Staying motivated and psyched

[tradmike]

Lately it seems i have been having tons of trouble staying motivated to train and stick to a diet.  The craziest part is i have ballooned up to a whopping 217 pounds at 6 ft. but am climbing the best i ever have at the moment.  However i feel i could do way better if i could stay on task.

I have a goal climb and everything set, www.mountainproject.com/v/sometime-crack/105730787  To lead this climb.  I have a great book telling me what to do to train. and what to eat to get lean but damn if i can stick with it.

I know that RCTM is against running but i'm wondering if some sort of cardio along with the diet would help get me back to a good fighting weight.  Also would doing more pushups, pull-ups, shoulder press, and curls along with ab and core work help me get way stronger for climbing or will it sap  my energy.

Lastly i have been able to send some v4 boulder problems but have noticed that some problems with certain sit starts just shut me down, and i cant even make the first move.  any tips

What do you all do to stay psyched to train and send.

[jessebruni]

I don't know if someone important said this or if I'm just making it up, but I like the quote "The most effective diet is the one you stick with". To me that means if you know you can't follow through with a diet because it's too strict than come up with a less restrictive diet that you can follow through with. I know for me if I really wanted to and had loads of discipline I could pull off a 3 week diet where I was cutting 3-4 lbs per week, but I'd be left weak and miserable. I'm better off plugging along at 1 lb/week and still being able to enjoy life as I'm not restricting myself too much.

The current weight loss advice all seems to point to weight training over cardio for weight loss. Cardio makes you hungry and people tend to eat back all the calories they burned. Weight training, in comparison curbs your appetite and you continue to burn fat for hours after the workout. I know for me personally I can go into a light weight training session when I'm dieting being utterly starving, but by the time I finish I actually feel pretty satisfied and not hungry. I'm not sure how this works.

Come up with a diet for yourself with the intent of achieving 2 goals:
1) Maintain a weekly caloric deficit
2) Stick with it

Do what you need to to ensure you achieve at least those two. You can add on more goals if you like but as long as you maintain those two simple goals you'll lose weight.

[gargano]

For diet and weight-loss, as Jesse said, "1) maintain a weekly caloric deficit 2) stick with it". That's the nuts and bolts of it. If you want to lose weight set weekly weight-loss goals and stick to them. Plan meals ahead. When you're getting anxious to eat some junk, try drinking some water or take a walk to distract yourself. Myfitnesspal.com has a good calorie tracking program and app.

As for training, setting short-term goals can help motivation. Lifting weights definitely helps, so long as the movements are specific to climbing. Also, looking back to past successes that came from discipline and hard work. Stay positive.

This might also be helpful. I came across it recently. It offers a cut-and-dry look at the pain-gain trade-off. bit.ly/1HFcEsQ

[jonfrisby]

I like setting consumption and burn goals rather than weight loss because of how much a) water and b) randomness changes what you'll weigh in at regardless of whether you're progressing.

[tradmike]

Well finally hopped on my route for the first time, see my first post, and got completly spanked. I knwo that this route does not cater to my style of climbing, but i really like the line it takes. So not sure if i bit off to much for this goal cause to be honest after the starting block i only made it about three moves up the overhanging hand crack before i flew off on top rope. Was almost thinking of picking a new route for a goal but really like the look of this route and the path it takes. Guess its gonna be one hell of a long project.

[amalec]

Few points:

1) Weight training vs. cardio: Neither of them make much of a difference in caloric burn, unless you are at a fitness level where it probably doesn't really matter (e.g.,. if you are hitting the climbing gym 5 days a week, 3 hours per session, plus outdoor climbing, caloric burn is gonna go up).
2) Where weight training helps is in making sure the weight lost is actually fat, not lean tissue. So sure, add some SE to your plan.
3) The sad fact of weight loss is that burning calories makes you hungrier (for most people: certain rare freaks have an appetite loss). So weight loss ultimately comes down to the intake side of the equation.
4) Protein is king.

As jessebruni wrote, the best diet is the one you stick with, and weekly caloric deficit is key. As jonfrisby wrote, you can control consumption/intake - weight loss is an output. So therefore, give yourself a plan that you can stick with, that creates a weekly caloric deficit.

Here's a framework: say you have a long term goal of being 175# at 6". Break that down: get to 197# first. That means you have 20# to lose. Give yourself 1"/week -- means you need a weekly caloric deficit of ~3500 calories. So you get to eat an average of 2200 calories a day* or 15,400/week based on your intermediate target weight.

One way to get there is the bodybuilder approach: plan all your meals so that you eat more or less the same thing (chicken breast, brown rice and steamed broccoli for the bodybuilder classic meal). For some people, that's the easiest thing to stick to.

Another way way to get there is the 5/2 intermittent fasting plan. Take two days a week (rest days, please) where you eat ~500 calories (all protein and salad), and eat whatever you want the rest of the days.

Or maybe you always blow your diet on the weekends? So get super strict Monday-Friday and create a larger deficit to create a buffer. Ideally, do your hardest climbing and weight training on the weekend days where you have a larger caloric intake.

If you take that approach to the extreme, you get a cyclic dieting approach, where you eat like a mouse (well, a mostly protein eating mouse) on rest days, and eat normally on training days.

But it all comes back to:

1) Control intake
2) Create a weekly caloric deficit
3) Use a plan that you can live with.


* If you look at an online calorie counter, you'll see that I'm rounding down. This is because the human homeostatic system basically sucks for weight loss, and because when you use calorie counters, you will lie. Worst that will happen is that you'll get to your target faster.

[bk]

Mar 14, 2015 12:24:41 GMT -7 amalec said:

Few points:
Another way way to get there is the 5/2 intermittent fasting plan. Take two days a week (rest days, please) where you eat ~500 calories (all protein and salad), and eat whatever you want the rest of the days.

I've had some success with this approach. It concentrates the pain, and you get used to fasting pretty quickly. I disagree about rest days. Now that I'm used to it, I can get a great workout in on a fast day. There is some research on this topic using Muslim athletes over Ramadan (who don't even get water) showing that performance is not measurably affected.

[kelly7687]

I just keep the progress of everything I do, put crosses in the calendar and stuff. That keeps me really motivated. The progress.
I also like to do 10 pushups or squats when I can't be asked to go workout. It's a bit easier to start this way.

I also have a bit of a routine that I do to jam me in the mood.