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I have struggled for years with depression, lack of self esteem, and lack of motivation but I am ready! I actually have exercised 3 days already! I have to exercise & focus even on days I feel really down..etc. Male Age: 34 Height: 5'1 Weight: 192 My main goal for this 5 weeks is to lose 10 lbs My ultimate goal is to be healthy, but also there is a walking track near me..I would like to be able to run around it without losing my breath. I am a little bummed that on Saturday and Sunday I exercised (30 min each on the bike) but today I weigh 192 lbs, I weight 189 yesterday morning. Though I did eat an hour before I weighed. 1. Exercise bicycle - 30 minutes per day. I have a stationary bicycle, I have always intended to "walk" for exercise but I always got sidetracked by either the weather (way too hot or way too cold), motivation, and how bad I feel. When I walk, my lower back hurts. The stationary bike is much better! 2. Box steps. I have a box which is 5 inches high, I plan to do steps. 20 steps per starting leg. Meaning I will start my ascension with my right foot 100 times, then start on the left 100. 3. Drink 20 oz of water a day. Since I am short, I want to first see how my body reacts to 20 oz a day. If I feel I need more I'll add later. I plan to try and cut out cokes during the week and have 2-3 on the weekends. My other favorite drinks are 2% milk and sweet tea. 4. Food log

Ok lets start this. I liked the setup from the last challenge pretty much. But life head other plans and i fell of the truck. So this time, i will use the setup from last time with some fine tuning. I will start tomorrow. Tracking is done with habithub. Check: ✓ Fail: ✘ Todo: ☐ Skip: - Week 1: Habits: * Use the daylight lamp for 30 minutes each day: ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ * Use Headspace daily for 10 minutes ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ * Plan each day: (Go through the my todo app and plan the todos for the day) ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ * Brush teeth at 11pm (i tend to be in bed to late. With this i hope to structure my evenings a bid better) ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ * No Social Media on my Phone(Block Facebook and Youtube on the mobile browser) ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ Diet: * No Sweets during the week (i want to cut down on those. My first steep is to limit it to the weekend (friday - sunday)): ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ * No Pasta during the week (same as for the sweets only allowed from friday to sunday): ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ * Don't drink liquid calories: (just water, coffee with milk or unsweetend tea) ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ Excercise: * Go to Taiji class and be on time(Mondays and Tuesdays) ☐ ☐ * Use the my bike for the work way(15 Minutes each way, 3 days a week) ☐ ☐ ☐

I will absolutely continue with the story element here, because I enjoy it. I will, however, save it for the beginning of the challenge on Monday. In the meantime, here are my goals and whatnot! 1.) Main Fitness Quest My three goal-achieving-type-little-goals-that-add-up-to-a-bigger-goal-goals: All scoring assumes i.) Mine, shovel, chop, and hoe except on S Days (Saturdays, Sundays, and Special Days). Shovelglove! I will shug for at least 14 minutes per weekday. I feel so much stronger since I started doing this three months ago that I have trouble believing it. I poke my traps a lot. I'm not sure when I had traps installed. Easy scoring: __/20. [+2 STR | +2 STA] ii.) Bicycling Through Time and Space is the name of a trilogy of really goofy but particularly fun books about a guy from California who can travel through time and space using an alien-implanted 22nd gear on his Nishiki mountain bike. Ride a bicycle for 30 minutes except, as above, on S Days. Unless I want to. No rule about intensity, and no upward time limit. All that running stuff last challenge cut into my bicycle time pretty hard. It's winter here, so I'll probably be either on my winterized Kuwahara Eclipse MTB, or on my heavily modified Body Break kludge-o-cycle with the cadence meter made with a $10 cyclometer and free math. If I'm lucky, I'll get to sneak the Trek 1.2 out here and there. If I really can't snag a bicycle for some reason, I'll find something else to do. __/20. [+2 STA | +2 DEX | +1 CHA] iii.) This is my first directly weight-related goal on this site. Ever. Eat at a calorie deficit as if to lose 1 lb. per week. This is a deficit of 500 calories a day. It really shouldn't be hard to stay away from junk food (most of the time, anyway) and stuffing myself to the gills. Besides, my other goals will add at least a handful of calories back in each day; in theory, that's what this Fitbit HR is for. __/28. [+2 CON | +2 WIS] 2.) LIFE SIDE QUEST Draw every day. I have a sketchbook. I am playing with brush pens, but that part could change. I love cartooning. Why am I not drawing more often? For the purposes of this challenge, I will ink without doing pencils first. I'll illustrate my update each day. The pictures will be black and white, because colouring takes ages, and isn't what I feel like I need to mess with right now. I will share said drawings here. __/42. [+2 CHA] As per normal, I'm going to determine scores based on percentage ranges, more or less like on my childhood report cards. A = 86-100% | B = 73-85% | C = 66-72% | D = 51-65% | F = 0-50% 3) MOTIVATION This:

