DFTBAmanda

Hello! I finally have internet again! I know I've been absent almost the whole first two weeks, but that definitely doesn't mean I've forgotten. Well, I mean, I've forgotten some things, like what I made for dinner last week, but I know there were definitely 3 paleo options, even if I'm the only one that took that path. This week I made a big mess of pulled pork that I used in a few recipes, once for a hash, once for stuffed potatoes, and Nate was still able to make himself barbecue sandwiches a few times. I also made a pretty good pork stir fry last night, with rice for Nate. Tonight I'll make chorizo breakfast taco bowls (I might sneak a corn tortilla or two) and I have boar sausage to make stuffed mushrooms and a huge pile of zucchini to make into noodles. The rest of the week promises to be healthy AND delicious! I have one question though, do you guys have any special tricks to make your grocery budget stretch? We're carnivores, through and through, and even with the majority of our other food being veggies, meat is darn expensive. We're on a VERY fixed income for the next few weeks, and I'm having trouble finding places to cut back... I have been getting workouts in, 3 last week and 2 so far this week. Sunday Nate and I went to the pool and splashed around for awhile. We also took turns giving each other piggy back rides. Now, Nate can lift me like I weigh nothing, he's strong. But Nate is 6'4" and weighs about 315 lbs, give or take. It was a very good workout slogging him from one end of the pool to the other. At one point I walked into the shallows so that only his lower legs were in the water and couldn't actually move my legs anymore but I bet him I could piggy back him and I totally did it! Of course after that he picked me up and hoisted my entire still sitting body over his head, but some people just have to show off, you know? ;-) I'm also work on my prep list. I've got a planner and new pens and highlighters, but still don't have my full schedule. Should have that Monday though! Then I can really get cracking. I've already been able to piece together half my schedule based on probability, now I just need confirmation. So that was my first two weeks, on track for A+ so far. How are you doing?

Puppy!!!!! I want corgis SOOOOOOOOO much, you don't even know.

Thanks! Now that I have wifi I'll have to go check out your challenge

Haha, sometimes I feel like Nate IS a child... But we sat down and had a good conversation and both decided that as long as I throw him a bone every couple meals, he's perfectly willing to try my zucchini noodles and mashed cauliflower. Now if I could just get the ice cream out of the house... :-P

Hello Fellow Rebels! I'm writing this from a Starbucks WiFi connection, still won't have my own internet for another 2 weeks. Last challenge was difficult to keep up with for this same reason, plenty of things happening and victories to track, but no way to alert people! Even now, I'm probably going to have to leave before I can finish, so I'll try to make this quick. Even though I'm a HORRENDOUSLY slow typist. My main quest for this challenge is to get ready for law school, which will start a month into the challenge. Then I'll have 2 weeks of classes to assess my preparedness and make any needed adjustments before the semester gets fully underway. I want to be able to balance a healthy lifestyle and a full class load, and that means sticking to a plan and a schedule. I'll actually get my class schedule sometime this week and be able to create (and post many pictures of) a comprehensive calendar to simulate what my schedule in law school will be like. I want to work on making meals, working out, and "studying" only in times that I'll actually have available to me between classes. More on how that will pan out exactly in a future post. For now, I have 3 goals for myself, to feed my body, my mind, and my soul. This may be the only "me" time I get for quite some time (three years if my lawyer friends are telling the truth). It's very important to me to not let my physical vessel suffer while I hone my mind. This is the only body I've got, after all. Toward that end: GOAL 1: I want to do bodyweight workouts 3 times a week, this is the BARE minimum. If I want to, I can take an off day and go for a walk or kayak on the lake or whatever, but I ABSLUTELY CANNOT slack on these workouts. I'm not giving myself a way out this time. I have literally nothing weighing on my time these days since quitting my job and moving, so there's no reason not to carve out the 3 hours a week it requires. If that. If I pick up a good pace I can get a 4 set circuit done in 30 minutes. It's about time I stopped babying myself and got back to the Amanda I was this time last year. This means a total of 18 workouts, which is not really that much of a commitment. The grading is as follows: A= 12-18 workouts, with some extra ones thrown in such as cycling and urban hikes B= 9-15 workouts with no extra time put in C= 6-10 workouts F= less than 6 workouts. This is not an option. GOAL 2: I want to make delicious and nutritious meals for me and my tiny family of one other person. We've been doing very well in making our own food (I cook, Nate cleans up) and I want to keep it that way. The thing that kills me currently is keeping in line with Nate's tastbuds and still keeping it Paleo. Right now, I don't really. There are a lot of white potatoes and rice, used to keep Nate's culinary attention and to keep him eating my food instead of going to a fast food place after I eat dinner. He's committed to eating more healthfully just like I am, but he's hopelessly picky. My real challenge is in finding whole food meals that he enjoys and doesn't realize are good for him ;-) I'll do this by making dinner at least 3 times a week, realistically it'll probably be more. If I'm meeting this goal too easily I'll adjust for difficulty later. This equals 18 dinners in all, so grading is: A= 15-20 nutritious and completely paleo meals B= 10-15 paleo meals, a few that cheat slightly C= 8-12 meals, most have some form of simple carb F= less than 10 cooked meals. If this happens, heaven help me. GOAL 3: I want to be ready administratively for when law school comes, this means making out a budget, getting textbooks, notebooks/pens and such, and arranging my workspace. This is more of a tiered system than letter graded, I'm going to have 6 tasks that need to be met by the end of the challenge. They are, in no particular order: Sort out official files and paperwork so that it doesn't drown my study sessionsCreate a budget that takes into account student loans and Nate's impending new jobBuy textbooks, get vaccinated, and upgrade ID (all on campus)Get new study materials, all pens and highlighters were accidentally tossed during the moveFind syllabi, transpose due dates into NEW date plannerCreate database of recipes to draw form that can be made in less than an hour or in a Crockpot for multiple mealsThese are the tools that will enable my overly engaged mind to rest easy on a cushion of over-preparation. I've already been told that trying to do supplemental reading before starting classes is mostly useless unless it's requested on the syllabus, and my tendency to overthink things is going to rear it's ugly head very soon if I don't have something productive to occupy my time. So that's this challenge in a nutshell. Bring on August! I can't wait to read what you guys are tackling this time.

