Xerla

Wow thanks a lot guys! Added them all to my to-read list. Can't wait to read

Anyone has recommendation for good basic or popular Christianity books? Currently I'm reading CS Lewis's Mere Christianity. Thanks!

I'd say go for the gym to find some motivation and learn or refresh some basic moves from the free personal training sessions. Can you cancel the membership any time or is there a minimum contract? If you're already feel comfortable with the workout routine, you can continue it at home

WEEK 3 DAY 6 I planned for another Freeletics session but then something happened with my shoes and I ended up doing Tai Chi for the first time. It's fun and relaxing! WEEK 3 DAY 7 I found out about Metabolic Typing Diet and got good answers about my diet there. It seems that as a Mixed Type, my food choice is right on track (balance between carbs and protein), the problem is I snacked too much LOL Achievement: 30 seconds faster on doing 50 burpees and my body is getting more toned. Even though I developed more stamina due to the new workout regimen, I didn't see much progress on my goal. I think I really need to fix my diet if I really want to get smaller. Exercise won't help much. --- WEEK 4 DAY 1 I got a sore throat and a little fever. I think I'm going to skip tomorrow's workout and maybe take a rest for a few days. Now's a good chance to eat healthy nutritious food.

WEEK 3 DAY 4 - My super tight pants now almost fit perfectly on me. Yay! - I've tried. I've tried with all my might. I ate sauteed broccoli and scrambled egg with oil and oregano seasoning for breakfast. Somehow I quickly felt hungry again and got cranky because apparently I don't like the food. The rest of the day I ate sweet breads and I realized that breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. I've tried skipping my breakfast before and then I turned into a monster for a day. For me, breakfast must be the best meal of the day to stabilize my all-day mood. I'm fine with oily and salty food for lunch, and I don't mind skipping dinner. I also feel unsatisfied without my favorite dairy and butter for breakfast. This is where everything turned out to be super complicated. Is it wrong if I prefer dairy and butter for breakfast? Is it wrong for me to like sweet and creamy food more than the sour, oily and salty ones? Which one is more important, my happy feeling of having dairy, or healthy food -no dairy no sweets- that makes me upset the whole day? And my temporary solution is, I think I should be more creative with my breakfast. Maybe change the usual full cream milk into soy milk. Adding that milk into my sauteed vegetables. Grate some cheese on top of my spinach. That classic tomato, mushroom and yogurt omelette. Yogurt and oatmeal. Anything. As healthy as possible, but I must include my favorite element of food, so I can be happy and healthy at the same time. Eat what I like, healthy style. I think it's more sustainable that way. Time to find more breakfast recipes! WEEK 3 DAY 5 - My favorite workout shorts felt a bit loose now. Another yay! - I had sauteed tempeh with sweet soy sauce for breakfast. I love soy sauce. My breakfast was nice, so my mood is great today. I think breakfast is indeed very important to me. - I ran 5k today (30'36") without my friends. To be honest, I never thought I can run 5K for around 30 minutes, I thought I have to spend an hour or so. And maybe I can even do it under 30 minutes. The thing is, I think this type of running is not suitable for me. I kept thinking that this is boring, I'd rather do burpees, I want to run faster but my target is distance, not speed, so I don't want to waste my energy rightaway. I wanted it to be done ASAP, I didn't enjoy it and it felt like a torture. I think I prefer sprints, interval running, some obstacles, or any other types that is more dynamic. So maybe I'll do 5K with friends only. I don't hate running, but maybe 1K combined with other workouts is perfect for me. I'll research more about running because I'm a total newbie at this. Maybe I can find more fun ways to do it. And I still want to try 5K run under 30 minutes.

Thanks! Burpees are crazy. Reaaally crazy. --- WEEK 3 DAY 2 - I finished up the rest of the pound cake. (cake 3/3) Lesson learned: bake only a quarter of the recipe to avoid overeating. WEEK 3 DAY 3 - The famous bread chain store Rotiboy released a new variant and I bought it. Too sweet though. (bread 1/2) - I ate Kahlua Cake leftovers. (cake 4/3) Lesson learned: 1. Instantly log my meals. Once delayed, I ate too much. 2. Do not restock on oats. The calories are crazy. Better eat no-fat scrambled egg with a cup of vegetables. 3. Eat in moderation. The Freeletics-hunger effect is fading now, I can feel it, so I must stop using it as an excuse for eating too much. 4. Only eat half of those fancy sweet breads.

