Sulinar

Hi Thunderneath - wow, great mission! I've been lurking this and other forums for a while now, and I'm beginning to spot the people who've got the right kind of goals and the knowledge to achieve them. And you're one of those people! You know where you're trying to get to and you have an idea of how much hard work that's going to involve. And you've already started putting in the effort. Running is difficult to start with; I'm also trying to get into it, and I did the C25K last year on my second or third attempt. You need to not be worried about repeating the same stage two or three times if you can't progress confidently. Otherwise you get to the point where it starts to ramp up quite substantially, you try to run 2x8 minutes, fail, think "This programme is impossible" and give up. (That's what I did twice anyway!) Also, what running shoes and style are you using? The Rebel Running guide is pretty helpful here - in fact it was after reading it and changing my running style that I succeeded with the C25K! Your hike sounds great - I love the feeling you get when you reach the top of a hill like that.

Keep persevering with the sleep thing, it can be difficult if you've got a lot going on in your life. I completely understand about the waking in the night and thinking "I may as well get up now". I've made my target being in bed for 8 hours, not sleeping for 8 hours, because I have periods of insomnia and it's bad enough being awake for hours in the night without that being a goal failure too!

Just popping in to give you a prod as Deerskin's sister. How's your first week going?

All that Mexican food sounds like perfect fuel for a squat challenge!

Well I *think* the not being able to get out of bed after having 8 hours thing comes down to being tired from working out, but as I spent two hours awake from a) insomnia after having to get up for a pee and a massive thunderstorm just as I was going to drop off, it's hard to tell! Got up all raring to go today only to find that a major software issue that I thought had been fixed last night has returned again. It's more than a bit of a pain in the bum because it stops me from working properly, so it's actually costing me money too. Sigh. Anyway, that's not going to knock me off track. Today it's going to be another tough day for my arms/shoulders because I'm going to trim the hedges in the garden (although not with shears, unless I manage to blow up the hedge trimmer just by looking at it which I recently did with the lawnmower). I'm also going out to treat myself to some new workout clothes.

Well I'm in 35, near Fougères, so depending on where you are I can make it quite soon! Workout clothes make sense, though, because you're happy sweating in them. So when it's 30 odd degrees they're the only clothes that feel right. And never mind what you look like. You've got at least a +5 Smug modifier against anyone you meet just by wearing them. Another vote for rooibos tea here, I love it.

Enjoy your day - sounds like an excellent opportunity to get some more life in!

No you're not, cos I am so there. I think you'd need to add ice cubes to it, though. At the moment our cold tap water is coming out lukewarm even after it's been run for 5 minutes. Yuck.

@ deerskin. Good job with the planks! I'm glad it's not just me - yeah, I wondered if it's the extra exercise. Maybe, cos last night when I hadn't done a load of working out ("only" 45 minutes of zumba that left me a melted Morlock on the floor plus my feeble attempt at planks and so on) I couldn't get to sleep to begin with and then I was awake for ages in the night. MInd you, it's got hot again here, and trying to sleep in a bedroom that's 25 degrees is not my idea of soporific. I'll be able to prove my theory tonight, I think, because today I stupidly decided to do a multi-cache geocache that I've been thinking of doing for a while, which is about 2 hours of walking through a nearby forest. I even had a planned cheat meal at a restaurant beforehand (no wine, no dessert, no coffee, and it was all really sound paleo stuff - fish for both courses - though I did have two bits of bread). However, when I finally got to the starting point I realised that the temperature was 36 degrees. And the start of the trail was 1 km with no shade. Hmmm. Anyway, I'd have given up at that stage normally, but I went and did it. It was actually really good - a total failure in geocaching terms as I got lost and missed the coordinates for the second stage so I couldn't have found the final cache anyway, and by that time my Runtastic was telling me that I'd walked 7.5 km and my feet were *killing*me. (One of my new pairs of Brook's Green Silence maybe wasn't such a good choice for walking in - I should have gone for the old soft pair!) And I'd run out of water. So by the time I got back to the car I was extremely hot and tired, but felt good and the forest was beautiful. And I discovered a lake where I can go swimming about 10 minutes from here. And this evening I went out and attacked the garden with a pair of shears for 45 minutes, which means that I can hardly type my hands are shaking so much. So, according to my theory either I'll sleep like the dead because I've done all this stuff today and won't be able to stir tomorrow before about midday or I won't be able to sleep properly at all because it's too hot. I can't wait to find out, I'm knackered!

