wxstormer

For those interested, there is a group of us making a trek to the Texas Ren Fest on the 19th of November... Contact me if you are interested in details or join the Austin Nerd Fitness Adventures facebook group for the event...

There has been a tremendous increase in forum spam lately (all of the random titles containing links to video streams)... I've been flagging, but there are some forums overtaken with them.

Oops... I need to get back to the forums more often... I'm a New Braunfels nerd, but work in the area surrounding North Star Mall... And yes, the Austin FB page covers San Antonio area events, though we haven't had much of anything happen lately other than Steve's Book Signing tour stop in Austin back January-ish.

Saying hey as a fellow band geek... Great goals...

Seems realistic. Yes, the Assassins would be good for you after this challenge. The goal is to take each day at a time and not to give up.

I prefer the encourage word over the nagged word..

Alas, I am back as an Adventurer after a failed series of missions as an Assassin. My cache of lives have been consumed and I am seeking a respawn point on this journey of life. So this I am going to mix things up and try to pick up the pieces and start over. My current motivation is to be in shape and capable of doing a 5K in September, marching a halftime with the Longhorn Alumni Band on September 19, and survive the hills (and Amy's bootcamp) at Camp NF 2015. This time I need to kick butt and take names. My current stats? I've gained weight, but I've lost body fat, but I'm not happy with either. = 46% body fat. It's better than 52% like I was before, but I have gained back 30 pounds over last year even though I have been active. My diet is still kinda screwed up. My diet primarily consists of meat with little else. I've started making stew more often to increase my vegetable amounts and eating fresh local fruit. I can make a change. I want to be around 350 at the time of camp, which is a makeable goal if I keep up with things. My strength training baseline? I went to the gym tonight and did a series of squats, presses, and benches and then cursed myself out for how I have let myself fall. Squat: 145 pounds. (I was at 205 earlier this year) Bench: 115 pounds (I was at 145) Press: 95 pounds (I was at 125) Deadlift: 140 pounds (I was at 180 earlier) Hack Squat: 175 pounds (I was at 240 earlier) So my goal in this cycle is to at least be back to where I was before I became a slacker. So this means at least three nights in the gym. As for walking/jogging/running, I've had a goal to do at least 70K steps a week. The problem that I have is that I need to increase the intensity of my walking because I generally don't raise my pulse rate significantly while walking. However, increasing the intensity may come at the cost of maintaining my step count (see more about this below). I do not get a significant amount of steps in at work (usually 1500~2000 steps at the most), so most of these steps occur in evening walks alone at the skate park or when I walk my dog. However, this doesn't leave me much free time for the gym or swimming (to get my step count up, I have to do 2~3 miles usually, which will take close to a hour considering the drive and the speed of my walk). Since it is Summer and Texas is oppressively hot, I've gone to the gym to do water aerobics at the expense of stopping my strength training. I need to balance this better. Things get a lot easier in the fall when it gets to be cool again, but that is still months away. So for this challenge: Quest 1: Use Starting Strength to get my strength training back in shape. Also, within 15 minutes of me waking up the second time in the morning (there is a story in this, but you have to ask me about it in person), do a regimen of bodyweight activities to loosen me up and keep me limber. Quest 2: Walk/Jog/Run as I can, but don't make 10K steps a must every day if it comes at the expense of other activities. Increase the intensity by increasing my stride or speed, or actually start interspersing a jog or run into my walks. I tend to do these after dark around 10:30~12:00 to avoid the heat. Quest 3: Stop eating out and eating crap (I meant to use a different more stronger word, but want to keep this PG). Increase the vegetable and fruit count and decrease snacks. Increase water consumption. I need an accountability partner. I need someone who can proverbially kick my butt when I'm slacking. Positive reinforcement doesn't seem to work for me and I need bluntness for motivation. I hope this challenge goes better than the last two.

