newcs

Thanks for the encouragement I think I was spoiled by beginner gains in nearly every other fitness goal I tried to achieve so now I'm just cranky lol. We have a doorframe pull up bar at the house plus the ones at the gym so it's staring me in the face and I have no excuse not to keep trying. I've committed to doing at least 3 negative pull ups a day for the current challenge so I'm hoping I'll get even just a little bit closer!

Thanks for the video! I keep meaning to get more seriously into stretching but always seem to prioritize other things over it. Definitely agree that it's hugely important though! What are you using for your pull up routine? I so badly want to do a pull up but haven't made a ton of progress (I can get 1/3 - 1/2 way to the bar unassisted). I've been using this article to get there and have reached the negative pull ups stage but still frustrated that I can't get my first one done.

Hmm...an NF tour sounds like a neat idea. Thanks for the suggestion! I was hoping that as I progressed and completed various goals that my path would just kind of jump out at me but I really like your idea. It's like a test drive for each of the guilds.

New challenge thread is up! Check it out here

I had considered switching to another guild but my interests are too varied at this point and I really belong in adventurers...for now I'm in a good place with my diet and exercise so my background goal will be to maintain that. I've verbally agreed to run a 5K in June/July and formally signed up for a Spartan Race in August so those two long-term goals will keep me on track to a degree and I'll have time to come up with new short term goals. This challenge will be more about my life goals and getting that in order. The challenge is Feb 25 - Apr 8 but I'll be cutting off my daily goals on Apr 7 as far as tracking and points. A = 100% stats B = 75% stats C = 50% stats F = 0% stats Strength: The goal: 20 negative pull ups per week (done very slowly) The reason: My goal for 2013 is to do a full, unassisted pull up The plan: 3 per day. 1 before my shower, 1 when I get home from work, 1 before/after I brush my teeth at night The stats: +3STR The measurement: Each day is worth a point. 42 possible points. A = 38-42, B = 34 - 38, C = 30-34, F = 33 or fewer Diet: The goal: Drink more water The reason: It's good for me and I never seem to drink a proper amount. It's also really dry here in the winter so I need to get in gear on staying hydrated. The plan: Mark it on a calendar every time I get a glass of water at work. Get four 16oz glasses per day. It's ok if I don't finish the last one but I have to at least start it. The stats: +1CON +1CHA The measurement: Each work day is worth a point. If I fail to log, zero points. No partial points. 30 possible points. A = 28-30, B = 25-28, C = 21-24, F = 20 or fewer The goal: Eat more veggies The reason: I love them but fail to eat them. And they're good for me. I eat a ton of fruit but the vitamins in veggies are important. The plan: Make lots of veggies on Sunday so they're in the fridge and ready to go all week. Have at least 6-7 options on hand so I can't claim there's nothing I feel like eating. The stats: +3CON +2WIS The measurement: Each day is worth a point. I need 5 veggies per day. Ideally I want to eat 5 different veggies but if I eat 2 servings of 1 veggie that will count. I cannot double up on more than one veggie per day during the week, 3 on weekends. Questionable things that I will count as veggies include sweet potatoes, squash, tomatoes, avocadoes and probably some other things that may or may not actually be veggies. 42 possible points. A = 38-42, B = 34 - 38, C = 30-34, F = 33 or fewer Life: Goal: Reclaim the dining room The reason: It's been over a year since we moved in. It's time to unpack the bins. I'm embarassed to invite anyone to the house which is sad because I'm pretty great at cooking/baking. And I was inspired by Laureleye and her success. The plan: Buy clear bins (2 points). Put basement stuff in bins (20 points). Build a PVC shelf like this or something similar to store the bins (8 points). Start moving/sorting/boxing dining room bins to get rid of stuff we don't need and organize what we're keeping and move those into the basement (20 points). Run around the now empty dining room like a kid on a sugar high and continue to fawn over plans to build a dining table out of pallet wood (no points but still fun). The stats: +4CHA +1CON The measurement: Get it done. Worth 50 points total. A = 40-50, B = 30-40, F = 30 or fewer Side challenges: Work on wheel pose as part of the Old People Parkour Posse mini challenge. Come up with DEX-worthy goals for the next challenge. Participate in every.single.mini.challenge. posted to the Adventurers section. Edited to add grading.

