Rivanariko

I like the sound of the startung strength program, I think. I read through some of the knowledge base. My worry comes from the fact that I'm really NOT a visual learner. I could watch 1000 videos of people doing something perfectly and still eff it up myself. I know they suggest starting with a broom handle or something equally light while learning, but how do I know if I'm doing it right at that point? Even posting videos (assuming I can successfully manage that, which is assuming a lot from the technologically impaired nerd) I have a hard time implanting feedback unless it's in the moment. Or maybe I'm making excuses. That's entirely possible. I'm a little bit scared to start this. Kiltedcowboy, I've been following the blog the whole time, just.... Got distracted. And forums are hard for me. You know that. I'm not donating to your wedding fund though. Unless it's in the form of a plane ticket. As far as updates, I had my "wellness appointment" on Saturday and the trainer was super nice. She's a bodybuilder, so I'm hoping as she gets to know me and I say over and over "no, I want to lift heavy things" she'll help me out. It's not an actual personal training session, so she printed out the system's recommendations for me, which of course are all machines (BOO!! HISS!!) but she showed me variations for some things with Dumbbells, so now I know how to bench press Dumbbells (sort of). And apparently most people can't do more than 1 crunch per second for over a minute when they're doing their assessment. I have no desire to include crunches in my routine, but i was amused by her reaction of "wow, you're really strong". She also loved my five-fingers and said they're her favorite shoes to squat in, so hope? I didn't track food for a few days last week. Bad me. But in back to it now. And I was at the gym 4 times last week (woo!). I'm steadily working on the pull up. I can get halfway, but it's slow going. I know I can get there though. And utter failure on being social. I'm going to fail this challenge on that alone. I should have picked a goal like "hang out with your cat every day" because I would rock that.

Well, I am utterly failing at my being active on the boards goal! I haven't posted since I started this topic. Whoops! Thankfully, I'm doing pretty well on everything else. As for lifting, I didn't have much of a plan when I started. I've been looking over the strength resources here and getting a better idea of where to start. This weekend I'm hoping to make some time to do some broomstick practice and try to learn the form, as well as hopefully spend some time studying the videos that people post in the form check forum to see what I can learn. I have an appointment for my initial "wellness assessment" at the gym on Saturday morning. There's also a basic strength training class Thursday evenings, which I'll be able to do for a week or two before my Thursday evenings become devoted to musical theater again. But I'm hoping I can glean enough beginner knowledge to set up my own program and do things myself, which is how I'd rather do it anyway.

I am bad at video games Like, really, really bad. I refuse play them when my husband is home because he feels the need to "help" bad. For this reason, I'm not much interested in games that don't allow you an unlimited number of lives to respawn and try again. What I lack in talent, I make up in tenacity. I've been a member of NF for several years now, but fell off the wagon in a big way after moving cross country two years ago and I've been struggling to get back. I'm hoping that I've tweaked things enough that I'll have enough potions to make it through the boss fight this time! Main Quest Lose 25lbs by the end of the year We finally replaced the dead batteries in our scale at home and I discovered that I'm now 10lbs above what my previous highest-ever weight was. That's pretty disheartening. On top of that, when I pulled my summer clothes out of the closet, most of them are either on the edge of too tight or completely unwearable. Not cool. Starting Stats: Weight: 139 (I'm 5'1, so this is very UGH!) Goal Weight: 115 Natural Waist: 30" Belly: 36" Goal 1: Consistency Go to the gym 3X/week I joined the YMCA, as the facilties around here are actually pretty awesome. They've got free weights, a pool, and lots of yoga classes that I might have a chance of finding time to go to. I just have to go three time a week and do something. Doesn't matter what, as long as it's active. Goal 2: Strength Learn to Lift I've never tried lifting weights before, so I'm going to give it a try. I think that the concrete, measurable progress will be motivating for me. And I want to be strong. I'm going to see if there's a coach who can teach me there, but if not, I'll turn to the internet and NF for wisdom. Bonus: Do a chin-up I used to be able to do these. I have a chin-up bar in my house, I just need to use it for things other than hanging clothes on. I will accomplish this by doing sets of negatives daily-ish. Goal 3: Fuel Track food daily The act of tracking my food intake causes me to make healthier choices, because I don't want to enter "an entire chocolate cake" into MyFitnessPal and see just how many calories that was. So I have no specific diet goals towards calories and protein or paleo-tendencies. I will try to make generally healthy decisions, but tracking is the only part of this goal that will get rated. Life Goal: Accountability Be active on NF I'm very shy, even more so on the internet, oddly enough. But I will post on other people's threads and I will try to make friends. I'm not good at making friends, as I always think that I'm bothering people simply by existing. I will also join an accountabili-buddies team and be active in it. I will make friends. There will be people who will wonder where I am if I start to slack off. Motivation: Apparently "Being Healthy," or "Looking good naked" or even "not having to buy fat clothes" aren't motivating enough for me. So if I get an "A" (haven't defined what that means yet, working on the ranking system) in this challenge, I get to buy these. (FITS breeches) If I get a "B", I get these instead. (Irideon breches) There is no reward for "C" A "D" means that I have to put the money that was supposed to go toward the first pair of breeches into our emergency savings fund instead. I have really limited income going into my horse adventures, so that would suck. If I fail, then I have to donate the money to something I don't like very much. I have to figure out what that would be. So, let the games begin!