The door opened for the first time in months. Years? It was hard to keep track in the darkness of the cell. Well, maybe cell. For all he knew, it could be a wine cellar, a regular cellar, or even an underground phone booth. It really was awfully dark. As the bright sunlight seared into his squinting eyes, his hand slipped slowly to the jagged, broken piece of 1x4 he had broken from the floor ages ago. It had taken a long time to sharpen it to a point by rubbing it on the rough stone walls, but time had never been at a premium in the darkness. Stone walls? That should have tipped me off, he thought. Not a phone booth. Dummy. He prepared himself for a leap, though he was almost completely certain he wasn't up to fighting his way past anyone more dangerous than a punch-drunk mallard. “Oh, put that away,†said a thin, creaky voice above him. In the glare, the voice was far more defined than the silhouetted body from which it issued. “I know you've been down there ages, and you've never known who or what was eventually going to open this door, but how much damage do you think a sun-blinded man in a hole can do to a person standing four metres above him? Besides...you have been here before.†“Fair point,†said the man in the hole. Then, to the voice's surprise, the former captive pounced. The voice's training kicked in, and in seconds, the man known as Daikaiju Jothra was laid out on the ground, gasping for breath, and wondering how his makeshift weapon had ended up the in the hands of an old man. Once he regained his composure — not to mention his wind — Jothra practiced his shouting. “I'll eventually care who you are, but I think first I'd like to know why I've been trapped in a big hole in the ground, and who's going to pay for it!†The shape at the top of the pit had slowly been forming itself into a bearded old man. His robes were old and worn, but immaculately maintained. His dim grey eyes seemed ages younger than the rest of his face, flashing from under the floppy brim of his cartoonishly pointy hat. His left hand held a familiar-looking brown sling pack. After a pause, conveniently long enough to allow even the slowest of readers a chance to finish reading this paragraph, he finally spoke. “I am here...from the Rebellion.†“That's great, but I told you--†“My fellow elders and I have been seeking you for a long time. You have disappointed us, and let yourself fall into your old ways. But we still need you to complete our mission.†The old man made a strange, strained expression, and the man in the pit suddenly found himself rising, as the floor below him moved improbably up to ground level. “You were lured here by Ogrod the Dreaded, the dictator and ruler of all Lodbrok. Again. The way I understand it, he had an easier go of it than he did the first time he locked you in a hole.†The man in the no-longer-a-pit stared a seething stare. The old man sighed. “Do you care nothing for the planet Lodbrok? What of the time and resources we spent rescuing you one year ago? What about the training? What of all of our hopes and dreams? You have failed us all, as much as you have failed yourself!†“Have I, now?†the former pit dweller sneered. “Who do you think you are? And just who do you think I am?†“Your name is Jothra! You were once a strong scout on your native world, before Ogrod managed to snare you in this trans-dimensional interplanetary trap! When you were once freed, you showed potential, but you spurned it for a life of sloth and ignorance, and became ensnared in exactly the same net again! Now you are free — again — and this time, we are not sure how to proceed. Are we to drag you, kicking and screaming, to a training prison? What say you?.†The old man handed Jothra the sling pack. “This is your satchel, of course. It is the same one we rescued from Ogrod's vaults last time. It is mere luck that lives weren't lost in its recapture. It is empty at present, just as you...†Jothra did not try to hide his scornful sneering as the old man's words trailed off. The old man's brow creased in worried confusion. “Your timepiece is on your right wrist.†He pointed a bony finger to Jothra's wristwatch. “You...you are right handed.