How do you feel about your body?

Sometimes I'm happy. Usually when I'm lifting weights or hitting the bike for cardio. My body, even though it gives me certain pains, is very capable of doing the things I want to do. When I moved this year, I pretty much did most of the hard labor, and worked for most of 3 days straight, and I didn't crap out once. All that and I still went to the gym. I can still hike through the mountains without passing out too.

Sometimes I'm not happy. I look at myself in the mirror, and see too many extra pound around the middle, and a hang-dog lookin' face. Fuck that guy...

Then I say, "Shit, I'm 47. Who da' furk else looks this good in my family?" The answer is nobody.

 

I'm grateful to—and fascinated by—my body for everything it can do. I'm especially grateful to it for having gotten its shit together when I was born and not killing me with splenic torsion in the womb (thanks, doctors!).

Despite this, or perhaps because of it, I enjoy punishing my body on a somewhat regular basis, just to see how hard I can push it. I'm not to the point of running marathons, completing an Ironman, or pushing insane amounts of weight in the gym, but I've gotten to the point now that I get really grumpy if I don't make it to boot camp class five times a week or if I have to drive my car somewhere instead of riding my bike. After having worked out every day last week, I turned what was planned as a 40 mile ride yesterday into a 55 mile ride just because I wanted to see if I could manage the whole thing after riding to the starting location fifteen miles from home instead of driving there. It was probably ill advised, as I know the body needs time to recover from activity on that many consecutive days, but I wanted to do it anyway. I know I'm physically able to do much more now than I ever have before, which brings me tremendous satisfaction. There are elements of vanity to wanting to push myself as hard as I do, but I feel that focusing on that is more distracting than productive, especially when I'm not seeing changes and results as quickly as I'd like.

I am impatient, after all.

 

Most days I am fairly happy with it. There is the normal enough stuff likes knees that do not always work the way I think they should, but nothing worth complaining about. For all of the little things that remind me about my expired warranty there are the positive things like the increasing white hair that nicely accentuate everything.

 

Everything mostly still works. As long as I can run rings around my kids (10 and 8), I reckon at (almost) 44, I'm doing alright. I'm still a little hampered by the Achilles which I ruptured 18 months ago. It doesn't stop me doing anything - it just gets sore relatively quickly. I've also got a shoulder rotator cuff injury atm that I'm almost recovered from. Things like that just focus training on other parts of your body, though. I go to a group training thing in the park once a week and the lady that runs it is super good and giving you something to do to avoid the (inevitable) current injury. When I started with her, I needed someone holding me feet to do sit ups. I don't have that issue anymore. It is amazing what 1 hour one day a week can do.

Still carrying a little extra around the tummy, but I'd probably have to stop drinking beer to get rid of that, and you can take the beer from my cold dead hand

 

SOO true. Furious Pete breaks it down great right here by going from shredded to blob in 5 hours flat. I love this video:

 

As is the mind.

 

Carb bloat can make you look like you've gain 10-15 lbs by the end of the day. As a person who is gluten ( really it's short chained polysaccharides, but toe-may-toe ta-mah-toe ) any wheat I eat will bloat me tremendously for days.

 

gluten intolerant... oh well, now I feel terrible about myself again

 

Right there with you man.

I puff up like the Stay Puft Marshmallow man and spend the day in the bathroom with any wheat.

 

I basically have the body of a hobbit. Short and what I call Skinny-Fat. I'm a short skinny dude with a belly. Hobbit belly.

I was a skinny guy all through college. I barely broke 100lbs by college. 3rd year of college I finally hit 115lb. Then college and cheap beer caught up with me and I gained a bit of weight. I didn't really start packing the pounds on til I got an office job. I weigh 160+ now.

I don't want to be HS skinny anymore but I'd like to look down and see my dick again. Thankfully I'm not 100+ overweight, if I lost 15 pounds I'd be at a healthy weight.

I'd like to be 6ft tall, cut like a diamond, have those "V" muscles that women lose their shit over and look like the werewolf-dude off of True Blood. Til I look like that I'll just thank FSM that @cinnamongirl has a thing for skinny, scruffy looking, semi-evil guys.

Seriously, if you can find a way to turn this:



to this:



Let me know, I got like $20 for you.

 

Okay, how's this?


Not what you had in mind? Okay, you can keep the $20.

 

That was good of her - so many parents project onto their kids and screw up their minds for years and years into adulthood.

 

i ahve my days. most days i hate it cause i let myself get so fat, but im working on it

 

Early on I used to like my body
a lot.
Those days when I didn't really have to do anything and my youth would just take care of the shapes of things
(lol).
I was still out of shape though
could get out of breath easily
Hated hiking.
Then I got older
and my body tended more and more to reflect my inert lifestyle.
Ugh.
Then a miracle happened
I went hiking one day...and really enjoyed it.
Discovered a place called the
GYM
and enjoyed that too.
these days my body shows signs of it's owners interest in running, lifting, ...enduring
I draw
a lot
and draw my body when I see, note
changes
I like these drawings more and more
and more

 

High school: 5' 9.5" 165 pounds. I wasn't an athlete, but did a lot of walking and some running.

A couple of years after HS: 157 pounds (lots of running).

College: About 165 pounds again (lots of running).

A few years after getting married: 195 pounds (had a simple home gym that I used regularily). I carried it well, used to to get hit on by women who knew I as married.

Currently: I probably not even 5'9" now. 230 pounds.....a very sloppy 230. The goods news is with my body type I can carry extra weight without looking too fat, but not 230 pounds.

I've never been happy with my upper body, except when I was using the basic home gym. My legs & ass were always my best features.

 

I lack leg workout stuff in my "home gym" so occasionally I have to venure out into a normal gym - but at home I just have 2 set of dumb bells, a small Gold's Gym weight-bench, and a door-mounted Wal Mart pull-up bar. I mostly only do a few exercises: Lots of wide-grip pullups for lats (the "wing" muscles under your arms that give you that "V" upper body shape) with 20 extra pounds of weight hanging from a waist belt, chest flies lying on my back on the bench with 65lb dumb bells to work on pecs, and bicep curls with 25lb dumb bells to keep those in shape. Occasionally some pushups, crunches, and shoulder shrugs (with 65lb dumb bells). That's it. Mostly just those first three for the last 5-6 months, and it's worked wonders.

To be fair and honest though, I'm really just naturally skinny, and don't have to run or do cardio to stay skinny - just working out twice a week and taking occasional supplements keeps me moderately muscled, so I can't honestly lay claim to having incredible will-power or discipline, or having accomplished amazing amounts of hard work for years on end like true bodybuilders or anything like that. Genetics blessed me with metabolism; but it's sort of evened out by the lack of height or facial symmetry. I guess we've all got our strengths and weaknesses though. Except for naturally strong/fit/beautifual people who have all strengths and no weaknesses. Fuck those people.

 

I don't really like my body, but I live in it, so what are you gonna do?

I've rejoined the gym, but really struggle to get off my ass and go, and use the excuse of my wife's health issues as a crutch. As in, we go tigether, she can't go today, so I won't go either.

I need a gym buddy really, but not sure anyone local is keen.

In the past when I've maintained a regular routine at the gym I've felt healthier and increased my stamina and cardio health quite fast, but don't really lose weight much.