RussTheAerialist

I had to cut the challenge short because I got into a car accident, and that changed everything. I'm okay now, but it's been pretty rough since I got back from California.

Early in the morning, before your brain wakes up enough to make excuses.

I made fried chicken with it which was good. I also made pancakes, but I was out of vanilla so they were a bit bland, but I'm going to try them again this weekend.

Welcome! What kind of animation? I'd imagine that's a stressful but fulfilling job! And I'd say that you just forget that you can't open the door on the 4th floor, run up the stairs every morning, realize it again, and run back down

One of the tactics I've used with my partner, who was/is resistant to paleo/primal, is to offer to cook. While he generally did almost all of the cooking prior to my decision, I started to offer to cook, and would just cook paleo, and he'd love it. We both are pretty heavily Meat and Veggie people anyway, but he always needed bread or some other type of starch, and slowly, I've weened him off of it, and he doesn't even insist on it anymore. I know not quite the same as with parents, but I'm going stay down with his parents for a week coming in a weeks time, so I'm going to attempt the same tactic while I'm down there and see how it goes.

I just discovered some coconut flour in my pantry that I forgot that I hadn't finished and I really feel like doing some kind of baking with it (probably this weekend). What's your favorite use of coconut flour?

Coconut Milk + Crushed Pineapple + a little of the pineapple juice, blend it together, and freeze in popsicle molds. So Delicious!

That's awesome. That's one of my biggest pet-peeves at the gym is the whole "You have to be skinny to work out here" mentality of some of the people.

I'm using Pen and Paper which flows into excel which flows into Tableau for graphing. I might eventually replace excel with a custom database if things get too big that JET can't deal with it, but for now it works.

Generally speaking, I've had constant, sustained weight loss sinceI switched to paleo last month. In the month and a half that I've been paleo, I've lost about 2% body fat and a total of about 5 inches from around my body, mostly in the stomach (my biggest problem area). I do limit my nuts/seed intake to only about a handful a day and only when I've forgotten to bring my own snacks to work. I do see a little bit of weight gain after my "free day" (or most recently, free weekend, which I'm not going to do again), but once I'm back to paleo, the temporary weight gain goes away. I think if I exercised more on the weekends, it wouldn't be an issue.

My go-to protein bar (when I do eat them, which is not terribly often anymore) are ThinkThin bars. http://www.thinkproducts.com 20g of protein and zero sugar, though they do have dairy, soy, and peanuts in them, so depending on if you are strict paleo/primal, they might not be the best choice.

Fun! Your point system is fantastic. I should do something like this and award myself with a new camera body if I rock the challenge. I think I'll do that next challenge!

I can definitely see why the declined pushups are a level up from regular push ups, so I'll try that tomorrow as part of my trapeze workout, but I don't fully understand the difference between the regular lunge and the walking lunge and why walking lunges are harder?

I think it's better to challenge yourself for 30 days and do it cold turkey. For myself, I found there is definitely an addiction-withdrawal phase when giving up baked goods and grains in general, and setting a goal of "Let me just do this for 30 days and see how I feel" was a great thing for breaking that addiction-cycle. And after my 30 days, I didn't want bread anymore, it's been about 90 days, and I'm allowing myself a little cheating here and there (only on the weekends), but in general, I don't have the cravings anymore. I would also advise not to try the paleo-substitute route for those 30 days, so no paleo-bread, paleo-pizza, or paleo-dessert. I personally think it's hard to do it as a vegetarian, but other people on the forum have done it successfully and I'm sure they'll give good advice on how to do it. WELCOME TO THE REBELLION (from a newbie rebel)

my non-trapeze routine is: Lunges 3x15 bw+20lbs Hip Raises 3x15 bw+20lbs (holding my dumbbells in my lap while doing them to make them harder) Elbows-in (tricep) Push ups 3x15 bw Bent over rows 3x15 (20 pounds by clover hitching my two 10 pound dumbbells together) (until I get a bar to do hanging rows) Planks currently at 3x90s trying to increase to 3 minute per set I do these as a superset, with 1-2 minutes of rest after the entire superset. I'm thinking about adding weight to the push ups by getting a sandbag. My trapeze training is a bit more varied. Climb Rope 4x25ft Beat Pullovers 3x5-10 depends on how I'm feeling Body Beats (hanging from the trapeze bar, and swinging) 3x10 Catchers Beats (inverted swinging crunches while hanging from bar by knees) 3x10 Pushups 3x15 Hollow Body Rocks (engage core, legs and arms off the ground, hold position and rock) 3x10 Hanging Toe Touches (hang from bar by hands, touch toes to the bar) 3x10 Handstands hold for time, trying to work up to 5 minute per set, 3 sets Hanging Shoulder Shrugs 10x3 For the trapeze workout, I'm working myself to exhaustion where I can't even hang from the bar any longer by the end of it. I only do the trapeze workout twice a week, and the first routine fills in various days, and I intersperse that with interval sprinting on the days between the weight routines.

