SpiralGalaxy

That's awesome, go you!

Towards the end of this post, the "How to Make your Challenge an RPG" section was the best resource for me.

I can't tell you how happy I was to join NF and find so many moms here. Hooray for Geek Moms! (I've got a 9 month old boy, and I need all the workouts I can get to keep him out of trouble.)

Oh yeah, tums were my constant companion. At least it's killing two birds with one stone--soothe your stomach & add calcium.

I'm so sorry to hear about your grandmother. But it is wonderful that you'll be able to get over and visit her, it will mean so much to both of you. And it sounds like you've got a great plan for not letting setbacks stop your progress--go you!

Thanks for the tea recommendations--so much good new stuff to try! Progress is steady and on track so far. The tracking spreadsheet is really helping. Haven't lost any noticeable amount of weight yet (not surprising in only 3 days), but (and this may just be wishful thinking), I think my pre-pregnancy belt buckled a little easier this morning. That's really one of my driving goals, to get back to being comfortable with my pre-pregnancy belt instead of buying a larger size one. ;-) I will say that I might break the one-drink-on-weeknights rule tonight. My husband and I are both on the executive committee of our local fencing club, and tonight will be our first night fencing in our own facility! We'd been getting kicked around at school and church gyms ever since Hurricane Ike, and we finally decided to lease our own space. It's a huge step for the club and took a huge amount of work, so there may be some toasting tonight.

Oh man, lunges *kill* my knees if I've been out of it for awhile. Sounds like you're on the right track--keep up the good work!

I think I took a very important step yesterday. I usually keep a big bag of Starbursts in my desk at work for when I get a little bit of a sweet tooth. Yesterday I did my grocery shopping and I did not buy a new bag of starbursts, even though I've run out at work. Just like cutting out soda, these are extra calories that should be easy to skip if I remove the temptation.

Congrats on resisting the Coke! I'm a total Coke addict as well, and I hate diet sodas with the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns. So for me it's usually Coke or water, and its a struggle to go with water all the time. One of my goals for this challenge is just cutting out soda at breakfast and replacing it with tea. Two days in, so far so good. Also, in the coincidences category: I've also been out of shape for a while (recovering from damage from my pregnancy), lost my father that I was really close to a few years ago, I'm an electrical engineer (working at NASA, w00t!), and have a son. How old is yours?

Congrats on your impending geekling! Mine is 9 months old now, and in a weird way I look back on the pregnancy fondly--mine wasn't terribly rough, and everything seemed simpler back then. Still, the best piece of advice I got from my OB was: if it hurts, don't do it! I did lots of yoga & elliptical type workouts, and keeping up with core/back stength exercises seemed to really ease my back pain. Good luck!

Oh, adding mint leaves to tea--I'd never thought of that, but I might try it! Day 2: success. Tea at breakfast, 1 bottle of delicious hard cider (Woodchuck Summer Limited Edition) in the evening, 11 min on elliptical (3:1 intervals), got a start on Chapter 4 of the book. I also got in meditation (4 min) and the tracking spreadsheet continues to be easy and useful. And, as part of the Week 1 mini-challenge, I successfully got out of bed on time this morning. The only problem is that I was back to insomnia last night. I'm going to try shifting some things around to see what variables might have an impact.

Let me second the eggs suggestion--they really do keep for a month, especially if you get them fresh from a farmer's market or something. Here's one of my new favorite egg recipes--it's super fast for breakfast, and can even be kept at room temperature for lunch. Tamagoyaki -1 ‘large’ egg -1 Tbs. water -1 tsp. soy sauce (regular or light-colored; here I used regular, since that’s all I had in stock) -1/2 tsp. sugar -1 Tbs. bonito flakes (optional, for added flavor) -Vegetable oil for cooking (I use cooking spray) Mix all the ingredients together well with a fork or chopsticks. Heat up a small (6 inch or 15cm) non-stick frying pan on high heat and spread thinly with oil (or use a non-stick cooking spray). From this point on, it only takes about a minute and a half! Once the pan is really hot, pour the mixture in. Stir the top while allowing the bottom to set. Now fold the egg over (in half or in thirds) and keep flipping it until it's cooked all the way through. It will come out sort of golden-brown. It really is incredibly fast because of the high heat.

Day 1, success. 10 minutes of physical therapy exercise, set up a nice tracking spreadsheet, 4 minutes meditating, water with dinner, one glass of wine with evening snack, sent out Ch 3 of my book to my first readers, fell asleep like a rock at 11 pm (which is especially good because I sometimes struggle with insomnia, and I *know* that exercise is the best way to conquer it). Only downside was that I also over-slept my alarm by a good 20 minutes (whoops!). Had tea with breakfast, so it's so far, so good for day #2.

Ah, and let me lay out my character a bit more: Halfling adventurer For class I'll probably multi-classing to Druid and something else later. For race I'm 5' 2"/123lbs and I've learned that most people think of me as 'tiny.' Level 1 Starting Stats: Str: 1 Dex: 2 Sta: 1 Con: 2 Wis: 5 Cha: 4 The break down on my goals will be: 1) Exercise for at least 10 minutes every day. Str + 2, Sta + 2, Dex +1 2) Only one alcoholic drink per night Sundays - Thursdays. Wis +2, Con +1 3) Drink tea with breakfast each morning instead of soda. Con +2 4) Complete the second draft of my book. Wis +3, Cha +2

Thanks! I used to use DailyBurn for tracking, but I'm less interested in searching databases for exact matches, and more interested in general trends. Being an engineer, to me that screams Spreadsheet! So I set up a Google Docs spreadsheet for this effort. As for tea, that's one of the things I want to expand on. I got tired of green-tea-with-jasmine (which had been a favorite) and white-tea-with-blueberry. I tried two Stash flavors (Peach and a Coconut one), but I'm looking for more to try. Recommendations?

