Erborne

Hi Kimara! What are "around the world/side to side" push ups? Good luck!

Hi Rin! I too am excellent at starting fitness plans and not finishing them. Looks like a good plan to overcome this habit! Good luck

My brother wants me to do a Spartan race with him in February. I run regularly - have done several Half Marathons, but I am not sure about all this mud and obstacle stuff It looks crazy! I will be following you to see how you do - I am looking for motivation to go for it. Good luck!

Hi! My name is Erin and this is actually my 2nd attempt at a challenge - the first being a non-starter pretty much straight from the gate because it overlapped both of my sisters' weddings. While the mind was willing (and maybe even a little desperate) at that time, pretty much everything else my sisters had already called dibs on. This time, I am ready - my time and person are as much of my own as they ever are and I am starting with an extra bit of lift because this challenge ends on my 30th birthday and ending my 3rd decade and beginning my 4th on a positive note sounds about right to me. My Main Quest: I wish to become healthier - and ensure future health - by losing weight. I currently weigh in at 178 lbs and 5'6", which is 22 lbs down from my all time high. I will get a few other measurements up here to track as well over the next 6 weeks. My goals for this challenge are: 1. Track my food EVERY SINGLE DAY and try to maintain calorie range most of the week. 2. Accomplish at least 5 workouts from my game plan (a combination of the Rebel Running Guide and 108 Ultimate Yogi Program, with some cycling thrown in where possible) per week. 3. Cook/eat at home 6 days per week (family gatherings excluded). My Life Quest: Call my grandparents once a week. This actually also ties into my motivation, but so far I can't seem to express it without writing a book, so I will work on that and post it later. Good luck Rebels! Talk to you again soon.

Me too! Although, I didn't have to plan my own wedding, my sister and my may-as-well-be sister-in-law decided to get married within 2 weeks of each other (one Sept 29, and the other Oct 13). I was my sister's maid of honor and in his sister's bridal party. All I have seen the past few weeks is flowers, bows, dresses, and centerpieces. My email was about to spew forth hair clips, groomsmen's tuxes, travel logistics, all sorts of other stuff. I have been cohabbing my boyfriend for 5 years, together 7. Andrew knows, that I would like to get married, but my desire to get married is not more than my desire to be with him, and while we have talked about it and agreed someday we would get married, for a variety of reasons, we haven't. However, about a month ago - sometime between the bridal showers - Andrew came home to me sitting on our bed crying. It sounds sort of ridiculous, but I was mourning the wedding ideal I didn't know I was holding onto because both of my sister's respective weddings had pretty much demolished it. Based on both sister's wedding though, this will all come togehter for you Astro. You will be beautiful, you will be wonderfully swept up in the moment and the tide of it all and it will be perfect. I wish the crazy happiness of my sister's on you on your wedding day.

Progress Update: 1. Track food - um, not so good this past week. Stuff kind of accelerated towards my sister-in-law's wedding (Saturday) after my last post and my food plan got tossed again. On the bright side, I cooked on Sunday, so we have food for the work week. I just have to log my recipes so I can track them as I eat. Also, last night we got stuck in the subway (for every prerecorded reason there is) and got to the railroad station approximately 30 seconds before our LIRR train leaves. Usually the LIRR operates +/- 5 minutes so we sprinted for the platform. I was carrying my bag, which weighs 35 lbs - a total of 600 yards, a boat load of moron tourists, and 5 (5!) flights of stairs later we got to the platform just as our train was pulling out. We missed it, which meant a 70 minute wait for the next train. It sucked. This was also after I did the Kickbox & Sculpt class at the gym. We discovered there is a little cafe/bar next to the AirTrain, so the wait wasn't as bad as it could have been. We passed time there, and then I made scrambled eggs and toast in 5 minutes flat for dinner instead of taking the take out bait like I normally would have. I still didn't track it, but this was a victory for me. 2. No soda/juice - doing good! Asides from a single cocktail with my sister (the new Mrs Foley) on Sunday while we were cooking, there has been no soda or juice. Today I am dragging butt from the very late night last night and my legs are screaming from yesterday's workout and weighted sprints and my favorite pick-me-up on a sore, tired recovery day used to be Coke and Aleve. Today I did tea and Aleve. 3. Gym 1x per week - Doing good with this, and I am loving it. As stuff seemed to accelerate towards Audrey's (the new Mrs Samuelson) wedding on Saturday, I still managed to get in 3 good workouts last week and I felt so much better for it. I am finding that the evening classes work best for me (as opposed to the lunch time classes) because most of the time my manic boss has left for the day, he doesn't mind as much when I go then because most everyone else has already left so there is less chance of someone looking for me, and because I have noticed that there is no recovering the hair afterward - when I get back to my desk at 6pm, the few people left here couldn't care less if my hair is plastered to my head in a messy ponytail or sopping wet. 4. Revamp budget and save $100 - The budget has been revamped, but I didn't get to do much with it because of the wedding. That maddness is finally done, so now things will go back to normal and I will be able to make more progress here.

