CheshireCrab

Sorry to hear things aren't going too well for your internship. Way to persevere though! What is your internship in if you don't mind me asking? Are you pursuing something in education?

Great job so far! Keep it up!

Buffalo chicken hearts sounds delicious, hope you post some recipes What sort of workout plan are you planning on going forth with?

Cheering you on! What is the Deadpool vs Deadpool Distance?

Haha, you got a good eye! Glad to hear the Spartan Race inspiring you to push to go the next level.

Following along! You have of sweet looking goals laid out for your 4-weeks. Really admire the desire to push yourself towards the more challenging route. Just curious about your jogging goals. Are you specifically going for getting faster or being able to run at longer distances?

You sound like you have solid goals plotted out for this challenge! Good luck with getting your Spartan Trifecta, have you done Spartan Races in the past?

Heading out the gates running. Already finished off a large portion of my final project and the first week of my photography class. Yesterday I was suppose to submit an assignment for my photography class. The assignment was to take a series of photos then select one that best summarizes what field of photography we want to get into. Along with this we needed to write a brief statement(3-5 sentences) describing why we want to get into this field and what we expect to get from the course. Went hiking with my fiancee to grab a couple of photos from class and settled on this one for my summary: Artist Statement: I was inspired to take this course after keeping up a photo journal for the past year and a half. Documenting my activities has shown to me that I love to immerse myself in the outdoors with strong favoritism towards nature photography. I wish to strengthen my abilities in photography so I can capture more meaningful images of the outdoors.

Hello fellow Rebels to my latest 4-week challenge! After the success of my last challenge I realize that the best way for me to be the best Ranger I can be I'll need to stay disciplined and be proactive. One way I plan on doing this is through skill-building instead of Questing. But since I like to do things ranging from cardio, strength training, yoga, and more it means I will need to tackle my skills like a ranger. Training Like A Ranger To be the be ranger I will to be keep up my habits in a diversity of skills. This means getting familiar with a variety of different classes. So I divided my challenges for these 4-weeks based on it's class. Skillin' Like a Warrior A warrior is strong and swift. Capable of overpowering what faces them while enduring the great lengths of battle. Skills Strength Training - 5 Days A Week Each week I'll be doing either calisthenics or weight training. Cardio - 5 Days A Week Done after strength training. Working primarily on stamina. Skillin' Like a Monk A monk remains grounded and nimble. A master of their own body and mind. Skills Yoga - 2 Days A Week Stretching- 5 Days A Week Take an Akido Class Take a Yoga Class Skillin' Like a Wizard A wizard is wise. Dedicating their lives studying to learn abilities beyond their physical self. Skills Photography Class I enrolled in an online 4-week photography class on Coursera. Hoping to see improvements in my photography. Free Code Camp Certificate This is part of a 500-hour course I started this year. I am on the last project before earning that sweet Front-End Web Development Certificate Read a Chapter From a Book on Productivity Skillin' Like a Bard A bard is inspiring. Through their music they motivate those around them to keep going. Skills Guitar Practice - 6 Days A Week _______ Will be keeping track of all my challenges via spreadsheet! I have this spreadsheet set up kind of like a game. If I manage to stick to 6 of my challenges for 4 weeks in a row I unlock a virtual die called Chance Cube. Rolling the cube randomly select an item from a list of rewards. Spreadsheet

