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Does anyone here play Ingress? If you're not familiar with it, you should check it out. It would be another great way for NF members to connect and host meetups. Ingress is an augmented reality game created by Niantic (same company behind Pokemon Go) in which players find iconic locations in their area that are actually secret portals. The immersive story behind Ingress is one of its more compelling elements. I won't share too many details because I want you to check it out for yourself, but the idea is that you capture portals and harness their energies for your team. You can link portals and create fields, which is like claiming territory for your team. But the real reason I play is this: it encourages players to walk, to essentially take a tour of an area searching for portals. The portals are usually important and iconic locations, like monuments or historic landmarks, buildings like courthouses and places of worship. It would be a great tool for those of you looking to meet walking goals, like number of steps taken. Also, if you look through the NF quests, several of them are about exploring places, both in your neighborhood and in unfamiliar places. If you play Ingress and you want to connect, message me.

The big goal this challenge is to decrease the amount of sugar that hubby and I consume. He is non-insulin-dependent diabetic but needs to improve his blood sugar levels STAT. So, this guy is public enemy number one at our house: I don't think that he is ready to go cold turkey; so I've devised a transition plan - based in part on the NF Academy nutrition guidelines. I've already dropped my sugar consumption about 25% - compared to last month. Gotta love data!!! I'm using LoseIt to track what I eat, and have the premium plan so that I can drill down on my macros to see what I'm actually eating. So Quest #1 is to transition to a Whole30 (which will be next challenge's goal). Each week, I'll add another improvement to our diet, and I'm going to be tracking it using HabitRPG. At stake: 2 CON, 2 WIS - with grading by percentage of days that I manage to stick to our improvement plan. During the break, I've convinced hubby to eat a high protein breakfast ... and he's already feeling better. That was no big deal for me, but next week ... I need to substitute a vegetable in for a starch at lunch and dinner. I'm not a big veggie eater ...... (0/42) The other big thing I am working on is to be able to complete an obstacle course race. I've been a bit discouraged at how long it takes me to improve my upper body strength, but I'm going to keep at it while working on my running and my general agility. So, Quest #2 is to do strength training 3 times per week. I mix it up and do a routine at the gym (including assisted pull ups), kettle bells at home, and sandbag training at home. At stake: 3 STR, and grading is also a percentage of goal. (0/18) Quest #3 is to get through C25K again. This should be pretty darned easy since I'm on week 4 already and am an experienced runner. But I'll (hopefully) be transitioning to outdoor running by early April. Yes?? 2 STA awarded for getting through it; 1 STA if I get to week 6. Quest #4 is to work on agility weekly (at least). I have my FitDeck agility cards. Or I can go climbing or take a related class - such as yoga, zumba, pole dancing, martial arts class, etc. I'm allowing myself to play with this and have some fun .... and be flexible with how I work on improving my agility for 2 DEX, based on percentage completion. (0/6) Quest #5 is to work on my dead drop assassin skills - using geocaching and Ingress. I'm going to pull a number out of the air and say that I'll do this 20 times during the challenge for a possible 2 WIS and 2 DEX. Geocaching in the harsh winter can get to be a bit problematic ... so the augmented reality game, Ingress, is a good substitute to get me out of the house. Scoring is also by a percentage. (0/20). PLUS - Assassin's Guild minis:Week1 - Pullups and Mountain Climbers (+STR)Week 2 - RUN!!! (+STA)Week 3 -Week 4 -Week 5 -Week 6 - AND, I'm competing in an exercise consistency challenge that Bekah put together on FB. AND WAIT - that's not all!! I'm putting together a simple Fitness RPG. It has a long way to go, but I'm playing it while designing it. So, I'm really hoping to have fun and improve my body composition this challenge!!!