Thanks astro_girl! The Bodyweight Brigade are the bodyweight workouts in the Rebel Strength Guide. We live/work in NYC/Long Island so eating out is extra-easy. The convenience factor, especially since our microwave has died is so alluring, particularly because we don't get home until 9pm. When I am on the ball, its pretty easy to get stuff together so we have other options. When we fall off though, it's really hard to pick it back up again.

Progress Update: 1. Track food - Still only doing this about half the time, but getting more consistent. 2. Stop the soda and juice - Doing really well here! It was like all I needed was to actively think about it, give away the remaining juice from the bridal shower punch excess, and I was good to go. Things are back on track and I feel better about it. 3. Gym 1x/week - doing good. Yesterday I showed up for a Total Body Conditioning class that turned out to be a kickboxing sculpt class instead and just rolled with it. It was actually pretty good - surprised I would do it again. Last week I did a Bodyweight Brigade workout. Tomorrow, I will get a run in - it feels good to be regularly active again! 4. Revamp budget & save $100 - I redid my budget yesterday. It looks so easy on paper. I also sat down with Andrew and talked about food - my biggest controllable grocery expense. We have agreed to reign in our eating out - we have gotten bad about that admist the wedding madness because I usually cook for the work week on the weekend and the weekends have not been my own for the past 2 months. He has also agreed to give me better feedback so we waste less food, while still agreeing to try new things because I don't enjoy cooking enough to be satisfied with the same 5-7 dishes over and over again. If I can trim the food budget, I will make my $100 savings goal and then some because I can maintain the savings over the long term.

Woohoo! Go you! I track my food too and found like you, I was eating too much early. After a few months of coming home so hungry I could have eaten my shoes, I went back to eating more early and planning on very light dinners (usually salalds or smoothies). My body just seems to like that much better, especially on days when I work out in the morning.

Sorry to read about your leg pain - looked like you were doing good until then! I highly recommend yoga - I started running 50 lbs overweight. I credit cautious mileage, rest time, and a whole lot of yoga for keeping me injury-free. When I stopped the yoga, that was when I started having tweaks and pains, even though I had lost most of the weight by then. If you are generally familiar with yoga, then I recommend yogadownloads.com. They have a yoga for runners sequence that is ok, but I actually really like the yoga for cyclists sequence after my long runs. It just feels good.

Thanks Erick! I am still pretty pleased with myself for the push ups. The Ragnar is an experience like no other. Miami-The Keys is flat, fast, and with generally good weather, but running through the Everglades in the dark is a bit nerve wracking. If you asked me 24 hours afterward, I would have told you I was never doing that again. When asked to do it again 2 months ago, I was all for it. It is bizarre, but awesome. Unfortunately, its sold out, so I won't be doing it this coming January.

I was a gymnast once upon a time and I used to teach beginners to help pay for it - if you are already comfortable kicking up against a wall, I would suggest you keep doing that, but move your hands 4-6 inches away from the wall, so when your feet are up there, you are actually slightly past completely vertical, then carefully push your feet off the wall so you are freestanding vertically for a second or 2 with the wall to fall back against. Once you get the feel of it, then try it out on the grass again.

When all things are equal, I like the heft and stability of a hard cover, but unfortunately they are expensive, so then I go for paperbacks. However, I have a 90 minute one-way train commute that I tend to have to do while standing the entire way. I am schlepping my ridiculously heavy and huge work laptop, my lunch, and gym stuff already - my bag weighs nearly 30 lbs. I have a Kindle to keep myself entertained and to minimize the heft. When it comes to actually reading it, the format doesn't bother me so much - once I am sucked in, I am in, regardless of format.

