Rebel Pilot Gar

Wow great progress so far, keep it up! (Also, the title you chose for this thread is awesome!) I know what you mean about swimming and ear problems - not fun. Another swimming alternative is aqua jogging. It's similar to treading water, but a bit harder since you're actually trying/pretending to jog in the water. Could be an alternative if you start getting bored of treading water or want to add a bit of challenge for a day. I've done it a few times with my team (college fencing) as a cardio/recovery workout since it is low impact.

Thanks for all the support! Still have one last workout for the week, much better at the routine than last week. Thanks! I'm doing pretty well on my sustainability goal. Last week I drove about 270 miles to and from work and campus, now that I'm living at home my commute decreased by more than 120 miles! Only difference is that I am no longer carpooling to work. I'm also buying more local food and bringing lunch to work each week. Yeah I've seen the couch to 5k program. My biggest problem is actually setting foot out the door. I tend to enjoy the running when I start but I dread it before that. But that is something I can get over by setting a routine and sticking to it.

Week 2 Day 4 Went for a run today!!!! Very proud of myself. Naturally the hardest part was getting out the door to actually run. Had to make 2 tries of it, the first try I got distracted by a game of 1v1 basketball with the neighbor's kid for 30 min. Due to surprise basketball game, I cut my planned run by 20 min. I set a timer for 10 min ran away and turned around after the timer went off. Took a 1 min "break" to stretch my calves on a street sign since my Achilles Tendon felt really tight. Then set the timer and ran back home. Distance was approx. 1.8 miles, maybe a tiny bit over. Not bad for my first run. Will increase the run by 4 min next time and see how that goes.

Thanks for the links. New fitness sites are always a great find. I like the variation on the inverted row that gives more of a pull-up angle than the traditional type. I know lat pull downs aren't the best... I was doing the band-assisted pullups at school but don't have any bands at home and just fell onto that. Now that you've pushed me, I'll switch it up to the reverse pullup (the one where you jump and lower yourself down slowly) and throw in a jump up and hold pull-up position for XX seconds into my warmup (hold at top) and cooldown (hold at bottom). Awesome! Going to add it to CHA on the basis that even if I don't really "feel" results yet I feel better for having worked out consistently

Week 2 - Day 3 I have been really on track with my fitness goals this week - 3/3 workouts so far, with two more to go. Setting a reward for the end of the week really helps. Monday Strength Training Day: Dynamic Warmup 3x20 body weight squats 3x15 pushups 3x20 walking lunges 3x10 lat pull downs (120, 120, 140 lbs) 3x10 core cable twist things (hold resistance band with arms straight standing in side lunge then twist torso 180 degrees) Cool Down & Stretch Tuesday Cardio Day: Was supposed to be a running day but it was pouring so I used a concept rower as follows: 5 min warmup @ 500 m/2:50 min 30 sec "sprint" @ 500 m/2:00 min (degraded as I got tired) 2 min "jog" @ 500 m/2:45 min (interval done 8 times) 5 min cool down Total use time - 30 min. Wednesday Strength Day: Was really short on time so I cut out the core and one of the leg workouts and turned it into a mini circuit Dynamic Warmup 10 lat pull down (140 lbs) 20 walking lunges 17 pushups (2 min rest between sets, total of 3 sets) Cool down & stretch Progress Comments I need to start running outside to train for that 5k Also, for pushups my goal is to do 50 straight. I've been increasing the amount I do each day, but I generally break after 8-10 pushups, take a short breather then push out the rest. I really want to work on increasing, but I also don't want to cheat with my form... Really frustrating but I'll keep pounding away at that to get the best results I can. Food is pretty on track. I've been preparing my own food this week since I moved off campus on the weekend - so now I'm getting way more veggies in my system, and eating healthier meat. I've also been eating less carbs because one family member is on a "no carb diet". Don't think it is paleo or primal, just no bread, rice, potatoes, etc. I missed once on the sugar by eating a blueberry muffin. Otherwise than that, I've been really good at turning down the offered desserts. Just have to keep at it for a few more weeks.

Something I've been doing that works is set up a reward for myself at the end of the week. For instance, if I work out 5 days this week (Mon-Fri, I tend to use weekends as rest days) I can go see Avengers again. If I don't work out each night after work, no Avengers for me. Currently 3/3 for this week despite a few tight schedules and a rainy day.

