jemhh Member

To be fair, unless you wear work boots, your shoes are unlikely to protect you from most weights dropped on them. I go socks only for deadlifts. For other lifts I use my squat shoes.

Do you grab the sandwich while you're on break? Is there a break room to eat in or can you go to your car? If there's a break room where you can heat something, you might try egg muffins (baked eggs in a cupcake pan.) Or just pack cold boiled eggs or something like cold leftover baked chicken.

I would suggest eating at your current maintenance calories while starting to lift. The initial body composition changes you'll have as a new lifters will make a positive difference. For programming, go to the Gaining Weight section and look in the Helpful Threads post for a link to the thread about picking a lifting…

1% max is a general guideline. You're not going to find solid irrefutable scientific evidence showing the formula for determining the healthy/unhealthy breaking point. And, as always, max healthy rate does not mean max sustainable rate of loss.

My husband got me a cage for lifting. (I've used squat stands and sawhorses for 4 years.)

Nope, not for me. This would lead to terrible binges for me. Plus it would be suboptimal as far as muscle retention.

Right--I can brace a bit less/get less particular with the breathing on my first couple of warm up sets and all is okay. Though I try not to get loosey goosey as I'm preparing mentally as well as physically so I like to stick with pretending that even my lightest sets are heavy.

I breathe in at the top, brace my midsection, descend, and as I move back up I may exhale a bit but most of that happens right as I get to the top.

Why are your sessions getting shorter? Are you resting less? Are you able to move through it more quickly because you've gotten better at setting up the equipment? In general, I'm not a fan of evaluating lifting workouts based on how much time they take. I think it's more appropriate to evaluate them on whether or not they…

Oh I know it doesn't work that way. It's just how I think it should work. Just like whenever I see a very pricey house my first thought is "for that price it better have its own bowling alley." Light foods should be low cal. Expensive homes should have bowling alleys. These are the central tenets of my life.

Wafer cookies. These things. While I think they are delicious, I also think they are shockingly high in calories considering how little they weigh. (For some reason I think that things that weigh little should be low in calories.)

Feeling sore is not an indication of an effective workout. Generally you'll feel sore after the first time or two of doing a specific exercise or working a muscle in a new way. That soreness most commonly shows up a day or two after doing the exercise, not the same day.

Follow this advice, OP. There's absolutely no reason for you to spend any time building your own program. You do not have the knowledge or experience to build one. That's not an insult, it's just reality. There are plenty of well balanced and free programs for you to review and choose from. Then you can spend your time…

I use coconut oil. Since it's solid, it's really easy to weigh. Just out the jar in the scale, zero it out, and use a fork or spoon to scrape out my 7 grams.

This. Usually "little to no progress" means "good progress for people with realistic expectations." How much did you lose in 2 weeks?

As much as I love strength training and think it is extremely important, I do think it's fine to add it after a month. I started off as a completely sedentary and out of shape person. I only focused on food intake the first month, added walking the next month, and added strength in the third if I remember right. In the…

Measure yourself all over. From your neck down to ankles/wrists. You'd be surprised where it comes off. At one point I had a sudden half inch come off my neck, which had been the same and not appearing to have excess fat for months.

It seems average from what I've seen. Not terribly cheap per meal ($13.50ish) but average. Usually a program that gives you X number of swipes is an all you can eat in one visit kind of program. If you plan accordingly by using swipes on bigger meals rather than grabbing very light meals, it would work. Out of curiosity,…

Yes, it is the max. It's not the required goal or the goal that everybody should have, as it may be too much for some people, but "max" is the correct term for it.

Ha. I was just going to say that I disagree with the broad statement that free weights are better than machines. Completely dependent on the person and the goals. My mom is going to go to the gym by herself and I know that she won't use free weights by herself. She will use machines. Resistance exercise is important so I'd…

Exactly. OP, in time you will find that life is much easier, more pleasant, when you worry less about what others think when you're talking about people who have no affect on you.

It's the same as if you didn't have those issues. You need to be in a calorie deficit, which means eating fewer calories than you burn. Eat less, move more, or do both. I suggest the latter. Sitting in place for 16 hours a day is absolutely terrible for your health. Your non-exercise calorie burn has got to be horribly…

This kind of echoes what has been said but I suggest picking a 2 or 3 day per week full body program. If there's time when you complete the lifting session, add some cardio and yes do cardio on the other days when you have workout time. We can't really say do weights for X minutes because that's not how a good progressive…

I've never heard of it. If it's a gym for stretching, I'd suggest looking for free resources instead. Fitnessblender.com has tons of free stretching (and ither fitness) videos. That's where I turn if I want to follow a video.

Thread title made me laugh. I'm sick and just last night commented on how I get so hungry when I'm sick.

I order grilled meat and get simple sides such as steamed broccoli or salad instead of casserole type sides. A lot of times I get double salad for my sides. As long as I know what they put on the salad ahead of time (e.g., is it loaded with cheese or not) I can make it fit my calories pretty easily.

What are you asking? I've never been in those shoes (partying, etc) so it may be that but you seem to be describing normal life. Are you asking how to meet people or what people usually do in their off hours or ???

Ha ha. It always happens like that--right when the peak "what's happening?!?!?" thoughts happen.

That sounds good!

I don't have any but if I had leftover turkey I'd make turkey pasties.