In other news (apolitical thread)...

[Gigem]

Had a weird moment last week.

Was watching a friend’s dogs at their house. They had left some stuff outside and it started raining. Am I automatically expected to drag all that stuff in? Or should I assume that if you leave something outside you’re gonna tell me if you want it brought in?

It just depends.  How much trouble would it be to drag it in?  Would they do the same for you?  Does it rain very often there ( I assume it does).  Is it something where it didn't rain for a long while, and stuff got left out and then forgot about?  Happens to me sometimes when we go 1-3 months without any rain.  

[Mdot21]

so in other news....Patrick Mahomes father Pat Sr and former MLB pitcher John Rocker are apparently going to fight each other sponsored by Barstool and all proceeds are going to charity. Feel bad for Mahomes, his family are whack jobs. 


https://twitter.com/stoolpresidente/status/1889752563223761132

[bayareabadger]

It just depends.  How much trouble would it be to drag it in?  Would they do the same for you?  Does it rain very often there ( I assume it does).  Is it something where it didn't rain for a long while, and stuff got left out and then forgot about?  Happens to me sometimes when we go 1-3 months without any rain.  

Not an unbelievable amount of trouble, but it would sort of require me going through a bunch of stuff and trying to decide if it mattered.

Rain was possibly predictable enough. They didn’t mention anything upon returning, but it did seem like a cast iron was taking a beating out there. 

[bayareabadger]

Yep, that's weird history.

You were there to watch a dog, not keep house.

Now, if there was something electronic or sensitive to water, I'd have probably brought it in for them.

It wasn’t. It was a bunch of stuff that probably wasn’t gonna get destroyed by the rain, but also probably didn’t need to be out there.

[utee94]

Yeah I'd probably pull in anything electrical/electronic, or that might otherwise be severely damaged by rain. 

[Gigem]

Since late last year, I've been fasting one day a week.  I was pushing 270 (268-272).  I am tall, over 6'2, but I'm still pretty heavy even for my size.  About to be 50, so I decided to do something about it.  

Anyways, one day a week (usually Tuesday but sometimes Thursday) I will fast from the time I get up until I wake up the next day, so roughly ~30 hours or so.  It was working pretty good I think.  I didn't really do much the first couple of weeks, but I started weighing myself weekly in January.  So I got down to 261, 8-10 lbs down.  I was pretty happy about that.  So last week, I guess I overdid the superbowl and this week I weighed in at about 265.  Not too happy about that.  Literally gained 4 lbs in a week just from a little extra chips/cheese/alcohol during the Big Game.  

I don't really exercise but at times I have a physically demanding job.  I consider myself in pretty decent shape, I often climb very tall stairs at work in an industrial facility, 80-120 feet in height pretty easily.  I have days, like today where I will sit in this office all day and do nothing physically, and then this weekend I will be drilling wells and doing actual physical work.  

I don't really do any kind of diet  other than my one day fast, but some people I know will do the fast after a certain time and had good results.  I do eat way to much fast food, but my wife usually cooks dinner and we eat a good amount of green vegetables at each meal.  

Just curious about the rest of you and what you've done to drop the pounds.  I don't really care to or want any help in the form of ozempic or the rest, I feel like bad stuff may come out of this scheme in the future.  

[847badgerfan]

I've lost 60+ pounds since November 2023.

Portion control, no eating after 4PM (generally), no eating unless hungry (but not too hungry - that's bad) and using a timer when eating. Eat for 10 minutes, stop for 5 minutes, continue eating if truly hungry. Healthy exercise.

Try this.

Home - Wondr

It works.

[bayareabadger]

I’ve never been great at dropping weight, but one potential option would be to pack a lunch with lighter fare. Lean meats, fish, vegetables, minimal carbs.

[Gigem]

I've lost 60+ pounds since November 2023.

Portion control, no eating after 4PM (generally), no eating unless hungry (but not too hungry - that's bad) and using a timer when eating. Eat for 10 minutes, stop for 5 minutes, continue eating if truly hungry. Healthy exercise.

Try this.

Home - Wondr

It works.

60 lbs is tremendous.  What were you up to, and how do you feel?  

That would put me about 210, haven't been at that weight since probably 2010 or maybe earlier.  

[betarhoalphadelta]

Since late last year, I've been fasting one day a week.  I was pushing 270 (268-272).  I am tall, over 6'2, but I'm still pretty heavy even for my size.  About to be 50, so I decided to do something about it. 