Eh, week three was kind of a bust. I only rode twice (boo!) and didn't do any yoga (Fail!), but I did keep up with my food logging, and finished my registration with Textbroker. Daylight Savings time caught me off gaurd this year and my body refused to adjust to the time change, which meant doing anything before work wasn't going to happen. I think I'm back on a good schedule though. I got up this morning and had a great ride before work today, so hopefully I can come back strong!

Week 2 went pretty well, but not as great as week 1. I got all 3 yoga sessions in (yay!) and resolutely logged all of my food (yay!) I only rode my horse twice though (boo!). I'll have to schedule more carefully this week to make sure I get all 4 rides in. I'm still waiitng to get my rating for my submission on TextBroker, but should have it in a few days, then I can move forward with that. I'm planning on riding the monster horse after work today, since I haven't replaced my afternoon client that graduated two weeks ago yet (hopefully that will happen soon! Or I'm really going to need the money from the freelance writing that I'm not doing yet!) So a tentative schedule for this week might look like: Monday: Ride after work Tuesday: Yoga in the monring. Ride before work. Wednesday: Ride before work. Thursday: Yoga in the morning. Ride client horses, teach on the Monster horse (neither counts toward my goals) Friday: Ride after work (no afternoon client Fridays either yet!) Saturday: Yoga in the morning, Ride client horses, teach on the monster horse Sunday: Lesson on the monster horse, maybe client horses? Depends on client schedule. So that's 5 days of riding the monster horse, which gives me some wiggle room if I end up having to miss one of the days. If I get all 5 in though, then Monster horse doesn't get a day off this week, but he'll be okay. He's not working that hard right now, he can go every day.

You know what is not helpful while doing yoga? Cats.

Thanks for the encouragement everyone! It was a busy weekend and I didn't spend much time near my computer, but I think I pretty confidently crushed week one. Yay! Now to keep that momentum going. Week 2 and 3 are usually where I find myself flailing. Thanks Amdhiel, for the recommendations! I'll definitely check those out!

Thanks for the welcome, Starsapart! I'll definitely check it out! Found a free video for Yoga online this morning, and while it was a more strenous work out than my "beginner's AM and PM yoga", there's a reason why it was free. It was hard to follow, and my palms were aching by the end of the 20 minute video since the majority of the work was on all fours. It was good to try something new though. I'll have to keep looking around. I submitted my writing sample on textbroker, and should get my rating within a week. I'm not thrilled with what I wrote, but I needed to get it done and submitted. Have to start somewhere. I have a few other avenues I want to explore to see if I can pick up writing gigs, but I figure this might be a way to "get my feet wet" so to speak and just get back into the mode of writing. Teaching a lesson tonight, so I won't be riding the Monster-Horse, as he has to cart around a beginner for an hour.

Good day today, I rode the Loki-Monster this morning (I love morning rides if I can manage to drag myself out of bed. They're so peaceful and I love when the barn is completely empty.) and logged all of my food today. Tomorrow is yoga again. I think I've decided that if I get all three yoga sessions in this week, I get to buy a new DVD. Hopefully one a little less lame than my current one. But if nothing else at least it would be new.

I should probably make mention of making my goals SMART for the weekly mini-quest, eh? I think they're pretty well honed. I spent an entire course doing nothing by writing goals and objectives in college thanks to my instructor program, so I've got some practice with the formula. Plus, I've got a list of failed challenges behind me, so hopefully I've managed to whittle down to a formula that will equal success? Worth a try at least!

I am right there with you on the being mad that prepartation didn't do the work for me! I had to cut out social media (at least Facebook) entirely for the duration of the challenge because I finally realized what a time suck it has become! I think your first two goals aren't actually too bad as far as being SMART. You could re-word the first one to be a little more clear as to how long 4000 steps will be acceptable for your cardio, and how you want to go about increasing that over the course of the challenge. You second goal is simple`and measureable, as you stated! Your third goal is the most vague. What specifcally are you going to do to reduce stress, and how will you measure if that's successful? This is a hard one, but very important, so good for you for taking it on! As a teacher, I'm pretty familiar with setting SMART goals, so if I can be of any help, let me know!

