oldajis

Been keeping up with eating. doing multiple sets of 3 pullups at a time now. have lost 14 lbs since the (early) beginning of the challenge. Saved a couple $K, completely satisfying that goal, will be able to really take a chunk out of debt, and stress all at once. HAvent been good about posting here, but even just having set this up really got me going! will try to be better with posting till the end!

Started paleo full force yesterday, went food shopping with nothing but beef, chicken and veggies on the list. Cooked a giant stir fry of kale, onions, peppers and shallots, and added a pound of ground beef to about half of it. the ground beef half was dinner last night for all 3 of us, and lunch today for me. the other half the stir fry will be dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow.

We finally set a wedding date, and i have less than 6 months to be a bit less of the man i currently am (well more of a man, but there needs to be less of me) Goals: Every meal enjoyed by baby, fiance and me, with a paleo slant At 16 months i want my son to eat whatever he is willing to eat, and that changes daily, some days he wants veggies, some days fruits and some protiens (and sometimes nothing but milk or juice). AS many of the shared meals as we can im hoping to make paleo, but absolutely no garbage (junkfood, desserts, etc). Bike when weather permits, pedal at desk when it doesnt. 30 mins/day avg . I keep a small cycle apparatus under my desk at work, and generally pedal the day away on it. since i only work 4days a week and wont have access to it 3 days, 30 mins avg means about an hour a work day. will try to keep walking as much as possible independent of biking (started challenge early in San Diego last week, avg 5 miles walked per day that i tracked, but we walked EVERYWHERE!) 5 pullups in a single set. right now i can do 5+ but i need to stop every 2-3 for a break. id like to be up to doing 5 at a time, multiple times a day (i hung my pullup bar in the main walking path in the house and stop most times i walk by to do a few) when he will let me, im putting the boy in a backpack for some additional resistance (+30 lbs) Save $100 for wedding. doesnt seem like much, it isnt, but our finances are tight and I need to find a way to save atleast this much, if not a lot more, in addition to what i already try to save. essential, decrease stupid spending by atleast $100 over the next month and a half and put that savings aside. hopefully these things will help me lose some weight, build some muscle and take away some of the stress of a wedding. a friend is sending us a Jillian Michaels workout program. I will try it and if it is something that will work for me, i will probably want to change one of my goals to get X number of weeks through program without murdering Jillian (x being the time left in the challenge when the program arrives). I did start the challenge early with exercise and paleo in mind, since i was on a working vacation in San Diego. I cant have gluten anyway, but the ease of getting a "protein style" burger out there, made it a lot easier to start eating paleo again. no cheeseburgers, and i stopped ordering triple burgers (unless i was really hungry, and even then only if i was taking one patti out for my son), no fries or shakes (and never soda for years now) after my first week there. we walked everywhere while there and purposely went places we needed to walk, like the zoo and safari park, and didnt take trams, just used our feet, it was fantastic. Push will be to continue on this path of exercise and good eats.

http://www.groupon.com/deals/g1mm-certified-personal-trainers-boston?p=1&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&sid=52a3a7f2-837e-47c3-9b02-30383b5e7213&division=boston&user=a565b01fe16567df86c90295ecd2337a4408e46155aae437d3ec99719fd27aec&date=20121105&s=body&c=deal_button&d=deal-page&utm_campaign=g1mm-certified-personal-trainers-boston saw this and thought you might find it interesting, dont know if your schedule is any better for it, i just remembered you were interested in it.

love the tshirt!

so far so good with the junk food, been eating well and aside from being super hungry when i first got sick, ive been able to keep it to reasonable portions too.

i am signing up for another 5k the 31st. winning a wedding is totally awesome! makes us really move forward. And it is at Fenway Park, so, we get to have some fun with themes and stuff, at least a little bit! Still fighting off a cough, but enjoying the short bike rides from car and the lunchtime walks. (rides still tracked with runkeeper, though the nike+ stuff is a pain to transfer manually, so looking for an automatic option)

i was stoked for the 5k but too sick to go found a zombie 5k at work, on 10/31, going to sign up for that. Bumbed that I'm missing out on quality weather and fun cause im sick, the best i could do was eat well, and try not to cough myself to death. Folding bike had slashed tire, got it fixed over the weekend, so this week i will again be adding my tiny rides to the total. We finally have a deadline for when we are going to be married and i will be in shape by then (we won a wedding that we must use before the end of sept 2013, not nearly as long as i thought i had). Looking into some old and new strength training options, will need to start trying some out as well as check the science on the old, they might very well be outdated. Probably should update this more now that I'm back to 75% health, might help me get back to 100%.

