rangersmith0930

Day two was great! Ended the day with less than 100g of net carbs (subtracting Fiber from total carb count). Got some squats in, too. No dog walk, but since my goal for that was only three times a week I'm not too worried about it. Thinking I might take my daughter and the dog out for a walk before lunch and nap time.

Well, day one under my belt. I was a little off the mark, I ended up eating 170 carbs due to a late night grilled cheese. If I'd just eaten the cheese I probably would have been just as full without the extra carbs, so I will remember that going forward. I walked my dog and did one set of 15 tricep extensions with 5lb weights. I'm going to make a spreadsheet to chart "compliance" so I can have a running total and percentage and not have to go back and look it all up at the end.

Here are some questions to put your goals to the test: Is your overall quest achievable (over a short or long period of time)? Is it reasonable? Overall quest is to lose 80-100 pounds and I know that in the long term I can do that! Do your 3 quests all build towards your main quest in little ways, or are you taking on too much? Do your quests have sub-quests or is it just one thing to focus on? All three of my goals (eating fewer than 150 net carbs per day, walking my dog 3 times a week and performing exercises every single day) will work towards building better health habits that will lead to weight loss, so they all build on each other to help accomplish my main quest! Are your main goals realistic? Can you scale them to smaller steps to fit your life better, even if it will make it take a little longer to achieve them? I set relatively easy goals in order to build momentum and get some easy victories. While eating fewer than 150 carbs will be the hardest, I know it is well within my power to do that if I am eating consciously instead of just mindlessly munching on whatever I see during the day. Are your goals able to be measured and tracked? What will you use to track them? My goals can be tracked easily. I track calories, carbs, and fiber on My Fitness Pal, so I can determine my carbs there. I can also track my exercises and walks there. How are you grading your goals? Are they pass/fail (“every dayâ€, “not even once over the six weeksâ€)? Is there a reward for the effort, or are you only grading yourself on whether or not you “lose the weight†or “run the distanceâ€? I will grade on a percentage. I will divide the number of days I met my goals by the number of possible days. anything about 50% will be pass. Above 70 is C. Above 80 is B. Above 90 is A. I don't have specific rewards in mind yet. I'll come up with some before the end of the week though. What is your plan for continuing/altering/grading those goals if you become ill or injured? Two of my goals are attainable whether I'm sick or slightly injured (eating fewer carbs and performing one exercise). Walking the dog, I have some extra days built in to accommodate any illness or injuries I might encounter. Major injuries might mean stopping the physical parts, but still continuing the carbs part. Did you take into consideration any special occasions (Labour Day, Independence Day, birthdays, anniversaries, etc) that may occur during the challenge? What modifications do you need to build into your goals for those? My birthday will be in a few weeks. If I want to eat special treats i can plan for them by eating lower carb other days of the week to create an "average" over the week of only 150 a day, or I can simply eat fewer. I can also choose drinks that are low-carb for the night we go out to celebrate. Do any of your main goals conflict with each other? Will one goal make it hard to do another? Nope! Do you already have the time in your schedule to actually complete the goals you’ve set? If not, what are you planning to do to make time for them? Time is a something I have the luxury of having in abundance. Though I am taking a full-time load of college classes online and have kids, I stay at home so I can take walks with the kids with the dog and do exercises with them around without a problem. Are you trying to build multiple habits, or is all your energy focused on your main quest? I think my quests are focused on building habits.

Well, I guess the Main Quest is the total weight loss. My three quests that would help me achieve that would be: 1) Eating fewer than 150g carbs each day. 2) Walking the dog 3 times a week. 3) Do at least one set of one exercise move every single day. (One set would be the maximum number of reps I can do of the particular exercise at once. One exercise move examples would be squats, push ups, dumbbell curls, etc.) I don't think I need assistance yet, but that doesn't mean I won't need any going forward! Thank you!

I think I signed up for a challenge once before but I never finished. I logged in today and saw there was a new challenge starting today, so I figured I'd jump on board and try to ride this one out! I am definitely aiming to lose fat. I am 80-100 pounds above my ideal weight range right now. I plan on eating fewer carbs (For my body less than 100g of carbs a day seems to help me reduce cravings and lose weight without feeling hungry or deprived). Since the last time I was on this new "Level 1" guild was created, so I'm hoping that by starting out in a group that is specifically for newcomers to challenges, I can get the right amount of support to get me through the challenge.

Sunday was a water fail again. But I had a good rest day, meal planning day and algebra day, so that's something I guess. Annnnd I totally forgot to weight myself when I woke up this morning, so I will do that tomorrow to track. Today I'm going to get to work on drinking lots of water and some exercise. My shins are still super sore so I'm worried about the c25k. It hurts to walk, let alone jog... Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

Friday was Great! Water was spot on, did some exercises with my dumbbells, figured out some recipes for meal planning and read the chapter two review for math. Woot. Today, not so much. Lol. I barely had any water and had a huge soda, I haven't touched my math or meal planning. I DID run/walk today's c25k, but I think I have shin splints. Like after I got home I can't walk it hurts so bad. I'm icing my legs now, but I'm worried it will be a longer healing process and I won't be able to keep going during this challenge. wahhhh Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

I love reading books that make me cry. I also hate it. But I love it. HAHA I missed you getting into Ravenclaw and welcoming you! AHHH, so Welcome. I hope your first week is going awesome and you're starting to feel the momentum. And if it isn't, I hope you can find your rhythm soon!

