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Feeling chunky! Especially my stomach and core! It may seem a bit vain but I really like having a fit and sexy curvy body. I want to enjoy it while I can. A "bikini" body is going to take a few challenges. I dream of walking along the beaches of italy wearing a great bikini, a sun hat, sunglasses and a great tan. I would love to get back into shape! No heavy lifting doctors orders. So I can't do Strong Lifts. I have been dealing with hormone issues which contrubuted to my weight gain (and the cookies, ice cream, chocolate bars and candy) So sugar has been an issue along with poor meal planning and little to no exercize. The only thing that works for me is to find things I enjoy and have fun doing. So finding a workout or activity I enjoy is going to be key. I would like to fit into a size 8. Right now I am wearing size 12. This is a short challenge and I am starting late, so one size for this challenge would be a good start. My plan Gratitude: I always love doing the gratitude statements. Itailan: practice 10 minutes each day. Mediation: daily. I have a really good program called holosync that I enjoy. I want to get back in the habit with that. Art: Some time working on art, something I enjoy to do. Going up to my studio and just playing would be a joy! Workout: ? Researching some ideas; I think something simple to do daily Water: 2 bottles per day Diet Plan: Avoid sugars, eat lots of veggies AM: shake or oatmeal & coffee Lunch: Soup and water Snack: Smoothie or Tea Dinner: Salad and protein Evening: tea with stevia Pictures are always helpful and motivating. I will post some soon. I think they really help remind me of my goal and help me see progress Motivation: Buy a nice bikini and have a stronger body.

My name is Jane, and I am an almost college graduate, and I have been steadily gaining weight for about a year now. My weight has gone from about 140lbs to 180-185lbs and at 5’3†you can tell. I have never been “skinny,†but my self-esteem has really plummeted from this dramatic weight gain, and feeling generally out of place. Going to class, going to the gym, going out in the world has become this game of how to be as invisible as possible. I have also moved in with my boyfriend of a year and quickly learned that boys will eat just about anything smothered with cheese, double meat and extra large sides. I am also the one in the household that steers the working out and eating patterns when I’m home, because he is trying to be sweet and cut me slack by allowing me to eat/do what I want since I hate being at school. I’m only home for weekends, and like most people I think of weekends as a time to slack off on diet, exercise and responsibility. The positive side of moving in with a boy is that it’s more “macho†to lift weights than it is to be on the elliptical. For a while I tried to do weight lifting without a set program and found that to be very frustrating and not motivating. I have been doing a loose interpretation of the 5x5 Stronglifts program for about 6 weeks now. I have had some setbacks because of form, forgetting to go to the gym for a week and an injury. Most days, though, I’m pretty happy with my workouts, and I’m hoping to switch over to Wendler 5/3/1 in April (I’m giving myself another month of 5x5 to try and get my weights back up). So, goals. My main goal for the gym is a 2-3 year goal. I want to participate in a bikini competition. I haven’t told anyone in the "real" world this goal because I am SO not a bikini model. I don’t even want to win a crown or trophy, the real goal is to get to a point where I wouldn't look out of place physique-wise. Much more short term fitness goal is to put myself in the best position to switch over to Wendler in a month. The other main goal is to finish school. Not flying colors finish, not finish with dignity, potentially not even slow and steady finish. I am willing to scrape and crawl to the finish line, to have the ugliest final transcript and to be the “C’s get degrees†person I never thought I would be. I’ve been told by my good friend, Woody Allen, that 80% of life is about showing up. Unfortunately, I have not shown up very often in the past year. So for the next 6 weeks I am planning to show up to class and to the gym. For class, I want to be in every class between now and the end of the semester. Thus far, I have had not very good attendance. I get about a D for attendance these first 6 weeks. For the gym, an ideal goal would be 6 days a week. This has not been happening consistently. I’ve also been snowed in recently, like the rest of the east coast, and used that as an excuse to not work out at all. Currently I think I’m sitting at about a C. Between February 23 and April 5 there are 35 total class meetings, and 36 workout days. Class: A=35-27, B=26-19, C=18-10, D=9-1, F=0 Workouts: A=36-28, B=27-19, C=18-10, D=9-1, F=0

