Bagelyo

Managed my pushups and a handful of kettlebell swings today so that's covered. Kind of a crappy day so don't feel like writing out a big long post now. Summary tomorrow.

Jeez, I can't check in for a few days and there's like a million more pages on here. I'm with everyone having trouble with the weather - I went out yesterday evening to try and run 2.5 miles and I made it 1 and gave up. I was on a bit of a time crunch (had to be home so husband could get to the pet food store before it closed!) or I would have walked a bit and tried to get back into it. Tomorrow is supposed to be milder so hopefully I can do better!

I'm alive! The internet access issues are a bigger obstacle than I thought :/ So - this week I've had some jam but no other added sugar. Hooray! Kid's birthday this weekend, so there will be cake. I've done one set of pushups and one (short! It's hot!) run. Low for this point in the week, but I can still pull it out. That's the good news. The bad news - sort of - is that last weekend was a crazy mess with the wedding. I had a ton to eat and drink, had minimal time to exercise and frankly didn't want to before the weekend because I didn't want to be sore during the festivities. I think if I had been thinking rationally when I wrote my goals I would have left the first week out of my tally for my points, because it was such a departure from my usual routine. I think I'm going to retroactively do that, just readjust my goal numbers (of sugar, total workouts...) to be 5 weeks instead of 6. It's too discouraging to have tanked my challenge numbers because I was busy having fun and participating in a one-time-only life event and so forth.

I always had awful shin splints until I changed to a zero drop shoe (one with no extra cushioning on the heel) which forced me to switch from a heel strike to a mid foot strike. Haven't had a single sign of them since, it was like magic for me.

We're having some interruption in our internet service right now due to an argument with comcast (those jerks), and then I'm out of town this weekend so my updating might be spotty for a bit. I'll try to get as much in as I can when I can. No exercising today - super sore from yesterday. I also ate a handful of banana chips without reading the label, so I'm accidentally down 1 sugar for the week. I was trying to save them for the fun stuff this weekend, so I'm kind of annoyed.

Yes, I'm doing C25k weeks 6 (I think?) on but by distance instead of time, since my pace is so slow. That's what my runs will be - I did forget to mention that in my first post! So next time I make it out for a run my goal is 2.5 miles. Days 1 & 2 are going well - I almost messed up my diet goal at the very beginning though. I got up and went to make a Dutch baby pancake for breakfast, totally not even thinking about the sugar in the batter. Duh. I just left it out, replaced it with some orange zest and topped the pancake with sliced oranges. It was awesome, actually, and I'm going to play around with replacing some of the white flour with whole grain to make it more nutritious since it's such an easy, quick thing to make. Anyway, with that averted, I haven't had any non-fruit sugar yet. My cravings were bad last night but my motivation is high still so I held out without too much trouble. I did pushups yesterday - I'm still working on my knees, hands on the hearth, which is like 8 inches off the ground. I also did 30 seconds of plank, which was hard but not overwhelmingly so. I think I can probably add time later on. I just finished a workout for today - kettlebell swings, body weight squats, presses, and bicep curls. I was doing goblet squats before but I'm going back to basics and focusing on form for a while. I kept threatening to tip over backwards so I need to figure out what's up with that. I did some stretching after. I need to do some research and find a stretching routine that I like, I feel sort of aimless making up my own lately. Good start so far!

I love your challenge format! Pokemon brings back all sorts of warm fuzzy feelings from when I was a kid If I walked home fast enough from middle school I could get there just in time to catch the start of the show. I've been a nerd for a while. Haha. I'm getting interested in the hooping that everyone is doing - bought myself a cheapo kid's hula hoop but my coordination in stuff like this is not good. I'm going to try to follow along with this thread but if it moves as fast as yours did last challenge it's going to be hard!

Sherlock! And hooping! And hairstyles! I love it!

First post edited with my official goals.

Do you guys mind if I follow along with this thread without officially joining the group? As a kettlebell beginner I'm super interested in reading what you guys have to say, and I might have the occasional question, but it's just a fun thing for me right now and not a main goal or my biggest priority for this challenge.

