The healthy habits thread

[robin3mj]

Go get it Dustin. Good stuff.

I am at my best in a workweek where I’m not traveling and I can run 1-2 miles after the school bus comes then mix in a handful of either lunch rides (weather and work permitting) or evening Peloton/erg and dumbbell/medicine ball sessions. I finally opened the rotating push-up grips I got for Christmas and need to use them more often.
A solid TV queue helps. Lately, it’s Devils games and Andor. Mayor of Kingstown and later on- the Mandalorian and Ted Lasso on tap.

My key is not letting a sh!tty work day knock me off my stride. And there are a lot of those lately.

[bcm119]

I've recently decided to aggressively cut back on my salt / sodium intake. (my BP's fine, but I think it would still be a good idea)

One of the drivers for me is the store-bought instant soups I often have at work. They have ~40% of the sodium RDA.

(I'm not into cooking, so making DIY at home and taking it in isn't a likely option.)

Has anyone found any good low-sodium easy to make noodle / soup options.

TIA

Amy's Organic makes low sodium versions of their canned soup and chili. I wouldn't call it 'low sodium' but it's not as insanely high as other canned soup. I wouldn't eat that stuff more than once a week or so.

[ides1056]

I have a friend who is a beer aficionado who stopped a few years back- not quit, stopped. He recommended Athletic Brewing CO’s beer. Says it’s good beer. I agree, and at .5% it will put me to sleep after two. This works for me. There is no downside to not drinking alcohol. Anyone who thinks the outcome will be different for them if they can’t keep a lid on it is fooling themselves. My daughter is an addiction counselor. She tells her patients there are only two ways you get out of rehab: get sober or die. Those who manage to recover are in the minority: 8%.
I don’t buy the disease theory myself. Growing up around alcoholics… meh.

I consider myself lucky. Cycling kept me in a short leash.

[Mabouya]

I picked up some kettlebells a few weeks ago to add to my home gym (a bench and some dumbbells - haha). I've been working on something called the "Turkish get-up" the past few weeks. It's a doozy, but I've been doing 2-3 sets every other day and it certainly does seem to be a good whole body move.

+1

TGU is my favorite kb exercise.

[rmplum]

I have a friend who is a beer aficionado who stopped a few years back- not quit, stopped. He recommended Athletic Brewing CO’s beer. Says it’s good beer. I agree, and at .5% it will put me to sleep after two. This works for me.

It's not my favorite type of beer, but to really pare it down, the Heineken 0.0 is truly 0% - and if you handed me one, I couldn't tell you if it was the full test Heiny or not. Plus it comes in a glass bottle which is a more enjoyable experience for me vs a can.

If you can find it, Untitled Art has some delicious (but $$) low alcohol brews as well. The Sam Adams and Lagunitas near beer IPAs are also good with a meal.

I found the new Guiness 0% to be overly sweet and won't buy again.

[rmplum]

Any pro tips for locating reasonably priced kettlebells? $3/lb seems excessive, but I dropped it on a few to get myself started.

I search the local FB Marketplace and Craigslist daily but havent had a lot of luck there yet. Just bite the bullet and do Amazon? For home use does it really matter?

[bcm119]

There are two methods of making NA beer, one of which results in the ~0.5% beers and the other results in 0.0%. In my opinion (as a craft beer enthusiast) the 0.0% versions are better -- they tend to be drier and cleaner. The ~0.5% ones tend to taste like wort (unfermented beer), especially the darker styles. I found the Athletic dark one undrinkable. I think my favorite NA is the Heineken. Anything attempting a heavier style is too unbalanced to my taste and a chore to drink. I like the sparkling hop waters better than any NA 'beer', particularly SN Hop Splash.

[dgaddis]

I bought two at Target (forget how much they were) and bought one from here :: https://www.usa-iron.com/collections...-lb-kettlebell

Those seemed like the best value for a USA-made option and they looked like they had plenty of room inside the handles. I had also looked at Rouge, Onnit, and Kettlebell Kings.

