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This is such a good idea! I've found that re-conceptualizing how I think about my eating and fitness helps me be much more successful. Also, I've found that once I clean up my eating and start functioning better, I realize that it's just not worth it to feel less good after eating something super sugary. Or at least the caliber of what I'm willing to "cheat" with increases because if I'm gonna break paleo for some ice cream, it better be some darned good ice cream. It sounds like you're doing a great job of sticking with your goals so far. I'll echo what others have said with the reminder that you don't have to be perfect. Even a small victory is a victory. This is something that I'm working with right now. I'm trying to focus on what I do right, so that I don't get so bogged down with the things that I do wrong that I feel like it's hopeless and I quit. As far as what I tend to cook in advance (I know that was from a while back, but I've been a bit absentee), I basically cook everything for the entire week. I'll do a few different kinds of meat - a pork tenderloin or two, some chicken breasts, prep some fish - and basically any harder to cook vegetables. For a lot of my meals, I'll toss a bag of SteamFresh Veggies in the microwave and that will last for 2 meals. But I like to have some other stuff on hand: sautee up some brussel sprouts or kale, some sweet potatoes (mashed or oven roasted as chips), make some cauliflower rice, stuff like that. As an example, this Sunday I made 4 sweet potatoes into sweet potato chips, made 2 filets of tilapia wrapped in prosciutto, simmered 2 chicken breasts in a Trader Joe's curry simmer sauce (curries are great in advance), made some chicken salad, made a spaghetti squash bake for breakfast, and put together some bacon wrapped BBQ chicken in my crockpot, so that I could throw that on to cook sometime this week. I also cut up some celery and put them into ziplock baggies for snacks. That will last me well for all of my meals this week, as well as a few to either freeze to keep on hand for the future or use next week to eliminate the need to make things for every meal next week. It's definitely a lot of work, but considering that when I get home, my normal mode is to be so hungry I just shove food into my mouth, it's kinda necessary.

Traveling around Africa sounds like a great way to stay in shape! I had a similar experience. I went to Israel for 3 weeks and between the eating mostly produce and walking everywhere - and up big hills! - I managed to lose a lot of weight. The funny thing about taking off weight that way, it's difficult to keep it there. How's your challenge going?

Eeek! I can't believe a week went by so fast. The end of last week was crazy and then I had a technological malfunction (I broke the charger for my laptop = no computer.) So I guess, now I should evaluate last week as well as check in with this week. Last week was a good start, but not quite as successful as I would want it to be. I'm still in the process of figuring out exactly how I want to score myself, which I will post soon, but as far as gut feelings, I'm gonna give myself an overall C for the week. C as in average, but not particularly outstanding. Here's why: Diet: I know I didn't stick as well to paleo as I should have. And I can tell because the scale didn't really move. I forgot how much I have to up my protein intake when I go off sugar and so several times was ill equipped with paleo-friendly snacks, which led me to turn to not-real-food snacking options. I rationalized by saying that I would lump several of my ill advised snacks into one of my "cheat meals," but I slipped up way more than I had thought. The scale tells me so. Exercise: I had several exercise victories last week, which I'll get to, but this was not as successful as I wanted. I ended up going to an unexpected party on Saturday night, which took me out of commission in a way I was not expecting for Sunday, and I missed my scheduled Body Pump/Zumba double header, so I missed out on one gym visit and one strength workout. Cleaning: This was a pretty successful goal for me, actually. I finally caught up on laundry and even put all the stuff from the dryer away the same day. I still haven't gotten to the line dry stuff, but it took longer to dry than I had expected. I even put in my 20 minutes of cleaning and got good stuff done. I finally did the summer clothes to winter clothes changeover, banishing my large tupperware container of summer dresses to the basement, as well as finally taking my window AC unit down, too. Yay for floor space. Victories: I know it's important to remind myself what I've done well and not just how I've failed. I persevered going to the gym on days when things went wrong (getting stuck on the train) and even went Friday after work, which I never do, when I didn't go Thursday because I left my gym clothes at home. And I did one strength routine on my own at the gym. I've also been awesome about drinking 8 cups of water and taking my supplements everyday. That along with getting the cleaning underway is something to be proud of. So, moving on to this week... Yesterday, I worked from home, so it made eating clean very easy, which was nice. Today, I shored up the number of snacks that I took along (I'm also trying to increase my veggie intake and decrease my reliance on fruit) and made it through the work day just fine. Even survived the baked goods at lab meeting with no problem. I ended up having to stay at work late and missed the Tabata class I like at my gym, but made sure I got my run in. I was even on top of getting my laundry into the washing machine, even though I didn't get home until around 9 and was quite hungry. Made sure that everything got into the dryer and it will get put away tomorrow, right on schedule. I'm feeling much more in control this week and have a feeling it's going to be a good one! I'll be sure to make time to check in more this week, maybe that will help me stay on top of things more.