Right. I can just write into the goal to DO the planks, and then add time as/if I can.

Checking in! Last challenge I finished C25K according to time, that is, I ran 30 minutes - but I am not running at 10min/mi so I still haven't run 5 actual km without walking. I've gone back to week 6 and am using the distance option - so I just ran 2.25 mi and have ahead of me 3 runs of 2.5 and then 3 runs of 2.75 miles, and then hopefully I can do 3. My goal this challenge is to scale the running back to a place where I still can do other stuff with my legs, so I won't be going out three times a week every week - and my knee is still recovering from whatever pulling/straining I did to it last challenge. It's feeling better every day so hopefully I can get back to it soon!

Okay, I'm going to add my finalized goals to the top of this post, and leave the original post at the end for posterity. This time I'm even actually going to decide my attribute points at the beginning of the challenge! Maybe next time I can do one better and make my post interesting like so many others here do My main goal is to do at least one real, full, good form pushup. My second goal is to run for 5 km without stopping to walk. I feel like I can work on these goals at the same time without them negatively affecting each other, so I'm going for it. 1. Pushups! 2 STR 2 STA I'm still doing pushups on an incline, using the 100 pushups program to increase my numbers. I plan on testing myself every week to see if I can move my incline down. I'm also going to add a plank after every pushups session to increase my upper body and core strength - holding for at least 30 seconds. More is fine if I feel like I can, and I will probably do different planks (forearm, side...) to keep interest because I am easily bored. Summary: 3 workouts/week, 5 sets of pushups and at least 30 sec of plank each time 2. Legs! 2 DEX 1 STR 1 STA I want to keep running, but my legs are weak and my ankle and hip mobility is poor, which is all coming together to affect my performance and my knees, so I want to make time for bodyweight and kettlebell exercises and STRETCHING, which I have been really neglecting. I want to keep this flexible so I can adjust for how I feel and for the weather and my attention span, doing different workouts in different quantities from week to week. Summary: 1-3 runs and 1-3 workouts incorporating squats, lunges, or kettlebell swings per week, and stretch after EVERY time. (Got that, self?) 3. Sugar! 2-4 CON Last summer I did a challenge with no added/refined sugars, and I loved it. My energy increased, my cravings decreased, and it kickstarted 20 lbs of much-needed weight loss. I added sugar back into my life on occasion afterwards, and it has been slowly creeping into more and more occasions. I haven't been feeling super good lately, so I want to cut back, but I don't feel ready to commit to no sugar at all - so I'm setting a limit of 4 servings/week, but giving myself an incentive of extra points if I manage to keep it below an average of 2 or 3 servings/week. So, no more than 24 servings for the challenge gets me 2 CON points, 18 servings for 3 points and 12 servings for 4 points. Summary: No more than 4 servings of foods/week with added sugars. Bonus points for less. 4. Life! Participate! Socialize! 1 WIS 2 CHA So I just came back off a bit of a board break for last challenge, and I was pretty iffy about keeping my thread updated towards the end and also about participating and engaging with other posters. This is an important part of being part of the community here, so I'm making it an official goal and a priority and giving myself a minimum number of posts per week to make here. I'm going for at least 3 updates for my thread, 1 for my accountabilibuddies group, and 5 for other threads - other member's challenges, mini-challenges, whatever. These are minimums, so more is always better! This will helpfully keep me reading along better, too. Summary: Minimum of 3 posts/week in this thread, 1/week in accountabilibuddy group, and 5/week in assorted other threads. Phew! Hopefully that's coherent! I'm ready to get