shawmutt

Week 1 down. The good thing about tracking such measurable goals is knowing what my numbers are. The bad thing about tracking such measurable goals is knowing what my numbers are. Broken down: Water: met my goal every day but last Sunday. Weekends are my weak point. Steps: knocked it out of the park. not only did I do 10,000 a day, but I crushed my opponents with a workweek total of 67,132 steps! Somebody check my calculations, but that's a butt load of steps! Yesterday I fell short with only 9,777. Miles walked: Average of 6 miles a day, but under yesterday. Floors: crushed it every day, most floors was 55 on a very busy day Active minutes: I'm having trouble with the active minutes and how fitbit calculates it. I do just about the same thing every day on the weekdays, but the minutes fitbit thinks I'm "active" vary from 14-59 minutes. Working on that. Most importantly: sleep. I actually met my goal every single day for the first time I can remember. I feel like a new person. I mean, I feel like I can think better, I don't need a bunch of caffeine, it's awesome! I'm adjusting the diet goal a bit. I'm used to myfitnesspal and don't like the way fitbit does calories. Everything "talks" to each other, so I set myfitnesspal for the most stringent settings (lose 2 lbs a week, sedentary) and let the fitbit add my step calories. It winds up being 2400-2500 a day. I lost 4 pounds since last week, but I don't get too excited about early losses, especially given the diet change. Yesterday I had an epic fail. I have family down for graduation, and we all went out to dinner. It started off well, ordered the steak and veggies...then kinda lost it at the rolls. Then came the beers, and at that point I said screw it and got dessert too. Oh well, got up today and resumed the new norm. Finally, after hemming and hawing for a while, I chose a name and registered it. I have a long way to go, but hobbymutt.com is going to be a real life web site!

following, I'm starting from nearly the same weight (235 here). Sound like a pretty detailed plan!

I'm getting started back up, so I get the easy tasks this month. Gotta go with Team Iron Man! Strength Feat: start my training again after being off a couple months. Strength exercises include pushups, squats, and pullups Agility Feat: start my training again after being off a couple months. Agility exercises include dot drills and suicide sprints Stamina Feat: start my training again after being off a couple months. Stamina exercises include jogging and shuttle runs Ranger Class Feat: I've been slowly gathering camping supplies to go on my son's first cub scout overnight camping trip. It will be the first time in a tent for me in about a decade.

Not a good start, I posted in the wrong place! Alright. I have one final paper due May 8th, and I am officially graduated from college (at the tender age of 40). I really let my body go these last three years, and have a GORUCK Challenge in September. I may need to suck up my ego and do a Light instead... Anyway, my goals for this challenge are based on my fitbit numbers. Each day, at least: 1.9 Liters of liquid a day (not ready to give up all diet soda just yet) 10,000 steps a day 5 miles walked 10 floors climbed 30 "active minutes" 7+ hours sleep Plus, "in the zone" for calories each day I'm already doing most of that, and not staying up all night writing papers will help with the sleep. The other level up my life goal for this month: decide on a business name and set up a domain for my business idea. I want to start up a Youtube channel/website to get people involved in hobbies the cheapest way possible. Often people complain that hobbies are too expensive--my idea is to gather enough information and tips to make a new hobby less than the price of a new video game (~$60). It's based off of several of my favorite websites/youtube channels/podcasts (including this one!), my recent foray into Cub Scouts with my son (they do a lot with very little!), and was inspired by this video: Ideally, it will be a smash hit and I'll be able to sell "hobby kits" of inexpensive quality materials to get people started on 30 days of a hobby of their choice. Worst case scenario, I learn a ton of things, and maybe even a little bit about business too. Wish me luck!

The Road: Damn depressing. A horror story for parents. The worst part is realizing there are people living like this today, no post-apocolyptic world necessary Dark City: One of my favorite all time movies. Idiocracy: although could be seen as a documentary today Moon: guy alone on the moon...or is he?

I started up here a few months ago, and have since crashed and burned hardcore. I fatally underestimated how hard my final college courses were going to be. Procrastination lead to all night type-fests which lead to total and utter self-destruction of any personal improvement. The spiral continued as I took this week off work to try to catch up, only to hop on Minecraft because that castle I HAD to build was more important. Did I mention I just turned 40? I have the self-control of my 7 and 8 year-old children. Here I am, after a week off, with nothing written. Not all is lost; I have the remainder of today and tomorrow as well. I need to get back on track. Effective immediately: the browsing stops. No Reddit, No Facebook, no online searches unless it has to do directly with my paper. No video games. I quit them before because of issues and just need to leave them alone. My wife gave me her Fitbit One, and I’ve been using it casually the last couple weeks. It is my pet. My pet needs to be in all green for it to be happy. It’s not too hard, my job takes me over 10,000 steps each day and way over 10 floors. I just need to make sure I get enough water and sleep, two things I have to force myself to do, and my pet will be happy with me. Sigh…why is it so easy to suck?

I'm getting my degree in business. I've been working in biotech manufacturing for the last decade, and need this degree to start my move into management. I started the degree thinking it would help me learn how to start and run my own business, but I've since been disillusioned. Oh well, three classes left and I get that piece of paper that says I'm smart!

