EmiWantsToLiftThings

Day 1ish (Day 3 of the week, maybe I'll just go with Day 3 then) went not so bad. I did manage to work out at home and surprised myself with how well I could do one legged squats. I worked out at 7:30pm, got a shower, then basically went to bed. I didn't get to sleep until around 10pm though. I think working out that late makes it harder to get to sleep early. Maybe Friday I'll aim for a bit earlier. I did not go for a walk Got distracted by actual work while at work, which almost never happens. It's raining today, but I'll get a walk in even if I look like I'm melting afterwards. I'm feeling pretty good about the effectiveness of the bodyweight workouts, and while I've had to do some tweaking to make it work with the equipment and space I have, I worked up a good sweat and I feel it a bit today. Food Log: Breakfast - iced coffee with unsweetened coconut milk - got sidetracked and forgot to eat until is was basically lunch anyway... Lunch - small bowl of leftover smoked cheddar broccoli and potato soup with red peppers and onions Dinner - about 3/4ths of a Chipotle sofritas bowl with guac and the usual, eaten with chips - one church brew works oktoberfest (best beer in the universe) Goals: 1. Do an Academy workout at home MWF (2/3)* 2. Take at least one 20+min walk at work every day (2/5) 3. Track my food here daily (1/5) * I'm counting Monday and Tuesday as work out and walk days since I did stick to the old routine those days before switching it up Wednesday, I'm only counting the food log goal for the relevant days this week though

So, I haven't been posting here as much but I've actually been staying pretty well on track. I'm still drinking waaaayyyy too much booze, but I've been working out consistently and eating well (still pre-making most of my weekday meals and not eating much sugar, though I do splurge sometimes!). So why the reboot? I hate people, that's why. Ok, I like people well enough, 1 on 1, or in social situations, but I hate when the relatively large gym I go to at work is FULL OF PEOPLE and what should be a 30 minute workout takes over an hour or I end up having to skip exercises or sets because the equipment I need is never open when I want it. I've tried several different times during the day over the last few weeks to try to compensate, but the real problem is that the kids are back (college) so it's going to be busy now no matter when I go, because they live here, and they don't all have class at the exact same time, sooooo. No more gym for me. Yeah, that's what I decided. I'm not going to the gym while the kids are on campus. I hate it. My workouts are incomplete, or I rush through sets and my form suffers, they don't clean up after themselves well, and I spend way too long looking for equipment that isn't where it should be, whine whine whine, it's just not good. So it's not worth it. So here's the plan. I'm switching to the bodyweight version of the Academy workouts (and I'll use my dumbbells when appropriate) and I'm going to do them at home either first thing in the morning or before bed (experiment!) and maintain that same workout routine of MWF. I'm going to keep up my eating habits, but I'll track again just to be sure I'm still where I want to be. And I'll switch to a modified SL 5x5 program during breaks when the kids aren't on campus and the gym is more usable. Power lifting is my main long term goal so I don't want to drop that completely. The weekly goal break down: 1. Do an Academy workout at home MWF 2. Take at least one 20+min walk at work every day 3. Track my food here daily First long term check in (Oct 17th, first short break of the fall when the kids are likely to be gone): Go to the gym Monday and meet or beat my most recent PR's for 4 major lifts* - 4r 60 lb overhead press - 3r 80 lb bench - 4r 130 lb deadlift - 4r 90lb squat * barbell rows aren't in the level of the academy I'm on yet, but dumbell rows are, and I can continue those at home because I have the dumbbell weight I need If I can meet or beat my PR's I will consider this experiment a success and will stick to it! I will try it out again with Thanksgiving break as the next milestone, and I will use Winter break as a solid lifting progression month to set new PR's. If I can't meet or beat my PR's I will reevaluate my options (buy more home equipment, join a local *quiet* gym, practice my withering glare and fight the college kids for the racks, something...) Here's to being an introvert! *climbs back into my blanket fort*

Hi everyone! Work has been bananas, and it still is, but I'm making some time to at least upload the pictures from camping. The trip was fun, neither me or the Wookie succeeded at our personal goals. I tried to light a fire, but it was so humid that the ember never caught. Almost drilled clear through the board though, so can't say I didn't try. The mushrooms and such around the camp site were plentiful, but no one trusted them (or The Wookie) enough to actually eat any, lol. Probably for the best. We went for a hike and nearly passed out from the humidity, but it was nice. Got our steps in during that trip for sure! Anyway, here's some pictures!

