Ninahaza
You'll always be a part of me
hello smogon and welcome to a thread that has been 2 and a half months in the making. I'd like to start this thread off with a quote from the final update i made in my weight-loss/muscle gain thread almost a month and a half ago.
i'll start off with a quote from user Lee during one of our facebook back and forths.
The Physical Health/Fitness Thread
This thread is all about finding and achieving fitness goals with an emphasis on community. It is a thread for everyone of ALL fitness levels. The thread has 2 main focuses
1: Community
I do not know about you guys, but one of the most motivational and generally helpful things i've found when it comes to achieving fitness goals is numbers, more specifically, numbers in people. This thread is going to include everything from personal stories from the community, to daily work out logs (a personal exercise journal pretty much). It'll basically be a thread that is essentially a collection of stories similar to the one found in my previous thread, stories that will come together in time. Again i dont know about you guys, but i find it very motivational to know that people from all around the world and from a community that i'm involved in are doing the same thing i am. knowing that they are in the gym doing the same thing, its even better than a system of in real life workout buddies, and i say that from experience (no offense to my irl friends). this is what this thread is at its very core, the community supporting each other and motivating each other. one awesome giant interactive community support group, its a powerful machine that can produce powerful results. Dont get me wrong, we will see many many failures, even i know i will fail every now and then, but that's whats so great about a community that supports each other, the community will be here to help pick you back up and encourage you to continue. and as long as you do just that, continue, whether its immediately or after a period of time, as long as you continue on your fitness journey, then you haven't really failed yet.
2: Building good habits, building success
The second focus: the thread will mainly focus on helping people develop the habit of going to the gym and working out (or just being active in general). It seems that the current physical fitness thread is mainly people coming in and asking advice on their workout plans, or just coming and posting in hopes of getting/developing a workout plan, but not many people seem to stick to their plans and see them through once they receive said workout plan. I think we can all agree that the man with a great workout plan will always lose to the man with a terrible plan, but who has developed a great habit of going to the gym and actually working out (no matter how terrible his plan may be). My highschool PE teacher once told us a tale of a friend he had that had outstanding knowledge on nutrition and how the body responds to exercise, for it was his job to know his stuff when it came to physical fitness and the body, but this friend had terrible workout habits and was very fat. Till this day I dont know if my PE teacher was telling the truth or just trying to drill into our heads that it's not only enough to know your workout, but you must actually get off your butt and go execute it, but I don't care because the message was clear. I am a firm believer that its better to focus on developing the habit of working out in general instead of jumping straight to "whats a great workout plan guys? give me the best routine for the body i want". in fact most so called great work out plans are ones you have to build up to anyways, or they'll prove to be too difficult (whether immediately or in time) and kill your drive to keep working out.
Biographies: I would LOVE to read some bios from people. In this community people look at me like i'm the go to guy when it comes to fitness, but this community has some amazing people in the field of fitness. some that have been in the fitness scene for years, and i mean YEARS. we have some amazing bodies in this community, and i would love to read about the stories behind those bodies. Stories themselves can be very powerful motivational tools, especially from the point of someone starting out and reading about someone else that has already made it. I was there once and reading about others like me that took on the same difficult task and conquered it helped me, it still does today. this is also a great way to get a fitness thread going
Motivation: Speaking of stories being a source of motivation, it would be nice to see people post about what motivates them, what keeps them going. whiles the rest of us just put our heads down, give up, lay on that couch and play video games instead, whats keeps you going? what makes YOU put down that controller and go to the gym. some people have unique motivations
Work out journal/daily logs: is this a workout diary? those who have me on Facebook have seen my daily work out update logs, this is the same thing in essence. i know i for one will be posting exercise logs, keeping track and have some sort of work out journal. How personal your experience in this thread ends up being is going to depend on you, and this section is going to be a huge factor in that. you can keep a personal journal; you can have your own personal story in here.
