snark

Surprise ice cream is awesome but can be a little tough to fit in to a diet. You handled it in an awesome way, and I'm sure you enjoyed your reasonable serving quite a lot after you earned it and treated like the treat that it is. Yum!

Are there any alternate routes you can take to and from the transit center that might be more bike-friendly (or at least have a sidewalk for when you need to stop and walk), even if they are a little longer? (I'm terrified of riding near cars, so I have been trying to scope out alternate routes that have bike paths or lower traffic routes, to practice. Theoretically. )

It's hard to keep up habits when you have so little control over your schedule and the kitchen, and you're not only doing a decent job of that but kicking ass at pushups. It's possible getting emotional when your husband is there because that's your chance to not have to be strong and keep your chin up. If that's the case, you're really not going to be better overall if you keep him away! Good luck with everything, and keep up the great work!

Thanks to both of you for the compliments on the photo! I think the default assumption is that internet people are guys, and I often forget to specify, since I know I'm a girl! It happens to me plenty, (Related: I have an internet friend who guesses based on the number of exclamation points people use, and he gets it right more often than not!) That is my thought--at least I'm maintaining the habit of doing *something* for now, I can focus on turning that something into a little more when I return to "real life". My first two days this week have been pretty good, and I have been figuring out what to keep doing when we're on our trip starting next Wednesday(!) I'm thinking of just sticking with warmup/stretching every day, with some wrist strengthening/conditioning work. I know that we'll be doing a *lot* of walking, so I don't want to give my legs too much to complain about. We'll be computerless (weird but exciting), so my wrist will have a great opportunity to finish healing. All yay. Monday: Water: Yup (barely) Workout: Yup, even slightly more whole-assed, despite my SORE legs from so much uphill hike on Sunday. Walk: Yup! Tuesday: Water: Yup (working on #5 right now, plus had some tea!) Workout: Yup, did my warmup and stretches (so sore still...) Walk: Yup!

Yay congrats on the swimsuit! And nice job not worrying too much about the weight loss stall--there can be all kinds of reasons for that.

Week 4 summary: Slowly getting back on track! Water: 6.5/7 - I drank my 80 ounces yesterday, but not really much more despite the hot and sweaty hike, so I'm giving myself half credit. Still doing a good job overall with this. Workout: 6/7 - Like I said earlier, I was pretty half-assed with the workouts this week, but I did them, and I stretched almost every day. On Thursday, I just woke up and forgot, no clue what went on there... Walk: 3/4 - Again, just missed a day (Tuesday, had meetings and world cup match during times when I normally walk and just didn't realize it until I was leaving...) Also, my eating isn't an explicit goal, but last week was really weird. We have a ton of leftover bbq from our wedding, which is great except that we had really minimal veggies and didn't go grocery shopping. I just ended up feeling gross by the end of the week, craving greens. Excited for my lunch salad with hard-boiled eggs today. And then more bbq for dinner! I think this week will be a good and happy week.

Um, I have been neglecting my thread, but I'll get back on top of this, at least until my honeymoon flight on July 16 (so ending the challenge 4ish days early). My husband() and I decided to go for a hike yesterday, picked a local park, and just decided to tromp around. On our way back toward the car, we ended up on a seemingly neverending steep hill that had us both gasping. He bikes a decent amount as part of his commute every day and is generally in better shape, and it destroyed both of us. We're planning to go hiking at least once a week when we're back from the honeymoon. We got married at a local county park and realized when we were finding a spot that we had barely scratched the surface. More exploring to come! Also, I decided to get over my silly shyness and share this photo, even though I can't figure out how to make it not huge right now. It fits with the recent Breakthrough! chats about cake, and I just think it's funny. My husband has a habit of giving me GIANT forkfuls when we are exchanging bites of food, and this was no exception.

Haha Feowyn, I'll also be almost 37 in five years and had the same reaction thinking about it. Also, I love these mini-challenges despite ignoring them so far, so I will try to catch up this week!

Have a great vacation! Sounds like you're keeping up with some great habits!

Awesome progress, keep it up! I'm super impressed at taking care of yourself while working those overtime shifts!

Woo have fun!

It's awesome that you keep getting the good free feelings on the way home, that will likely help keeping you motivated in the mornings. Keep up the great work this week!

Next week's travel is your make-up honeymoon, right? I hope you guys have an awesome time! And don't forget to give your knee (or anything else) a break while you have fun and enjoy the time together!

Um, I'm a little shy and still pretty overwhelmed (in a good way) when I look at photos, but maybe sometime soon. This week has definitely not been an exercise in consistency in any real way, but I have so far basically kept up with the minimum I told myself I'd do. Pretty half-assed workouts, but eh. I'll get some genuine catch-up rest and reset over this holiday weekend and get back on the horse for realsies next week.

