SpartanDad

Aaaaand ... my blender broke! Stupid camper isn't getting me this time! To the amazon.com!

I actually started a small step this week that I hope sticks. I bought a bunch of frozen fruits and I've been doing smoothies all week for breakfast. It's really easy to set up the blender and stick it in the fridge the night before so I don't have to worry about what's for breakfast. I've also been setting the coffee maker at night so if I'm in a rush at least I have a smoothie and coffee, so no chance of a fast food breakfast! I've been able to keep several of my good habits for years as well, Draco - I only drink water and coffee (unsweetened). I'll see how my smoothie thing works out this week and I'll add something else small next week. Thanks for the support!

This is the exact article I needed! For months I've been trying to respawn but so many things just keep getting in the way. I had a gym schedule crammed in between work and picking up the baby from daycare, but nope! Now I need to work later and get the baby right after work. I keep planning on getting bad eating under control but with stress at home trying to sell the house and possibly move, plus the holidays it's easier to get food to go or it feels good to have that comfort food (darn you pie and ice cream)! Life just keeps camping my spawn point. I recently took a survey of myself and one of my biggest strengths is sustained focus on a task. Once I get going on a task for work or on the computer or at home I find it easy to keep working at it until I'm finished. Of course the same survey told me that my biggest weakness was task initiation. That explains a lot. So I guess I need help with initiating my respawn and maybe some tips on keeping the campers at bay.

Darn you for stealing my topic title idea! I'm in the same boat here. I love to cook, but that includes sweets, fried things, etc. Anytime I see a TV chef cook something that looks great I get it in my head to make it too! I also love making desserts for the holidays (stupid sweet potato pie)! I've been trying to rez myself for the last year or more. I was down about 15 pounds and those bad foods were a thing of the past. My immediate goal is to get the food situation under control and quit eating so much crap. We make the time to cook healthy at home!!

I started the last one two weeks late, but this time I'm here for the whole thing! I learned a lot from the first time around and now I've made some adjustments to make my challenges a little smarter. 1. Walk my dog 10 times per week (+3 STA). My faithful SpartanDog was always excited and had a great time on the days where I was trying to run. I found that following the C25K program right now is kind of unrealistic for me at my current weight, so my goal is to take my dog for a walk around the neighborhood which takes approximately 30 minutes 10 times per week. That gives me either two days off if I go twice per day or every day plus twice per day for 3 days per week. 2. Stick with Paleo + Cheese and Cream for at least 85/15 (+2 CON +2 WIS). I had a lot of success with the plan last time around so I'm going to stick with it. The only dairy I'm going with is occasional cheese and cream for my coffee. Down the road I may try to eliminate both over time but I'm having some good weight-loss success with this plan. I'm going with 15% instead of 20% because that comes out to be 6 days "off" or once per week during the challenge. I'm actually go to shoot for fewer than 6 days but 6 is where I'd be happy. 3. Complete the Beginner Body Weight Workout 3 times per week and by the end of the 6 weeks add 5 pounds to my barbell for the rows and start using the barbells during squats and lunges (+2 STR +2 STA). This workout is my favorite thing to do fitness-wise right now so I want to continue doing it and increase the difficulty so I can continually improve and even work my way toward a more intermediate workout. 4. Keep the house clean (+2 WIS +2 CHA). I let too many things pile up so I'm going to subscribe to the "do it now" philosophy and do a better job keeping up with the chores. I'll probably come up with some kind of daily task list to keep it all straight. The final goal is to keep the house at an acceptable tidy level so I don't have to spend hours cleaning the stupid thing all at once. Theme Song I decided to give myself a theme song in honor of The Arrested Development Workout Plan. by Disturbed. Crap I forgot to put my name on the title of this post. Anyone know how to fix the title?

Wow thanks for the info! That's been the main point of confusion for me on this challenge thing. I think I'll go ahead and stay level one since I didn't get through the full challenge. I do like the idea of doing the partial points since I did accomplish a little on the running goal. Here is what I'm thinking for my next challenge: 1. Walk my dog 10 times per week. That's either twice a day for 5 days per week or twice every day and once a day twice a week. My poor dog has so much energy. He loved the days we were running, but I wasn't keeping up with that as much. 2. Stick to 80/20 paleo (plus cheese because, well cheese and half n half for my coffee). That will give me a maximum of 8 days to not be on my plan, and I think I stuck to that on this last challenge. I got some good advice to stay away from weight goals so I'm going to give this one a try. 3. Life goal - keep my house clean. We're having a big party coming up soon and we're going to have to clean the house from top to bottom for it, so I'd like to try and keep it that way. I'm looking for a way to make that a SMART goal. 4. No idea yet. Some other fitness goal relating to strength training is what I'm thinking. I love the beginner body weight circuit but I don't think I'm fit enough to work it into something more advanced yet. Thanks for the congrats as well! We're really excited.

