Ultrageek

Hey there! Things are going okay so far, thank you. It's not 100% smooth sailing, for example we're struggling with the food situation some. I'm not used to having mostly fresh veg in that won't last from one week's shop to the next. And lunches are proving problematic. I rarely feel like setting to and cooking first thing after getting home from work although mostly that's just me being a bit lazy. On the positive side I did my workouts and finished 3 12 kilo sets without having to put the dumbbells down halfway through a set. That's a win so far. I learned how to cook fish. At least I successfully grilled fish for the first time. Not sure I'd dignify what I did with the word 'recipe' but there's only so much you can do with paleo. I need to explore that. Speaking of, my diet was not as strict as I would have liked. Having slightly run out of money and ingredients and with two kids to feed we compromised a bit this week. Going to see if I can do better going forward. I'm probably rambling by now so that'll do for this post. Also wanted to say thank you for the support from AngellaMarie and fleaball and sorry I didn't reply sooner.

Welcome along! First off, best of luck with your goals! I am also bad at the getting up thing so I can sympathise there. I also had physio to do once upon a time for shoulder pain. Legitimately changed my life. Honestly I can't stress enough how much I'm rooting for you on that one. And don't stop before your doc gives you the nod, but you probably knew that already. Once again, very best of luck on your first challenge. Keep us posted.

Hey there AngellaMarie. I'm currently doing a kit I found of a geisha holding a fan. If I knew how to put up a pic I would show you. Maybe I'll have figured it out by the time I actually have something to show! In other news although things are going well so far, I've done my workouts and eaten 95% paleo (hunter's chicken has cheese on it. Also not sure about the coleslaw with lunch's salad) but today has been a bad day for cravings. So often while i was out shopping, especially trying to make my basket up to a minimum card spend I wanted to throw a cola and a packet of crisps or a chocolate bar in there. I could really use a supportive word or two from some amazing friends. Volunteers welcome. Also does anyone know why front lunges might be hurting my knee? As in 'what am I doing wrong that makes that happen'. I don't want to have to fail a challenge so soon over something I can avoid or fix. Also should I be concerned at all that I seem to be really struggling to cope with increasing the weight on my dumbbells by even a kilo a week? I won't lie, I really thought I'd find it easier going just gradually working up to one extra kilo over a week. Maybe what I'm doing with the dumbbells is bad for building strength. If anyone can advise me or point me to someone who can that'd be awesome, thanks.

Good luck! Having said that, be a little careful declaring what you will do! Not reaching those goals or thinking that you won't reach them can be very stressful and upsetting. In extreme cases it can lead to rage-quitting in the worst way and leaving you worse off than before. Obviously you should be sincere in wanting to achieve your goals, but a little wiggle room can be surprisingly helpful. I know the feeling of being in debt and it's not a happy one. I do not yet know the feeling of having savings. That might make a good quest next month, actually. Oh, try not to stress too much about your weight, especially if you're exercising because muscle weighs more than fat. Staci, the powerlifting hero, is a prime example of that. Check out that section with special attention to the comparison of two more recent photos. You'd never guess which photo she weighed more in if you weren't in on that secret. Any road up, best of luck with your challenges. I truly hope you ace them all and wish you every happiness with your boyfriend.

Simple things executed well are usually much better than ambitious things that don't come out the way you wanted or just fail outright. I'm starting to think I may have overdone mine somewhat but time will tell. Sorry to hear last year was not a good one but I'm glad to hear you have people to help out some. Best of luck with your new job and your challenge. Grizzy - my friends who do yoga recommend watching the video through at least once from the comfort of your armchair or sofa to avoid just that problem. And / or being in a position where you can see the screen where possible. Hope that helps.

Breakfast is difficult but worthwhile. You are FAR from the only one there. I found it helped me when I switched to having bacon end eggs for breakfast. It did mean getting up earlier, but seriously! Bacon! Every day! What's not cool about that? I might be exaggerating a little but still . . . I also hear you on the whole 'taking vitamins' thing. I, too, suck at taking medication I'm supposed to. Also at sticking to an exercise schedule. The important thing if you miss a day is just to go right ahead and do it the next day and don't worry about it for a second longer. Just be sure to take a rest day after if applicable. Quite often I do my Wednesday workout on a Thursday and my Friday one on Saturday by Monday, I'm right back where I should be again. If you fail at anything just say 'Whoops!' leave it at that and try again. If you have a snack you didn't mean to don't sweat it. Your diet isn't blown for the day, week or whatever. Figure out why you went wrong and then get right back to doing it right! The time to be awesome is always now and you always have the power to be awesome! Good luck with your challenge! Never give up, never surrender!