†He looked down at Jothra's left shin. “...And where is your scar...the one from the bicycle crash? It should not have faded so soon, unless...†“Good job, Holmes,†Jothra sneered. His right fist connected with the old man's right eye. Jothra grabbed the bag, since it seemed like a waste to leave it with a future dusty corpse, and strode shakily away. He would need to regain his strength to do what must be done. “You're forgetting! There is one other thing!†shouted the old man A piercing, animal scream came from somewhere much too close to Jothra's left ear. He dropped the satchel, and turned just in time to see a dark black maw with jagged white teeth around its edges. Then he was done seeing things for more or less ever, with the exception of the inside of a giant carnivorous lizard. “Run,†said the old man, grabbing the bag, and fading from sight. * * * “You are sure?†asked another old man. “Yes,†replied the old man, addressing all seven of his bearded, old man colleagues. In the middle of the round table sat Jothra's satchel. “But how is this possible?†queried another old man. A throat cleared. All eyes swivelled to the most ragged but robustly healthy of them all. “We know that it is possible, because that is what we have before us,†said the haggard old man. “The evidence is clear. The man we found and released today was not Jothra. He was the Evil Jothra that Ogrod created shortly after we first found the real Jothra last year. Somehow, Ogrod was fooled into burying his own minion in a deep, dark prison, and throwing away the key.†There was silence around the Rebellion Old Men Council's planning table. This situation was not one for which they had prepared. Never in their wildest dreams had they imagined that the man they had found in the prison could be anyone but Jothra. Now they all shared one question, and they dared not voice it, because they knew that no-one at the table had an answer. Where the hell was the actual Jothra? I disappeared from NF a year-ish ago, but I've been busy since. I've lost 25 lbs., and increased my leg strength and stamina an awful lot. I've earned my Alberta Permanent Teaching Certificate. I've gone on an Alberta and B.C. National and Provincial Parks crawl. I've scrambled a moderate peak. Most recently, I cycled 95 km from Vulcan to Lethbridge for a pizza. Now I am back because I want to keep working. Ride bicycle. Complete Darebee's Hero's Journey bodyweight strength program. Read books. "Conquers the Underlying Symbolism of Everything" is a reference to every exercise in the Hero's Journey program representing a fictional action in a continuing story. Also, it gave me an excuse to use a clip from the old Muppet promo reel. 1.) Main Quest I've lost weight, and increased my stamina. Everything is easier now. I want more. My three goal-achieving-type-little-goals-that-add-up-to-a-bigger-goal-goals: i.) Ride a bicycle three days a week. My road cadence has moved from generally-high-60s to generally-low-80s, and it's made life better. Road bike until snow, then winterized MTB or stationary bike (I call it the Modified Thunderbolt Grease-Slapper, because it has been modified to hell and back). Easy scoring: __/18. [+3 STA | +2 DEX] ii.) Run the Hero's Journey workout from Darebee every day. I should be able to do this during my lunch break while the kids are gone. If this goes well, I may try the Pandora workouts when my 60 days of Hero's Journey are up. Easy scoring here, too: __/42. [+3 STR | +1 DEX | +1 CHA] iii.) Maintain a minimum activity level, and watch how much I stuff down my food receptacle. No Adjective Dieting for me. I'll meet a Fitbit Charge HR-recorded 12,000 steps a day (a step up from my previous base at 10,000) maintain a calorie deficit. __/42. [+2 CON | +1 WIS] 2) LIFE SIDE QUEST Read every day. Internet doesn't count. [EDIT: reading at school doesn't count either.] __/42. [+1 WIS | +1 CHA] I'm going to determine scores based on percentage ranges, more or less like on my childhood report cards: A = 86-100% | B = 73-85% | C = 66-72% | D = 51-65% | F = 0-50% 3) MOTIVATION This same post-it is still on my door. It's been there since I very first found the NF forums. I will post today's results later on tonight. Good luck, everyone!