Day one went well. I ended up not working today, so I had plenty of time for everything. My schedule is pretty erratic. But I did 30 minutes of yoga this morning (and decided I really need a new yoga DVD...) and rode the monster-horse (who was a jerk today... but that's besides the point.) So far I've tracked all of my food intake, though I still have dinner to go,. As long as I enter that, I can call today a success! Yippee! I should go get a cheap calendar that I can put stars on when I do everything I'm supposed to do... It is surprising how motivating stickers still are as an adult.

It's an expensive sport, for sure! It's been my passion for as long as I can remember though, and is a part-time job right now. The ultimate goal is for horses to become my career, but that's a long road to get to that place! Right now I'm making enough to cover most of my expenses, but I can't really expand my riding and training business while still working my day job because of time constraints. My hope is, if I can eventually transfer a significant portion of my income into writing and working from home, that will afford me the flexibility to devote more time to my equestrian goals. But like I said, it's a process!

It's been a rough winter for me. Not for any concrete reasons, I've just been full of self-pity and excuses. I had a firm discussion with myself about a week ago though, and reminded myself that the only person in charge of my success is me. If I don't have time to ride my horse after work, I need to go before work. When I was a working student, I go up at 5am so that I could run before I had be at the barn at 7 to start riding my docket of horses for the day. I don't have be at work till 9 most mornings. The "I don't have time" excuse needs to end. So here we are, ready to start again. Main Quest Line: Horse show this summer, earning the requisite first level scores towards my USDF bronze medal Goals for the Challenge: Ride the Damn Horse: It's unlikely that I'll be successful at showing if I don't ride my own horse on occasion. I get in my requisite rides on client horses, and teach all of my lessons, but riding my own horse gets pushed to the back burner, and since he is the one I would be showing, I need to make sure both of us are in shape and work out some "kinks" in our current routine. So: I will ride the Loki-Monster at least 4 days a week 4 rides/week X 6 weeks = 24 rides A: 24, B: 21-23, C: 18-20, D: 15-17, F: <15 Develop Strength and Flexibility Contrary to popular belief, riding is a lot of work. Particularly in my chosen discpline (Dressage). Serious strength training will definitely be a part of my routine as I work my way back up the levels, but in my past experience, Yoga has been one of the most useful for developing the base of functional strength and flexibility I need. So: I will practice yoga 3 days a week 3 yogas/week X 6 weeks = 18 yogas A: 18, B: 15-17, C: 12-14, D: 9-11, F: <11 Lose Weight by Managing Diet I'm not sure if my show clothes would fit at the moment. They were on the loose side when I was in college, but my activity level was a bit different then! When maintaining your scholarship depends on successful showing, that's pretty good motivation! For the first three weeks, this will mostly about closely examining where I am right now. So for the first half othe challenge, my goal is simply: Track food intake through MyFitnessPal Halfway through the challenge, I'll re-evaluate and see if I need to start modifying my diet, but honestly, the act of recording tends to make me eat healthier. If I know I have to be accountable for it at the end of the day, I make better choices. This is a pass/fail. Life Challenge - Increase side-income Horses are expensive. Very expensive. Currently, all of the money that I make off of traning rides and lessons that I teach goes into my "horse fund," as it is additional to the income from my "real" job. But between hoof care, lessons and clinics, show fees, it's amazing how fast that disappears. I'm not looking to increase my horse income too much right now, as time really is an issue with that, so I'm going to start trying to start freelance writing in the evenings to earn a bit more that can go toward my equestrian goals. So: I will complete my registration on Texbroker and pitch for 12 jobs.

Another infrequent check-in. I don't suppose I'm making any friends by diappearing for long stretches of time. I'm up to 20 push-ups and 40 squats every morning now. And I've been dilligent about that. And about the getting up and doing stuff. Except this morning, where I didn't quite make it out of bed. Set backs are not failures though. The horse got ridden Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. But Tuesday, Wednesday and (so far) today he's gotten skipped because I need to get ready for a garage sale this weekend. I can't believe it's the end of August already. No pull-ups lately. Sigh. And houswork is really suffering. But right now there are boxes of garage sale crap everywhere. Dearest Husband is currently refusing (in a passive aggressive way) to help with dishes. Which is frustrating, especially since he has more "free" time than I do. So we're still working on that. So... meh? I'm at sort of half-mast on most things I guess. I'm going to try to rally through the last two weeks of the challenge though and finish strong. m