JasmineDragon

Thanks guys! Here's a quick update for today! While it was not a running day I did commit to practice yoga! I even showed my mom and my sister some things. It was fun. As for the food I did pretty well. I ate a banana, black cherries, strawberries, kale, spinach, sweet potatoes, garlic, parsnips, rosemary, tomatoes, artichoke, grapes, melon, pineapple, eggs, and (this counts as a baby cheat) a tiny bit of feta cheese. I also had a bit of grapefruit juice and some green tea. It was a delicious day. Overall, I feel happy with today.

Hey everyone! After missing out on a few six week challenges, I'm back and ready to start fresh. To catch you all up on my life, I kept up with healthy eating and exercise up until the last few weeks of the semester when things really got crazy. I had a fundraiser to organize and finish, I started an environmental club at school, I had way too many finals, and I had to make some recordings for music festivals this summer. So, my exercise definitely got off track. However, I decided to take a yoga class for credit this past semester, so thanks to that I hit the mat at least twice a week and am so so so much more flexible and strong. (Yay, I can finally hold crow pose for more than a second!!!) Still, I'm unsatisfied with my current progress. I'm very happy, but I want to be even happier, so here are my goals for the next six weeks. 1) Nutrition!! Kick processed food to the curb! I'm going to try an experiment for the next six weeks and see what I can do for my body. I'll allow a treat every now and then, but no more than once a week. I think that this goal is quite achievable since I am a vegetarian and I try to minimize the processed food anyway. The hardest part will be bread and cheese. 2) Marathon training My sister and I really want to run a marathon (or a half-marathon...we will see) this summer. I run, but the most I've done lately is five miles at a time. If I am to be serious about this I need to start now. I'm going to pick myself back up and try to run four times a week. I always fill my semesters with too many classes so keeping up with anything is always a challenge, but I can and will do my best. 3) Yoga I don't practice every day, which is silly because as a musician I am so prone to repeated stress-related injuries. I've had them before. I'm being ridiculous and I stress myself out and keep practicing and getting upset. Yoga helps me so much that I even feel inspired to someday become a teacher. I think it would be a fantastic supplemental career to my musical goals. I even got a manduka mat for Christmas, so I need to put this ridiculousness to an end and actually practice EVERY SINGLE DAY for at least fifteen minutes. It really not too much to ask. I can do this! LIFE GOAL!!! So next semester I will finally move into an apartment. The one that I've got my eye on is nicer than most around town, but it is still affordable. Thanks to my little sister who offered to pay for rent all by herself, it is now expected of me to do the same without any help. I need to save my money. Big time. I need to majorly cut into my spending money and save as much of my paychecks as I can. I'm going to give myself just ten dollars every week to have for random spending, like getting coffee with friends or buying something that I probably don't need. That way most of my money will go towards school and savings for living expenses next year. I can do this! Extras!!! Here are a few more things that I am striving towards! 1) Get the environmental club really active 2) Perform a mock jury for a friend every day so that I am prepared and can get my performers certificate! So, here are my plans! I will keep you all up to date whenever I can. Hopefully I can get around to daily reports, but with all that I've got planned for this semester we will see! Wish me luck, and good luck to all of you in return!

Woo! Okay, here's a recap of the past week. So, LordOfTime and I have been kicking ass lately. Tuesday, as you all know we went on a long run, Wednesday I moved into my room and helped friends move into their rooms too, also LordOfTime taught me some real weightlifting exercises, including how to deadlift! Ouch, I was sore for days! Thursday I was too tired after our workout and I thought it was going to be a rest day, but LordOfTime and I ended up playing Dance Dance Revolution and wow that was enough exercise for the day. It reached a point where my legs refused to move, even though I was sure that my brain was telling them to step on the arrows. haha. Friday we went for a jog, half an hour at an easy pace to save our strength for our COLOR RUN TODAY. It was so much fun guys, we didn't keep track of our time for this 5k, but we stuck together and had a blast.

