Parolles

Great goals! I have a push-up goal too, although mine's less ambitious . Keep it up!

I'm here for the olive party. Also: great goals! Let's win!

While I am still working on these goals, I've decided not to participate in the NF challenge this cycle. Too much going on. Good luck!

Hey folks. Planning to join the Rangers for this challenge, my second. Woo!

You can see my full summary in my thread. Mission #1: Eat better For this one, I did Whole30 for the first thirty days, then I focused on incorporating what I learned into my normal (non-paleo) diet. This was a success. You can also see my Whole30 Wrap Up from day 30. My grade: A Mission #2: Start training During the six weeks, I completed 20 CrossFit workouts, 2 more than my goal. I'm now on a 3-days-on, 1-day-off workout schedule, and I'm loving it. My grade: A+ Mission #3: Keep moving My goal was 85k steps per week. I bested it by more than 5%. My grade: A+ Life Mission: Write I wrote, although I only completed about 6,000 words out of my 9,000 word goal. I do feel that I accomplished the spirit of my goal, which you can read about in my summary. I'll grade this mission on the literal interpretation of the goal, but for purposes of grading the overall challenge I'm considering this a sort of win, anyway. My grade: C Overall I feel like I really beat this, in spite of the life mission goal. I lost several inches from my waist and over 15 pounds. I feel great about my training regemin, and I'm excited for the next challenge, where I intend to set more specific training goals. Overall grade: A

Week 6 Update & Challenge Wrap Up It's over. I think I did pretty well. Some things didn't turn out exactly as I expected, but overall I am pleased with the results. Mission #1: Eat better As I had planned from the beginning of the challenge, this past weekend I explored the city with visiting relatives and ate a bit more than I usually would. That said, I made relatively healthy choices. Certainly in the week leading up to it I was on good behavior. My post-Whole30 diet does include things like Indian curries and Greek lemon potatoes, but I think I can include these foods and still maintain an appropriate macronutrient profile for my personal goals and my training regemin. As mentioned before, I lost several inches and over 15 pounds. I also learned a lot about how to eat right. +1 CON Mission #2: Start training Due to my procrastination with regard to preparing my apartment for visitors, I only got two workouts in last week. I'm already back on track this week, though, and I'm excited to continue my training. Throughout the challenge, I completed 20 CrossFit workouts, averaging 3.33 per week. I more than met my goal. Beyond that, I think I have found a training style that is going to help me reach my overall goals. +1 STR Mission #3: Keep moving Given that I spent the weekend showing my cousin and her son around the city, it's no surprise that I beat my steps goal for the week. Surprisingly, my most active day was not either of the days spent running around NYC, but rather the day of their arrival--primarly because of the number of steps it took to get my apartment presentable! I got my first 25k steps badge on FitBit that day. This week, I completed 114% of my steps goal. Throughout the challenge, I completed about 538,9000 steps, averaging 89,817 steps per week. That's over 5% more than my goal! +1 STA Life Mission: Write Well, this is where I got the least accomplished, at least on paper (heh). I didn't do any writing in the final week of the challenge. In a way, I feel like I "completed" this goal last week. Here's how: I wanted to see if I could get my writing on track by setting a weekly writing goal. I did succeed in learning the answer: no--at least not right now. What I learned is that I'm just not very invested in writing at this time. Maybe I will be, at some point, or maybe I never will. I'm very happy with the progress I'm making on my fitness goals. Combined with work and trying to maintain at least a minimal social calendar, they take all my time. And I'm fine with that. I love being busy when I'm having fun. So I only got 6,000 words written during the challenge. That's two thirds of my original goal. I also learned that I'm not really interested in writing at this time. +1 WIS Conclusion This was great. My main quest goals (as opposed to the specific challenge goals) were intentionally designed to be very difficult, longer-term fitness milestones, but I can already see how the path I'm on will lead me to accomplish them. My pushups are weak right now, but I can do wall handstands. My cardiovascular endurance has improved a lot, but it's still the primary limiting factor in my ability to complete difficult workouts. For that reason, I've decided not to add running (i.e. 5k training) into my regemin at this time--I'm getting enough cardio in my CrossFit workouts given my current level of fitness. For the next challenge, I'm hoping to set specific training goals for at least two of my challenge goals. I'm excited about that. Level up!

Great progress. You're winning! I'm having the same experience with sweets. At lunch in Chinatown Saturday I realized belatedly that I hadn't added any sweetener to my tea, and I was still enjoying it. That's a big change for me, and you too it seems .

Good job everyone! One week to go...

How's it going Gaia?

I'm jealous of your gymnastics! I was happy just to be able to kick up to a wall handstand this week .

