super_mac

So far I'm on track with all my goals bar the running. Switching to the three meals a day was rather easy, although some times I forget and still have a pretty late lunch. I'll be back at my dad's house on Sunday so I can pick up my runners then, I tried running in my regular shoes and it was incredibly painful. Next week I'm going to try and cook up some new dishes to give myself a bit more variety in what I eat. Looking forward to trying the new thai recipe on NF!

Help Wanted! I forgot to ask actually, is there a way to upload pictures in between text? What I mean is that it would look something like this Text Here Picture Text Here etc I would like to add pictures between paragraphs. I'm hoping to take pictures of nice scenery I see on my jogs, of fun activities I get to do on my adventure etc, and would like to format it better than just having an image at the bottom of my posts (like above). If anyone knows how to do this I'd appreciate you letting me know!

Not a great start to the challenge, I thought it started today so I had a drink last night. However I have stuck to the 3 meals a day and savings goals so it's not all bad. I have to head to town to buy some cheap runners tomorrow, I left mine at home and have tried and tested running in my regular shoes, but the pain just isn't worth it. My boyfriend also picked me up a new lunch box, which I'm going to fill up with some chicken and sweet potato now, so will be looking forward to having that later! When he is home from work we are heading to a local €2 store to buy some outdoor toy like a football or some tennis rackets, to encourange us to go out more while the weather is good and do some physical activities, instead of our usual sit on the couch all day with the blinds shut routine. So far here is how the goals are looking at day 2: Water Swap= 1 Three Meals= 3 C25K= 0 Savings = €15 (???) I've decided to track these things daily like this to keep on top of everything. One thing I am amazed at is that I've already saved up €15 by throwing change into a bag. I might adjust this savings goal because it seems a bit easy, but I might not due to the fact that I don't make much money at all and doubt I could keep saving at this rate without struggling.

I think I've had three attempts now (including this one) and how many times have I tried C25K? Haha I'm not even sure. Good luck with your goals by the way! I'll have to check out your challenge log. All we can do is try eh? Yeah it's very easy to loose momentum during challenges, but I'm hoping that by keeping my goals super easy and basic I should be able to make it through. I'm terrible at saving, but I have a little ziploc bag that I'm throwing any spare of change into. I'm going to try for €2 a day, so I should have €60 to put in a savings account by the end of the month. Not a lot of money but a good start at least!

Slight exaggeration on the how many attempts I've had but it certainly feels that way. I have a race coming up in a month so I thought this might help me progress a bit better! Dietary Goals: Swap out fizzydrinks/alcoholic beverages for water 0-4=A 5-8=B 9-12=C 13-16=D 17+=F Eat three main meals per day 25-30=A 20-24=B 15-19=C 10-14=D >9=F Fitness Goals: Do C25K 3 times per week 10-12=A 8-9=B 6-7=C 4-5=D >3=F Life Goals: Put €2 away per day €60=A €50=B €40=C €30=D €20=F Treats A= Join the Academy B= New running shoes C= Night at bowling with friends D= Night at bowling with friends (and I have to pay for everyone) F= Uninstall Steam and all games for one month (I haven't decided on these just yet! Edit: What do you guys think of my treats on completion of the challenge? I'm still a little undecided on them) Looking forward to starting the challenge. Going to be tough enough because I don't have a steady place I'm staying in at the moment, so I'm travelling all over the country. Also going to have to buy a new pair of runners because I left mine in a different country, but should be in a town on Monday so I'll have them for the start of the challenge.

That's a really good idea. In my local supermarket (Aldi, not sure if ye have them in America), they do something similar weekly but with vegetables. I'll have to check out if anywhere near me does something similar with meats. Thanks! Actually I do live in a rural-ish area, I've never considered contacting any farmers directly. I'll see if there are any websites for farmers who would do that sort of thing near my area. Cheers!

I know this question is probably dependent on where you live, I'm in Ireland if that helps. I'm trying to eat some new meats that won't break the bank. Currently I only eat minced beef and chicken drumsticks because of their pricing, but I'm looking to branch out a bit more and try a few other meats so I don't get bored of chili and peppered drumsticks all the time. Any suggestions?