Quick Progress Update! My sister's wedding was Saturday, so with that finally behind me, I am really going to be moving on my challenge goals: 1.Track Food - I did ok the beginning of the week, but fell off over the weekend because Friday - Sunday I had little - no control of what I was eating because of the wedding. I picked the best options available to me, but hard to track stuff like insanely good artichoke dip served at the wedding as I have no idea what else was in it. This is the frustrating part of tracking - hard to keep up when you are eating what someone else gives you. I also had to enter all the recipes I used for the week again. I forgot how tedious that is. Now the wedding is behind me, I will be back to my usual and it will get better. 2. Stop the soda and juice - I have actually been doing really well with this. With the exception of drinking at the wedding, and an illicit IBC root beer shared with my Papa (he has renal failure - this was a big treat) also at the wedding, I have been doing really well. This has been easier to fall back out of than I expected, but I suspect the real test will come this week when I get back to work. 3. Go to the gym at least once per week - did good! I had to do a fitness assessment with them before I could officially start this week and there, I busted out 20 regular push ups! I couldn't believe it, and neither did the trainer. I told him I thought I could do 6. I hit 16 before it started to hurt, but the trainer was really excited and said 'Let's go for 20!'. I made it there, then stopped. Getting down was no problem - it was taking 5 seconds to push back up at that point and I didn't want to be massively sore at my sisters wedding. There was a ton of set up stuff to do there that involved picking up and moving things around and I didn't want to be any more miserable than I was already going to be. 4. Revamp budget & save $100 - I haven't had a chance to mess with the budget yet, but I hosted a bridal luncheon for my sister the day before the wedding and it cost me $250 less than I expected, which was really nice. I gave it to Andrew - unfortunately, our built-in microwave died last week and it is going to be pricy to replace it but not having to pull it all from my savings means I might still be able to meet my savings goal.

Thanks! My brother actually owns a specialty tea shop, so I do a lot of tea! I prefer green and white teas. I just have got to get back into the habit.

Thanfully, I am not a snacker so usually if I have snacky issues its cause I am flat-out hungry, but because I don't snack I tend to overeat at meal times. Tracking it out tells me when I need to stop and go find something else to do I am going to run at lunch. I can either do speed work on the treadmill at the gym, or run outside (my preference) and then shower at the gym afterward. I am going to be trying to optimize time here - change, run, shower, back to my desk, so I might have to optimize my runs with speed work or hills sprints because I am not fast enough to do more than 3-4 miles at lunch. For a Half, that should be enough. In January, I did the Miami-The Keys Ragnar and ended up with long legs and i did most of my training for that in the dark. I found I preferred running in the evenings when I could make it work - oddly, just felt safer than in the mornings, but most of my runs were in the mornings. I had trouble with the "treadmill effect" running in the dark - I do a lot of rubber necking when I am running and when all I had was the 3 feet in front of my had headlamp illuminated I would get bored. Coupling that with the creepy factor, I varied my routes - a lot. I very rarely ran the same route twice and it helped, and now I know my neighborhood better than anybody. Thanks!