Last night's tennis match went exactly as expected. The only surprise was I ended up playing singles instead of doubles. Played against a "kid" who was 22 years old (I'm 38) who had about four years of experience, including a few years on his high school team. I've been playing once a week for ~8 months. He won 6-1, and 6-2. But it was a lot of fun, he kept hitting to my backhand so I got lots of practice on it and I was getting better as the match wore on. Everyone was friendly and chill too. Next few months will be a good time!

[ides1056]

Thanks for the NA beer suggestions. I don’t care if they have alcohol, really. I find them refreshing after a ride or with a meal.

NTHC weed, however, would not cut it. All the talk about how much stronger it is overlooks the upside: less is more. Fitzgerald said it took one drink to start writing and two to stop. Know when to say when, is all.

[Mabouya]

For home use does it really matter?

I've found that some of the cheaper ones I've gotten from Amazon have more flashing than I'd like on the handle. Not a huge deal, because I usually wear gloves, but still an annoyance. It's easily fixable, but I've never been sufficiently aggravated to file them down and re-paint.

[bigbill]

About 13 months ago, I started my Noom diet and lost 50 pounds. I've settled out around 46 pounds down since. I'm riding a lot more than I did in the past four years and still tracking calories to make sure I don't have too many days of in>out. I'm adding kettlebells, sandbags, and bands. In May, I'm going to ramp up the miles and see if I can get closer to my old race weight. I have a 100 mile mtb race in September that will, for the most part, be above 7k feet in elevation with a few sections above 8k. I spend summers in Wyoming so I'm hoping that will help me with the altitude. Less of me will help too.

[dgaddis]

Last last year at 210lbs.



This afternoon at 200lbs

[rmplum]

I'm enjoying the kettlebells still. I've been slowly chipping away at S&S and I can now do the swings at 16 kg, and last night I did my first TGUs with 12kg (this was a big effort step up vs 8kgs!).

The goblet squat combined with a halo swing is maybe my favorite one to do. I had not done squats much before and those really got to me at first, so I guess they are working.

There are really endless things you can do out there with a kb or two!

[Mabouya]

my first TGUs with 12kg (this was a big effort step up vs 8kgs!)

I know some folks say there's a good reason for it, but as much as I like KB's, one thing that annoys me with the weight sets at most gym is the big jumps between bells. My body's much happier doing incremental increases compared the large % increases you so often see. For example, if they're in lbs, 10 lbs to 20 lbs is a factor of x2, which depending on what you're doing can be a massive increase.

[RichTheRoadie]

On the subject of ‘Healthy Habits’, I read a book recently called ‘Atomic Habits’ by James Clear - there’s some really solid (if often obvious) advice in there about killing off bad habits and encouraging new ones.

Since reading it I’ve stopped picking at a bit of skin on my neck - a bad anxiety/concentration based habit I’ve had for at least 12yrs!

[robin3mj]

On the subject of ‘Healthy Habits’, I read a book recently called ‘Atomic Habits’ by James Clear - there’s some really solid (if often obvious) advice in there about killing off bad habits and encouraging new ones.

Since reading it I’ve stopped picking at a bit of skin on my neck - a bad anxiety/concentration based habit I’ve had for at least 12yrs!

I need to try kettle balls at some point. I got a pair of “perfect push-up” rotating grips for Christian’s and have been doing sets of 10-15 multiple times a day in my office. Seems to be bearing fruit. Been slowly working running back into my mix as well.

Am also reading “This Naked Mind” and though the self-help style tone of voice and idea that you can magically trick your mind into doing something rankle me a bit, it does give some good detail and help rationalize use of alcohol. I don’t really listen to podcasts but am told there’s a few that are similarly impactful.

[dgaddis]

Anyone still keepin' at it? I've hardly touched the kettlebells, but I've done a decent job at eating better, still playing tennis once a week, and the weight keeps going down. Slowly, but, it's in the right direction. I'm down to 190lbs now.

