CourageousKate

I loved that game And thanks! I'm feeling pretty good about the challenge (generally) thus far. Update Got to bed on time last night, but didn't fall asleep until later. I'm still counting it as a success, but making a note for the future. I'm definitely not feeling well enough rested this morning! No sugar yesterday, so win there This morning at the gym was really tough, despite being a deload day, so I'm attributing it to the not-great sleep last night. This weekend should be lovely, though. Brunch tomorrow morning, lazy afternoon and evening, then a trip to Sacramento for Mother's Day brunch (mother- and grandmother-in-law both live up there). I'm sure sugary temptations will abound... Happy Friday!

Nice change to your goal. GOOD LUCK with those boxes, my friend! Keep up the awesomeness!

I revoke this! I still say the regular Zombies, Run! app could be very fun for you, but I went back to an early workout in the 5K trainer today, and it was actually kind of boring. From your mad running skillz you've demonstrated, I'm guessing that you are definitely beyond that But as xanjra said, it depends on your goals! I think you will find something to keep you motivated and moving, for sure! Because you are just that awesome, Tateman.

Hope the brief and presentation went well! And impressive work keeping on track while traveling. That's so hard! Great job on the BBWW circuit. Have fun in St. Louis!

Ooh, your crockpot concoction is inspiring. When I cook on the stove or in the oven, I improvise all the time. But for some reason I feel super nervous about improvising with the slowcooker. Okay. Next week. I'm gonna do it. AverageJoe's Crock-Pot Fridge Hash, sans recipe. Thanks for the idea! So, sleep deprivation sucks. Period. But the thing I hate most? Is the way I want to eat when I'm in that state. So yes. DON'T slip on the diet. You can do it, and we are right here behind you! Oh, and I can totally get on board with making the most of your workouts! Great work!!! Truck, workout, and almost completely on track for your goals? You are crushing it Joe!

Bed on time, but super sugar fail. I am totally not worried about it, though. It wasn't impulsive in the least, but rather premeditated. (So wicked!) I'm going to leave it at that, instead of tempting you with the awesomeness that I ate for dessert at my favorite Italian bakery last night. While it was not part of my challenge plan, I am proud to say that I knew it was coming, so I saved room at dinner, and then only ate one serving of dessert. So there is a small success encased in that failure. My shoulders are already sore this morning from the measly but intense workout they received yesterday. This morning's run was verging on boring, because as part of my deload week, I went back to Week 1 in my Zombies, Run! training program, and MAN, it was awesomely easy. It made me feel really good about the progress I've made in about 5 weeks. I went back and compared my time today to my time in that first week, and while it was very similar, this morning I wasn't huffing and puffing. At all. I barely broke a sweat. In fact, I kept thinking of cheating and increasing my speed because I was kind of bored. Nice. I'm very committed to vigilantly avoiding sugar the rest of the week. WOOT! The annoying part is that I'm doing three exercises instead of one, but it's totally worth it if that means my shoulder can heal and that I can do the one exercise correctly: Front Raises Lateral Raises Rear Raises (I tried this one on a stability ball Wednesday, but I think when I'm doing it next week, I'll do it on a bench, like it's pictured here.) These seemed effective in the first workout, and really brought my attention to how weak my delts actually are. Which is a big deal in overhead presses, as that action is supposed to be utilizing your delts first. I think my presses were just skipping those muscles all together and going straight for the traps... About time to fix that!

BTW, I drafted out my goals for the next challenge, and my life goal is book club with you (if you are down next challenge! If not, no worries at all!).

Sounds like it's time for a new alarm, at least! If the iPod is still going, that's great, though! For whatever reason, I also find it really hard to get up in the morning and workout at home. Is there a way you can attach an award to the treadmill? Like you get to watch a show you like ONLY during that activity? Or something else that might motivate you to get up?

Thanks for the check in Mitch! Sorry about the migraine... yikes!!! Sounds like some crazy stuff happening in your life this week. Looking forward to your update later and hearing about your routine later in the week. Hope things even out a little and you enjoy the visit from your parents!

Great running this week! I think your plan to take out the evaluation and shift your running schedule totally make sense, and it sounds like it will totally work out! Nice! Might I suggest Zombies, Run!? It's very fun. I think you could even start with the 5K trainer if you wanted because you start wherever you are, even if that's already pretty fast and you run drills coinciding with a fun plot. Love it! The regular Zombies, Run! app has interval training, too, but I haven't tried it so I can't speak to it. I know there are also 10K trainers, if you wanted to go that route!

