Suse

Dantes, nice to see you are still being a legend on the boards. I see no bread up there, have you finally ditched the sandwiches?

Sugar is a complete bitch to give up. I've really cut back... I used to have 2 tspns in my tea (and I drink a LOT of tea) now I am down to 1/2 a tspn. I went 1 week sugar free but decided that I just need to have those few grains in my tea to make life enjoyable! Instead of eating candy when you are studying, what about some really dark chocolate, 80%... you dont want to have as much and at least it doesnt have HFCS in it??

Nice goals... you can do it... all of it!

Been a long time since I've been on the boards. Nice to see the same names here!

I believe he is still in the north island at the moment...

steve, when are you in Auckland. definitely keen to meet up

these were my goals

My goals are very simple

1. Gain strength back in my shoulder. Its slow progress because I have a slight fear of hurting it, and I just seem to keep forgetting to do the exercises the physio gives me. doh.

- do theraband exercises from physio every day while at work. I did them but not enough

- work up to a 1 minute plank - which I can do anywhere, anytime ha, I didnt really even do anything on this

- work up to 20 knee pushups (no full pushups just yet, I absolutely must ensure my form is perfect to not bugger up shoulder) Ok I might look a bit stupid doing these at work so they are an at home exercise.ha, even worse

2. Clean out the crap under the house did awesome on this one overall

I know, pretty boring, but hopefully achievable.

Frankly I was just useless. When my motivation goes, it just goes... I just wish I knew where cause I would go and find it and bring it back kicking and screaming.

I was supposed to be doing regular shoulder exercises....I did them but not as regular as I should have been (in fact, I'm starting to feel a pinch again so I had really better get my shit together)

I was supposed to do planks and other stuff to firm up my ab area, doh. never happened

On the level up my life challenge though, I did pretty darn good, I cleared out my garage, my wardrobe, tidied up my drawers, sorted out a lot of stuff and to add to the levelling up (that I never mentioned at the start), I bought a new car and sold my old one.

Win some, lose some. 46 sleeps till fiji, so I better get started on the abs if I want to wear my bikini on the beach.

ok I apologise. I've had nothing of significance to post. Shoulder exercises have been done intermittently, with a big fat none over the weekend. I've done no planks, no abs, no nothing... why is that... I keep saying I need to do something about my soft poochy belly and yet i do nothing...Its only 7 weeks to my fiji holiday when I intend to hang out all day in a bikini... I've got to start getting my sh*t together kids!

Clearing out my crap is still a work in progress but I have definitely made progress so that is good.

On the level up my life front, some of my auctions closed and I got rid of a few things from out of the garage. YES WIN. I also spent a day cleaning out my wardrobe and sorting through my clothes and tossing stuff that doesnt fit (too big/too small) into 3 piles... one pile nice stuff that I can sell... one pile... ok stuff that perhaps my sister might like knowing she wouldnt like the other stuff...one pile that is going straight to the rag bag... always handy to have spare rags! I now need to go shopping cause really I have nothing to wear.

And that is no surprise, when I had my official weigh in at work today (we have a healthy living group that weighs in once a week) I have lost 600g in 10 days (we just changed our weigh in day) A lot of my clothes are actually too big for me. I just seem to be losing my weight effortlessly and maintaining very easily. For anyone that is interested, paleo/primal is the way to go, and I still drink wine like a fish

On the shoulder front, no real exercises, but I did re-oil the letterboxes for me and my neighbours so that involved a lot of shoulder work above me at one stage.. and in terms of the ab work, well I was lying out in my bikini at one stage and did some flutter kicks... does that count

I did my shoulder exercises yesterday (not enough of them though) and I did manage to get down and do a plank once during the day. Need to get my act together this weekend.

you're impressive in that you are keeping up the commitment to do your workouts. wow is what I say.

yow, back in at week 4 on the 100 PU. no wonder you were feeling a bit sore, thats a pile of pushups man!

yeah when you're sick its hard to find motivation to do ANYTHING. Maybe just pick one little thing and do it for 2 mins and then pat yourself on the back for that achievement.

I cant really talk though, as I am quite frankly, useless.

I am hopeless really. I just re read my goals and realised I havent done anything about planks and pushups... good grief.... must get on to that.

going to change the order I do my theraband exercises in.. I find that I get tired quickly so I need to do the upwards sort of ones first and then do the sideways one next. Just did that now.

