@innsaneink said in [Excerise Advice/Discussion](/post/1088699) said:
Exercise can have an enormous impact on your mood. In fact, it is thought that exercise can be just as effective as anti-depressants in treating mild-to-moderate depression.
Edit; warning, I may need to talk to someone again and some may want to ignore many of the first bunch of paragraphs, or all of my post.
Whilst I don't know exactly what to call it, I turned 54 last week and life circumstances have me exercising for the first time in nearly 25 years. I used to weight train regularly in between partying really hard on whatever, including a bit of alcohol, whilst also being a hands on builder with 3 to 5 direct employees and the paperwork to go with it.
Then for the next years, a few hours sleep on week nights, often with a much younger lady, though not the 20 years as per @cktiger as they would have been minors, then up and into it, all of it at times and even on site if I was on a bender.
Deciding to settle down after blowing another small fortune in a matter of months, I slowed to settle down about 15 years ago, again with a young woman who I married a couple of years later and had a child together. Sadly in 2012 my wife started suffering mental health problems, which has resulted in me only working for a bit more than 2 of the last seven years, selling up in Sydney as our funds diminished and buying up on the Central Coast, so that we had funds and I could more easily look after our son as her schizophrenia worsened.
I have made plenty of mistakes with this and at great cost to us, but I never wanted to call the Police or an Ambulance, always hoping that she would soon voluntarily seek help. As our son has grown older, he began to question her ramblings more and more, finally returning the aggressive aspects of her illness. It increasingly became the norm and sadly I became blind to the extent of the effect it was having on him. That abruptly changed when he became suicidal, climbing over a balcony at school.
Anyhow, back toward the subject. I then took him away from mum and home, staying in hotels for a week, before staying in Sydney and bringing up for school each day and taking him to see her of an afternoon and play with friends. Though there were a lot of appointments with him and an odd one for myself at the time, otherwise there were an uncomfortable six hours of the school day to fill, which I decided exercise was an appropriate filler.
Having a couple of months prior torn a meniscus in a knee that was already bone on bone, I was as unfit as ever and the heaviest of my life at 96kg and 186/7cm tall with 'aboriginal' calves, with bike riding with my son, walking and very occasional swimming having previously been my only exercise for some time, come mid June it was time to do something about it.
Wow, what a shock to the system the first few workouts were, separated by a few days of pain and stiffness. The paltry weights that I was working with had me feeling somewhat inept, even though I can still move furniture or other heavy objects, doing it with form and shape is another matter.
Going from being being 78kg and benching sets of 6 @120 and pulling cones of putty in between or putting the pin at the bottom of a large machine stack for low rows, to then be struggling at 50kg is quite humbling, even if it is many years later. Having been exercising for some six months, albeit irregular and low intensity, I am starting to see and feel results, but as I still have a terrible diet, not getting anywhere near what I could. Though I don't have many junk meals, I eat plenty, including meats, drink waaay too much Coca Cola and eat way too many sweets, chocolate, chips etc and always have done so.
Not being able to do much leg wise with a bad knee until surgery (delayed for various reasons) doesn't help, finding myself feeling a bit like @GNR4LIFE and others, being at the same or similar weight, but feel stronger and better. I am seriously considering dropping the Coke part of my diet over the coming break as another step to getting myself back, having stopped with ciggies on Boxing day 2012.
For those interested, my wife has accepted treatment since August and although the drugs take her in another direction and the relationships aren't easy, my son and I are now able to spend more time at home than not.
Anyway, enough writing as I am about to pick up some dumbbells.