Oh, so cool!!! Congrats on the bonus. You should totally go and then come back and tell us all about it. I would if I could... it sounds so fun. But there's too much other travel in my year to make it happen That sleep hypnosis is great. I love guided meditation!

Welcome back Terra! It's great to see you've been keeping up with your challenge irl (the most important thing, anyway!). That 5k sounds fun, and wow! Great time with your two kiddos! Also, it's great to hear that your youngest was able to do it! I know you were a little concerned about her ankle. What a great family activity! Good luck getting your morning workouts in this week. Are those supposed to be happening at a gym or at home?

Nice work Joe! You seriously got sh*t done. Looks like you're having a great week and have some awesome food happening How did you do hash in the Crock-Pot? Super curious. It sounds delicious! Don't forget that another factor in fat loss is (depressingly) sleep. I'd vote that since you don't have the option of improving that for several months (if not longer) maybe just take a look at food if you keep feeling stuck. I don't think you'll be doing yourself any favors adding more (totally awesome and butt-kicking) exercise to the mix. Which is not to say don't progress with your current excellent exercise plan. Up your reps as you feel ready, etc. Just don't push yourself TOO hard physically when extra recovery isn't in the cards. I mean, to be completely honest, maintaining with a newborn? That is something to be really proud of. KEEP IT UP.

Midish week check in! How's it going this week? Did you decide to focus in on one of your exercises? How's sugar looking?

Seriously. It feels really dumb in hindsight, but I think I've been overworking my traps without noticing... Hopefully this will speed recovery! Update Bed on time (early!) and no sugar yesterday. So it was a weird but awesome gym day for me today. Yesterday I looked back over my Rebel Fitness Plan and realized I was supposed to have a deload week last week (I started the current training program a week before our challenge started): "Every four weeks, spend a week scaling your exercises and strength training back." Um, so maybe THAT'S why I have been so exhausted the past week and a half? Well, fortunately I re-read the guide and found that little gem. I'm late starting the deload this week, but I did my training today at half weight, and WOW what a difference. On top of that, I got an extra half hour of sleep, so I'm feeling really good and not entirely spent right now. That's a major shift from the past week. My goal is to finish off this week as deload, including my run tomorrow. I'm going to go back to an early Zombies, Run! training session and will use that instead of moving on in the series. This morning I tried out the switch of delt exercises (front, side, and rear lifts) instead of Overhead Presses. Wow was that humbling. Since it was my first time trying out these exercises I thought I'd go ahead and figure out my max, despite deload week, so I gave it a shot on at my typical starting weight (10 lbs). HA. I could barely get through a set of front lifts, I could only do one lateral lift, and I didn't even TRY to do the rear lifts at that weight. No WONDER I was having trouble with the Overhead Press. There is no way my delts could have handled what I was trying to make them do (I'm sorry, my poor little deltoids...). So I dropped the weight for front lifts (then dropped it again for lateral, then started with two pounders for the rear and worked up to three) and got through my sets. Like I said, humbling. I wanted to tell everyone walking by, "I don't normally lift like this. It's just literally my max for this exercise right now. Really! I'm pretty strong!" Yeah. Learned a lot today. The good news is there's plenty of room to grow! I'm thinking I'll work up to 10lbs (comfortably) on all three of those exercises and then give the overhead press another shot. All in good time. Also, bicycle crunches are my current favorite/least-favorite thing. I expect to be very sore tomorrow. It will be good.

Okay, so I decided today that I'm going to replace the overhead press in my weights routine with three deltoid exercises, because I think I'm using my traps to compensate for my weak delts, which isn't helping me get rid of this chronic knot in my shoulder. Tomorrow, I'm going to try doing standing front raises, standing lateral raises, and stability ball rear deltoid lifts, all with dumbbells. It would be great if I could just do this in one motion (overhead lift), but I'd rather not hurt myself! It'll be interesting for me to see how it goes. I'm wondering how much I'll be able to comfortably lift in each of those exercises, and I'm wondering if I'll be lifting any weight at all at first on the rear deltoid raises... which might explain a lot on the overhead lifts. I'll return to trying overhead lifts once I've strengthened my deltoids the remainder of this challenge.

SOOOOOOOO JEALOUS. HEDWIIIIIIIIIIGGGGG!!!!!!!! What an amazing weekend! Glad you had a great time with you sis. Awesome job last week! Do you mind sharing the sleep hypnosis thing? Sounds interesting!