Go you - humble pie is the only pie you can eat really big bits of and it always just does you good! I haven't dared weigh myself yet since Monday because if I saw 2.5 pounds off by now and then some of that had bounced back next week, I'd give up. But you are right in your diagnosis, I think. Re: the gigantic reading list, have you tried audiobooks? Great for while you're doing interval running!

Shame about the exam, but maybe if you come back to it next year you'll be filled with enthusiasm. If you like I could look at your translations after you've finished and get my red pen out! (Is your other half French, then?) I try to specialise in archaeology (my original background) but it's hard to do that as archaeologists and museums tend not to have much money, so I do lots of different things. Currently working on a huge engineering thing about a bridge in Sweden (I do Swedish-English too). How are your goals going this week? I'm on track, or will be if I can get off this chair and go and do my zumba workout!

Grank is right, if you already used up all those calories while hiking that's OK. Nia Shanks just wrote a really good post about this but I can't find it online and it's a bit long to post the whole thing. This is the key bit, though: "Some people may assume I get in some extra workouts, or perhaps I fast to "work off" the extra calories. But do you know what I do for "damage control"? Nothing. Or, if you prefer my southern slang, not a dang thing. Many years ago I used to make myself do an extra, or longer, workout to "work off" the excess calories. But, all that did was make me hate exercise since it was being used as a form of punishment. So, what should you do when you over indulge or eat too much junk food? Two words -- move on. Instead of trying to figure out how to "un-do" all of the food you ate choose to put those extra calories to good use and go set some personal records with a kick ass workout." So now you know what you should be doing today!

@ L'irlandaise - Perky. Ooh, there's nothing worse. @ deerskin - Thanks for the encouragement! You just need to learn to love planks, (they're on my list of things to do today, and I'm prevaricating like mad - I've just spent 40 minutes deleting old emails. That's how much I don't want to do them). On an update-type note, this sleeping thing is really hard. After 8 hours' sleep I just *cannot* get out of bed in the morning. What's that about? You'd think that if you only got 6 hours a night it'd be harder. Today I had my alarm set for 7.30 and finally rolled out of bed at gone 9. Just as well I work from home, really.

@ L'Irlandaise - yeah, side planks are some way off! Though you can try to do them from your knees, did you know? (I didn't). So you can work up to the proper ones. I can't do them from my knees either. Still, I had a good flop about yesterday trying to do them! I also found a very good video (another John Sifferman thing) showing the correct form for the normal planks which I think will be very useful. I'd kind of been instinctively doing the right things but without knowing what I was trying to do. Thanks for the video link - I think I learn best when I'm seeing someone else show how to do this kind of thing, so that's really helpful. I laughed when I heard her accent - is this some kind of Northern Irish fitness conspiracy? Les nuls seem to have gone a bit quieter, but unfortunately their younger brothers (les petits voyous) were back with their scooters last night. Back and forth, back and forth. What is it with French teenage boys? Have they never heard of girls?

Light beer? Margarine? The only thing I can think of that would be worse is low garlic garlic bread. (I mean, why bother?) I do understand the tea habit, it's just I've been away from the UK for a while and I've got out of the habit of milk in it (especially in France where it's not always easy to get proper milk. UHT...yack.) I drink 4 or 5 cups a day. And then I go back to the UK occasionally and I get drenched in 4 or 5 cups an hour... Really interesting that you managed to quit bread. It's always been my big problem, though I too substitute it with crispbread. If you're getting the thin Wasa ones there shouldn't be much sugar in them. It's the fat crunchy brown ones that have lots of sugar in. How's your French qualification going? I'd never heard of it before (and I'm a French-English translator, so you'd think someone would have mentioned it somewhere). Sounds like not much fun but very useful. I think I'd enjoy the oral bits, but I couldn't write French without Word to correct my spelling/grammar.

Hi Deerskin, Congratulations on those 4 points! I too have that worry about quitting, and that self-knowledge (or is it self-fear?) makes me stay in my comfort zone because I know I'm going to give up on whatever I try. But I've decided that I'm just not going to accept that any more. So I think you need to look at what you've learned in life and pick out things you *have* changed and stuck to and use those as evidence that you *can* do it. Or alternatively look at someone else like you and see how they've made exceptional changes in their life. For example, you're way ahead of me when it comes to weights and even the fact that you go to the gym to work out. Yet I bet you weren't born being able to do a leg press, or knowing what it meant. You must have learnt that and taken it on board at some point. So don't ever doubt yourself, there are plenty of other people who are only too ready to do that for you!

