Samus

Thanks, you too.

Your right, you don't know me and you didn't ask, I'm not sure what exactly your calling me out on. I happen to have a very active lifestyle, the reason I put on weight was because I had a majore spine issue that required surgery, I was limping around on a cane for a year and half. I had my surgery on July 30th and have slowly been able to get my active lifestyle back. I don't like how I look sitting on a couch because that isn't what I do and I'm not sure why you made the assumption that it is. I have three young children and a very busy life. So how about you save your "holier than thou" "I'm calling you out" BS for someone else. Perhaps you should learn to ask questions before making assumptions and making false negative comments about someone. I don't love how I look right now, I'm working on it, some degree of feeling self-conscious is part of basic human psychology and your little post here isn't going to change that. I don't let how I look stop me from doing anything I want, I simply stated that I understand that feeling of self-consciousness.

I've always wanted to try out scuba diving, right now I'm too brok and too busy with kids, and I think I wouldn't like how I looked in the outfit either. Good on you for putting yourself out there regardless, I hope you have a blast!

I hate when a post you've worked hard on get's lost before submitting. Good luck with your goals!

Main Quest: Defeat Motherbrain! I've struggled with my weight since I was a teenager, I've gone up and down over and over through the years. Right now I'm more up than down, the way I really accomplish beating Motherbrain is by making long term changes. Losing the weight and keeping it off. Right now I'm focused on getting the scale to say 210lbs, for my height and muscle mass that's a pretty healthy weight, and it's 10lbs less than my best in almost a decade. Goals: 1.) 100% Paleo for the next six weeks. Reward: 1 Missile Pack I did four weeks of pure paleo for my last challenge and loved it, I felt great. I did a major slide on halloween, I told myself I was going to have a few peices of candy and ended up binging for several days. (I have three kids and only about half the candy we bought was picked up by trick-or-treators). All that junk food made me feel like junk, physically and mentally, I'm ready to get back to paleo and feeling good. 2.) Meditate for 20 minutes every day. Reward: Charge Beam I started meditating every day several weeks ago and then I stopped. Life with three kids is busy, but I want to make time for it and see where it takes me. For the next six weeks I'm going to take 20 minutes out of the day to sit and do my best to clear my mind. 3.) Take a 1 mile walk, three times a week. Reward: 1 Missile Pack I use a recumbant excercise bike M-F for an hour, I want to incorporate walking and eventually jogging into my work out routine as well. I had a spinal fusion on July 30th and I'm still not supposed to do any heavy lifting, but when I can I'll include weight lifting as well. But for now walking and biking will do my body a world of good. Life Quest: Make and upload one video every week for my YT channel. Reward: 1 Energy Tank Upgrades already achieved: Morph Ball Bomb Upgrade 1 Missile Pack

Main Quest: Defeat Motherbrain! I will do this by acheiveing a weight of 210 lbs. I'm currently 265lbs, I was almost 300 last December. I've made progress but my main goal is to get to 210 lbs. (I lost 4 more pounds during this challenge which is excellent! Part of me wishes it was faster but I know it's better to lose weight slowly than not at all, I'm moving in the right direction and that makes me happy) Goals: 1.) 100% Paleo for the next four weeks. Reward: Morph Ball Grade: A- ~I had a few small cheats, but they were very small and they were all semi-paleo, I didn't have anything really out there during the four week period. It was the first time I maintained a paleo diet that long and it felt great. (Morph Ball gained) 2.) Do my PT excercises daily. Reward: Bomb Upgrade Grade: B+ ~Near the end of the challenge I wasn't doing them every day, or when I was I rushed through them because they are time consuming. But I got it together and made time for my PT excercies. All in all I did well. (Bomb Upgrade acheived) 3.) Take a 1 mile walk, at least once a week. Reward: 1 Missile Pack Grade: A+ ~ I started walking 1 mile several days a week. When my two year old doesn't get too bored I walk further with her in the stroller. ( 1 Missile Pack gained) Life Quest: Make and upload the first video for the YouTube channel I want to start. Reward: 1 Energy Tank Grade: F

Good luck Padfoot, experiment untill you find a way to cook it that is palatble for you. I honestly never thought I'd enjoy broccoli but I found a way.