Well it looks like it's time to wrap up this 4-week challenge! Grading my challenge a bit definitely this time. Now that I have a stat-tracking spreadsheet to go along with my challenges it will become A LOT easier for me to review what I did. Week 4 Round-Up Taking a look at back at week 4: Pretty solid effort this week, but I did manage to miss a 2-days in practicing Piano and Guitar. Monday and Tuesday was spent working heavily on re-doing all the work I lost since my computer failed, and on Saturday I sacrificed some time practicing to work more on my last Free Code Camp Project. Speaking of which... I kind of dropped the ball on the Free Code Camp project. I have been largely focused on my Capstone project that I have been neglecting finishing FreeCodeCamp stuff. I did manage to get a large chunk of work done on the project and plan on dedicating each Saturday solely focused on working on that instead of my Capstone project(If I'm right on schedule). In the end this means my final progress report is: Final Grade and Loot I have about 8 habits with 100% completion, 1 with 75%, and 1 with 50% completion. Calculating that all together I got at least a 92%, which is still a an A.So I'm happy about that! Plus I managed to unlock a Yoga Class, a Photography Class, and with 6/6 Choice Cube Rewards unlocked it means I get to roll for another reward! Looks like I get to take an Akido Class next challenge! Final Thoughts: I really like the spreadsheet for my challenges. It feels very gratifying to mark an X off the board each day whenever I stick to a habit, and motivating knowing if I keep a streak going I'll get a reward in addition to building good skills and habits. Plus this challenge was definitely a learning experience. These past 4-weeks of doing Yoga and Stretches has really helped me to recover a lot faster from a hardcore workout, and as a result, I do not feel sore, tired, or even irritable when I push it hard the day before. Cardio has also been a really good add-on to my Strength Training workouts. I had been seeing an increase in my stamina and a decrease in my waist. I am getting faster as well in both Rowing, Biking, Swimming, and Running. All while seeing PRs in my strength training! Lastly, I realized that keeping up with my photo journal on a daily basis was doing more harm than good. Days when I just need to do work I find myself not spending too much of my time going out and seeking a photo-worthy moment. When I forget to take a photo I often have to rush to go and do something memorable and take a picture of it. It ended up adding a lot more stress and I was often not taking very good photos. I realize not every day needs to be a photo-worthy moment and I should really just focus on building those moments organically. Nerd Fitness Academy Stats: Fitocracy Stats Body Shots Measurements Moving Forward: I think next 4-week challenge I am going to keep the spreadsheet and track these habits. Moving forward I plan on taking advantage of my Loot gained from this challenge and take a class on Akido, Yoga, and Photography next challenge. I won't be so focused on Fitocracy Quests for November(Most of the easy Quests I have left involve doing dancing or boxing. Want to save that when I unlock a dance or boxing class!), but will try to at least hit 1 or 2 of them next time. Hope everyone had a great challenge and thank you everyone who support me these 4-weeks. Keep training hard and keep moving forward!

Presentation went pretty good to be honest! I was a little nervous because I ended up losing a chunk of work on my project and thought it wouldn't look like I didn't get much done since my last project presentation. Turns out I had quite a lot more done than I thought! At the rate I'm going I should be finishing my project a month ahead of schedule.

Week 3 Summary This week has been a bit stressful. With my computer breaking I spent a good chunk of my weekend working on transferring my code to another machine so I have something presentable by Monday. I managed to still fit in my habits for the week, but had to cut time on my workouts to get them done. Right now still working on some coding so will be keeping this week's summary brief. This week I settled that I want to take my photography up a notch and enroll in an online photography course after this 4-week challenge. I noticed slight improvement since starting my photography journal, but I want to take the initiative to learn how to properly do photography. Next week I am going to need to go from switching off every day between Piano and Guitar to solely Guitar. My Keyboard's battery has officially reached it's limit and I cannot play more than 10 minutes without it dying. I lost the cable a while ago and would need to order a new one so I can continue playing Piano. Kind of a shame, I got to a point in my Piano playing where I am constantly excited to play.

Feeling a bit down about today. The laptop I've been using to work on my final project for my Capstone is officially fried. I've been backing up my project regularly so I didn't lose too much work, but it has made me feel like rubbish all week. It'll be a good several hundred bucks to replace, and now I don't have anything I can bring into class for my first code demo this Monday. I've been trying my best to keep motivated to do my usual habits for the day, but I am just feeling anxious to spend the entire day working on re-doing all the code I lost since I last backed up my project.

