TheMadEngineer

Thanks, I'll definitely check that out!

Duh, of course. I wasn't thinking. I'll leave it at 20% for now. Thanks!

Like I said, I just went off the page on Nerdfitness that showed bodyfat. I'm not sure how strong I am compared to other people. I know that when I was heavier (~250) several fitness minded friends were talking with me and most thought I weighed around 200. So either I wear the weight well or there is a decent amount of muscle in there. I normally bench press around 250-260 lbs, so I guess I'm fairly strong. Maybe I should bump up the bodyfat percentage in the IIFYM calcuator?

Thanks for the replies everyone. I uninstalled the pedometer app and won't be adding those calories in. I was already not adding my workout calories in. I'm at about 20% bodyfat (using the eye test that NF supplies) , 5' 10" and 224 lbs; I tweaked the IIFYM formula from the "reckless" level to "aggressive" and am now around 2400 calories. I'll try that for the rest of the week and see how it goes. Thanks!

Oh yeah, it's good now. I work for a small systems integration company which treats me really well, and I go to a fairly well-ranked engineering school. I've had some really good professors who've been able to bring the best out of me, and I've worked with some very smart and driven people.

OK. I park almost a mile away from the building where I have my classes everyday because I'm a cheap bastard who doesn't want to pay for parking. I will leave it out anyway. Thanks.

Hello all, I am trying to lose weight. According to the pedometer app on my phone, I am burning 400 calories a day on average. I do a decent amount of walking at work and school. Should I add this to my daily caloric goal? Thank you.

Thanks for stopping in on my quest thread. I like the background story you wrote, am following .

Thank you! I'm now following your quest thread.

1) Signature done. 2) Trying to find a team to join. Don't really want to start one since I'm still not sure what I'm doing. 3) Following Bulwark and my fellow engineer, Tigera.

Well, so far so good! I've gotten two workouts in this week, and I've been staying below my caloric goal. It helps that I walk about 4 miles a day on average between my job and school. I use a pedometer app on my phone to figure out the calories burned. I'm using IIFYM's "aggressive" plan, which means my goal is 2228 cal/day. I usually burn about 300-400 calories walking, of which I add all but 100 to My Fitness Pal. I do not add my workouts as calories burned. Does that make my caloric goal too high? Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks.

Thank you! No, just electrical. My current focus at school is on communications and signal processing, however my job focuses on control systems. I will be graduating in December of this year. I love the Kennedy quote because it speaks to my own desire to do the hard things in life. I went to high school with a lot of people who didn't have any drive to do anything hard, or special, or out of the ordinary. I like to go against the grain. I took on the one school subject that was really hard for me-math-and made it my life. Now I'm getting my body-which has always been out of shape-and making it better.

Thank you for pointing out the error.

Thanks for following my 1st quest thread man, I'm following you back! Sounds like you're doing a good job so far!

Well my first day (yesterday) went pretty well! Even with a 2 hour thermodynamics test at 7:30 PM I was able to stay under my caloric goal, and fulfill my other quests. BTW, does anyone know how to add tags to posts? Can't seem to figure that out....thanks.

Good Luck! Looks like your goals are pretty manageable. I can understand being a little confused-I'm still trying to figure out how everything works around here. Don't forget to follow the recruit forum's Juice Bar! And the L1 Guidebook!

Alright, I'm still a little confused, probably because I have never played an actual RPG. I've read through some of the guides but I'm still not sure. For my first quest, can I actually assign points to my quest? This would seem to indicate that you can't do that until your first quest is complete, but the guide for building a recruit quest seems to say otherwise.

http://rebellion.nerdfitness.com/index.php?/topic/64313-my-quest/ Completed, see post #5.