Thank you to petefeet and fleaball for your words of wisdom. Checking out what others are doing and especially taking the couple of minutes to offer the encouragement I'm after to others makes a lot of sense. After all if I can't be bothered, how can I expect anyone else to be? You get out what you put in, right? Also I've seen a few variations on the theme of "Try something out. If it works, keep doing it. If not, change it up a bit." After all, who can know what'll work for someone they never even met? Hopefully I haven't declared my intention to do something monumentally dumb, but no-one seems to be of that opinion, so cool. Well, I HAVE stated my intention to lift heavier than everyone else eventually, but that's a pretty long term goal. More of a vision statement, actually. Honestly it'll never happen but I don't intent to reach a magic number and say "That's enough now." I'm just going to keep on working over time and see what happens. Obviously genetics are a thing and people DO have upper limits. Otherwise we could just lift slightly heavier weight forever and there'd be men and women bench pressing tanks by their 60s. . . . that's a pretty awesome image, actually. Anyways, thank you for your support. I'm going to go support someone else now and then do some exercises!

Hi there! I've been trying to slowly shift towards a healthier better me since I stumbled upon this forum mid / late November and today, it seems, the time has come to write down and prepare for my very first challenge. At this time I have no clever theme or flashy graphics. Heck, I barely even have a plan but the only bad challenge is the one you don't do (not literally true, but you get the idea) so here goes nothing. If I've badly missed the mark, I'd appreciate some kind soul giving me a gentle nudge in the right direction. As I understand the format there is a main quest, three sub quests and an optional side quest. Let's see if we can make this work. Main quest: continue the trend of people asking, "Have you lost weight?" when they see me again after a month or two. In order to 'complete' this it will be important to focus on three main areas: Sub-quest 1) Since the most important part of a new, healthier lifestyle is diet, it is my goal to maintain and intensify my paleo eating habits. Since things are easier to resist if they are not forbidden I will have one day a week to enjoy the old things I actually miss. This list grows smaller every week, but it still exists. The highest level of achievement will be awarded for only eating non-paleo foods on Fridays. I do not want to reward failure for this even a little. This is all or nothing. Either I'm doing it right, or I'm doing it wrong and with so many delicious meals to eat, there's really no reason to do it wrong. I'm not talking about accidentally including a cooking ingredient I shouldn't, I mean going for the box of chocolates or bottle of cola. That's failure in this case. I suppose this one's scored like golf. One point for everything I know I shouldn't eat. The goal is to end with a score of zero. I suppose I could take my end score away from a stat bonus if I use this again when I make a character. Last time I looked you can't do that until half way through your first challenge. Might need to update. Sub-quest 2) Since it can become stale and boring to eat the same things over and over again, I intend to learn one new paleo recipe a week and incorporate it into my menu. This one is nice and easy to track. Full marks for 4 new recipes, successfully cooked or not. As long as I cooked them, they count. I suppose I could award lesser marks for fewer recipes tried, but I really see no reason to fail. Sub-quest 3) Since there is more to training than eating well I shall be continuing with my weight training. I have reached a point where I am needing to put the weights down just before the end of my third set to rest my fore arms therefore I'm pretty sure the time has come to slow down progression somewhat. I'd like to finish this week with a 12, 13, 14 progression and next week do 13, 14, 15; 14, 15, 15; 15, 15, 15 but honestly I'm not sure I'll be doing them properly. Might be time to step back and admit that I can't simply will myself to be able to achieve more than I'm capable of because it'd be tidier. The spirit is willing but the flesh is spongy and bruised. Therefore I shall accept my limitations for now and see if I can complete a set of 11s tonight moving from 11 to 12k in week one, 12 to 13k in week two, 13 to 14k in week three and 14 to 15k in week four. If I can end my challenge by doing three sets with 15 kilos and good form, I'll be well poised for the future. This should probably be graded on doing the workouts rather than achieving the weights. Seems like a bad idea to push myself past what's safe for the sake of imaginary numbers. The effort is the important thing. The results will happen by themselves. Or not. As long as I'm working out and eating well, I should see improvement. Side quest) I'm always starting things but I rarely finish them. Therefore my side quest will be to make daily progress on my cross stitch. Not even a set amount because I never know how long I'll have but as long as I sit down to it every day and do something it will be a lot more finished by the end of four weeks. So there you have it. My first challenge outline. Constructive criticism welcomed because I'm really not sure I've done this right but I'm off to get ready and give it a go. Check my battle log for details as and when.

Hello again to anyone following this thread. It's been a while since I last posted but I'm still alive and still committed to the changes I've made. Just counting down the days until the diet change to 'mostly paleo' goes official. We're most of the way there now but there's still some leeway before 1/1/16. I heard a really motivational song on the radio on Christmas eve. Went like this: Win or lose, sink or swim / one thing is certain: we'll never give in / side by side, hand in hand / we all stand together. Made me think of this site and this community. I'm also reminded to mention that I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, if you celebrate it and even if you're not Christian or religious at all, I hope you saw family and friends and had a great holiday. I'm probably going to leave this thread now in favour of posting all my updates to my battle log. If anyone wants to keep tabs on me, watch my progress or anything else, feel free to follow that or friend me, message me or anything else, really. Very shortly I'll be doing my first challenge and then I really won't be a newbie introducing myself any more.