I decided to report this week so far so as I don't forget. It's been pretty hectic and a lot of changes, unrelated to the challenge unfortunately. I switched my masters degree from full time to part time. I've been sick for the past while, alcoholism, and really fell behind in school. It was negatively affecting my mental health in a huge way, but I feel much better now knowing that a lot of the pressure has been taken away. Diet Goals It's only been three days since my original post but I have already messed up a lot on these goals. I haven't eaten a single home cooked meal since. I'm very bad for this, I generally don't eat much or I eat take away. Going to make some chili in a few hours though. I've had three alcoholic drinks this week. Although my goal is to have two drinks per week I am still pretty happy with only drinking three. Life Goals I've achieved at least one hour of study each day this week, probably averaging at three or four per day. I'm really pleased with this, and am making great progress with my assignments. That's all for now, I'll report more tomorrow when I am back from the gym!

Well hello there To keep things short this is my first time doing one of these challenges. My goals are as follows: Diet Goals: 1) Only drink two (or less) alcoholic beverages per week. This will probably be my most difficult challenge, as I am a recovering addict. 2) Eat a home cooked breakfast and dinner everyday. I'm not great at eating often or healthily, so I am trying to change that. Three meals per day seems like too much for me at the moment, so I hope I can at least achieve two. Fitness Goals: 1) I am beginning Stronglifts 5x5 at the moment. Although the programme requires you to go to the gym three times a week I would be happy to go to the gym twice a week and complete one of these workouts. Life Goals: 1) I am currently doing a masters in psychology. I've fallen behind in my course lately and hope to catch up by doing one hour of work five times per week. I think this is a reasonable goal. I suppose that's it really. I've made a lot of bad choices over the past year and a half, now I'm just trying to look forward and make better ones.

Went for my fitness assessment today. Found out that I'm 5'2" and weigh 59kg. I forgot to ask about my BF% but that was measured too. The instructor wasn't great. She kept trying to convince me to do classes that are more oriented towards women, I think the one she suggested was called something like "thighs, bums and tums" or something. Doesn't sound like my cup of tea. She got me to do a short work out today as well. It went like this: 15 minutes on a treadmill (she told me to do 25 but I really hate running so I skipped the last ten minutes) Some weird tricept machine, 15, 12, 10 reps Some weird back machine that only strained my elbows because I think I was two short for it, 15, 12 10 reps Curls @ 2.5kg, 15, 12, 10 reps Lat pull down but I had to pull down to behind my head? 15, 12, 10 reps Some machine that was like the opposite of a lat pull down?? 15, 12, 10 reps Some messed up squat machine, 15, 12, 10 reps Leg presses @ 25kg, 15, 12, 10 reps All in all I was unimpressed. Only free weights for the curls. No warm up or cool down stretches. What felt like a lot of running for someone who has never ran before. On Friday another trainer is going to make a full work out program for me and I'm going to ask him for it to be based on free weights and some barbel training as apposed to all the machine work. Yeah I wasn't too sure about the sausages myself, and to be honest they are my least favourite part of the breakfast. I like to cook my breakfast in advance and eat it cold, but physically could not stomach the sausages. I actually just got a call today about a barista job, interview is on Friday! I'm pretty happy about that. And yeah I'm still studying up in Galway, originally from Dublin though. Wow fair play! I find the diet to be the most difficult part. It looks like you've come a long way. Yeah I was reading your log and see that you do pole classes. I've always wanted to try them, how're you finding it?

Hey Smiles! I love how organised your log is, I'm definitely going to take some pointers from this! I was wondering what do you want to do in the gym? Would you be interested in weight training or classes or? Cause I suppose that would really make your decision easier. I don't know much about different gyms myself though, in fact I just picked mine because it looks snazzy and has a sauna. I don't think you're making excuses about waiting until next month. If you can't use it for an entire month that would just be wasteful, especially since you're doing some workouts at home! Anyway good luck.