started! Original post below: ---------------------------------------------- I haven't got this all formulated yet, but I'm going to start a thread and get my ideas out and come back and finalize it for the official start of the challenge. Okay? Here we go. 1. Pushups! This is my official, main goal - to get to a real, legitimate pushup. I made some great progress last challenge with this and want to keep up what I was doing but with a bit more. I was doing incline pushups with the 100 pushup program, which is a workout 3 times a week, and every week testing myself to see if I could move the incline down or otherwise increase the difficulty. Partway through I had the thought that adding planks would be helpful but didn't really follow through with that so I want to add that to my goal - planks at the end of each pushup workout. I will probably change it up and do variations so I don't get bored, not sure if I want to make variations a part of my goal or not. I do need to decide how to measure how much I do - obviously a certain amount of time is how you measure planks, but do I want to make it consistent throughout since I will be adding difficulty with the pushups or add time? Start with 30 seconds a time and add 10 seconds a week, or something like that? 2. Legs! My other, secondary goal is to run a 5k distance with no walking breaks. Last challenge I tried to run 3 times a week and finish out C25K, which I did by time spent running but my longest distance ran so far is 2.25 mi or 3.6 km. 3 times a week along with my lifestyle (lots of walking everywhere) meant I had to limit any other leg workout (squats, kb swings, lunges...) in order to have time to rest my legs. Getting stronger is also important to me, and I know strengthening my legs will only help with running, so I need to find a balance. I'm not sure how to phrase my goal here so it's attainable - my thought is 1-3 days a week running and 1-3 days a week performing bodyweight or kettlebell lower body exercises. This would allow me to adjust based on circumstance and how I feel - maybe a rainy or especially hot week would have more indoor stuff and less running, maybe I do light runs one week and that allows me to do a higher number of things total. Complicating this, my knee is not 100% from tweaking it towards the end of last challenge so I want to be careful at the beginning. I also want this goal to include a focus on mobility and flexibility - I noticed during the mini-challenges last time that my ankle mobility is rough, and I know that and hip mobility can affect knees while running, so for sure I want to stretch and make sure some bodyweight sessions include squats with careful attention to form. 3. Sugar! My first challenge included a no-sugar goal, and I loved it and found it evened out my mood and reduced my cravings for things I don't need quite a lot. Since then, I've been letting sugar creep back into my diet and I want to try to get it under control, as I can tell I am not feeling super good. However, I don't feel ready to commit to no sugar right now - it's summer and I want the occasional popsicle, and I will be attending a wedding during the challenge time period and my sons birthday is soon also, so, cake! I want to set a limit of number of servings per week, maybe 3-5, with extra points available if I fall below that number. So I have the option to indulge occasionally, but also the option to go totally no sugar if that feels right. 4. Life! I have a history of totally falling on my face and failing completely at my non-fitness life goal on these challenges. So I'm keeping it simple and related to the challenge - I'm going to set a certain number of posts a week, both on my own thread and other users' threads to keep me updating and participating and socializing. I'm not sure what's a good number - at least 3-4 a week for my own updates, maybe the same number for other threads? Bonus points if I go over? Any and all feedback is welcome! I'm going to stew over this for the next few days (while I rest my crap knee) and then clean everything up into nice tidy goals and add to the beginning of the post.