Broccoli! That SOB has had me beat since I was six (no offence intended Brassica oleracea) I remember gagging and eventually vomiting at the dinner table while my parents tried to get me to eat my broccoli. My responce was so bad that my parents stopped trying to get me to eat it. Whenever my mom, or anyone was cooking broccoli my stomach turned and I got nauseated at the mere smell of it cooking. A few years ago I bought broccoli one day and started munching on it raw. I vomited then tried to eat some more. I did this until I could eventually eat the stuff without vomiting, but I never enjoyed it. Two nights ago I cooked broccoli in olive oil and heavily flavored it with garlic, thyme and lots and lots of oregano. I didn't just choke it down, I enjoyed and entire plate of it :-D

No worries! So far everything is great, I'm on point with all my set goals. This one was kind of easy, just getting my feet wet again. I think I want to challenge myself a bit more on the next six week "challenge". But I'm feeling great and happy that I'm doing well on the goals I did set for myself. I found a nice trail near my house that I can walk on Friday's while my 20 month old is in "busy bees". And the weather is supposed to be good tomorrow after three straight days of rain so I'm in luck.

I haven't been here for a long time, I had to have spine surgery and I was otherwise occupied with the happenings of life. Now I'm in physical therapy and ready to kick ass and take names again. Since it has been so long I've decided to do a complete reset to my game. Main Quest: Defeat Motherbrain! I will do this by acheiveing a weight of 210 lbs. I'm currently 265lbs, I was almost 300 last December. I've made progress but my main goal is to get to 210 lbs. Second Quest: 1.) 100% Paleo for the next four weeks. Reward: Morph Ball ~Over the past 3 months I've been on average 75% paleo. I cheat on the weekends and I think that makes it a lot harder to stay paleo instead of easier. I want to experience Paleo for a full four weeks and see how I feel. 2.) Do my PT excercises daily. Reward: Bomb Upgrade ~This is important for me to build up my core strenght around my fused spine and return to work. 3.) Take a 1 mile walk, at least once a week. Reward: 1 Missile Pack ~ I used to walk 4 miles several times a week. This was many years ago before I had three children, but I would like to get back in the habbit of taking long walks. Life Quest: Make and upload the first video for the YouTube channel I want to start. Reward: 1 Energy Tank Upgrades previously found: None

Good luck! Meditation is on my to do list as well. But I have three young kids and it's pretty difficult to find the time :-P

I had to work up to getting rid of sugar slowly. I cut down a little at a time and that made finally giving it up a lot easier. My taste buds seem to have adjusted nicely. I've found it is better to take a long time to make a permenant change than to make a huge change that you later go back on. I say this as somone who has gone on many juice fasts and other diets that eventually failed because I tried to change to much all at once.

Second Quest: 1.) Eat two servings of vegetables every day. Reward: Charge Beam Upgrade ~Considering I've spent most of my adult life barely eating vegetables at this is a big deal for me. 2.) Lose the sugar in my coffee, just cream. Reward: Spazer Upgrade ~For my last challenge I went from extra cream and extra sugar to regular cream and a little sugar. Now I’m losing the sugar all together. 3.) No sweets Mon-Wed of every week for the next three weeks. (i.e. candy(bars)/donuts/cookies) Reward: High Jump Boots ~This will probably be the most difficult for me as I love cookies and candy bars. But I’m committed to the change. Life Quest: Clean/Organize Basement Reward: Energy Tank ~The basement is long overdue to be organized. There is a lot of room down there that could be utilized much more efficiently. Upgrades previously found: Morph Ball Upgrade Bomb Upgrade

Sorry I'm a day late reporting but here it is: 1.) Eating 1 serving of vegetables every day: B I did pretty good with this, and the few days I didn't have at least 1 serving of vegetables was because it was a very busy day. Either out with the kids all day or doing 12 hour shifts at the hospital. Other days I had two or three servings, but the goal was to have at least 1 serving every day and I missed a few days so I gave myself a B. 2.) Cutting down on sugar and cream in my coffee: A+ I did great with this challenge. I didn't cave once, I stuck to a greatly reduced amount of sugar and cream in my coffee. I think one of my next challenges will be to go six weeks with only cream in my coffee. 3.) Find 1 healthy meal that the whole family really enjoys: F I didn't put much effort into this. The few new recipies I did try were liked by one child and not the other, ect ect. I quickly realized this is a lost cause, at least for now. I think I need to work on my own eating habbits and then try to expand them to full dinners. Life Quest: A I found a potential publisher, did quite a bit of reading on proper submission guidlines, then read the publishers specific guidlines and submitted my story. Now I'm just wating on a responce and working on my next story. All in all I did pretty well on my first six week challenge and I'm looking foreword to the next.