Woo, sounds like you are keeping up with everything, including your adaptability. Love it! I also love that you are a fellow ChemE! I ended up going the environmental (and now management-seeming) route after grad school, for a number of reasons, but my education was all chemical. Fun connection!

ZTree, I think a lot of us have trouble with consistency, so don't beat yourself up, just get back on the horse and try tweaking things to make it work better. For example, through trial and error, I have figured out that mornings are my best workout time, even though that makes me grumpy sometimes, because there isn't another time of day when I have a reliable schedule. I think you and I both have a water goal officially but are both also unofficially trying to improve our eating--maybe just really focus on the water right now, and then next challenge focus on the next thing. It's still appropriate to try to eat better without it being a challenge, but if that extra bonus challenge doesn't work out, you still have the habits you are forming to build on! With homeschooling your son, it seems like you have an amazing opportunity to work on making healthy meals together! I'm not sure how old he is, but you could involve him in planning, prep work, and so on. (Also, I don't have any children yet, but I am already pretty in love with this site: http://www.dinneralovestory.com/ -- lots of great recipes, tips on how to fit meals in around your schedule and various family members' preferences, etc.)

So my week 3 summary is as follows: 1. OMG I love my family and my new family and my friends. 2. Actual summary: I'm basically pretending that Thursday through Sunday didn't exist for the purpose of this challenge. I actually did keep up with the mobility/stretching for those days because it feels good, but I really just focused on the moment and not how much water I was drinking and so on. So Week 3 was a three-day week. - Water: Yup. 3/3 - Workout: Yup (ish). Mobility/stretching consistently, even in the non-week portion, but I only did an actual workout on Monday because I'm a wimp and wanted to be soreness free. Still going to call this 3/3. - Walk: Yup. 3/3. Today, I did mobility and stretching but no workout, just kind of pooped from too much fun and from not sleeping great on Friday (anxiety) or Saturday (overstimulated and happy? something). Guess I am shifting to Tu/Th/Sat this week, even though it's beer-with-friends night tonight. I'll let you know how that goes!

Thanks for the good wishes, guys! I had an amazing weekend surrounded by people we love, I keep tearing up thinking about it. Back to real life now-ish, I'll check in on folks soon. Hope you guys all had a great weekend!

It sounds like you have some good plans for dealing with a more difficult environment without being overwhelmed or requiring too much willpower--a lot of stuff is so much easier when there aren't decisions to make, so just defaulting to water helps in so many ways. I love that octopus dress, you're so talented!!

Thanks for the good wishes! I claimed that I wanted to get back to working out consistently because I didn't want to keep putting stuff off until after the wedding, but I think a more honest reason is that I have been distracting myself from the fact that it's so soon! I'm excited to actually be married, but the actually wedding part is pretty nervewracking. :-P Hopefully I can keep this up after the wedding--at this point, I can't imagine not, but it's only been a couple of weeks.

I love that your response to a bad week is to make a contingency plan. So positive!

Week 2 summary: Water: 6/7 (assuming I finish current bottle and another, which is reasonable, and now I have to!) Workout: 7/7, worked out on M/W/F, warmup/cooldown every day Walk: 4/5, with super space out on Friday. worst. Definitely feel like I'm developing some new habits. This week will be weird with family in town and the wedding on Saturday, so I guess we'll see if I can stick with these simple habits with that change of pace.

Nice, sounds like you're getting a great rhythm going, keep it up! Thanks for sharing the great story about the shirt and the recruits, especially with the adorable photo.

I also can't do pullups, so my alternative is inverted rows using a bar hanging down off of our pullup bar. (Length of pvc pipe hanging on a strap, high-five to Teros for hardware store workout equipment hacks!) How was your week, ZTree?

Sounds like you are working on developing some good routines, just need some tweaking. I noticed that your diet goal is pretty vague (not really specific or measurable), so you might have more success (and be less hard on yourself!) if you choose something to focus on, like eating some number of servings of veggies or grams of protein or whatever other thing might trigger positive diet changes. Same deal with your walking goal--pick a certain amount to walk each week so that you have a clear idea of whether you succeeded. Congrats on the engagement! You mentioned that one of your current goals is figuring out what all makes sense to do at this point in terms of planning--I'm getting married next weekend (eek!), and I found that I relaxed a lot once we had determined the stuff you mentioned plus had food and drinks worked out (maybe that's part of your venue). So you seem like you're in great shape! I also really appreciated this checklist (and the whole site, but that depends more on your style ): http://offbeatbride.com/checklist. You're probably getting a lot of unsolicited advice from all sorts of sources, so sorry to add to that, but I hope it helps! Good luck with your goals and with the wedding planning!