Nothing went right tonight, so I had to improvise. My cold weather gear was dirty, but I had to do suicide sprints outside tonight. Instead, I cranked up my treadmill to the highest incline, cranked up the speed to faster than I have ever run (for my slow butt, that's 8mph) and did 5 rounds of 30 seconds running/30 seconds rest. My legs were smoked and I was wheezing. Just what I needed. I might just sub this every Wednesday night until spring. In other news, I'm still reading Level Up Your Life. I'm pretty far in, and so impressed I bought a hardback copy to bring to work and share with a couple coworkers. A long long time ago, I played World of Warcraft a lot. I turned a couple coworkers onto it. One got so addicted it ruined his life--his girlfriend started playing too, met some guy in some other state, and left my coworker. He got so depressed he sunk himself into the game. He stopped showing up for work and got fired. So...I guess making amends for that would be turning some other coworkers onto this philosophy and have them be awesome at life! I'm thinking up some different awesome quest lines I can follow, but first I have to get my aged butt through school. Three more classes and I'll have my bachelors.

I'm trying to talk my wife into a tubing quest at the local ski place (about 10 minutes away), she's less rangery than I am...

Sundays are the hardest workout days. I usually oversleep due to not getting enough sleep during the week. This compacts my day by a few hours on a day that I have a ton to do. Then there’s the workout itself. At 90 minutes, it’s a grind of body weight exercises followed by a 4 mile run. It feels great afterwards, but man just getting the anchor up and getting started is the hardest thing! I get through it by not thinking about doing it, and just starting it. Once I’m started I tend to complete it. I’ve been doing my running on my treadmill. I tend to have ...intestinal problems… when I first start out running again that lead to awkward situations when I'm about 2 miles away from home. For the curious, the workout today: Warm up: 3 rounds - 5x hand release pushups, 10x sit ups, 5x burpees, 10x air squats, instep stretch Training: 2 rounds - full leg blaster (20 squats, 10 lunges, 10 jumping lunges, 10 jumping squats, 30 second break) 6 rounds - mini leg blaster (half a full) Run 4 miles (I’m slow and fat right now, about 5 mph) 2 rounds - hip flexor stretch, instep stretch, pigeon stretch, lat+pec stretch

I'm rockin' the funk!

Fine, I bought the Level up your Life book and started reading it, so far so good! I tackled one of my biggest fears tonight, the Mexican restaurant. I stuck with my diet (ok, I cheated a tiny bit, I had two chips with guac). I had Mar y Tierra, 16oz. rib eye, about 8 oz. of shrimp, some sauteed veggies, small salad, and left the fries on the plate! No beer, had diet soda (working on eliminating that, but in no rush ;-) ) Had the flan for dessert, which is bad but I had the calories for it. Overall, not at bad as I thought, I didn't miss the rice/refried beans/gobs of cheese/ etc. etc. It's 6 hours later and I'm still pretty satiated. Next challenge will be Chinese *Shudder*... I wish I could afford to eat Japanese every time my family wanted to go out, shashimi is easy!

I'm brand new, have no idea what I'm doing, but am jumping in with both feet because that's what I do. Sorry in advance if I make some boneheaded mistakes and seem a little dumb over the next couple weeks while I figure stuff out. I tried keeping up with multiple devices/apps/websites and finally said screw it. I love numbers, to be sure, but would rather be working out than figuring everything out. It's not a science experiment, and these things aren't super accurate. I now use Endomondo (free version) exclusively for all workouts with my iPhone and a Polar chest strap heart rate monitor. I pick the exercise, I push start, and push end when I'm done. Endomondo automatically updates Myfitnesspal (UnderArmor is buying up fitness apps and making them talk to each other much better, but those prices!!!). I also use the Sleep Cycle app for sleep tracking.

Intro post that I've been trying to post into rebel intros for the past couple days: I first heard about this site through an interview on The Art of Charm, and it looks pretty awesome around here. About me: I was skinny and fit until my early 20s and gained weight through my 30s. I had a great couple years around 2011-2012 where I did really good, dropped a lot of weight, ran a 5K under my goal time (28 minutes), and was awesome. Then after that PR things fell apart. I stopped exercising and stopped counting calories. I gained back all my weight and then some, succumbed to the 38" waist size, and have increasing numbers of health problems. I tried to do a GORUCK event last September and failed. I injured myself in the training leading up to the event and dropped out one hour into the twelve hour event. Evidently rucking with a 40 lb backpack when I weighed 230 lbs wasn’t the brightest idea. I’m tracking all the things! I use MyFitnessPal. I use a heart rate monitor with Endomondo. I weigh myself once a week. I’m also using Habitica to track my habits. For workouts, I’m doing an overall body weight routine I got from the internet. Lots of pushups, pullups, situps, drills, running, and even a bit of yoga mixed in there. Around July I’m going to switch it up and start ramping up my rucking. Hopefully I’ll weigh a little less by then and have a better time of the event in September. ----- That's it, that's my intro. Ranger fits me to a tee. Funny thing it I've always been a ranger from paper D&D to MMOs to real life (yes those are my bolts in my avatar). So I guess I need goals for the challenge? Fitness 1. Not miss a workout for the entire remainder of the challenge period. 2. Track meals every day, even on the "bad" days 3. Get closer to an average of 7 hours of sleep a night (currently 6.5 hours) Level up my life 1. Make a list of family/friends that I want to keep in touch with (little background, the past three years have been a flurry of nuclear family obligations, working towards my bachelors, working full time in a new role, and just being really really busy overall. I've lost touch with most of my friends, and haven't touched base with my family in months. I mean, there's Facebook, but that's a poor substitute. This will be a first step towards fixing that.) eta: that's funny, gave up and posted this and it double posted on the other forum. I guess tapatalk works but the website doesn't.