Aranrya

We are assassins now! Don't forget to change your icon!

ALRIGHTY! I made it! I get to be an Assassin this time around! For Great Justice! Now, I haven't figured out how to do all that fancy-shmancy themed gif insertations and colory doodads y'all long time members do, but I DO know how to kick some goals in the teeth. Below are said goals which will be teethkicked. 1. No sugary bits! 0%0% This basically means that I'm cutting out some of the high-sugar things I usually eat/drink, such as honey, coffee creamer, and perhaps an apple here and there. I eat plenty of carbs with all the veggies I've gotten used to eating; I'm just trying to cut back on some of the simple carbs. I'm not giving myself credit for the starting day, because I came up with this idea in the afternoon, and had already eaten aforementioned sugary bits. Just started and already at 0 percent! Wheee! The honey/creamer cut is also going to be my Lent fast this year, so I have spiritual impetus to maintain this one! 2. Hero's Journey Workout. 4%4% This is hosted by the peoplez at Darebee. Daily bodyweight workout routine. I'm going to push for level 2 every day, but I'm going to keep it cool; if I know I can't do it, I'm not going to hurt myself. Just doing level 1 on everything is fine with me, as it's still a great workout. 3. Sticking with the veggies! 4%4% This one is just to make sure I get a good serving of veggies every day. I've been doing great on this since the last challenge, and I don't want to stop. But I feel like I'd slack off if I gave myself room to, so I'm shoring up my slackitude borders and setting the same goal this time around. 4. Translate, analyze, and comment on the entire book of Colossians. 0%0% This one is my Level Up My Life quest. Last challenge I read for an hour a week, and that just wasn't specific enough. I read theology, yes, but I want to actually get my hands dirty this time. So I'm going to translate the whole book from the Greek, play with the syntax where applicable, and check out several commentaries on the book as I go along. By the time I'm done, I want to have some good material to teach from should the need arise. That's it! Forward, Nerds!

RAWR. RAWWWWR. BBWW number EIGHTEEN and the FINAL WORKOUT for this challenge! COMPLETE! And just for the hell of it? I DID FOUR CIRCUITS! Yeah, I just FELT LIKE IT. Also, everything else is on point for being an AWESOME FINISH to the first challenge!

I'm currently having an existential crisis. I accidentally forgot to measure my coffee creamer, and probably put a good three tablespoons in there, instead of the requisite two. I do not want to waste the coffee, but I also do not want to fail in my challenge! My thought process is as follows: in order to maintain an "A" rating (defined as greater-than-or-equal-to 90%) in that particular category, I must miss no more than two days. I have already lost one, and this would be the final miss before dropping to a "B" rating. However, given our relative proximity to the completion of the challenge, and the fact that the coffee is, in fact, REALLY stinkin' good, I will treat myself to this coffee, and not feel HORRIBLY guilty (minor guilt is unavoidable). Existential crisis resolved.

OK SO YEAH! Long time no post. Except it's been, what, a week? Yeah ok a week. Today's workout was just fine! I definitely did all of my exercises over the little vacation I took. I didn't eat well; in fact I ate like crap. But I got my veggies in where I could, and my in-laws bought some apples for me, so I was able to hit that challenge every day except Sunday. Same with the coffee. Sunday was the day we flew back, and there was just too much airport time for me not to have a coffee, and apples/veggies weren't exactly everywhere. I probably could have been a little better that day, though, so I'm giving myself marks off for that day in both those categories. Otherwise, just plugging along! Halfway through the last week of this challenge! Oh, I should mention that this was BBWW 17. I'm keeping track.

BBWW number 14 TEETHKICKED WHABAM! Actually it was mediocre as far as difficulty was concerned. Still working on push-ups and lunges; everything else seems to be coming along. Still proud of my 30 second planks. I'm leaving Michigan partly against my will tomorrow. My wife has an awards banquet to attend for her company on Friday night, and I am invited. I am a dutiful husband and will be attending with her. Naturally our kids come too, and the company is paying for their tickets as well, so it's easy to go. I just hate airport security T_T I'm always afraid they're going to find something I knew nothing about. "Sir what's this" "I have no idea" "This looks like a 12 inch blade sir" "Yes... Yes it does" "Sir why is there a 12 inch blade up your butt sir?" "I have no idea. I felt like I had some indigestion earlier. Maybe heartburn." "Sir come with me." T________________T So yeah! Might not be able to hit the apple and veggie pack per day goals, but I'm going to do my darndest to eat extra veggies and get a fruit in there somewhere. If I end up doing well, I'll count it toward my goals. Coffee is going to be interesting, but it will NOT BE LEFT OUT! And you BETCHA I'll be working out on Friday. Best thing about the BBWW is that you can do it ANYWHERE (Even the airport!). "Sir why are you doing push-ups?" "I'm trying...*grunt* to join.... *grunt* the Assassin's Guild!" "Sir come with me."