So I bought a big ol recumbent bike because it is awesome and fun to ride, putting a trailer hitch on my smart car to lug it around, but my question is does anyone have a suggestion for what kind of bike rack to buy?

I'm looking to get a bike just for casual cycling when I feel like it. I'm pretty short, 150cm. Have a pretty tight budget cause I'm slated to leave my country in about a year and so I don't wanna spend a bunch of money. I've been looking at fixies, mainly cause they look really attractive. But the stock bikes are all for people height 165cm and above. I haven't cycled in years. What would you guys' recommendations be for a (kind of) first time bike? (Preferably a light bike.) Thanks for reading!

My ultimate goal is to fit comfortably into UK size 14 trousers. To do that, I need to drop a dress size and I want to do this by losing fat. I feel like I've got a good grip on workouts and food / diet so this challenge is about creating new routines and adding another level of automation into my daily life. Being more active outside of workout sessions and looking after my body are my main focus areas for this challenge. 1. Activity! STA+2 CON+2 Be active outside of workout sessions. Minimum is walking for 10 minutes per day. This is continuing from my previous challenge but is being made more difficult by a higher target. A = 30 or more active days B = 26-29 active days C = 22-25 active days F = 21 active days or fewer. 2. Spring clean! DEX+1 CHA+2 WIS+1 The start of spring is approaching and my body is beginning to show signs of winter wear and tear. I have made a list of activities I need to do to look after my body, and I have attributed points to those activities depending on how difficult (how likely I am to do them) they are. A = 100 points or more B = 75-99 points C = 50-74 points F = 49 points or fewer. 3. Floss! CON+2 CHA+2 I'm treating this like a 30-day hard hat challenge for the whole of the 6 weeks. Fairly simple, I want to automate my flossing routine, put floss everywhere and make sure to floss daily. Pass = Never miss 2 days in a row Fail = Miss 2 or more days in a row. 4. On your bike! DEX+1 CON+1 STA+1 I received a folding bike for Christmas and it's really easy to get out and about with it. I want to fit my bike in my car and take it to work with me. I hope to make a new activity out of bike riding and my initial aim is to ride my bike once per week. A = 5 bike rides or more B = 3 or 4 bike rides C = 1 or 2 bike rides F = No bike rides.

Hi, I'm Dartoo and this is my first challenge. I found the site in November 2014 but my forum membership didn't go through right away (which is what I discovered when I tried to join the challenge on time!) But they got me in fine and fixed me up so here I am. I'm in okay shape I would say; I used to play roller derby and recently retired. Without the group motivation it can be difficult to keep a routine. I like riding my bike (but could definitely up my maintenance skills). I work at home so it's easy to sit around in my jammies all day... uhhh. Main Quest: Ride 50 miles at a time at an average speed of at least 18 mi/hr. Maybe fit in my 2009 jeans. My 6-week goals are in fun little increments of 5: - 5 glasses of water/day - 5 dog walks (of at least .5 miles each) - 5 REAL pushups by the end of the challenge - 5 minute dance party for every hour at work and this one doesn't fit the 5s, but getting in bed by 10:30 and up by 6:30. Life Quest: - practice my clarinet at least 30 minutes/day at least 5 days/week So... hi everybody! I need buddies, right? Hullo...

