PhantomHeart

I'll add you next time I'm on! I'm just writing it on my own. I've done NaNoWriMo before (it's wonderful, isn't it?), and this is an ongoing project that revolves more around polishing a draft I already have over disciplining myself to write consistently. Right?! I love being able to move furniture with the big and tall boys during moves! As a little blonde girl it's fun jumping in where no one expects! The novel is high fantasy erotica, and it's the beginning of a platform that will (hopefully) help me make a living writing novels. And I just moved to Fresno. ^.^

New challenge. New respawn! Recently I started watching Supergirl, and I loved how Wonder Woman was a badass in the Batman vs Superman movie. What do these women have in common? (Besides being superheroes.) They're strong as hell. My butt is also complaining about all the sitting around I've been doing while working on my novel, blogs, and freelance job search. You see I recently changed cities and am looking for new employment, so there's a lot of time spent on the computer. Traditionally I've been a ranger who enjoys both running and lifting, but given the heat this summer (and saving my pale skin the sun exposure) I'm swapping running for yoga. I want to use this 4-week challenge to test out how I feel when lifting without running. So here's my down-and-dirty challenge for the month. How To Be Supergirl Lift every other day Use the Academy Barbell Brigade Level 1 Workouts Record lifts in my Fit Happens journal Start every day with a 20 to 40 minute yoga session 6 days a week Use either NerdFitness Yoga or youtube videos from Yoga with Adriene Check a box in my Fit Happens journal Track my food intake using MyFitnessPal daily Check a box in my Fit Happens journal Life Quest: Send out my novel to beta readers by the end of the month. This means the novel has to actually be ready for beta readers! I'm not going to hold myself to anything like "write 2000 words every day" because I'm at the point where there's more going into the writing process than strict word counts. The quest will only be accomplished when I have the finished product. Well, mostly finished. It will still need editing, but it will be so much progress I'll need a week to celebrate. My reward for accomplishing my quest? I'll get myself a purse from Disneyland for my birthday! (I'm girly like that!) Wish me luck!

Hey everyone! I was wondering if anyone here has followed the Paleo Diet for Athletes book, which does add back in certain carbohydrates for better athletic performance. Does anyone have a good or bad user experience on whether or not it helps with training? I'm a Ranger and trying to clean up my average food intake, but I don't want to cut grains and dairy out all together. Thoughts? ~PhantomHeart

First off, Zorro is an awesome name for a horse! Second off, it looks like you have some great goals, and having the personal trainer will certainly help with keeping up on workouts. I found when I had a personal trainer I was much more motivated. And it's a neat idea to say your boyfriend can help with the cooking (even in 20 degree weather!); I've noticed that couples that cook dinner together and have fun with it tend to be a lot closer. Good luck with saving money! It's really hard to get that discipline down, but it looks like you're on the right track (that 150 cut is really disheartening, but i'm sure there's some way to manage it). I ran into the same problem with the calorie count. Fresh fruits and veggies really take up a lot of room, even though they don't have as many calories! Maybe adding some almonds, raisins, or low fat chocolate milk will help. Nuts like almonds are packed with calories and have good polyunsaturated fats (that raise HDL (good) cholesterol and lower LDL (bad) cholesterol), so they're really good for you without taking up too much room. Raisins are very similar, and I find chocolate milk to be a good 'junk food' that's not all that unhealthy! If you find good chocolate covered raisins, they're also a not-so-bad-for-you snack so long as you watch how much of them you eat. Good luck!

Simple and to the point! If you average on losing a little more than 1lb per week, you'll reach your weight goal easily (the max recommended is 2lbs, after that most people just lose muscle and not fat). Good luck with your healthy weight loss! Good luck with the 5k time too! What's your current time?