Hi OfficerAwesome! I'm also in the academy, and each workout is supposed to be done on a separate day, preferably with a rest day in between. I consider boss fights to be a workout day also, but that's up to you. For example, I'm doing level 5, and I do my workouts A Monday, B Wednesday and C Friday. I walk and do things like mow my lawn on rest days, lol. If your first few workouts seem too easy for you, you can add weight or skip to the next level even.

Wow, it's been so long since I posted that my log actually dropped off my own content page, lol. I have had a bananas pants week at work, so I haven't been tracking much but I've not fallen off the wagon either. Since I do most of my messing around online while it's slow at work, I haven't been here (or anywhere online) much this week. I'll do a soft reset next Monday. That's the start of month 3 of NFA for me, so it's good timing. For now, back to work!

Just a quick update; camping was a success, and we did not get eaten by any bears! Yay! I'll make a longer post with pictures when I have more time. We managed to remember to ask someone to take a picture of us instead of us just taking random pictures, lol. I'll also do the final xp tally then too. Stay tuned!

IT'S CAMPING DAY!! I have lots of posting catching up to do, but it's not happening this weekend cause I'm going to be in the middle of the woods

I've been slacking on my food log. I think I'm doing pretty well still, without tracking things, so I may give the itemized meal list thingy a break. Instead, I think next week I'll switch to a goal based food log, move my food goals out of my battle log, and just post weekly updates here. If I notice myself getting totally off track, I'll start tracking again. The last two days I've eaten pizza for dinner, though neither time was my idea; my friend and my mom are bad pizza eating influences. At least I made sure there were veggies on it, and I didn't eat an entire pizza by myself. So... could be worse? I've been on point with breakfast and lunch though; been eating mini quiches again, with spinach and broccoli rabe (aka rapini) and mushrooms, and mostly salad and raw veggie things with some kind of protein for lunch. What kinds of goals should I try here? I'll move the 'no booze' goal here. Maybe find a way to minimize sugar and/or processed grains? A protein goal? Pre-prep food goal? Hmmmm...

WEEK 3 IS UP! And it was a GREAT week! Hit on everything, thanks to pokemon go and also mowing on Sunday. I kicked my own ass Sunday, lol I got my bow drill in the mail too. Sometime this week I'm going to practice lighting something on fire >:)

Hi Destructo! Goal setting is kinda a skill in and of itself. Here's a good Nerd Fitness article about goal setting: https://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2011/01/03/how-to-not-suck-at-goal-setting/ Some other advice; pick your overall long term goals, but then break them down into 5 or fewer very specific and very quantifiable goals for you to track. Then, you can see progress on the long term goal just by sticking to the short term ones. You can also revise and refine your short term goals every few weeks to help you keep on track for the big goal. For example, losing weight is a long term overarching goal, but not very easy to track or quantify even if you do weigh yourself and set a weight goal. Natural ups and downs can cause you to feel like you aren't achieving the goal, or you're regressing, and it can get demoralizing very easily. It's easy to derail a goal that broad and hard to get back on track. Instead, set some very specific short term goals that will allow you to work towards that overall goal. So instead of "I want to lose 25 lbs" say "I will go for a 20 minute walk three days this week" and "I will eat a vegetable with every meal this week" and "I will drink no more than 3 cans of pop this week". Then track those goals. Once you get good at them and you have a few weeks in a row of success, make them harder! "I will walk every day this week" and "I will not drink any liquid calories this week" and track them again. Before you know it, you'll be making progress on the big goal and the small goals will start to become habits that are harder to derail. If you miss a small goal for a day or week, there's always tomorrow or next week to try again. Easy to start back up! Check out some of the battle logs posted and some of the challenges to see how people break down their goals into things they can count and keep track of more easily. And feel free to start a log of your own! I hope this helps!

