swoop

I must say now i'm glad i went with fitbit charge hr myself. The Up3 was still not available when i was looking and from what i hear people are dissapointed compared to fitbit charge hr. I'm looking forward to hearing your "review" of the charge hr, as i have it myself. But i think from your bullet point list you will love it more. The downside is more frequent charging, but i find it's easy. I just give it an hour every 3 days or so and it's good to do. Normally when i eat dinner or something relaxing at home. The sleep tracking is pretty okay.. sometimes off but again no tracker is going to be hyper accurate in this sense. Only downside i see if that it's not great at tracking workouts where your pulse gets about 160 bpm. Just seems to top around that mark. I found wearing a small elastic wrist wrap around the fitbit helps with the workout accuracy as the band isn't sliding around the arm and no sweat running down the arm past the sensor. Also just feels better to have it in place without having to tighten the strap. Oh and i love the HR monitor through the day. Really nice to see. Since i got it i have been actively trying to hit my marks every day.. even sometimes took down trash just to hit the 10 flights of stairs goal hehe. Look forward to hearing your thoughts about it

Aaaaaand i'm done (for now) Decided to restart my 6 weeks with another challenge right away. Will try to get an end report one of these days though. But this weekend was crazy and really took it's toll

thanks i hope so But lets' just see what the last 3 days bring.. after all tomorrow is a day of partying so might take it back a minor step But i'm totally psyched for 6 more weeks! Bring it!

Well having the judges course of course gives you the "skill" to pass on what they might be doing that counts as a no-rep. Example was yesterday we had some heavy thrusters and a guy kept hitting his arms on the legs in the bottom of the squat. If you hit there it's a no-rep normally so was nice for him to be told so he can focus on not doing that in the future

Thanks Well i want a L1 at some point myself. I have a secret ambition of being able to coach at some point in the future The Judges course is online and not terribly hard to pass. There are a few videos that are hard to tell and a few pictures that are hard to determine, but all in all i completed everything in a single afternoon quite easily. But i would reccomend to wait for the opens next year before taking unless you will need the certificate for something before then. I'm told it's going to require a new one next year.. i only did it because it was free so i had it. But if i was paying myself i would wait for next spring

Thanks I try to outsource and automate everything i do regularly. I like not having to worry about forgetting small things that actually matter. So if i can somehow automate or have somebody do it for me i will. Thats my appeal with the Fitbit Aria and Withings WS-50 weights. They automatically track my numbers, rather than having me do one extra step of entering my data manually. It's just something i might forget once in a while and hate later that i have missing data points And just like you say as long as i keep to a regular time for weigh ins i think both would be consistant if not somewhat accurate. I can always get a precise check up at the local stores that have one of the huge expensive precise medical monitors hehe Anyhow i think my conclusion was that i want one, but i might wait a month to get it simple because it's not exactly totally cheap and i have the wedding comming up. Though i'm not being selfish here as we talked about it and my fiancee also like the idea of this scale. She would love to be able to follow her own stats i know Almost through 6 weeks already and i have been absent for a while Wow i have been absent with all intentions of posting for almost a week. Haven't slacked off though. So let me try to summarize what happened. Basically life happened hehe Been super busy with a bunch of things and generally tired after a hard days work. Been getting to bed earlier and sleeping around 6 6.5 hours a night average. Good again. Been working out as much as 4 times a week and recently started adding about 2K row and some weight lifting after my 1 hour class. Next week i will start including a 5-3-1 wendler program so it's not just randomly lifting/burning energy. I plan to keep doing the 2K row for fun (as much fun as those ~9 mins can be hehe) and then using the Wendler program to increase my strength in various lift. So far i'm thinking Deadlift, Benchpress, Press, Squat (back and front perhaps) Okay so what about my results ? Well these past almost 6 weeks i went from 98kg to around 94.6 kg (weight this morning). So in general this means i had about ~3 kg lost (hopefully primarily fat hehe). And that averages about 0.5 kg a week which was my goal. So it's been a good success! This takes me about halfway to my goal of hitting 90kg and hopefully i can complete that during the next 6 weeks challenge that also brings me close to the date where my Fiancee arrives here just 2 weeks after. So i have about 2 months left before she gets here and i really want to hit the goal Other than that my cardio has gone up a good deal. Doing two cardio classes a week helps me and i can feel i no longer get totally winded, but mere take a short break and focus on breathing out and trusting i will get the new air in without trouble. It works and i get a good workout in Cleanliness Keeping the apartment clean. It's been going well with a few days exceptions. Nothing major and since i have been cooking minimally isnt' not been a big dealbreaker for me. Diet Eating right. Well i have been tracking my intake and even on the "bad" days i stayed below my goal. Worst case i got close to hitting my limit but that was a day with 1.5 hours of working out so my allowance that day is technically even higher. And despite doing a rum tasting with some party and drinking, and having a few days with bought "junk" food i have been controlled about it and logging even the bad food. It's working for me so i will just keep doing it Random news Was a judge at a local Crossfit competition last weekend. Great fun but also tough work. the mental stress of being so focused all the way through knowing your are potentially decided a teams placement through the amount of reps ect. And everything is moving a quite a fast pace. Mentally exhausting but great fun none the less. Related i got my CF Judges course certificate. So i'm now a certificed CF Judge for at least a years time. Also the certifcate was free through the company who arranged the competition and i might be lined up to judge in other events in the future for a small prize/fee. So free certificate and possibility of getting some experience and fun as a judge. Only two months left until i get my fiancee here! Can't wait and finally our documents ect are falling into place. In about 3 weeks the final document for the marriage should be in order and hopefully we can start the process earlier. Also reached out to people regarding our parties ect. Nothing major but still. This weekend is going to be a cheaters weekend. Friday a friend from across the country is visiting for the Carnival on Saturday. so friday we might head out for a beer and possibly some food. Saturday is the Carnival so no health food.. just party and fun. Though i'm sure it's not going to wreck my progress.. a single day of relaxation is needed. Mostly drinking and then in the afternoong some steaks for dinner i'm thinking and evening more party. As compensation i hope to workout sunday after the hangover clears a little, and then again monday to keep the momentum going. Thats it for now.. swoop trucking on

