Balance. I used to hate running/cardio in general but taking it easy and working it into my lifting days + some off-days, as well as other cardio (cycling, spinning, cross-training, etc.) helps break the monotony of pounding the pavement/treadmill and now I'm slowly coming to enjoy it.
Loose a few pounds and toning up would be great, but I'm all in it for the stress reduction/increased focus. I assume cardio is best for this?
I gotta know first if you are a male or a female to give you some advice. Do you have any back problems or anything that would hurt you if you were to do weight resistance training?
Female and nope. But very beginner. 😕
No more late night trips to 7-11. 🙁 Haha I wonder how much food actually impacts our focus/stress levels. Anyone have actual experience with changing diets -> better mental health?
Absolutely, I personally have, and I know people that went on the paleo diet. One guy was in pod school and he said that his grades started improving, simply because he wasnt as tired anymore. Like the way he put it, he linked it to like having caffeine. Lets say you have a coffee... later in the afternoon you will start to get sleepy because you need more coffee... thats how it is with a lot of food, especially carb heavy food, you have an energy crash similar to caffeine. That tiredness really can have an effect on your mental stamina the same as physical.
Okay. Well to begin with, a nice fasted cardio in the morning is really good to get your mood going for the rest of the day. When I do morning cardio I get super hungry after it (duh) and I eat some oatmeal with fruit. Bananas are awesome to enhance your mood to a positive way. Cardio could be a jogging, walking on the treadmill (incline), riding a bike (if you have a mountain bike put some resistance to it), swimming, and the elliptical at a gym. I would of put stairs, but that exercises stresses me out lol. Weight training form is easy to learn by watching instructional videos on YouTube. For beginners I would do weight lifting 3x a week. Most ladies want tone legs, nice stomach, big glutes, and some arm definition (no flabby arms). Each of these body parts should be trained in different days, but you can do abs workouts after your other workouts are done. You get this mental focus and relaxation when you put your headphones and you lift.
Food does impact your mood a lot. If you eat fried food or anything that is junk food you will feel full for hours and lazy. If you eat clean and with portion size you will get hungry often, but that will help your metabolism fire up. I a;ways advice people not to jump on diets if they are not use to eating really healthy. 90% of beginners can't even stick to their new diet for 2 weeks straight. I would start by changing your whole lifestyle and little by little get rid of bad binges in your life until you have got use to eating more healthy meals.
Fasted cardio is better to lose fat because your body will use fat as an energy source.
Brah, you just did not say that. When has eating junk food been healthy for anyone? I have talk to several people with bad eating habits they all claimed to be lazy, stay full for hours because of their large meals, and water retention (cause of all that sodium). I live and breath bodybuilding. Do you?
That's my occupation. Check out my profile. 😉
I wouldn't worry about getting more skinnier. Height? Can you afford a gym membership? I would start hitting those weights and do a bulk season.
Hmmmm... plyometrics, my friend. AKA Insanity workout videos.
Are you scare of going to the gym?
I just started a pretty intense work out routine, and I have been eating very well along with this new exercise routine. However my job is not the best for eating well and I had macaroni and cheese for lunch (it is a mistake I won't make again) and I feel like ****. My body hates me right now, I have a migraine and I feel sluggish.
Personally, I count my calories and I can gain and lose weight at a controlled and steady pace depending on whether I'm trying to bulk or cut down weight. I can tell you from personal experience that meal frequency is almost completely irrelevant when it comes to controlling weight. Some people like to eat 8 meals per day and are fine with it and others can actually fit everything into a couple hours towards the end of the day and are fine with that too. Your mood throughout the day is where a difference really comes into place (personally I need carbs to function) and some other people are fine without many carbs until later on in the day.
I do IF and it's the best for me because I much prefer eating 2-3 larger meals than snacking/eating small meals through the day and always being hungry. I'm prepping for a physique competition and I know people that are on all kinds of diets. The general consensus among everyone that competes however, is that calories over anything else determine will whether or not someone is going to gain or lose weight and not so much if they eat only veggies, brown rice and boneless chicken breast like some people would make you believe.
I'm a former varsity wrestler, I know a lot about weight gain and loss from study and experience. The philosophy of your physique competition friends is a short term game, and by no means an optimal way of life.
Good scientists certainly respect the anecdotal short term study...
Sorry for taking this a bit off topic, carry on 🤣
I can assure you that you haven't had to cut weight the kind of weight that I have. It is very possibly a way of life for anybody, takes no more than 2 minutes out of the day to log what I eat but I can see why any other person wouldn't want to do it.
There's so much BS out there in the fitness/diet industry. I'm one of the few people that has sifted through all that and has found what actually works (think my oreos and this bag of checker's in my hand would agree).