WEEK 3 DAY 1 - As expected, I ate my dad's birthday cake. That's 1 out of 3 times of my cake allowance. - Unexpectedly, I saw a brand new cake shop around my lunch area, and of course, being super curious of everything new, I bought the cheese cake. That's 2 out of 3. I didn't expect that at the first day of the week I only got 1 chance left to eat cake! - For workout, I got a new PB (personal best) time for Aphrodite Standard on Freeletics (45:19) My goal is under 30 minutes, but I'm happy because my time is getting better and better! Plan: 1. Avoid eating out. 2. If #2 is unavoidable, go to places that I'm familiar with, in order to avoid the sight of yet another brand new cake shop. 3. I'm planning to try another butter cake recipe to improve the previous one, but I'm confused. Should I count testing my cakes as 3 out of 3, or not? I think it will be fair if I count it though.

Somehow I can't use Google Chrome browser to post I'm using IE now. WEEK 2 - Even though I feel extremely tired after Freeletics workouts, my stamina greatly improved! - Improved sleeping time and duration, and felt energized after waking up. - Despite the change of season from summer to rainy, and people around me mostly suffered from common cold, my boosted immune system from exercise and healthy eating prevented me from getting sick. - Food intake increased greatly for 2 weeks, especially in the morning post-workout. - I realized my healthy eating willpower ran out quickly after heavy workout session. I need to carefully plan and prepare healthy snacks because I tend to grab anything that's available due to extreme hunger. Achievements: - Lost 2 kilograms. - Started to feel tired after 30 burpees nonstop, last week my nonstop limit was 15. And I finished almost 1 minute earlier on doing 50 burpees. To do: - Continue with the free Week 3 Freeletics program. - Oatmeal breakfast is strictly for workout days only. On the other days I'm going to eat protein + vegetables for breakfast. I already stock up on hardboiled eggs and mixed vegetables. - Find that pudding bowl ASAP and make some jelly or konyaku for late night snacks. - Lunch leftovers or yogurt + fruit for dinner. - Try the "once in a week" rule for my favorite unhealthy food: cake, bread and ice cream. Last week, I ate bread 3x, cakes 5x (small - medium slices), ice cream 2x. Based on that data (about how much I LOVELOVELOVE cakes and I own a bakery/cake shop at home), next week I'll start slow and allow myself to eat 3x cakes, 2x breads, 1x ice cream in a week... so it's "3-2-1 in a week" LOL. And by "once" I mean literally "one time" only, NOT "one day" haha.... sounds very tempting though. Tomorrow's my dad's birthday, and today I finished baking and made Kahlua/coffee/chocolate frosting for his birthday cake. It tasted super perfect and I use chocolate frosting on homemade whole wheat toast my breakfast. This means I'll only have 2x chances left for eating cakes within Week 3.

WEEK 1Achievements:- Body measurements: thigh -1 cm- Bread-free for 6 days.- Managed to complete free version of Freeletics Week 1. (50 burpees, squats and sit ups; Methis and Aphrodite)Got extreme DOMS for 3 days after Aphrodite, but now I'm able to do the star version of Freeletics's burpee.- Did my first 5k run trainingI ran1.5 km nonstop on my first try. I never ran that long and that far ever before in my life. Minus points:- I gained 2 kg. LOL. After all the diet and exercises, this is extremely discouraging. To do:- Avoid crackers at lunch.- Prepare healthy breakfast.

