alexifer

I am not much for speed/running, so I will have to go with Agility Feat. I have slipped in my yoga practice as I do hot yoga but it is also summer in Australia (it's basically the same temperature inside as outside the hot yoga studio), but I would like to make sure I get in at least one practice at home of an hour. It's a busy weekend but I imagine this will be done on Sunday so watch this space!

So apparently this week at work was much busier than anticipated! Friday I did not leave my seat for a five hour stretch... This was maybe not the challenge to set myself, so obviously I did not get this one done. My best day was only 4 out of 5 for the day, so I think perhaps a better goal would have been overall steps during work hours or something to that effect. It’s still on my mind, though, and I won’t give it up. I did well on the social feat though! I had a couple of lovely kitchen chats, longer than I usually would, and one on my lunch break where I usually spend the time reading. I did not get over to the other side, but the opportunity did not arise. I’ll keep this in mind in future, as being more social and open - even at work - is in the spirit of one of my challenge goals anyhow It’s now the weekend and I am always more active on the weekends! I think my weekend goal will to be maybe to have a chat to one of the farmers at the farmers market we go to on Sunday. I’m keeping the spirit alive!

Distance Feat: My day job is a lot of bum sitting. I’m going to aim for 250 steps every hour for at least 5 of those hours every day this week - non cumulative! It doesn’t sound like a lot, but I usually only do it two out of the 8 hours I’m at work... Social Feat: It’s my first week back at work, so I’m going to OPEN a conversation asking someone how their break was — someone I don’t usually talk to! The kitchen is a great place for this. Stretch goal — our office is divided into two sections. If the opportunity arises, I will actually get off my bum (serving the Distance Feat as well) and walk over to the other side to speak to someone there, even if it’s a simple question I could have emailed or sent a Google Chat for an answer.

Definitely! With this goal, I am more looking to become more open to people, rather than even any form of extroversion. I’m not anxious about social situations, but I am fiercely avoidant of them. I had a moment at a shop today where someone asked if my name was <<their friend’s name>>; I replied, not unkindly, “No”, but as I was thinking about it later, perhaps I should try to set my mind with an improv sort of attitude. “Yes, and” or in this case “no, but”. Even just saying, “No, sorry, my name is Alex” might have been more open to a conversation. It’s really related to the second goal regarding meetups, which was a bit tacked on, but at least if I go to a meetup of like minded people alone, I’ll kind of have to talk to someone there, right? I can revisit my old knitting group, perhaps, or bushwalking? I just feel like small talk / socialising is a skill that can get rusty when you don’t have enough new experiences, so that’s what I’m looking for here. I definitely have some possibilities, and some easy options, but I do want to stretch myself with this one :)

Thanks Cheetah! I've gotten over the major pain of PF but I'm paranoid about it coming back, and I've definitely also had some arch pain over the last year so I've just resolved to treat my feet nicely from now on. I also have troublesome knees, which means that running really isn't in the cards for me at this stage. I don't like it as an exercise enough to make it work, really, and I'd prefer to focus on cardio exercise that I love - hiking, swimming, boxing. Glad to be part of the Ranger team!

I'm in for guild mini-challenges! I have already spent many an hour snoozing and movie-going and generally relaxing this week, but what will relax me for the week to come is actually: meal planning. I'll be doing this on Saturday and then buying food on Sunday. How exciting! Looking forward to engaging with more awesome rangers this challenge!

