T Nation

Obese, 19Y/O, Heavy Smoker, Trying to Change

Beginners
#21

This is going to sound harsh, and it’s meant to. You’re still addicted to nicotine. You haven’t quit. See if you can cut out the vaping and gum (and the answer is yes, you can).

I say this as someone who tried various methods of “cutting down”. In the end I needed to eliminate smoking as an option all together. When you’re “cutting down” on smoking, it’s the same thing as “cutting down” on heroin or “cutting down” on McDonald’s. You’re still allowing yourself the option in your mind to continue to do it, and then you justify going back to it because “I’ve been so good lately and I earned this”.

I give the same advice to the OP. When you’re ready, don’t even consider smoking as an option. You do need to be ready for it, but that’s the only way I’ve seen work in my own experience and numerous friends who were successful with quitting vs. the friends who are still smoking.

#22

Maybe I should’ve said, “of the two years I’v slowly been cutting down?”.

I realize I still use nicotine regularly. Hopefully what I said didn’t make you think I was denying that truth. I’m not justifying anything, nor am I doing that action/reward thing.

Not to mention everyone quits differently. You had to eliminate it completely. Cudos. I’ve been doing fine substituting. So long as we get there I don’t think the methods matter.

I know I have a long ways to go. But I was just trying to relate to someone.

So thanks? I guess?

#23

Thank you for the clarification. That definitely clears things up. Sorry for the misunderstanding, :slight_smile:

#24

Confirmed around 275 by doctor, put up 225x2 on bench last night, felt sort of accomplished. Havent died, haven’t given up, just been busy. Hope you all had a good Christmas and New year’s

2 Likes
#25

I’ve read through your tread. Start a log. Its a great tool to track your work out and make sure your remain in course.

I see you’ve come from 320 to 275 since November- 45lb off over the holidays is insane. Keep going man.

1 Like
#26

I think it’s closer to 25-30, my scale at home is all over the place now I’ve started weighing myself a couple times in a row on it, just did three and got 298, 286, 288… the 275 came from the scale at the hospital, the previous weights came from home scale and gym scale

#27

BTW good idea, I’ve tried using Excel, but then I forget and yeah, might actually use a notebook or something.

#28

Stop smoking, eat less carbs/fat and more protein, do watch calories(despite what people above say), lift weights, do cardio, and stick to it. That easy.

I was 350lbs and near dead at 25, at 270 and fitter now.

My mother smoked for 40+ years, quit cold turkey one day, you can too. It’s a choice, not a disease or something you cannot control, same with your weight unless you have an actual medical issue causing you to eat in a caloric surplus constantly.

These may seem like harsh words, but I know all the excuses from personal experiences. As for a lifting/cardio plan there’s tons on this great forum here, pick on and stick to it.

#29

Did a really heavy day last week, was feeling really good through the work (squats, ohp, deadlift, shrugs). But about 20-30 min later my knee started doing a rice-krispie impersonation. I gave it a couple days and it still hurt, it’s been about a week and the pain has gone away. Ik my form wasn’t bad, I work really hard to not screw that up (not saying it’s perfect, just not terrible). I did go up rather than by 10 lbs for that week I went up 30, I was feeling good, didn’t feel bad when I did it. I only rest around 60-90 seconds and don’t really relax after working out (shower then school). Don’t know if that’s related or not. Any idea what I might have done? How to prevent it happening again? Thanks for all the support

#30

Give it some time to rest and next time you have a squat or deadlift day scheduled, take your warm ups very slowly and pay attention to your knee. If you feel anything, stop and let it rest some more. In my experience with little tweaks like that, my body usually fixes itself after a couple days of rest. Knees, shoulders, elbows, wrists–everything gets a little beat up at times. As long as you recognize that it’s beat up and you let it rest, you should be fine. (keep in mind that I’m not a doctor, this is just anecdotal. Just what’s worked for me.)

As long as your form is decent (no breakdowns or anything) like you say it is, I think the odds that you will have a serious injury are fairly low. Rest and eat and it should fix itself especially since you’re so young

#31

(one of) the annoying thing(s) about injuries is they’re rarely the result of one massive trauma. Like, you’d think you would hurt yourself doing something stupid lifting something really heavy, but often it’s the case that it’s the result of thousands of little micro-traumas building up over your lifetime.

An example would be if you use a lot of lumbar flexion in your day to day life. Tying your shoes, picking shit up off the ground or whatever. Each one of those faulty movements takes a little tiny toll on you, until one day your body’s just had enough.

So as to what caused your knee - could be anything, really. The obvious culprits are obviously your form, faulty movement patterns (ties in with form, I suppose) or some kind of muscle imbalance (pelvic positioning, most likely).

You’d really need to go see a medical professional for diagnosis if you really wanted to know for sure. If it was just a little tweak though I’d probably not bother, but I’m sort of an idiot so it’s probably wise to do the opposite of what I’d do.

#32

Yep no bueno, lesson learned the hard way!

These can help especially voodoo bands…

Also after legs spend even 3 mins before the shower stretching hamstrings and quads

#33

Ok, kind of reset my lifts down quite a bit (140 bench, 170 squat, blah blah blah not important) and I was working out at home because I was sick. Today I went back to the gym to squat 200 again, light but my knee wasn’t feeling great so I wanted the spotter bars in case. Blah blah blah. Some guy there was talking about S23 and how “amazing” it is. However, from what I can find it just sterilizes you. So A. Is S23 anything actually other than a way to hurt yourself, B. I normally don’t talk to people, is everyone gonna try and get me to buy something at the gym?

#34

Further down the line Cardarine/GW is good stuff for fatloss but other than that 90% of SARMS are bullshit prohrmones rebranded as the new thing. Stay the hell away.

If want to kick it up a notch just get some creatine and some quality nutrtion based supps like in the Biotest line

#35

Didn’t really seem like a good idea but I figured I’d ask, thanks for the input.

1 Like
#36

Oh God it has been so long. I am not where I wanna be, but I have gotten a lot better. I’ve gotten into the bad habit of putting my health on the back burner, maintaining a minimum (like a 1 plate bench) and considering that good enough, diet still only contains minimal pop and almost no candy, don’t really miss it. I did quit smoking for about a year, clearly that didn’t last. I was working out today and I remembered this conversation. And I wanna say thanks. I really think if I hadn’t reached out and had this seemingly useless dialog, I wouldn’t have felt the need to continue all this time, my dream of looking like hercules might not’ve been achieved, but this still helped me. I really mean it when I say thank you. I wish you all the best.

6 Likes
#37

Good work, do more.

1 Like
#38

Keep going. One workout at a time.