As usual, forgive me for my habit of creating lame thread titles. I've been evaluating my last challenge, and here's the result: 1. I want to have a quicker workout regimen because I'm getting busy. My usual Blogilates (pilates/bodyweight/HIIT) routine took around 50 minutes to complete 6x/week, since I'm going to get busy, I need to reduce my workout time. 2. I want to do workout with friends because I feel lonely. Anything. I don't care if it's running, pilates, swimming, tennis or whatever it is. I think I need a little change from my comfortable solo workout in my bedroom. Doing exercise with other people also kind of push me out of my comfort zone and great for making new friends. 3. I need to continue real food diet because it works. I signed up for 10 Days of Real Food Challenge, I did it and lost 1 kg in 10 days. It's a good motivation to put me back on the good diet track for this current challenge. The goal for this challenge is still the same: smaller me. Action plan: 1. Diet Continue the real food diet with 1 free day. 2. Workout 5x/week Honestly, I still don't know what kind of exercise I'd do for the whole challenge, because there are so many things to try. Doing workout with friends is a new thing for me too. My idea is doing 3x cardio and 2x strength training or vice versa. - Muay Thai I usually train alone at the camp near my house, but last week I asked my friends who also want to lose weight to train with me. They like it, but since it's still not their priority, it's hard to get them do the second training. So I went back to my comfort zone, do the training alone. - Running There was an event at my college that requires all the graduate students from all department to do a fun walk together last week. The "do workout with friends" thought popped again in my head, so I asked several friends to join me at the fun walk. First, I'm not good at running. Second, it's full of strangers. As an introvert, this event sounded like an overkill to me. Third, from 30 students in my department, only 2 (including me) who want to do the fun walk. I almost went back into my comfort zone and cancel my plan to join the fun walk. But since I already contacted the student from other department, and at least my friend wanted to go with me, I went there anyway and totally had fun. Me and my friend already planned for our first 5k 2 weeks later. This event triggered the interest of my other classmates and we planned to do an exercise together, like running and tennis once a week. Hopefully this would happen soon. - Freeletics I just randomly downloaded the Freeletics app because it's one of the trending community now in my city. So I decided to test it out today with the Aphrodite (Endurance) workout. My PB time was 24'51", which I don't know whether it's good or bad, and I'm literally dead from soreness today. It was so difficult and my body is still in shock right now. I slept all day long and eat a lot today. It's hard to keep my diet, because I'm really hungry and feel like I want to eat anything. But I think Freeletics is perfect for me, because it's time-based and bodyweight-focused. Maybe I'll train a bit more before I join the community. Well, I think I really push myself outside the comfort zone this time, especially the "doing workout with friends and strangers" part haha... For now, I can see that it's really hard to find friends to do a routine exercise together.

Ahh I missed a week of posting my update! Summary of Week 5: had a double flu. Crazy. I can't exercise. Summary of Week 6: Still not allowed for light exercise. But I paid more attention to nutrition and sleep so I can heal faster. Result: I'm smaller by using my tight clothes as an indicator and I'm happy because I can wear more clothes now By tape measurements, I lost 1 - 2 cm on most of the parts of my body. By scale, I didn't lose weight. Well, I think I didn't completely fail this challenge, but I didn't get the success that I wanted. Even though I didn't drop this challenge, I still failed to update this thread weekly. Next challenge should be better!

I can't post my weekly summary last week because I went out of town for training and then caught a cold due to lack of sleep.. I didn't pay much attention to what I eat and skipped exercise for a week and maybe more this week until I feel better. And the heartbreak situation clearly affected my healthy lifestyle because it totally poisoned my mind. I know I need a strong and positive mind in order to keep going. But the way he just vanished into thin air without any news and no replies for a week after we met, like I never existed, is like having a big memo "I am so ugly" on my forehead. And those negative words stuck in my mind. I feel ugly, despised and worthless. This bad self-image insecurity is worse than any number on my scale and hurt more than a tighter jeans. In short, I got thrown out of balance: lack of sleep due to excessive overanalyzing and crying, eating bad food because I let myself using this method to soothe my heartache, skipping exercise because I'm still having fever. So what will I do next? My heart said screw everything, no matter what I do I still got hurt and feel ugly. My mind said relax, it happens to everyone. So what if you're ugly. You'll get over it. Now suck it up and just finish the challenge. Since my heart is currently sick, it will be wise if I listen to my mind. Week 4 summary: - Eating bad food won't heal any heartbreak. Don't be fooled. I'm going to go back to my healthy eating. I'll start with good breakfast first. - No exercise means no toned, athletic look. I'll wait for this cold to go away completely and then go back to my routine calendar. - For body measurements, I got +1 cm on waist, hip and thigh. This is bad. I have to go back to my senses before it's getting worse.

That's a good trick! Keeping myself busy will be a good way to escape from negative emotion. I find that getting out from my room and just go out with some friends or even by myself can keep those negative emotions away from me. Even it's just temporary, but at least it works. I just realized that my healthy lifestyle is very prone to my mood If I'm not feeling good at all, it will be hard for me to avoid emotional eating.. Well, I can, but it's really hard and forcing something too much can get me frustrated at the end. I'll try my best to minimize my emotional eating. --- Week 2 summary: - I let myself eat some unhealthy food, but this time I can control the portion. - Slow progress on my goal, but now I can fit into smaller size clothes. Still tight, but now I can wear it. 28/9/14 Weight: 68.5 kg (-0.5) Neck: 36 (-1) Chest: 95 (+1) Waist (narrow): 79 (-1) Waist (naval): 83 (+1) Hip: 93 (-1) Calf: 39 (+1) Arm: 32 (+1) Fluctuating numbers, I don't know maybe I didn't put the measurement tape at the the same place as before.