I started late and so I'm not eligible for winning or whatever, but I'm not really sure what to do from here. Here's my evaluation from my post.

At this point I have no idea how to decide if I've "leveled up" or not. Here's how I've evaluated each of my goals. 1. Jog 10 minutes in a row without stopping. (STA +4) Failure. The best I was able to do was 3 minutes, but I also did not follow through with the program. I had no problem getting motivated to do my body weight circuit 3 times a week, but until I weigh a bit less, I think I hate running. 2. Complete 3 circuits of the Beginner Body Weight Workout. (STR +2, STA +2) A! I nailed 3 circuits Saturday morning and it's now part of my routine. I also just added a little weight to the dumbbells to make the rows a little more difficult. I earned +2 STR and +2 STA. 3. Reach 225 lbs. (CON +2, CHA +2) A! I hit 225 a week before the end of the challenge and I'm now 224 as of Saturday morning. I also feel way more fit and have a ton more energy since I've been working out regularly and not eating crap. I earned +2 CON and +2 CHA. 4. Pay off $400 of my credit card and keep it off. (WIS +3) Total F. I'll be working a whole lot this summer so I should be able to make a dent in those credit cards by the end of the summer. So now, how do I determine if I've leveled up? I only completed 2 of my 4 goals, so do I gain stats and no level or what? Total noob here.

Update time! With fewer than 2 weeks left to go, let's see how I'm doing! 1. Jog 10 minutes in a row without stopping. (STA +4) Progress: Meh. I haven't been as vigilant with the C25k program as I want to be. I missed my workout Monday morning and I'm still on week 3. I can do the 3 minutes without much problem. By the end of next week I should be above 5 minutes and I'll do a "trial" at the end of next week to see if I can hit the 10 minutes. 2. Complete 3 circuits of the Beginner Body Weight Workout. (STR +2, STA +2) Progress: Awesome! I love this circuit. I'm consistently getting through two circuits 3 times a week and I'm going for 3 times at the end of next week. 3. Reach 225 lbs. (CON +2, CHA +2) Progress: Awesome! I thought I had plateaued for a couple of weeks and then BOOM lost 3-4 pounds on a Saturday weigh-in. Last Saturday I weighed in at 226.5 so I'm almost there! I'll probably set a BF% goal or a healthy eating goal for the next challenge. 4. Pay off $400 of my credit card and keep it off. (WIS +3) Progress: ...I don't even want to think about it.

Good for you joining late rather than "waiting until the next one." I just got my challenges started this week and I'm really glad I did. I'm also going Paleo + some dairy (cheese and half + half for my coffee) and I found that the carb cravings and the ravenous feelings go away after just a few weeks. If you have refrigeration at your work you could try doing hard boiled eggs or meat + cheese wraps as snacks if the almonds aren't cutting it. That's my favorite snack when I need something. Good luck!

That's a great idea Laureleye. I will probably make my next challenge to remove something from my diet.

Thanks for the advice Rextab. I think for now I'll stick with the weight goal since I doubt I'm in shape enough for the muscle mass increase to matter much at this point. I have way more fat to lose than muscle to gain but I will definitely measure BF% later on as I get leaner. I've tried the budget thing in the past but never really taken it seriously. That's something I also need to work on!

Hi everyone! I'm new here and after consuming almost every article written here I thought I'd give the 6-week challenge a try ... a couple weeks late. I'm 32/M, 5'11 and @ 231 lbs as of this morning. I'm down from 240 lbs since I got started on my quest to be a Spartan Dad back April 7th. A few weeks before that I found out that I'm going to be a dad! So I've made it my personal quest to be a strong, fit example for my children instead of being overweight which I've been my whole life. Here are my 4 challenges this week. Any input would be welcome! 1. Jog 10 minutes in a row without stopping. (STA +4) I've started the Couch 2 5k program and I'm on week 2. I'm hoping that by the end of this challenge I'll be at the point in the program I can jog 10 minutes in a row. 2. Complete 3 circuits of the Beginner Body Weight Workout. (STR +2, STA +2) I was recently using some push up and sit up apps on my phone but the progression on those seemed way too fast. I recently tried the Beginner Body Weight Workout and it's great! I'm pretty sure I can do 2 in a row by the end of the challenge but I wanted to push myself a little bit here. 3. Reach 225 lbs. (CON +2, CHA +2) I think I'm on track for this. That will be 6 lbs in 4 more weeks. I've been mostly Paleo for the last (almost) month except for my birthday. And cheese. Maybe one day I'll learn to kick out cheese! 4. Pay off $400 of my credit card and keep it off. (WIS +3) I am terrible at paying off my credit cards and keeping them paid off. I think an extra $100 a week is doable as long as I can avoid using the stupid thing. Let me know if I've got any of the numbers wrong on this and any advice/input from you higher level people would be appreciated!