sammiejune29

I have such bad hand eye coordination that I absolutely love biking and hiking. I can't wait till it gets a little bit warmer so I can get back on my bike without freezing for the first 5 min of my ride. Do you like mountain or road biking more? And good luck with your goals!

They are definitely a great comfort movie. When I came home from my gallbladder surgery I put them on and dozed on the couch on and off for the rest of the day. It was nice knowing that if I woke up for a few min that something entertaining and comforting would be on :-)

When I read Goal 2: Stay on Target, all I can think about is Star Wars. Lol But in all seriousness, I'm sure your wife will love the patio when its done. Its already looking great!

Update for the day: No workout today but I did walk to and from class which is quite a workout considering the giant hill I have to climb. My fitbit says I've walked about 4 miles today and have climbed 13 flights of stairs. My thighs are also incredibly sore from the workout yesterday, but it makes me feel like I'm making progress. I already feel stronger. In other news I decided to invest in a heavier dumbbell for my rows so I bought a 20 lbs one today. I will get to try it out tomorrow. It was pretty clear to my that my 8lb ones weren't going to do it for me. I also did my allotted cleaning for the day. I was trying to figure out what happens when I'm home all next week, but I think I figured out a solution. I can't clean my apartment while I'm 200 miles away so I will spend at least 15 min each day helping my mom or grandparents with things, whether that is cooking or something with their computers. Looking forward to my workout tomorrow. Hopefully my legs aren't too sore and I can get some good squats in. :-)

I just watched all three Back to the Futures for a much needed break over the weekend!! Definitely one of my go to movies if I need a little mood boost. Plus it was something great to put on in the background while I was here on NF. Lol And great first workout!!

I'm curious if your hand-eye coordination elsewhere has been helped by your ability to juggle. People are always amazed that I can juggle but seem to do so poorly with other hand-eye coordination exercises, even something as simple as my roommate throwing me a water bottle. Also, thanks so much for all the advice and support!! I'm so glad to have found nerd fitness and so far its definitely being as awesome as I had hoped!

Thanks for the advice :-) Currently I only have 8 lb dumbbells so I'm playing around with different ways to add more weight. I added some this last round and it turned out not to be enough but of course I didn't want to kill the momentum of the circuit to up the weight again and I figured building a bit of endurance would be good anyway. Lol. And thanks for your advice on push ups too. I'm gonna have to get a little creative with reducing the incline since I live in an apartment and don't have any in my apartment. Thanks!! Its definitely something to keep in mind. My goal is still going to be trying for that one extra rep every time I want to strive for improvement. But I'm not going to be super harsh and give myself and A only if I improved by at least one rep on every exercise, every workout cause that's unreasonable. The purpose of the goal is to push myself to keep improving and to keep myself from getting stuck in a rut. Like yesterday I improved everything except squats. Not only did I improve them, but I improved them a lot. I count that as a major win.

So I did the beginner body weight workout today as to not lose my momentum from doing it on Thursday. Even though the challenge hasn't technically started yet, I wanted to post it. Thursday's workout (Feb 21, 2013): Warm-up - Stairs, jogging and jumping jacks for 5 min 2 Circuits: Body Weight Squats: 20/10 Incline Push-up (kitchen counter top, 3ft tall): 8/10 Right Leg Lunges: 7/6 Left Leg Lunges: 7/6 Right Arm Dumbbell Rows (8 lbs): 15/15 Left Arm Dumbbell Rows (8 lbs): 15/15 Plank: 15 sec / 10 sec Jumping Jacks: 30/30 Stretching at the end Sunday's Workout (Feb 24, 2013) Warm-up - Stairs, jogging and jumping jacks for 5 min 3 Circuits Body Weight Squats: 20/14/10 Incline Push-up (kitchen counter top, 3ft tall): 10/10/5 Right Leg Lunges: 4/3 Left Leg Lunges: 4/3 Right Arm Dumbbell Rows: (10 lbs) 20/15/13 Left Arm Dumbbell Rows: (10 lbs) 20/15/13 Plank: 25 sec / 20 sec / 10 sec Jumping Jacks: 30/30/30 Stretching at the end My legs were too sore to do any more lunges with good form but I think I made excellent progress on everything else. I'm also still experimenting with the right amount of weight for the dumbbell rows. I'm especially happy with my plank progress. These are on the floor forearm planks. Also, related to the challenge, I made a chart to hang on my wall to check off days that I do my allotted cleaning time. Since the goal of the cleaning part of this challenge is to better clean my own apartment, I'm not going to count the days that I am home visiting my family against myself.