Hello everyone. After traveling all day yesterday and then attending a party right when I arrived had me sitting all day and then eating and drinking too much yucky food. Bad me, but the party is a trombone tradition and the consumption of the yucky food was mandatory. So, today I decided to work it off so I woke up at 7:00 (which felt like 4:00 after traveling from the west coast to the east coast!) and went for a fifteen minute run. Nothing special, I just needed to get up and do something. Then I caught up with my friend LordOfTime, hung out for a while, and then went for a running adventure. Our "short run while our friend took a nap" turned into an hour and a half of jogging and doing some intervals of jogs, sprints, and walking on a five mile loop that we didn't think we would take. We definitely played the tree game that Steve mentioned in his latest article, and we considered chasing each other. That will be for another time, I think. Anyway, she totally kicked my butt. I didn't run at all on my vacation, oops! but I'm going to get back into the game now. I'm so glad to be back at school and work out with friends.

Hey, I hope you are feeling better. I hate being sick. The Warrior Dash looks like a blast. I'm doing a graffiti run with a friend when I get back to school. It looks like it will be a lot of fun, and I'll be sure to share pictures.

Hey guys, sorry that I've been MIA lately. (I told you, this challenge was going to be so difficult for me!!) But I've been on an adventure of a vacation with my boyfriend's family. So, here's a quick recap of the past two weeks. I kept up running and yoga for the few days that I was preparing to leave for the west coast. I was really busy with preparing, but I tried my hardest to keep up. Then on the evening of the 15th after eight hours of travel I arrived in Washington and I spent the first two days relaxing and enjoying seeing my boyfriend again for the first time in months. Also, I helped his family to prepare for our vacation, which included lots of cleaning and running around. On the 18th we set out for the Oregon coast and various locations in between there and his home. The trip included lots of driving, walking, exploring the freezing cold beaches of Newport, climbing rocks to get to hidden tide pools, glass blowing, "talking" with sea lions, exploring lava caves, rafting on level 4 rapids and swimming through some level 3 rapids too! It was such a fun trip. I brought my yoga mat and running shoes along, but only the yoga mat was put to use on some mornings while my boyfriend took his girlishly long showers and I had nothing else to do. Oh, and speaking of running shoes I got these awesome new minimalist running shoes with great arches. I had been having some knee issues because I was landing funny, and these shoes completely fixed that problem. They are great. Plus, they are bright yellow, so I feel like an Olympian. (Did anyone else notice that probably 80% of the runners had the same yellow shoes?) Anyway, we just arrived back at my boyfriend's house, and including today I only have four more days left here before I head back to Rochester. I signed up for a race with LordOfTime, so I will want to pick up the slack on my running again. Sorry for not keeping up, but I was having too much fun to bother with the internet at all. -JD

I really like your goals. They don't seem like stressful ultimatums, but just really great plans to live well. Awesome!

Awesome goals! And way to go for finishing one of them already! Also, I'm really excited about your novel. As an aspiring musician I'm really happy to hear that you aren't afraid to do what you really love even if it is difficult and risky. You go girl!

I love your goals. I almost added something about clean eating into mine, but decided with practicing my trombone instead. That's so exciting that you are training for a half marathon. That's actually something that I've always wanted to do, but never devoted myself to. Perhaps this can be a future challenge goal....

Thanks guys. Yesterday I was feeling a little under the weather all day, but I did make myself practice yoga and trombone. Today was pretty good. I went on a run with my sister and practiced my yoga with stretches afterwards. Also we took our dogs to the dog park, where I ran around trying to keep my chocolate lab from getting too friendly with a little terrier. We took them for a little walk afterwards too. I unfortunately did NOT practice trombone today. I'm bad. But since I only have three more days at home I spend it with my family and my adorable dogs and I don't really feel as guilty about it as I should. I need to keep up with my meditation, so I will begin that very soon after I finish writing this post. Thanks for keeping up with me everyone!