Well...I failed at getting another round of QM in. I got a head cold and bending at the waist is, well, just kinda gross at the moment. Definitely will be incorporating it into my strength days going forward though. For my side quest, I'll be working on wheel pose (I can do it but it ain't pretty) and I've been working up to my first pull up. My official challenge includes negative pull ups to get me just a little closer to the real thing!

Sounds like you've got some good goals with solid plans to get there! I'm in for reading your articles. I'm a CPA/tax accountant. My interests range but I work full-time for a public real estate investment trust and work part time as a sole practitioner with individual and small business clients. The REIT makes a lot of investments besides straight up real estate (first/second mortgages, mezz loans, preferred equity, pretty much anything) but obviously they're all connected to real property in some fashion.

I knit! Up until a couple months ago, I could only knit/purl and barely increase/decrease so I was basically relegated to scarves and potholders. I taught myself how to use DPNs and circs and I've finished some fingerless mittens and a hat since then. I started on socks but didn't like how they were turning out so I have to pick those back up. Working up to my first sweater but I haven't been able to pick a pattern yet. What do you usually make?

I most definitely am! Can't wait to see what you come up with

Have you seen this post on the forums? I'm currently trying to convince myself to get the jaybird bluetooth ones but can't justify the cost til mine are really done. I love mine (I linked to them in that thread) but I lost the set of covers that actually fit so now it gets caught on my daith piercing.

It's getting time to set my goals for the next 6-week challenge! I'm in a good place with my diet and exercise so my background goal will be to maintain that. I've verbally agreed to run a 5K in June/July and formally signed up for a Spartan Race in August so those two long-term goals will keep me on track to a degree and I'll have time to come up with new short term goals. This challenge will be more about my life goals and getting that in order. The challenge is Feb 25 - Apr 8 but I'll be cutting off my daily goals on Apr 7 as far as tracking and points. I need to work on what stats to assign to the various goals but other than that, I think I've got a good start! Your 2 cents are welcome Strength: The goal: 20 negative pull ups per week (done very slowly) The reason: My goal for 2013 is to do a full, unassisted pull up The plan: 3 per day. 1 before my shower, 1 when I get home from work, 1 before/after I brush my teeth at night The stats: +3STR The measurement: Each day is worth a point. 42 possible points. Diet: The goal: Drink more water The reason: It's good for me and I never seem to drink a proper amount. It's also really dry here in the winter so I need to get in gear on staying hydrated. The plan: Mark it on a calendar every time I get a glass of water at work. Get four 16oz glasses per day. It's ok if I don't finish the last one but I have to at least start it. The stats: +1CON +1CHA The measurement: Each day is worth a point. If I fail to log, zero points. No partial points. 42 possible points The goal: Eat more veggies The reason: I love them but fail to eat them. Ang they're good for me. I eat a ton of fruit but the vitamins in veggies are important. The plan: Make lots of veggies on Sunday so they're in the fridge and ready to go all week. Have at least 6-7 options on hand so I can't claim there's nothing I feel like eating. The stats: +3CON +2WIS The measurement: Each day is worth a point. I need 5 veggies per day. Ideally I want to eat 5 different veggies but if I eat 2 servings of 1 veggie that will count. I cannot double up on more than one veggie per day. Questionable things that I will count as veggies include sweet potatoes, tomatoes, avocadoes and probably some other things that may or may not actually be veggies. 42 possible points Life: Goal: Reclaim the dining room The reason: It's been over a year since we moved in. It's time to unpack the bins. And I was inspired by Laureleye. The plan: Buy clear bins (2 points). Put basement stuff in bins (20 points). Build a PVC shelf like this or something similar to store the bins (8 points). Start moving/sorting/boxing dining room bins to get rid of stuff we don't need and organize what we're keeping and move those into the basement (20 points). Run around the now empty dining room like a kid on a sugar high and continue to fawn over plans to build a dining table out of pallet wood (no points but still fun). The stats: +4CHA +1CON The measurement: Get it done. Worth 50 points total.

