Brit

I hate the thought of cutting out dairy, but I may try it soon here. At least I'll get close if I cut out bread and pasta. The only other grain I regularly consume is rice. I will certainly continue to cut out sugar and alcohol anyways!

So, I started off with a four week challenge where I did not drink alcohol at all, among other things. For the past week I have had no sugar at all. I intend to add another nutrition challenge every other week. So, no sugar (except small amounts of fruit and even smaller amounts of honey) until Sept 1. I've done it so far without cheating at all. I have started drinking alcohol again, but only about 1 or 2 drinks a week. Considering I lost no weight at all from cutting it all out I think 1 or 2/week isn't going to make much difference. The point is I'm not tired and hung over every single monday morning. Next week I can start regularly running/walking and lifting at the gym again - my kids will head back to school. My goal is to walk or run 5 days a week and lift 3 days. My trainer is convinced I'll double all my lifts in 2 weeks because I haven't done anything there in months and I still smile whenever I squat. He insists you can't smile while working your hardest. We'll see I guess. I think my face just smiles even when I'm working hard. I can't help it and wasn't aware I was doing it until he pointed it out. On a happier note, ski season starts soon! If I run for a month or two I'll be ready to go like mad as soon as the snow flies! Anyways here's what I'd like to do for the bit: 1 or 2 drinks a week (forever) and No sugar at all until sept 1. No sugar no snacks between meals until sept 15 No sugar, no snacks between meals, and no bread or pasta until sept 30. (Except pizza once a month) At that point I will re-evaluate and see if I need to start tracking calories and/or protein. I really hate tracking and want to avoid it as much as possible. I have tracked enough to know that if I cut out snacks in between meals my calories start to sink really really low so if I just try to eat a lot of protein I'll hopefully make up for that. No snacks is a huge struggle for me, I don't like eating regular meals and I'd much rather just eat peanut butter out of the jar than pork chops and vegetables. Obviously this is the thing that is holding me back. My end goal here is to lose a pile of fat - I'd like to get down to a 24% body fat percentage. I'm at about 34% now. Writing in the 4 week challenge forum played a huge part in the stop drinking challenge so I'll try to make it a regular habit now. Not every day but once a week at least. Good fresh vegetables are next to impossible to get here unless you grow them yourself so I'll have to make myself eat freezer burnt stuff until I figure something else out. (I do grow my own all summer, but that is coming to an end) Anyone else grow sprouts in their kitchen? I can't seem to find reasonably priced sprouting seeds anywhere. Any ideas? Can I use dry beans that were purchased for cooking?

Checking in for last week: No alcohol. This is getting easier! I didn't even feel like drinking this weekend. No problem at all. I drank all my water most days but over the weekend did no keep track. I feel like I was a little short yesterday but not by much. No sugar 5/7 days - yep. Not even hard. Saturday was one of the days and I had waffles for breakfast and then didn't remember I could eat sugar for the rest of the day. Easy. Sunday was no problem either, although I had a little honey in the evening. Honey is not even a regular thing for me. It's like my body remembers the last time I didn't eat sugar and It's not nearly as hard to cut it out this time around. Working out 1/7 days - yep - I worked out 3 days last week! One of those was a powerlifting competition in which I killed it. I haven't stepped foot in the gym since may or june and I still improved almost all of my PR's. Body weight workouts for the win! Walk the dogs 4/7 days - nope. I managed to go for three walks. oops. I was watching someone else's dogs for the last three days and couldn't take all three off leash at the same time, and the other dog and one of mine are monster pullers. I managed one walk with all three (the pullers were on a leash) and finally had those two under control after 20 minutes. It was kind of sweet to end the walk coming home with two huge crazy dogs walking quietly beside me and another one walking quietly behind off leash. Clearly I am a dog master. Anyways it was exhausting and I didn't repeat it. I still haven't managed to get onto the river to go kayaking with them, but it's fall here, which means wind. and more wind. And the river is dangerous enough as it is, so I don't feel real bad about that. Cleaning for 15 minutes/day. nope. I managed this once this week only. I'll make up for it this week! On the other hand my kids are catching on and they have been cleaning for 15 minutes before bed everyday! Finally we have clean rooms around here. Measurements and weight have not changed, but I feel better. It's about changing habits anyways, not losing weight. I have a feeling once I get back into the gym and start skiing again the pounds will drop off. (At least a couple will) Thanks for reading all this, I write it for myself and am pleasantly surprised when any of you read and comment! Keeps me accountable. Sorry for the rambling.

Thank you

Thanks!

I know hey!? He's working on it, it's really his friend who is the problem. He used to be my trainer and was great, but his attitude on food is you can pretty much eat or drink what you want so long as you have enough protein. This really really doesn't work for me and he doesn't get it or like that I don't want him to bring cheesecake over! I really just need to work on self control! We are also moving in a month so he can't just stop by with his deep fried deliciousness that he likes to bring over in between bouts of desserts.