Week 5 Day 5 After the derail from Wednesday, I'm just going to post a pre-weekend 'wrap up' then update the final numbers after the weekend. Sooo, I'm not all that disappointed in myself for skipping Wednesday's workout, cause my legs felt GREAT today! I deadlifted 115 lbs, no problem. I also, for the first time, was able to do some stretching moves during my cool down that I couldn't do when I first started this. Kinda like this: Except I didn't need to use my hands to lower myself down and balance, I could just drop down into the stretch and pop right back up and over to the other side, no effort. My legs are SO MUCH STRONGER. It makes me feel like nearly making my legs pop off Monday was actually worth it in the end. I was going to seriously scale back next Monday, but I think I may be able to handle the same weight and reps with less suffering afterwards next week. I'm also doing well with the walking goal. Even when my legs were made of pain I still walked at least at lunch time, and at least 20 minutes. I'm going to try to take longer walks next week, but I'm feeling pretty good about that goal. I may even try jogging (or ruck) some... eventually. Bad news though; I failed my no booze goal. I bought beer yesterday, cause I was craving a stout beer so bad. I only got a mixed 6 pack, not a whole case, so I'll go through it quick. I only drank two beers yesterday, 4 to go. Week 5 Wrap Up (so far): 1: I will sleep 8 hours a day 5/7 2: I will wake up at 6am (weekdays) 5/5 3: I will go to the gym before work on all of the scheduled days (MWF) 2/3 4: I will go for a walk at lunch every work day 5/5 5: I will not bring any alcohol into my house this week FAIL

Week 5 Days 3 and 4 Doing a bit of catching up. I ate a bit more like an asshole than I probably should have considering that I skipped Wednesday's workout for the sake of leg recovery, but I feel pretty good today (Friday, day 5), and I still did well at work overall this week, so I'm not going to dwell on it. I failed on my 'no booze in the house' goal and bought a six pack of assorted craft beers Thursday after work while I was picking up some granola and salad stuff. I really wanted a stout beer (or two). Wednesday Breakfast - medium sized serving of the tofu scramble I had made Tuesday night - a tiny piece of fresh baked bread, toasted - a few berries with the greek yogurt leftover from Monday (I'm going to pick at this all week) - spiced chai tea with coconut milk, no sugar Lunch (wasn't that hungry cause I ate a pretty big breakfast) - medium sized serving of greens salad with olive oil and vinegar - a couple of peppers and carrots with hummus Snack - handful of pepitas Dinner (went out to get mexican food with the parental units) - chips and salsa, sooo many chips - a stuffed poblano, cheese enchilada and bean chalupa with rice and beans (I did not clean my plate, there was a bunch of melty cheese that had oozed out of the poblano, some rice and a bit of beans left) - two? ish margaritas (we got a pitcher and split it, I don't think I drank the most of it) Thursday Breakfast - french press coffee with coconut milk, iced, no sugar - smallish serving of tofu scramble Lunch - a small bowl of the last bit of the beefy onion soup (it's about time! that shit lasted me two weeks) - a handful of pepitas Dinner - big ass serving of the eggplant lasagna (i'd been looking forward to it all day, lol) - two thin slices of fresh bread - two bottles of stout beer

Ordered my bow drill! I hope it gets here soon so I can practice

Week 5 Day 2 I stopped at the store after work and got stuff for eggplant lasagna, where you use thin slices of eggplant instead of noodles. It has a red bell pepper, a zucchini, kale and asparagus in 'all natural' marinara with ricotta (added some crumbled tofu and an egg for protein and texture) and SMOKED MOZZARELLA. So yummy! I also made breakfast for the rest of the week, cause just berries and yogurt is not doing it for me. Got stuff to make a tofu scramble, adding broccoli, yellow squash and kale to it, with a touch of nutritional yeast for flavor and some veggie breakfast sausage mixed in. Breakfast - venti iced latte with soy milk - I chopped up the rest of the berries and mixed them in with the yogurt, ate about half of that, there's another serving or two left Snack - bag of microwave popcorn Lunch - big ass greens salad with olive oil and vinegar - carrots and sweet peppers with hummus (really, the carrots were just hummus delivery devices, I piled the hummus on!) Dinner - eggplant lasagna with a small slice of fresh bread

Week 5 Day 3 This train wreck deserves its own post. My legs have failed me. Yesterday was the worst DOMS pain I have ever been in. Today, I still can't do stairs like a normal human, or sit down without having to lower myself down with my arms. Walking is torture. I'm a hot mess. All from goblet lunges and chasing pokemon! Damn. I woke up this morning on time, but I decided against going to the gym. I can't even do a bodyweight squat right now, there's no way I'm lifting anything. It was an executive decision, not a skip day due to laziness, but it will still count against my goals. First time. First gym day miss. I has a sad. 1: I will sleep 8 hours a day 3/7 2: I will wake up at 6am (weekdays) 3/5 3: I will go to the gym before work on all of the scheduled days (MWF) 1/3 4: I will go for a walk at lunch every work day 2/5 5: I will not bring any alcohol into my house this week Pass/Fail