Week 5 Update Only one week to go! Mission #1: Eat better So, as mentioned in my last post, I completed the Whole30 challenge with near-100% compliance. Since then, I've re-integrated some of the forbidden foods into my diet. I've eaten grains and potatoes in moderation along with some dairy (mostly in the form of Greek yogurt, one of my favorite things). In the five days since I completed the Whole30, I've maintained my weight within a 1-pound-in-either-direction band. It probably helps that I've been espeically active this week. Mission #2: Start training This was my first week attempting to do a 3:1 workout schedule. I worked on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, took off Thrusday, then worked out Friday, Saturday, and Sunday! It was glorious. It's hard to explain how good I feel. I feel powerful. On Sunday, I participated in the Barbells for Boobs fundraiser/workout with my gym. This was my first partner workout and also the biggest group I've worked out with. I felt a bit of social anxiety and was pretty nervous in the beginning, waiting for my heat to begin. However, it was great. Everybody at my gym is so nice and supportive. For the final week, I'll probably only be able to work out three days, because I have company coming in over the weekend. This week I completed 6 CrossFit workouts. Mission #3: Keep moving I destroyed my walking goal this week, more than making up for last week's 5% deficit. On workout days, I easily got 12-13k steps. Partly this was because there was a lot of running in the workouts and warmups this week (which: please stop). Then on Saturday I met a friend for soup dumplings in Chinatown and we walked across the Manhattan bridge to Dumbo, then down along the water all the way until we hit those blue pier buildings north of Red Hook. That walk, combined with the morning's workout that included five 400m sprints, netted me 25k steps, allowing me to reach the week's goal with a whole day to spare! This week I completed 110% of my walking goal. Life Mission: Write Meh. I did twice as well as last week, but I still didn't hit my goal. This is starting to feel like unnecessary homework. I am so clearly winning with regard to everything else in my challenge, I think I deserve extra credit. But, seriously, I'm going to keep trying. I have some thoughts about this goal and what the results mean to me, which I intend to share in next week's final challenge update. This week I completed 67% of my writing goal. How's it going? October 2013 is shaping up to be one of the best months of the past 33 years.

Whole30 Wrap Up Yesterday was the last day of my Whole30 challenge, so this morning was my first time weighing and measuring myself since the start of the challenge. In 30 days, I lost 15.9 pounds and around 4 inches off my waist. I'm sure this has something to do with working out and walking more, but certainly diet is the biggest component of weight gain, loss, or maintenance. I was nearly 100% compliant on the Whole30 plan for the whole 30 days, with the exception of a couple pieces of sugar-free gum (breath emergency) mentioned in an earlier post, and some cough syrup and cough drops over the past few days, since I've developed a bit of a cold. For the remaineder of the challenge, my Mission #1: Eat better goal is to re-integrate grains (in limited quantities), diary, and legumes while maintaining an overall calorie intake and macronutrient ratio that is appropriate for my training regimen and my fitness goals. On the final weekend of the 6 week challenge, I have relatives visiting from out-of-state, and I'll be taking them out to some restaraunts in NYC. I intend to fully enjoy that experience while also attempting to make reasonable choices. Thanks to anyone who is following along. I'll continue posting regular updates at the end of weeks 5 and 6.

Looks like you're doing great. Week 4 really is a lot easier than week 1, isn't it?

Week 4 Update Rolling along... Mission #1: Eat better I was on task with the eating this week. Nothing really interesting to report, except that apple slices with almond butter are my new favorite thing. Tomorrow (Tuesday) is day 30. That means I'll finally be able to weigh and measure myself on Wednesday and see how I'm doing. I'll probably do a mini update then. My plan after the Whole30 is to gradually re-introduce fobidden foods to try and see if I have issues with any of them. My instinct is that I do not, and I do not actually believe that grains, dairy, and legumes are bad foods (that's not why I participated in the Whole30). I'll let you know how that's going next week. This week I was 100% compliant on Whole30. Mission #2: Start training Once again, I attended workouts on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. This week I plan to workout more. I'm not going to try to strictly adhere to a 3:1 schedule, but I'm going to see how much I can do and make an effort not to take more than one day off in a row going forward. This is exciting! This week I completed 100% of my CrossFit workouts. Mission #3: Keep moving Well, I didn't quite hit 85,000 steps this week. I just had too much stuff going on, and I didn't feel like spending the last few hours of the night walking in circles around the neighborhood just to get my step count over the threshold. I feel that I'm living up to the spirit of this goal, anyway. Nobody can accuse me of not being physically active enough during the past four weeks! Perhaps I'll make up the difference next week... This week I completed 95% of my walking goal. Life Mission: Write I'm not doing so hot on this one. I have lots of ideas, but when I sit down to write, I just don't really know how to express any of them. I think I'm just so focused on physical fitness right now that I don't really have mental bandwidth left over for this kind of creativity. I'm not giving up, and I'll try to make up the difference next week (I got about a third of my words down this week). This week I completed 33% of my writing goal. How's it going? I feel fantastic! I'm very excited about my wasitline. Can't wait to measure it on Wednesday and see if the reality matches my perception.

