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I participated in my first challenge last time, and now I'm back for more! Goals: 1. Do a pull up! This is a continuation from last challenge since I didn't quite make it. However, now I'm working with a powerlifting club on campus, and they have me doing lots of stuff to strengthen my back, so I think this will help. I'm going to try to really focus on this one. 2. Drop body fat As the title suggests, I'm experimenting with a ketogenic diet. I'm not being super crazy about this, but I am giving up fruit except for one day a week. I'm not going to monitor myself really closely on vegetable consumption to try to hit an exact amount of carbs each day. I will be well under 100 g, and I think giving up fruit and all the sugar and carbs that come with them SHOULD cause me to lose fat faster. Not going to be super upset if I don't see some kind of super drastic change. I really am happy with the way I look, but I was curious to see what ketosis would do for me. My current BFP is about 22%. 3. Stop lying around in bed for 2 hours after my alarm goes off This is a terrible habit I've developed. In my research lab, I make my own hours, so there is no one telling me to come in at a certain time. HOWEVER, it would be nice to get in there early so I can leave earlier. But my bed is seriously so comfortable. I want to get back in the habit of getting out of bed once my alarm goes off. 4. Make strides toward entering a powerlifting competition I really, really want to compete. Like I mentioned earlier, I've started working with the powerlifting club here at OSU. They are super friendly people and are totally willing to help get you into competition shape. I just need to look in to finding a good meet to enter and how to register. I'm not sure how far in advance you need to register for them, but if I happen to do that before the end of this challenge, I will give myself an A. Let's do this thing.

Hey every one, I am an old athelete (36), well maybe not that old but my Ortho Doc says I have the body of a 50 year old . I am 6'6" and currently 210 and I was once an avid Basketball player and since my two torn ACLs i have hung up the high tops. At one point i ballooned to 245lbs and I was unhappy. I did P90X a few times and had good results: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T84nVLHe9RA. I then got back into Mudrunning and Softball and playing with my kids. I picked up Crossfit and really enjoyed lifting again. I also did Paleo farely strict for a year and it worked well. Then I ended up getting divorced much to my surprise (a year ago). I divorced my paleo chef and my attitude toward working out was challenged by malaise and time crunch from being a single dad. I finally decided to drop out of the gym and do it myself in my garage. I still play softball 2-3 days a week. I bought 400lbs bumber plate set, an oly bar, some rubber mats from Tractor Supply, kettlebells, wallballs, built my own plyo box, and put some rings in my garage ceiling to do toes to rings and pullups. Next on the list is a slam ball, homemade GHD, homemade squat racks, and possibly battle ropes. I decided to try again with Paleo and the garage gym has been very nice for my new single dad schedule. I hope this site can give me some ideas, support and challenges. Lee - Griz

Hello all After reading several of your challenges I feel inspired and infused with enthusiasm, enough to detail my own very first challenge, so here goes! STARTING MEASUREMENTS Age: 24 Height : 178cm/5' 10" Weight: 78.7kg/12st 5lb Body Fat %: 12.8 Jimmies: Unrustled 1) Cycle to work at least 12 times in the 6-week challenge ||Reward: +2 STA|| I've been cycling to work on and off for a couple months now, at 11 miles each way, 78kg weight, and avg speed of 14mph, that's about 500 cal each way, 1000 cal total. A great way to get closer to my fat loss goal! If I can do this more than 12 times in the challenge time I'll award +0.1 STA for each return journey If you want to calculate calories burnt by cycling for yourself, I used http://www.bikemetro.com/calculators/calorie.asp 2) Drop BF% from 12.8% to 12.3% ||Reward: +1 STR, +1 CON|| As my BMI has always been well out of wack due to being extremely physically dense, I figure that BF% is a better way of measuring my fitness! Today's reading was 12.8%, my initial thought was to aim for 12%, but given that I actually really enjoy eating, albeit healthily, I think a drop of 0.5% to 12.3% is more realistic. 3) Attend 4 social events to meet new people (and maintain contact with said people!) ||Reward: +1 CHA, +1 INT|| Inspired by several fellow NFers' social/confidence goals. If my stats are anything to go by this is the most important, while I do have a few amazing friends, sometimes I'm a little shorthanded for local friends to hang with, this is an attempt to remedy this. If any UK Nerds want to help me achieve this goal, I'd be over the moon! 4) Limit confectionery intake to one small portion of dark chocolate a week ||Reward: +1 DEX, +1 WIS|| No explanation needed really! Just a good idea. I'm a bit of a fiend when it comes to chocolate and so demonstrating some self control will help my BF% goal, and demonstrate some real willpower, I'm sure many of you can empathise haha 5) =Super bonus core strength goal!= Be able to hold an L-Seat on the parallel bars for 10 seconds (inspired by Steve's muscle up goal) ||Reward: +2 STR|| I'm lucky enough to have some fairly low steel parallel bars on the roof of my apartment, I use them for knee lifts, lawnmower extensions, archer pushups, and recently straight leg lifts, and tougher than that, the L-Seat position. For me this is particularly tough as I have very heavy muscular legs, so this is a REAL punishment for my core. Currently I can hold it for about 3 seconds if that, so in the interest of having a rock solid core that a truck could drive over, I'm going to aim for 10 seconds of straight legs at 90 degrees! If you've given this a look through and you're thinking "this sounds a lot like my goals!" drop me a reply, it'd be great to share ideas and compare progress! Take it easy!-JakeItEasy