Week 5 Day 1 I tried to start a macros spreadsheet, got it all setup, formatted, and pretty, added in breakfast, and it all promptly fell apart. I can't weigh and measure out everything I put in my mouth. It makes me not want to eat at all to save myself the effort. I'll starve first Oh well. Maybe I'll try again some other time. Breakfast - grande iced latte with coconut milk (before gym) - hot tea with coconut milk, no sugar - half a container of plain greek yogurt - a handful of strawberries and blackberries Lunch - big ass greens salad with olive oil and vinegar - carrots and sweet peppers with hummus - a small bowl of beefy onion soup Snack - a handful of pepitas Dinner (went out with family to a chinese restaurant) - oolong tea, no sugar - a small warm sake - miso soup - smallish servings of three different types of soy protein (fake chicken) dishes (with mango, broccoli and bamboo shoots mixed in, respectively) - about a quarter of a cup of brown rice

I'm over here laughing my squat booty off

Week 4 Wrap Up Ate like an asshole over the weekend. Doing better today, but I did very little meal prep this weekend, so I'm running mostly on leftovers from last week. I need to do some shopping tonight... maybe. Ugh. Friday Breakfast - french press coffee with coconut milk, no sugar - the last two of the mini quiches - the last serving of the fruit 'salad' with greek yogurt dressing Lunch - last of the greens salad with vinegar and oil - carrots, sweet peppers and cherry tomatoes with the last of the hummus Dinner - egg, yellow bell pepper, tomato, cilantro and veggie sausage scramble on a kaiser roll (from the picnic) with a slice of sharp cheddar Nightcap - herbal tea Saturday Breakfast - coffee with coconut milk, no sugar - some of the scramble leftover from yesterday, just ate it with a fork, it was good just like that! Snack (no lunch, whoops) - about 1/2 of an oatmeal raisin cookie, like the soft kind you get out of vending machines (they were giving them away for free at the family day thing at bf's work) Dinner (this is where it all fell apart) - a disappointingly large number of tortilla chips with queso dip - ordered a pizza, mushrooms and feta, I ate two pieces - 4? jalapeno poppers with ranch - 4? bottles of yuengling, over the course of several hours Sunday Breakfast (the Wookie and I made a nice big breakfast) - two big mugs of coffee with creamer, no extra sugar - about 2 scrambled eggs (with plain greek yogurt mixed in for fluff) with mushrooms and cheese - home fries, I ate mine with ranch - one english muffin Lunch/Dinner? - small serving of leftover beefy onion soup - a handful of pepitas - a handful of sliced carrots - a kaiser roll with a slice of sharp cheddar (toasted) Nightcap - raspberry leaf and lavender herbal tea

Week 5 1: I will sleep 8 hours a day 2/7 2: I will wake up at 6am (weekdays) 2/5 3: I will go to the gym before work on all of the scheduled days (MWF) 1/3 4: I will go for a walk at lunch every work day 1/5 5: I will not bring any alcohol into my house this week Pass/Fail New goal, and new tracking format. Let's see how well I keep up when I'm not necessarily having to post daily. Since I'm still tracking food in my food log, I'm going to trust myself to eat breakfast on the regular still and instead I'm going to try to concentrate on my steps goal for the challenge. Having a good solid goal here will help I hope. I'm also starting my lifting spreadsheet today, but I'll post that at the end of the week. Monday's workout kicked my ass. It's funny how the number of exercises and reps has gone down, but since I'm going for broke with the weight and doing moves I haven't done much yet, I'm becoming reacquainted with General DOMS. I did lunges, half just body weight, and half with only 30 lbs total, and my legs were like jelly. My upper thighs were killing me by the second circuit. I added squats, because of course I did, and the usual amount of weight was HARD. Had to grind through that last rep. I went for a walk at lunch and I could already feel the soreness creeping in. I might have trouble going down the stairs tomorrow morning ;D Edit Day 2: WHAT HAVE I DONE? My legs are screaming, yet I still went for a 45 minute walk around campus this morning hitting all the Pokestops. My backpack is full. I can carry no more balls. My battery is dying. I need to go to work now, and get actual work done. Oooh, another Eevee! *runs away*

