crar4321

Nice challenge, especially with all of the Lord of the Rings distances! I love the idea. Also hello from a fellow just-graduated-from-the-recruits challenger!

Brilliant challenge! Are you only looking for nerd friends who are going to camp? Because if not, count me in - I'll be following along with your challenge anyway!

Brilliant challenge - I like how specific you can be with your heart rates!

P90X3 looks awesome! Also, it must be so good to have a goal, like a wedding, as your aim for the challenge - I'll bet it keeps you on track!

Just popped over to follow your thread!

Good to see you and thanks for the support!

Thank you!

I believe if you edit your first post, you can change the thread title? That should help you correct your typo

Hopefully you see some improvement in your sleep with the changes you make in this challenge

Sounds like a great challenge! Good luck!

Hi there! I'm a new Adventurer! Your quest is not unlike mine, focusing on cardio/bbww/diet, so I'll be following along!

You brave soul, shucking another week onto your challenge! But good for you! I'll be checking in!

Hi everyone! I'm Crar, a brand new Adventurer, running on the momentum of successfully finishing my first challenge with the recruits! Hopefully I can do even better this time around and smash the next six weeks! A little bit about me - I'm a 22 year old British student. I was a competitive swimmer throughout my teenage years. On stopping swimming when things like jobs/studying/social life got in the way, I piled on the pounds by keeping on eating like I was a swimmer. I'm now determined to use the final 18 months of my university life to make good healthy habits that will last a lifetime. So without further ado - the challenge! Main Quest My main quest is, as it was in the last challenge, to fit into some awesome jeans that I've had forever but never been able to wear. To do this I need to lose a couple of inches here and there. I also want to be generally fitter/harder/better/faster/stronger Specific Goals - Two days per week, all the meals I eat must be paleo. In the last challenge, I made a new paleo recipe every week and I really enjoyed discovering new tastes and adapting my cooking to some different ingredients. This time around I want to take it further, increase the amount of paleo foods I eat and force myself to look at paleo options I can take as a packed lunch, something I avoided last time around. For this goal, I am going to award myself +4 CON points (A = 12+ days of paleo throughout the challenge, +4CON, B = 9 - 12 days of paleo, +3CON, C = 6 - 9 days of paleo, +2CON, F = less than 6 days paleo, no points, challenge fail) - No junk food alone. What this means is that I will never eat junk food (sweets, crisps, chocolate, cake, pastries, biscuits, the list goes on) by myself. For example, if I meet up with some friends for lunch and my sandwich comes with crisps, I will eat the crisps. But I cannot go out and buy a packet of crisps and scoff them by myself. I have decided on this goal because I know that eating treats with other people means I will do a better job at regulating how much I eat while still getting to enjoy some tasty treats. This is following on from my last challenge, where I ate no crisps (even though I really love them) for the whole 6 weeks. Points! +2 CON and +2 STA (for the resolve to continue resisting the cravings) if I never binge on junk while alone! No points if I cave in to the urges! - Exercise! Specifically, 6 workouts per week! At least two of these must be running (5km+) and at least two of these must be the legendary Beginner Body Weight Workout. Other workouts could be a fitness class, a swim, a yoga video, whatever takes my fancy. Points available: +2STR for the BBWW, +2STA for the running, +1 of an attribute most appropriate to whatever other workouts I do. Weighting of points may be adjusted if I have an injury that prevents/limits me doing a certain exercise (like I did in the final week of the last challenge). Points will be docked appropriately for each workout missed - if I miss a run/BBWW on more than 1 occasion, that's one point lost for the available attribute, if I miss them on more than 2 occasions, that's two points lost. Life Quest Although my degree course is pretty busy in terms of work, I find myself facing a fairly light few weeks. I'm going to use that time to do one hour of self directed study each day, six days per week. I know I won't regret this when it comes to my exams later in the year! For this, +2 WIS if I achieve more than 90% of study sessions, +1 if 75% achieved. TL;DR - Two days per week fully paleo (+4CON) - No junk food alone (+2CON, +2STA) - 6 workouts per week (+2STR, +2STA, +1 undecided attribute point) - 1hr per day, 6 days per week, self study for my university work (+2WIS) That's me. Looking forward to meeting some other sexy sexy Adventurers and starting our challenges together! (Also over the next few days I should get my tape measure out and take some starting measurements, so I can see some improvement over 6 weeks, and maybe chuck in a starting photo as well!)