I havent had time to post much, went to an awesome wedding, got sick sometime while traveling, still sick, that just about sums it up. going to try to do this weeks challenge, and still on for the 5k this weekend, asssuming i have recovered at least a little bit.

I am going to keep the intro short, since as usually I am writing this at work where the site is barely functional. 1. Bike at least 10 times again. Since I am now biking a short distance at work, I am putting a mileage count on this too, to keep it challenging. At least 50 Miles (this may change after i do the math, but by my rough estimate this should be right) 2. finish the tuff scrambler. I havent done a 5k race before, or an obstacle course either, so the goal is, finish, dont die, try not to break anything... 3. keep up with eating well. this is really too generic a goal, but im not sure how specific i can realistically make it, with current bedgetary contraints, not eating junk cause it is cheap is what I want right now. 4. get budget back under control. it isnt so much that spending is out of control, but i had unexpected expences ($1500 in car repairs) that I just wasnt prepared to cover, and now everything else is hurting because of it. I also want to walk as much and as often as possible, continue reading a lot and keep getting to work on time (been great for 2+ weeks, i think the idea of biking when i get here is really helping)

Did all my non point goals, which ended up being some of my better concentration this time around. The real point behind this challenge was to make a better me and spend more quality time with family. I got a ton of quality time with my family, without sacrificing too much exercise time. SO was not ready for working challenge 1. I started the C25K program, but didn't get as far as I'd have liked, A for effort and starting running again, so even though i dont have a 5k time to report yet, i worked towards my 5k stamina and obstacle course in october. (+1 STR, +3STA, +1CON) 2. Knocked this one out of the park. 23 rides over the challenge. Loved getting out so much, I want to keep it up if i can before it gets too cold to go out after work. Improved my loop times, never did check old vs new, but my average speed went up considerably and im finding it easier and easier to do my ride. HR monitor has helped me a bit with guaging performance as well. A++++ (i know no extra credit but it is nice to have a challenge element where past performance led my to severely underestimate myself) (+3 STR, +2DEX) 3. ate VERY healthy the whole challenge. grilled probably 60% of my meals (which means all meat and grilled veggies). Desserts (GF cookies, cake etc, and ice cream, even coconut milk ice cream) for special occassions only. kept carbs other than sweet potatos to a minimum. i wouldnt say i did more than 50% paleo, but as always 100% GF and cut out a lot of crap I was eating. while i would like to try going full paleo, and with a birthday and bachelor party (so cake and copious alcohol) this wasnt looking to be my best 6 weeks, i think i (or in the case of this part WE as a family) did really well. A for effort and execution (and eating well even while traveling and drinking, no crap meals) (+2 Con, +1 CHA) 4. i improved my bills, hygiene and laundry, and got a few applications in, but i dont think i excelled at any of these things. the bills especially, i need to get them overpaid as much as possible, which was brought into stark light as I had two seperate major car repairs to pay for, and not enough padding to pay them and bills and feel comfortable. getting rid of bills will help that a lot. A for effort, did a lot better than i have before, but B for execution. so B+? (+1.5 WIS) I am definitely getting the hang of goal setting, making sure im being realistic, and exectution. I spent a lot of time away from the forums this challenge, got busy doing rather than talking about it, but I'd like to find a middle ground, since I find the encouragement, and being able to encourage others very helpful. A- overall. I set realistic goals with realistic expectations of myself, exectued them fairly well, with the exception of better habits, which was probably a bit too broad, cause i tried to incorporate items i would have broken out with individual values in previous challenges. In the future I am going to try to be even more specific with my goals, so i have better measurables and acheivables (like the bike 10 ten times or read 3 books last challenge) it gives me a target and tangible results. points: +4 STR +3 STA +3 CON +3 DEX (incl +1 from mini challenge) +1 CHA +1.5 WIS +15.5 total

I have to second the FreeRuns or some of the other "free" shoes, they seem to have a better (more ergonomic) shape. Ive started using my merrells exclusively for biking, they give that clipped feel without the "suicide" potential. Great job and congratulations on the size 2! Workouts are super impressive and really put the rest of us (well at least me!) to shame. I think maybe my next challenge should be try to keep up with you, but i doubt i could come close!

I'm fine, baby was at home. Car will be fixed, just didnt need another money pit for a little bit.

FML after doing so well with bills I got in a fender bender that might bankrupt me

well, apparently it was hidden upgrade in my iphone, the ability to convert any bike to a swim bike! also, swim bike travel is 2-3x faster than roads, per my gps!