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The Rangers and people from other guilds, that have been around for a while (at least 2 years i just checked) could know that, in my past, i have dedicated a few challenges in a row to prepping for my first StrongViking Beast obstacle run in the start of 2016. Those were pretty successful challenges, so now i'm summoning the strength of that format again. Because, frankly, things need to be done. You can also say i'm slowly starting to get frightened a bit by the endeavor i have set upon. For the people that don't know, a few facts: *** * T-minus: ~ 23 weeks / 154 days *** * Rat Race Dirty Weekend 2018 *** * UK obstacle run *** * 20 miles *** * 200 obstacles *** * Meeting all the Epic Nerds IRL for the first time!!! There are a couple of things i want to accomplish before that time, and one way or the other i tried to put it all into a spreadsheet which i will upkeep daily. (WIP) A little explanation about all the things: Weeks / Days: Countdowntimers to keep me focused on the time left KCAL/d: I want to be just under 2000 KCAL a day, this is just under maintenance, which will allow me to lose some fat, and keep up with working out. I need to lose some weight to be able to handle all the bodyweight related exercises better, like hanging pulling jumping etc. etc. Protein/d: I don't want to lose the muscle i have built the last couple of years, so protein will be the most important nutrient that i will keep my eye on. Doing 160+ a day is just a little under 2gr/lbs of bodyweight. Drinking/d: I know this is not going to be much of a problem (especially compared to 2 years ago), but i know that if i don't mention this here a few days will be lost due to excessive drinking. Now i rate this on a scale of no / mindful / less than mindful. This gives me some leeway to enjoy the occasional beer. Cause a challenge has to be hard, but you don't need to set yourself up for failure, especially when the drawback (of a single beer) is that low. This untraining of my beer-habit also makes me a bit afraid of the race itself, i owe it to some people to thoroughly enjoy several beers on friday and saturday that i really am getting a bit scared of having to do the 20 miles and 200 obstacles while having a major beer-induced headache. Eat healthy/d: B/L/D a.k.a. Breakfast / Lunch / Dinner. These are the only moments i will eat. The only exception here will be stuff around workout like PWO, recovery drinks and protein shakes. Again this will be scored for doing the best i can. "Best option" means that there was no way i could have eaten healthier given the circumstance at that moment. "Mindfully" means that there might have been a better option which i didn't take but i made a conscious choice not to have that, but also chose not to take the worst option. This is a choice i frequently have to make. I'm not one for meal prepping (yet). And i also don't want to give my kids a bad example by doing some extreme dieting and in their presence i will eat normally but try to do so as healthy as possible. No CC: No Candy no Cooky, no inbetween snacking. This means i just eat at B/L/D and nothing else. This should bring a halt to several of my weaknesses. Especially the one that hit's me after snoozing on the couch, somehow i always wake up with such a sweettooth and stuff my face with cookies or candy just before i go to bed. It will also help in not accumulating those small extra KCALs throughout the day. Lift / Run / Crossfit: These are the workouts i'm gonna do, and my goal is to give them equal attention. I always leaned on lifting more than running, and combining running with lifting was pretty doable. Now that i have CF in the mix it's hard to give running the proper attention. That's why i decided i'm gonna lay down a bit on the lifting and sacrifice one lifting workout for one extra running workout. Even the lifting workout will be geared towards the Rat Race. I'm gonna keep on doing the juggernaut program, and i will do a workout of DL/BP and SQ/OHP + 2 accessory exercises. This program will be written out coming weekend. This also goes for the running workout. I'm gonna go look for a plan that get's me to run about 10 miles within my ~20 weeks i've got. Extra Reps: I just like the idea of doing extra. So this is the excuse to do extra reps, and i'm going to categorize them as hard medium and easy. Hard ones are things i can only do a few of, like pullups. Medium are things like pushups, i can push those out a lot more. And easy ones are the things that i feel i could do all day (and actually have done so), like jumping jacks and mountain climbers. Scoring points are as follows, per rep: Hard 10 points / medium 5 points / easy 1 point. Weight / BF%: These will be here to record how my overall weight and BF% will transition throughout my prep. OSM: OSM a.k.a. Awesome. An awesome day, where i have been completely focused or something else significant happened, will be noted here. I'm hoping a lot of x'es in this column. Comments on missed goals and OSM days: Part of the pressure of accountability, if i fuck up, i have to come clean. Tell how and why i fucked up a goal. On the other hand, this is the place to gloat about awesome days too! So if you want to be part of this success please add some accountability. Nag my ass over things i haven't done or when i tell you i don't feel up to working out. Challenge me (that won't work i can assure you) or find some other way to get under my skin. I'm hoping with the help of you all this will be another good (set of) challenge(s) and i will get my butt in gear to kick ass on the Rat Race. May the lord have mercy on my body So...