Everyone is doing all the things, yes? We must to the things! The things which we must do! Must level up and be ASSASSINS!

Just finished BBWW number 13. I dare say it was... easy? I still have a difficult time on the very last one, really just fighting to get myself back up. But I do it, and I feel exactly which muscles are going to be strengthened, and that's cool. Other than that, this time the lunges didn't just drain me, which is a hefty change. So back when, I signed up to get the initial blast of introductory emails from Nerd Fitness. Eventually around came the email encouraging me to take that embarrassing "before" picture that I really didn't want to take. But I said "Wife... take my picture." And she was like "oooook. If you're sure..." And I said "Of course I'm not sure just take the picture." Today I took another picture. And boy am I glad I took the first. There are insane improvements that you don't see until you see yourself side by side in a before and after. I am really actually losing the weight, and the tangible differences are incredibly encouraging. If anyone hasn't done it yet, do it now, and in three or four weeks, take another one. It is very encouraging.

GO GO GO! Sodas = teh suck. Dang. But you've got the perfect attitude: "OH WELL!" GO BE AWESOMER TODAY THAN YOU WERE YESTERDAY!

Ok so this isn't a direct challenge update, but I had to share: I have lost enough fat to be able to fit into my original wedding ring. We never had it resized because it has a specific border, and a "comfort fit" which costs extra to fill in and whatnot. So we eventually just got a very plain gold band for me to wear. But as I type this I am wearing my REAL wedding ring, and it feels awesome. It's still just a little tight, but it slides on and off without having to "work it on" so to speak. WIN! It's these little accomplishments, things I didn't intentionally set out to do, that help make this all worthwhile.

FIFTY PERCENT COMPLETE Y'ALL. Boo yah. Halfway done with the challenge. I'm sitting here today like, "OK! Didn't work out yesterday. Work out today, right? NO?! WHAT DO I DO DURING THE LITTLE ONE'S NAP TIME! Oh read, cuz you haven't done that yet." Idk I just really feel like I need to work out on Sundays, but I don't, and it's weird to feel that way.

BBWW #12 Complete! Success! It wasn't NEARLY as hard as Wednesday's workout. I must be getting over whatever it was, or my body has adapted to the new difficulty, or both. But I couldn't help it: I know I said I was going to chill at the current difficulty and get comfortable with it... but when the first plank came around and 25 seconds was up I was like "meh, what's another 5 seconds?" So I did 30 seconds on all of them. By the time I was finishing my third I was like "Ok 25 seconds please?" then I was like "NO! 30 SECONDS YOU PANSY!" So that happened. Otherwise the rest of my goals are rocking: still doing one apple, one pack of veggies, and 2 tbsp of creamer every day. Haven't gone looking for substitutes to the creamer yet. I'm fairly certain that would tip my willpower points into the negative for each day. I've already dropped my daily Duolingo since I started the challenge. I'm not feeling guilty about it though; I'm doing plenty of other awesome things to make myself better, and these are things that are much higher priority than learning a new language right now. I don't consider it a failure at all, just a temporary thing; I'll speak another language someday, just not now.

When I started out it felt like they didn't last very long. Right now, no, I don't really find them boring, because I'm constantly trying to do them longer/better. Right now I'm focusing on my ability to breathe deeply while holding one, which I've found to be a fun challenge. Keeping my focus on steady breathing makes the 25 seconds feel like nothing. Ok that's not entirely true, but it makes it seem faster than 25 seconds for sure. Maybe when I get up to like, a minute or so, then I'll let you know if they're boring

Oh man. Yes. It feels great about 20 minutes after I'm done, when all my muscles have been stretched back out. But doing it is killer sometimes. Other times it's not too bad. But yeah. Good on ya for chasing that little girl around!

Holy cow. Just finished my 11th BBWW ever. So I noticed that I felt like I was getting a sinus infection (relatively common for me) yesterday, but I seemed to have fought it off. Woke up with similar but milder symptoms today, and again felt fine by lunch time. But ZOH MY GOODNESS I have to be fighting something off because the workout today roflstomped me. I finished it, but baaaaaaarely. Wow. Even the running I do to warm up was killing me. It doesn't help that today I had decided to ramp up on my exercises. Squats are lower than they used to be. For the push-ups I kept my hands where I had most recently moved them to: right beneath my shoulders. Lunges are the same; those are always the hardest ones for me, and I haven't felt like I'm ready to try something harder than what I'm doing now. Dumbbell rows are up to 15 reps now. Planks are up to 25 seconds a piece (and that's definitely my limit right now). Jumping jacks are at 40 per cycle now. Overall: improvement! Getting better, and making it hard for myself again. I felt like I was starting from scratch today, as hard as it all was. But I did every rep again. Friday will be easier because of it. But for now I need to stop trying to do more or make it harder, and focus on getting comfortable with where I'm at before I make a big jump to improve again.

