Why don't we spend more time discussing fitness and nutrition?

Just sent you a vid hermano

 

Why? Because surfing is a leisure activity for 99% of us. If someone wants to get in better shape then please do - doesn't mean we want to hear about it or discuss it.

I love surfing and drinking beer. So far I have found a productive coexistence between the 2. Don't f..k it up for me with fitness tips (may throw off the balance)

 

Lost 15 lbs in 3 months. Eat few carbs workout 30 to 40 minutes a day. Various sit ups and light weights 5 to 10 lbs only. Don't care about getting big just maintaining shape. Still drink, smoke and fuk as much as possible of course. I'm gonna rawk my new speedos this spring!

 

I workout for one reason and one reason only: In the summer when all the women take a look at their slob husbands and then at me, it is priceless. Yeah girl I know you wish he was me, it's ok think it.

 

So how did I became this model of perfection???

- Sugar is gone from my diet
- Replaced all snack foods (chips, granola bars, etc...) with mixed nuts
- Lift weights 3 days a week
- Swim 2 days a week
- Core stuff everyday
- and.... surf, always surf first.

Don't get me wrong, I hate working out, but I don't want to be 54 years old some day holding my heart wishing I took better care of myself.
-

 

Nutrition made simple: Eat a wide variety of whole foods, and don't eat/drink more calories than you burn.

My philosophy on fitness: Don't lift weights like an animal your whole life... Too much muscle mass does nothing for your surfing, and you'll end up with repetitive motion wear-and-tear on your joints over time. Some resistance training is ok, mixed in with cardio, but less is more when it comes to shear muscle mass and surfing. A good dumbell routine is really all you need in terms of weights.

Made simple: Live an active lifestyle.

 

Good points LB, but remember when we all get over 40 our muscle mass will start the huge decline. If over 40 weight training is really important not to bulk but to simply maintain.

 

I'm sure surfers other than yuppies work out, but yuppie surfers sure do like to talk about working out and post online about working out. Damn!

vasa trainers, yoga on the beach pow-wows, coconutkavaacai beverages, watches that tell them how much exercise they got. onand on

and they still cant surf!

 

post of the decade!!

 

What??!!??
No sex???? Aw, man....that sucks!!!!

 

On a serious note: I am 66 and I still "workout". With light weights, most I use 16 lbs for one exercise. Lots of repeats though, or, more than what heavy lifters will do. I also use latex bands to work small muscles involved in rotator cuffs, clavicles.. I w.o. 4 days a week M,T-Th, Fri.....30 minutes about a session. Enough for me. On days I surf, I just do stretches, not weights.
Also do some of the simpler Physical Therapy training, some simpler yoga for core muscles, etc. Weather permitting, I take 2 hour mountain bike rides along the coast, as often as possible. If not, my wife and I will take long walks together.
It keeps me in the water. Works for me.
I am not dead yet. Nor am I (or my wife) ready to give up.

 

Too bad Emass isn't here, he was a big fitness expert. And he'd back me up on the heavy weight training too.

 

when you start working out, you take a lifelong passion and turn it into a job. THIS is why most don't seriously work out to surf. JUST SURF MORE. That's the only workout you need.

 

Fit to Surf, a cutting-edge surfing-specific fitness guide, supplies surfers of all levels of experience with everything they need to create a personal fitness program that builds strength and endurance, increases balance and coordination, and minimizes the risk of injury.

It's on Amazon. I wasn't bustin' on ya. The only reason I eat relatively healthy or work out anymore is so I can continue to surf with some degree of non-kookery. I didn't start surfing until 6 years ago and I'm 53. Half the age of Barry, BTW...

 

Still using them Jane Fonda vids O Barry?

 

Nah...her store in Hanoi closed down years ago.

 

This is basically my primary motivation for lifting, and for my specific aesthetic goals (which are a big component of my overall goals, though being in good enough aerobic shape to be able to ski, surf, or mountain bike all day on any given day in any conditions is an equivalent priority). However, working out is one of my favorite things to do, it's not a chore to me, it relaxes me, improves my mood, improves my sleep, and I love it. This goes for heavy lifting (powerlifting style max effort low rep set), bodybuilding-style volume work, metabolic conditioning and high intensity circuit work, and longer low-to-medium intensity endurance stuff like road biking, mountain biking, hiking, trail running (never running on a track, road, or treadmill though, fvck that sh!t). I love it all and it's the farthest possible thing from a burden or an obligation to me. On any given workday, unless I get laid, my workout(s) rivals my meals for the highlight of the day. If I go more than a day or two without working out I get grumpy, anxious, depressed, unable to focus, etc. This is actually really helpful from a marital standpoint because I've been like this ever since I met my wife and have drilled it into her head that I'm like a high-energy dog, if I don't get enough exercise every day sh!t goes south real fast. I see a lot of friends and other married dudes with young kids occasionally try to start going to the gym after years of doing nothing and their wives will b!tch about how they're being selfish, leaving them home with the kid(s), etc... I've never encountered this, at least not on a consistent basis (happens once in a while but it's never actually about me going to the gym, it's usually an emotional response to other unrelated stresses), because working out every single day is what I've always done. Which makes it pretty easy to get a surf in whenever there's waves, since it's already well established that I'm gonna work out every single day, so if that workout can be a surf session it might as well be. But I digress.