Nice to meet a fellow Adventurer! Sounds like a good challenge. I'm new to all this, but it seems to me that small achievable steps are the way to progress. I'm sorry to hear about your troubles with depression. Hopefully this challenge will help you out with this. Do you mind me asking why you use a CPAP? (I have an academic interest in this sort of thing)

Thanks! And thanks for looking after us! You do great job looking after all the Recruits

Happy Easter everyone! Easter Sunday marks the final day of my first (successful) challenge! And boy am I pleased with myself! Let's have a look at how I've done over the last six weeks: Run 3 days/week, totaling 120km Tacking this goal first, because this is the only goal I didn't score 100% on. This was (partly) out of my hands, due to an injury half way through week six which has stopped me from running and prevented me from making those last few miles. I finish the challenge with 106.9km run. I would love to award myself full points for this, because I know I would have been able to run that distance in the last three days, but I am not going to. Because I know that the reason I wasn't as close to 120km as I would like to be was because I had a week in the middle of the challenge where I slacked off with my running a bit, so I feel I don't fully deserve the points. So a C grade it is on running. I decided on +3STA and +1DEX for this, if fully completed. I gave myself half these points at the halfway point. Cook a new paleo recipe every week This challenge was a complete success in this area! I'm so glad I picked this as one of my goals. I've tried 3 recipes that I'd say were breakfast recipes and 4 that were dinner recipes (I don't know if I updated this challenge for the final week, but I made two whole paleo dinners, even more if you count dinners that were just leftovers!). Which means I was lacking in lunch recipes (something to work on next time perhaps?!) but that wasn't part of the challenge at this juncture. The points on offer for this challenge were +3WIS, which I awarded at halfway. Eat no crisps Achieved. I haven't touched a single one for the entire challenge. Even including those two occasions where I went out for lunch with a friend and the meal came with crisps. And I just left them (or gave them to my friend). +3CON awarded after week 3 for this. Minis I've taken part in all of the minis: 1) Are my goals smart? +1 WIS 2) Making friends +1 CHA 3) The library I split my +1 between WIS and CON, as I feel it applied to both 4) Check your starting credits 5) Cafeteria +1 CON 6) Choosing a guild - I'm off to the Adventurers for at least the foreseeable future Points Let's add all this up! Running: 1.5STA, 0.5DEX Paleo: 3WIS No crisps: 3CON Minis: 1.5WIS, 1CHA, 1.5CON Adding it up makes: STR 0 | DEX 0.5 | STA 1.5 | CON 4.5 | WIS 4.5 | CHA 1 I read here that when you complete a challenge, you gain an additional point per challenge (normally 4 but as I didn't do a life quest, only 3 for me) at the end? I'm going to add my 3 points equally between my no crisps and new paleo recipes challenges (therefore split between CON and WIS), because these were completed 100% and I feel I really gained from them. Making my final totals: Level 2 | STR 0 | DEX 0.5 | STA 1.5 | CON 6 | WIS 6 | CHA 1 Thank you all for joining me on this challenge. I feel I've really found my way to achieve the mind/body/life I want! See you next time around! (And feel free to chime in if I've done something wrong with these stats - RPGs are not something I know too much about si might well have made a mistake!)

Just thought I'd pop over, as I think I'll be joining you lot for the next challenge and don't you all seem like a friendly bunch? Plus, your minis look great.

We shall venture to the Adventurers together! I've picked Adventurers because I have a wide range of things I'm looking to do, exercise-wise, in my next challenge, plus I am still focused on losing weight. Today I made my final paleo recipe to complete that part of my challenge! I made paleo fish and chips - baked salmon with sweet potato, complete with peas. It was delicious. And a nice change from all the paleo breakfasts that I'm normally all about. That said, I don't feel great right now, because I had my first running fall today. The weather was damp and I stepped on some mud and landed hard. I can't really say how I fell or what I exactly did to myself, but I'm a bit bruised and achy right now, plus my foot/ankle is quite sore. Feels like a sprain. I don't want to call it until tomorrow morning but it might mean a few days off running (which will be GUTTING, after I ran like crazy to get myself back up to speed after a poor week earlier in the challenge). We shall see. I'm taking care of myself though, don't worry - rest, ice, compression and elevation!

Level yourself up in your signature as well - show off those stats! Do you know which guild you'll be heading to next time around?

I'm really torn about which guild will be the best fit for me - I have so many different interests and goals! This challenge I was very focused on running and diet, but next time around I'd like to incorporate some body weight and/or yoga into my routine! It might have to be the adventurers for me as well until I'm clearer on how I am best to go about my goals. I just checked out their mini-challenges, and they seemed fun though!

Excellent work!

Glad you are back honey! Well done on sticking fast to that no soda challenge. You've made great habits and great progress, so don't let a little slip get you down. Back on the horse for this last week!

I've come to the end of another successful week on this challenge - no crisps, a new paleo breakfast that I've already mentioned, and three solid runs, bringing my total up to 97.06km. I intended to run today as well, but am still aching after a long 12km yesterday so am saving myself for tomorrow. One of my runs beat a 5km personal best so I am pleased with myself, much closer to reaching my running distance goal. Anyone else starting to look forward to starting the next challenge, even though this one isn't quite complete?

Sorry to hear that you've been ill. But you're a TOWIE fan... does that mean you're British?

Hey! How is the challenge going? Hope you're well