CHALLENGE INTRO: It's welcome back to Alexifer for a(nother) re-spawn this year! Since my last efforts to re-engage with the Nerd Fitness community in 2016, there have been some significant changes including a new job with a convenient and free gym and a perfect 30-45 minutes in the morning that I have started to spend there. I've also been dealing with plantar fasciitis with orthotics and a great excuse to buy new running shoes, but there's no running in my future any more (hiking is A-OK though!). I had a great year in 2018, and there are some things in my past that I would like to revisit and attempt to incorporate into my everyday life in 2019, including getting back to some of my fitness PRs. This challenge is to kick-start 2019 and get this re-spawn headed in the right direction! With that said... onto the goals! DIET 1: 20 days no alcohol in January! Drinking has always been my Achilles heel when it comes to diet, and for the majority of 2018 I was able to stick to weekend-only drinking. I am great at tracking this in my planner, but I would really like to re-focus on this for January. DIET 2: 3L of water every day! Summer in Australia here, so 3L of water is seriously necessary. It also means I have less room for other drinkables, such as the above... It also means drinking during the work day, which means at least I get up to refill my bottle and go to the bathroom... EXERCISE: 2x strength days/week I have been going to the gym 5x/week pretty consistently for the last 3 months, but I want to re-focus on strength gains. 2 days/week are classes at the gym which I love, 3 other days have so far been me using Fitbit Coach, which is fine but isn't going to get me back to my strength PRs. I want 2 of my free days to go to working towards these PRs. LEVEL UP LIFE 1: Small talk with strangers 1x/week One of my yearly goals is to work on making new relationships, and part of being able to make small talk. I'm pretty shocking at starting it, so that's part of what I'm going to focus on in this re-spawn! LEVEL UP LIFE 2: Revamp Meetup profile, pick a group and diarise. I've decided I don't need to GO in January, because I already have a busy schedule this month, however that would be best. I will go to this alone and also work on my small talk there. I have a few hobbies and a few groups I'm interested in, this is partly just to DO it. Mini-Challenge: Post Updates Weekly! I have a great self-accountability and a lot of built in tracking with my planner, however I would really like to re-engage with the Nerd Fitness community! I’ll post how my week went, along with any Ranger side challenge updates, every Sunday AEST (so, Saturday for American folk). This might seem like a lot of goals, but they are all really manageable and can easily be done. I am hopeful that I'll come to mid-Jan and feel like I should really be upgrading my challenges, but that just means I'll be ready and raring for February Week 1 Update: 12 Jan I have successfully completed both diet and exercise goals for this week! The alcohol one is cumulative but I am well on track. I started Strong 5x5 at the gym for two of my workouts, and as you may know they have you start very light. It was great, because I hadn’t worked out for a week or so, and before that there hadn’t been any lifting, so DOMS were minimal (but still there, ha). For my life goal progress, I don’t think I spoke with any strangers but I was certainly more open with people at work, and had a great conversation with someone who I always seem to have lunch with at the same time in the kitchen... just little things for the moment, so I would certainly count this week as a win. I’ve been browsing Meetup, and did revamp my profile (well, updated the photo?), but I have not yet picked something. I’d like to join the badminton one but the Saturday sessions seem to fill up quick so I’ll have to bite the bullet on that one soon! And my mini challenge is now complete

Quick update as Week Three draws to a close (how... how did this happen?) DIET GOAL: Complete! I started the week out strong, so I was able to loosen the reins later in the week. EXERCISE GOALS: Complete! I kept up with the schedule I had last week and got in 3x yoga and 3x bodyweight circuit. I skipped Thursday because I completely set my alarm wrong, but did Sunday instead. Feelin' good! LEVEL UP YOUR LIFE GOAL: Well, technically, yes. This goal was really designed to get me thinking creatively again with my writing, and while I did specify that the writing could be for anything, the writing that I did this week was work-focused. I wrote a cover letter for an internal position, and wrote out some answers for interview prep, so it was certainly extensive, but it wasn't quite in the vein that I had hoped. Still, there's some Sunday left, so you never know what I might get up to. I'm ready to kill it for week 4 too!

It's all a delightful cycle that you can get into, and it's actually much easier to keep up if you're doing everything right from the beginning. If you wake up early, you have time for a workout, and you're more likely to eat your breakfast, and you're less likely to have that wine with dinner, and you don't want to stay up too late because you know you've got to wake up early in the morning for that workout........ So I've been trying to stick to it, because it makes EVERYTHING easier. Thanks Tank! The workouts might not be as hardcore as I remember ever doing but for my purposes right now, I just want to get moving every day and the above-mentioned delightfully healthy cycle.