Great question! Just this week I started to think about where and when I wanted to go with all of this and wrote up a 12-month plan for my future. Right now I want to stick to these habits until graduation(This December). My goal is to complete all the Quests that won't require an extreme amount of time effort(i.e. Marathon, Triathlon, Bench Press 2x Body Weight,etc;). Afterwards I'm going to take a break from my habits while recovering from a Kidney donation surgery in January. Once I'm recovered I'll be focused on tackling the much more difficult Quests one at a time. In the present state my life is pretty busy balancing school, work, fitness, personal projects, and these habits. When I transition to a more full-time role after graduation I expect I am going to be dealing with a different kind/level of businesses. I am hoping that I'll get a better idea of which habits I would feel the utmost important before then, then adapt it to my later schedule.

Week 2 Summary Week 2 Down and still staying strong with completing all my habits! In addition to getting 100% completion in all my tasks I managed to have successfully completed my 10 days of Tummo meditation. Not only is this another Quest marked off but I also earned enough of that sweet, juicy XP to level up. Despite completing my habits for the week, I have to admit it's starting to become difficult completing all my habits while staying on top of my every day work. On Friday it got pretty bad. I have been struggling getting a certain programming function working for one of my school projects and it has been slowly causing me stress. Not to mention I told my parents I plan on becoming a donor after graduating and they did not handle the news very well. I ended up feeling mentally out of it that day and I wasn't able to put in as strong of a workout as I would've liked on Friday. On Saturday I decided to cut back some time on my workouts so I can stay focused on catching up on my project for the rest of the day. I managed to get a lot of programming done that day and still keep track of my habits. However, it also meant I had to neglect working towards my Web Certification for the week. I'm hoping to keep working at a solid pace to get slightly ahead of schedule in my academics and free up some time this weekend to work on my certificate. Hopefully next week's summary I'll find my progress at least >75% completed for almost everything.

Thanks, Sloth! I hope they catch the guy as well, but not being too optimistic about it. Our neighborhood isn't really too well known for being the safest or have the quickest to react police team. :/

@Taddea Zhaan The barbell is attached to the smith machine. They don't have any free weight barbells available.

Week 1 Summary 1 week down! Time to look at how everything is going so far. As far as my weekly habits go I managed to stay on top of everything and achieve 100% completion in all my goals: I've found that since I started making stretching and cardio a regular habit I am not only finding myself getting back into my running pace since my marathon training days, but I am recovery faster than prior to this 4-week challenge. It has made it that much easier to do regular strength training workouts and achieve new PRs. I also found that Meditating was just what I needed to jump start my morning. Since doing meditation I found it easier to transition to my more difficult habits and work more efficiently on my coding projects and homework. I have been really enjoying the Wim Hof Method style of meditation. In just 10 minutes I find myself going from stress -> relaxed -> full of energy -> eager to take on the world. When I have to take a break from my workouts this December/January, I am likely going to invest in Wim Hoff's online course and take my meditation to the next level. I have found progression in both Piano and Guitar, but currently I am struggling with getting down the Barre chords for Guitar. Feels like I'm hitting a lot of dead strings when trying to play any one of them. Lastly, I found reading to be the most enjoyable habit to take-up. Trying to finish a chapter a day has caused me to sacrifice more distracting habits in my life such as browsing Youtube. Just finished up reading The Power of Habit and have been absolutely inspired to keep up these habits. As for my non-weekly Quests. Just finished another Fito Quest yesterday morning: With this first week finished up I have managed to complete the majority of my Fitocracy Quests. These Quests admittedly were easier than the ones I finished earlier this year. My goal for Fitocracy now is to complete the easier Quests as soon as possible so I can focus on hitting the more difficult Quests one at a time. I'll be coming for you Triathlon - Ironman(Run 42.2 km (26.2 mi) in one session, Swim 3.86 km (2.4 mi) in one session,Cycle 180 km (112 mi) in one session), Ultra Fifty Miler(Run 50 miles (80.47 km) in one session), and Robo Gorilla Mode(Deadlift 495 lb (224.5 kg) for at least 3 reps in one set, Barbell Squat 405 lb (183.7 kg) for at least 3 reps in one set, Barbell Bench Press 315 lb (142.9 kg) for at least 3 reps in one set) As for my FreeCodeCamp Certificate, I worked a few hours on my final project last Saturday night and knocked out my first goal. I feel like it's feasible to complete this by the end of my 4-week challenge if I keep going at the same rate, but from what I learned after designing the requirements for step 2, is that this project is just going to become increasingly difficult as I get closer to finishing it up. On the bright side, I am just one Fitocracy Quest and 3 days of Meditation away until I unlock two rewards: .