Anyways, one day a week (usually Tuesday but sometimes Thursday) I will fast from the time I get up until I wake up the next day, so roughly ~30 hours or so.  It was working pretty good I think.  I didn't really do much the first couple of weeks, but I started weighing myself weekly in January.  So I got down to 261, 8-10 lbs down.  I was pretty happy about that.  So last week, I guess I overdid the superbowl and this week I weighed in at about 265.  Not too happy about that.  Literally gained 4 lbs in a week just from a little extra chips/cheese/alcohol during the Big Game. 

I don't really exercise but at times I have a physically demanding job.  I consider myself in pretty decent shape, I often climb very tall stairs at work in an industrial facility, 80-120 feet in height pretty easily.  I have days, like today where I will sit in this office all day and do nothing physically, and then this weekend I will be drilling wells and doing actual physical work. 

I don't really do any kind of diet  other than my one day fast, but some people I know will do the fast after a certain time and had good results.  I do eat way to much fast food, but my wife usually cooks dinner and we eat a good amount of green vegetables at each meal. 

Just curious about the rest of you and what you've done to drop the pounds.  I don't really care to or want any help in the form of ozempic or the rest, I feel like bad stuff may come out of this scheme in the future. 

I'm with you on the Ozempic/etc. I think there might be some people for whom their weight is at a point where it's necessary just as a triage, but I feel like we're going to find out 10 years from now that there are a lot of terrible side effects we didn't know about...

For me, I really started working on this about 2 1/2 years ago (Jun 2022). Prior to that, I was pretty sedentary. I had a gym membership, so basically the only real exercise I got was walking the dog or playing golf. I was like you in that I didn't really think I was in terrible shape--it's not like walking 18 holes of golf would cause me trouble, and I had done a lot of hiking prior to 2021 and would do 8-10 mile hikes with decent elevation gain and be fine. But... I wasn't where I was capable of being.

At that point at 6'5" I was hovering between 275-280 lbs. I'm a muscular guy, so I wasn't some fatty at that weight. Going back a few years my PCP had one of those "InBody" body composition scanners, and flat out told me that at my muscle mass, I can just ignore BMI as being useless. But even then, I was definitely bigger than I needed to be, and my body fat % was definitely a lot higher than I'd want it (which he also told me). Nothing had materially improved between that discussion with my doctor and Jun 2022.

So, we bought a Peloton. I mostly only cycled for the first 8 months, which dropped me to 260 lbs. At that point (Feb 2023), I started adding in weight training, and in the 2 years since, I now hover between 255-260 lol. But my body composition has drastically changed, so I know I've added muscle and dropped body fat. I'm nowhere near "six pack" territory yet, but I actually have defined abs... So although the number on the scale sounds really high to most people, I'm actually not THAT far off an ideal weight for my muscle mass.

For me, this is what I do:

• Do something Peloton EVERY day. This is important to me from a habit perspective. Initially when I didn't want to do anything, I would just do a 10 minute stretch. Starting in 2024, I committed to doing daily core. So every day I will do at least a 10 minute core strength workout. For this year, I also committed to stretching daily, since I started neglecting it last year.
• Cycling is generally 3-5 days per week depending on the week. I generally am doing 45- or 60-minute classes, although some days it's a 30, and some days it's 75/90/120. This is to keep my cardio in good shape.
• Strength is the same. I try to work through the body. Lower body strength is typically about three times every two weeks--if I wait too long, i.e. more than a week between workouts, I get horribly sore for 2+ days after working out. Upper body is probably about the same, but it sometimes is more "classes" if I break it up. I.e. Peloton has "upper body" workouts, but they also have "chest & back" and "arms and shoulders". Sometimes I'll do a longer "upper body" if I know I'm not doing anything the next day, or I'll do C&B one day and then A&S the next if I know I've got time.
• Peloton has an annual minute challenge, that I use to keep myself on track. In 2023 and 2024, I committed to an annual goal of 15K minutes, which is averaging about 41 per day. Sometimes I go over, sometimes under, but I keep track of where I am to make sure I can stay in that range. For 2025, I have increased that to 20K minutes, or about 55 per day. (Note: this includes stretching, so it's not ALL hardcore stuff.)

Noticeably absent from that list? Diet. I'm burning enough calories that I know I need to consume enough calories to fuel this. If I was not seeing visible improvement in my body composition, I'd probably have tried to drop pounds. But for now, my progress is going the right direction and I know I've dropped body fat % significantly, so I'm not trying to eat less.