Hey Rebel Family! So I've been off in a land with no Internet, a land called Moving Apartments. I haven't forgotten my challenge! It's just that time warner cable won't be setting up our internet until the first week of August. I have been trying to maintain healthy habits, it's just been a crazy month and no ability to catch up on here. I'm typing all this out on my phone and my hand's already cramping [emoji39] So in the last month I have trained an entire new division at my job, left that job, moved 300 miles to Austin, and now we're unpacking everything and getting ready for me to start law school in a month. It's intense how different everything is here from Dallas, but more on that later. I haven't been getting in body weight workouts in the traditional sense, but moving is a very physical endeavor. I actually had to take a few rest days after we loaded everything off the truck just because I agitated my sternum somehow. I woke up Sunday morning and it hurt to breathe. I couldn't even get my tshirt off by myself. I was utterly useless in the unpacking efforts, but luckily it's gotten better everyday since then and right now it just twinges a bit when I lift something over 70 lbs or so. Keeping that in mind, my book boxes are HEAVY. I'm definitely still getting a full body workout. One thing I'm very excited about is my new complex's fitness center! There are barbells and hand weights and space to do push-ups and it looks utterly deserted. I've promised myself to finish unpacking before I start beating myself up with DOMS, but I'm excited for the prospect. On the eating front, I've had candy probably once a week, which is much better than it was before the challenge, and I've been able to start cooking my own food again, which is awesome. You know how moving always inevitably leads to not being able to find the silverware, and ordering takeout for three days in a row while you marvel at the sheer magnitude of what you have to do? Well this time we made sure that everything was labeled and easily accessible in the kitchen boxes and the second day we were able to unpack that entire room, do a major grocery trip, and have a pork roast in the crockpot by 2 pm! And I have a small container of 80% dark chocolate covered almonds in the pantry, and everything else is wonderful fresh paleo fare. Well, except Nate's junk food shelf. But we're working on that. I've also only had 2 small coffees since leaving my job. Booyah. I'm going to be honest, I'm not even using an alarm clock these days, since I'm a jobless layabout, but I wake up around 9 am on average, which is soooooooo much more fun than 5:30. There's really no comparison.

I could just fall into that picture, what a beautiful hike!

Happy vacationing! Can't wait to hear all about it when you return

You know, it's actually pretty easy to make your own larabars, they're basically a half and half mix of dates and nuts with whatever dried fruit you want thrown in for flavor. The high sugar content mostly comes from the dates.

Gotta love a good crockpot recipe! It seems like you're rocking out so far, I bet it feels good to be back in the swing of things

Hey Ems! How long does it usually take you to cook for the week? Do you have a routine to save time? It always takes me hours of planning and a full day of cooking just to have food for 3 days :-P

Amanda=mesmerized What you've been doing is so freaking cool! I have to look deeper into GMB.

So... multiquote isn't working on this tablet. Neither is linking in my signature. Come to think of it, neither is picture loading. This could just be another one of those fun little quirks that Windows 8 has, or... it could be fixable by adjusting the settings? Anyone know? Aaaaanywho, This week has been full of both highs and lows. There have been great triumphs! And dismal, dismal failures. Let's start with goal #1. I actually did both workouts that I set out to do, one on Thursday, and one just a few minutes ago. While my rep number was very very small compared to where I was once upon a time, I was able to scrounge up some lat pulldowns, and I pulled 100 lbs! I have no doubt that once I've stuck with it a few weeks, I will be 100 times better than I am now. Currently, my arms can best be described as "pillow". It's the first place I gain weight, and it's always a great indicator of when something's amiss. With any luck, in a few months that'll be a thing of the past again! Cut out the crap: didn't do so hot on this one. I have actually gone entirely without coffee since Thursday. However. Friday, Nate had a late show, and we've just got the one car now, so it was up to me to hang around from the time I got off work at 4 until Nate was ready to leave the theatre, which was supposed to be around 7 but ended up being after 10. I did not have any food with me, and my avenue of salvation was a Target next to the theatre. I bought a bag of m&ms, because I was hungry and annoyed. And then Nate bought me dinner to make up for things, and it was Whataburger. And I got a soda. And then Saturday was completely awful. I went into a sneaky hate spiral of melancholy and self loathing and ended up in the fetal position in bed for a few hours. After the obligatory full day of work on a Saturday. It's a long story that is mostly attributed to it being shark week and just hating my job with the white hot fury of 1000 suns. Nate was understandably a bit freaked out and rushed to the store and got at my insistent behest a pint of dairy free chocolate icecream and gluten free cookie dough that I then smooshed into a cake pan and made a giant cookie sundae from. So now I still have a slightly gooey half a pizza sized cookie sitting on my stove and over half a pint of icecream in the freezer. And a lot of humble pie on my plate. I should probably not have tried to go cold turkey and go from eating candy and processed food everyday to eating completely home prepared Paleo again. Especially if I'm not even going to be at home. This week will be much better planned. Overall, mixed bag. But hey, at least I'm doing something again, at least it's registering, and that's something.

I'll have to track down your thread! It's definitely good to be back. Keeping it simple for the win!

Thanks Blaidd! I'll probably throw in something spicy if I can keep up with this for a few weeks, I'm excited to see how it goes!