Lose Weight Support Thread

[david3377]

Does anybody know where to buy a set of plastic coated dumbbells in the Taipei area that is convenient anywhere to the MRT? I live in the Shilin 士林區 area. Any suggestions would be helpful.

Give Carrefour a try - I have a plastic coated set that I bought here, and I think I got them in Tesco (RIP), but perhaps they came from Carrefour.

If I were rational I'd sell mine to you, but I still try to persuade myself I'm going to use them regularly once again.

I went to Carrefour, no luck.
I don’t know if Costco has dumbbells or not, but they might. Has anybody noticed?
If not I'll just keep looking. Any other suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks

[Belgian Pie]

Sports stores?

[david3377]

Sports stores?

I have been to a few sport stores in my area, but they only carry the iron dumbbells….a few had nice a selection of chrome plated ones, almost expected to see Hello kitty cute ones.
I did a search at forumosa.com and I didn’t find anything about coated dumbbells. Did notice a lot of sport stores mentioned. I can start hitting them one at time. As my Chinese is terrible it is impossible for me to start calling around. My hope was somebody had noticed a store in their area that carried them. No big deal, I’ll just keep shopping around.
Thanks

[housecat]

Going for a walk in the early morning is fun for me, and as Taipei has plenty of walking trails, I don’t have a problem finding different places to go to keep it interesting. Therefore, almost all of my exercise has consisted of walking (in the beginning walking slowly, panting, sweating, and walking some more), but lately a combination of running and walking. On long stretches of rainy days I just walk up and down the stairs in my building until I am ready to collapse. The stairwell is a great workout, but a little boring.
A lot of weigh has come off my chest arms and face. I still have a bit (a lot) of a pot belly with smaller arms and chest then I would like.
Most people would just go to the gym and add an upper body regimen to their exercise program, but I find it very hard to get motivated to go to the gym. In the past I have purchased yearlong memberships, never to return. I am trying to be more realistic this time by changing my habits to something I can continue for the rest of my life.
There is always free time in the evenings to do some curles while watching TV, but I don’t have a set of dumbbells. I don’t want to use iron ones because they will scratch the floor. I went to a few sport shops in my area, but they didn’t have those plastic coated dumbbells. I had a nice set back in the States that I bought at Walmart, but they were too heavy to ship here at a reasonable price. I thought I could just buy another set after I settled in; after all they were made in Taiwan. They ended up in a yard sale. In hindsight I wish I had shipped them.

Now for my question:

Does anybody know where to buy a set of plastic coated dumbbells in the Taipei area that is convenient anywhere to the MRT? I live in the Shilin 士林區 area. Any suggestions would be helpful.

Congrats to you for your success so far! As for not wanting to scratch the floor with iron dumbells, why not just cover the floor with those cheap puzzle tiles things? They're soft, would make a good work out mat, come in irritating, candy colors, and sometimes have abc's and numbers on them, too! Not very fashionable, but very functional and very cheap.

[Taffy]

I bought my rubberised-plastic-coated dumbbells from a branch of 小北百貨 (Xiǎoběi Bǎihuò), the ubiquitous "sell everything" store years ago. Worth checking in your local branch.

[Jack Burton]

Most people would just go to the gym and add an upper body regimen to their exercise program, but I find it very hard to get motivated to go to the gym. In the past I have purchased yearlong memberships, never to return. I am trying to be more realistic this time by changing my habits to something I can continue for the rest of my life.

I was reading a article that talked about the theory behind this: something like hyperbolic discounting and related to greek idea Akrasia, selling dreams, etc. basically, you are sold on yearlong membership with the idea/prospect of a "perfect body" but when it comes time to go, you make excuses, take a nap, put it off a day, and then never go. The gyms count on a certain number of people like this to generate profits. The article says this theory applies to governments paying off deficits and drug addicts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbolic_discounting

very interesting stuff, but the gist you could take away from it, is to find something that will motivate you to exercise, and if you don't like the gym, then find another way, sports, home gym, group activities, find what motivates you; the article suggests "rewarding" yourself or punishing, everytime you miss a class/training day.