When I was a teen I loved RPG. To my friends and I, trolls were a creature to be feared and avoided not hunted down and killed. I've not played Dungeons and Dragons for well over 20 years now but my attitude to trolls had not changed. I found that life was full of real life monsters, many nasty troll like people and specters that were hard to kill like the fear-spectre and the over eating-spectre. That could only be beaten with special 'weapons'. But my attitude was the same, avoid and run away. Unfortunately that allowed these monsters into my life and wreck havoc. Bitterness, sadness, obesity, anger, depression, unemployment. That was 4 years ago. I was losing to much and decided to fight back, its not easy but the battle continues. Nerd Fitness is the latest chapter to that adventure. My Goals are: 1. Be able to complete 5 pull-ups (currently at 3) +STR 4 A= 5 B= 4 D= 3 F= <3 2. Get my body fat percentage to 24% (currently 25.3%) +CON 4 A= 24% B= 24.3% C= 24.8% D= 25% F= >25% 3. Stick with diet plan. (currently i give up after about a week) +WIS 4 A= 42 days B= 36 days C= 30 days D= 24 days F= <24 days 4. Complete one household task a week. (such as painting, repairing, fixing) +CON 2, +CHR 1 A= Once a week B= 5 times C= 4 times D= 3 times F= <3 times || Battle Plan || For the Pull- up I will not be concentrating on pull-ups. I'm doing other strength training and curious to see if it transfers to pull-ups. Loosing the body fat % cannot be directly forced of course but should result from my exercise and diet. Diet, well. I have succeeded in the past and dropped 15kg. I have no problem maintaining my current weight but sticking to a strict diet is not working for me. I keep breaking out into junk food, then try to claw my way back. This has been going of for 2 years now and havnt lost any more kg than the initial 15kg. Working on the house is just a matter or writing it in my diary then doing it when the time comes.

Well I started out at 202 10 weeks ago, with 42.5% bf. 202x.425 = 85.85lbs of fat Now I am at 192 with 41% bf 192x.41 = 78.72lbs of fat Not too bad, until I look at my lean body weight which has gone from 116.15 down to 113.28. Boo! I have a (very)long term goal of 170lb at 20% which would put my lean mass up to 136. It is frustrating seeing that number go down when really I want it to go up! I hope that my running goals (marathon this fall) help with the overall weight loss, and lifting goals (120lb ohp, same dl) keep from me from lossing too much lean mass so I don't have so far to go over the winter attempting to really build that strength. I know that if it wasn't for strength training in my routines I would have lost more weight, but really I want to be stronger, not just thinner. Ah well. Venting over.

Ok so for pretty much my entire life, whenever I stepped on a scale, I weighed about 155lbs (I'm 5'11 and female). Since January, I've focused more on lifting and less on LSD cardio (Long, Slow Distance). Sometime back in February, I randomly stepped on the scale at the gym (new-to-me scale, so I don't have a good baseline), but the reading was 162. My thoughts were, "hmm, interesting, more than I normally weigh. Whatever" Today, I stepped on it again - 167. I'm pretty sure I'm not just gaining weight because I do watch my calories. And also, I notice my clothes fitting differently and I can see tons of definition in my arms where there was none before, and a lot more definition in my legs. It feels strange to be like, "Woohoo! I gained 10 lbs!" But... WOOHOO, I GAINED ~10 LBS! It also feels strange to look like I weigh less and yet I weigh more.

Cannot believe how far back I slipped these holidays. But, this being my third major challenge, I know I am capable of the below. My goals for the 6 week challenge 1. Body Fat Percentage: 22.0% Current: 30.0% 2. Weight: 170 lbs. Current: 189 lbs. 3. Muscle Mass: 34.0% Current: 33.6% Method Nutrition: Strict, low-carb paleo + some dairy + protein powder. No cheats, except weekly paleo-only cheat meal (ie. meat buffet, paleo dessert). Intermittent fasting, 18-24 hours, once per week, preferably Wednesdays. Workouts: Being on vacation until March, I have plenty of time to work out at least twice a day. Crossfit 6 days per week (3 on, 1 rest), cardio 6 days (even just walking an hour or two acceptable, at HIIT will happen at crossfit), and isolated weight training via "The Body Sculpting Bible for Women" which I've used before and had great success with. Accountability: I will do an In-Body composition test once a week on Monday mornings and post my results. This is my first day of being "good" and I know that I'll drop quite a bit of weight (mostly just water) in the first week, so I'm not worried about the weight portion. The body fat portion will be the most difficult to attain, but with the amount of time I have to devote to this challenge, it is possible. I'm so excited about this challenge!!