This isn't the first time I've kicked sodas. I've caved on previous attempts. I'm really not sure what changed this time, maybe I finally truely decided I wanted to stop drinking them instead of forcing myself to stop drinking them. You'll get there, just keep at it :-) If I can do it anyone can.

Thanks everyone :-D I agree soda's are an empty pointless and addictive drink, not addictive the way heroin is, but addictive. Anyways I'm glad to be off of them and I feel better for it!

I've been a soda addict since I was 13. During my worst I was drinking 4-6 20oz sodas a day. It was difficult to give them up and took months of weaning myself off of them with the help of caffeine pills. (I no longer need them) Also for some reason this particular article made me really WANT to stop drinking sodas. I've read plenty of articles on how bad sodas can be your health but for some reason that article made me really think about the damage I was doing to my body. I don't remember the exact date I had my last soda but it's been roughly 2 months. I had to run to CVS last night to buy milk and a few other things and I realized I had no desire to grab a soda. That used to be my ritual, everytime I had to make a late night run to CVS I would grab one. But last night I didn't have to stop myself, I realized I had had no real desire to drink one and honestly couldn't remember what I liked about soda so much. Big change for me, and I'm very happy about it :-D

I started out using the high nicotine level juice and slowly weaned down to the lowest level. I once tried the no nicotine juice but it didn't work, so I still have a nicotine habbit but none of the tar or carcinogines. Not to mention the amount of nicotine I get these days is a fraction of what is in analog ciggarettes. I'm currently satisfied with it, nictoine itself isn't great for your health but in small amounts isn't all that detrimental either. It's the other stuff in ciggarettes that really destroyes your lungs and body.

Yea the box mods have a much longer battery life, it's one of the things I really like about them. When I first started I liked e-cigs that were similar in size and shape to an anolog cigarette. As time went on I lost the need to have something similar to a regular cig in my hand. I can't even begin to count the various e-cigs that are out there. I used the ego-C for about a year and it was pretty good but the box mods have a battery that last three times as long and hold three times as much e-juice. Less time spent charging batteries and refilling liquid :-)

I wondering if anyone else on this forum had used e-cigs to quit smoking. I love being a vaper instead of a smoker. I've gone through a lot of different models over the years, I currently use a box-mod. Right now I vape on the iTaste MVP, but I'm soon going to upgrade to this beautiful monster: I personally love the box mods and as far as juice I highly highly reccomend "Black Mamba" made by pink vapor spots. In general pink vapor makes great flavors :-)

My 5yo helping me work out:

Tomorrow marks the halfway point, whoohoo! So I've done well on the daily vegatable thing. Honestly most days I just ate two large carrots, carrots are one of the few vegetables I really like. Of course over time I want to expand my palet when it comes to vegetables, but as a starting point I feel really good about eating 1 serving of vegetables every day. I've also done great with reducing the amount of sugar and cream in my coffee. And I read a great tip on reddit a few days ago that has helped: Poor your coffee black, drink a sip, and then add the sugar. The idea is that you taste the bitter black coffee and then a lesser amount of sugar is needed to enjoy the coffee. Maybe it is totally in my mind but so far it works. Reagarding my last challenge... sheet I haven't even really started on it. I've looked up a few recipies but when you have three kids life is busy and the budget is tight right now. It's hard to experiment with food as opposed to buying things I know the family likes when money is tight. But I've got three more weeks so hopefully I can work some magic so I don't fail the last challenge. As far as my "life quest" last Friday I submitted my story to Ares Mag: http://aresmagazine.com/ regardless of rejection or acceptance I finally took the step to submit something. It seems so silly, but I've been scared of that step for a long time. A lot of it has to do with my upbringing, my parents were fundamentalist and all the stories I wrote were "unholy" ect ect. When I was kid I was convinced I would have to write under a pseudonym because I would be kicked out of my family if the things I liked to write about were ever discovered. But I've already been expelled from my religion and family so it doesn't matter anymore :-P All in all I feel good! Hope everyone else is doing well on their challenges :-D

I can't imagine having 7... your like superwoman!

Dad of three girls here. Two five year olds (not twins) and a 1 year old. "yell less" - I think I need a lesson in that. I don't practice corporal punishment "spanking" but I yell plenty. Sometimes it seems it's the only way to get them to listen... it's so frustrating. I don't want to yell, but I could sure use some advice on what else to do when they seem to not hear what I just told them... 7 times in a row.

Check out "On Writing" by Stephen King, I found his advice invaluable.