Okay! Okay guys, I know I have not been communicative, and it's because of two things. 1) I had to ditch coach.me, because it was screwing up what day I was doing what. I've started using Way of Life, and it lets me choose the day of the week, so I think this will be much better. 2) Haven't been doing my Level Up Your Life goal at all. It's arguably the easiest, but I find it really difficult to sit down and write (as you can see by my not doing this at all). SO! LAST WEEK WRAP-UP: PROS: I kicked my activity goal's ass. 6 times during the week I woke up early enough to get in a workout, and I did 3x yoga, and 3x Beginners Bodyweight Circuit. I kicked that goal's ass. CONS: Because of coach.me screwing me up, I can't quite tell if I had 3x nights without wine. I give myself a pass on Tuesday due to a seriously traumatic experience (that I will not go into further details on here). And I did not write at all. MOVING FORWARD: 1) Going to make time for writing. Going to do it. I have time. I just might need to do some prep in the form of finding writing prompts to follow. 2) Keep on kicking my exercise goal's ass! Thanks for the encouragement, all! It definitely helps to get those reply notifications, and I appreciate it

Four days into the challenge and I'm doing pretty well! I did some yoga on Monday, as some pretty epic rains started in Sydney, and this morning I started in on the Beginner's Bodyweight routine and I'm pretty sure I'm going to be feeling that tomorrow. I'm going to have to do a run or some work on the elliptical tomorrow, because we have a work conference and awards party on Saturday. Definitely thinking I should change my alcohol consumption goal - I should really be able to do 4 days/week without anything, even with work awards parties on.

Thanks Tank! I'm no stranger to the Challenge so I'm glad to be back! I figure as long as I'm doing SOMETHING three times a week, that's pretty good. I've got to break a sweat and it's gotta be for at least 20 minutes, but it can be anything. I'm pretty hard on myself so I'm sure it'll work Thanks Volki! Glad to be back

Hello Rangers! It's been a while since I've surfed around on these forums, and I was once an Adventurer, but with the new descriptions, and given that I'm looking for a change along with my renewal, I've decided to join the Rangers. I hope you'll have me! For this Respawn Challenge, I'm looking to make strength training a part of my life again. After moving, I miss my Crossfit family, and the financial stability to be a part of one again. I'm going back to basics here with a lot of my Quests, and I hope they are small enough for me to achieve. DIET 3 nights/week without wine FITNESS Exercise 3x/week for at least 20 mins Make at least one of the above for bodyweight strength exercises LEVEL UP LIFE Write at least 100 words per week of anything (long-form diary entry, short story, part of longer story, etc) My overall goal with this and future challenges is to get training back as a habit. I may start back in with the NF bodyweight training, but in a pinch, Sworkit can get me moving for 2x10 mins a day. I'm going to be tracking with Coach.ME, because I've found it pretty chill and really flexible. (And I downloaded approximately 12 new apps for goal tracking haha) Glad to be here!

Thanks guys! I'll be using this for accountability, too. Knowing there are people who will be watching threads is a good motivator

Hey all! It's been a while since my last confession... I joined NerdFitness in 2012, after I realised I had put on some weight that I was not happy about. After a brief hiccup, I jumped into fitness with both feet, and learned some great habits along the way. I was living overseas but had found my fitness family in a CrossFit box near where I was living. I really enjoyed it, but after moving back to Sydney, it doesn't fit my current work schedule or budget. Since moving home, I've worked out in fits and starts. I wanted to make CrossFit work, but it didn't. I tried having a PT but that's expensive and conventional gyms are either expensive or, if they're not, crowded and demoralising. After a long period of nothing stable (and, to me and my fork's credit, no weight gain but certainly some muscle loss), I started doing yoga regularly, but that also became difficult to keep up, monetarily. Then I began running in the spring, but that has been harder in the summer months. Mostly, I'm aiming to come back here and get involved in the community to hold me to doing something! I really miss being active, and it definitely makes me feel better about myself. I'm happy with my weight and body and everything, but I always feel better after working out. It's just hard to keep down a routine. I've disabled my signature because I honestly can't remember where I was up to in my mission, and I feel like I should start all over again. I hope to be welcomed back into the fold, and find my fitness footing once again!