concretecavewoman

Reminded of one of the fringe benefits of IF today as I got trapped in all-day meetings with nothing but glutinous and sugary foodstuffs around.... I've been charging forward on nothing but one cup of coffee w/heavy cream and can't WAIT to break my now 20 hour fast shortly.

Really love this particular goal. Good food, good sleep, low stress, and exercise. So hard to achieve them all but so key to a healthy immune system. Sorry about the back tweak though. Here's hoping for a speedy recovery

Excellent start to the challenge! South Korea sounds like a blast Yeah, usually after a facial it feels like your face is coated in spackle, but after 1-3 days your skin calms down having absorbed all of the product goodness and feels way better.

Good day! Early run on the dreadmill (I'm wearing glasses til surgery so I don't feel comfortable running outdoors), work, then flight training! Fitness LeanGains: Macros 92F, 28C, 105P PASS 3/4, not great in that I was short on protein, but I didn't grossly exceed and that is pretty good for me on a rest day. Lifts/Exercise: Running, 3.5 miles @10:00 with 3x6'30" thrown in. Plus a 1 mile walk. PASS Walk: PASS 3/4, My fitbit FINALLY arrived but given the 4.5 miles plus lots of running around the tarmac I am certain I hit 10k. Will finally know for sure tomorrow Life The Red Baron: PASS, 1/3 for the challenge. Oh em gee, that was so fun. I did a full hour of flight time plus an indepth lesson on the flight check process, checking fuel, oil tire pressures, hinges, etc. I also learned some of the introductory lingo for communicating with air traffic control. The best part was that I flew through Seattle proper, within about 3 miles of the Space Needle/downtown. I'm ready to go again Wednesday next week Check it, yo, that little orange tower towards the right is the Space Needle. [ATTACH=CONFIG]4124[/ATTACH]

Nice that your company is so supportive. Do you have any CSAs in your area? Maybe a subscription to one of those might be a nice healthful gift as a quarterly prize. As for games.... Maybe a pedometer competition? Whoever has the most steps at the end of the week? No skill involved, just walk (who complains about bean bag tosses, srsly)

Sounds fun! Might have to steal this (yet another) idea from you one of these weekends (lots of berry farms in WA too).

25 minutes of more hip mobs last night. Awful awful awful. I suppose the pain isn't so bad since I'm seeing noticeable progress. 45 down, 15 to go. Fun!

Pretty good day. Gym, work, then out to dinner with some friends which was a very good unwinder. Fitness LeanGains: Macros 60F, 160C, 150P PASS 2/3, a little high on fat but altogether pretty good. Lifts/Exercise: PASS 5/25, really good lifting session early this morning. And once I post this, some foam rolling and stretching. Deadlift 45/5 65/5 95/5 115/5 150/5 135/6 120/6 Yes! Leg Extensions 170/4 155/7 140/9 Barbell Hip Thrust BW/8 BW/8 95/6 105/7 115/7 Clean and Jerk 65/3 70/2 75/2 DB Bench 35/10 35/9 35/8 Walk: FAIL 2/3, I don't have my FitBit yet but I know I didn't do much walking today. Life The Red Baron: ON TRACK 0/3, looking forward to flight lesson #2 tomorrow Other: +1 for social time, something I don't do enough of during the week.

Kinda sounds like your IT (iliotibial) band. Foam rolling can help with that. Anyone else have a guess?

I second this! Great challenge. Good luck with those grad school classes. I'd forgotten how much they compact the time over the summer.

“Do what you dream of/what you want to do with your life†This should be amended with the caveats of... ...assuming that your dream can feed you and put a roof over your head. ...if you understand that your dream may never allow you to retire. Given your circumstances, with a family and established career, it sounds like some cost-benefit analysis is in order. Are there more senior people in your industry with or without degrees who can give you advice on whether it's a worthwhile investment for you? Is there a career ceiling over your head, and if so, how permeable? If you take out a loan to fund your schooling, will you be able to pay back the loan, the productivity loss, and the lost interest that you would have accrued on moneys you spent on school with your increased salary? How necessary is post-secondary education in your line of work and are those trends changing? These, I think, are some of the key questions you'd want to answer before totally pursuing it. And of course all of those great intangibles like lost time with the fam, etc

Hips! Logged a full 20 minutes with a favorite from ballet, the Torture Chamber: 1) Sit on the ground with your butt against the wall 2) Drop legs into side splits 3) Swear profusely. Plus five minutes of warming up with the foam roller. Also did some internal/external rotations while in splits.

Right there with you - damned pineapple rings of death! Thanks! Good call on the audio books. I was totally unsure what I would do during recovery time. I'm getting PRK and not LASIK so I was warned that the first 3 days would lead to lots of vision improvement, and then by day 4 it would regress, then a slow build up for another few days, up to two weeks of hovering around 20/200. I'm kinda hoping that I can play video games with 20/200, haha. How long did it take for you to get 100% vision? Thank you! Holy cow, 40lbs. NOPE. Haha there is so much stuff to remember I'll probably have to make a set of piloting flashcards I am very alright with this. Pew Pew Pew! Many thanks!

Brotastical! Thank you!

This is a challenge of awesome. I admire the selectivity of your goals, especially the savings/spending one (oh lordy I do have my slip-ups at Anthro, damn you Anthro!). Good luck on the kipping goal, that is amazing!

These lifts are already killer! Kick all the ass on the 270 DL!