Aaaand I'm back. Well, I was always around, lurking/creepin' on the forums and dutifully reading my biweekly NF emails, so let's say I'm back and actively participating. So, let's get down to business, shall we? Main Quest: To lose 10 pounds and/or 5% bodyfat. Bikini season is soon upon us, ya'll. SUMMER IS COMING! Current stats: 142 lbs, 28% body fat, 5'5", single white female (j/k j/k). How to do it? 1) Ketosis. Can I get an "Amen"? I'm pretty much in love with the ketogenic diet. After going full paleo since the beginning of the year, I started playing with ketosis for a month now and love my results. I've been following a "paleo" version of it, so no dairy but lots of coconut and olive oil, fish, fatty grass-fed goodness (I'm salivating), etc. I'll follow a paleo-ketogenic diet 97%. By 97% I mean, one "off" meal a week that will probably throw me out of ketosis, but it better be so worth it. I've tried having "weekends off" or even one "off" day a week, but have found that my weight jumps up 5 pounds, then takes all week to get back to my pre-cheat-day weight. Yes, I do weigh myself everyday. Yes, I know doing that doesn't give me the most accurate information about true weight loss. But I like to start my day off knowing I'm making progress, cos usually it's a good number. So anyway, paleo-keto 97% of the time. I'll be tracking my macros and calories on myfitnesspal, aiming for 1400 calories a day (this is surprisingly hard for me to hit. I find myself eating coconut oil off a spoon sometimes to get that high). 2) Drink a gallon of water a day. A ketogenic diet is naturally diuretic, so keeping a close eye on hydration is key. I know I don't drink enough water daily. After I left my water bottle at a doctor's office a few weeks ago, I've haven't been putting effort into my water intake. 3) Follow Barbell Battalion Lvl 1 Started this last week and am OBSESSED with the barbell! So basically for this challenge I'll be at the gym 3x/week following the workout plan. Gotta get dem stallion legs. Motivation: Again, SUMMER IS COMING! More specifically, I'm taking a river trip down in Austin in June with a huge group of folks. I want to look hella good in that new bikini I'm going to get myself when this challenge is complete. #epicloot

Time for challenge #4! I'm back with the assassins because I need to focus more on workouts and not just running, and because I'm battling the boyfriend. We made a pact yesterday that by summer, we'd get rid of all belly-wobble. He's thin and strong and got a bit of a beer gut, I'm just wobbly and weak all over so this should be fun to see who's better faster stronger. I also want to mix some of my old goals in here - mostly the crockpot cooking (now that I've got a real crockpot!), cleaning and moving towards Mordor. So, here goes! Fitness Goals Goal 1: Keep moving. It's cold outside and I hate it. It's seriously holding me back from running, walking and all the other things you'd do outside. But no! Can't let that happen. I want to walk at least 10k a week. Which would make 60k during the whole challenge. This time I'm counting every step I take. For that, I'll need a step counter. But I don't want to buy one. Instead, I'll go with the 'The Walk' app - newest from the zombies run creators. That way I don't have to think of another gadget to carry with me, I won't need any silly things on my belt and I have my phone with me everyday anyways. Plus I've always wanted to be a secret agent. [+1 DEX, +1 STA] Goal 2: Time to use the body! I don't have a gym membership anymore, so all I've got to help me is my body. Which is more than enough because I can't even do a push-up! 3 times a week I'll do some form of bodyweight workout. This can be anything from 5 minute HIIT to hours of light bodyweight workout. This can also be fun activities like climbing gym that are definitely a workout but I can't do on a regular basis. [+3 STR, +1 CON] Goal 3: The almighty stretch. Especially with the boyfriend having such horrible back pains and my back pains returning, I need to focus more on stretching.Because it really helped me when I tried it and I need to get back into the habit of doing it in the evening in front of the TV. It's not much of a hassle, I can do it just fine instead of sitting on the couch and it does me good. I neglected that during boyfriend's hospital visit and now I need to get this going again. Same as bodyweight workout here - 3 times a week at least! [+2 DEX, +2 CON] Diet Goal Keep crockpotting! One crockpot-meal a week, this was great last challenge and need to keep it going and get used to my 'real' crockpot now! [+1 CON, +2 CHA] Life Goal Unfuck your habitat. Do the routine every evening. I did great with that whole cleaning thing until everything went wonky in my life. But I managed to keep everything the way it was basically - cabinets and fridge etc. Just need to get back to my bit of cleaning every night and things should be fine. So there we go! [+2 WIS]

