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Hi! Been doing IF for 7 days strict calorie control and macros. Day 4 woke me early with horrible stomach cramps. I ate carbs and egg with salt to resolve. Day 7 the stomach cramps came back and made me break my fast 3 hours early. Taking women MultiVits. Healthy 5"8 age 30 BMI approx 31 (Shy about weight!) Macros 40/35/25% prot/fat/carbs 156g/60g/98g 1500cal goal Light exercise: 2k jog twice this week Active job on feet Eating window is 13.30-21.30 Please help as I want to continue. I'm not feeling much hunger pangs but the abdominal cramps is awful. I'm worried that I'm harming my body. Has anyone had this? Thanks

Well... Not actually alone. Hoping to have you all with me at least. I've just left my CF box is all. It's been over a month since I've had a thread. In that time my fiancee and I both had injuries and decided together to leave our gym for various reasons, biggest of which was financial. Saving $185/mo by switching to a Gold's Gym Express with nearly all the same equipment as the box. The only thing we'll be missing is the classes, which is a big thing but I think we can manage it. We are going to be doing Starting Strength Phase 2 three times per week: Day A Day B Squat 5 reps x 3 sets Squat 5 reps x 3 sets Bench Press 5 reps x 3 sets OHP 5 reps x 3 sets Deadlift 5 reps x 1 set Power Clean 3 reps x 5 sets I've been working on re-learning my squat, which had evolved into a "Squat, bend at the waist, good morning, stand up" that was going to get me seriously hurt: Thus, I think a basic program like Starting Strength will allow me to reset and (hopefully) get back up in weight relatively quickly. It will also allow me to keep my presses, cleans, and deads progressing regularly. I've also tweaked my shoulder this past month causing me to lose time (and thus think about how much money I was paying to NOT go to the gym) so hopefully these will keep the weights much lower with slightly higher volume than the programming we were doing that had heavy doubles, singles, and PRs every few weeks. This will be followed each day by a random conditioning WOD chosen from a WOD generator app I found. We also have a bunch of strongman buddies that do event practice on Sunday mornings so we will likely be jumping in on those once in awhile. Nothing like jumping in on a workout with a 148lb pro strongwoman and seeing if you can keep up. Nutritionally I did some reading up on some intermittent fasting, specifically the 5:2 diet. I started it last week and I think it may be exactly what I need this time of year to allow some flexibility for the family get-togethers I have literally every weekend (and then some). Personally (LUYL) I've got a few goals: I'm now 22k words into an urban fantasy novel and I need to keep myself writing. I'm going to try to write for 15 minutes every day. If I do that sometimes I'll get a couple hundred words and stop and sometimes I'll get into a zone and crank out a thousand words in short order. Trick is just to make myself start. I need to give myself a project. Could be welding my busted forge back together and banging away on some steel. Could be putting together a chess board or some other woodworking project. Could be ordering a carving knife and trying to carve something. Not really sure but it's been months since I made something with my hands and my brain works better when I challenge it in that way. I need to wire up license plate lights for my truck. I have been just asking to get pulled over driving it without them for the past few weeks. I have the lights, I just need to get them on there. May require help from someone more electronically inclined but that shouldn't be hard to find. I test for a 911 dispatcher job on Monday. Assuming it goes well I need to sit down with the fiancee and have a major Pro/Con discussion and see if it is something that works for us right now. I don't anticipate the working out to be a problem. I'm ready to be back in the gym. Likewise, I've already been on this new diet for over a week and don't anticipate any big issues there. So this challenge will largely be recaps of my gym sessions, chronicles of any struggles I may have with foods, and (hopefully) some cool writeups of a couple projects I get done/possibly some of the fiction if anyone would like to read.

Hi all, I did a search and couldn't find anything relating to the 5:2 fast method and was wondering if anyone here was adhering to it? I started a few weeks ago and am finding it relatively comfortable even though the idea of it caused me concern prior to actually doing it. So I was wondering if anyone had any experiences with it, be they good or bad that they would like to share. Thanks, Matt

I'm not much chop on coming up with snazzy thread titles or terribly imaginative thematics for my challenges. I'm just glad to be turning up for every challenge and increasing my participation level each time. I am here to lose weight. I am losing weight while participating in the challenges as well as making changes to my daily life over and above the tenets of what I am laying out here. Well at least I did on the previous challenge so now I get to incorporate some of those changes into this challenge. Faster During the course of the previous challenge I began the 5:2 diet which is a type of intermittent fasting revolving around 5 "normal" days eating and 2 days of fasting (600 calories). I want to continue this and will rate myself thusly; 12/12 Fasts over the 6 week challenge = A 10/12 Fasts over the 6 week challenge = B <10/12 Fasts over the 6 week challenge = Fail Available Points Con 2 Wis 2 Longer I am a scout because I enjoy riding my bike for exercise and i enjoy riding it long distances. In the last challenge one goal that I had was to do a 50km ride within the 6 weeks. I didn't achieve that so I am back again. 3 X 50km rides = A 2 X 50km rides = B 1 X 50km rides = C 0 X 50km rides = Fail Available Points Str 1 Dex 1 Sta 2 Stronger In the previous challenge I set myself the goal of doing 1 bodyweight workout over the period of the challenge and while I achieved that goal it's probably fair to say that the bar was set pretty low. If I want to make real changes to the way I look, feel, move and think then I need to ask more of myself. 12 X BWW = A 9 X BWW = B 6 X BWW = C <6 X BWW = Fail Available Points Str 2 Meditaterer I want to do something in terms of resting, quieting, helping my mind so this is what I am going to try. I have downloaded a couple of apps that people have big upped elsewhere on here recently and will attempt to do 10 minutes meditating 5 times a week. I have done it previously in very short bursts so if I am able to do 30 sessions over the course of the challenge that would be awesome. 30 X 10 minute sessions = A 20-29 X 10 minute sessions = B 10-19 X 10 minute sessions = C <10 X 10 minute sessions = Fail Available points Wis 2 Life Quest Connect/Reconnect I am a terribly antisocial person, well antisocial these days means something a little different so let's say that I am a terribly non-social person. Much like my current girth this wasn't always the case. I had a large circle of friends through school and for a few years after school I maintained most of those friendships. Then I kind of stopped being open to new friendships and got very lazy in keeping in touch with existing friends. I haven't really garnered any new friends over the past 20 or so years. I do have people who I count as friends but they have come through my wife's associations rather than mine and nobody that I would call up and say lets go grab a beer type of thing. That all sounds a little tragic when you write it all down but it's not as grim as it looks or maybe it is but I am just used to it. Soooooooooooo anywayssssssss this is by far the hardest task I have set for myself in this or any of my other challenges. Make contact with a riding group and go for at least 1 group ride and or call up an old friend = A Cha 2 The last bit seems like a bit of an overshare but i am happy with the rest of it. Edited to add Bonus Points Read a book I'm halfway through the 5:2 book and would like to read a "fun" book once I am done with it. I haven't read a book all year and last year my reading was focused mainly on baby, daddy stuff so I hereby declare 1 Bonus Point available if I can get more than 50% of the way through a book during the next 6 weeks.