OK, this challenge was unsuccessful once again because I ended up getting sick with allergies about a week in that sidelined me for almost 3 weeks.. As a success, I kept up to around 10K steps a day on average even in the oppressive Texas heat and I did get some swimming in. Otherwise everything else was an abject failure. Thus, as a result, I am demoting my self as a failed assassin back to an Adventurer until I can level up to be an assassin.

Yesterday was a lag day because of band practice, so my workout time was limited. Only was able to do 11K steps on a muggy and warm Monday evening, fighting off mosquitoes left and right..

For the most part, these are all already public. My fitbit stats are always available on twitter (see below) and my Fitbit Account (http://t.co/Zcxvw5M2Ib) - Feel free to add me to join challenges and so forth.. I'm also active in the Walk to Modor Challenge on Matchup... Usually all of my walk/workouts are also posted on twitter, but when I upgraded to Android M Dev Preview, it lost my twitter account settings that I'll turn back on. But I generally log all walks (with GPS, sometimes with HR), weight lifting and BW (sometimes with HR), and swimming (time only) using MapMyFitness - http://www.mapmyrun.com/profile/49544200/(also, feel free to add me there, too). I found that the best way to make myself accountable is to be all out and not hide things. Yes, an accountability partner would help. The twitter feed is https://twitter.com/jeffreyfitness. My historical Fitbit data is available in a Google Spreadsheet. I have been working on building a Google form to track my BW and WL workouts. I haven't found a decent app for that yet, though...

This is my second attempt at my fourth challenge that I kinda abandoned back in January. There were some positives but in general it was a failure. So I'm using this time to start anew and pick up the pieces. I have two challenges before a busy September including Alumni Band and Camp Nerd Fitness 2015 to make up ground. This is my third challenge as an Assassin, so I hope to finally be able to do Assassin-like activities like BodyWeight and so forth... To recap my last challenge, I did do the Pax South and restarted Graduate School at Georgia Tech in Computer Science. I have averaged between 70K to 75K steps a week for both my own wellbeing and for participation in my workplace wellness program (Humana Vitality). I have done a few hikes, but definitely not enough. But I have slacked considerably on both my body-weight and weight-lifting regimen. This needs to be changed. My Motivation? I am considerably overweight (well, morbidly obese by definition) and was diagnosed as a Type II diabetic who is currently taking a long-acting does of insulin daily. I also suffer from a condition that will require major surgery to fix (upwards from 6 to 8 hours) that will end my sepsis issues that generally hospitalizes me yearly. In order to decrease the risk of this surgery, I need to lose between 100 to 150 pounds. Plus I am tired of being this way and need to change to make sure I have more time to spend helping others and to live to my potential. I also need to be ready for both Alumni Band and CNF 2015... My Current Regimen? I don't have one. But I will start again. I will occasionally do a bit of weightlifting, but it hasn't been consistent. I have been keeping up with my 70K average step count a week.. My main Quest? For this challenge, lose 20 pounds in 6 weeks. At my weight, this should be doable. I will consider myself as passing this overall challenge if I meet this goal. Continuing Quest? Increase my step count to 77K steps a week -OR- increase my average speed to 3 miles per hour with a lower step count. Since I have a new park open within a quarter mile that is vertically challenged, I need to leverage it to help myself build new muscles and increase my stamina. Challenge 1? Do the Bodyweight Brigade Level 1 challenge (from the Academy) and add burpees as needed. Perhaps progress to Level 2 (though I'm not sure when that should happen) Challenge 2? Learn to swim. I know how to swim, but I don't remember it from my time as a kid. I try to do alternating weight lifting and water aerobics during the week, but it would be better to actually do laps. I struggle with water in my nose and breathing. So my goal in this is to conquer it. Challenge 3? Like I mentioned in Challenge 2 above, I need to alternate between water workouts and some strength training, primarily centered around squats, deadlifts, bench press, and overhead lifts. From my previous challenges - I never took my reward trip. It is coming...

