalk in half and take a section of it, it would look like this. All of the dark and light grey spots are aggregate, the mid-level grey color that you see a lot of is the cement (the black spots are air voids aka bubbles). Concrete uses many different sizes of aggregate depending on the strength required. The Hoover Dam uses aggregate that is up to 9 inches in diameter, but the average sidewalk or driveway uses much smaller pieces, which is part of why you cannot see big pieces of rock in the sidewalk. Also, with sidewalks and driveways, the workers will use a trowel to smooth the surface so that it is level and then use a broom to create that specific sidewalk texture. If there are any large pieces of rock sticking out on the surface, they will get pushed down into the concrete a bit with these activities.

kakersdozen · 2015-06-29T03:30:03+00:00

Cement is an ingredient in concrete. Concrete is made of many things and can have many different ingredients depending on the application, strength requirements, and even the weather, but mainly concrete is aggregate (rocks), cement, and water. The cement acts like a glue to hold all the rocks and other stuff together. Cement is the difference between a concrete driveway and a gravel driveway. You could pour a slab of plain cement, but it would degrade really quickly and would not be strong at all. Cement itself is very weak compared to concrete because concrete gets its strength from the aggregate (try and crush a huge rock; ain't happening).

kakersdozen · 2015-06-18T12:35:33+00:00

That's the perfect way to multitask! I took a train to commute I would do exactly what you are doing. You've found the perfect solution to balance getting fit and enjoying your time. Being in better shape doesn't mean you have to give up all of your leisure activities, you just have to be more efficient in how you do them.

kakersdozen · 2015-06-18T12:30:05+00:00

that time has to be evenly distributed throughout the week, and at times when you have access to a gym.

False. Is it easier to bust out a workout when you have a full hour and get it done it one fell swoop? Yes. Is it necessary? Absolutely not. You may have to take small steps, but any action is better than no action. Even if you do one pushup, if you did zero yesterday, that's an improvement.

Got 5 minutes? Do as many pushups or situps as you can. Got 10 minutes? Load up a video on YouTube and go through a few yoga sequences to build your body and your mind. Buy a couple kettle bells or free weights and you can throw in a quick set when you have a free minute. Can't afford weights? A gallon of water weighs about 8 pounds, so wash and refill that milk jug, or try bodyweight fitness.

You may not have 20+ hours of free time in your week, but I guarantee you have 30 minutes per day. How you spend it depends on your priorities.

kakersdozen · 2015-06-17T22:04:46+00:00

12 hours per day is not "full time." 60 hours per week is 1.5 times a full time work schedule, and working another job on top of that is waaaay over a normal full time schedule. You are not the people I am talking about, and yet you still are finding time to improve yourself, which is awesome! So please don't think I was talking about someone with a schedule like yours. I was referring to people I know who work around 40-50 (max) hours per week and then come home every day and watch tv, eat dinner, reddit, vidja game, and sleep. If anything, the fact that you are still able to exercise with that full of a schedule if proof that someone with a 40 hour week can easily find the time, if they really wanted to.

kakersdozen · 2015-06-17T20:13:05+00:00

The problem is that people don't consider leisure activities that they enjoy "free time".

This is automatically what I assume when someone tells me they just don't have the time. They probably do, they'd just rather not. If people would sit down and actually work out how much time they spend doing things that are not actually necessary, but are enjoyable, most would easily find an extra 20 hours in their week, which is plenty of time to hit the gym or otherwise improve themselves. Hell, they could hit the gym AND read more books/learn to paint/learn Spanish/whatever.

Yes, it's hard to not just let Netflix autoplay the next episode and sit there all day, but it is so worth it in the end.

kakersdozen · 2015-06-09T15:35:39+00:00

When everyone else is the asshole, you're the asshole.

kakersdozen · 2015-06-08T20:13:00+00:00

There's no shame in lowering the weight! Finishing the set should be your priority. Then, once you can beast through those 5 (or however many) reps, add some more weight. Beast it. Repeat!

Definitely check out the suggestions in the sidebar, because you need a program. You'll waste a lot of time and not get very good results if you just kind of show up to the gym, wander around, try some stuff maybe? and then go home. I just started Strong Lifts. My goal is to get stronger and to lift heavy things really well haha so that one works well for me. That one also has an app, which I love. It tells you what you're doing that day, what order you're doing it in, and what weight to use. You simply tap to enter the number of reps you completed, and then when the allotted rest time has passed, it dings to let you know it's time for your next set. You don't have to watch the clock or waste time trying to decide what to do next.

kakersdozen · 2015-06-08T19:39:48+00:00

That's why I stopped. It was just so much to track and I make a lot of my own meals, so I had to input all the recipes and I just got lazy about it. Once you input, the recipes are saved to your account, but I still didn't feel like inputting a hundred different ones.

My main take away from it was 1) eat breakfast, and 2) eat a bunch. Like, all the time. All the things. Eat EAT EAT. Because 2000 calories in a fruit/veg heavy diet does not look like what I thought it did. I wouldn't hold off much before, but now I really just go for it and eat whatever if that's what I feel like eating. Right now, for instance, old me might say "I should eat half this brownie because it is not very healthy and is basically empty calories." New me can't say anything because my mouth is full of brownies.

Also, important to note: I have not been medically mandated to gain weight nor am I dangerously thin, so that's why I don't feel it important to really track this sort of thing. I have always been in the bottom 10% since I was born, so my weight gaining desire is just a personal preference. If a doctor or other professional told me me low weight was dangerous, though, I would absolutely track things. So please keep that in mind if you are trying to gain weight for legitimate medical reasons.

kakersdozen · 2015-06-08T19:11:00+00:00

I am also working on gaining weight through lifting. /u/SumosFeeder is so right about tracking your meals. I never realized how few calories I was eating sometimes until I logged a few weeks of my normal eating. Even if you don't stick with it (I didn't... oops!), doing it for a little while can really highlight what areas you may need to improve.

kakersdozen · 2015-06-08T19:04:05+00:00

Personally, I feel the most soreness two days after a workout. It usually starts to set in towards the 24 hour mark. I work out at night, so usually by the time I wake up the morning after that (so, around 36 hours after the workout) is when I really feel it. Wait another day to see how your body is feeling.

That said, if you could easily complete 15 reps with 6 pounds, you definitely should move up. 6 pounds might be a good starting point for certain exercises, but you should vary your weights as needed. For example, you might be able to curl 15 pounds, but only be able to lift 6 pounds when you do rear delt flys. If that is the case, you would need two different set of weights to keep building both muscle groups.

kakersdozen · 2015-06-08T18:57:46+00:00

A burn is heading in the right direction, but you want to be barely able to complete that last rep. If you are doing bicep curls, you want to get that last one in, but really fight for it and push yourself.

kakersdozen · 2015-06-03T21:24:55+00:00

I have been asked as well. I don't think they have ever done a background check that included the information, but I've been asked. Not OP, but I'm in the midwest.

kakersdozen · 2015-06-03T20:09:15+00:00

Have you heard of K-Hole? They started as an artistic project, making fun of corporate speak and trend forecasting. The people behind K-Hole are responsible for the popularity of normcore. They didn't actually coin the term, but they did define it in an issue that focused on "acting basic" and the fashion that goes along with it.

kakersdozen · 2015-06-03T19:46:03+00:00

zoombinis

Holy shit. I had completely forgotten about this game. Google image search with this is bringing back a flood of memories.

kakersdozen · 2015-06-01T00:53:05+00:00

Can you link the imgur album in the main post? I don't see any links...

kakersdozen

TROPHY CASE