Search the Community

Posting this fashionably late, as always. This dragon will be the death of me! I am coming into this challenge with very little to almost no motivation at all. I thought about skipping it but then I would feel much worse in the long run. I have relapsed completely on my morning routine since the last challenge but I want to pick it up again. Quests 1. Practice mindful eating habits. No eating while standing, continue to not eat while gaming or watching tv. Focus on the food and nothing else for at least one meal a day. WIS + 3, WIL + 2 2. Track my food intake using FatSecret I have always been more successful when I keep track of what I have eaten. Also helps put into perspective just how much I am eating. WIS + 3 3. Yoga & Walking (One or the other, or maybe both, 5 times a week). Preferably mornings. STA +1, DEX +1 Ready to begin my Walk to MORDOR challenge! Life challenge Work on cosplay pieces at least 5 days a week. (no time limit, at least SOMETHING). Tracking and Accountability Progress Calendar Walkers PVP. Walk to Mordor progress in Signature. Mindful Eating FTW!

Does anyone here attend A-kon Anime Convention in Dallas, TX?

I'm usually more on the ball when there are cosplay-related things at stake. Is it a bad thing that the act of pretending to be a (usually terrible) fictional character gives me greater motivation to be healthy than my own well-being does? Don't answer that. It turns out that my only successful challenge so far, the one from the newbie area where I needed the body of a God had similar cosplay motivations. I wanted to lose 10 lb of fat so that I would make a better Loki. This involved eating more fruits and veggies, and greatly limiting bread and beer. This made me sad, but I got some freaking results! And by "cutting beer" I really meant that I switched from beer to whisky. Those of you who've seen my tumblr (or know me in RL) are probably aware of my newest obsession: Jupiter Ascending. This movie was filled with action, cheesiness, amazing costumes, and The Mary Sue describes it in the following manner: "This movie is like if [The Matrix, Dune, Star Wars, and The Fifth Element] plus the music video for the Backstreet Boys’ “Larger Than Life†and the really weird parts of the Mass Effect trilogy all got really drunk at a party and had a massive orgy while H.P. Lovecraft filmed it." Epic, no? Unfortunately, the critics wrecked Jupiter Ascending before it even came out, and the movie was considered a failure as far as money goes. I bet it'll make enough money back by the end of the year to break even, but whatever. My obsession with this movie specifically centres on one glorious, twisted, entitled space asshole of a character: Balem Abrasax. I can haz money, power, and ripped abs? (Never fear, the Loki obsession has not gone away. I just can't wear the Loki cosplay for a while because of an upcoming surgery and associated looooong recovery time. My Loki game will end up much greater in a few months, though! A chest plate that will actually fit properly? Imagine that! I'll also be making an Agent of Asgard Loki costime for Animaritime this year. Fuck wearing several layers of leather in a summer heat wave.) Personality-wise, Balem will be much harder to roleplay than Loki, whose character pretty much came naturally to me. Both characters have some psycho in them, but Loki actually has a sense of humor and makes frequent use of snide remarks. Balem, on the other hand, is typically serious ALL. THE. TIME. Oh, and he whispers everything he says...when he's not hysterically rage-shouting, anyway. (Pic 1) (Pic 2) Top: calmly threatening someone. Bottom: FFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU EDIT: IT'S NOT LETTING ME USE GIFS AND I AM RAGE-SHOUTING RIGHT NOOOOOOOOOOOWWWW!!!!11!111 I am not very good at being serious, so I will need to get some practice with that before November. The hysterical rage-shouting I can definitely do well, because I do it all the time when 1) the internet is slow, 2) this video is not available in my country, 3) I get stuck behind a dumbfuck driver in traffic, and 4) I attempt to prepare an under-ripe avocado. The bottom line is that, besides wanting to become a wizard, I also seem to have a desire to become an evil space lord who wears awesome clothes. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. First came Darth Maul, then there was Loki, and now there's Balem. (There will eventually be a Ronan, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.) So, what will I be doing to overlordify myself over the course of the next six weeks? 1: Regeneration/rejuvenation! Because I'm vain. I've had a vanity-based challenge goal before, which I stuck to moderately well because priorities. Now I'm going to do it again, except better, and for a different reason: I want to be as healthy as possible due to an upcoming surgery so that I can hopefully heal better and faster. The rejuvenation aspect and associated good looks is merely a nice bonus. In Jupiter Ascending, the entitled take baths in a substance called RegenEX. One tube (seen below) is refined from about 100 people. If I can get my hands on a long, hexagonal bottle like this, I'm pretty sure that 4 parts vodka to 1 parts Hypnotiq will make a liquid with the same color. Unfortunately, I am 1) not an entitled or a royal being in real life (yet!) and 2) RegenEX doesn't exist in real life. Oh, and 3) the whole thing about RegenEX being made of people would probably not fly in real life, either. So I need to get a similar (but lesser, obviously) rejuvenation effect by using more mundane methods. 