Week 3 Update Half way! Mission #1: Eat better I've cut back on fruit a little bit. Still eating more than in week 1, but less than in week 2. I've also started cutting back on fat a little, mainly by draining my beef (originally I was keeping the fat since it's local, grass fed, organic beef). I won't go into detail on why I decided these two changes were needed, but you can imagine . The sautee method was getting a little routine, so I broke out the grill pan and have used it a bit now. That's fun and makes things taste a little different. I ordered a meat tenderizer, though, because grilling (or pan frying) a chicken breast can be a pain when one end is like three times thicker than the other. Last night I bought a couple of little filet mignons and grilled those up for dinner. It was glorious. Speaking of glorious, I got local-ish (I live in NYC) ambrosia apples at the farmers market yesterday morning. They are one of the best things I've ever tasted. As far as I know, I've never had them before. I've been thinking a lot more about how I'm going to handle the transition from Whole30 to the rest of the 6 week challenge and beyond. More on that next week. I'm more excited about being able to weigh and measure myself (prohibited during Whole30) than I am about adding new foods. This week I was 99.99% compliant on Whole30 (the .01% is a couple pieces of emergency sugar-free chewing gum after discovering on the train that I forgot to brush my teeth). Mission #2: Start training This week I continued to work out in the Monday, Wednesday, Friday evening classes (which my gym sometimes calls Basics or Foundations based on some algorithm I haven't figured out). It's going well. My strength is improving slowly. I kind of think it might be improving faster if I ate more low glycemic carbs, but I'm just not a huge vegetable fan, and the easiest carbs for me to work with are yogurt, oats, bran, and beans, which are off the table for now. Anyway, I'm happy with my progress at this point. This week I completed 100% of my CrossFit workouts. Mission #3: Keep moving This looks like only a decent week if you just count steps. I have just a little more than my goal requires. However, in reality, it was a big week for moving! On Saturday, a friend and I took the Metro-North up to Breakneck Ridge and did a nice hike there. FitBit says I got over 150 floors of elevation! Rock scrambling is new to me, and I had to stop and rest several times, but it was really fun. This week I completed 100% of my walking goal, and climbed a mountain. Life Mission: Write This was harder. I had a busy weekend, with the hiking Saturday and going to a play and doing various chores on Sunday. I didn't get started until Sunday evening. I only managed to write about 500 words on the third chapter of the story I've been working on. I've kind of bogged down on it. Rather than continue to struggle with that, I then wrote another 1000 words of fantasy porn. Haha. I figured it was better than nothing. I'll try to do something more substantial for week 4. This week I completed 100% of my writing goal. How's it going? Great! I'm excited for the Whole30 part to be over so I can start tracking my progress via weight, bodyfat, and measurements. I have my starting values, of course. According to the new rules, we become Level 1 and assign ourselves 10 stat points at the midway point of our first challenge. These are the stats I picked for myself: 1 STR, 2 DEX, 1 STA, 2 CON, 2 WIS, 2 CHA. This represents the feeling that I started this challenge relatively balanced, but with lower strength and endurance than I would like. Those values will definitely be increasing after week 6! See ya next week.

Good job! It was fun getting you into costume last night.

Week 2 Update Two weeks down, four to go! Mission #1: Eat better Whole30 is getting easier. Before, I was getting bored. I've spiced things up a bit by adding alternate meats for my sautees: thin-cut pork chops and beef cubes. I've been using more seasonings, like curry and chili powder. Occasionally, I turn my sautee into a saucy dish by adding a small amount of coconut milk and simmering a bit before serving. I've also been eating more fruit, which has given me more energy than I had last week. One thing I need to work on is vegetables. I haven't been quite as good this week about including green veggies. I'm eating lots of onions, though . 15 days to go on Whole30, then I start on my transition plan, which I'll detail for you as we get closer. Anyway, this week I was 100% compliant on Whole30. Mission #2: Start training Week two was also easier for training. I'm no longer completely useless the morning after a workout. I've now completed my gym's "CrossFit Foundations" class, which lasted 2 weeks, not 4. At this point I can join group WODs, or I can do Basics classes, which do the same workouts but in a more guided fashion. At least for tonight, I'm going to do the latter. We'll see how I go from there. This week I completed 100% of my CrossFit workouts. Mission #3: Keep moving No problem meeting my steps goal this week. Not being as sore from workouts and not being as weak from insufficient carbs definitely helped. So this week I completed 114% of my walking goal. Life Mission: Write Like last week, I wrote on the weekend. I'm now thinking that this is actually a pretty good strategy. It gives me time to think about what I want to write during the week. This time I wrote about half on Saturday and the rest on Sunday. I did end up writing another chapter from the same story that I started on last week--this one from a different character's perspective. I think the structure of this story is starting to become clear to me, so maybe I'll continue working on the same one this week. This week I completed 100% of my writing goal. How's it going? Much better. Yay! Thanks for the support. More next week!