Wowzers! I can't believe how long it's been since I posted! Eh. Not important any more. So, Christmas is out the way, all the junk has been eaten. I'm through my chocolates and stuff and the fridge and freezer are about 90% clear. Probably going to throw the rest of the frozen veg in a huge vegetable mash for some bubble'n squeak tomorrow. Frankly I don't know how anyone who knows what fresh veg is can eat the frozen stuff. It loses almost everything that makes it good. The kids and the missus are still perfectly happy with how we're eating. To be fair they'yr pretty much un-fussed about the concept and are happy to tuck in to whatever hot meal I put in front of them. I'm looking forward to the new challenges. Still not sure I want to be called a rebel though. Can you be Sith and a rebel? Probably better to not think about it too much and let my passion to not be called a rebel fuel me through my first challenge so I can be anything else. At this point I'm not sure what I want to do most. I would probably have been an adventurer for a while but that's changed now and I'm NOT being called a Rebel longer than I have to. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. I'll have four mandatory weeks to think about it. In other news, my program of doing the ten exercise super-sets continues according to plan. I missed Christmas mostly due to interrupted routine and going places, having guests etc. but I did my work out on the Saturday instead so I'm set to go again Monday with no issues. It is now Quite Challenging to finish all three super-sets and I had to put down a weight briefly before the 9th exercise on the 3rd round. I finished 9, 10 and 11k yesterday and I'm going to go for 10, 11 and 12 tomorrow. I'd like to get up to 15 if I can and then follow a slower progression like 15, 15, 16 on Mon, 15, 16, 16 Wed and 16, 16, 16 Fri ready to start 16, 16, 17 next Mon. A less dramatic increase to be sure, but I'm pretty sure one cannot simply add an extra kilo to one's dumbbells every work out indefinitely. Must focus on getting plenty of good protein in myself between workouts and lots of rest. the 6wc was going to be to add 5 kilos if possible so I finished up using 20k dumbbells but now we've been cut down to 4 weeks, that's going to have to be revised. Still feeling pretty bummed about my gut. Then again, I've really not been doing anything serious about it for that long. I'm going to use that feeling to keep me going when exercise gets tough and bad food looks good. I guess I was hoping I'd see results a little faster. I keep reading about how easy it's supposed to be for guys to just melt body fat off but it ain't that easy for me. I do worry that the body I'd like simply isn't in my genetics and if that's true then all the exercise in the world won't get me where I want to be. That would suck, but I have no evidence to back this fear up yet. If my first three 4wc's go according to plan, THEN we'll see if there's been any noticeable changes. If not, after that I might have to see if anyone knows a better fat burning routine and try something else. I guess if after a year of eating and drinking better and exercising I'm not closer to where I want to be then . . . well I'm not even sure that's possible, but at least I'll know I've tried.

Today went pretty well. Still managing to keep to a mon / wed / fri schedule for work outs and although the weight is low it's increasing gradually. Monday was indeed 4, 5 and 6 kilo sets and today was 5, 6 and 7. I'm wondering if I want to stop at 10 or 15 or just see how far I can keep on going. Eating is similarly going well. I'm getting a lot more vegetables in my diet now which can't be a bad thing. Until next year I'm not going to do an itemised list of what I ate every day but I'm pretty sure that (with a few exceptions) everything I ate today was on the paleo list. I'm honestly not going to get too worked up over it until next year because people will keep giving me chocolate. Part of me wants to take the damage over time and part of me wants to tank it all in one burst. I'm not really sure what's going to be best. I think trying to fix things so that the DoT runs out right around new years will be best and then it's not lingering, interfering with my progress. If I actually tried to tank the whole box of chocolate I'd probably just be sick. The peanut butter fudge is going quickly, but when it's gone, it's gone. (And how! I only get it when my mum-in-law sends it over from America) One change that's sticking pretty well so far is drinking water. Tea and coffee, without milk and sugar, just taste too bitter for comfort. And I've never liked bitter. One thing I have in my favour is that I've never been an alcohol drinker. Maybe two or three times a year. Birthday, Christmas and new year's eve. And I'm talking about one drink to mark the occasion, not drinking for the day. Giving up cola and Dr. Pepper hasn't been easy, but now it's not in the house it isn't a temptation any more. I keep hoping that some day, maybe next week, I'll see some slim, toned stranger in the mirror but I'm pretty sure it's going to take at least a solid month of eating right and working out besides before I even feel the change in my trousers. Still, I live in hope. Just knowing there are people out there who care about my progress, even a little, helps me keep going. Thanks girls and guys. You know who you are and you're awesome! Early night tonight now. I'll see if I can check in again tomorrow.