Hej Eboncat, Love the idea of putting your son's photo on your motivational message - that's a really good tactic. I'm another one that's trying to get more sleep, too (maybe we can have NF get-togethers where we go to a really comfortable hotel and all just get loads of sleep?) I completely understand your fear of gaining back what you've lost - but what you've lost was fat, and what you'll be gaining is muscle. So when you see the scale go up, that's success! Make sure you take loads of pre-challenge photos of yourself with very few clothes on, though, so the dreaded scales don't drain your confidence in what you're doing. Good luck with your quests!

Hi Debello, Sounds like you've put a good deal of thought into your plan, here, and I'm sure you'll hit your results. I'm interested that you've already done a month of very strict Paleo - how did that make you feel? Did you notice a drop in weight? For your non-fiction books, if you haven't already read it I'd definitely recommend "The New PsychoCybernetics". If you haven't come across it before, the title sounds a bit dubious, but it's THE book for setting goals and achieving ridiculous amounts of stuff in a short time. I could go on and on about it, but you may already be a convert so I'll shut up. Good luck with the quest!

Got a good start today, I think - ate well, did some core exercises (I'm even less fit in that area than I thought! - think I may have pulled my neck doing that, sigh), ran/scrambled for 3 km up and down the hills behind the house, had 8 hours in bed last night and just off to have another 8. Oddly I felt really tired this morning, more so than with my normal 6ish hours. And again this afternoon, so I went and did my core stuff then to wake myself up again! No time to even think about website today, but it's a very busy start to the week in terms of work, so that's fine.

Shiny stickers! Shiny stickers! They're a motivation in themselves! But your motivation is truly excellent; I think it's totally in line with the idea that thin is not fit, *strong* is fit. To be strong you need to eat. To be thin you need to deprive yourself of everything. Mind you, I can't imagine how you manage not to eat carbs and sugar - even with 8 hours' sleep - if you work at Starbucks. Or do you just get sick of all their stuff? If you've stocked your larder up with lots of healthy ingredients, it should be easy to chuck together a good meal for yourself and your husband. Just make sure that he does the washing up The ghost hunt sounds like fun - I'm scared of the dark, but the research sounds interesting!

Hi L'Irlandaise, Wow - you're right, we do have quite a lot of things in common. Especially the bread struggles. I'm currently living OPPOSITE the bakery. Every time I open the shutters in the morning, there it is. And it's one of these ones that's open from 7am to 8pm, en continu.... So I've stopped opening the shutters on the front of the house. What's your bread tactic during this challenge and your longer term quest? I'm very encouraged by your pushup story; I need to just keep at it. More tales of pushup success from you will be read with great attention. Re: drinking water, I agree with GypsyHeart. And have you tried decaffeinated (dethéiné) tea? (Depending on what you read,) the diuretic properties of the tea are removed with the theine, and so you can count it as water. Although I don't think you can if you're going to drink it with milk in! Sympathise with the French admin tasks. I don't mind the admin so much, it's the blasted fonctionnaires, so good luck with them.

OK, so grading: Weight loss. (Actually this should be called fat burning, let's get the language right from the start.) Fat burning: A: 3 kg B: 2.5 kg C: 2 kg D: 1.5 kg E: 1 kg F: 0 kg or increase ( ) How am I going to achieve this? Well I'm having a starchy carb/cheese/chocolate/alcohol free week this week as my husband is away, which makes it easier, and when he's back I'll try to avoid starchy carbs and keep the rest at as low a level as possible (not easy in France). Also by doing running/strenuous walking 6 times a week, and weights at least 3 times. Pushup: Actually, this is probably going to be more about core strength, which I'll measure by plank time without wobbling, but even a single real pushup will be a straight A, seeing as I've never done one ever ever. A: 2+ minutes or at least one proper pushup B: 2 minutes C: 1.75 minutes D: 1.5 minutes E: 1.25 minutes F: 1 minute I'll have a go at these every couple of days and check on my progress. I'm going to be doing some core exercises to try to help in this area. In terms of planks, I'm currently able to do 40-50 seconds on a good day, but not without wobbling and groaning and with my lower back feeling like it's going to go pop. Sleep: I'm aiming for 6 days out of 7, which means 36 days in total. Graded against how many days I actually get myself into bed and set the alarm for a minimum of 8 hours later, not by how much sleep I get (I'm an insomniac so sometimes sleep is just not possible even if I'm in bed!) A: 36 days B: 30 days C: 24 days D: 18 days E: 12 days F: less than 6 days My life goal, the website, will be a straight pass/fail.