UNDER CONSTRUCTION! Yikes a Ranger amongst the Warrior! Now i've been snooping here and there, so i know there are and have been quite a few Rangers among you. My plan for the upcoming months might explain my presence here. My fitness subscription ends at the end of the year. Starting next year i am gonna give CrossFit a try. Now the last couple of years i was more endurance than strength and in order to prep the best way i know for going CrossFit is to work on my weakness. Getting stronger! Over the last 2 years i have been (on and off) doing some lifting on my own, but since my goal has always been to "look-good-naked" i neglected the eating part that comes with getting stronger. So i have become a bit stronger but not like one would expect in roughly 1,5 years time. Last challenges at the rangers i tried to focus more on lifting and eventually got myself to give up on the strict eating i had done for years (which was quite scary as i didn't want to look like fat-bastard after that challenge) and just eat some more. Which seems like to work in terms of being able to lift heavier. Here and there i had some questions which i think could be easily answered by the common knowledge in this guild, this made me decide to join you fine guys (and galls) for a double challenge. I really don't like the 4 week format, so i decided i'm just gonna merge 2 challenges together, hence my Pt.1. In terms of things i want to work on these 2 challenges: Lifting (using Starting Strength as a base) Clean Eating (Healthy stuff with lots of protein) NoBeer (which needs to be a goal, to be able to pull this off, apparently) SMART goals (to be able to track stuff and see what I've accomplished) A LifeQuest (cause i'm a procrastination machine on some stuff) During this 0 week i will try to shape up this challenge in the best way possible to kick off right next week. So i will write out my goals, and put a scoring system on it to be able to (sMart) measure progress. Lifting Been following Starting Strength for the last 6 weeks. Broke my 5RM PR's but got a bit over enthusiastic and twitched a muscle on my left lower back in week 4. Been trying some deloaded weights with SQ and DL but it kept aggravating my lower back. So last week i completely stopped SQ and DL. Will introduce them at 60% next week when the challenge starts. Next to that i haven't starting the PowerCleans as i don't feel comfortable in doing them and seeing i will be doing CrossFit starting next year i think i can better wait it out a bit and get someone to teach me how to do it properly. With the BP and OHP i have been upping it with 2.5 kg each workout. I know i can't keep on doing that, so today is the first day i went from 67.5 to 68.5 and got a 5/5/4. Retry next workout and i think all will be good, if not i will deload. Clean Eating I'm keeping a fooddiary here in my daily checkins and logging it to MFP for some numbers. KCAL RANGE: Most positive: 2586 - 2821 Least positive: 2479 - 2704 Setting KCAL range to: 2500 - 2750 PROTEIN RANGE: Setting range to: 130g - 160g NoBeer This could be very simple. Just.Don't.Drink.(Alcohol)! I'm gonna give myself some leeway here. Reserving one day a week for some social-beering. And i have got some holiday related events where i can really enjoy some fine quality beer. So for this double challenge i will give myself 9 days of allowed moderate drinking (a couple is 1-3). And i know the weekend i will be out with the boys there will be some more drinking, just gonna try to keep it to a minimum and not overindulge... LifeQuest Yeah, will come to this (eventually). Input is very much appreciated as i like to be as efficient as possible!

Ok so it is way past my bedtime (off to a great start, aren't I??) so I will throw down these goals really quickly and elaborate later as needed. Since last month's challenge was a mediocre success, I am tweaking the formula but going with the same basic goals. I will repeat what needed more work, and I will amp up the goals that I was successful in achieving. Based on my learnings from last challenge, here goes: Diet Reduce coffee-with-cream drink at office to one per day, after that, consume only black coffee or herbal tea drinks (round 2 - need to make this a habit!)Meet my MFP calorie intake goal 5 out of 7 days of the week (I have committed to a 500 cal/day deficit - on the other two days I will not eat more than I burn)Side note: I have converted to MyFitnessPal for food logging because it lets me delete the Fitbit's ridiculous calorie adjustments and helps keep me real. More discussions to come. Have you also had this experience?? Reply to this thread and let's chat about it!It's official: this round the goal IS weightloss. I'll start small, and while aiming for a pound a week, I'd take half a pound also. The point is that I'm sticking to the realistic calorie deficit and aiming to shed some weight! Fitness Meet my Fitbit activity goal of 5 active days per week (go for a 40+ min walk, use stationary bike 30+ minutes, cardio or yoga, etc) Level Up Your Life Wake up no later than 6 am on weekdays, and 8 am on weekends (If I have not slept enough I will give myself a free pass on Sundays for a reduced grade, but I'm hoping to not need it)As evidenced by the fact that I'm posting this at midnight, I'm clearly a night owl and I struggle with sleep like nobody's business. I'm hoping by forcing myself to get up early it will help create a more habitual routine that will have me falling asleep earlier at night (although chances are I may become prone to napping and narcolepsy... well, we'll see lol)