Greetings fellow newbie! I wanted to say I love your goals. I'm also new to NerdFitness and this is my first challenge. Coincidentally enough, cleaning is also one of my goals, too! Although, mine is a measly 20 minutes per week. 5 minutes per day, you'll be a cleaning champ! As far as the evening sweet tooth, I totally hear ya. I tend to crave sweet things at the end of the day, too. I'm weird, though, and frequently can cure it with fruit. But I'm basically the only person I know who will accept fruit as a dessert, so who knows. I don't know what your dietary restrictions are - I try to be mostly paleo - but the Whole Foods near my house stocks a wide variety of coconut based dairy free ice cream that can also satisfy the sweet craving. Lastly, sometimes after I'm done eating and I know I'm full and that it's just my mouth craving sweet, I'll chew a piece of sugar free gum. (Again, not sure what you're okay with eating. I try to eliminate even fake sugar, but that doesn't always work.) If gives a lot of the sensation of having something sweet and eating without any calories. Good luck! Can't wait to hear about how your challenge goes.

Welcome to the challenge! I'm a fellow newbie here, trying this NF challenge out for the first time. I also have a thing about failing (and, generally, about doing things that I feel I'm bad at. I tend to just avoid them. No bueno.) and actually almost didn't even sign up because I was afraid I wouldn't finish. Maybe we can help each other out along the way! Your goals look great and very manageable. I'm sure you'll kick their butts. I look forward to hearing your thoughts about the Rebel Strength Guide. I want to work weight lifting into my workout routine more, so I've been eyeing it and keep thinking about getting it, but it's sort of pricey and I haven't wanted to commit that much money to something I'm not even going to use. One of my goals for this challenge is to add the Beginner's Bodyweight Circuit from the website into my workout rotation. If I can stick with that, then maybe I can up it with the actual Guide. But I'd love to hear your thoughts as you make your way through it!

I've been loving playing around with smoothies in the morning for breakfast. I bought one of those little personal blenders where you mix everything in the cup and then put a top on and go. My go-to recipe right now is to fill the cup with some sort of frozen fruit (I love strawberries, so those tend to appear regularly, sometimes peaches/mangoes, depending on what's on sale), coconut milk, an egg (I eat raw eggs. My body loves the protein. My mother's terrified I'm going to kill myself), and some almond butter. I assemble the night before, blend in the morning and run out the door. I'm looking to get more creative with what I put in. I have yet to venture into leafy greens - kale/blueberry is a combination that has been highly recommended, but I haven't worked my way up to it. Yet. Aside from that, I tend to cook several types of meat on Sunday night (this week, I did 2 pork tenderloins with this super easy recipe and some chicken that I simmered in a pre-made paleo friendly Trader Joe's Indian Simmer Sauce - directions right on the bottle!) that I can pull out throughout the week and augment with various veggies. I advocate strongly for the Steamfresh frozen veggies. Super affordable and easy to throw in the microwave to add steamed veggie to some sort of meat for a full meal. For snacks, I keep celery (washed, cut up, and portioned in to ziplock baggies) and almond butter at work. I also keep sweet potatoes handy because you can just throw them in the microwave and have a good, hearty snack. Those are the tricks I've come by to keep myself sane while being paleo. I can't wait to hear what other people do!

