Over the past 11 months, I've lost 122lbs, from 330lbs to 208lbs. (May 30, 2023 - Today)
For the first 2 months, cardio was not part of it. Really focusing on diet, reintroducing myself to portions of Whole Foods to hit macro goals. Really focusing on vegetables and protein, large quantities of low calorie foods that digest relatively slowly to keep me satiated for long periods. They're also quick to digest.
I was always active, even at 330lbs I would mountain bike (ascending and downhill) comfortable on black diamonds, same with snowboarding. This continued, but I didn't try to explicitly do and track cardio.
After I lost 35lbs, I added CrossFit once a week. Then 2 times a week. Then 3 times a week. I noticed that olympic lifts and squats would cause extreme systemic fatigue, and would leave me dizzy and out of breath. After a couple months,
I stopped doing CrossFit due to an injury caused that that effect, and started isolated training for muscle hypertrophy utilizing machines for 5+ days a week, but missed the cardio that CrossFit gave.
I was about 260lbs at this point, and started with incline walking at about 3mph at max incline for 40 minutes. Then I started to begin my cardio with a 6mph run until I was out of breath and a high heart rate, and then began the incline walking.
After a week or so, I began running the a mile at the fastest speed I could, then switching to incline walking until my heart rate dropped, and alternated running and incline walking for 40 minutes.
Then, in November, I ran my first 5k in 34 minutes. I was hooked. I walked a couple minutes of it in the middle, but was pround myself. Today, I can run a 5k in 25 minutes if I push myself.
Today, I ran 5 miles without stopping with several hundred feet of elevation gain.
Cardio health is life changing. I used to be tired walking up large sets of stairs, and it was embarrassing to not be able to hold a conversation for long while walking up stairs.
It's also a myth, perpetuated by highly trained athletes that you cannot gain muscle and do cardio, or that you cannot do these things while in a caloric deficit.
I have lost nearly 1% of my body weight per week as a vegetarian while gaining significant muscle mass (today, I am about 15-17% body fat at 6'1 and 208lbs).
The biggest thing I can say is it's never too late to start, and it's important to be consistent and find what works for you. At 32 years old, I have added years to my life, and feel and look better than I ever have.
Also, cardio gives an amazing dopamine rush that beyond addicting. Highly recommend it. But don't forget the resistance training.
Anyone can do it. One day at a time.
As someone in tech, the process of rebuilding yourself is addicting once you start to see progress on every front.
VO2Max Increasing. Resting Heart Rate Dropping. Waist Shrinking. Chest, Arms, Legs Growing. Muscle definition increasing. Lift PRs increasing. And you look better in clothing.
> It's also a myth, perpetuated by highly trained athletes that you cannot gain muscle and do cardio, or that you cannot do these things while in a caloric deficit.
I think it's more accurate to describe this in terms of definitions: "gains muscle while in caloric deficit" is possible for the untrained/beginners.
> For the first 2 months, cardio was not part of it.
It's really easy for bad diet decisions to counteract the effects of even a significant amount of cardio; and it's easy to fatigue the body by trying to do too much cardio.
For aiming for calorie deficit, I think it makes sense "do what's least awful out of: reduce calories in food, or add cardio".
> Cardio health is life changing.
I noticed my chess.com rating improved just from improving cardiovascular health.
> started isolated training for muscle hypertrophy utilizing machines for 5+ days a week
My impression as a beginner was that free weights were scary and that there were many exercises you'd have to choose from. (Whereas machines seemed idiot proof). In practice, "squat, deadlift, benchpress" would be a good start. (Or a starting point to read about, anyway).
https://exrx.net/ is an outstanding website that I wish I'd come across sooner.
Couldn't agree more, at least on the strength front (I focused on that for 6mo 1.5 years ago) - Just those basic lifts will massively improve your muscle, and a lot of those improvements persisted despite doing very little strength work over the last year.
Anything is better than nothing, and many of the benefits are going to persist in some form for quite some time. I did lose some strength, but I'm still on the order of 1.5-2x as strong as I was before I did any work at all. Never mind the confidence strength training gives you when it comes to just doing basic stuff and knowing you aren't going to hurt yourself.
I think it's valuable to turn things into regular habits, but it's also worth noting for those who have this idea that it's a waste (because they'd rather be doing something else, and they don't want to work out for the rest of their life) - 6 months of basic (but hard, proper) workouts will pay dividends for probably forever.
Explain why it's cheating? I'm a designer. I have been for over a decade. I don't use Canva, but I use Sketch, Figma, etc., and create templates or utilize templates made by others as starting places.
How is Canva any different than this? Part of design is being able to recognize what good design is, and utilizing the tools available to you. If Canva get the job done, and looks good, and has been sufficiently modified to meet the specified criteria supplied in the assignment or spec, how is it cheating?
The only way I could see is if they didn't modify the slides and part of the assignment was to create a unique branded slide presentation and they just used an out of the box design. In which case, no design work was done.
Someone shouldn't be penalized for the outcome based on the tools utilized unless the spec specifically excludes it.
It's like telling a clothing e-commerce company that they shouldn't use Shopify. If the work is done, why waste your time building an e-commerce site from scratch if it meets the specified need?
Canva is a great tool, and saves my clients thousands of dollars, while I get to avoid doing the completely mind numbing process of working in PowerPoint or designing social media posts. It's a win/win.
how would you feel about a student presenting stock images in a photography class?
