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We're entering in to the time of year when I need to diet or exercise and this year I choose exercise.
Right now I'm 220ish; my most fit weight when I was wrestling and competing in martial arts and doing manual labor was 240ish. I'm going to see if I can get at least to 230 in the next couple months without going to the gym at all.
I set up a heavy bag for extra cardio, and I'm going to move a couple tons of sand and gravel by hand over the next while, I'll see if that plus expanding my usual calisthenics will turn enough fat into muscle to get me back up there.
fit at 240? you must be really tall
Nope, short (average) king here. I just got that monke body type; no waist no neck no problem, size 38 waist size 40 shoulders size 34 legs size 42 arms, when I stand next to the gorilla enclosure at the animal park people wonder how I got out and the keepers start rolling up with the dart guns, etc and so forth.
I just put on weight really easy, so the best way for me to stay fit is to keep ahead of it by putting on tons of muscle, which I also do easily. I'm never gonna have a six pack, but I can lift your fridge and run an eight minute mile and do a 10 mile hike (not back to back unfortunately); so whatever.
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Why would you choose one between diet/exercise? If you're going to pick just one, it's got to be diet. That's far more important for weight management.
Dieting doesn't work for me because I don't want to diet lol
For real though; diet is thing 1 for weight loss but if you have a healthy body thing 2 is putting on as much muscle as you can easily maintain (at least for me). When I am carrying the full amount of muscle I can get without doing heavy workouts, I would need to try really hard at the buffet to gain much weight at all. Just going around at 220 (where I am now) I barely have to watch my diet excepting around the holidays when it's feasts every 10 days and cookies in between.
The muscle gain attempt is mainly just to see if I can get back into fighting trim without being a teenager.
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I thought turning fat into muscle was a meme. Why do you think bodybuilders bulk and cut so meticulously? If they could turn fat into muscle, surely they would just bulk all the time?
Sure, if you want to have a six pack and big guns you gotta do all sorts of silly shit.
The thing to remember though: if a you see somebody and they are cut, shredded, ripped as fuck: they are as weak as they will ever be with that muscle mass (note: certain genetic FREAKS excluded).
You don't have to be fully spheroid like dudes banging out 1000 lb. squats, but if you want to perform fully you gotta gain some weight.
ALSO: the point of bulking is to put on as much weight as possible because you can only gain muscle while gaining weight. Due to build and genetics I have an easier time than most gaining muscle and a harder time losing weight; so I just put on muscle until even a normal amount of exercise puts me into caloric deficit and maintain.
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What's your calisthenics routine?
In the afternoon I walk the dog a couple miles, then sprint back in short sections; If I see a convenient horizontal solid I do a pullups till I start to feel it, plank until failure at the end, and If I don't feel exercised after that before I take my shower I do pushups and crunches and squats until I do.
Basically, I just do normal shit until I feel like my body has had enough, but not so much I get that lactic burn or loose feeling.
The only extra thing I do beyond gym class shit is heavy bag sprints when I think I need more cardio; which are the ultimate in full body heart rate raising exercise IMO.
I don't have a routine or record numbers; because that turns it into work instead of play and it becomes boring real quick and I quit doing it.
Having the dog around has been a godsend for fitness actually, it means I don't get to the end of the day having just mindlessly forgotten to move my body outside of work stuff at all.
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