Welcome to 2015. This challenge pretty much is a continuation of Challenge #3, which I passed, but had an incomplete based on some activities I was not able to complete. The new activities that will be happening in the next six weeks include: * Attending Pax South at the end of January * Restarting Graduate School at Georgia Tech in Computer Science For a quick background on me, I'm a considerably overweight 42 year old guy who started to get serious on the fitness journey last April after being diagnosed as a Type II Diabetic. I'm also motivated in losing weight in order to have a much needed major surgery that will make a significant impact on my standard of living (and hopefully keep me out of the hospital). I've bonded with a great group of people last September when I attended Camp Nerd Fitness 2014. What is my current regime? I currently do the StrongLifts 5x5 program two or three days a week and try to do a bodyweight regime on the off days along with a healthy dose of walking, jogging, and hiking. I'm currently involved in an almost continuous Fitbit challenge with a few rebels and currently average over 70,000 steps a week. My Main Quest: As of now, I want to lose another 100 pounds. I currently have lost approximately 50 pounds since April 2014. The problem? Since I've started adding bodyweight and StrongLifts, my weight loss has ceased and somewhat reversed. I'm getting smaller and fitter, but I am struggling to meet my goal. With more workouts, eventually I'll reach a point where I will start to re-lose the weight. Continuting Quest: During the last challenge, I made a goal of doing 70K steps a week (averaging 10K a day, but with variance due to workout days, weather, and wellness - hey, it is mountain cedar season right now). This year, I have changed health insurance carriers at work and the new one has a wellness benefit that will earn you points based on activity. So I would like to maximize this, if possible. I will increase my goal to 77K steps a week (thus averaging 11K a day). Challenge 1: Continue doing my workouts. I need to be more consistent with my gym workouts and make sure I don't skip a day, even if it does hurt like hell. But more importantly, I need to work consistently on bodyweight and push myself on my walks and hikes. Challenge 2: Diet. I suck at diet. I'm starting to make food to take with me to work, but I haven't gotten the vegetable balance in my life. Part of it is the limited amounts of veggies that I can eat. I'm good with meat. I've also been good at grains (or the lack of). I still have to get a minimum amount of carbs since I'm on a basal insulin (dose half of what it was in April) and have had a few pretty bad lows, so I'm being careful. I'll consider this a roaring success if I don't eat out more than twice a week, OR find that I can stand broccoli or eggs. I highlight this challenge because I completely sucked at it last Challenge. Challenge 3: This is the pushing the envelope challenge. I gave myself an incomplete on this one last time because I didn't do the Texas Ren Fest -OR- do hiking on a regular basis. Well, once Mountain Cedar allergy season ends, I'm going to tackle all of the trails at Purgatory Creek and maybe investigate McAllister in San Antonio or Barton Greenbelt in Austin. I'll also be attending Pax South in San Antonio at the end of January which is definitely something I have never done before. My Reward for Challenges 1 & 2 will be happening sometime in the next three months - so a nice hike up Mt. Rainier or Baker, seeing friends, and maybe hanging with some of my fellow campers. By the way, my current Strong Lift Stats - 135 pounds Bench Press, 115 pounds Overhead Press, 175 pounds Squat, 180 pound Deadlift.

Okay, here is my post Challenge results entry. I passed it, but just barely. Results: Continuing Quest: As my previous post said, I rocked the continuing quest. In fact, one week post the challenge and I hit the 70K mark after only 6 days (today is a bonus stage). And that is with two pretty crappy days of 8K and 4K... Challenge 1: For this challenge, I tasked myself with continuing to do workouts. Well, I made it to the gym at least two of the planned three times during the week (since I am doing StrongLifts, I'm only supposed to workout every other day). I give myself a B on doing this challenge. I have neglected the body weight portion of my workout regime, though. On the StrongLifts part, I'm at 155 pounds for squats, 125 pounds for bench, 110 for press, and 175 for deadlifts. I'm taxing myself for the two presses, and I'm quickly approaching that point for the squats (they still are easy, but getting back up is getting more difficult). Challenge 2: Mixed bag on this one. I'm trying. But it takes me fixing vegetable beef stew in order to get the proper balance of veggies into my life. I'm giving myself a solid C on this one. Unfortunately, I've let some sugar back in my life that I need to get rid of... Challenge 3: Camping at the RenFest was a no-go for a variety of reasons - mainly that I felt pretty terrible at the time. Likewise the second task was also mostly unsuccessful. I did a hike up Panther Canyon on Christmas Day, but not during the challenge. The main problem with these outside tasks is that it is Mountain Cedar season around here and going outside on days with a North, East, or West wind will make me suffer for days on end. So I give myself an I for Incomplete on this one.