1.1: Cut down on the coffee. Pass/fail. I will have no more than one cup per day. For the few weeks after the surgery, I'll have no coffee at all (but may have green tea). Coffee interferes with collagen production, and apparently that's important during healing. 1.2: HYDRATE! Pass/fail. 3L of water per day, or more. Simple enough, right? Especially if there's less room for coffee. My addiction to having a drink in my hand should make this doable. 1.3: Tweak my diet, have one BIG-ASS SALAD every day. Pass/fail. This is like the vegetables quest I've been routinely failing at, but easier because there is no cooking involved. All I need to do is have ample amounts of lettuce and spinach. And herbs. I don't think I'll grow my own herbs, though, because I've tried that before and the cats ended up destroying all of them. As an aside, it was mentioned to me that the optimal diet for healing was a raw vegan diet. I have no problems with the raw part since it involves less effort, but the vegan part makes me a bit sad because I rather enjoy eating dead animal pieces. Hey, at least I'm not bathing in a pool filled with liquid refined from tens of thousands of people, right? The protein powder I normally use is labeled raw vegan, so that should work. It's also the elitist, pricey type of protein powder, which is good for two reasons. First, it fits well with the "I am going to cosplay an elitist jackass" theme. Second, the higher price ensures that I won't be over-indulging with it because I am not that much of a rich elite in real life. I also have to look ripped in order to fully complete the Balem Abrasax look, but that'll be tough since I won't be able to work out. Next challenge, fo' sho'! tl;dr version: EAT GOOD FOOD, BECAUSE SPACE LORDS DO NOT EAT TRASH. 2. I can business! Seriously, I know NOTHING about anything even remotely finance-related, or business-related. I hate being ignorant, especially when it comes to something like money. Money sort of makes the world go 'round these days, and not knowing anything about it seems counter-productive to, well, everything I want. How does this fit with the cosplay theme? Well, it turns out that Balem Abrasax is an epic businessman, or at least that's what the movie hints at near the beginning. Unfortunately, he seems to be more and more mentally unstable as the movie progresses, so we poor viewers don't actually get to witness his l33t busine55 sk1llz--although I suspect it involves a lot of coercion, harsh negociating, and threats. And probably murder. All fictional character shenanigans aside, though, I really do want to have more of a clue about how to deal with money in several aspects of life. Disclaimer: the Earth will not be harvested in the course of this challenge. 2.1: Basic financial literacy. Not graded. I was going to do a thing for this, but decided not to because I still have to cram for my thesis defense and I don't want to overburden myself. I signed up for am "Introduction to Finance" class on coursera. It only starts on June 1st, but I don't meet some of the pre-reqs (how do I economy? I can haz accounting? Derp? Very statistics!) so I'll have to read up on things. I will add these things here after I finish my current degree. The finance class is said to be pretty intense for an introductory course, but at least it won't involve a thesis. 2.2: Number cruncher! Pass/fail. This will involve Lumosity Raindrops. I know that Lumosity was a spectacular fail last time, but maybe if I focus on just ONE GAME (Raindrops) then maybe I can succeed. This isn't totally related to finance or business, but being able to work with numbers more efficiently certainly can't hurt. Being better at math might also help me get rid of the feeling that I'm a fucking idiot. Knowing more financial things and being better with numbers may result in me having more money in the future, and/or result in me obtaining money faster. Filthy rich space royals need to have money, otherwise they wouldn't be space royals. Life is a game, and the game is pay2win. I want to fucking win. And when I have a lot of money, I can pay someone else to prepare my vegetables for me 3. Mindfulness. Again. 3.1: Five minutes of mindfulness, every day. Pass/fail. I'll just keep this in my challenges until I stop failing at it. It's got to happen at some point. 