DaBlonde

There is a website called GoNoodle.com that you can use. It is designed to get very young children moving. I used it with a computer and projector when I taught kindergarten, but you may be able to use a smart tv. Each session is fairly short, but the kids love it and will happily dance, jump and run in place for 20-30 minutes.

I am working on becoming a caretaker for myself and my new house. ME: I have hypertension and am 50 years old. My mom had a stroke at 52 and died from a heart attack at 55. It is time to take control. HOUSE: I moved to a new area; my home gym did not make the move, but my new home is beautiful with an amazing back yard. A lot of my time will be going into maintaining and improving my home and yard. Reduce Blood Pressure by 10% last month's average was 140/98. Buy rechargeable batteries and charger for BP cuff Track Sodium and keep it below 1000 mg per day Include a vegetable with every meal Reduce waist measurement by 2" Track Sugar and keep it below 70 grams per day Daily Cardio or circuit training House: New daily habit - clean kitchen every evening Seasonal: Prepare Garden for Fall Clear out beds Put down hardware cloth Refill beds with soil and compost Plant fall vegetables

This is going to sound counter-intuitive since you already feel overwhelmed, but find time to go outside with your toddler. Every day if you can manage it. If you have a back yard let him go play in the dirt and kick a ball and pull up the grass. Go for a walk around the block, but go at his pace. Allow him to look and explore as much as is possible and safe. He will burn more energy while running around outside, will experience new sights and sounds which both expands and tires out his brain, and it gives you a chance to forget about the laundry and dishes that are never going to be finished anyway and just focus on your child. Toddlerhood is an amazing stage and my favorite, enjoy it.

I'm going to hit the obvious stuff first. For the car: Soft toys or picture books that Bits really enjoys Drinks and snacks in very small, individual serving containers, because they will get dumped out. Twice as many wipes, diapers and clothes than you thought you needed For the destination: Go for free or cheap. Bits will have as much fun throwing cheez-its at the ducks in the park as he will walking around an actual zoo. Start with close places unless Bits falls asleep readily in his car seat. Let Bits out to run around for awhile before strapping him into a stroller or expecting him to sit through anything.

I was going to skip this challenge because I was beginning a new job, and didn't know how hectic my schedule would be, etc. In other words, Whaaaaa. While I was reading the posts of the other warriors I realized a couple of things. You people are even busier than I am for the most part, if you have time to work on yourselves then so do I. If I have time to read your posts, then I have time to do the work myselfSo no more excuses FOOD – Quit eating like an asshole. This seems to be a theme this challenge and I am no exception. I use My Fitness Pal regularly. I realize what a reasonable portion of most foods look like, and even on days that I splurge my caloric intake tends to be just a little above my TDEE, buuuuut I get fast food on weekends, and I get ice cream because my husband has some and I’m jealous, or I get into my daughter’s candy because I am PMSing. There is a whole list of excuses and those excuses are why I still have a pudgy belly. So my food goal for this challenge is: Mindful eating – stop and think before I eat, have some tea or ice water with lime before indulging in sweets. Wait at least 20 minutes before getting a second helping. EXERCISE – Step up the strength training My strength training is starting to scare me, simply because I have never squatted this heavy before. I am at a 125 lb squat, which for a 150 lb female is not heavy, but it is the heaviest I have ever done. I have a pattern of working up to 120-125, skipping a week or so, deloading and then working back up to 125. I commit to lifting consistently during this challenge. I’m currently lifting once a week; my goal is to lift three times a week. I want to get stronger and I am ok with the weight increasing slowly, but in order to get the gains I need to do the work. LIFE – Book/Blog I love Child Development, I have given parenting classes and will talk for hours about all things related to children, learning and teaching. I have ideas bouncing around in my brain that want to be a book, but I haven’t been brave enough to put them to paper yet. I came across a quote that says, “You can’t edit a blank page.†and that is going to be my motto for this challenge. I am going to write a section of my book or a blog post once a week. I may not publish them right away, but I’m going to get them down on paper. LIFE – House Like a lot of other rebels, my living environment could be better. My husband and I are good about cleaning the kitchen daily (he calls them his Wife Faction dailies) but deeper cleaning and organization has slacked off. I have a Wunderlist set up for tasks around the house and I’m going to commit to doing one item off that list daily. Most of them are little things like vacuuming the living room or folding the t-shirts that have been living in a laundry basket for a month, so they are quick and easy to do.

