DrFeelgood

Wow, y'all filled up fast this time.  I should have been paying closer attention.

I'm largely in the same boat.  This challenge was extremely difficult and for many of the same reasons.  I won't join you in making the next one a 7WC, but I'll definitely be following your progress while I prepare my next foray.

Once more unto the breach...

C15-4 W6D6 complete:  Spreadsheets

Stayed up too late and missed the bedtime goal--this Win98 PC is taking a lot of effort to get squared away.  It wasn't at all due to me reliving my glory days in Jane's USAF.

Skipped breakfast, went out to lunch with the work crew, had a nice sensible dinner at home, and came in on target for the day.  I'm going to have to resist the little 170-calorie ice cream bars in my freezer to keep it that way.

I don't have a recipe, but she says she split them lengthwise and seeded them.  Then she browned some lean ground beef, added pasta sauce, filled the zucchini "boat," then topped with cheese and popped 'em under the broiler.  Tasted like a zoodle lasagna, but way easier.  Next time I'm going to make sure she has some Italian sausage to throw in the mix, too.

We're done with road trips for a very, very long time.

C15-4 W6D5 complete:  Spreadsheets

Bedtime.  As discussed--tanked.  I made a costly error installing a USB driver on Win98 that locked out my input devices.   Took a while to untangle that mess.  I had MiB:II streaming in the background while working, and boy is that movie still terrible.  I think it got worse with age.

Workout.  Destroyed another round of barbells.  Saw slight increases in 1RM for bench and squat.  I'm getting stronger with dips, too.  All around I can tell I'm stronger, and if that's the way it's going to be during this weight-loss stall/pause then so be it.  I can tolerate an uptick in the scale as long as my lifts continue improving and my new, smaller clothes keep fitting nicely.

Eating.  That said, I ended up with a nice deficit today without even trying.  I had a donut for breakfast and pizza for lunch.  Then I came home to find MrsFeelgood made a tasty stuffed zucchini for my dinner, and I ended up satisfied at around 230 below the maintenance target.  I'll take that result.

So 2 for 3 on goals today--I can work with that.  Now to get to bed on time tonight for success with tomorrow's goals.

I was at Cannon (524 Hounds) for my entire enlistment--after training of course.  I did MRT with the Top Dogs.

I got out to go to school before they could send me anywhere "fun".  We did deploy for OSW, FWIC, and Red/Green Flags a bunch, though.

I guess to much caffeine! Get that bedtime under control! Set your self up for success

I was having success, just not at fitness.

I've been getting my old PC going as a dual-boot system with 98se and XP Home so my kids can have a standalone computer for schooling and games.  It's been awhile, so it's taking a while.

Poor Scotty was late twice in T2SC's thread.

I'm calling foul.

Had a mentally tough workout last night. Felt like a combination of factors putting me off - low energy levels, the gym had been moved around for new equipment and just felt out of sync, couldn't connect to Wi-fi to get Spotify (I know, first world problems!), and possibly a bit of slight mental deflation at having passed the main target.

That's what I've been having, only not so slight.

C15-4 W6D4 complete:  Spreadsheets

Not-so-clean misses today.  Both goals were failed so hard they left impact craters.  And judging by how late it currently is, tomorrow's bedtime goal isn't looking terrible strong, either.  Way too much caffeine today.

I still fit comfortably in my 32W jeans, though.  I'm clinging to sanity with that thought.

What squadron(s) were you with, Seeker81?  Did you do MRT at Luke?

How did I miss the naked selfies?

And how can I make sure to always miss them in the future?

C15-4 W6D3 complete:  Spreadsheets

Clean misses with bedtime and eating goals today.  Eating was only a little over, though--MFP has my goal set higher than my plan spreadsheet and I thought I was on target.  Oh well.

Tomorrow's another day.

Do you ever come to the State Fair?

Nope. All of our day trips since moving here have been to Chicago.

I got out back in 2011, fully embraced the civilian life for about 3.5 years found a great job doing network analysis thought life was great. Then my wife took a picture of me saying how happy she is that we are having a baby boy and I got a reality check. I used to wonder how prior military could get so out of shape....now I know. *shrugs* So I shaved my head back to regs, got rid of the beard and now I am committed to getting back to a healthy weight. 