OUCH! I'm way too much of a baby to do a Crossfit style workout... yet. LOL

Yesterday was GREAT! I felt good, other than soreness, and met goals! YAY 1) Drink water- I got 64 oz in before hubbs got home from work (around 5:30PM) WOOT! So I had some beer after the kiddos went to bed! 2) I ran my C25K session. Again, it felt like agony, maybe even worse than the first day because my shins are sore and my muscles were not happy about being moved, BUT I was faster! The "course" I go has a built in turn around and the first day it was almost perfectly lined up with the programs "turn around" signal, but yesterday I was way ahead of it and had to walk around my house/yard for my cool down because I got back home too fast! 3) I took spice inventory and made a spreadsheet for myself to make a menu with some favorite recipes. No big steps, but some necessary things. My plan is on Saturday I will run several recipes I've found by hubbs, see what he thinks sounds yummy, and mix in some new recipes with the recipes we already know and make a weeks menu of dinners. I will also be looking for a mix of "hands on" recipes that I have to actually be standing in the kitchen cooking and "hands off" recipes like slowcooker recipes. 4) I FINISHED CHAPTER 1!!! YAY! I'm going to get started on Chapter Two right away today so I can try to get all 9 chapters done in the 6 weeks. I think i'm going to approach chapter 2 a little differently. I am going to take the end of the chapter test, see what I DON'T know, then go back and learn it, because I really do remember some of this stuff! LOL Again, a great day. I have had trouble sticking with things in the past, but I'm impressing myself with my progress and effort so far!

GET THAT WATER! I feel better these last few days drinking so much more than I used to. I am doing well at not getting on the scale this week (I'm a daily weigher and while I only do it once a day and can logically tell myself that I know my weight will fluctuate, I still end up letting it get to me more than I should) but I feel less bloated too. I love my yoga, but for a lot of different reasons! It started as a way to get out of the house doing something healthy. I also wanted to participate in a healthy community. People around me who cared about taking care of themselves. Hoping it would "rub off" on me some! LOL As I started taking classes I learned things I loved and things I didn't love as much. I take 3 yoga classes and a zumba class every week. Each of the classes are super different, too! I take a gentle yoga class on Sunday. It gets the body moving a little, but is what it says, Gentle. It's relaxing and rejuvenating to me, even though sometimes there are classes that are challenging to my weak, overweight body. Monday I do Zumba and a Yin class. In Yin you hold postures for 3-5 minutes to work into the deeper tissues and increase overall flexibility and increase the lubrication of the joints. It works A LOT into the hips and feels great. According to yoga (and perhaps other) philosophy you hold a lot of emotion in your hip area, and I don't know if it's power of suggestion or for reals, but I usually feel a lot lighter when I'm done, and in general I feel like i'm carrying less emotional baggage these days. Tuesdays I do Ashtanga. It's said to be the oldest vinyasa (links breath and movement) practice and that all the other vinyasa practices are descendants of Ashtanga (think Bikram). It is a set sequence of postures that you move through with your breath (inhale-lift arms over your head in prayer hands. exhale-fold over to touch your toes position. Etc) But it is very challenging for me. There are a lot of chaturanga (yoga planks) and strengthening moves. My teacher, however, is amazing. She is humble and confident, funny and passionate, caring and non-judgmental. She makes my practice worth doing. I have a huge "teacher crush" on her! LOL I always say I don't love the practice, but I love my teacher. Though that is beginning to change as I strengthen and I'm starting to love the practice. Obviously I could go on and on about it. I have truly fallen in love and I will pursue a teacher training program in a couple of years when funds and time become available, because it is benefiting me so much. I always approach things like that with the thought "If it isn't going to hurt me, it will help me." By that I mean, if I won't be hurt doing it (if there is a good teacher, you won't get hurt) I will at least learn something about myself and about a new thing in the world I didn't know about before. Give it a shot and if you hate it, at least you can say you tried!

You're a busy person! It's okay to fail once. If you aren't failing a little, you're not trying hard enough! You'll get it though. Everything takes practice, even learning to skip the sweets!

So far so good. Water was perfect! Actually had 64 oz before dinner, then a 24 oz beer this evening. Workout, well I did something. I am super sore after running/walking/c25k and ashtanga yesterday, so I worked with some light light weights on some shoulder type stuff because that's about the only thing that doesn't hurt. Hahaha. Meal planning was good. I didn't do any future planning today, but I made a meal I had previously planned, so I'm counting it. Studying algebra went well. I covered two sections and I should be done with chapter 1 tomorrow. Some stuff I forgot I ever learned!! Hahaha. Counting this as a win! Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

Oops. Yep. I guess I'll do 2 STA, then and add the extra to WIS. Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2