I've made decent progress I reckon. Made a lot of chilli and am eating that with sweet potato most days for lunch. Breakfast is normally sausages and bacon with a piece of fruit and black coffee. My housemate was cooking that for the last few days while I was trying to get some assignments done, today I made it myself and found out the hard way that bacon cooks waaaaay faster than sausages in the oven. So the end product consisted of hard black pieces of cardboard and a few sausages. I might just cook my bacon in advance and leave it in the fridge from now on. I've also started cycling again. I'm a psychology student and have a reflective assignment on behaviour change due next week. We all had to change our behaviour in some way that will improve your health (I chose to generally exercise more). Using the theories of health behaviour change we then have to re-read our logs and reflect on why we felt the way we felt, why did we fail, how we started up again after failure etc. Basically it's to show us how to empathise with future clients who might struggle with changing health behaviours such as smoking or drinking too much. I ended up leaving my job as my hours went up, again. I'm going to try and go back to two day barista work if possible, but overall I am happy with my decision. I also joined my local gym and am going for a fitness assessment next Tuesday. I was supposed to start sometime either last week or the week before but work called me in for an extra shift. Next week, after my two assignments are handing in, I'm going to look at recording what I eat a bit better. I think I'm used to over eating so the general "eat until your full" idea might not work with me. I am considering using MyFitnessPal or something like that for a few weeks to get an idea of how much I should be eating. Oh hey Smiles! I didn't think I'd find too many Irish on here. I ended up leaving my job actually so yeah in a sense I did get my shifts sorted. :') I see you're fairly new here as well (or maybe you're not, I'm just judging by how few posts you have), how're you getting on?

Been playing Dark Souls 2 (for maybe the fifth time, I'm not a fan of the PvE but love the PvE) and have been playing this Minecraft/H1Z1 free-to-play on Steam called Unturned. It's pretty good but the admins play on the servers they are admin-ing so it's kinda broken.

It's been a while since I've had time to pop back here and update. Between work and college I've felt like I have no time for anything else. My physical and mental health have been suffering by the constant strain I am under, my college work has fallen behind, my work has become so taxing that some times I find myself tearing up during a shift. I've taken a step forward and am meeting with my manager tomorrow. I'm going to ask for less days at work, and if I cannot get that, I'll have to quit. The most important things to me now are my health and education. Although it'll be more difficult financially, I do hope that by reducing the strain of working so much will give me more time to look after myself. On the upside, by working I've made enough money to get a gym membership and get back into weightlifting, I start tomorrow.

The last two days I haven't eaten much of anything. I just haven't felt hungry. I think I'm under a bit of pressure because of my work and college schedule. I'm hoping to get longer shifts over fewer days so I can have at least one full day off a week. So for Thursday I drank a few coffees, and in the evening went out for a burger and a few pints with friends. And Friday was half of a Subway sandwich and once again a few drinks in the evening. Gonna make some bacon and broccoli now.

This week for me is all about dietry changes and trying to fit healthy meals into my busy schedule. Yesterday I made the first step with by eating the following: Breakfast: 85g of spicy tuna, 1 plum, 30g of walnuts and raisins, red bull. Lunch: 85g of spicy tuna, 1 plum, and a coffee. Dinner: Sweet potato, chili (a recipe I found on here), 1 beer. Managed to drink a lot of water during the day too. I drink probably over a litre in work alone because it's so hot in the kitchen. Obviously my meals from yesterday aren't perfect but I was pleased that there was a significant increase in healthier foods and vegetables, and no take aways. Also thanks TMedina!

Well hello there. I just woke up and realised that I am an adult. Oh god. I'm a masters student, and just started a job in a fastfood chain (hence the username for any of ye Irish out there). All of a sudden I went from going out drinking a lot, staying up late all the time, playing video games and eating junk food all day, to working 5 days a week and going to college for the other two days. Now I'm kicking myself for not taking better control of my life when I had so much free time during my bachelors. I gained a bit of weight in my final year and kept telling myself that it would be gone by summer, now it is September and I still haven't shifted any of it. In fact I might have gained more. So in short, this is my log and my attempt to improve my health. This week I'm starting small, and I'm just focusing on tidying up my diet. It's something I've been struggling with for a while now, I have a lot of food intolerences that affect my eczema, so trying to pick out what to eat has been quite difficult for me. Next week I'm going to take my pay check and head to my local gym. I used to enjoy weight lifting but haven't done any in about a year. I'm going for a fitness assessment so I should know my bf% next week, which will make it easier to measure my progress. Anyway, work is in 40 minutes so I'll update tomorrow.