I got out in 2000 and went to college then grad school, but it wasn't until after my kids arrived and taking a desk job with DoD that I really started plumping up.  I didn't see it coming on, then one summer vacation (2012) my wife caught me in this picture and I knew it was time to change:

Life just creeps up on you when you're not paying attention.  Crewing Vipers was its own workout, so I never really needed the discipline of exercise.  Now I've got it, and I'm developing self-control with my eating, too.  Took me a few years to finally "get" it, but thanks to determination and NF I'm already in better shape than when I separated from active duty.

I always enjoy the Ed Norton Hulk, but I think Ruffalo is a better fit in the Avengers.  I only wish Tim Roth had been given some better material, he was vastly under-used in that movie.

You've got Thor and Cap coming up next--I liked both but not as much as Iron Man.  Cap is my favorite character, by far.

C15-4 W6D2 complete:  Spreadsheets

Many thanks to everyone for your support.  I don't have to imagine trying to do this without you because that's how I used to do, and I failed terribly.  Y'all really are the key to my new-found success.  I appreciate you letting me vent and bounce my hair-brained ideas off your collective expertise.  Let's end this day on a positive note.

Bedtime.  Didn't get it.  I was up a bit late designing the improvements I need to make to our storm drainage here at the homestead--MrsFeelgood has decided she wants to do another vegetable garden next year, so that's getting factored in as well (might as well dig it all at once).  Good news is, it wasn't a huge miss and I didn't do any snacking after my mega-eating day.

Workout.  Killed it.  Gym buddy left work early, so when I got the gym alone I just put the headphones on, lowered my head, and destroyed my previous lifts.  It was madness fueled partially by irritation at my current attitude toward fitness and partially by the Diet Pepsi I chugged about a half-hour before getting to the weights.  Whatever the combination was, it was great--I enjoyed it so much that I may ask Gym Buddy to leave early from now on.

Not only did I blast my previous reps at those weights, I did it in record time with great form and then I went and increased my pullups, too.  Now I can do a set of five, so I'm halfway to my year-end goal.  I'd credit the music, too (since I don't normally listen to anything while working out), but it was all soft worship-type stuff.

I've added a Week 7 to the spreadsheet for workouts.  It's just a rehash of Week 5.  If the challenge schedule doesn't change, then I'll get a week to deload and rest before the next challenge starts.  I've already got my workouts planned for the next cycle.  I'm still really enjoying this lifting regimen at twice a week, and I intend to keep it up.

Eating.  After running the numbers this evening I'm now aiming for maintenance for the rest of the challenge, and I'm going to pretend to be ignorant of macros for the duration as well.  Maybe I need to re-train my body to recognize satiety by actually sating it (wild concept, I know), so that's the way forward.  The calculators are giving me between 2200 and 2800 daily, so for now I'm going to err on the low side and slowly increase only if it becomes necessary.  As it stands now, I ended up low for the day anyway because this is where I felt good to stop.  It remains to be seen if that's enough to carry me through to breakfast tomorrow.

So with much improved attitude and a reasonably amended plan I launch into this final week ready to accept whatever outcome.  For now, it's enough just to succeed at the process.

lol well it's not combat arms USAF I was a crew chief on the F-16. 

Same.  I don't think I ever did any discrete exercise during my entire enlistment, mostly because I didn't need to.  I only recall having to do the fit test once, and it was a joke.

Working out now is it's own new brand of "military mode" since I'm an Army civilian and I use the gym on post.

I don't think I've gone manic, but I really cannot figure out why things are suddenly so much more difficult.  Seems like I was plenty satisfied on 13,000 calories per week, and I was able to burn fat at a steady and healthy rate.  Then I took my vacation to break from deficit eating and now I can't get it back on track.

So what's changed since the last challenge?

- Working out only two days per week instead of three

- Allowing a few more starches and grains in the diet

- Allowing an occasional diet soda or sugar-free dessert

- Eating has been far less consistent and predictable

- Weighing in more frequently

I didn't think I'd been that streaky with my eating, but the last couple of weeks looked like this:

I can't objectively say that's bad--after all, I'm still below maintenance and above my Extreme Fat-Loss levels from previous challenges on a weekly basis; but something just isn't quite working.  At least it's not working the same as it used to.

When I reoriented this challenge a couple of weeks ago, the idea was to get back to things that had worked before and see if I could even out.  Instead, that only made things crazier.  I'm thinking (on y'all's advice) that I should write this challenge off in terms of weight loss (which wasn't really a primary goal at the outset anyway) and see what I can do about maintaining for the next few weeks.  I'll finish up with my planned lifting regimen this week, and I'll get my end-of-challenge measurements for body composition.  Then I'll re-evaluate all of it in the off-weeks.

