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Apps and advice for logging workouts
I've always worked out at my home gym based on what looks fun or "I didn't do this last time". I'd like to record what I do towards building a schedule and tracking gains but I have no idea how to. I've only got as far as writing what I'm doing on a whiteboard. I know the my fitness pal app has basic functionality but it…
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Self diagnosed diastasis recti... What to do?
I'm a man in my late 30s. In the last 6-12 months I've noticed my abs start to have a pronounced 'dome' above my belly button; this seemed to worsen when I was going through a spell of doing crunches after no exercise. Fairly extensive internet research suggests diastasis recti is the likely culprit here, but what do with…
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Resistance bands advice?
I've never used these before, in fact only recently heard of them. I would specifically like to use them for dips and pull-ups... Right now I can only manage about 1 rep. Looking online I'm totally confused as there are different types and thicknesses for different purposes. Can anyone advise what I might look for? Length,…
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Best exercise bike sub £500 for general fitness?
I have the York active 110 (or an older version) which was quite good but has developed issues - possibly I just wore it out - and I was always planning to get something nicer once I proved I'd use the thing regularly. I'd like an upright bike in the £200-500 range for low/moderate cardio, 30-60minute sessions. I'm keen on…
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Are sit-ups/crunches really needed?
My workout routine is mostly cardio for weight loss, but I throw in push-ups, crunches, pull-ups and bicep/tricep curls. I've noticed that virtually every exercise I do, I can feel my stomach is tensed - even cycling I can feel it working my stomach a bit. Yesterday after a week off I did no crunches at all but my abs are…
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Playing with balls against walls
I quite like pretending I'm a kid and kicking a ball against a wall, or practising tennis rallies against a wall - in both cases trying to keep it going as long as possible without letting the ball hit the ground, or bounce, or whatever - it's certainly proper exercise as I end up pretty sweaty and with football have to…
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Any ideas on calories burnt playing snooker?
I know it won't be a lot but even if we just count it as standing up, that's something over an hour or two and you are moving around a bit - compared with sitting on the couch anyway :) Any guesstimates what to put, based on similarly low-intensity activities?
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Looking for a more accurate exercise bike calorie calculator
MFP has a few entries for exercise bikes, and there are numerous calculators out there but they all seem to just ask if I am doing light/medium/hard cycling. They don't tend to tell you how to define those categories, and anyway I'd rather something a bit more accurate. I wondered if you could get an idea of calories based…
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Guesstimating calories for exercise
Is there a simple formula one can use for cardio exercise? I was wondering if it really boils down to heart-rate for a given person, i.e. if I run at 140bpm would I burn calories as fast as swimming or cycling at 140bpm? I've been playing Grand Slam Tennis on the Wii and it genuinely constitutes exercise I think, based on…
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Any reason not to exercise with a cold?
Other than "I don't want to" of course! I normally do 40-45min moderate exercise on the exercise bike every day but I've got a cold and I always believed exercising when ill was a bad idea - though I don't know where I got that idea. So for this kind of moderate exercise, what would people recommend? Go as normal and fight…
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If you're going to go over, does it matter how far?
Is there some limit to the calories your body can usefully process in a single day? e.g. if you overeat 400 calories every single day, is that the same as overeating 3000 calories once a week or if you have all your extra in one binge, do you "get away with it" to some extent? I'm not asking for permission to binge, but…
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How do your calories split across meals typically?
I'm quite interested how many of my daily calories go to breakfast/lunch/dinner/snacks, and I wondered how other people do it... I seem to typically be something like this: Breakfast: 25% (250-350 kCal) Lunch: 15% (250-300 kCal) Dinner: 40% (600 kCal) Snacks, booze, tea/coffee: 20% (300 kCal) What about you lot? For me,…
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Alternatives to Ryvita?
Having only just started counting calories rather than using "common sense" I've been horrified how many calories are in humble bread... up to 100 a slice, up to 300 (at least) for a big bap/stottie/roll. I've always quite liked Ryvita which is lucky as they are so much lower in calories (~40) - can have 4 with soft cheese…
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MFP - allowed sugar per day seems tiny
MFP has set me a daily goal of 1200 calories in order to lose 2lb a week. Without exercise that's really hard, so I'm basically forced to do 45min on the bike each day and suddenly I can eat decent meals as long as I keep snacking to virtually zero. But anyway, one thing I consistently fail to meet is the sugar goal. My…
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Result... pizza, beer and within my calorie limit
So one day this week I somehow totally forgot to eat breakfast, then did 60min on the exercise bike and wasn't really hungry for lunch. Long story short, I got to dinner time with something like 1400 calories left. So I had half a 12" pizza, a can of beer and still just had enough left over for a shot of single malt for…
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Where do we stand on breadsticks?
A plain breadstick at 20kCal is half to a third the calories of a typical biscuit (cookie for Americans ;) ) but how is it in other regards? I'm not talking about a breadstick covered in salt, but your bog-standard plain variety.
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Logging standing-desk activity in MFP
I am a work-from-home software person which means other than deliberate exercise (which I do do), I am virtually 100% sedentary. So I've started trialling a standing desk - I plan to spend some or all of my working hours standing at my computer rather than sitting. I don't know the best way to incorporate this into MFP in…