I should probably not drink so much beer though...


IMHO diet might be a good thing for you, but I'd say not to neglect your body. For me, one of the things that has been difficult is watching my parents age. My mom has had cardiac issues going back decades from being overweight and smoking until her mid-40s. She dropped the weight but at 82 years old, she's just NOT in good shape. I'm actually going to see her in a few weekends because she [again] went into the hospital and had to get a catheter and balloon to inflate the blocked double-stented(!) artery... She's a tough woman but I feel like if she's got 9 lives, she's already on 8... My dad is morbidly obese. The last time we were there, we went to Costco with him and he was getting winded just walking around the store.

The thing is, they were probably a lot like where we were in their mid-40s. Overweight. Too sedentary. But they did absolutely nothing about it, and now they are where they are. I don't want to end up like that when I'm 80. They're not capable of basically anything at their age. I want to be capable so I can enjoy my grandkids. And the longer I wait to start, the harder it will be.

So if you're almost 50, the best time to start getting your body right is now. And that's not just shedding a few pounds, which is of course important. It's also getting the physical work in to try to retain as much capability as you can as the inevitable decline starts. Father Time is undefeated, but if you put in the work now, you might at least go 12 rounds with him before the KO.

[Gigem]

I'm with you on the Ozempic/etc. I think there might be some people for whom their weight is at a point where it's necessary just as a triage, but I feel like we're going to find out 10 years from now that there are a lot of terrible side effects we didn't know about...

For me, I really started working on this about 2 1/2 years ago (Jun 2022). Prior to that, I was pretty sedentary. I had a gym membership, so basically the only real exercise I got was walking the dog or playing golf. I was like you in that I didn't really think I was in terrible shape--it's not like walking 18 holes of golf would cause me trouble, and I had done a lot of hiking prior to 2021 and would do 8-10 mile hikes with decent elevation gain and be fine. But... I wasn't where I was capable of being.

At that point at 6'5" I was hovering between 275-280 lbs. I'm a muscular guy, so I wasn't some fatty at that weight. Going back a few years my PCP had one of those "InBody" body composition scanners, and flat out told me that at my muscle mass, I can just ignore BMI as being useless. But even then, I was definitely bigger than I needed to be, and my body fat % was definitely a lot higher than I'd want it (which he also told me). Nothing had materially improved between that discussion with my doctor and Jun 2022.

So, we bought a Peloton. I mostly only cycled for the first 8 months, which dropped me to 260 lbs. At that point (Feb 2023), I started adding in weight training, and in the 2 years since, I now hover between 255-260 lol. But my body composition has drastically changed, so I know I've added muscle and dropped body fat. I'm nowhere near "six pack" territory yet, but I actually have defined abs... So although the number on the scale sounds really high to most people, I'm actually not THAT far off an ideal weight for my muscle mass.

For me, this is what I do:

• Do something Peloton EVERY day. This is important to me from a habit perspective. Initially when I didn't want to do anything, I would just do a 10 minute stretch. Starting in 2024, I committed to doing daily core. So every day I will do at least a 10 minute core strength workout. For this year, I also committed to stretching daily, since I started neglecting it last year.
• Cycling is generally 3-5 days per week depending on the week. I generally am doing 45- or 60-minute classes, although some days it's a 30, and some days it's 75/90/120. This is to keep my cardio in good shape.
• Strength is the same. I try to work through the body. Lower body strength is typically about three times every two weeks--if I wait too long, i.e. more than a week between workouts, I get horribly sore for 2+ days after working out. Upper body is probably about the same, but it sometimes is more "classes" if I break it up. I.e. Peloton has "upper body" workouts, but they also have "chest & back" and "arms and shoulders". Sometimes I'll do a longer "upper body" if I know I'm not doing anything the next day, or I'll do C&B one day and then A&S the next if I know I've got time.
• Peloton has an annual minute challenge, that I use to keep myself on track. In 2023 and 2024, I committed to an annual goal of 15K minutes, which is averaging about 41 per day. Sometimes I go over, sometimes under, but I keep track of where I am to make sure I can stay in that range. For 2025, I have increased that to 20K minutes, or about 55 per day. (Note: this includes stretching, so it's not ALL hardcore stuff.)