It's a blog from a mat pilates instructor who creates free pilates videos to do at home, complete with free exercise calendar! It's very practical for me since I like doing indoor exercise alone haha And it really works for me so I keep doing it. You can see it here http://blogilates.com Yeah so glad to be back!! Thank you for the support Thank you Paradigm! Things are getting better now and hopefully it keeps getting better and better --- Week 1 summary! - Need to prepare more time for making healthy breakfast. - I did my first headstand exercise and able to get both of my legs on the wall on 5th attempt. I'm really happy. - Aside from life problem, some guy broke my heart and this situation might ruined my diet plan because I have the tendency of emotional eating. I'm so sad and it's really hard to keep my healthy eating and do exercise, but I have to be strong and keep going. But really, it's so hard. Soooo hard. And I'm getting smaller! 21/9/14 Weight: 69 kg (-1) Chest: 94 (-1) Thigh: 59 (-1) Calf: 38 (-1) Other measures are still the same like last week. Hopefully my arms are getting smaller soon. Small progress, but it still makes me happy.

Hello dear Assassins! So I skipped the previous challenge and dropped out of my last challenge due to serious life problems. I feel bad for myself. And I miss NF. Now I'm back and hopefully I can finish this challenge until the very last day. Main goal: Smaller me 1. Smaller numbers on measurement tapes (cm) 4/9/14 Neck 37 Chest 95 Waist (narrow) 80 Waist (naval) 82 Hips 94 Thigh 60 Calf 39 Arm 31 Forearm 24 Wrist 16 % Body Fat (US Navy) 24% AND/OR 2. Drop 7 kgs. Current weight: 69 kg Target weight: 62 kg Goal 1: Eating clean 3x per day Less breads, cakes and fried snacks. Goal 2: Exercise 5 - 6x per week Do 3x cardio and 2-3x bodyweight exercises, or do Blogilates's monthly calendar. Goal 3: Update this thread at least once a week, every Sunday, from Week 1 until Week 6. I think that's all, need to make it as simple as possible ...and I can't even think of a creative title for my thread haha XD

Thank you! You should try working at cake shop, it makes me happy and sad at the same time hahaha --- Week 2: Everything went well! I rarely snack, I still eat some bread though, but mostly for breakfast and not as snack. Yay! I also did really well on burpee! I have to modify my workout routine, I'll create another one really soon.

How can I forgot to sign up for this challenge So Week 1 I accomplished my goal of 53 total count for my tabata burpee. Yay! I did well on snacking. I found that each time I got myself a satisfying meal, though not always healthy (breads for breakfast), I can avoid snacking. I'm still thinking to change my food logging with MFP into manual logging. For Week 2, my mini goal is getting the total count of 56 on tabata burpee. Still the same with snacking, but I hope I can have more healthy breakfast.

Thank you for your support! I have to admit that I feel like I'm setting myself to lose, but this battle is still going and I want to win Actually, the cake shop is my mother's, currently I'm helping her because there's not enough employee. I really enjoyed the job because I love cakes, and that's why this challenge is extremely challenging haha... But I'm very grateful because this challenge is just perfect to protect me from the cakes --- Recently, a baker just applied and I think he's perfect for the job. I thought my happy torture would end, but then of course he showed us his superb baking skill and baked so many kind of delicious cakes and breads. OMG. Thankfully I set up action plan #2, so I can manipulate my hungry brain to treat the baker's cakes and breads as 'new cakes from cake shop', therefore I must eat them half portion max. Seriously, my body doesn't need that much sugar and I believe that my taste buds are capable enough to rate the food with just a few bites. I remember the first time I thought that "but non-obese people can still eat ice cream and junk food and yet they're still skinny!" Now I already mastered the trick to keep eating ice cream and not returning to my old self. I will once again find the trick to keep baking and reducing my body fat at the same time. I know this is very doable, I saw many bakers with low body fat percent visually I won't let myself using baking as an excuse. My baking hobby/job has nothing to do with my body fat. The culprit is my unhealthy snacking habit. So yesterday, I baked 2 cakes for my cousin's birthday and my customer. Yes, of course I nibbled a little to check the taste, but I managed to stop my fingers from picking another crumbles. I always think that the amounts are small so it wouldn't count that much, but I realize that I'm building a bad habit. I'm really happy to know that these 2 days "I can stop". I just did tabata burpee, and I raised my total count from 50 to 51. I managed to squeeze 1 burpee on the 3rd 20 secs. It was hard but I'm satisfied with myself. I'm going to do it again on next Thursday and Saturday, raising 1 count for each workout. At the end of week, my total count should be 53. And I just decided to do the mini challenge as my stretching routine. My whole body cracked. Really. Especially during that shoulder dislocates move. Wall slides looks easy but then my body somehow just pull itself from the wall and I can't stick my back onto it. I stared at the mirror and noticed that I looked like an unnatural horrible creature when my palms facing inwards during the wrist extension stretch.