Hi Rebels! This is technically my 2nd challenge, but the first never really got off the ground because of life, illness, and my sister's upcoming wedding. This time though, Sara's wedding is only 4 days away and my weekends will finally be mine again, which means I will be able to go back to my routine again and am ready for the challenge! So here's the game plan: 1. Track food - I used to do this all the time, but fell out of it over the past month or so. It is the by far the best way for me to keep things in line though - when I see it, and when I see how it all adds up, it helps me keep to my game plan and make better decisions when someone is offering me $2 froyo from the cafeteria downstairs. 2. Stop the soda and juice - I am a former Coca-Cola addict. I didn't actually drink that much - just 1 can every day at lunch. It took me months to quit it, and months more to get over the afternoon fog. The past 2 months of wedding planning with my sister have been chaotic, hectic, and have skewed my schedule, so I have been using an occasional Coke as a pick-me-up when I land at work and want nothing more than to slump over in my cube and sleep. Now, I want the Coke all the time. Trying to avoid the Coke and to drink off the overstock of juice I bought to make punch for my boyfriend's sister's bridal shower (oh yeah, did I mention my may-as-well-be sister-in-law is getting married 2 weeks after my sister? Luckily, her wedding is less labor intensive for me than my sisters), I have been drinking a lot of juice which is just calories I don't really need. I was satisfied for months on water and tea and an occasional weekend cocktail, so I want to get back to that. 3. Go to the gym at least once per week - Up until the beginning of September, I worked out at home, running, doing bodyweight exercises (hey Bodyweight Brigade!), running, some yoga, and more running. However, at the beginning of the month, my work schedule changed from working 5 days a week for 8 hrs per day to working 4 days a week, 10 hours per day. It's been great - 3 day weekend! - but during the workweek, I leave the house at 7am and don't get home until 9pm. I was a morning runner for a while, but trying to do it on this schedule has been too much for me - I end up just too tired. Plus now too, it means running in the dark, which I try to avoid. There is a gym in the building where I work, so last week I joined up. Right now I am in the new I-want-to-go-everyday-and-try-everything phase, but while my boss okayed my membership, I will not be shocked when I am in the Thursday lunchtime yoga class and he comes down and pounds on the glass to get my attention. My boss does not understand the concept of work-life balance at all, and I suspect he agreed to the gym membership because he did not feel he could get away with not. Ideally, I want to get to the gym 3-4 times a week - the aforementioned yoga class, maybe a spinning class, and to get 1-2 runs in during the week. I don't want to burn out the early enthusiasm though, or push my boss too far because that would probably get me banned from yoga class altogether. 4. Revamp the budget and try and save $100 - Two major family weddings has completely destroyed my budget and being my sister's maid of honor has taken a significant dent out of my savings. My budget is tight to begin with - I am on track to pay off all my school debt by my 30th birthday in September of next year - so there isn't a lot of wiggle room. I am a bit of an impulse spender - $20 or less at a time. I want to reign that in a bit and save $100 over the next 6 weeks. I know it doesn't seem like a lot, but like I said, there isn't much wiggle room to begin with. So, that's it! I signed up as a Scout this time because I am going to start training for a Half Marathon in February this month. It will be my 3rd and I am running it with my brother, who is much, much, much faster than me, likes to run the race side-by-side, and takes off from the start line like someone set his underwear on fire. I want to be in really good shape getting there, so my run plan is going to be my focus this time around.

Week 1 Check Up Goals: 1. Weighed in at 160.2 lbs, so I am 2.2 lbs down this week. On target so far. 2. Averaged 69 grams of protein this past week, but my energy levels aren't overly higher. 3. Only 2/3 core workouts this past week. Soreness caused me to skip the 3rd, but I put a note in the first post that it was 18 workouts over the 6 weeks, so I will make it up. 4. Impulse spending was only $5 this week, but I had to buy the maid of honor dress and shoes, so the drain on my finances has taken away some of the thunder here. Otherwise, I got the majority of my workouts in, managed my eating pretty well, and am making progress in the direction I want to go. The wedding stuff is still wearing on me. My email is about to explode with flower hair clips and jewelry and center piece arrangements and impossible travel arrangements (did I mention that I am apparently hosting and transporting 6 people in my 1 bedroom house and 4 seat Subaru Imprezza the day before the wedding? Also, I live 100 miles away from the wedding locale?). So far its so much noise, except today my sister sent me 4 links for ceremonial sand containers. A few years ago, I went to a wedding for a friend of mine who has a son from a previous relationship and was marrying a man with 2 sons of his own. During the ceremony, each member of the "new" family had a different colored sand, and they took turns dumping it into a special glass container. At the time, I thought it was a sweet way to bring their boys into the ceremony - as a part of the family that they were being essentially forced into. Since then, I have been to a few weddings where 2 unattached adults have dumped sand into a clear glass container and I have to say - I just don't get it. You know if 5 years you are going to shove that thing into a closet because you don't want it anymore? I understand that a lot of couples don't want/have family issues that prevent the use of Unity Candles, but aren't the wedding pictures enough? Anyway, my sister has 3 cats, one of which does not necessarily feel the need to pee in the box all the time. So, if perversity prevails, one of the cats will knock the thing over and Doofus will come through and pee on the resulting mess. Hopefully my mom gives me heads up when that happens so I can be appropriately appalled when my sister calls to tell me about it. Otherwise, I will have a hard time not laughing outright.

Nice - your continued saga just brightened my day! Good luck Ms Fairy. Keep moving and you'll get somewhere before you know it. As for your pushups - the mental aspect is part of it, muscle fatigue could be another part. Cut yourself some slack and muddle through and there'll be a day pretty soon where it'll just work all of sudden - they will be nearly effortless. It's almost like your muscles have to get in a good sulk before they finally throw up their hands and decide to get with the program. Or at least, that's how it worked for me.