Glad you got it back on track after the incident. We're gonna win!

Good job! See you soon.

Week 1 Update The first week of the challenge is over. Here's how I did. Mission #1: Eat better The Whole30 challenge is going prety well. I've started to suffer a bit from food boredom, so I'm looking for some ways to mix things up a bit. Here are some of the meals I’ve been using most frequently, for reference: Scrambled eggs next to onions and peppers sauteed in coconut oil.Stir fry of chicken, leeks, snow peas (not paleo but allowed on Whole30), and garlic in olive oil.Various fresh greens tossed in a dressing of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and lime juice, topped with chilled seasoned ground beef (this recipe).This week I was 100% compliant on Whole30. Mission #2: Start training I’ve completed my first week of CrossFit Foundations at CrossFit Bell in Queens. It’s a lot harder than I expected. Here’s how my week went: On Monday night we practiced good form for sit-ups, push-ups, air squats, and pull-ups. My score on the workout was the lowest in the class, but I was also the oldest by about 10 years and I think my total body fat is equal to the rest of theirs combined. I was happy enough with my performance as was very sore for the next two days!I was still pretty sore as I headed to class on Wednesday night and I was a little worried that I wouldn’t be able to do anything in that condition, but I actually felt a lot better after warming up on the jump ropes (the Advil probably helped too). We practiced good form for strict presses and push presses. I did much better on the workout than the first night and felt pretty good about myself on the way home.I felt significantly better heading into the week’s last class on Friday night. We practiced front squats and overhead squats. It was a much harder workout than Wednesday, and my performance was worse, but not as bad as Monday. I got through it, and felt pretty good about it. Resisted the very strong urge to stop for a Diet Pepsi on the way home.This week I completed 100% of my CrossFit workouts. Mission #3: Keep moving This ended up being more of a struggle than I thought it would be, mainly because of soreness and fatigue from the workouts. However, I pulled it together in the end, and got just over 86,000 steps for the week. So this week I completed 101% of my walking goal. Life Mission: Write I didn't get to this during the work week, as there was too much else going on. However, I sat down Saturday morning and wrote just over 1500 words, completing my goal for the week. I ended up writing the first chapter of a story that I've had in my head for a while now. I already had this part pretty well figured out mentally, so it went onto the page pretty easily. Not sure if I'll stick with this story for the following week, or work on something else. This week I completed 100% of my writing goal. How's it going? Well, this was hard. I felt really busy. The food boredom from Whole30 is going to be an issue, but it's only 23 more days before I enter the transition part of my eating goal. I picked up more fruit when shopping yesterday so maybe I'll have more energy. The workouts are going well, and assuming that I'm not as sore this week as last, meeting the walking goal should be easier. Thanks for the support. More next week!

It shall be glorious!

Hello from a fellow summer weight loss rebel. It was 30 for me. I found that when I got to my pre-challenge weight (not sure if it's my current weight since I'm doing Whole 30 and you're not supposed to weigh during the 30 days) a couple months ago, I kind of lost the motivation to keep losing weight. I feel good enough about my size that it in itself isn't enough to get me moving anymore. So what I did for this challenge was try to think of other good reasons to be fit, and those have been my motivation so far. It sounds like you're doing the same thing. Rafting, climbing, and running are fun, and getting in shape to have fun is a great motivation. You can do it!

Great challenge! You may have already seen this, but I find the base recipe in this NerdFitness blog entry to be really helpful for getting protein in when you don't feel like cooking (or a lot of prep). It looks like the batch I made with 2 pounds of beef on Monday is going to last me through today. I think I'll go without beef on Saturday (still plenty of chicken in the fridge) since I want to wait until the farmer's market on Sunday to get more local/grass fed meat.

Good job!

If by kicking ass you mean being very sore . Thanks halfling! Keep kicking those pancake cravings in the face!