Thanks!! Yes I instantly grabbed my measurement tape right after experiencing that horror from my scale --- Oh. Day 1. And still 5 AM. I'm ridiculously nervous because I'm going to enter the kitchen in the next 5 minutes. Feels like doing my very first challenge... getting really anxious and excited at the same time

Hi guys! GOAL Smaller body size based on measurement tape (in metrics) Neck 38 on 6/01/2014 Waist (narrow) 78 on 6/07/2014 Waist (naval) 86 on 6/07/2014 Hips 103 on 6/07/2014 Thigh 65 on 6/01/2014 Calf 39 on 6/01/2014 Arm 33 on 6/01/2014 Forearm 26 on 6/01/2014 Wrist 17 on 6/01/2014 % Body Fat (US Navy) 27 on 6/01/2014 Lean Mass 53 on 6/01/2014 Fat Mass 20 on 6/01/2014 Waist-to-Hip Ratio 0.76 on 6/01/2014 I don't know the normal rate of fat loss using measurement tape in 6 weeks, so I just set my goal to be 'smaller', maybe 1 cm. *starts slow* ACTION PLAN Since I've regained my eating clean habit for breakfast/lunch/dinner, and also found a good way to do quick intense workouts from previous challenge, I won't include them on my action plan. Now, the time has finally come for me to seriously paying attention on my crazy snacking habit. To be honest, I'm scared. Snacking is like a mini-boss that always come and ambush me any time it wants. 1. Stop nibbling excessively while baking. This one is the hardest. 2. No snacking, unless: - I'm visiting new cake shops and doing survey for improving my own cake shop (buy the most important one, eat half portion max) - I got stuck in family/friend's party and I have to be polite by eating their snacks (in moderation: half portion or 1 handful max) 3. Food logging Track them all, be honest, and report. It will make me much more accountable if people can see my daily meal. SIDE QUEST 1. Stretch every day for 5 - 10 minutes. 2. Do all the guild's mini challenges. PRE-CHALLENGE OBSTACLES 1. My scale just gave me a huge mental breakdown by telling me that I gained 1 kg, despite all the healthy eating and workouts. I'm doing this challenge with half-motivation now. 2. The new open beta of Phantasy Star Online 2 SEA server distracts me from exercising.

Just saw your resignation post Nuala! Thank you for all the awesome things you've done for the Assassin's guild

Thank you Nuala! :)

Hey there! I live in South Jakarta Glad to see fellow Indonesian here!

It's free, minimal equipment, can be done at home, not too time-consuming, and I can do it alone (somehow exercising around too many people makes me nervous)

Yeah dessert day and sensible day (great name!) is way much better. Which is why I treat it like 'all or none', eat it all or don't touch it at all. Sometimes I even put it out of my sight, including not to look at bread stores at non-dessert days. Really, my legs seem like they have an auto switch to walk me directly into those cake shops and buy breads and cakes. --- Week 6 summary: - Ate healthy food every day, with controlled snacking. It means I completely aware why and how much I ate my snacks. I don't feel any regret, because the snacking was part of my eating plan. I can control it like a boss - Exercise 6x per week. Now I'm not too strict on following my usual favorite Blogilates calendar that requires me 1 hour of workout per day. On my day off, I go for Blogilates. No day off, no problem. Just roll my dice and do any of the <30 minutes intense workout I've collected before. It works like charm. Few days ago I got home late, feel so tired even though I know I did nothing but sitting and studying all day long. So the 4 minutes of tabata burpee before I went to sleep saved me from skipping my workout day. And I added 5 - 10 minutes of stretching to improve my flexibility. - Japanese: not so good, but at least I improved. Challenge wrap up: I did it. YAYY! Healthy lifestyle is back! This means a lot to me. After I got sick on December last year, I feel like I won't be able to return to my old healthy routine. I couldn't do any exercise without getting my lung hurt. I tried to get back to it one at a time, but I felt really weak and got sick again after just 1 week of full exercise. Not just the illness, but my eating habit and sleeping habit also changed. Now, I'm so happy because I got my healthy eating and sleeping pattern back along with workout routine without getting too sick. For the next challenge, I'm thinking on making flexibility as my goal. Or maybe handstand. Thanks for all the support guys!