Challenge Update: I've been keeping track of all my goals in my trusty Companion Cube (though the notebook has a frog face, so I really should call it Companion Frog). So far so good. I've made every marker I can in three days, and each time I run, I've added five minutes to my time. (Yesterday I ran 12 minutes and today I ran 17). I'm working up to running a half hour again, but I will probably make that marker by next week. Considering that's what I was doing only two months ago, that's a reasonable goal for me. Funny anecdote, never ever eat anything (no matter how small) right before running! It's the only reason I stopped at 17 minutes! My stomach was roaring at me saying "What the freak are you doing?!" at around minute 14. I only had two potato chips. So note to self, don't do that again! I also found a fantastically orange foam roller that has squishy spiky bits all over it, which was advertised to roll out all the little tiny muscles that smooth foam rollers don't quite get. It did as advertised, and my outer thigh will concur with me on this. I reached self-inflicted pain tolerance maximum much faster than normal! Hope all my fellow Rangers are having as good a time with this challenge as I am! ~PhantomHeart

Thank you for the resource!

Thank you for the encouragement and the hip stretches! It looks like some of those poses are very similar to what I'm doing now, and I'll try out the rest today. I've tried yoga before, but found that many of the poses hurt my lower back (in group classes). Do you have that problem?

Thanks! Good luck with yours too!

Those sound like excellent goals, and I can concur that once I started consistently cleaning my room everyday life became much more organized too. The hardest part was forming the habit. And good luck on your running goal! I know from experience that running hills (hard work that really pays off!), cross training between runs, and doing intervals helps a lot for increasing endurance/distance. Here's a handy training schedule to give you an idea; it's only for a 5k, but the pattern doesn't change much between that and half marathons. http://arec-lb.com/125ktrain.html Good luck with your next run! Hopefully you achieve that 3.5! Being able to run a 7k will probably be my next running challenge as well.

Good luck on your challenge! It looks like you really are on your way to fighting/eating/walking/programming/riding like Aragorn! Now just put a durable laptop in the saddlebags right next to the big cheese wheel. Awesome.

Dear Hip, I love you; really, I do. I know I've abused you with division 1 rowing, years of bad trainers, and lack of proper stretching, but we've figured out a routine that works for both of us. You're not in pain, and I'm still physically active. Recently I've been slacking though, and you've made me aware of this.. painfully. I wish I could say I've been popping champagne more than you... but I can't, so I won't. So for my nerd-tastic first challenge, lets get back into sync with one another via the following four goals: 1) Stretching: I promise to stretch twice a day at a minimum. Once when I wake up, and once before bed. Also, if I decide to go running, that I stretch before and IMMEDIATELY after. No procrastination for both our sakes! This will be tracked by tick-marks in the notebook I carry in my purse, and I'll create a chart tonight to track said routine. 2) Strength: I promise to do the beginner body weight circuit three times a week: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. It balanced out your muscle imbalances before, so lets make it a habit. This will be recorded in the same notebook I'm tracking stretching in. 3) Running: Even though you don't always like this, Hip, I do. So we'll break even. I'll run six days a week with the condition that once you start hurting, I'll stop and stretch. Better to take care of you for the long-term. Each day I'll record how long I last. Time will be monitored using the Zombies, Run! app, and then recorded in the same record book. Swimming is an acceptable substitute when a lap pool is available. If hip pain becomes too much, simply walking for an hour is also acceptable, but it's only a substitution for running hip pain, not laziness! 4) Spec Script: Remember that super cool opportunity? Yeah, that one with the show and the words and the lines. It's happening, so at the end of every week of these six weeks I'll write three pages of dialogue. 3x6= 18 pages/minutes of tangible script to work with. Bonus points if I have more written! -Stretching: Dex +2 -Strength: Str +1 -Running: Sta and Dex +1 -Spec Script: Wis and Cha +1 -Bonus: 32 pages, +2 to Wis and +1 to Con -Epic Bonus: 45 pages (full script length), +2 to Wis, +2 to Con For the duration of the challenge, my notebook shall be my weighted companion cube. I hope it doesn't weigh me down while running away from those pesky zombs. What do you say hip? Can we do it? Yes? That's what I thought. Good luck to all fellow Rangers on your challenges! "All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wonder are lost." The Lord of the Rings ~Phantomheart