Thanks for the post and the offer Fitnessgurl. I think I managed to puzzle everything out, but I'm a LONG way from sure on that bit. I guess the rules change won't really impact me on account of I've never done one before so I won't know any different. Maybe the time I joined WAS for the better after all. Somehow it all turns out well. I don't know how. It's a mystery. At any rate I'm super stoked to take part in my first 6wc next year and I'm NOT using the delay as an excuse to go back to all my old ways hard for another three weeks. I'm keeping up the weights routine (see my battle log for details, both of my current routine, my stronglifts 'progress', such as it was, and my diet, if such things interest you. I'd be lying if I said everyone's encouragement didn't help me make the right choices. If all of you are anything like me, seeing that someone else on the path has made another milestone or even just kept making progress towards it makes me feel good. Both for them and because if they can, there's no reason I can't too! So a big thank you to everyone who's encouraged me along so far and will do in the future! I won't let you down! Time to go to work now and have another great day! (I love my job)

Hey there projectme. Is that Peach's crown in your profile pic? Always good to hear from other people. In all honesty my grand scheme to go paleo has settled down to a more gradual transition as we eat through what we had in the house from before and my new routine is building up from empty dumbbells to a weight I'm comfortable with yet challenged by. Mr. Scotty, good to hear from you again. You are a man (I think) after my own heart! Only the other day I was telling another newbie not to wait for the new year. I am exercising and slowly ramping up my weights for the next two weeks at least. What I am slightly unhappy about is not getting to join a guild until mid Feb when I started posting Dec 1 but I was reading the site and forums since mid-late Nov. No biggie. I don't need to be in a NF guild to lift. I just really want to get on board with the fun and games of the role play side too! But yes. The time is always now. So true.

Seems I've been pretty lax with this lately. I have no excuse I just haven't been doing it. Okay, so today was spent LARPing. Lots of fun in the fresh air. I need to swap to a much more active class. As much fun as my satyr demonologist is (one part Disney's Hercules' Philoctetes, one part Disney's Hercules' Hades, one part Beetlejuice) he's REALLY lazy and doesn't get involved in ANY avoidable activity. As soon as I can manage, I think I should switch to a barbarian berserker. First I have to look better in a leather harness and fur loincloth. Anyway, since I was out and about a lot I have no idea what times any of this happened, but breakfast was fruit and coffee, lunch was fruit, fruit juice and some kind of wrap and dinner was a bacon cheeseburger with chips and cola in a pub. Water to drink through the day. The 'fat burning' workout is going well. Still far too easy but patience is important. I'm going to work up to a decent weight instead of deciding "Yeah, 15 kilos for five reps of ten exercises sounds like it should be easy enough" and then having to stop half way through and unload the dumb bells. If I can work up to 15k over the next 4 weeks and either stay there or go further, then that's awesome. It's not the place to start though. The list was laid out in my last post so I'm not writing it all again. Suffice to say yesterday I did it at 3, 4 and 5 kilo sets and tomorrow I'll be doing it at 4, 5 and 6 kilos. As silly as I feel holding these little nothing weights, I'm still breathing heavier by the end of the super-set just from the movement involved. IF I get the courage to do so (and figure out how) I might post the 'before' pictures I took when I make my first 6wc official.

Hey Scotty! Thanks for your post. I have not figured out my 1RMs yet.I'm not sure how to do that properly. (Do you adjust down til you can or up til you can't? I only have my home weights to work with too) I guess I'll need to know them if I want to post on the leaderboards. Maybe there's a way you can make some kind of best guess based on working weight? Right now I'm focusing on a routine I stumbled across in a livestrong e-mail that says it's good for burning fat. I figure I'll use that as the basis for my first 6wc. If it works as advertised, great. Otherwise back to the drawing board. Once I can SEE my muscle a bit better, I'll work on adding to it. I'm kinda hopeful there's a respectable amount on me already and I never even knew. I'm a little concerned right now that I need to have spent the hundred dollars to join in properly and build a character and everything, which sort of sucks this close to Christmas. Maybe in the new year I'll have the spare cash for that. It's quite a lot to drop on something you can't hold at this time of year. (I have a missus and two kids plus assorted family members, their kids and various friends and THEIR kids) PS Just found out that I found these forums at THE worst possible time for 6wc. Too late to really join in because it was already under way, then when I find out I kinda could have jumped in anyway it was too late to do even that, then I find out there's a TWO week gap between this one and the next. So I'm not going to get to be part of a guild for about three months after I first joined. Honestly I'm a little bummed but realistically it's not a big deal. Just my lousy luck. Eh. First world problems. What can I say?