Thanks, L'irlandaise. Good advice about the sieste; worth thinking of if I don't achieve 8 hours at night. I finally got to sleep last night at 4am, having lulled myself to sleep thinking "when the zombie apocalypse comes, I'm going to deliberately go and get myself bitten and then I'm going to have a really good time chasing les nuls and infecting them". Nice to hear about the pushups too, although I really don't believe that I could ever enjoy them! But I'm very willing to be proved wrong. And what I'd really like to love is/are planks! I could really do with upping my CHA - I'm one of those people who are fine when they're behind a keyboard but just always manage to say the wrong thing *every* time in person.

Thanks deerskin, and greetings to a fellow apprentice ranger! - yeah, I'm thinking about how I can break that down because I know that if I leave my goals vague as to how I'm going to achieve them, I won't!

Hi all, I'm a lurker but this challenge is coming at the right time for me, so I'm delurking. I've got a pretty chaotic life, and for years I've been thinking "I'll lose weight when...", or "I'll start looking after myself when..." and of course whatever it is never happens or there's something else in the way. However, I have made progress with my fitness over the last couple of years; I've been doing a few different things in terms of weight lifting and built up quite a lot of muscle, and I successfully did the C25K last year, thanks in large part to a pair of minimalist running shoes. Now I am finally starting to feel that I might at some point be a runner, though I'm tending more towards being a Ranger than a Scout as I get bored if I run too far, even with a talking book, and in any case I really fancy trail running. I've also just taken up geocaching which is something else Rangery. I feel that it's time to take it a step further, though, and I've had a couple of revelations that have helped me understand where I'm going. For one, I've finally realised that I'm not the unsporty type that I've always thought I was. Which was obvious, really; when I was left to my own devices as a kid I'd always be riding my bike or climbing a cliff or swimming or dancing, but I HATED team games. I was a school refuser, only in my case I loved school, I just hated PE lessons. I've also been thinking about my motivation for making changes and it essentially just comes down to being fed up with not making changes. I'm fed up being fattish (probably 10kg and 10% bf excess). I'm fed up not being able to stop eating - bread in particular. I'm fed up waiting for things to happen so that I can start having a life. I'm fed up not being in control, and wasting enormous amounts of mental energy comparing myself to other people, pigeonholing them and thinking "she's thinner than me". And it occurred to me - I've done LOADS of stuff in my life. Lived in 3 separate countries and in 40-odd addresses at the last count, I can speak 3 languages, I've started my own business which is getting to the point of doing pretty well, I drove a 7.5 tonne truck across Europe in the worst storm for 40 years, I've put on techno gigs, renovated two and a half houses, I've worked in IT support, sold property, dug potatoes (in a greenhouse - in the summer!), cleaned hotels... I've got an MA in Archaeology and a rescued cat with a very strange backstory. So it's not that I haven't earned the EXP. It's just that I've hoarded them as though they were GP, refusing to allocate them to going up a level in case... what? In case something else came along and I might need to use them for that? I'm 45, this is the only life I'm going to get and I need to start living it now! In fact, that's my motivation. OK, well that's come out a bit small, but anyway, it's there. So my first challenge to myself is to do the following: Main goals:1. Lose 3 kg2. Manage one real pushup 3. Get 8 hours' sleep a day. Comments on the above:1. Starting weight 72.3 kg, but I'll check that again on Monday morning. 2. I've never done a real pushup in my life. I'm pretty good at inclined ones, but I *still* haven't the strength to do a proper one. I think it's now down to core strength (lower back in particular) rather than shoulders, and I've just come across some good core exercises by John Sifferman, so that should help. 3. This is going to be the toughy. Given that it's currently 2.31 am, I've been up since 7 am and I'm being kept out of bed for the second night running by the brain dead residents of the small village where I currently live this is going to be impossible, but if I am at least in bed for 8 hours that's going to be an improvement. Working for myself has meant burning the candle at both ends with a vengeance. Life goal:Get my fecking website finally sorted. I've had the domain name for more than a year and done nothing with it, so it's more than time. Anyway, I can hardly keep my eyes open any more, so I'll think about grading these tomorrow and hope that exhaustion will take the place of peace and quiet in helping me sleep.