 

My working out is essentially a combination of all of the things I listed above (heavy strength work, bodybuilding style volume stuff, high intensity conditioning, and lower intensity cardio... mostly just road biking to work or to run errands when possible because it's more fun than driving and/or walking my dog), with priority given to surfing whenever it's possible, and mountain biking at least 1-2 times a week during the spring/summer/fall (and once or twice a month in the winter if I can). Plus skiing or snowboarding in VT whenever I can, which hasn't been very often recently but should pick up again next season. I pretty much agree with LBCrew that lifting to build a lot of muscle has a negative impact on surfing, but I can't give it up because 1) I legit love the feeling of heavy squats and deadlifts and presses, it feels awesome to walk up to a 400+ lb barbell and just pick it up, 2) I enjoy the trial and error process of learning how to build/change muscle/body composition as a scientific experiment and 3) for ego/vanity purposes. I do care as much or more about how I look naked as how I perform, I think 95% of non-professional-athlete adults who go to the gym feel similarly but many are in denial about it, it's not cool to admit it, and I was the similarly in denial for years. But fvck it. I realize that unnecessary muscle mass has a clear negative impact on surfing, mountain biking, and skiing, but I'm willing to sacrifice a bit of performance to look better since I'm never going to be great at any of those anyway. As long as I can go all day in any conditions and have a blast doing it I'm happy. And I've lost a lot of fat over the past 2.5 years (down from 285ish to 225ish at 6'3") and despite having a lot of muscle I still feel super light and fast and flexible comparatively, and just losing that fat has made me much better in all of those activities. I've struggled a lot with trying to define my objectives in working out, and only in the past couple months been able to admit to myself that I'd rather be weaker and leaner (I.e. look strong) than actually be strong but be fat. If I can get and stay lean, I'd rather have more muscle mass than less though, strictly for aesthetic reasons, and with the understanding that no matter how hard I lift, I'm never going to be carrying ridiculous bodybuilder-amounts of muscle mass without steroids anyway, which I have minimal interest in.

 

Really I've been feeling more and more that diet is 95% of the equation and it really doesn't matter what I do workout-wise as long as I'm doing something. Started tracking everything I eat using the myfitnesspal app almost two years ago. I've told lots of friends about this when they ask how I've been losing weight, and the inevitable response is that seems like a ton of effort (especially when you get to the point of weighing and measuring things, which I do now, but when I first started tracking even just estimating was a huge help... I've gotten more meticulous over time as a tool to break thru plateaus since they usually come when I'm actually eating more than I'm recording). But I tried many diet methods in my stubborn determination to avoid counting calories before this and nothing worked for me. I am always hungry, period, end of story, and can out eat every diet approach. I've retried various diet strategies over the past two years while tracking calories to test this, and sure enough the numbers back up that I'm out eating the diet. Low carb/ketogenic diets work for a lot of people because most people can't eat more than 2000-2500 calories of high fat high protein foods in a day without feeling disgustingly full. I can eat more than that in a sitting no problem. I'm always hungry. I could eat a fvcking wheel of cheese right now, try me (and then poop in the refrigerator). Paleo? Same principle, eat calorie dense foods (i.e. not simple carbs) and you get full before overeating. Not for me. I'm always hungry. I've had a lot of success with intermittent fasting, specifically eating two meals a day with no snacks and minimal liquid calories (read: beer and whiskey and maybe an occasional latte, I don't even like soda or juice or anything else) except on weekends and vacation, but even that is just an approach that makes it easier to stay under my calorie number. If I just follow those rules and don't track what I eat, I'm eating 5000 calories a day before I know it. I'M ALWAYS HUNGRY. I even took it to the extreme for about three months last fall and would only eat once a day, one giant feast around dinnertime. Sure enough, if I really ate as much as I wanted I found myself easily crushing 4000-5000 calories in a sitting, no problem. The vast majority of diets out there are really just approaches to trick yourself into eating fewer calories without realizing it. For me, once I gave in and finally started counting calories, it made everything seem so much easier, almost like seeing the code behind the matrix, no more blindly sticking to an approach and hoping for the best but not really being sure if you could trust the mirror or scale or not or if you're making any progress or not. I played that game for years and years and found the mental stress overwhelming. I'm still always hungry, but knowing the calorie content of various foods/meals allows me to plan and manage what I eat to the point that I can feel as close to full/satisfied as often as possible while still losing fat. So to me, it's by far the simplest diet. No guesswork. If you want to lose weight, track calories. It's that simple. I tell everyone this, but no one ever listens to me. Don't get me wrong, it's still not easy, I've been basically dieting to some degree for over two years straight and only lost 60ish pounds, which means lots of long plateaus and struggles to keep it going, but it is what it is.