If you have access to a sharp, heavy-ish knife and are somewhat coordinated, I like to cut the backbone out and flatten the chicken out. This is called "butterflied" or "spatchcock" if you want to search for more thorough instructions. I cut up some onions and whatever else (garlic, lemon...) and make a bed on a sheet pan and then lay the (salt and peppered) flat chicken on it and roast at 425F for a little while - depends on the size. It cooks more evenly and faster this way than when it's whole and round and you get a more even crispness on the skin. I don't like to rinse - there's no real need to, and you just end up spreading bacteria all over your sink and using extra time and paper towels to dry it off after.

Thanks everyone! I keep thinking I'm so glad the challenge ended this week because I did a ton of gardening on Monday and I've been feeling all week like I got hit with a truck. Apparently digging deep holes with a shovel uses some of my more neglected muscle groups. I'm really looking forward to taking a few weeks to take it easy on my knee and play around in a non-structured way. I bought a hula hoop! I'm thinking about what I want to accomplish next challenge and it's so many things! But I know I need to keep the goals fairly modest to have a chance of completing them. I've heard the new forums usually open up in advance of the next challenge actually starting, so I might start a topic and try to hash it out and solicit some advice there once that happens.

I love the equinox/solstice idea! I think I'm going to scale my running down a bit next challenge so I can focus on building some lower body strength, but I'm still going to try to get to that 5k distance with no walking. Stronger legs should help with that anyway, right? I'll still plan to hang out with you guys again next challenge, and hopefully be better at participating with everyone else!

Here's my copy-paste summary: Okay, let me go through my weekly reports for the challenge and see how I did. Runs: 11/18 Pushups: 13.5/18 Are either of these perfect? Definitely not. Did I do more than I probably would have without this challenge? For sure. I feel like I've made great progress in both areas, even if I haven't hit my main goals yet - I've moved my pushups to a lower incline and can see and feel strength progress, which is GREAT and a huge motivator to keep going, and finishing out C25K by time and running for the 30 minutes straight is such a big thing. I hadn't done more than 10 on the street or 15 on a treadmill when I started. As far as my other two goals - I don't think there's a good way to do an objective summary of my steps because of the technical difficulties with my fitbit. Subjectively though, I feel like I did a pretty good job when I could, barring technical problems or minor injury. I also learned I might not want to pick goals that rely on a particular piece of equipment or technology working correctly. AND for my non-fitness life goal - I totally failed at my original intention which was to work on the projects every day. I did finish one - the blanket - and it turned out totally awesome. The shawl is not finished, but I'm getting there. I learned I have a hard, hard time keeping up with updating and participating with other people's threads. I really need to concentrate to respond and type things coherently and it's hard to carve out time when toddler is not hassling me when I'm not trying to do other things (kettlebells! housework! knitting!). I need to make a better effort to schedule that time out, and maybe for the next challenge that will be my non-fitness goal. Lots of room for improvement there. Overall? Not bad. Glad I came back and participated. The assassins are a pretty awesome group! I loved playing along with the mini-challenges for the first few weeks until it got too hard for me and/or too hard to fit in with my other goals. I'm going to put some more concerted effort into thinking up my goals for the next one, keeping in mind how I keep failing at the non-fitness goal and that I want to spend more time with my kettlebells and bodyweight stuff, so the running might need scaled back. Although I love that too, so its hard to decide!

I'm late! (Picture white rabbit here) I got caught up in the holiday weekend, and then when I came back here yesterday the page wouldn't load on my computer! Argh! For last week: Runs: 2/3 Pushups: 2/3 Steps: avg of 9,870 for the week (so close!) My knee was swollen for a few days and hurt when I either bent or straightened it the whole way so I decided to take it easy. Since I was doing knee pushups, this affected all of my goals for the week, unfortunately. But on the plus side, the knee is feeling better and so I am also feeling better about it emotionally Okay, let me go through my weekly reports for the challenge and see how I did. Runs: 11/18 Pushups: 13.5/18 Are either of these perfect? Definitely not. Did I do more than I probably would have without this challenge? For sure. I feel like I've made great progress in both areas, even if I haven't hit my main goals yet - I've moved my pushups to a lower incline and can see and feel strength progress, which is GREAT and a huge motivator to keep going, and finishing out C25K by time and running for the 30 minutes straight is such a big thing. I hadn't done more than 10 on the street or 15 on a treadmill when I started. As far as my other two goals - I don't think there's a good way to do an objective summary of my steps because of the technical difficulties with my fitbit. Subjectively though, I feel like I did a pretty good job when I could, barring technical problems or minor injury. I also learned I might not want to pick goals that rely on a particular piece of equipment or technology working correctly. AND for my non-fitness life goal - I totally failed at my original intention which was to work on the projects every day. I did finish one - the blanket - and it turned out totally awesome. The shawl is not finished, but I'm getting there. I learned I have a hard, hard time keeping up with updating and participating with other people's threads. I really need to concentrate to respond and type things coherently and it's hard to carve out time when toddler is not hassling me when I'm not trying to do other things (kettlebells! housework! knitting!). I need to make a better effort to schedule that time out, and maybe for the next challenge that will be my non-fitness goal. Lots of room for improvement there. Overall? Not bad. Glad I came back and participated. The assassins are a pretty awesome group! I loved playing along with the mini-challenges for the first few weeks until it got too hard for me and/or too hard to fit in with my other goals. I'm going to put some more concerted effort into thinking up my goals for the next one, keeping in mind how I keep failing at the non-fitness goal and that I want to spend more time with my kettlebells and bodyweight stuff, so the running might need scaled back. Although I love that too, so its hard to decide!