So, last week I managed to save my sugar day until thursday, and then had another on sunday, all good there. Then I blew it on monday. Now I'm determined to wait again until next sunday to touch the stuff. I wish I could just never eat sugar again, but when people bring me cheesecake I cave. I managed no alcohol again all week, although it was difficult because my husband brought home some delicious looking and smelling gin made with northern berries. He felt really bad about it but still hasn't gotten it out of the house, and still drank it in front of me. We have of work to do there! As far as water goes I'm killing it with at least four bottles a day and usually another couple of glasses at meal times or when my water bottle isn't handy. Don't know why I still feel thirsty sometimes with all this water going into my body but maybe I'm just more sensitive to it or something? Anyways my headaches are lessening, which I didn't expect as I never considered myself to be dehydrated before! So it's going great so far. It's definitely becoming a habit to carry a water bottle everywhere I go, and nice to have something to sip at while everyone else is drinking alcohol. I only went for a walk twice last week, and worked out twice. I am now on nf bodyweight level four, which still seems easy. I think I will move my kayak out to the river this afternoon, it's beautiful and calm out. I scoped out a good spot to hide it so I don't have to haul it up and down the cliff all the time. I only cleaned for four days last week and missed monday already. My husband pitched in and also cleaned a bit so that was really helpful and I don't mind missing a day! I am going to go through the nf challenges again and I'm really excited about it. I did track food for two weeks once, but hated it so much that I never managed that span of time again. I counted calories and tried to keep under a certain amount and it was miserable. This time I am just going to take a picture with my phone of everything I eat. Hopefully this will be much easier and I can get through it no problem. And hopefully it still helps me become more mindful of what I eat. I also plan on only eating when I eat, not reading or watching tv. Still haven't lost any weight or inches, my clothes seem to be fitting even worse. That cheesecake!

Ya I'm hoping that's all it is in my case, I'd really like to see some results at some point. I've tried this dozens of times and always quit after one or two weeks with no weight loss. However, I am determined to just keep up with this for four weeks, whether I lose weight or not this time. I usually drink on the weekends (not excessively, but more than I'm comfortable with) and I noticed after one weekend of not drinking I had way more energy on Monday. And as an added bonus I didn't spend any money drinking! Where I live alcohol can get extremely expensive. So at least there are some results which are not related to my weight. I can't believe you are worried about losing weight too quickly! I hope that happens to me eventually.

Thanks

Here's my friend and I on top of Hammar Mountain, NT. I'm the shortie on the right.

Somehow despite following all I said I would follow my weight is up a pound. I suppose this is normal? I seem to have the worst time loosing anything. Anyways I did really well this week, my husband drank all weekend long and I didn't have a single sip! Instead I sucked back the water and hit my four bottle goal every single day. As far as walking or biking goes, I made it 6 days of the week, and the sixth was not just 20 minutes, but 7 hours up and down a mountain! I worked out at home twice and made it to aquafit once. Cleaning goals were hit every day as well, and my house looks slightly less like a hurricane hit it than it usually does. Aside from the gaining weight I feel like I've done really well this week. It wasn't too difficult either, sometimes I hadn't walked yet by the time evening came around, but 20 minutes is not much of a struggle, and actually a good excuse to put off washing the supper dishes. I believe I will challenge the nf level 3 boss later this morning, and I'm certain I can beat it. I'm going to add no sugar for 5/7 days of the week to this challenge as well. By no sugar I mean candy and baking and things with added sugar. I don't mean fruit or juice or honey.

Starting weight 145 Starting Measurements 37, 31, 39 Looks like I won't be able to just leave my boys at swimming lessons and go to the gym, they are nervous about changing and them going into the pool by themselves. Completed nf body weight 3B and took the boys and the dogs for a walk. Cleaned up laundry for 15 minutes. My water bottle is filled for the fourth time so today looks pretty good so far!

I've been practicing for this challenge, I drank only beer or wine this week, no mixed drinks and no coolers. I've carried around a water bottle for three days and drinking four everyday is no problem. My socks are all washed and ready for walking/biking, and I'm going to check river conditions and bring my kayak down to the dock tomorrow if the weather is good. The relentless heat is supposed to be ending soon so I'm getting excited for biking with the dogs again. I put the kids in swimming lessons so I can go to the gym next week without them. I cleaned a large portion of my house yesterday so I don't have to start with a huge mess. I'm ready for this.

Hi. I'm a new ranger, for the past year I've just sort of been here, not really done anything except started things. (important things, like getting over being scared to go to the gym) Now it's time to focus and have some goals and achieve them. So, starting Monday and continuing on for four weeks: NO ALCOHOL This shouldn't be too hard. It's not like my dear husband just made sixty bottles of wine. Drink four bottles of water every single day. Walk, run, bike, or kayak for 20 minutes 4 days/week Get to the gym or work out at home at least 1/week Clean for 15 minutes 5 days/week I do all these things sometimes. Lots of times I do them even better than this. I don't do them consistently and never ever ever in the middle of the summer. (when I actually have a job)