Subbing because of Viking. Now go make your ancestors proud!

Thank you for posting this Chammie. I was going to wimp out of doing this challenge because I am about to start a new job that is going to be much more time consuming than my previous job, but when I saw your post I decided that if you can commit to your fitness while starting a new business I can certainly commit as well. Good luck on your goals and your new business!

Well Damn, I thought that I had another week, but still I stuck to it and did rather well. Squat goal was 130, I made 110 and will be trying 115 on Monday, still I made it to 85% and feel good about my work this challenge - +1 CON because lifting this weight was more about endurance than strength for me. Deadlift goal was 170 and I made it to 165, it was hard, but I think I can go heavier - +1 STR - because this gain was all about the raw strength. Over Head Press goal was 85, I did not make much progress, but I am continuing to work on my upper body strength, and it will get there - no stat gain. Life goal was to complete enough of my daily habits to earn 300 gold on HabitRPG. Made this goal, I still need some work on consistency, but it is coming together - +1 WIS.

Woot, got it. My working weight is 100 lbs on squat right now, so I was pretty sure that I could do it. I did a quick, warm-up set and then upped it to 75 and got to work. I knew that I would need help with my count, and I have a series of six mini Boris Vallejo posters in my workout room, so I used them to keep track of my count. I started hyperventilating in the mid 30's, but got my breathing back under control and finished all 50. I was glad that I got the chance to test myself.

I just checked in and found this mini-challenge, after my workout on the 23rd. I'm in and am going to give it a try during Wednesday's workout. (possibly as Wednesday's workout)

Woot, I am making slow but steady gains. My Squat is up to 100 lbs, my previous max was 110, so this is getting exciting. My DL is up to 155 which is a new high for me. With all the heavy breathing in between reps it was almost 5 sets of 1 instead of 1 set of 5, but I managed all five. My OHP is seriously stuck, still at 60. I knew that this was my weakest area, I will work through the deload and it will get there. The cleaning dailies are chugging along, I have a job fair that I will be applying for jobs at on the 28th and a houseful of guests coming out for Easter weekend, so there is lots of motivation for me to take care of business.

Update: I am back to working out regularly after some family problems last week. My squat is up to 90 lbs. My DL is up to 145 which is a new high for me. My OHP is stuck at 60, for now. I will power through it. I have been doing my cleaning dailies and have even rubbed off on my husband, he calls them wife dailies and has a local group keeping him accountable.

Update:Did my workout as planned, it was my fourth workout in a row, which is my best unbroken streak so far. My squat is up to 80 lbs My DL is up to 135, which is exciting, because the heaviest I have ever lifted was 140. My OHP is up to 60. I actually on got 4 reps on my last two sets, so I'll have to repeat that one. My daughter started chanting, "Si, se puede" which means "yes, you can" while I was struggling with my 4th set. Which made me laugh and didn't help at all. I have been doing the cleaning dailies, haven't had the energy to tackle the bigger projects this week, but I am making progress.

Update: Started off strong, worked out Monday night with my daughter. Squat: 70 lbs, 5x5 OHP: 55 lbs, 5x5 DL: 125 lbs, 1x5 Did my zone cleaning and my project so I earned more gold for my boots.

Alright, this time I am really going to focus on building strength. I have some long term strength goals and I have broken them down into milestones, so for this challenge I am going to work on: Squat 130 lbs. Deadlift 170 lbs. Overhead Press 85 lbs. Life Goal - still trying to organize my life. I created my own cleaning zones and a project list and will be completing one Zone item and 30 minutes on my project every evening.(kind of like Flylady or UFYH,) I am tracking this through HabitRPG and am working towards a new pair of boots for myself. These, in blue. https://www.fluevog.com/shop/?r[]=search:della My target is 300 gold.