Hey there, fellow newbie!! Just stopped by to say hi and good luck. It seems like we're in pretty similar places with similar goals. I almost didn't sign up for the challenge either! I'm bad at following through with things, especially when that means logging into a website and logging things in a forum. But maybe we can see this one through together. I found that when trying to stick to eating paleo, planning is key. I found that if i sit down over the weekend to figure out what meals I want to eat that week, I can make a direct plan of when to eat what and when to cook what and it helps tremendously. I try to do as much advance cooking on Saturday and Sunday as possible, so that minimal prep has to be done before each meal. By the time I get home after a full day's work and then a trip to the gym, I'm pretty much like "Food in mouth. NOW." So, if I have good food already cooked that just needs to be nuked, I'm in much better shape. Because cooking everything for every meal exhausts me. Good luck! I look forward to seeing how you do.

Today was hard. I knew deep down that I had eaten enough crap to un-paleo-ify myself, but didn't want to truly believe it. Sure enough, though, today the sugar cravings came. To top it off, there's a lot of food hanging out around work that has been very tempting. This morning, my lab had group meeting, which meant someone brought food for breakfast. I did very well and sat far away from the scones and mini muffins, only taking a few clementines. But then they sat out on the shelf all day and I had to keep walking past them. I succumbed to the siren call of the blueberry scones, but managed to constrain it to a pinch. Just one bite to remind myself that it was not worth it. The scone was not good enough to warrant blowing my hard work. Other than that, I've managed to stick pretty well to the paleo thing. The roast I had for lunch the last two days wasn't 100% paleo - it was leftover from before I transitioned and had some ingredients that aren't entirely kosher, but everything else has been on the up and up. The gym was also a challenge today in a way it isn't normally. A train on the commuter rail line I take (not my train, but on the same line) hit a car (no news, despite massive Google attempts) and our train was stuck for an hour at the station before they finally called in buses to bring us to my station. The delay made me miss my Tabata class, which I've really been enjoying, so that was sad. But I managed to persevere and got in one of my 10K training runs. So, success in that regard. So, today was hard, but I made it and that will make this worthwhile. I think my plan for updating this is to do it Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Updating early today because I needed to remind myself that I'm doing well and because with not writing the first post until Monday, I kind of threw off my rhythm. So far, so good!

Thanks so much for pointing that out! Fixed now!! That's what I get for posting late at night...

I went back and forth as to whether or not to join this challenge. It's my first (obviously) and it seems like such a huge commitment, which sort of scares me, but I need something to help keep me accountable, so hopefully this will do the trick. It seems like people talk about a bit of background, so that seems a logical place to start. I've been overweight basically as long as I can remember. About a year and a half ago, I started getting serious about getting in better shape and was decently successful. I lost about 20 pounds and made going to the gym a habit and a priority. Over the summer, I discovered the joy of eating clean by doing mostly paleo (my friends affectionately refer to it as "eating like a dinosaur") and fet awesome. However, the ease of the weight coming off by eating paleo most of the time, I got lazy. It was okay to eat crap a little bit. All I had to do was get serious about paleo again and I'd drop the weight, no problem. It was a slippery, slippery slope to begin down and before I knew it, I was eating poorly most of the time and the weight was starting to come back. I tried to crack down a few times, but inevitably, life got in the way (grad school is hard, I had guests in from out of town, and then, the holidays.) Well, now it's a new year and it's time for me to get serious about this. And that's what brings me here. Hopefully this challenge will be just what I need to re-establish all the good habits I managed to develop. Without further ado, the goals: Diet and Exercise 1. Eat clean. Get back on the paleo wagon again! My goal is to eat paleo 95% of the time. No more than 2 non-paleo meals a week. 2. Make the gym a habit and a priority again. Visit the gym 4 times a week. (My normal schedule is Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and one weekend day.) Do 2 runs for my 10K training plan a week. Do 2 dedicated strength workouts per week - hopefully 1 Body Pump class and beginning to work up the Beginner's Bodyweight Workout again. 3. Drink water. Re-establish my habit of drinking 8 glasses of water a day (even on weekends!). Bonus points if I also remember to take my supplements everyday (magnesium, Vitamin D, and fish oil.) Life Goal 1. Be a better housekeeper. I suck at cleaning. I've never been good about it. But somehow, one has to figure out how to do this. For this challenge, I will do laundry once a week and will have it all put away within 24 hours. I will make sure all my dishes from the week are clean before going to bed on Sunday night. And I will find 20 minutes at some point during the week to work on cleaning my room and getting it back to a reasonable level of organized.