Yeah girl! Kick butt with challenge 2!

Yesterday I did almost all of my laundry so that I can start packing soon, but I did find time to practice trombone and yoga. Today was quite a bit better. I went to yoga class, tai chi class, and I ran for two miles in the evening. The only crappy part of my day is that I found out that I am allergic to this cool new blue mascara that I bought. I took some allergy medicine so that my eyes can be less swollen, red, and itchy and it's made me sooo sleepy. It's definitely time to go to bed.

Today was a bit of a rough start to a new challenge. It was my sister's birthday so I was busy for pretty much the entire day celebrating and hanging out. I gave a trombone lesson, practiced a bit, did about 15 minutes of yoga, and will meditate tonight right before I go to bed.

Hey guys, Thanks to everyone who stuck with me in the last challenge and not only helped me to lose TEN POUNDS this summer, but to proudly say "Why, yes, I do work out a lot." This second challenge is going to be a difficult one. The first week will be my last week at home, the next two weeks I will be visiting my boyfriend on a trip celebrating the life of his late father, the next week I will be back in Rochester staying my best friend before school starts, and then the final two weeks will be the first two weeks of school. These six weeks are going to be HECTIC to say the least, because I will need to spend lots of time practicing to get back in the game for school, finish everything that I wanted to do for the summer, and spend time with important people in addition to working out. If I can get through this, I can get through anything. So, here's my new goals. 1. Increase my trombone practice While at school, I usually play in ensembles 5 hours a day, and this doesn't include personal practice. I need to build up my endurance again for school. My wisdom teeth removal and work schedule have taken away from my practicing, but this has to change very soon. I need to practice every day and increase the amount I practice per week each week. 2 pts constitution 2. Practice yoga every day I wanted to do this the last challenge, but I let it slip. If I can practice yoga every day even if it means spending 15 measly minutes on the mat I will be so very proud of myself. 3 pts strength, 1 pt dexterity 3. Run at least two miles three times per week. This summer I got back my stride! I was able to run five miles non-stop and at the end of the challenge I was running almost every other day. I want to keep this up even when I am traveling and at school. It may not sound that hard, but this might just be the hardest part of the challenge. 3 pts stamina, 2 pts charisma Life Goal 4. Meditate My life will begin to get very stressful. I really need this. Also, I want to join the Rochester Zen Center, and so I will need to practice my meditation for when this happens. I will grade myself based on how often I meditate, but I won't set a specific amount that I need to do. I don't want it to feel forced. 4 pts wisdom maximum. There are a lot of other things that I would like to work on, but I will incorporate those in weekly "mini-challenges" that I will create for myself. I'm really excited to start my second challenge. Good luck everyone!

I just ran five miles in 55 minutes. Wooo!! The pull-up, getting better but not quite there yet. *sigh* Oh well. I'll keep trying. So here's the results of these six weeks. My current weight: 165 lbs. I'm quite happy with this, because at the beginning of this summer I stepped on the scale and almost died seeing my all-time heaviest weight of 175 lbs. I feel SOOO much better about my body image. Next, my goals. -run five miles without pausing (3 pts Stamina) COMPLETED!!! Wooo, A+ and 3pts stamina added -complete a pull up for the first time in my life (3 pts Strength) Not quite, but I have been working on it. I've never done one EVER so it will probably take quite a bit more time for me to work up these wimpy arms I'll give myself a C for effort and 1pt in strength -practice yoga every day (2 pts Dexterity, 2 pts Charisma) I didn't practice every single day, but I usually did 3-6 times a week, so a B, with 1.5 pts each in Dexterity and Charisma -practice trombone and piano every day (2 pts Constitution) My wisdom teeth were extracted in the middle of this challenge, my family went on vacation, and I took my brother out of town to an anime convention, so i was out of commission for a few weeks. I practiced every day that I could though, so I'll give my self a B- and 1 pt constitution. Life Goal -save $1,000 of my earnings for college (3 pts Wisdom) I saved over $500 from working and $700 from selling one of my trombones that I no longer need, so I was able to put away more than I thought. A+, 3 pts wisdom. I just want to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart. With your support I went from being sucked into inactivity by the stresses of my life as a music student to prioritizing healthier habits and exercise in every day. It's an amazing feeling. I really did achieve happiness in six weeks. Thanks guys, and I'll see you all in the next challenge!!!