Quick Data Summary Thread. I'll write up the "writeup" later today... Fitbit Week 6 Stats: (Note, I was at the hobbit marathon Monday and it was raining on Thursday) Steps: 66,862 Floors: 29 Distance: 29.59 miles Challenge Overall: W1 71581 55 31.67 W2 65154 29 28.82 W3 78629 50 34.78 W4 72832 31 32.23 W5 78990 59 34.95 W6 66682 29 29.59 Total: 433868 253 192.04 Goal: 103.30% 120.48% 106.69% Goals were: 10K steps per day, 5 flights of stairs a day, and 30 miles a week.

Sorry for the short abruptness last week. It was a pretty intense week of everything going wrong... However, I did get a lot of walking in: Fibit Week 5 Stats: 78,990 steps 34.95 miles 59 floors I started the week climbing a big hill in town just above the park and made it a point to get as much walking in as possible. I only went to the gym twice (Monday and Wednesday) and felt ill after the second time. The weekend was full of performances (dress rehearsal on Saturday and Christmas Orchestra/Choir on Sunday). This week is going to suck in comparison. I only got 3800 steps in on Monday (saw the Hobbit Marathon) and slightly made up a bit yesterday (10.5K steps). It's cool if I don't hit 70K this week if I don't slack too much. Allergies are kicking back in, the weather is going to be inclement the rest of the week, and my shoulders hurt from my PR in bench and squat (which are still nothing, but...)

Fitbit Week 4 Statistics: 72,832 steps 32.23 miles 31 floors climbed I did two days of gym workouts and had one rest day of Monday (only 5K steps that day). No hiking last weekend due to conflicts all around...

My INR was good. I put off gym on Monday until Tuesday night. In fact, after I got home from practice Monday, I crashed hard and only woke up at 1 AM to do server maintenance during my maintenance window. So I had a rather pathetic sub-6K walking day. On Tuesday I kicked ass. Started the gym with 3600 steps, did 115 pound squats, 90 press, and 135 deadlift all completed successfully. Between sets I walk the gym, so I was at almost 7K steps when I was done. I then went home and did a short 1.5 miles with my dog. Today sucked, but I was able to do almost 1.75 miles tonight even though I'm heavily congested and hurting (heel pain). Tomorrow is gym day... The thing is that I feel guilty that I'm only doing StrongLifts and nothing else while at the gym. I got to get over that. I need to get serious about my body weight again too... I've had way too many late nights working on things that have made me sleep late in the morning. It also doesn't help that I generally feel like crap. This weekend should have the McKinney State Park hike/trail with the Austin Nerds...

Hey bro... Last week sucked in all non-fitness ways. Sorry I missed the hike on Saturday. Hopefully there will be one this week that I should be able to attend... Did the gym twice last week (couldn't make it on Friday due to Mountain Cedar fever), but I did a crap-load of walking... Fitbit Week 3 Stats: 34.78 miles 78,629 steps 50 flights So I clearly made up for last weeks sub-par performance. Even ended up making second place in the Weekend Warrior never-ending Fitbit challenge for the 26K+ steps. This week is not going to be as active as I have a lot of rehearsals and meetings this week that will cut into my walking schedule (but not my lifting sked) since I have a performance this Sunday and then a long dress rehearsal and performance the following week. This past week was disconcerting because I failed at doing the Renaissance Festival thing and I also came to the realization that I am a total failure at the being a boyfriend thing (though I don't think we have progressed that far yet). This week is more the same. I see the doctor tomorrow afternoon for bloodwork.