Did pretty well week 1 - aced everything except the fitness goals. Only worked out last Thursday and never ended up going for that baseline run. Spent most of the week finishing up my campus part-time job and packing up my dorm. Oh and Avengers. That was awesome. Aiming for 5/5 days of working out this week. If I nail that I can go see Avengers again! (big time Marvel geek here) What better prize for working out than going to a movie with a bunch of buff actors (and kick-ass actress) running around fighting things?

My "mini challenge" was to get a baseline progress for my goals and set up a plan based on my start point. For pushups I can do 15 in a row. In order to achieve my goal of 50 pushups I need to increase that amount by 7 per week. A bit daunting, but I moved my training schedule to MWF = Strength and try to get +2 or more pushups per strength session - Pushup training is 3 sets of max reps with a break time between sets Still working incrementally on pullups using lat pulldown bar. Increased by 10 lbs today for last set so I can pull down 10x @ 140 lbs. The last two were killer. - Want to increase to about 10 lbs above my weight then try a real pullup again. Running - failed on the cardio day. Didn't go. Will make myself go tomorrow even if its pouring out. Food - doing awesomely for sweets avoidance. I've been turning down dessert left and right choosing to take a piece of fruit or cup of tea (no sugar or milk) instead. Glad I keep teabags & a mug in my cube. Also have been working on cutting down on bread/grains since that gets turned into sugar. Like switching in a fresh salad for a sandwich and yogurt & fruit for oatmeal. Life - doing well with sustainability - just need to work on bringing lunch in more often. Just realized my money saving goal isn't really possible with my income - even if I spent nothing on gas/food I'd be short... fail. Question: Could I go back and change the $$$ goal to something more attainable? Like spend less than 15% of paycheck/week?

(will update sometime Sunday to get actual end of week results) FITNESS Worked out 1/5 days. Need to fix that. Will run Sat morning to make up for missing today. Strength Training Workout: Body weight circuit (squats, pushups, walking lunges, planks, lat pull down) Goal Related Items: Pushups - 14/50 (28%) Pullups - 140 lb lat pull downs (3x10) Running - not done yet this week FOOD Need to go food shopping - will go during farmer's market. I have menu planned for most of next week. NO DESSERT - still good. I was tempted, but turned it all down. Need to stop eying the candy jar and cookies I walk past at work - but I have not touched any of it. LIFE Moving out of dorm this week - have already surpassed the 5 hours for this week. Or does that count as negative 5 because now my room @ home is a disaster? Have my baseline mileage for this week (of course I forgot to write it down... about 200 some miles). Living at home shortens my commute in 1/2. Avg 10 min showers. Trying to think around waiting for water to warm up.... Saving money - internship gives me money. I'll reduce expenses by reducing driving mileage and bringing lunch to work instead of buying it (should save about $50/week) OTHER Since we get experience for completing our goals, I'm also going to give myself "rewards" for completing each section. Fitness - after completing this goal I'll go out and get myself a new sports bra. Food - spend money on a good bar of dk chocolate to break up as an occasional snack Life - there's an indoor rock climbing place about 45 min away. If I reach or surpass my savings goals I'll go spend a day over there climbing (with my new enhanced pullup strength ) Gotta get working on that routine.

Here's my baseline: A baseline for my max number of pushups (14) - Now I need to increase by 6 pushups each week in order to reach my goal of 50 straight. A question though - for weight training I know you should leave a rest day for muscles to recover, but if I find myself falling behind on the 6/week increase would it be bad to do successive days of just pushups? (like Mon, Tues, Wed then break Thurs) Also got a baseline for how close I am to doing a pullup using a lat pull down bar. I can pull 140 lbs for 3 sets 10 reps. So I'll increase weight from 5-10 lbs (need to check how the plates increase) for 4 weeks (brings me to 160+ which is over my weight) My last run I got 1.9 miles in about 22 minutes. (Goal 5K, under 30 min) Plan to start running after work instead of in the morning. I am not a morning person and would either hit snooze or turn the alarm off (like this morning) so on the few days I did go out to run I felt rushed. So I'll set my timer for 30 min, turn around when it hits 15 and push myself to run a little further each day. (Runningmap.com is awesome but I'll see how well it will stick to more suburb roads than city grid near college) Food goals - really good at the no dessert thing. Especially since I've had to turn down dessert every day so far. Need to work on the cooking.

Hey Squad A! I'm excited to be a part of this. My hardest part will be cleaning up my diet. After that my 5K in under 30 min and 50 pushups straight goals will be tough but I can totally make it if I apply myself and actually stick to the routine.

