Nianne

Duplicate post, sorry.

I am in Portland OR, sorry. I moved here from Montana this summer, and I love it. Once you get in the habit of going for walks at lunch, I bet that will be something you look forward to and won't be forgetting it often.

Welcome! Your goals are very similar to mine. (Similar weight gain too.) I'm excited for you! Remember that little things you can do to help yourself can pay big dividends. Making sure you have jogging clothes ready at the right time, having something on hand besides soda to drink, doing little stretches throughout the day... little things like that make it easier for you to hit your goals. What other exercises are you doing for your second goal?

Hello and welcome! How do you feel about the running aspect? Is that something you're going to tackle later, or are you pretty close to that already?

Not sure about where you are, but here (Portland) it's light until 9:30 or so.... If you're having trouble getting your walk in, what about after dinner? I understand that walking after a meal gives you a temporary boost to your metabolism as well.

I like the side quest a lot! Getting active, making something solid and (maybe) beautiful, having an accomplishment you can look at at the end. What kind of workouts are you doing / planning to do?

Thanks for the encouragement everyone! I had a rocky start on Monday; I have an old identity-theft issue that suddenly popped back up, but I kept my diet reasonable and caught up on the exercise on Tuesday by doing my HIIT workout before work and then going for my jog after work. I've got a pretty fun place to jog. I live near a library where I can park in the evening, and from there is a paved trail through a protected watershed area that's a lovely place to jog. About 2.5 miles down the trail from there is a set of monkey bars and a jungle gym where I can do inverted rows (this destination goal also encourages me to not turn back early!).

I know they don't encourage first timers to add any side quests to their challenge, but we just moved from one apartment to another (this week), so getting things out of boxes and getting my kitchen and other rooms organized is going to function as a life quest for me anyway; I obviously can't leave things the way they are for the next six weeks.

Welcome! That looks like a well-laid plan. When you're working from home, do you take breaks at reasonable intervals? An excersise session at lunch sounds fantastic, but what do you think about maybe planning to get up and spend just a couple minutes stretching/walking every hour or two? I used to do that kind of thing with a writing group, and it always made us feel and work much better.

Welcome, welcome! It's very inspiring to see "old" people getting back into fitness. There's never a reason to give up. Although, of course, now I'm never going to think of you as old -- you're just that much more awesome. Do you have everything you need now to go swimming? A suit, a location, a schedule? A fun-noodle?

Sounds exciting and challenging! For your parkour runs, are you going to identify these routes in advance, or are you counting on finding them and then doing them all at once on the planned day? Will you have a plan B in case you go out on said day and don't really find anything suitably awesome? How are you going to go about learning to roll land? That is something I would also like to learn at some point.

Welcome, and good luck! Have you been doing yoga for a long time? When you spend an hour at that, are you following a set plan, or are you choosing each new move as you go along? How many moves do you go through in an hour, roughly? (I have never really done yoga.)

That's a good question Chris-Tien. And a complicated one. I thought about it on my drive home, trying to think of something that would be suitably quantifiable, but also both meaningful and achievable. Here is what I came up with: For sodas (to also include alcoholic beverages): On the first week of the challenge, I will limit myself to an average of one per day, budgeted by the week. So, seven total in the first week. On the second week, I will budget myself to six during that week, and then five, and so on, until I will be limited to two during the final week. For pastries and candies, I am really bad with these. There's a lot of sugar floating around the office, and I would say that if I'm eating on a whim, with nothing but appetite and inspiration for my guides, I probably go through an average of at least 500 calories a day with just pastries and candy, (not counting the sugar in my yogurt, coffee, etc.), though it varies widely by the day. So here's what I'm going to do for these: On the first week of the challenge, I will give myself half that, 250 calories a day for pastries and candy, budgeted by the week. Every following week will minus 250, until my budget for the final week will be 500 calories for pastries and candy for the whole week. I don't want any unused budget to carry over to the next week, but I don't want to find myself binging on the last day of the week either, just to use it up. To avoid this, any unspent budget will turn into an allowance to purchase cut flowers for myself, at the rate of one soda or 100 calories for two dollars spending money. That sounds like something worth taking pictures of as I go along!

I recently signed up for a Warrior Dash near my city in early September. My main quest right now is to prepare for that. To that end, my three goals for this challenge are: I will go jogging and do inverted rows at least three days a week. I will do a HIIT workout (The Scientific Seven-Minute Workout) at least three days a week. I will gradually replace my candy and pastries with fresh or dried fruit and soda with unsweetened tea. My motivation for doing this is to add something fun and challenging to my life. There's no way I'm backing out of the Warrior Dash event; I've already paid for my tickets. My goal now is just to get as ready as possible so that I can have the most awesome time I can.

Got some good mileage out of a pack of blueberries. I'm thinking the dried fruit sounds like a great thing to have on hand, for when I get low on groceries.

Welcome! I look forward to seeing you in the newbie challenge forum next month!

Welcome! I did a C25K program just like that a while back. I started about three months before my first 5k was scheduled. By the day of the race I felt great, but I still wound up doing a few walking intervals during the race (and was far from alone in that!). It actually took me about a year before I could go several miles with no stopping. My point is, progress is progress, even if you don't fit the calendar. And you should join the six-week challenge that starts June 9th. We'll all be accountability buddies together!

Great job getting started! I gained a similar amount of weight between highschool and where I am now (31 years old) and I'm very interested in putting a stop to that trend. I just signed myself up for an obstacle course race, to give myself a really concrete goal to shoot for. Make sure you keep us posted on how things are going!

Hi Werebear! I think a lot of people can empathize with getting excited about something and then not following through. The more people you meet on here, the more will be expecting and cheering for you to keep it up, but like Reala said, ultimately you won't do the work for us, you gotta do it for yourself. You deserve it. Do you have any specific goals in mind yet?

My biggest worry is the monkey bars. There's a set of them about 2.5 miles down a walking/biking path from my apartment, so I've been jogging out there every two or three days. I alternate reps of hanging from the bars as long as I can (have worked from 5 seconds to 12 so far), with inverted rows I do from a bar about as high as my navel (and I'm glad it's not lower -- that's challenge enough!) The rows are actually something I learned about from here, and they feel great.

Welcome!

Hi! I am also 31 and looking forward to the next challenge (which will be my first). What's 'full body conditioning?' I mean, I basically understand what it means, but is it more specific than just getting generally toned and healthy? I'm glad you've been free from those addictions for so long. Do you have a strategy or a way of looking at things that helps you stay away from that?

I've been trying to clean up my diet and had some success with it so far, but my biggest challenge is long afternoons at work. I stand in place all day, no sitting allowed and very little chance to move or walk around. By 3 pm I'm groaning with exhaustion. Inevitably, I go reaching for candy, cookies, sugary caffeine drinks... anything at hand for a little help making through until I get off at 6. I can spend my willpower avoiding the treats that are always available, but then my mind turns to the possibility of having a cigarette on my afternoon break instead. I try to make sure I get a reasonable amount of sleep, and some good protein earlier in the day, but these things can be a challenge all on their own. Any advice?

Hi Everyone. I'm a new Nerd Rebel from Portland, Oregon. I just signed up for a Warrior Dash event about three months from now, and I've got the upper body strength of a toaster. I'm taking the first steps to getting ready now, and I'm looking forward to the six-week challenge starting in June.