My current bodyweight routine is stagnating for me and so I've been trying to vary it in such a way as to actually make me feel like I've worked out for more than a few hours after the workout. I feel like, at least right now, I could do this bodyweight routine (even with increasing load, sets, rep counts) every day, so I guess the question is, since the bodyweight routine isn't producing delayed-onset soreness, how important is a rest day in between? I almost feel like I should be doing it twice a day (once in the morning, once in the evening) because I feel lazy if I do it in the morning and then at night don't do anything. Or am I just overthinking things?

That's awesome! I'm not sure of the differences in the different types of Bellydancing (my studiomate in my photography studio was a bellydancer). I think I've met Nancy before, but I'm not 100% sure since Sarah brought in lots of different dancers for our art shows. Good luck on all of it! This community is definitely a great way to stay accountable and motivated.

Woo! You are in Seattle too! Do you Kendra (from Hands of Kali?) Good luck on your goals! And rock that performance! Are you doing bellydancing for the performance? If it's a burl-/boy-lesque thing, do you know Tamara? For the quit smoking goal, do you have a plan on how you are going to attack it?

Jumping Jacks followed by some quick body weight motions like pull ups (if you have a bar), push ups and squats. That's pretty much what the Angry Birds Workout is

I'm working (slowly) through Rosetta Stone Level 1 for Russian. I love the Russian language, and have hopes of going there in the next couple of years for a photography vacation and to train with some crazy hardcore Russian circus performers.

Looks like a great set of goals! Good luck! I'm right there with you on the undiagnosed ADD/ADHD thing. I had similar situations in school with me and every lab class I ever took. I rocked at the labs, but got bored having to write the lab reports. For the exercise goal, body weight resistance training can do alot for you! Pull ups, squats, etc. And if you need to add weight to the exercises and since you are in school, a backpack with text books in it, cheap and easy for sure and a great way to add weight, especially for pull ups!

I've been looking for a good source of high-quality jerky that is sustainable and nitrate free(?). Is your a local thing or something I could order off the web? My local butcher shop that provides all of my grass-fed, local beef doesn't have a nitrate free jerky.

I couldn't agree more. I've only just started my paleo lifestyle about a month ago (44 days to be exact), and I've already lost 2.5% body fat (as of yesterday), and over 10 total inches on my body (most from stomach and chest, where I carry most of my fat).

Good Calorie, Bad Calorie is not primal/paleo specific. It's about what is wrong with our nutritional "science" and public policy. In it, he evaluates the various different stances that have been prevalent in the Public Health Debate, Why the Obesity Epidemic isn't slowing down, and what some good-meaning, but ultimately very-misinformed people have done to push bad diets on the masses. It's a dense, dense tome. If you care more about practical knowledge, "Why we get fat" is a better read, I think. If you want to know everything about why you should ignore conventional, public-health-based wisdom when it comes to diet, then start with GCBC. One point that "Why We Get Fat" mentions that did catch me off guard is that he makes an argument of why exercising to lose weight is a fallacy. It took me a bit to get over my own bias on that topic to listen to what he said, and I'm still not 100% convinced that his argument is sound. He's not saying don't exercise but that exercise doesn't contribute to losing weight.

I'm more or less "paleo" or "primal" or any other name you want to give it. I've read the Primal Blueprint which is a good introduction to it. If you really want to know the hows and whys of the diet of "eat meat and veggies, stay away from sugars, diary, and grains, don't fear fat", then I'd suggest Good Calorie, Bad Calorie for an indepth review of all of the research that backs it as a good diet. If you want a more approachable book, Gary Taubes wrote a follow up book to Good Calorie, Bad Calorie called "Why we get fat" which has alot of the same information in GCBC, but from a way more conversational, less analytical standpoint. Both are excellent reads, and there is information in each of the books not covered in the other book. I don't go for the "that's what our ancestors ate" argument (Almonds are a great example. Their edibility is entirely a product of genetic manipulation, certainly not what cavemen ate) , but Gary Taubes makes some good conclusions based on the available research and studying of modern, hunter gathers.