Good goals, go you! As for reading: while Frankenstein is Very Important, I thought Dracula held up a lot better in terms of it's-still-fun reading. Language, pacing & plotting are all a lot smoother than Frankenstein (YMMV). Another 'classic' that I really enjoyed was H. Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines (although that's the only Haggard I've really enjoyed).

I know what to do, now I just need to do it. I've been off the wagon for awhile, in physical therapy to work my way through some physiological damage. Now I'm cleared to get back to work, but I've been gaining weight instead of losing. Time to self-discipline! These are small things, but I need to *do* them. Goals: 1) Exercise for at least 10 minutes every day. Either cardio or bodyweight exercise. Ideally, also meditate for 3-5 minutes every day. 2) Only one alcoholic drink per night Sundays - Thursdays. That's one glass or wine or bottle of beer in the evening. 3) Drink tea with breakfast each morning instead of soda. This ends up almost entirely eliminating my soda intake, usually. Life goal: 4) Complete the second draft of my book (with luck, will be done by mid-July). Bonus quest: track eating and exercise and see how it correlates with general well-being. It's been awhile since I've done that, and it's usually a Very Good Thing when I do. Today was already a minor fail since I was in a rush this morning and had a can of Coke instead of tea. Whoops! But it will be nice and easy to get back on the wagon.

Technically, I failed at everything. But I'm not disappointed with my progress. 1) Complete Beginner body weight rebel workout. Fail - D. Only did 7/12 workouts. The problem really is that I haven't recovered from my injuries over the summer. I'm still seeing a chiropractor, and it still hurts if I walk too much. Under those conditions, it's hard to make progress with workouts. Still, having the goal encouraged me to work out when I could. I just need to be careful about pushing too hard and re-injuring myself. I think that I'm going to wait to get back to fitness goals until I can walk normally again. 2) Limit myself to one soda a day. Mostly Win, only cheated 2 days, A-. Having this goal really helped me be conscious of what I was drinking, and gave me a good guideline when it came to making choices. I'm very happy with this goal, and have plans for new diet goals in the next challenge. 3) 1 large serving of calcium a day. Mostly Win, maybe missed 4 days. A-. See above--having this goal helped me make better choices. 4) Finish draft of book. Fail. I'm only 75% of the way there. C. Turns out that it's hard to do PhD-level work when you're working a different job part-time and caring for an infant. Still, I'm very happy with what I've done so far, and can still hold out hope for getting a good first draft by the first week of January. Wish me luck! Overall grade: C+

Yeah, I've noticed that I'm usually the only woman in the free weights section as well. I just remind myself that everyone's pretty much in their own headspace, not *really* noticing anyone else in any specific way. So I just go in and do my own thing. I think I get more weird looks for my vibram finger shoes than for being female these days. ;-)

Back to the gym for the first time in over a week. Felt pretty good, although I seem to have caused a flare-up of some old tendonitis in my wrist. I followed the work-out with a big glass of milk & some peanut butter on crackers. My planks holds are getting longer finally--for my next challenge I might aim to get to a minute. I'm also happy that I increased my body weight rows. Looking at the calendar I think I'll be one workout short of making my goal by Dec 5, but I should get the last one in on Dec 6th or so. And today I've added more than 1500 words to my word count, which makes me happy.

This past week kind of sucked for the major goals. I completely ran out of time and brainspace. I've been doing well at sticking to 1 soda a day, and having this challenge has really encouraged me on the calcium. However, I haven't worked out since last week and I've barely advanced on my manuscript. Also, the pain that I've been seeing the chiropractor for has been flaring up again off and on. I *think* that things will get better right after Thanksgiving. I'll be getting some extra help with the geekling that should free up some time. I'll have a week and a half to finish the remaining 4 exercises in the challenge, and I think I can do that. And while I won't hit the word count I'd wanted (70K), I'll be much closer to where I want to be. We'll see how it goes...

That's a great range of responses, thanks everyone! I'll probably try an on-ramp type program and see if they CF box near work has the right vibe/experience/form coaching for me.

Hello! I've found a Crossfit gym near my work that seems to have a lot of things that I like: good website, wide variety of class times, etc. I've never done high-intensity, heavy-lift workouts before, but I think it's something that could really pay off. I'm a bit hesitant about a few things, though: 1) Price--is it worth the extra money? 2) Form--do they really teach you to do the lifts properly, or do they push you to do things faster even if it's sloppy? I *definitely* don't want to injure myself. 3) Competitiveness--I generally compete with myself to do things a bit better each time, but I'm worried about feeling like a wimp in a group environment. For people who have tried Crossfit gyms, what's your experience been like? Any sort of feedback would be appreciated, thanks!

I hope you enjoy fencing! I'd say the biggest thing is to get your quads ready. Staying in proper fencing stance really works your quads hard, and when they start to go your form goes all to hell. Also, if you can, you might want to try some plyometric exercises. Being able to call on really explosive power can make the difference sometimes. Have fun!

I definitely wouldn't beat yourself up over it--quitting anything is hard. I quit smoking 7 years ago, but every once and a while, totally out of the blue, I'll really *really* want a cigarette.