Week 4 Wrap Up The weekend was... interesting. Went to watch the Wookie play with his band at a work function, only it was raining and miserable all freaking day. Someone who didn't know them well described the band as 'nerd metal' and I was like, "lol, well they're not wrong!". I mean, what else would you call a metal cover of the lego movie song? 1: I will sleep 8 hours a day 7/7 2: I will wake up at 6am (weekdays) 5/5 3: I will go to the gym before work on all of the scheduled days (MWF) 3/3 4: I will eat breakfast every day 7/7 5: I will not bring any alcohol into my house this week Pass Another perfect week! Time to switch up a goal. I'm also going to start doing only one post per week, since I'm getting the hang of things. I'll edit that post through the week with any notable events and keep the goal tracker updated, but I'm starting to think I can quit spamming this thread with daily updates.

Week 2 numbers are up, and I'm probably not going to win ;P lol Monday and Tuesday, started out strong, and by Sunday I was sitting on my butt indoors playing The Long Dark (of course) for like 4 hours. I was also doing laundry! That's productive... I started playing Pokemon Go, shhhh, don't tell anyone. Maybe I'll hit the steps goal this week?* *Edit: Holy shit, I got over 9000 steps without even trying. I pokemon went. Got another 3000 this morning just taking a stroll looking for pokestops. Shit works.

Week 4 Day 5 Did I skip a post about a rest day? Yes I did. It was very typical. Except I wanted to hang from my bar every time I went through my door even though my arms and chest were toast from bench presses on Wednesday. I felt it still today, 48 hours later. Feeling shark week a lot today too. Ugh. It always gets sooooo awful just before it goes away. Like an extinction burst. Since my jagoff uterus was gaining the upper hand this morning, and it's a damn miracle that I made it out of the bed and to the gym on time, I said I'd go easy on myself. No need to max out the weight, I said. It's shark week, take it down a notch, I said. Then I channeled my inner great white shark. I deadlifted 110 lbs. Up from 95 lbs. Rawr. Of course my arms were still noodles, so I only managed 55 lbs on my overhead press. Meep. I really need to take it easy with using the pull up bar today so my arms can recover... but it's so shiny and new and FUN!! *sigh* 1: I will sleep 8 hours a day 5/7 2: I will wake up at 6am (weekdays) 5/5 3: I will go to the gym before work on all of the scheduled days (MWF) 3/3 4: I will eat breakfast every day 5/7 5: I will not bring any alcohol into my house this week Pass/Fail

Mid week check in. I just mathed the numbers for week 2 so far and I am so far behind on steps, it's awful. I need to average over 8000 steps a day for the next three days to hit goal, and I haven't managed that many steps in a day yet this week at all. Steps is hard, ya'll. This is why I'm a warrior Between the heat and shark week I've not been keeping up the momentum with getting out and walking. The longest walk I take on a regular basis is to the gym and back MWF mornings. Less than 2500 steps. It's not that long... I need to make walking a thing I do.

Week 4 Day 4 Pretty normal day, though tonight is gaming night, but I'm not hungry right now. Maybe I'll be able to cool it a bit with the junk food tradition. Breakfast - earl grey tea with coconut milk, no sugar - two of the mini quiches - a small serving of the fruit 'salad' with greek yogurt dressing Lunch - big plate of greens with olive oil and vinegar - some cherry tomatoes and sweet peppers with hummus - small bowl of beefy onion soup Dinner (Primanti's) - less than half a cheese fry - one large draft yuengling black and tan - half of a double egg and cheese sandwich, with queso on the side (I got a box for the other half, then accidentally left it on the table ) Snack-ish - tall starbucks iced latte with coconut milk, no sugar I actually wasn't planning on eating only half of the sandwich, but I realized I was pretty full with just half, so I decided to save the other half for later. I didn't really mean to leave it at the restaurant, but I'm also not all that sad that I did! We opted to stop for starbucks, especially since I was pretty sleepy and we hadn't even started gaming yet. I knew that drinking caffeine that late could screw with my sleep schedule, and shark week was already screwing with my sleep enough that I was afraid that I'd have trouble getting up and going to the gym Friday morning. It occurred to me that I almost always opt for a venti, so it's no wonder I have trouble sleeping afterwards. What if I got a smaller size? Sure enough, the tall latte didn't keep me up all night like a venti would have! Yay compromise!

@WorldSparrow Thanks for that link! I had heard a little about GtG, but haven't really tried it in earnest yet. I just installed a pull up bar at home, and I'm going to try the method in the article to help me get to my one perfect pull up.