[david3377]

Most people would just go to the gym and add an upper body regimen to their exercise program, but I find it very hard to get motivated to go to the gym. In the past I have purchased yearlong memberships, never to return. I am trying to be more realistic this time by changing my habits to something I can continue for the rest of my life.

I was reading a article that talked about the theory behind this: something like hyperbolic discounting and related to greek idea Akrasia, selling dreams, etc. basically, you are sold on yearlong membership with the idea/prospect of a "perfect body" but when it comes time to go, you make excuses, take a nap, put it off a day, and then never go. The gyms count on a certain number of people like this to generate profits. The article says this theory applies to governments paying off deficits and drug addicts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbolic_discounting

very interesting stuff, but the gist you could take away from it, is to find something that will motivate you to exercise, and if you don't like the gym, then find another way, sports, home gym, group activities, find what motivates you; the article suggests "rewarding" yourself or punishing, everytime you miss a class/training day.

I think that just about sums it up. This time around I am looking for activities that I find fun an interesting, not another chore that has to be done.

I am down to 88 kilos now and seem to have hit a wall. I may have to step up my exercise routine a little bit. The diet part has become second nature now. I don’t even crave the pizza and hamburgers anymore.

I haven’t given up my booze though, and don’t intend to…. I just count how many calories in each cup, and then its bottoms up.

[david3377]

Congrats to you for your success so far! As for not wanting to scratch the floor with iron dumbells, why not just cover the floor with those cheap puzzle tiles things? They're soft, would make a good work out mat, come in irritating, candy colors, and sometimes have abc's and numbers on them, too! Not very fashionable, but very functional and very cheap.

I ended up just buying a large floor mat that wasn’t too ugly and throw it down when I want to exercise. It works and was cheap.

Running around Taipei looking for the plastic coated dumbbells was getting tedious. I bought the chrome ones.

Thanks

[Jack Burton]

Most people would just go to the gym and add an upper body regimen to their exercise program, but I find it very hard to get motivated to go to the gym. In the past I have purchased yearlong memberships, never to return. I am trying to be more realistic this time by changing my habits to something I can continue for the rest of my life.

I was reading a article that talked about the theory behind this: something like hyperbolic discounting and related to greek idea Akrasia, selling dreams, etc. basically, you are sold on yearlong membership with the idea/prospect of a "perfect body" but when it comes time to go, you make excuses, take a nap, put it off a day, and then never go. The gyms count on a certain number of people like this to generate profits. The article says this theory applies to governments paying off deficits and drug addicts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbolic_discounting

very interesting stuff, but the gist you could take away from it, is to find something that will motivate you to exercise, and if you don't like the gym, then find another way, sports, home gym, group activities, find what motivates you; the article suggests "rewarding" yourself or punishing, everytime you miss a class/training day.

I think that just about sums it up. This time around I am looking for activities that I find fun an interesting, not another chore that has to be done.

I am down to 88 kilos now and seem to have hit a wall. I may have to step up my exercise routine a little bit. The diet part has become second nature now. I don’t even crave the pizza and hamburgers anymore.

I haven’t given up my booze though, and don’t intend to…. I just count how many calories in each cup, and then its bottoms up.

same here. I am in your position: hit a plateau at 88 kgs. hard to move beyond. like you, i seldom get cravings for things I gave up. but doesn't mean I don't enjoy a good meal/drink once in awhile. So now I'm looking for some exercise that's more extreme to step up my game. unfortunately, with my day job, choices are limited.... unless I start waking up 5am to do some stuff.... arrggghhh.

[Taffy]

May as well post an update on my progress here. Two and a half years ago I topped out at 106kg. I'm now on my third bout of active weight loss since then (with some rather lengthy lapses in the middle ) and down to 94kg. Still a long way to go, but I'm focusing on achievable short-term targets rather than looking at the longer, much more intimidating, picture.