I guess it depends on certain areas where there is a problem, I'm in a slightly higher socio-economic suburb I suppose. I'm sure if I was to take stuff to a goodwill/hospice/salvation shop further away from me ie, in a lower socio suburb, it would be easier to give ther stuff away, but to be honest, I cant be bothered driving half an hour in the bloody awful traffic. As I said though, once you start hearing these stories, you think Oh I cant be bothered.... I'd be appalled if someone said they didnt want my stuff, cause really there's nothing wrong with it apart from the fact its not modern or new. Anything that really is crap just goes in the bin.

did some shoulder exercises yesterday. Not enough. Need to do the theraband exercises way more often.

Some of my stuff on trademe already has bids and given its a no reserve auction that is good as those things will be gone from my garage!

And yuy for getting rid of some stuff! Is there a lot of stuff left in the basement? Perhaps you can bring the things that you won't sell to goodwill.

I know it seems almost hard to believe, but trying to get rid of your unwanted stuff to goodwill stores, hospice shops, women's refuges, salvation army etc is near on impossible in NZ. It seems that nowadays they only want new stuff. Truly. I've seen and heard too many stories now to know that everyone isnt making it up - my friends had practically brand new bedding in their mothers house when she died and offered it to womens refuge and were turned down... another friend had some good quality but used items of housewares and clothing they took to a goodwill type store, turned away because they said they dont take stuff that comes from a garage sale... Its this age of entitlement I think, where everyone thinks they should have everything brand new. hell when i was younger and a student, flatting, I was always happy with any type of hand-me-downs... sure I wanted a new sofa or tv or table or whatever, but I was damned happy to get something that was better than what I might have currently had. Kids nowadays seem too used to getting everything handed to them on a platter... must have the new iphone, or ipod, or a laptop, or a new car. I'm getting old and moaning about the younger generation , oh dear!!! so easy to forget that I was young once and probably had exactly the same level of what I believed was righteous expectation!

must go and do my exercises.

Great work! Keep it up!

oh.my.god. ewwwwwwwwwwwww I hate insects and rodents..... have I ever mentioned the time I sprained my ankle running away from a cockroach

haha spezzy I can totally see that miniscule writing underneath!!!!

Good work Asuria. Keep it up, hope you are feeling better. Sleep is the most wonderful restorative, never doubt the body and its call for a good nights sleep!

ok I did a post yesterday but hit save rather than submit so I have no idea where in the world that is...???

Right update, not much in terms of goal one and doing my exercises. Bloody hopeless truth be told. However, did a lot of garden work yesterday and helped my partner shovel 1 cubic metre of garden mix into our new vege planters so I guess that could be considered shoulder exercises

However on my level up challenge, i'm rocking it. I got down into the basement yesterday and sorted some stuff, photographed it, put it on trademe (NZ equiv of Ebay). So yay, now all I need to do is sell it and get shot of it.

Ok right this instant I am going to do my thera-band exercises.

or have sweet potatoes instead of white potatoes. although I personally dont have a problem with the odd white potato here and there...

yeah I second alethea and ditch some (all!!!) of that bread. You'll be amazed at what will happen if you ditched grains for a while!

The dress will look good, looks like a nice easy pattern.

alrighty, first up, yesterday I was a lazy ass. No theraband, no leg raises, no pushups, no nothing!!! Hopeless. The theraband is hanging on my office door so really there is no excuse for forgetting, I see it everytime I go out of my office for heavens sake.

Just went to the chiropracter and he said "what you been doing girl, your shoulder's all out of alignment" I told him I'd done some pushups and he said that explains it. Anyway I've got to work through it, and really focus on my form and not over do it, but make sure I do do it he said and keep up with the theraband! Right.

Ah an IF.. intermittent fast.... Steve has blogged about them. For some reason I thought perhaps you were doing paleo/primal but from reading our team update I see you are not!. They can be quite good for breaking a plateau for some people.

Great work injex.

Asuria, at first it was a rotator cuff injury, I'd pulled something out of a wardrobe, wrong angle, and then I was doing lots of DIY at home, stripping wallpaper, sanding, painting, and then bootcamp with lots and lots of exercise that my body wasnt used to and things just went from bad to worse over the course of the year. Finally after being in a lot of pain (and with my motion so limited I couldnt do up my bra), I saw a specialist and he diagnosed frozen shoulder (adhesive capsulitis) and I have been back on the road to recovery since. I am just that little bit scared of going back to where I was so I am taking it a bit easy.

Hey good luck on your goals.

have you tried the 100 pushup challenge?