Thanks for the advice :-) I was mostly worried about hurting myself out of ignorance. The reason I added the bit about doing at least one more rep than last time is that I know I have a hard time pushing myself hard enough to actually get anywhere. Even if this doesn't happen every single workout with every single exercise I do, it will help me push myself hard. And I am also working very hard on my form.

Setting swords on fire is a piece of cake if you are Thoros Of Myr (awesome points to anyone who get the reference)

Thanks for the encouragement everyone! Crickets aside I have a quandary that I'm hoping you guys can help me with. I did the body weight work out on Thursday and am still quite sore today (Saturday). I don't want to overwork my muscles by not giving them adequate time to rest between workouts. I'm concerned that 3x per week may not be realistic if I need two days to recover in between work out days. So I guess my questions are how sore is too sore to workout (I know this is subjective but opinions are welcome) and should I put some kind of stipulation into my goal about missing workouts if I'm too sore?

I have never been a fan of breakfast foods for breakfast. I even like eggs, but wouldn't want to eat them more that once per week. I always eat "lunch" foods for breakfast. Other people think I'm weird, but it makes me happy and gets my day off to a much better start. I'm happier and have more energy than when I try to eat "breakfast" foods.

I too have struggled with depression as well as anxiety related to classes so I can empathize. Kudos to you on trying to build better habits! Its not an easy step to make. Good luck!

I love the quotes!! Very inspiring

Totally with you on the pair of pants that you want to fit into :-) Good luck and great goals!

I totally feel you on eating more balance meals. Its easy to fall into that trap. So good luck!!

I love the theme! Its so creative. I love juggling but I never got past 3 balls. I remember when I was learning though the hardest thing was getting that 4th catch consistently, and then all of a sudden I was juggling. Such a great feeling.

Swing dancing is awesome! I was in a swing dance club for a while and it was a blast.

I also would love to get a passport at some time, gotta write that down and put in on my life-goals list (maybe for a future challenge)

Back in October I fell off my bike and cracked my skull, had bleeding in my brain, spent two days in the ICU, all that fun stuff. I was physically unable to work out for a few months after that. I still get dizzy occasionally so I have to carefully plan my exercises so nothing requires me looking up or laying on my back. But this is me getting back in the game. I'm really excited about the NerdFitness community and the challenges. Even if I'm not literally getting back on my bike right now, I am getting back into working out, which is just as important. This is my first challenge! My default stats are: STR: 1 DEX: 3 STA: 3 CON: 2 WIS: 2 CHA: 4 Goals: 1. Do a body weight work out 3 times per week - probably the beginner one, but I don't want to limit myself :-) - 3 STR, 2 STA 2. Every time I do a body weight work-out I will do at least 1 more rep than last time - OR increase the difficulty of the exercise (decreasing the incline on my incline push-ups) - 1 STR, 1 STA, 1 CHA, 1 DEX 3. Do a real push-up with good form - Not on knees, not inclined (I have never been able to do this, EVER) - 3 STR 4. Do at least 15 min of cleaning, picking up, hanging up clothes in my apartment per day. - I tend to let the mess in my apartment built up till it hits "critical mass" then clean everything and let it build back up again. Granted, my definition of "critical mass" is really not that bad, but I want to keep my apartment cleaner, more consistently. - The number of days I clean matters more than the number of hours spent cleaning per week - 3 WIS At some point before Monday I will post some starting stats for myself.

I'm not sure which one my roommate and I have (we found it unused in the back of a closet at his dad's house, lol) but our favorite thing to dehydrate is pineapple. Fresh pineapples are great but unless you are a pineapple nut its hard to eat the whole thing by yourself. If you cut it into real thin slices it makes a great thing to dehydrate. The more dehydrated it is, the more like a pineapple chip and the less dehydrated makes it more like pineapple jerky, but either way its delicious. Its a great snack for when you want something a little sweet. Also, the riper the pineapple the sweeter the pineapple chips come out.