Honorata

Okay, we're on the last day of this challenge, so lets give an overview/challenge in review: Daily Exercise: This was done every day. No misses at all. 12/12 Veggies at Lunch and Dinner: This was mostly done every day. I had two days where I missed one meal's worth of veggies, largely because I ate a small meal instead of a full sit-down thing. 11/12 Protein: Not great, Bob. Fell short on three days, although on two of those days I was only short by 5g or less. I was always well over my recommended daily minimum. 9/12 Overall takeaway: I've got daily exercise pretty much set as a habit at this point. (I'm closing in on my 100 day badge over at Darebee.) I don't think this needs to be a factor in my future challenges unless something major is coming up that might distract me. Veggies at both meals was overall pretty doable and definitely led to me adding at least some raw snacking veggies to lunch when I wouldn't have normally. Worth keeping up with. I struggled a little with the protein challenge because it's more than I usually eat. Because I don't really care for eating meat, although I will eat fish, I felt I had to rely too much on protein powders to get up to my daily allotment. This also made it a little harder to work in my usual occasional vegan meal as often as I would have liked. It definitely got me thinking more about maximizing my protein at meals, which I will stick with, but a set minimum isn't great for me because I had a few days where while I could have eaten just a little more to reach that minimum, I don't want to get into the habit of eating when I'm not hungry just to hit a higher protein amount. All that said, I think I learned some things I'll take with me into the next challenge.

Don't beat yourself up too much for taking a full rest day -- sometimes we need them. Especially with how crazy it sounds like things have been at work for you. As long as you get back to it after your rest day, it's good to take a day to recharge once in a while. One thing that might be helpful is taking a rest day from working out during the week and only do something light like walking or stretching, and then have one of your weekend days (assuming you don't work weekends) be a day you work out, but don't work. The rest day during the week should give you some time to recharge your work out groove, and having a weekend day have time set aside to workout will help you associate exercise not with work but with taking care of yourself? That might not work for you, but I've found it helpful in the past. Also, hello fellow Thinker-About-Doing-A-5k-In-The-Fall. I'm currently looking at running my first 5k in mid-September and I'm very nervous but it's definitely giving me something to work towards.

I know it can be easy to beat yourself up about not doing things you planned to do, but I think illness is a pretty good excuse, and you did still make an attempt to do those things even though you were sick. You're doing fine, just keep trying.

@turtleduck Maybe! I've sent an email to the trainers at my gym to see about getting a few one-on-one training sessions with the free weights, which would be helpful if I can work that out with them. As far as a non-trainer person, not really unless I get lucky and run into one of my old coworkers in the weight room again. Also, I think it might be time for me to get a book on weight lifting just so I have a good resource for stuff like this, so I guess getting that is on my to-do list now! Anyway, challenge continues to go well. I missed on my protein yesterday, but other than that I've been keeping up with everything. Today was the big leap to Week 4 in Couch to 5k and I managed it, so now I've got a pretty good feeling about the rest of the program, since the jump from week 3 to week 4 is the only jump I remember thinking was really major the first time around with this program.

I still haven't done Carbon & Dust, but I did Hero's Journey back in 2016 and it's still my favorite Darebee program. Glad to see you're progressing well on your quests!

Update: Doing pretty well on my challenge, so far. Protein's been a bit of a struggle, but I've been tracking my food so I can see when I'm running behind, as well as what meals I enjoy are also pretty high protein. Couch to 5k is going well, although the big leap from Week 3 to Week 4 is coming up on Monday, and we'll see how I do with that. Hit my first major strength training goal when I was able to deadlift 100 pounds for one rep today. I'm still really nervous about weighted strength training, even though I find it quite enjoyable. I don't have great kinesthetic sense so I don't trust myself to be able to imitate body shapes I see pictures of to achieve proper form.

I realize I've gotten here a bit late for this round of challenges, but instead of waiting for the next one, I figure I'll start this run-through and probably extend some of these challenges to the next go-through. Anyway, hi! I'm Honor! I'm 35 and from Ohio. ABOUT ME While I'm new to NerdFitness, I'm not new to exercise and diet changes, which I've started back up again in earnest in January. I have mostly been doing bodyweight strength & cardio programs from Darebee, but in my hope to start branching out to different kinds of training, I stumbled upon NerdFitness and thought I'd join up here as well. I started getting interested in fitness in 2016, but had a large setback when my mother fell ill and I became her full-time caretaker. While I was able to keep a lot of the strength I'd gained, my eating habits suffered a lot in 2017, and I regained about 75% of the weight I'd lost in 2016. Earlier this year, I was diagnosed with ADHD, and finally receiving treatment for that has made it much easier for me to do my duties as my mother's caretaker while still taking time out for myself. (My mother is recovering somewhat from her initial ill health, but still needs someone around with more mobility strength than she has to take care of a lot of things, plus she has a lot of doctor's visits she needs taken to, so this is still my full-time job.) My other interests include: World of Warcraft: Currently On A Break, but I'll be struggling to manage my time when the new expansion drops. BFA is going to mark my transition from a Healer Main (Holy Paladin, Resto Shaman) to a DPS Main (Windwalker Monk) and I'm pretty excited. Baseball: I'm a big Cleveland Indians fan Tabletop Roleplaying: I haven't been able to find a game near me here at my mom's place, and this is probably on my to-do list for the year. As it is, I scratch my itch by tuning into Critical Role, although I'm quite a bit behind on the new campaign. MY GOALS My overall goals are to lose body fat (I'd like to lose about 30 pounds this year. I've lost 17 so far, so I'm very on-pace), and to improve my overall fitness. Right now I'm working on improving my endurance. I've already done a lot of work cutting out sodas and junk from my diet, as well as working on portion control and eating more whole foods with lower GI, but I need to start being more strict with myself about meeting my dietary needs day-to-day. Without genuine effort, I tend to not get enough protein in a day. CHALLENGE GOALS Diet: 80g protein/day minimum Diet: non-starchy vegetable at both lunch and dinner, daily Exercise: Continue existing plan: At least 15 minutes of physical activity daily. Couch to 5k - 3x/week Strength training - 2x/week, at least once with weight.