Day 5: BREAKFAST: 3 eggcupcakes, cherries LUNCH: Chicken fajita salad DINNER: broiled flank steak, 1/2 avocado, sweet potato fries CHEATS: 4 ears CSA sweet corn (I just can't give that up) with a bit of butter, ice cream Definitely felt my body being not super thrilled with the ice cream. I may try Lactaid in the future if adding a high fatty dairy treat in. Day 6: Got distracted by life at work and didn't really eat breakfast. I must be settling into this whole fat burning thing because I didn't really feel hungry until close to 1pm, even with having ridden my bike the 10 miles in to work. LUNCH: Salmon salad (broiled salmon, several handfuls of spinach, pine nuts, 1/4 avocado, green onion, mushrooms, bell peppers, drizzle balsamic vinegar), cherries DINNER: Left over flank steak, 1/2 avocado, 3 CSA cucumbers, handful of blueberries for dessert CHEATS: went on a booze cruise with friends and had 1 PBR and 2 small whiskey 7Ups. I had hoped that they would have red wine as an option, but that didn't happen. Hopefully I drank enough water to offset any sort of headache and danced/walked enough to offset the calories. I hid my scale when I first started this paleo thing (I had been weighing myself every morning since September) because I wanted to give myself a while to settle into doing the paleo thing without freaking out about whether or not I was losing weight as fast as I wanted to, especially since weight loss is not the *only* reason I'm doing this. Well, I couldn't resist any more and pulled it out yesterday to see what the damage was. I wasn't expecting much, but much to my surprise, I was down 3lbs since I started on Sunday. That's way more than I've ever lost in this amount of time! I'm not using it as my "official" weigh in weight because I do that on Sunday mornings, but I was definitely bolstered by seeing that number. 3 pounds in 5 days (I weigh in first thing in the morning, so I hadn't really made it through the 6th day yet) without counting calories or really adjusting my workouts above and beyond what I'm already doing. That's awesome!

Day 4: BREAKFAST: Sweet omelet (3 eggs, dash vanilla and cinnamon) with CSA blue berries SNACKS: peach, cherry tomatoes, cherries LUNCH: tuna salad lettuce rolls (2-5oz tuna cans, handful pine nuts, 1 avocado, 2 celery stalks, 1 green onion, Old Bay, dried chiptole), 1/2 pineapple DINNER: beef fajita salad with diet Coke I definitely did not eat enough protein for a stretch and got very very grumpy, but other than that, everything seemed to go well. Looks like I'm settling in. Still haven't noticed any feeling like I'm walking on air, but I'm consistently either feeling full or not feeling bothered by feeling hungry. Definitely spent too much time snacking on fruit. Must switch to veggies!

Thanks, Lunararya. I know this intellectually, it's just getting my mouth/stomach to catch up with my brain, but the support is appreciated. Day 3: BREAKFAST: 3 eggcupcakes, 1/2 cantaloupe LUNCH: Salmon salad (4 oz broiled salmon, bell peppers, handful of pine nuts, green onion, mushroom, tomatoes, 1/4 avocado, ~3 handfuls baby spinach, drizzle balsamic vinegar) SNACK: Celery sticks and almond butter DINNER: Hanger steak with asparagus and sauteed mushroom (from a restaurant, not entirely sure what oils were used, but it said it was gluten free, so I'm hoping that was close enough and doesn't have to count as a "cheat") TREAT: 3 glasses of red wine spread over the evening (went to go see Magic Mike with friends, a bit of alcohol was necessary Today went so much better. My body seems to be settling into this. Yesterday, I got to work and didn't eat right away because I got distracted, while today, I got to eat right away. It seemed to then go better. I also think there was more protein in this salad than yesterday's. I remember hearing people talking about the sensation of being full changing when you eliminate grains and I feel like that might start to be happening. There was a while between my snack and dinner where it almost seemed like intellectually I was hungry, but physically, I seemed to be fine not eating and didn't seem to be suffering from physical hunger symptoms even though my brain was telling me I should eat. It was reassuring knowing I could just keep going through that and hold off until dinner. I'm officially 10% of the way through and it seems to be going well so far. I haven't noticed any drastic improvements in functioning, but I haven't been suffering, so that's good, right?