Oh don't worry. Like i said i'm not obsessing about the scale but it's my only actual progress indicator over realtive short time available. I'm not especially overweight so pictures won't do over a short amount of time. There is not much difference in pictures i know from experience.. i need longer periods of time. Same goes for measurements of waist ect. I see very little change over example a month. Very easy to get bad measurements there so i generally tend to only measure that very rarely. However i did for a while do a monthly body comoposition test and could match the weight there with my own measurement, but consistantly see my bodyfat drop (last time from 25% to 18% when i got my injury and went all the way back). So i really would love to have weight + bodyfat to get a better short timeframe picture. Hate spending even a month eating and just staying at zero. I want to drop the extra weight again soi can focus on staying at my "normal" weight... But yeah i have pictures from beginning of challenge but i have never been able to see much difference in pictures to be honest. Even when i dropped 10kg in 2 months.. i didn't see difference in pictures. I could measure it though and clothes didn't fit me as before. So the change was there, but didn't see it in the pictures much

Hmm past few days have been disappointing for me Basically the scales haven't been moving in the right direction though i have been keeping my calorie deficit. Though i have had a few mishaps (planned though) like a rum tasting it shouldn't be that bad.. but hopefully it's just fluid and temp measurements. But in any case i expect to finish the challenge only a few kg down and not the full 3-4 kg i was hoping to. But no matter i keep going forward Even 2 kg down is better than nothing.. and i can't measure my bodyfat accurately atm i'm afraid so no help there. I was thinking perhaps i have been going too far and eating way too little rather than hitting my mark. On training days i still am below 2000 calories a day but including exercise i should propably burn like 3500 .. so seems to be a large deficit imho. But i'm no expert and it's hard to get different amounts of calories on different days Though i have been planning to see if i have the money after the month finishes to grab a Withing WS50 to measure this automatically. I know it's propably not the most precise measurement but it should give me an overall sense and i hear it's generally consistant Thoughts on this ? Anyhow just needed to went a little about the frustration of the stupid scales stalling I have never been obsessed with my actual weight in numbers but it's the only thing i can reliably measure atm so i kind of love seeing that number change to remind me things are moving forward and not just stalled. Guess i take my motivation from knowing i'm doing it right. So stalling is my biggest opponent.. Would have to spend X amount of time on something only to find out it's not working. I like actually making the progress or at least knowing i'm on the right path. Then i can handle the stall