Thank you! I've been wanting to try this for years as well, but I always perceived of it as scary being in a small plane not to mention a cost-prohibitive hobby, but I thikn if I take the lessons slowly I can make it work. Yarr, love being a ranger, but man the weights are fun. Thanks and looking forward to following your progress this challenge Thanks!! It was super fun. Though honestly I might not fly in heels again, haha. It made it difficult to get feedback from the pedals, so next time, maybe VFFs!

Today I learned a lesson about macros. Was doing really well until I had some dried fruit and realized that it kinda caused me to bomb it a bit. Ok, lesson learned. It was a rest day, so mostly just walking and a good long time foam rolling. Hurts so good. Fitness LeanGains: Macros 100F, 73C, 110P FAIL 1/2 Too high on fat and carbs, too little protein Lifts/Exercise: PASS Rest day, took a four mile walk and foam rolled Walk: PASS My new fitbit is supposed to arrive tomorrow, but I walked four miles plus walked around work a lot, and since a mile is approx 2k steps I know I hit 10k. Can't wait to actually measure. Life The Red Baron: ON TRACK 0/3 Nothing to do here today, not 'til Thursday. Probably sometime in the next week I'll have to start ground school. Also on the list: get a badass pair of aviator sunglasses.

Yay! Have fun with the warrior dash. Those obstacle races are super fun. And your second goal is just beastly, good luck!

Thanks, everyone! I think that's good, smart sense. I'm guessing I'll do little more than sleep on painkillers for a few days, but I'll stock up on pre-packed salads, roasted chickens and the like. Gotta be honest, the notion of having someone shoot hot lasers at my eyes (and paying for the privilege) freaked me out at first. But then I've been a life-long contact wearer. So the last two months of wearing glasses (doctor's orders, no contacts pre-op) has me so annoyed with the constant sliding down the nose and lack of peripheral vision that I'm more than ready for the searing LAZOR BEEMS.

Plus a million for the homage to Doc.

Excellent start. Should get more sleep. Instead of playing video games tonight I'm going to do some mobilization work and go to bed early, like whoa. Fitness LeanGains Macros 50F 180C 130P 1/1 PASS Lifts/Exercise Bench Press 45/5 55/5 65/5 75/5 110/0 105/3 95/5 85/6 Haha, wow this didn't go well. I haven't been feeling well the last few days so I wasn't super optimistic about benches today. But I still gave it a shot, aaaaaand did the tilt of shame. Then some bromie ran over and "saved" me, quickly racking all of my weights. He looked awfully surprised when I put the weights back on the bar. One-Arm DB Row 45/8 50/8 50/10 Face Pull 50/14 50/15 50/11 Tricep Pushdown 50/12 50/11 50/12 Chin-up w/Band 1 4 3 3 DB Military Press 25/7 25/6 25/5 DB Flyes 15/8 15/8 15/8 Waiter’s Carry 25lbs 100ft 90ft 100ft 100ft Walk Replacement FitBit hasn't arrived yet, but I'm giving myself a pass for the day cause I did a lot of walking and I'm pretty sure I'm within spitting distance of 10k steps. 1/1 PASS Life Lern2Fly, Noob. Set up my second lesson with an instructor for Thursday after work, excited! 0/3 ON TRACK

Great challenge! So great that I full up stole one of your goals, bwahaha. What book will you be finishing?

Those are some great improvement photos! Epic! What kind of swag will you be using for "sticking to macros"? Giving yourself any buffer?

Hello fellow Warriors. I'm a recent Ranger convert as I've just been having too much fun throwing around the iron lately. My last challenge was focused on lifting and lean gains and sprinting and saving for eye surgery. I mostly ended up working 70 hours a week, lifting occassionally, and face planting granola bowls far too often. This challenge is about... moderation. Balance. All that Ohmmm-y BS. This is not least in part because the laser correction that I was supposed to have last challenge was postponed to next week, after which I'll have a full week of sitting around doing nothing, which means... keeping kind of chill for a while. That said, this challenge also aligns rather perfectly with the Fierce, Fit, Fearless Lose All the Inches challenge. I am really hoping that I am only sidelined for one week after surgery, but we shall see. Goals: Fitness Drop some inches; get ab-tastic -- LeanGains Cont.: I'm putting serious effort into LeanGains for this challenge. No, really, I am. I've learned from previous challenges that my struggles are busyness at work and keeping within my cals on rest days, so I'll have to make contingency plans for both of these. (+1 CHR +3 CON) Put 25lbs on the Big Four: Totally stole this goal from Laura (thanks!). Going to add 25 lbs in any combination to the following current maxes. (+4 STR) Squat: 100 OHP: 70 Deadlift: 145 Bench: 105 [*]Walk regularly - 10k steps per day: I live next to a freaking beautiful trail; it's basically summer in Seattle. I have no excuse not to spend lots of time hoofing it around. Plus I notice marked improvements in sleep and stress when walking more. (+2 CON +2 STA) Goals: Life Take 3 Flying Lessons: Hey, I did something kinda cool last week. I flew a plane! I've never been in a small plane before and I've always wanted to try flying so... I did! And oh yeah, I did it in 5" heels holy cow, taking a Cessna off from a tiny strip of runway and cruising around the lush valleys was oh so cool. I want to keep up with lessons and take at least 3 before the end of this challenge. This goal may change post-op depending on how quickly (or slowly) that my vision heals. (+1 DEX +2 WIS)