Regular Zombies and not the 5k, right? You choose in the sittings whether you want the missions to be roughly 30 or 60 minutes but the exact time is based on length of the songs. But after the mission ends you can keep running for however long, it just changes to "radio mode" and has banter between songs instead of the story. It keeps tracking your time and distance and stuff so you can just keep an eye for whatever your goal is and stop when you're ready.

Yes, it's that "correctly" part that I'm still working on I went out for a run Wednesday and did two miles in about 25 minutes. Pretty good speed for me, actually. I managed to hurt myself walking up a very short hill yesterday - in my defense it is a steep hill and I was pushing a stroller and wearing sandals so my footing wasn't good, but I tweaked something in my knee. It's been sore since and feels a little swollen today. I'm super, super annoyed - I don't want to miss my last run this week and I'm supposed to be kneeling in a relative's garden all day tomorrow planting things. And I don't even have a good injury story because I was...walking up a hill. Sigh.

Thanks! it felt awesome! And I seem to totally need that luck. heh. Thanks! My muscles are looking better all the time I've been so sedentary and soft my whole life, I can't get over how weird/great it is to have noticeable muscles under my flab layer and not just sad bones. It's so awesome, and so motivating. I did my pushups yesterday, (6, 8, 6, 6, 8) and I'm actually pretty sore across the front of my chest today - those are definitely some of the muscles that I can feel failing to push me up when I attempt real pushups so I'm taking that as a good sign. I decided to give Zombies! a try yesterday and it was fun! More fun than the 5k trainer, which doesn't have object pickup or the base feature. Or the radio that kicks in when you keep going at the end of the mission, that was pretty entertaining. I managed to run about 26 minutes, walk for a few, run for a few more, and then walk until I hit 5k at 43 minutes total. I think I'm going to go back a few weeks in the C25K and do them by distance instead of time - 2 miles instead of 20 minutes, for example. I'm still averaging around 14 min/mi so it will be way longer than the equivalent time they give. A ten minute mile seems ridiculously fast for someone who just got off the couch 6 weeks ago, right?

Guys! I finished W8D3 of C25K last week! I want to throw myself a little party for finishing the program by running 30 minutes straight, but at the same time I don't feel like I really finished it because I'm still averaging 14 min/mi so I haven't actually run for 5k yet! Yesterday I tried the full Zombies, run! app for the first time, with chases turned OFF, and it was a lot of fun. I ran for like 25 minutes, walked for a few minutes, ran for another eight or so and then walked until I hit 5k at about 43 minutes. I should have been able to make it to 30 minutes since I've done it before, but it was so hot! I have to get used to the temperatures rising. I have to decide what to do to get to 5k of all running, now. I saw that the last few weeks of C25K have a distance option, so they say "run 20 minutes or 2 miles", and I used the time option. I think I'd like to go back to week 6 or 7 or whenever that started and try to go by distance instead, and slowly bring myself up to 3 miles. The Zombies app announces when I've hit each kilometer (note to self - change that to miles) so I can keep using that. And maybe try to fit in some evening or morning runs so I'm not always going out at 3 in the afternoon when it's hot outside.

I have a pair of...they aren't exactly this, but they are cut like these. They're a little tight in the hips and a little too roomy in the crotch, so they fit a little funny. I'm going to look into men's basketball or soccer shorts a little further, that might be a good idea.

I'm looking for shorts with a long inseam (~6"?), loose fitting, with REAL pockets. Is this a thing? I don't want shorter ones because they would be for running/walking and my thighs rub, and that's uncomfortable without fabric between them, especially once I start sweating. I don't want compression/tight because they really up the sweat factor, and I want to be able to carry something larger than just my single house key when I go on walks. I'm basically looking for men's shorts, but with more room in the hips and less room in the crotch. Preferably under $20. Is this a thing that someone sells, somewhere?