Today is almost 4 weeks into the challenge. It's saturday evening and i'm relaxing at home with a sore body (re: my workout described later on) and a glass of wine. On the laptop is House of Cards (finally broken into third season) and i feel really really good. This week my weight loss has been improving steadily. There are a few ups and downs depending on what day i weigh in, but all in all it's a nice decline at a good pace. Also getting quite used to noting all my food intake to a certain degree. I'm not fanatic, but i got to admit i love the encouragement of MFP calculating my estimated weight loss after a good day It's motivating and helps when the little thought of "hmm that hotdog sounds tempting and you didn't get any afternoon snack on the way home from work" sneaks in What else ? Had two days of sickness and a few days afterwards here i was under the weather. Missed a single workout because of this but think i caught up on some sleep though Feeling almost 100 percent again with just a residual cough left over. Nothing to stop me Today i got my weekly summary from Fitbit and i have included the relevant data. But all in all i'm doing good and keeping to my mini goals almost every day. I might even start taking small walks to hit the daily steps on non-workout days depending on the weather. Day 27 - Saturday May 9th 2015 Diet Breakfast - Skipped. I hate working out on a full stomach, and decided to sleep late; or at least until i had to get up to get to my 9am team workout. Lunch - It was quite late. Okay it's more like a afternoon snack time thing. But i managed to wolf down a measly 300 calories snack after getting home. Dinner - Here we're talking. I allowed myself a nice low carb burger from a local place that specializes in making healthy food. Though one could argue a cheeseburger with approx 1000 calories isn't exactly healthy for most peoples diets, but certainly better than my fast food alternatives. But since i only had 300 earlier in the day even this would be just a small portion of my intake. Workout About 3 hours in the gym. At least 1.5 hours of active working out Allow me to explain - I had a 9-10am Team Workout class. It's my regular saturday class and i simply love the team aspect of it. You tend to push yourself a bit harder working with a partner. Afterwards we were talking and i was about to hit some small plank exercises to see if i could improve on my core there. Got to talking with my buddy and our KB coach came over. Got talking about what was on the 11-12am KB Team Workout schedule and we decided to join in as there was 2 spots open. Meanwhile we had some front squats and about 5 minutes of random plank exercises. Then the kb team class and finall i called it quits. Just for additional data here are my fitbit stats for these two workouts - But lets' just say i certainly did enough during my morning to justify relaxing in the evening Sleep Didn't get quite enough sleep last night i'm afraid. But a little afternoon nap made that work Cleanliness Everything is clean as a whistle. I didn't really use anything today since i decided to outsource my dinners for a while, and the rest of my meals are at work. So only during weekends will i have to cook anything of significance. Notes I got my weekly summary from fitbit today. Here are my stats from this week As you can see i'm hitting green marks in almost every department on average. I'm quite satisfied with this. I would love to get an hours sleep more to hit average of 7 hours, but it's tough sometimes. I have restless legs once in a while thus making sleep a challenge. But all in all i'm certainly burning more calories than i'm eating. Perhaps i could even stand to eat a few more during my days. But the weight loss is there so i'm sticking with the guns until the end of the challenge But this brings me to my next discovery. I had for a long time been replacing my BMR in my head with my number of calories that i'm actually burning in a day including basic activity. So today i managed to finally nail the real numbers in my head. My BMR is only approx 2000 kcal and then i add about 1000 kcal more in activity during my day. Now my MFP information makes a bit more sense as does the calories in/out on Fitbit. So i have been running approx 1000 kcal deficit instead of mere 500. But i'm feeling good about it so far so no worries. Just a small eye opening. Okay this should be enough information for one post. Thanks for reading and again thanks for the support. Writing a few times a week here really helps keep the focus as i have somebody to tell about the various aspects

Accidental double post

Well i have been told that despite what you might feel doing back exercises is a good way forward. Of course all caution when doing so, but a major risk is that we tend to avoid using a previously injured area trying to protect it, but might in fact risk other parts of your body get injured trying to keep pressure off the body part in question. I had a small back problem a few years ago, and took me a while to normal exercises. But kept the focus on doing whatever i could. If i couldn't do squats i would do as low as i could. If not lunges would work for me. But make sure you check with appropriate experts so you don't injure yourself, but i would say perhaps a slow return to your workouts really making sure not to lift to heavy and do your movements slowly and controlled

You and me both! Hate being sick and not able to do anything productive.. watching movies from bed gets real boring real quick for me Me to For me it's binary. Either i'm well enough for mostly anything or i'm home sick and unable to go out the door except to grab food and/or medicine. I always made that distinction to myself. So even if i stayed at home with a small thing and i felt better later in the day i would keep inside rather than having people see me out in the evening after being sick in the morning. Just seems wrong somehow A bit late here my workout thursday morning was 21 Turkish getup L 50 KB swings 21 KB Overhead squat R 50 KB Swings 21 KB Overhead squat L 50 KB Swings 21 Turkish getup R I managed to get through this with 16 kg for swings and squat, and 20 kg for turkish getup. I still have a bit of weakness from the illness, but feeling much better.

Day 23 and 24 (i think from my counting) I got sick! Karma or whatever but i caught the flu after joking at work i just escaped the bug going around. Anyhow been sick for two days but feeling better now. Only a sore throat lingering. However this also means a skipped workout tuesday and that irregular diet. However sure i stayed under the limit and also despite having a few comfort foods. My appetite was in general lacking and i slept most of the time. which i got sick of! Today i decided was the last day of being sick. I will hit the gym at 6am tomorrow and hopefully also work a full day. My dinner today didn't suit my appetite. So i decided to make something new tomorrow... Let me explain a little about my dinners. I get this delivered Low Carb box every monday morning. Its supposed to be food for 2 people for 3 days. I make it stretch for 5-6 days for just me. The upside is no shopping required and some more exotic vegetables and recipes than i would normally get/make. However the downside is sometimes it might not be to my liking and/or i sometimes mess up the cooking hehe. Mostly small stuff but at least i get a lot of vegetables in my regular dinners and it makes sure i get fish at least one day a week. downside can also be that i sometimes don't have a stomach agreeing with the recipes Anyhow long story short: Was sick, almost well again, didn't feel diet was affected

thanks for the feedback. Yeah the more i think about I recognize that i won't be doing the RPG aspect. Though i will be doing a simple level up system, but nothing with attributes. I'm pretty motivated already and having this forum as a place to write about the whole journey helps me enough to keep everyday motivation strong thanks for the ideas I will have a look at it if i decided later to add some of the stats into this. For now though i have decided to keep it at the simple Level pr challenge in basic essense And then display my various progresses in the signature