Progress: this is the shortest section, but the sweetest. one of the best things about this thread will be coming in here and seeing those progress updates/posts.
Supplements talk: I really mean it when i say that this will be a thread where we can talk about ANYTHING fitness related, and i mean anything. one such thing that inst discussed much is supplements. this is a topic that is mostly discussed among the experienced because most people starting out wont be thinking about or worrying too much about supplements. also supplements can be an expensive habit, even i waited until i was sure that i was serious about fitness and would stick to it before buying my first whey protein so i wouldn't be wasting money.
Diet: And finally we come to the giant that is diet. i dont even need to go into detail about this section because everyone knows what its about, and its a different situation for everyone. This section will probably be the most talked about and will dominate. feel free to post about anything, even what your weaknesses/cravings are. what is that one something that you are just powerless against and cannot help but stick it in your face. maybe someone here will offer a pretty neat and more healthier substitute, and finally help you conquer that food weakness.......maybe
so there you have it, this is that thread i promised. Originally this thread was born in June between Lee and i, but over the last 2+ months I've spoken to a lot of people and coordinated with smogon mods and members of the "aesthetics crew"/physical fitness crew. now you might be thinking to yourself "this is all nice Jesus, but what is this thread really about? also dont we already have a physical fitness thread?""Unknown" incoming thread: First of all i want you to kick out of your minds any thoughts that i am planning to make a new thread for the next phase of my journey. I can assure you that this thread is something else completely. first off its not even about me. i don't want to reveal much, but i will say this; User Lee and I (along with a few others) have been working on this thread for over a month and a half now. I truly believe this thread can turn into something amazing that will help a lot of people out, including myself. although i wont be making a new personal thread to follow this one, i think my next fitness goal will receive just as much of an impact (if not more) from this new thread as it would from a new personal thread. so yes, please look forward to this thread being put up soon :).
i'll start off with a quote from user Lee during one of our facebook back and forths.
over the past 2 months i've been putting together this thread in a way where it should hopefully end up being everything that the physical fitness thread should have been. but as with most things, the success of this thread is going to come down directly to the community.I think the Sports Arena thread falls tragically short of its potential and it's too deeply set in its ways to fix that
The Physical Health/Fitness Thread
This thread is all about finding and achieving fitness goals with an emphasis on community. It is a thread for everyone of ALL fitness levels. The thread has 2 main focuses
1: Community
I do not know about you guys, but one of the most motivational and generally helpful things i've found when it comes to achieving fitness goals is numbers, more specifically, numbers in people. This thread is going to include everything from personal stories from the community, to daily work out logs (a personal exercise journal pretty much). It'll basically be a thread that is essentially a collection of stories similar to the one found in my previous thread, stories that will come together in time. Again i dont know about you guys, but i find it very motivational to know that people from all around the world and from a community that i'm involved in are doing the same thing i am. knowing that they are in the gym doing the same thing, its even better than a system of in real life workout buddies, and i say that from experience (no offense to my irl friends). this is what this thread is at its very core, the community supporting each other and motivating each other. one awesome giant interactive community support group, its a powerful machine that can produce powerful results. Dont get me wrong, we will see many many failures, even i know i will fail every now and then, but that's whats so great about a community that supports each other, the community will be here to help pick you back up and encourage you to continue. and as long as you do just that, continue, whether its immediately or after a period of time, as long as you continue on your fitness journey, then you haven't really failed yet.