Gotta do some catch-up:

C15-4 W5D7 complete:  Spreadsheets

Saturday was a bust.  I was up late watching Interstellar with MrsFeelgood and went a bit high with snacking.  It wasn't so bad, but then I couldn't get to sleep and pounded a great-big bowl of cereal.  Since it was well after midnight, I just counted that toward Sunday's breakfast.  Even though I failed the goal for that day, it was still under maintenance and I had a decent deficit for the week.  Or so I thought...

Week 5 Check-in:

Stupid scale.  My deficit predicted a weight loss of 1.6 pounds.  Instead I gained 1.2 pounds.

Talk about demoralizing.  I worked my butt off last week to make up the deficit, but the scale has betrayed me.  I tried not to let it derail my day, but...

C15-4 W6D1 complete:  Spreadsheets

I pretty much gave up on the Plan for Sunday.   I scrubbed the bedtime goal since we'd already been to church on Saturday evening.  I know my late-night movie snacking didn't help my weigh-in, but that knowledge didn't assuage my hurt feelings any.  I figured if my mood was already in the tank, then I might as well enjoy it.

By the time I quit counting I was more than a thousand over for the day, and it was predominantly empty, worthless, delicious carbs.  After going back and filling in the day from memory, I counted almost 500 665 grams (2000 2660 cal) of carbs out of 3700 4500 total calories!  I got back on the scale just before bedtime for some damage assessment--203.4 lbs.  I gained five spite-pounds in a single day.  Take that, stupid jerk scale.

On top of that, neither of my old soccer teams returned my text.

I'm recovering (so far) today, but I wouldn't say I'm over it all.  I'm going to will myself to stick to what's left of my plan after missing bedtime last night, because my heart just isn't in it right now.

Edited to correct counts after remembering that I also ate an entire sleeve of Walmart's fig newtons.   It's still not a competition, Presea.

Where is that box of shame now?

 

Occupied.

Disclaimer: I do not own disco pants.

 

Edited to add: ...but if I did, I'd look fierce in 'em.

Thanks a lot.  Now I want mashed potatoes.

C15-4 W5D6 complete:  Spreadsheets

Bedtime and calories on target--just need to hit my calories tomorrow to close out a pretty good week.

Got a little more bonus cardio today because mowing.  I really just wanted to come home, eat dinner, then sit on the couch; but it's supposed to rain for a week and tonight was the only realistic opportunity to cut the grass.  Oh well, it's done now and I can sit and watch the last Hobbit movie with MrsFeelgood for the rest of the night--no snacks though.

C15-4 W5D5 complete:  Spreadsheets

Bedtime.  On-time.  I forewent another episode of Firefly in order to get down on time. 

Workout.  Complete.  Big lifts let me down just a little today.  Maybe I didn't have enough in the tank, or maybe I'm just finding my current upper limits.  Either way, I wanted more reps.  Bodyweight stuff went well.  I've amended my plan to push the deload week until the second off-week, so next week (and the week after) will continue the run of heavy barbells.  I'm counting on it to help with my sprint to the finish line for this challenge.

Eating.  Hit the target bang on the nose.  It's been a good day.  Now I've gotta stave off the snack demons that seek havoc after sunset.

C15-4 W5D4 complete:  Spreadsheets

Bedtime.  Made doubly sure to get this one.  I was in bed before 10:00 pm, and I actually got to sleep pretty easily but then I had anxiety-ridden dreams all night.  It wasn't a particularly restful night, but it's progress.  I'm going to follow the same routine and see if I can get some better sleep tonight.

Eating.  I'm super proud of this one today.  I had extremely light (but high-protein) meals for breakfast and lunch, then I came home and prepared a nice sensible dinner for the whole family--with enough leftovers for my lunch tomorrow.  Ignoring the lone Jolly Rancher I enjoyed this afternoon, today was the "cleanest" eating I've done in a long while.  And, as you can see on the spreadsheet, I totally made up yesterday's binge calories and scored the retro-pass for a two-day average.  My deficit is back on track for the week: currently sitting at -3503 calories.

For the first time this year, I'm not already planning my next challenge.  Sufficient to this challenge are it's own troubles.