I know, it's the BEST. I haven't had Scottish strawberries, but someday I hope to Yeah, I keep feeling like running isn't getting any easier, but then I looked back over my stats for this challenge, and I realized that over the past two weeks I've slowly but consistently been faster each time. So I guess it's okay that it doesn't feel easier? I've never used Fitness Blender, but that is super cool. It looks like a great one! Thanks for the tip, Raxie! Update: Bed on time! No sugar or booze! Escaped Zoms this morning! AND I'M BEAT. I spent extra time foam rolling before my run (thanks Raxie!) and extra time stretching when I was done. I'm definitely feeling my weights and core session from yesterday. Also, week 3 of Zombies, Run!? Tough stuff, man. But the mission was super fun today, so that helped! Last night I started prepping veggies for Asian Meatballs and Cauliflower Fried Rice for dinner tonight. Looking forward to that! After work I'm heading out for a stroll with a girlfriend, and then I think there will be evening foam rolling happening in my future... Oh, DOMS.

Great work Leeroy. You did an excellent job staying up on the challenge last week with all of your super fun distractions and the resulting exhaustion. I'm so impressed! I think you are right to modify your life goal to reflect the impending move. It sounds like the right choice for sure! Keep up the awesome work

Wow! Way to go Joe!!! Back in the challenge indeed! Glad you got some consecutive sleep in too I love that your daughter goes to the 3D course. That sounds so fun!!! For my friend's birthday this summer, we are going to try archery... we're all very excited Nothing so advanced as that though! When I read this, I thought of this: Keep it up!!!

Man Joe, view it like you need to, but I wouldn't call it a complete fail. You were killing it on the workouts earlier in the week. Get back with it today. You have plenty of time to more than make up for a few days of less than perfect challenge behavior. Also, yay for Daddy-Daughter time

OMG. The Clue wedding gift? AMAZING. I love that. I, too, was enamored with that movie growing up! She is going to die. That was so creative and thoughtful of you guys!!! Impressive job on the lone donut Friday! Also on no dessert at the rehearsal dinner and on only a little dessert at the wedding. That's really very awesome Vortex. I agree that your bonus points should trump the crimpets weakness. And you are right! Monday is a fresh start!!! Regarding your strength training, I'd say that you need to focus on either bringing back up your walking and yoga, or on introducing strength training. Those first two have been progressively slipping throughout the challenge. I'm kind of thinking it's at least in part related to how much of your energy and will power you have to spend focusing on sugar right now (it gets easier, I promise), so I think it would be a kindness to yourself to pick one of walking, yoga, or strength training and focusing on getting an A on it this week. What do you think? WEEK 4!!!!

Week Three Summary ENGAGE: 5 / 4 days of planned fitness. NO MORE SUGAR: 6 / 7 sugarless days. (Not even the worst sugar I could've had, and no alcohol 7 / 7!) 10pm BEDTIME: 3 / 5 days in bed by 10. (Plus one night of 11 hours of sleep... Got to get this under control.) MINI-CHALLENGE #3: Completed! Crab walk and bear crawl one workout, army crawls another.

Quality of sleep is definitely a factor. Thanks for the reminder. This weekend was pretty rejuvenating, so I'm hoping this week is a little less exhausting! LIKEWISE. (Well, I don't need to look like that... that would take a lot more than getting fit and strong...) Update Friday we went to see Spiderman 2, and then the rest of this weekend was a lot of domestic fun. Cleaning (boo), cooking (yay), and entertaining (double yay). On top of all that, my husband and I FINALLY sat down together and compiled all of our finances in one place (we have a combination of joint and individual accounts, mostly left over from student loans and credit cards from before we were married). Debt? We've got it! But it was so amazing to see everything clearly in RGB. We've even got a plan of attack for paying down our debt. Cathartic. In other news, we threw a beer-centric dinner party, and I didn't drink any alcohol! Small victory! Also, my friend brought over the makings for strawberry shortcake, and I opted for just the unsweetened strawberries and (probably too much) unsweetened, freshly whipped cream. Decadent! It was a good weekend. And I got to bed no where near on time last night, so that was a fail. I was great on sugar and alcohol, though, so win! And I made it to the gym this morning, got in some bonus army crawls, and changed up my bird dogs to knee raises again. Feeling good! But not like I should be at work on this sunny Monday...

Ooh! Hedwig!!! Fun! Hope you had a great weekend