Day 2: BREAKFAST: 3 eggcupcakes (from everyday paleo), 1/2 cantaloupe LUNCH: Chicken fajita salad (1/2 chicken breast, sauteed onions and bell peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, 1/4 avocado, heaps of spinach with olive oil and balsamic vinegar as dressing) SNACK 1: Celery sticks with almond butter SNACK 2: Peach DINNER: Mango Coconut Chicken Curry, 1/2 pineapple I underestimated the amount of food I would need and ended up being pretty hungry at work this afternoon. I'll try to up the amount tomorrow. Also, I feel like I'm relying pretty heavily on fruit, which I need to cut back on. I know I should switch to veggies instead, but it's hard because I just love fruit so much more. As I'm heading to bed now, I'm starting to get a bit hungry, but I can't decide how much of that is just my body thinking it needs to be stuffed full of grains and unhappy that that's not happening or if I'm actually hungry. I'll try again tomorrow with more food and hopefully an answer will be forthcoming.

I've decided to embark on the challenge of cleaning up my eating and going paleo for the month of July. I know it's important to have a bit of a log of the process and you're more likely to stick with it if there's a social component and I've been so impressed with the level of helpfulness and support of this community that I figured here is as good a place as any for that.... MY STORY: How did I get here? I've been overweight my entire life. I've never felt good about my body or proud of what I could accomplish. I always had excuses. It's too hard...I'm too busy...I don't know what I'm doing...I can't afford a gym...When I started grad school, I started creeping towards a healthier way of being, but never fully committed. That changed last September. After a summer of riding my bike to work (which is an accomplishment, but that was all I was doing and you know how successful just doing cardio is at changing things...), I buckled down. I joined a gym. I started clocking the hours in classes (Step, Zumba, Spin) and doing solo cardio (training for and running a few 5K's and even did the Zombie Race in May!). I even started easing into weight lifting with Body Pump. I cracked down on the eating, logging what I ate, counting calories. And it worked, it really did. I started losing weight and building muscle and managed to drop about 20 pounds. And then it stopped. I was feeling better about myself than I have in my life. I'm pushing my body harder than I ever have, but nothing was changing. Two of my friends decided to give paleo a try. I sort of rolled my eyes and dismissed it as a fad (everyone I know who had done paleo before them was super dogmatic and judgey about it, putting me off to it prematurely). And then I started hearing about the results. And seeing what they were eating. The pictures of the food they were eating were gorgeous and they were reporting feeling better. And, above all, it didn't seem too terribly different from most of what I was eating anyway. So, I took a week and read a whole bunch to figure out what it meant and figured that I would give it a go just for July (I can do anything for a month) and see how it went. Which brings me to today. Day 1: Yesterday went pretty well. It's easy when I was home to just sort of graze on fruits and veggies that were around the house. I got some wicked cravings at bed time, but did a good job of telling myself I wasn't actually hungry, it was just a craving, drank some water and went to sleep. Food log: BREAKFAST: Sweet omelet (3 eggs w/ dash of vanilla and cinnamon) with organic unsweetend applesauce and strawberries SNACK: Several handfuls of cherry tomatoes LUNCH (-ish? it was weekend, strict meals didn't happen as much as gradual snacks): Small piece of broiled salmon, 1/4 avocado and drizzle of balsamic vinegar SNACK: lots of cherries DINNER: CSA zucchini and yellow summer squash noodles, sauted in olive oil with some garlic, tossed in some Trader Joe's organic mushroom marinara sauce DESSERT: more cherries Aside from the craving at bed time, it went pretty well. I'm not really tracking calories, so I'm not tracking how much stuff in in my handfuls, but I'm trying to listen to my body and figure out if I'm actually hungry and eating until I'm full and then not. It's only been one day, so we'll see how this goes... Wow...that was really long. Apparently, once I got started, it just allll came out. Thanks for anyone who has the patience to slog through all that. I guess there was just a lot that I had to get out there.