Thanks! My plan is to run 5K 3 days/week (M/W/F). I've been working on a 5K run/walk and am currently getting about 2.25 before I start taking walking breaks, so over the next 2 weeks I'll work on getting the distance up to 5K full run. Then I'll start timing each run. For that I was thinking of picking landmarks for each mile of the route and working to set a 10 min pace between landmarks - or at least decrease by some margin each run. Though if you have any tips for reducing run time I would really appreciate them. I talk about the running one above. I can currently do about 15 pushups straight. If I could increase by 6 pushups per week by strength training on Tues and Thurs and increasing 3 pushups on each of those days I should hit the 50 pushup mark. I might add another strength day on Sat or Sun or do switch to sets and reps of a lower number if I start finding the increase too difficult. 50 is a bit high - I wrote it down months ago as an 'end of summer goal' but I guess that's why it's called a challenge. I put the pullup in there because I was trying to hit that by the end of last month but still need to work on that quite a bit... And thanks for the comment on the sustainability goals! That's one of those topics I find really important. I'm already pretty good with the reusable bag, no plastic bottles thing but these are a few of the areas I often slip on. Now I'm off to subscribe to squad A ~

~Intro~ Hey all, I'm a newbie on the boards. This is my 3rd post - and this challenge is the reason I actually joined the boards instead of continuing to lurk every once in a while. I'm joining the ranks of rangers because I'm one of those people who likes to have a diverse set of skills - and it keeps the workouts diverse. As a less fitnessy reason, my favorite class is a ranger... for my first (and longest) D&D campaign I played a ranger. Fun times. ~CHAR~ Race: Lycan Class: Ranger Height: 5'7" Weight: 155 ~STATS~ STR - 2 DEX - 2 STA - 2 CON - 3 WIS - 4 CHA - 2 + 1 ~GOALS~ Fitness Run 5K without stopping. (+2 STA) -- COMPLETED: 29 May Run 5K under 30 min. (+1 STA) -- Fastest Time 40:45 50 Pushups Straight, 1 Complete BW Pullup (+2 STR) -- Pushups: 31/50, Pullups: 0 Food NO SWEETS (Includes: candy, soda, cookies, pastries, ice cream, lattes/mochas, store-bought smoothies, etc) Only exceptions are Mother's Day and Grandparent's birthday (+2 CON, +1 WIS) Cook Healthy Meals 5 days/week (+1 CON, +1 CHA) Life Set aside 5 hours/week to clean and organize my room. (+1 WIS) Live more sustainably (eat local food, drive less per week, take shorter showers, etc) (+1 CON, +2 WIS) Save up $5,000 from summer job (+1 WIS) ~More Ramblings~ I really want to work on consistency with my routine. Running and sprinting days are where I tend to miss - hence my goals being centered around them. Also it's finals time for the next few weeks so I'll be focusing on just making sure I'm out doing something active each day to establish a base before starting to ramp things up. My biggest problem is eating right. I have used dining hall food as an excuse but now that I have rules I will stop saying things like "Tough day, need cookies". Also, excuses are for the weak and I'm a rebel now. All that junk food will be replaced with healthier meals. Just some goals I already had floating around for the summer anyway. The monetary, though tough, will be appreciated in the future when I graduate and need to pay bills. Hopefully saved gas will balance out extra money I'll be spending at the farmer's market...

Yeah I did a summer camp 7 years ago and never looked back. And we have a team at school which keeps me active in it. The only problem is how expensive it can be once you get really serious into it (boo tournament fees). I've played around a bit with all three, but I'm an epeeist at heart. I have the rangering thing going though since I've also dabbled in the "normal" team sports, track, archery and martial arts

Hi, I'm Garjan. I've been following the blog for a few months now, but the new 6 week challenge inspired me to actually join the forums and get my life-levelling set in writing. I'm a 3rd year university student and stay relatively active - but have always had trouble with my weight, self-image, etc. I figure this will help me get my act together and buckle down a real routine to start improving myself and my lifestyle. I'm super excited to be a new member of the rebellion. Everything I've read - from blog posts to rules of the rebellion and all the forum posts have inspired me to really work at improving the way I live. And comparisons to geeky things like video games, books and d&d help too. Here are a few things about me: Geek, gamer, girl. I like lifting heavy metal objects - sadly I'm going back home so body weight workouts for me until classes roll around in the fall. Cardio bores me to tears - I hate cardio machines and am not a fan of running due to generally poor endurance (but I do like biking and swimming for fun). Glad to have found others who also do things other than chronic cardio. I like swords - the fencing variety. It's the sport that's kept me engaged the longest and I'd like to remain fit/healthy enough to continue for decades to come.