Thanks for the input! I'll keep at it and hopefully things will improve.

Yay new goals! I'll be posting my ideas for mine soon and opening it up for everyone's 2 cents 1. You can totally rock this! I'd consider what happens if you make it happen halfway through the challenge? You blew your planks outta the water so I'd maybe set up a 2 level challenge for yourself. If you do it before the end of week 3, you need to do 5 by the end of week 6 or something like that. That way you have something to work toward if you blow this one away too quickly. I found that once I could do 1, doing 3-5 came much more quickly than the first 1. I'm now up to 10. 2. I love Doug's idea. That way you have some options all lined up and you're also not stuck with 1 thing that you end up hating. I'd strongly consider throwing jumping rope in there. It's super cheap to get one (I got mine on Amazon) and you get a great cardio workout in VERY little time. 3. I did this recently (over the course of a long time) so I don't think this is at all silly. It sounds so simple but then it's sometimes hard to put into practice, especially if you drink your tea/coffee/etc right in the morning when poor decisions tend to be rationalized. I wanted to cut out milk and sugar in my tea. I started off with 1 splenda or equal in my tea + 2 half&half individual creamers. I moved to 2 packets sugar, 2 creamers then 1 sugar, 1 creamer and then I switched to grean tea with no sugar, no creamer. Now occasionally I drink black tea with a little whole milk and some raw sugar and it's like dessert. Pretty awesome unintended consequence! 4. I'm using you as inspiration! I'll be reclaiming my basement and dining room next challenge I need to reclaim the basement to reclaim the dining room to reclaim the spare bedroom (also our shared office) and seeing your success with the garage made me think "I want that!"

If you have a smartphone, look for an overdrive app. I use it to access ebooks and audiobooks at the Boston Public Library for free. I'm not sure I'm loving audiobooks though...I seem to space out and miss huge sections lol.

Thanks for the advice! Improved balance is one of my many goals and I've been trying to work on it in non-lunge type ways so I don't injure myself in the meantime. I'm very good at static balance (things like tree pose have become very easy for me) but something about the moving and landing has me desperately trying to maintain my balance. I grabbed a step yesterday and worked on it and plan to continue with that. It seems to be easier if I have somewhere physically marked to land so I'm hoping using the step or some other object in work that requires moving and maintaining balance will get me used to the movements so I can eventually do things like lunges without a physical marker. I also got a lesson in real world physics when the lack of friction caused the step to be a poor choice on a studio floor for box jumps. Put a mat under it and it fixed it...but you'd think someone who rocked physics class would've been a little brighter. I tried the Bulgarian Split Squats a couple more times and I think the issue with my balance on the one side is that my knee wobbles. I'm going to stick with it and just hope it's a matter of building up all the little supporting muscles and getting used to using that knee for all my weight. I have a tendency, when I'm just normally standing, to stand on one foot with all/most of my weight so I'm not really surprised that one knee is more stable than the other.

Yay! Thanks for the welcome Did my workout and managed to work in a total of 4min of QMs which I'll put in the spreadsheet. I stuck to crab walk and cat balance...mostly because I couldn't remember any of the others. I managed 1min of each (going forward and backward repeatedly) the first time through and stuck to 30sec of each after that. I didn't have much trouble with my wrists/palms because I've been working up to a pull up (so lots of inverted rows, hanging knee raises, negative pull ups) and doing pushups 2-3x a week but my traps are on fire! I also practiced some of the other stuff from the "where are you at?" sort of exercises. My guesstimates were about right but I did manage wheel pose for about 5 seconds. I'm not very good at it and it sure wasn't pretty but I'll get there! I practiced crow pose just because I felt like it as well. Great for balance! Gotta say...this stuff is way harder than it looks. Remember being a kid and thinking crab walking was a fun way to get around?