So I moved recently and now I live like a 2 hour drive away from work. As part of my goal to level up my life.. I would like to start taking the train. How does this level up my life? Well actually it does this in 3 ways. *Saves money *Instead of spending 3-4 hours driving each day, I spend 3 on a train where I can read *The train station is 3 miles from work. Which means I am forced to do physical activity even when I don't want to Walking takes a long time due to stoplights and a lot of traffic so I am hoping I won't be doing it for long, between my work hours and the commute it doesn't leave much time to live. I started a funding campaign to try and buy a bike. Hoping to have one soon! http://www.gofundme.com/hgajm0

Hey assassin brothers and sisters! After a challenging challenge break I'm back to give it a go again! I spent my last challenge getting ready to "leave the Vault" but after the 6 weeks was up I never opened the door and left! So this is it....I'm heading out into the post apocalyptic wasteland and have to stay focused or I may not survive long! (I'll expand on these goals late but I want something up right now so I can hold myself accountable) Goal#1: I can go the distance! The one thing missing from every post apocalyptic/zombie/survival movie is...bicycles. And that's what I'm missing! My last bike was stolen and I haven't replaced it yet. Part one of this goal is to get a bike again. I am setting the due date at 1 week from my next paycheck, which should be in a day or two. Part two of this goal is to ride my bike to work for the rest of the challenge! Goal#2: Put some balance in your life. I want to work on my hand balancing skills. I need to work on my hand balancing at LEAST 5 times a week! 5-10 minutes a day, that is all. Can I do it !?!? Goal#3: wasteland warrior workout. It's a dangerous world out there and I need to keep my skills in tip too shape. I'm starting a bodyweight workout (TBD but involving the TMNT or batman workouts) 3 times a week! Life goal: Put some points into Barter. My character seems to be lacking in the barter skill on his character sheet. I'm going to fix that. I want to save money and still eat healthy! How will I do that you ask? -shop on a full stomach (or at least not hungry) -no fast food! -try to use all my produce before it goes bad -shop the deals! Using the weekly ads of local stores I will scout out the best prices and save the most caps! That's the quick run down. I'll add stat points, more specifics, and pictures soon haha

Finally recovered enough to come in and say that I successfully biked the C and O Canal Towpath and the Great Allegheny Passage (plus some odds and ends in D.C.) for a total of 354.6 miles over the course of a week! We went the so called "hard way" by doing the 23 mile 1800ft climb from Cumberland to the Eastern Continental Divide, and it felt like a freaking huge achievement. Will post pics later of my loadout and such. If I had to do it again, I think I'd try to change around my meals a bit because I did all big hearty meals like I do for my hiking trips. On top of that, I carried extra water because being my first time on that trail I didn't want to risk being without. Those two things added so much weight, plus most people do a bed and breakfast every night and we camped, so I had the gear for that too. Still, I definitely loved it and if anyone on here does any bit of cycling and hasn't done some kind of long distance yet, I'd definitely say try it!

Hello Scouts! I'm new on your patch, putting on my metal helmet and feeling brave enough to leave my security blanket back with the Adventurers! In Chapter 3 my main quest was to comfortably complete my first 100km bike ride on the 20th of October. This will occur in the fifth week of this challenge. It is still the main goal right now but I will be aiming to create a bigger main goal before the end of this challenge. So, my three major goal are still covering the same areas: Training, Nutrition and Recovery. Training - STR 2 & STA 2 Week by week goals (Not sure how I will score this yet, it's a bit rough around the edges atm). 1. Get used to beautiful new machine Bike: 75-100km/4-5hrs, PTx2 2. Holidays! Bike: 150-175km/7-8hrs, PTx2 3. Holidays! Bike: 175-200km/8-10hrs, PTx2 4. Tapering Bike: 50-75kmkm/2-3hrs, PTx2 5. It's happening on Sunday!! Bike: 50-75km/2-3hrs, PTx1 6. Recovery Week Nutrition - CON 3 & WIS 2 Got to be smarter about what I eat. Turns out my body isn't such a fan of gluten... well, my gastrointestinal system isn't but my taste-buds LOVE IT! This challenge I want to be as gluten free as I can. Problems foreseen are usual holiday eating of more nice cakes, my birthday, weird emotional reactions to punitive challenges that backfire on eating. Consequently, this challenge to go gluten free will be about how it makes my guts feel. I will document all gluten I eat and if I suffer after effects I lose 0.5 points per occurrence. Put simply, I will not make myself unwell with gluten during this challenge! Recovery - DEX 3 I have been doing a lot of strength work recently and if I don't stretch or foam roll enough I get very stiff. I really want to create a better morning routine to get me going for the day. 10-15mins minimum Yoga/Stretching/Foam Rolling upon rising 5/7 days. There is a slight easy out in here as I usually do a Yoga class one morning per week, so it's more like 4 hard ones... SIDE QUESTS: Life - CHA 2 By the end of week 3 I will have a clean and tidy house. By the end of week 6 I will have maintained the clean and tidy... Fitness - WIS 1 Aid mental and physical well being by setting aside a period of time each week to plan: Food, exercise, bills, social commitments etc. This has fallen apart recently and I am much worse off for it.

