It's a new week. I've contacted Drexel about getting a nutritionist appointment. I need to really work on not drinking too much beer or latte this week.

Getting serious about this shit. Downloaded a fitness tracker and everything.

For those who know more about targeted exercise than I, what are some good resources for toning exercises, specifically inner thighs and underarms (apologies for the induced nightmares from those mental images but I need some very specific help).

The truth is - you can't spot train a specific area such as your wants of toning inner thighs & under arms. Here's straight to the point:

http://blog.sitarasinc.com/2011/08/spot-training-myth.html

You need to loose the fat by doing cardio and having a proper diet, then when you work the muscles of that region it'll be able to actually show. But you can't skip straight to it!

Lisa, its all about diet, and not the foods that you eat, you can be skinny and eat hamburgers and fries, its how MUCH you eat that counts at the end of the day.

The hardest part is actually not exercising its controlling your portions. Obviously a healthier diet is better for you then eating crappy foods, even if you're controlling the amount of crappy food you're eating.

"Toning" is really secondary to the dieting because all that does is make your muscle bigger, it does not burn the fat over the muscle, once the fat is removed then you can start seeing some definition as your muscle gets bigger from the toning.

Really just concentrate on doing a minimum of 20 minutes of any type of cardio a day. Start with just walking, move on to fast walking, eventually running/biking/what ever else. As you get fitter you can increase the time also.

The toning can be a supplemental to that cardio by doing some weights like bicep curls/ tricep extensions with dumbells/ some body weight squats/lunges/sit ups/presses, etc.

For Knees (since many of us have this issue):
http://...active.com/..._Worst_Exercises_for_Bad_Knees.htm

Thanks for the great info, guys!!

I have started tracking my calories with a fitness tracker and it has me at 1400 calories a day at my current activity level (which is almost nothing as I work on my ass in front of the computer). I've started walking and am going to get some hand weights to start. It has surprised me to see how hard it is too eat 1400 calories when you aren't eating ice cream and donuts on a regular basis!

Anyway, I have already lost weight in the past year due to Dwarf Galaxy kicking my ass over our diet before. My main problem is that with that diet change I lost weight and wasn't doing exercise that much so I have these flabs of skin that are really gross to me and that's why I was asking about 'toning.' Will increasing my exercise (from none to something lol) actually help with those areas of hanging skin?

Eating low calorie will get easier. You just need time to figure out which meals you can fit in that will be the most filling and you'll kind of get into a flow. Recently, I find eating a lot of smaller meals is helping me since I have been wanting to snack ALL the time. So I just plan to eat something every 3 hours or so and calculate it all in my daily limit.

Boudicca said:
Thanks for the great info, guys!!

I have started tracking my calories with a fitness tracker and it has me at 1400 calories a day at my current activity level (which is almost nothing as I work on my ass in front of the computer). I've started ...

This is a hard question to answer because people are built differently. Generally though, your skin naturally tightens up but takes a long time to do so, it could take up to 2 years if you lost a significant amount of weight rapidly, like say 20 to 50 lbs.

Over that, and depending on your age, your skin loses the elasticity and will not tighten, so, If you decide to become a bodybuilder and have big muscles to replace the areas that use to have fat, then yes you can get your skin to "tighten up" even with a significant amount of weight loss, though that will take you YEARS I mean up to 10 years if you train seriously.

A weight loss of over 100lbs you might have to look into plastic surgery, skin cant just disappear or tighten with that significant amount weight no matter how much you tone/bodybuild.

Yeah, I have issues with weird skin sag too, Logan, and the answer I keep getting is "Keep working out, we'll see how bad it is when you're done."

Basically skin does some weird shit, sometimes it'll tighten back up, and sometimes it won't. I'm going through the same problem right now because I lost 60 lbs pretty fast and I feel like I'm wearing a prosthetic made from all this extra flab. I've talked to a few doctors and trainers about this issue and they just keep urging me to get in the gym and see what it looks like once I'm at my goal weight and some serious toning work. Even I might have to consider plastic surgery when this is all said and done and I'm 24.

So, just keep positive and know that what you're doing is for your health first. I feel a lot better now that I've shed the weight and that propels me forward instead of being discouraged. Plus all that excess garbage is a really good motivator on days I don't feel like being active.

I figured that would be the case but I'll just keep at it. If SOME of it goes away I'll be happy. Oh well, I'll just buy more shrugs to cover the arms and forego bathing suits! I don't know that I could do the plastic surgery thing regardless.

Physically, I feel the best I've felt in a long time. Maybe ever! Over the last few weeks I started biking again and I just love how strong my legs are feeling.

I still need to lose a lot of upper body fat. I really want to swim, but I don't know if there are local options for that. I mean, I know there are places to swim, but I don't like working out in front of others and realistically I know I'm lazy so I need a place that's either right next to home or along my daily commute.

One thing I have to say I have realized in the past three days of my extreme stomach troubles is that I have been a slave to food and I don't need to be. Obviously I still need to EAT but I don't need to over eat and eating foods that may not be the best for me which is what I have been doing. I have been making A LOT of REALLY bad choices for myself and have reset myself back to the basics.

My goal is to walk at least once a day every day of the week for at least 30 minutes each day. If I can do more, great, if not then I am not going to sweat it. (extra bonus for hiking in the fall and biking 16 miles with John on the weekends)

Haven't worked out since we moved 3 weeks ago. Finally felt enough like a gross lazy slob today to get moving, but got the urge, like, 15 minutes after eating dinner. So 30-Day Shred was out.

However, our new place is two stories and thus has this wonderful piece of workout equipment called STAIRS. So I started doing a set of 10 round trips up and down the stairs, followed by a set of 10 pushups. The pushups eventually dropped to 5 and then 0. Shouldn't have dropped the upper body strength idea, that shit evaporates fast :( But 480 stairs and 40 pushups later, I felt a lot better about myself! Then made myself do crunches. Didn't count, just kept going until I wanted to puke. I realize how unnecessarily macho that sounds, but it really probably wasn't that many since I was still full from dinner.

One of my friends was plugging Core Fusion earlier this week as a lower-impact alternative to the 30-Day Shred. Might look into it.

I figured out how to get Nike+ to work on my phone so now I feel like I want to do the running thing again! It also helps when it's beautiful like today out.

Hey dieters. Do you believe in "cheat days"? Why or why not?

Scarlett said:
Hey dieters. Do you believe in "cheat days"? Why or why not?

Naw. Those tend to perpetuate the whole addiction to flavor thing.

I've stopped looking at my food intake as dieting and it's helped massively. I eat what I want, but I moderate and make good choices. Instead of saying oh that's bad I can't have that, I think instead is this going to help me reach my goal today? Am I going to be satisfied, or still hungry? This weight is only going to come back on if I don't make it a lifestyle change.

Posting from the gym while I'm waiting for my trainer to get here. Still sore from my session with him on Tuesday. B vitamins and Gavin are basically the only reasons I'm awake enough to think coherently right now. Hrrngh.

Does anyone use Nike+?
http://nikeplus.nike.com/plus/profile/thetealappeal/

I like this. It's simple. You run and earn points. I'm digging it.

Yesss join us!


http://nikeplus.nike.com/plus/profile/_yvaine/