Meat Tanking : Battle Patterns Everyone knows that marching into battle without a plan would be asinine. Much is the same with heading in to the gym. If you enter those hallowed grounds with no set plan, you're just wasting your own time. over the course of this challenge, I'd like to get together a plan for how I can use my new found enjoyment of CrossFit to fit into an overall strength plan. A lot of this is rooted in the fact that I'll be heading down to the NF Lift Off in January and really don't want to lose to BigM because of the fact that I haven't been training like a Warrior for 6 months. So, how to establish these battle patterns? 1[F]. Setup Your Basecamp First we need to setup a a standard. Something that we can rely on every week. I started this last challenge and it helped me stay sane during some rather stress filled work weeks. I'd like to make sure that I'm keeping a routine of getting to class 3 times a week and in by myself at least once a week. Same scoring as last time. 3 classes a week1+ extra day per week. 2[F]. Ready the Troops Once you have a solid foundation built, it's time to lay the ground work for your building. I'm mixing my metaphors here... Once you have raised your fortifications, you need to ready your troops! Troops are useless if they're underfed and running ragged. The second goal is to ensure that my body is given enough of what it needs to properly recover. I don't think I'm doing this at the moment and really want to work on it. PWO Shake + BCAAs after each workoutIn bed at 10 on workout nightsOnly two nights drinking a week 3[L]. Study the Enemy's Movements More of a life goal than the others, this challenge goal is work related. I've started perusing my brother's library for books on improving managerial and/or people skills. I'm being put into such a position in my company where I have direct subordinates and have a lot of face time with clients. I want to make sure that I'm taking full advantage of these situations and can progress professionally from the outcomes of the projects that I'm heading. Read another managerial bookCreate S&P for Client repo 4[F]. Devise Battle Patterns As the year comes to an end and I'm getting into the swing of things at CrossFit, I'd like to setup my own battle patterns. What that really means is setting up programming around the WoD that we do during class. I haven't benched in 5 months now.. I haven't pulled anything over 85% for deadlifts in about that long.. I'm not sure what programming I want to get into, if it's PL or WL focused. A lot of that is going to depend on feedback from my coaches who are in the notes for this goal. Jen is thinking about doing a WL class during the week and Rick is our strength coach, so any programming I'll be running past him. Have a program setup with input from Rick/Jen on how to enter the new year 5. Sub Goals Place in my CF Competition this week?Beat(don't hold back) TinMan and Ska at the Spartan in two weeks.Make progress towards my bodyweight snatch challenge with BigM.Get in a couple heavy pulls to prep for the NF PL meetup in January.

So this will be my official challenge thread. Main Quest: Get back to 155Lbs. Side Quests: - Maintain my weightlifting routine for the duration of the challenge. - Run 3 miles 5x a week (also for the duration of the challenge). - Make a point of not overwhelming myself every day trying to do everything, every day. Y'know, relax a little; let the small stuff slide and learn to let go. Specifics to follow in the next post.