I'm pretty new to cycling, but this is not my first attempt to get into the sport. I was thinking it'd be nice to have a thread going here with a collection of our best cycling advice for the newbies! I'll start it off: Fit matters. Attempt 2.0 to get into cycling didn't start well. I was sold a horrendously undersized frame from a slick-talking salesman at a local bike shop. I adjusted the hell out of everything that could have been adjusted on that bike and no matter what it just felt wrong. Went back into the shop, they righted the wrong, and I can honestly say the difference is night and day. A bike is not necessarily comfortable, but it shouldn't be actively painful. That being said, it does feel weird at first. Especially if you're moving between bike styles (like...say, from a big steel beach cruiser to a road bike!) But don't be afraid to just ride. You might fall down. Get back up. There are jerks out there on the road. (Typically in cars, but pedestrians, dogs, and other cyclists can all apply.) Don't take it personally and do your best to ignore it. It probably wasn't about you anyways. Everyone said I had to get clipless shoes and pedals. I didn't want to. I'm riding with cages and toe straps, and you can call me a dork, and behind the times, whatever, all you want, but that works for me. If it ever stops working I'll be happy to try something else. I think that really sums it up. Cycling can be intimidating, but it doesn't have to be. Go with what feels right to you. And the only way you find out what feels right is by getting out there and riding your bike.

Alright! I am doing some research on panniers for my bike, and I was hoping someone had some that they really liked and would recommend. In an effort to live more sustainably, I will be riding my bike to the farmers market. The only problem is, I don't have any panniers, and I am not sure exactly what I need to look for in a good set. I would love to be able to tote my groceries, and maybe stop at the library for a book or two. Any suggestions? Any that I should avoid at all costs?

This is a little long and full of numbers...hopefully enough nerds will see this that this will not be a deterrent I've been considering buying a bike for about a year (since I got my house) but know a decent one is a pretty serious investment up front and for maintenance. I like biking but know that I won't do it much other than to ride to the train station so I'm wondering if it's worth it. I'm only considering financially though I fully acknowledge there are environmental, physical fitness and other benefits to biking vs. driving. Here's my situation: There are 3 train stations near my house. Station #1: 2.5miles from house and has bike racks Station #2: 3.8miles from house and has $4 parking Station #3: 6.2miles from house and has free parking I really never go to station #2 because it's so expensive to park. Assuming 6.2miles to station #3 each way, 27mpg and $3.80/gallon for gas, it costs me $1.75 a day to go to station #3. Because of the distance difference, I would leave the house about the same time whether I bike to station 1 or drive to station 3. Assuming I ride an average of 4x a week, 26 weeks out of the year due to weather, I could save approx $7 per week or $181 per year. So...is it worth it? I'm out of the loop on how much a decent bike costs since my last one was from Target after a bad experience buying a used bike (pedal came flying off). So factoring in up front cost, yearly maintenance and how long a bike is expected to last, are the savings worth the cost? Bike brands and suggested "look for this" or "watch out for this" are welcome. I'm not a fan of street bikes because we have a lot of pot holes and I have a tendency to drop off curbs...plus a mountain bike means I can ride the trails if I decide to. I don't need anything super fancy, just something solid. I'll be checking out a few local shops but have no idea walking in if they're overpriced or not and which features are useful/useless to me. Any help is much appreciated