Just one thing! You don't have to do ALL the things, just do A thing. Like Hazard said, something small, controllable, that doesn't use up too many of your Willpower Points to do. Once you do, you can look back and go, "I did the thing! Therefore I am awesome!" Because you are a better person when you have done a thing. And better people are awesome. You have not lost! No way Jose! You might have just started, and then not completed everything you thought you would. But that's ok! It really is. But you can do at least A thing, and that will be a win. Not entirely sure, but maybe just spent all your Willpower Points before you finished your goals. NO Also: NO. You can rock this. Srsly.

I was sooooo tempted to go with Preston. I love that movie so much.

Rocked week one! RAWR. But yeah it wasn't bad at all. I was already building the habits before the challenge started, so I got a head start.

Yesterday's workout was hard and good. Definitely a new PR. Upped the reps on the dumbbell rows, held the planks for longer, and just generally kept good form. Food has been consistently awesome and healthy stuff. An apple every afternoon really seems to give me a good pick-me-up boost of energy that ends up lasting well past dinner time. They're awesome like that. Other than that, fairly mundane first week of the challenge. I know we have today and tomorrow, but that's just an apple and two packs of veggies away from a full 25% across the board.

I would probably pick Jason Bourne. He's not an insanely acrobatic assassin, but he gets where he needs to go to get the job done (then he gets the job done*). Plus he has perfect situational awareness. Those are both traits I would love to have. I'm going to rock this challenge, and I can't wait to get into the Assassin's guild. I'm really excited about bodyweight workouts, as I'm stuck at home most of the time and won't be going to a gym in the foreseeable future. I would love to get into climbing and/or parkour, and have been into martial arts in the past, but mainly for the way they increase my flexibility and reaction times. *

No! No smash the trifle before it assaults your tongue with deliciousness and your middle with unpleasantness! SMASH!

SO! It's in the profile area. You go to Edit Profile, then on the left will be the signature. One of the buttons up where the Bold and Italics and whatnot is a little button that looks like a progress bar, stuck in between the "chat bubble" button and the "twitter" button. Click that, and you'll get a popup that's all intimidating and whatnot. Said popup has three features. 1. Dropdown. It should say "progress bar." Don't change anything there. 2. It's as if somebody sneezed color words above the box. No idea what all that means, except for the last thing, which is the # followed by letters or numbers. This sets the color of your progress bar, and is called a hex code. Basically, if you google "pea green hex" the first thing that pops up will show you what you need to put after the # to get pea green (in this case, 99BD4B). So to make your progress bar pea green, put #99BD4B in this box. 3. Put whatever percent you're at in the last, biggest box. 110%110% Later, if you want to go into your signature and edit it, it will have a little line of code that represents the bar. Looks like {progress='#hexcode'}110{/progress} only with straight brackets instead of curvy. If you want to change the color, simply replace the hex code with the new color, and if you want to change the percent, just change the number in between the bracketed bits. Hooray! Yes. Ugggh sums it up lol. Although it's been OK half the days. The other half have been just like "what is this brown stuff and why am I drinking it?!" I'm certain half the fat on my body is from creamer. Someone else above mentioned coconut additives. I need to get out there and give some of them a good try.

A profile pic! Another milestone of anxiety-stomping epicness! I too am working toward the assassins. I really like the NF bodyweight workout. Glad to hear your husband is getting in on the healthier epicness that is your first challenge. My wife has also started eating healthier foods and doing yoga in the mornings before work. Good for you for setting an example!

Workout #2 down Current emotional state: triumphant RAWR This particular Beginner's BodyWeight Workout (Hereafter BBWW) involved some slight modifications to the ways I was doing the exercises. I am mainly focusing on getting my form down just right, and going slow, to prevent injury. Last week's Monday saw a tiny pain in my right knee, just under the upper right corner of the kneecap if you're looking at it. I was like "OK TIEM 4 TEH FIXING" so I introduced more stretches designed to help realign the kneecap. Additionally, I'm placing my hands more under my shoulders and less off to the side of my head for the push-ups, and that's definitely harder. I'm taking care to go straight down, but a little lower, on the squats than I was before; squats are noticeably harder. BUT ALL IN ALL... Knowing it was harder, and still following through and metaphorically kicking it's proverbial teeth in, feels very good. Plus my wife texted me and said "Super Star! (insert string of kissy emoticons here)" which basically makes me want to work out all over again.