As I surmised, I didn't hit the 70K steps for last week... My fitbit stats for Week 2: 28.82 miles 65,154 steps 29 floors But... I kicked butt in the gym three days last week. Squats with weights register as a step, but BW squats, bench, dead, and press do not... Plus the weather was not conducive to dog walks. That's why I had 4 days sub 10K steps.. My goal is to make up the 5K steps this week. The problem is that whatever front came in on Sunday is kicking my butt allergies wise. I'm doing gym, but walking outside is a bit of challenge when your nose is completely clogged... This week includes a football game tomorrow night and then the Texas Ren Fest. All this is dependent on how I feel on a day-to-day basis. I'm using tomorrow morning to catch up on sleep because I've had a few 3 AM days this week working on the Exchange migration at work. Funny thing happened yesterday... Went to the gym. Bent over the chalk bucket to pick up some weights for my press. Phone falls into the chalk bucket.. This after the rain incident two weeks ago =/= not good for a phone. So I had to migrate to something different. Now I'm sporting the Nexus 6 on AT&T... Didn't know if I didn't post it already, but I signed up for CNF 2015. Have you? Go to http://camp.nerdfitness.comfor more information.

Good job. And congrats on your pants size. I dropped from 54 to 50 myself..

Progress Update... I don't think I'll hit the 70K mark this week unless a miracle happens this weekend. But that is OK... Monday I did weights and I failed myself on two of them. I was doing Squats at 95, Bench at 95, and Deadlift at 125. I was cooking along with the squats and tried to make myself get lower.. This caused me to put more weight on the balls of my feet. Which in turn tweaked my back a little. I was OK the next day, though. So I failed myself for that lapse of judgement. On the bench, I jumped 10 pounds, which I should not have done. I could do 3.5 sets before just letting the bar sit on my chest until I could raise it up again.. Ugghh... Deadlifts were easy... Tuesday I meant to walk a 5K, but ended up getting stuck on a phone call and only did 1.5 miles. So no catchup for the roughly 7K steps on Monday (got 9K on Tuesday). I did spend about 1.5 hours working on my bat cave, though... Wednesday was another weight day. I did Squats at 95, Press at 80, and Deadlift @ 130. All passing. Watched a guy who does strength training for athletes at a local school teach another guy some other squat type variants (the good-morning with the toes sitting on top of another plate). After this, I spent 30 minutes on the treadmill - 20 min total at around 3 mph and 10 min total at around 4 mph (mixed up - like 3 of 3, then 1.5 of 4). HR never got above 148.. My aerobic conditioning is getting better. Spent last night getting frustrated due to an issue at work, so little sleep for the weary. Tonight is walking day. No treadmill - just me and the dog, so it's going to be slow paced. Tomorrow is Tree Lighting concert, a fish fry, then weight/treadmill day. T and Th morning were squat and planking days with BW. Saturday I'm gonna beat up a tractor tire. What is having me bummed out is my weight isn't doing what I want it to do. Yes, I'm losing inches in areas, but I've gone up on the scale. I know what it is, but I also want to lose the weight too... I'm 4 pant sizes down from April... That's it for today...

Fitbit Stats for Week 1: 71,581 Steps 55 Flights of Stairs 31.67 miles Walking Workouts: I slacked two days last week and didn't do a long walk and one day where I skipped it completely (Thursday). Gym Workouts: 2 out of 3. Poor job... Body Weight: 3 of 5. Poor job. Getting out and doing stuff: Better job last weekend, pretty poor job this week. This week should be better with an event Friday (tree lighting). Diet - less (semi) fast food, but also more skipped meals. The bad thing about this time of year in San Antonio is the prevalence of tamales. Bad. Bad. Bad.. Must resist.. Paleo will be better once I send my turkey off to be smoked at Rudy's...

Good luck dude from someone who has a similar fitness journey to follow like you.

Greetings...

It took me a few times to find one that had the right type and quantity of equipment. Went to one that had two power racks, but had to wait in line for a couple of hours to use them. Found a gym that is more specialized in strength so it has a large number of racks...