Mini Quest #1 Is your overall quest achievable (over a short or long period of time)? Is it reasonable? Yes, in the time allotted, although not over the next six weeks. Do your 3 quests all build towards your main quest in little ways, or are you taking on too much? Do your quests have sub-quests or is it just one thing to focus on? Yes, and no. Are your main goals realistic? Can you scale them to smaller steps to fit your life better, even if it will make it take a little longer to achieve them? I think so. Are your goals able to be measured and tracked? What will you use to track them? My Fitness Pal for food, Fitocracy for workouts, Rewire app for Life Quest How are you grading your goals? Are they pass/fail (“every dayâ€, “not even once over the six weeksâ€)? Is there a reward for the effort, or are you only grading yourself on whether or not you “lose the weight†or “run the distanceâ€? I think my grading system is fairly robust. What is your plan for continuing/altering/grading those goals if you become ill or injured? I'll scale down, i.e. add more rewards points to the intermediate goals. Did you take into consideration any special occasions (Labour Day, Independence Day, birthdays, anniversaries, etc) that may occur during the challenge? What modifications do you need to build into your goals for those? Only big occasion is a wedding, and I plan to workout while on the road for that and eat healthy food. Do any of your main goals conflict with each other? Will one goal make it hard to do another? No Do you already have the time in your schedule to actually complete the goals you’ve set? If not, what are you planning to do to make time for them? Yes I do have time as long as I'm not lazy Are you trying to build multiple habits, or is all your energy focused on your main quest? All habits support main quest.

Thank you very much!

So I've spent a little time looking at other challenges. Should I create some kind of epic story around my quest? Do I have to pick a class or species yet? I really don't know what I'd fit in to so I was holding off on that. Am I supposed to update my challenge thread? If so is it daily, weekly? Does it matter? Thanks to anoyone who replies.

I've been unathletic and overweight for most of my life. In January of last year I was 5'10" and 256 lbs. I realized I needed to make a change in my life. I started a combination of weight and cardio exercise and ate better. There wasn't a real plan, just a general lifestyle change. Now I'm at 228 lbs and I'm a lot stronger, but I need to get better. My overall goals are to get below 200 lbs and improve my endurance, since I'm already fairly strong. Basic Stats: I'm a 23 year old male. I'm from the Northeast US but currently live in KS. I will be graduating in December with a degree in electrical engineering. I work at an engineering firm that designs and builds industrial control systems. Think converyors, robot arms, etc. It's cool. My friends consider me an uber nerd. Mostly because I my interests are computers, programming, electronics, science and mathematics, history and classical literature. I studied Latin for 7 years too. It's my only foreign language so far. Despite being a nerd I don't like comic books or anime. I also don't play video games anymore, waste of time IMO. I also know a lot of trivia, mostly because I spent 75% of my childhood reading. I will read or watch almost anything that is science fiction. Especially in space. Really, anything in space. Anyway, this site looks like fun. I think I'll stick around for a while.

Hello All. I've been unathletic and overweight for most of my life. In January of last year I was 5'10" and 256 lbs. I realized I needed to make a change in my life. I started a combination of weight and cardio exercise and ate better. There wasn't a real plan, just a general lifestyle change. Now I'm at 228 lbs and I'm a lot stronger, but I need to get better. My overall goals are to get below 200 lbs and improve my endurance. Main Quest: Get below 200 lbs by the end of August Quest 1: Workout 3 times a week. I have mostly been doing strength training with a bit of cardio but I've plateued on that. I will be doing the Spartacus Workout 3-4 times a week. I will do this for 6 weeks. I will measure this goal by the number of circuits I can complete (right now I can only do 1). My goal is to be able to complete three circuits in a row. If I can still only do 1 circuit= 0 pointsIf I can do 2 circuits = +1 STR, +2 STAIf I can do 3 circuits = +2 STR, +3 STA Quest 2: Avoid emotional eating. Yes I'm a guy, but I stress out plenty (I'm working at an engineering firm and in my second to last semester of electrical engineering. It's tough sometimes ) and when I stress out I either drink beer or eat junk food. My goal is to limit beer or junk food to once a week, and then only in moderate amounts. I will do this for six weeks. If I fulfill this goal for only 1 week our of 6, 0 pointsIf I fulfill this goal for 2-4 weeks, +1 WIS, +2 CONAll 6 weeks, +2 WIS, +3 CON Quest 3: Log my food religiously. I've been pretty up and down on this, but I know that the key to succes is consistency. My goal is to log ALL of my food, every single day, for at least six weeks. 50% of challenge days or less = 0 points50-75% of challenge days = +1 WIS, +1 CHA75-100 % of challenge days = +1 WIS, +2 CHA Life Quest: For the next six weeks I will read and finish 1 book not related to my job or school. This will have the added benefit of cutting down my Youtube and Amazaon Prime TV watching. 50% of challenge days or less = 0 points50-75% of challenge days = +1 WIS, +1 CHA75-100 % of challenge days = +2 WIS, +2 CHA Motivation: For the same reason I chose engineering and not English. To do the hard thing, rather than take the easy way out: "We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."---JFK Edited to add points.