2: Building good habits, building success
The second focus: the thread will mainly focus on helping people develop the habit of going to the gym and working out (or just being active in general). It seems that the current physical fitness thread is mainly people coming in and asking advice on their workout plans, or just coming and posting in hopes of getting/developing a workout plan, but not many people seem to stick to their plans and see them through once they receive said workout plan. I think we can all agree that the man with a great workout plan will always lose to the man with a terrible plan, but who has developed a great habit of going to the gym and actually working out (no matter how terrible his plan may be). My highschool PE teacher once told us a tale of a friend he had that had outstanding knowledge on nutrition and how the body responds to exercise, for it was his job to know his stuff when it came to physical fitness and the body, but this friend had terrible workout habits and was very fat. Till this day I dont know if my PE teacher was telling the truth or just trying to drill into our heads that it's not only enough to know your workout, but you must actually get off your butt and go execute it, but I don't care because the message was clear. I am a firm believer that its better to focus on developing the habit of working out in general instead of jumping straight to "whats a great workout plan guys? give me the best routine for the body i want". in fact most so called great work out plans are ones you have to build up to anyways, or they'll prove to be too difficult (whether immediately or in time) and kill your drive to keep working out.
Features of the thread
Below are a few "features" of this thread, things i not only hope to see and cannot wait to read about from each individual person, but hope they'll help keep this thread exciting, alive, and fun to participate in. after all this is ultimately about you. the success you see will be no one else but your own, and it is you that will get to enjoy your body, we'll just be here cheering you on. some of these things i'll reserve posts after the OP to keep track of/make a list of, as well as update over time as people change thingsBiographies: I would LOVE to read some bios from people. In this community people look at me like i'm the go to guy when it comes to fitness, but this community has some amazing people in the field of fitness. some that have been in the fitness scene for years, and i mean YEARS. we have some amazing bodies in this community, and i would love to read about the stories behind those bodies. Stories themselves can be very powerful motivational tools, especially from the point of someone starting out and reading about someone else that has already made it. I was there once and reading about others like me that took on the same difficult task and conquered it helped me, it still does today. this is also a great way to get a fitness thread going
Motivation: Speaking of stories being a source of motivation, it would be nice to see people post about what motivates them, what keeps them going. whiles the rest of us just put our heads down, give up, lay on that couch and play video games instead, whats keeps you going? what makes YOU put down that controller and go to the gym. some people have unique motivations
Work out journal/daily logs: is this a workout diary? those who have me on Facebook have seen my daily work out update logs, this is the same thing in essence. i know i for one will be posting exercise logs, keeping track and have some sort of work out journal. How personal your experience in this thread ends up being is going to depend on you, and this section is going to be a huge factor in that. you can keep a personal journal; you can have your own personal story in here.
Progress: this is the shortest section, but the sweetest. one of the best things about this thread will be coming in here and seeing those progress updates/posts.
Supplements talk: I really mean it when i say that this will be a thread where we can talk about ANYTHING fitness related, and i mean anything. one such thing that inst discussed much is supplements. this is a topic that is mostly discussed among the experienced because most people starting out wont be thinking about or worrying too much about supplements. also supplements can be an expensive habit, even i waited until i was sure that i was serious about fitness and would stick to it before buying my first whey protein so i wouldn't be wasting money.
Diet: And finally we come to the giant that is diet. i dont even need to go into detail about this section because everyone knows what its about, and its a different situation for everyone. This section will probably be the most talked about and will dominate. feel free to post about anything, even what your weaknesses/cravings are. what is that one something that you are just powerless against and cannot help but stick it in your face. maybe someone here will offer a pretty neat and more healthier substitute, and finally help you conquer that food weakness.......maybe
Final thoughts
This was originally a thread that was intended to be introduced in the summer. we chose the summer because it is a great time to start working on your fitness goals. in the summer people tend to have more time, etc. But the truth is that there is really no "best time" to start. you have to choose to start, and whenever that is will have to do as far as best time goes. also long term goals are better anyways (as someone once told me :) ). school has started for many of us and it certainly wont be easy to get your work out in at times, but we all know school doesn't automatically mean failure for your fitness goals. I've seen some of my best results during the school year. i first saw my abs during the school year, so its doable. in short, it will all come down to you making that commitment. If you want it bad enough you'll achieve it, and you know we will all be here cheering you on both in failure and in success. well i guess it would be more like "encouraging" you during the failure sections.
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