Is it too late to join up for this? This looks like so much fun! Here's a guesstimate of my #s: Squats - bodyweight 50+ Push Ups - 10 in one set Leg Lifts - 25 Pull Ups - 0 Lunges (both legs count as 1 rep) - 25 Hand Stand (how many seconds) - 0 Tree Pose Right Leg (how many seconds) - 90 (basically until bored) Tree Pose Left Leg (how many seconds) - 90 (basically until bored but definitely harder than right leg) Wheel Pose (how many seconds) - 0 (not actually sure and will stick with zero til I test it out) Time to learn some QMs for the gym this afternoon!

Thank you! I appreciate the support I've been brainstorming ideas for the next challenge...should be fun! Thanks Hope it was inspiration enough!

Congrats on blowing your weight loss goal out of the water! It's almost addicting to have that sort of success because it makes your ultimate goals seem so much more realistic and within your abilities. Glad to hear that even though Nemo (and all the other storms we've had) hit you pretty hard, you kept up as much as possible. Hope you're feeling better! Tis the season for chest colds unfortunately Edit: Also, have you tried goblet squats? I didn't like having 2 dumbbells and I'm still working up to the bar but I really liked dumbbell squats.

haha I'm not into the whole jazzercise thing, just the straight up step aerobics. At least in my head, jazzercise is more flashy lol. I actually have a step at home...with risers...yeah. You'd think I'm like 60 with some of my "hobbies" (or 80 depending on which hobby). I think one of my goals is going to become slowly transitioning out of the gym environment so I'm liking exercises like this that I can start to get myself to do at home. It's the motivation more than the equipment usually. The only thing that would hold me back is the treadmill (New England winters = ice = no thank you) but I can get a PF membership for cheap if that's the only thing.

This challenge was a lesson in goal setting for me. The first week felt too easy so I upped my goals and am glad I did. I struggled to meet some of them toward the end but the accountability here kept me on track because I really wanted to succeed. I did my best to participate in the mini challenges. I tried a new veggie-centric recipe, went 100% paleo for at least a day, did the squat challenge to clean up kobolds and decluttered much of my house (and was named a hero of Rivertown!). Setting a goal to complete a certain number of reps of a brand new exercise (inverted rows) was probably one of my best choices. I would normally have put this off since I'm still a bit intimidated by new things at the gym (and most things are new to me at the gym) but setting this goal gave me no choice but to suck it up, ask for help and learn how to do it. This feeds into my larger goal of doing my first pull up so I'm glad I stuck with it! Here's a then & now summary: Hanging leg lifts: Then: 4 sets of 5, twice a week Now: 4 sets of 10, lifting my legs higher, 2-3x a week Inverted rows: Then: 0 ever Now: max of 7 consecutive, 4 sets of at least 5 per workout, 2-3x per week Knitting project: Then: 6" remaining Now: Done! Plus fingerless mittens and a coordinating hat Spice rack: Then: pile of boards and a box of hardware, stain and paint Now: finished and on the wall! Tea situation: Then: 1 cup of black tea with 1 half&half, 1 sugar per day Now: 1 cup of green tea, no sugar, no milk/cream at least 4 days a week Goal Summary: Strength Goal: 40 inverted rows/week (+4STR +1STA) Grade: 75% Points: +3STR +.75STA Goal: 80 hanging leg lifts/week (+2STR +3STA) Grade: 75% Points: +1.5STR +2.25STR Diet Goal: replace black tea with green tea and eliminate sugar/milk/cream 4x/week (+3CON) Average: 100% Points: +3CON Life Goal: Finish knitting my shawl (or as my girlfriend refers to it: assassin's hood). Start and finish spice shelves. Total 13 tasks. (+2CHA) Grade: A (100%): +2CHA Edit: Just realized I'm probably not eligible to "win"...didn't realize 3 posts/week were required so I'm sure I probably fell behind at some point since a lot of my updates were done after my strength workouts (which were 2x/week)

That's a great idea! I actually love step aerobics but they don't do it at my gym. I have seen one lone step stashed in the corner though. Glad you didn't fully face plant! I accept that it will inevitably happen to me but I'm trying to postpone it

I support that goal!

Great job on the veggies and running! Hope you're planning on doing the next challenge