> I use Sketch, Figma, etc., and create templates or utilize templates made by others as starting places.
Working professionaly has a different objective than school assignments. I think the distinction is very clear on many levels. Also, students using blatant off-the-shelf templates is very different professionals using templates "as starting place".
> If Canva get the job done, and looks good, and has been sufficiently modified to meet the specified criteria supplied in the assignment or spec, how is it cheating?
Well, that's not the case here. OP has explained that the design students in question aren't even using their low-effort canva templates right and exporting them as flattened pdf. It's very unlikely those who are this sloppy and careless have put any attention to the assignment or polishing other areas.
The key point is you can't delegate the main task. To use your Shopify example, if you enrolled in a "Web development using nodejs" class, and presented a premade shopify website that you purchased in a couple of clicks, the instructor won't be impressed, less so when you tell them you did it in 5 minutes "why waste time". If that's the student goal, fine, but they are in the wrong classes.
I was diagnosed with ADHD last year, at 31 years old. It made so much sense.
The idea of your "future self" is actually what helped me improve my ability to form habits.
"If I do X, Y, Z, today, then tomorrow I only have to do A and I have all this free time. Let me be miserable today so I don't have to be stressed tomorrow and I can do anything I want."
It allowed me to unleash my ADHD and kind of embrace it almost on alternating days.
One of Hal Hershfield's talk's had mentioned that we always imagine our "Future Self" will be less busy than we are today, so we won't over extend ourselves today, because tomorrow you'll be less stressed. But this isn't usually the case.
For example: You won't have any more ability to make it to the bank tomorrow, than you do today. So if you do it today, tomorrow you won't even have to think about it. Your ADHD is less likely to fire off with all the other things you "have to do". If you only have one task, you can kind of just do it.
This has been a game changer mentality for my executive function disorder.
I went to the doctor because I was having difficulty doing the things I really loved. Mountain Biking, Hiking, etc. The motivation wasn't there, but it's all I wanted to do, but couldn't mentally get the drive to do it.
I assumed this was depression, and after some questions, the doctor insisted that it wasn't depression and asked if I had been diagnosed with ADHD in the past.
Then, he asked me to try Wellbutrin as an off-label use for ADHD, which dramatically changed my ability to function. I have since stopped taking it as I have a lot of systems in place that help with my executive function, but I still feel that taking it would make my EFD better.
The feeling of "depression" has since subsided, but I do still suffer from brain fog frequently when I get overwhelmed with scheduling or tasks I deem "insignificant" that I need to do, such as:
Send a short email.
Deposit a check.
Put gas in the car.
Send that Mutual NDA.
But large tasks like:
Run a 5k every day.
Study a language for an hour.
Design that app flow.
Help a friend develop a business plan
Organize and event for 50 people that serves dinner
are typically easy.
It's really the small tasks that break my brain. Big easy are fun and enjoyable because there's a tangible outcome, but small tasks that should be easy but have some sort of barrier just break me.
Find a psychiatrist in your area who specializes in ADHD (psychologytoday.com is actually a great resource) and ask about ADHD diagnosis. You may want to get more than one opinion though; not all diagnoses are equal.
I recently made a few major changes to my life that I felt were my responsibilities as a founder. Mainly, taking care of my health.
I heard Hal's Ted Talk, and decided to give getting into shape another chance. being that it takes a ton of time to begin to see major results, it was always a detriment to putting the time in. "I'm still going to be fat tomorrow."
However, if you spend 30 days working towards something that's incredibly difficult, and put in all of the effort possible, and review your progress after those 30 days, you'll realize you're actually making a ton of progress if you can justify the hardships as a necessity for future success.
If you're a founder, that might sound familiar, especially if you're a bootstrapped founder.
After those first thirty days, I was incredibly proud of the past me for not giving up. I had lost 20lbs. That's amazing. I felt amazing.
Future me would be even more proud if I kept going. Almost a year later, I've lost over 100lbs, and am in the best shape of my life. My company is growing, and I'm free of almost all health conditions.
The idea of doing something for "Future You" isn't necessarily what worked for me, but instead, becoming the future me and having respect and being proud of the person I was to work hard for the person I would become.
But, it's the little things. Like going out drinking, and waking up to a gatorade on your nightstand with a little note you prepared for your hungover self the next day saying "Hey, I'm sorry. Drink this."
A travel mug is more an amorphous volume than simply 20oz.
A Stanley Mug, like the recent Stanley x Starbucks collaboration is 40oz.
I believe this may be what they are referring to.
However, it's rare that individuals with the 40oz mugs are filling them with coffee, and if they're with espresso drinks, it's more likely that the volume of milk is increased rather than consuming 8 shots of espresso.
I'd assume most people with travel mugs that consume coffee are using 10 - 16oz mugs like myself?
I can't say for sure whether it is "most" or not, but I do not know a single individual that is a Digital Nomad that makes sub $100,000 a year that is employed by another company.
As for a digital nomad, if you're business is secure enough that you're comfortable traveling full time or as a standard aspect of your life, you're likely making more than $68,000 Pre-Tax.
I don't think this is an incredibly high dollar amount, seeing as several major cities in the US have a minimum wage of nearly $41,000 a year.
I don’t know that the rename is going to stick. The logo is still an X in blackboard bold, but https://x.com/ links now redirect to https://twitter.com/.