Thanks for the clarification on the burgundy - I am prepared to bust that out the next time it comes up. Coming from me, that'll be a show stopper I am looking forward to it. Not sure why people feel the need to make this so stressful, I personally have been happily living in sin for the past 5 years, and with the double wedding drama, eloping seems to be the way to go if you feel compelled to tie the knot. By the way, I just read your story and I love it. Slay the Procrastinator! I will be following your adventure and cheering for you all the way.

Alright - I typed all this out earlier, had to walk away in the middle, and was signed out so I think I lost it when I tried to post it. If it autosaved somewhere, I can't find it, so oh well, and if I can't find it because it actually posted and I am just blind, then oops. Quick about me: I have lost 30 lbs over the past 2 years and have "platueau-ed" with 15-ish lbs and a lot of toning to go for the past 6 months or so due to some running overuse injuries, waning motivation, and personal stress. To add insult to injury here, my sister decided to pull her wedding up 13 months to Sept 29th, 2012 and the resultant scramble to get her wedding together coupled with the stress of my may-as-well-be-sister-in-law's wedding 2 weeks after my sister's wedding have been the perfect excuse for me to skip workouts and let my diet slide. I have an ongoing goal to get myself into the Healthy BMI range by my birthday on September 8th, and so far that is still doable if I set some intermediate goals here. My Current Stats: Height: 66" Weight: 163 lbs Body Fat % (as per my bathroom scale): 30% Goals: 1. Lose 12 lbs. I know I have it to lose, even if I gain muscle from getting back into my power yoga groove. If I clean my diet back up (no occasional Coke and reducing my intake of Trader Joe's veggie burgers) and getting back into my 3 runs and 3 yoga sessions per week schedule will make a huge difference. Plus, I am very introverted and all this wedding stuff has been a major social headache for me so my workouts will guarantee me the solo time I need to bolster my defenses and deal with people who really seem to truly care whether or not burgundy is a really a shade of red, or in fact, purple. 2. Average 60g of protein intake per day and measure energy levels I have been dragging butt lately, and the culprit might be protein intake. I am a lacto-ovo vegetarian and I regularly track my food, so I am pretty cognizant of how much protein I eat, however since my overuse injuries, I have upped my strength training, cut mileage, and started working on speed so the intensity of my workouts has increased and I might be asking more of my body than I am giving it fuel to cover. I am going to track my energy levels at the end of every day using a simple 1-5 scale: 1 being I can't wait to get back into bed from the second I get up; 5 being ready to climb Mt Everest. Right now, I am typically a 2-3, and would prefer to be 3-4. If after 6 weeks of improved protein intake my energy levels don't increase, then I will cut back the workouts and head to the doctor for some blood tests to see what exactly is going on. 3. Core workout 3x per week. My core is my Achille's heal. I basically have just enough core muscle to allow me to walk and run upright. I get very frustrated and discouraged trying to work my core muscles regularly, but I need to improve it if I want to level up my running and my yoga. I have the Ultimate Yogi 108 Day program, which includes an 18 minute core workout. Right now, I find that workout to be very difficult, but effective. Doing the same workout for the next 6 weeks will allow me to see/feel the gains I am making and hopefully I can turn that into confidence that will allow me to vary my core work in the future without giving it up in dejection. I can do this 18 times. 4. Cut impulse spending to no more than $10/week. My budget is pretty tight to being with and the wedding stuff is not helping. I tend to impulse buy at the grocery store - not usually anything horrific - this week it was nectarines, cherries, Vega protein sample packs, Emergen-C, and Badger anti-bug balm. Overall it was about $40 extra cost. If I could stick to my grocery list and save myself $30 of that $40, banked over 6 weeks I can pay for my maid of honor dress, shoes, and nail salon appointments. Having that money will relieve some of the stress I have over my sister's wedding and if I can make it a habit, so much the better. Now, I am going to take a deep breath and jump off the deep end for me and actually post this. I am introverted as I mentioned above, and intensely private, so this is a bit out of my comfort zone, but for the first time in a long time, I am hopeful, motivated to move, and feeling a lot less helpless. Good luck to my fellow Adventurer's - we can rock this challenge