I vary it up each day. Usual breakfast consist of: Multigrain Cereal/Oatmeal/Cream of Wheat w/ a cup of Almond Milk Whole Wheat toast/bagels w/ PB/or Margarine Black Tea When I have more breakfast prep time it's: Fruit and Nuts served on Waffles/Pancakes Black Tea Poached/Boiled Eggs.

Funny you mention that. When we inspected our car we found our neighbor's car(who was parked in front of us) not only had his tires slashed, but his car was keyed and his mirror was smashed. We think that they were targeting him but mistook our car for his when they slashed all 4 tires.

I use my University's gym for working out and equipment there is kind of limited. They have some dumbells that go up to 70lb and a smith machine for the barebell. The problem I have is that the smith machine has a safety spring on it that prevents me from putting the barbell any lower than slightly below knee height. This makes it impossible to do a deadlift with proper form. I can't really rely on two 70 lb dumbells because the combined weight is lower than what I usually lift. Would there be any way I can workaround this or any alternatives I can do to cope with this? I talked with another weight lifter about this, and he suggested deficient deadlifts, but I found this is not possible. The gym does not have anything to elevate me high enough other than the bench, but the bench is too wide to squeeze between the smith machine so I can get to the bar. Stacking the maximum plates on top(45 lbs) still does not elevate me high enough to achieve proper form.

Thanks @Elastigirl! Completed another Fitocracy Quest yesterday! That's 2 down, 2 to go! On an off note, been a little ticked at my stream of bad luck this week. On Monday I took my car in to get an oil change for a trip I had planned this week. Goodyear had a complimentary vehicle inspection thrown into it so I took it down over there to get the oil change done. Later that evening I drove to class and found my car overheating and steam coming out of my hood. I popped open the hood and found the radiator's cap was screwed off and resting by the valve. I was pretty angry, but I decided to let it slide and just drove it back home after it cooled off. The next day I called Goodyear and explained what happened. The representative simply laughed it off, claimed the radiator's cap must've just popped off, told me there was no way I would've been able to drive it home if they were the ones to unscrew it, and then said they would charge me $60 just to inspect it. I instead took it to a different mechanic and got the air purged out of the radiator. The mechanic told me there was no way that cap would've just simply popped off and someone had to have unscrewed it. So fast forward to Thursday. I got home around 21:00 from class and parked my car on the street. This morning I woke up to go to the store and found that all four of my tires have been completely slashed. Had to get it towed to Discount Tires to get 4 replacement tires.

I agree with @Machete. Top-Rope and Bouldering can give you quite the workout, but I personally feel bouldering will give you more bang for your buck(In terms of working strength). Would recommend trying it out, see if you like it, then take a class to learn the fundamentals. There is surprisingly a lot more technique involved in rock climbing than a lot of people realize.

Are you looking to not using your GPS when running?

I bought this multi-purpose pull-up bar from Walmart's Sports department over 5 years ago and I still use it to this day. It has worked wonders for doing pull-ups, chin-ups, crunches, planches, l-sits, etc; For 20-30 bucks you can also buy a pair of gymnastics rings to use with the bar and open up to doing more exercises such as dips, muscle-ups, and the like. I love it because I am able to just simply take it down and put it up anywhere where there is a door frame and do my workouts. It didn't start getting worn for me until 2-3 years after constant use, but it's just an easy tightening with using the Allen wrench that comes with the bar, or use a Phillips screwdriver.