Recently gave standup a try, twice now. First time I had a funny story I that I had written into a bit, adding jokes and whatnot. I was SUPER nervous, more nervous than I've ever been for anything. Totally forgot all the jokes, so I just told the story (poorly, didn't do everything in the right order, left out key details, etc) and got out of there. Spent 2mins on the mic, got a couple laughs, so not a complete bomb. 2nd time up (pics from that time) I was *WAY* less nervous, did the same bit but did the whole thing (it didn't all work, but, at least I did what I wrote haha), plus two other quick stories. It still wasn't GREAT, but it went way better, finished strong, used my whole 5mins that time. I didn't fit in with the group there at all, but it's a lot of fun, I will keep doing it for sure.

[Clyde]

Takes a lot of nerve sir, good for you Dustin!

[dgaddis]

Takes a lot of nerve sir, good for you Dustin!

Here's the vid if you want to see mediocre-at-best standup at it's finest LOL.

[dgaddis]

Everybody still getting after it??

I plateaued around 190lbs for a while because I was cheating on those those healthy habits too often, I wasn't working out consistently and I was eating junk too often. Got back at it and as of this morning I'm down to 183lbs, about 30lbs lighter than my heaviest little over a year ago. I'm fitting back into a lot of older clothes I had "out grown." I had a FB memory recently from 10 years ago when I was riding a ton and decided to slim up and I was down 162lbs!! Doubt I'll get back that light, but I just want to lose the belly haha. Also really trying to stay consistent with some strength training. We had a fitness challenge at work in Oct/Nov and it was a good motivator to move some weights around consistently.

The challenge was to do as many push-ups, pull-ups, and squats as you could. You got three minutes per exercise, and you didn't have to do them all the same day, you had a week to get them done. With the squats you had to hold a 35lbs kettlebell to speed up fatigue. You then had a month to train, and we re-did the tests to see who could improve the most. Well, the original goal was to show improvement, but of course it very quickly became a contest of who could do the most haha. We had 9 guys who completed the challenge, of those 9 I was either 9th or 8th place in everything. Which is humbling lol. But, it worked, it got me off my ass. I did 50 push ups almost every day that whole month, I did lots of negative pull-ups and pull-ups with assistance bands (I couldn't get a pull up without assistance), and a bunch of squats. When we did the re-test I was still near the bottom on everything, but I moved up a place or two here and there and I showed the most improvement (percentage wise) in push-ups.

If anyone wants to try that challenge, for reference here's my original number vs final numbers vs max number in our contest. Max numbers were all dudes in their 40's FWIW:
Push-ups :: 27 -> 45 -> 98
Pull-ups :: 0 -> 0 -> 31
Squats :: 70 -> 89 -> 178 (the guy who did 178 is a Cat 1 roadie and he crushed everyone else)

Anyhow, I definitely felt better at the end of the month, so I've made a real effort to stay consistent with working out. I still can't do a pull-up, but I'm soooooo close. I can't quite get from a dead hang past the ~25% mark, but if I start at 25% I can get up. I'll get it eventually.

I still really like working with kettlebells, but last year (until the end of Oct anyhow) I was really inconsistent. Since doing them consistently tho I've moved up to a 44lbs (20kg) KB for the swing, curls, and squats and I've moved to a 35lbs (16kg) KB for the get-up. Hope to move up to the 44lbs for the get-up soon.

Two apps I've used to help:
MyFitnessPal - food log that helps with eating healthy, you can set a weight loss goal and it'll tell you how many calories you can eat per day, and the extensive library in their food catalog makes it easy to keep track. Seeing the numbers makes it easy to make smart choices and makes me less likely to indulge as often. My target is 1500 calories per day, which is very easily accomplished without starving yourself if you pay attention to what you eat. It's also really easy to eat 1500 calories in one sitting too though LOL.
Strong - for keeping track of workouts, as far as reps, sets, etc.

Jan 1 2023 at 208lbs (my heaviest was somewhere north of 210)


Nov 27 2023 at 188lbs