Noticeably absent from that list? Diet. I'm burning enough calories that I know I need to consume enough calories to fuel this. If I was not seeing visible improvement in my body composition, I'd probably have tried to drop pounds. But for now, my progress is going the right direction and I know I've dropped body fat % significantly, so I'm not trying to eat less.

I should probably not drink so much beer though...


IMHO diet might be a good thing for you, but I'd say not to neglect your body. For me, one of the things that has been difficult is watching my parents age. My mom has had cardiac issues going back decades from being overweight and smoking until her mid-40s. She dropped the weight but at 82 years old, she's just NOT in good shape. I'm actually going to see her in a few weekends because she [again] went into the hospital and had to get a catheter and balloon to inflate the blocked double-stented(!) artery... She's a tough woman but I feel like if she's got 9 lives, she's already on 8... My dad is morbidly obese. The last time we were there, we went to Costco with him and he was getting winded just walking around the store.

The thing is, they were probably a lot like where we were in their mid-40s. Overweight. Too sedentary. But they did absolutely nothing about it, and now they are where they are. I don't want to end up like that when I'm 80. They're not capable of basically anything at their age. I want to be capable so I can enjoy my grandkids. And the longer I wait to start, the harder it will be.

So if you're almost 50, the best time to start getting your body right is now. And that's not just shedding a few pounds, which is of course important. It's also getting the physical work in to try to retain as much capability as you can as the inevitable decline starts. Father Time is undefeated, but if you put in the work now, you might at least go 12 rounds with him before the KO.

Explain to me how the Peloton works like I've never seen one before (I haven't ).  I just assumed it was a fancy stationary bike that connects to the internet and has some kind of screen where you can cyber-cycle with other people.  How do you target daily core etc on the bike?  Is there another machine you are using?  

As I stated, at times I do a tremendous amount of physical work, just not everyday.  I haven't worked out on any kind of regular basis since I was in my 20's.  We do actually have two gyms near our house, they seem pretty active.  I just don't consider myself any kind of a gym person really, but maybe I can change that.  

[Gigem]

BTW, as somebody who is really tall (6-2 or 6-3 depending on whose measuring) 6-5 is super tall.  I never realized how different it is for other people who are average or even short but being well over 6' is so different in good and bad ways.  One of the drivers that makes me want to lose weight is the fact that I can't find any clothes that really fit good.  2X is now too small, 3X is too big.  It's not so much how fat I am around the waist really, it's more like arm length and the length of the shirts.  Everything tends to go just below my belt or be so big it looks like I'm wearing a tent.  I wore 38 in the waist forever on pants, and a few years ago finally had to go to 40 in the waist, but in truth a lot of my pants are too big and I have to wear a belt or they will slip down.  

[847badgerfan]

Explain to me how the Peloton works like I've never seen one before (I haven't ).  I just assumed it was a fancy stationary bike that connects to the internet and has some kind of screen where you can cyber-cycle with other people.  How do you target daily core etc on the bike?  Is there another machine you are using? 

As I stated, at times I do a tremendous amount of physical work, just not everyday.  I haven't worked out on any kind of regular basis since I was in my 20's.  We do actually have two gyms near our house, they seem pretty active.  I just don't consider myself any kind of a gym person really, but maybe I can change that. 

I think it's a must as you get older. It's easier to lose muscle than fat.

[jgvol]

BTW, as somebody who is really tall (6-2 or 6-3 depending on whose measuring) 6-5 is super tall.  I never realized how different it is for other people who are average or even short but being well over 6' is so different in good and bad ways.  One of the drivers that makes me want to lose weight is the fact that I can't find any clothes that really fit good.  2X is now too small, 3X is too big.  It's not so much how fat I am around the waist really, it's more like arm length and the length of the shirts.  Everything tends to go just below my belt or be so big it looks like I'm wearing a tent.  I wore 38 in the waist forever on pants, and a few years ago finally had to go to 40 in the waist, but in truth a lot of my pants are too big and I have to wear a belt or they will slip down. 

Same issue for short guys -- I am one. 

I either look like I am trying to be tough guy in a tight shirt, or the alternative is --- appearing to be wearing a nightgown, or daddy's shirt.

I am fairly thick, athletic thick (shoulders, back, and bi's and tri's), but the belly has gotten too big over the last few years.  Trying to get down to 180 from 200.

Leans meats, seafood, and portion control on food. Black coffee, water only (occasional alcohol).  Doing some aerobic training with the wife 4 days per week as well.  I've shaved off 9 pounds in 3 weeks.