Thank you. I know that I will eventually reach that goal, and in all honesty I am mostly glad that I am simply running again on a regular basis. Yesterday I practiced yoga on my own and also helped teach my sister some yoga stretches. She and my dad ran a seven mile race (I would have joined them, but I was taking my little brother to the convention) but they didn't really stretch after it and she had work, where she stands up all day so she was really sore and was having a hard time walking because of tight hips. After I helped her she said that she immediately felt better and that she was interested in going to yoga class with me. Just to let you all know, this is a girl who went to a few classes and thought it was all hokey and not a real workout, so I am quite pleased with myself for changing her attitude about it a little. Yay! Anyways, today is the last day of the challenge. This evening I am going to walk to a park and once again attempt to complete a pull up. Is it likely, no, but i've been working towards it, and it won't be as pathetic as it was six weeks ago. Then I am going to run five miles. Period. End of story. It's going to happen. (I hope) And after than I will stretch it out with some yoga practice. I will post again this evening with all of my challenge's end information.

Today I was at the convention all day with my little brother. There was no time for a organized workout, but I must've walked for hours, ran around a little bit, and climbed the stairs multiple times. We had so much fun today, so I don't really mind that instead of running or yoga I basically just walked a lot. At least I didn't just sit around all day, and I did some more volunteering, so I think that today was quite the success. Also, I got some really cute pokemon pins for my backpack and I bought matching totoro shirts for my sister and I, so my cuteness quota has also been fulfilled for the day.

Okay, so I haven't posted lately because I've been pretty busy. On Wednesday I drove my grandparents back from Tennessee to Iowa, so that took all of my day and all of my energy, and I didn't work out. Yesterday I did a few hours of walking, lifting, and moving heavy objects around and up and down stairs for a convention that my little brother and I are volunteering at. Today I was at the convention with my brother, and we did a lot of walking. When I got back home tonight I set out to face my challenge of five miles, but my knees started hurting quite a bit more than usual, so I only did two. I really want to complete that part of the challenge, but I don't want to injure myself. I think I will rest my knees and do something else for the day or two, so depending on how I'm feeling I can try to do the five miles on either Sunday or Monday. I practiced yoga tonight, and it felt good. The volunteer work was more taxing than I thought it would be, and apparently I used muscles that I don't usually use because I am very sore in strange places on my arms and back. I really needed a good stretch.

I've been doing well with all parts of my challenge, but the farthest I have run is three miles. I am going to conquer my challenge of five miles this week. Count me in! Evil JD is going down!!

Hey girl, I hope you are feeling well. Congrats on posting enough to officially be a rebel. Lol. It's still so exciting seeing all of your posts and thinking about how awesome this school year is going to be.

Thanks guys. Although I brought my yoga mat and running shoes with me this vacation has been mostly hiking and walking around for at least two hours every day. We've been out and about the whole time. Today is the last day of my vacation, and tomorrow I will have tons of driving to do to help my grandparents get back home. I'm glad to get back into my routine, but it was very nice to spend time with my family. Is this week six already? This time has gone by so quickly!

Everything is logged for me.

Hey guys, I'm vacationing with my extended family in Tennessee, but I'm still keeping up. Thursday and Friday I ran for 30 minutes to stay active. Today will probably be lots of walking around, some yoga practice, and perhaps another run.

It's great to see all of your progress. Thanks for being an inspiring leader!

Taking care of an injury (or avoiding one) is more important than the challenge. I hope your arm feels better soon, but don't push yourself too far.