You know when you get killed in a Battleground, but there are a bunch of Rogues and Healers respawning at the same Graveyard so you can zerg out all at once and get the flag? Well that is how this week is starting to feel. First - I bought a new squat rack, I had scored a basic frame at a thrift store, but it turned out to be the frame from a Nautilus Smith Machine and was impossible to get hooks for. So, I kept trolling Craig's list until I found a guy selling a squat rack, bench, olympic bar and 400 lbs of weights for $200. I offered him $150, and we settled on $175. It all fit in my truck and only fell on me once when I was taking it apart to put into my new weight room. Second - My work restarted their wellness program and asked for ideas. I suggested Walking to Mordor with an alternate Walking from California to New York for the less nerdy and had quite a few coworkers get excited about that idea. So that's going to happen. Finally - After months of watching me work out, my teenage daughter downloaded SL 5X5 and worked-in with me tonight. I finished first and was doing some light goblet squats off to the side as supplemental lifts while she was doing her bench press. I asked her if I had left her enough room, or if she was going to hit me when she unracked the bar. Her response, "Not on accident." Yeah, I raised a smart-ass, but I wouldn't have her any other way. I am ready for Monday's new challenge.

Welcome Firelamb67! I am a 46 year-old female and I have also had that feeling of not being able to keep up, or I can't make it to the end of the exercise video (Jillian Michaels is EVIL!). My advice is to get thee to a Tai Chi class. I'm not a druid on the board, but I play one in real life, I have been attending weekly Tai Chi classes for 15 years now and it does amazing things for your balance, your joints and just your sense of where your body is and how it is moving. Try different classes, each teacher has their own style of teaching, until you find one you like. It is real exercise and you will definitely feel a difference.

I am the crazy cat lady on my block; here are two of my current pack. This is Cookie the Merciless, they found her at the school where I did my student teaching. She is about 3 months old in this picture. She is just over a year old now. This is Pixie, she is one of 4 feral kittens who came to me with their mom years ago. She has one green eye and one blue eye and is actually a bit of a bully.

Go to your profile settings, then select signature. When you go to edit your signature there is an icon on the toolbar between the quote bubble and the twitter bubble. Use that to set your progress bars. You have to manually update them though. Nerd Fitness Rebellion → My control panel → Settings → Signature

I sense a kindred spirit here, I too died because I stood in the fire that life threw at me instead of getting out of the way. I was informed at the beginning of November that I was being laid off at the end of November. That news stunned me, and I just gave up. I started drinking daily, eating lots of high sugar foods and stopped exercising. I have decided that it is time to move out of the fire and do my dailies again.

For your respawn try focusing on adding in one positive thing instead of restricting the negatives. For me personally if I said, "That's it, no more cookie dough for me!" my inner toddler would grab all of the cookie dough, hide in her room and wouldn't come out until it was gone. So, instead of saying, "that's it, no more ice cream for me" decide to make or buy a nice fruit salad this one time. You can't undo your pig-out but you can make small, healthy choices.

Bantha Pudu - Return of the Jedi

I'm with you, Dilnad. I cannot squat to the floor without my heels coming up. I've gained some range of motion since I started working on it, but I still have a long way to go. Watching this thread for more advice.

Progress report: Goal one - Lift Consistently - I hit my goal of 3 per week, it is not the tidy Mon, Wed, Fri that the stronglifts guy likes to see, but it was 3x per week. Goal two - flexibility - I'm really only going to my set class for this one, no excuse except laziness. Goal three - Re assemble library - sloooow progress, I am not the only one working on it so it will get done over time. Bonus I found a squat rack at a thrift store, the clerk let me have it for $30 since it was missing the j-hooks and he didn't want to put it back in the corner. The thrift store was having a 50% off sale on everything that weekend so I got the framework for a squat rack for $15. Now I just need to meet with a welder to make me some bar rests.

Good advice from you all, I have emailed nautilus directly and asked if they sell the hooks separately, otherwise we will be going with the custom fabrication route. Luckily my squats are not that massive yet so I can still use my old weight bench until I get the hooks figured out.