3.2: Hand control. Not graded. Being able to look like an aloof, arrogant space lord while walking around on a convention floor is only going to be a side benefit of this. The main reason for controlling what I do with my hands is to keep my hands away from my face. I've tried to tackle this terrible habit in the past, and failed every freaking time. There are obviously some psychological factors at stake that I am completely unaware of, and it's a shitty habit I've been doing since I was in elementary school. Right NOW is the time to give breaking this habit another shot, though, for two reasons: - I may start to take hormone injections in the near future, which will increase the likelihood of me having shitty skin. It's like second puberty, and I fucking swear if I end up getting acne I'm going to hate my face so much... Having my hands on my face all the time will greatly increase the chance of me developing skin problems, and thus DO NOT WANT. I won't be able to cosplay anything with a half-red, pus-oozing, crater-filled face. - After the surgery I won't be able to raise my arms (or hands) much, so this will be an extra bonus that can help me succeed at not picking at my face this time around. I CAN DO THIS! Right. Hand control. While in the midst of enlightening research (read, while fucking around on Tumblr) I've stumbled upon these things called Mudras, which are basically like hand yoga and apparently there's benefits to doing this. I'm still rather clueless about it all, so I'll just paste a thing that came up when I typed "mudras" on tumblr: "HAND MUDRAS: Those familiar with reflexology know that by stimulating certain pressure points in your hands and feet, it is possible to revitalize and balance energy in different parts of your body; including your organs and glands. For instance, pressing a specific part of your thumb can relieve a headache. Massaging areas of your pinky finger can relax your neck and shoulders. Hand mudras work in a very similar fashion. The word “mudra†translates to seal orgesture. A hand mudra is both a symbolic and therapeutic gesture mainly performed with the fingers. By positioning our fingers in various postures, we can influence how energy is channeled inside of us. Think of it as opening an electrical circuit inside your body. Touching two fingers together can direct the flow of internal energy to where it’s needed and create healthy benefits and a mind/body balance. For more posts like these: http://yogamimi.tumblr.com" Goggle also showed me this web site for mudras. And then it showed me other sites with the same hand gestures and different effects that they're supposed to give and...??? I'll figure this out as I go along, but so far I've memorized the all the one-handed ones on the Kundalini site (the one with the link at the beginning of this paragraph). I'm not sure how much I buy into the part about the energy flow and purported benefits, but those will be an added bonus if they do happen to work. I don't have anything to lose by trying the mudras out, anyway. Also, if anyone wonders how this part of the challenge fits with the pretend-to-be-a-finctional-character and cosplay theme, see for yourself: I don't know if he's actually mudra'ing, but close enough. Won't I look foolish steepling my hands like an evil villain in real life, doing day-to-day activities? Nope! Because unless it's gym time, I hardly ever leave the computer's side and thus nobody will see me. Other activities involve driving, or watching TV at friends' places, in which case nobody pays attention to where my hands are anyway. I can be a dramatic evil villain in a stealthy manner. 3.3: Epic fingernails. Not graded. LOOK AT THE PERFECTLY DONE FINGERNAILS, and not at the Backstreet Boys-like hair disaster! Bonus quest: maintain long and perfect fingernails. This will deter me even further from face picking, mainly because picking at my face with pseudo-claws will probably cause damage and be a little painful. If I pick at my face with long nails, I'll have to clean my nails, too. Effort. Ugh! This isn't being graded because long and perfectly manicured fingernails aren't quite compatible with my workout and crafting habits, so it's inevitable that some of the nails will get smashed, chipped, or broken. I feel like I should have some kind of a conclusion paragraph, but I'm feeling lazy. I still managed to make an entire thread before the challenge started, though! If this keeps up, I might even get to making a spreadsheet before the challenge begins, too, so that I can actually keep track of my goals this time! To reiterate: 1.1 - Cut down on coffee 1.2 - Hydrate 1.3 - BIG-ASS SALAD 2.1 - Basic financial literacy 2.2 - Number cruncher 3.1 - Five minutes of mindfulness 3.2 - Hand control 3.3 - Epic fingernails Now, for the ones that are actually being graded: 1.1 - Cut down on coffee: 1.2 - Hydrate: 1.3 - BIG-ASS SALAD: 2.2 - Number cruncher: 3.1 - Five minutes of mindfulness: Re-writing this here is mainly to encourage further laziness, because then I can just copy/paste this entire list for update posts. I realize that I have several goals that aren't being graded, but it's kind of tough to grade something like hand control :\

Nightcrawler_Bamff Joins the X-Men! Nightcrawler awakens in the medical center of the X-Men's mansion after his defeat by the Blob. Professor Charles Xavier is at his bedside. "Welcome back, Kurt. How do you feel?" "Like I was hit by a bus" "You took quite a blow, but with a couple days rest, I expect you'll make a full recovery." "I am sorry, Professor. I failed and Blob got away." "No, Kurt, he didn't. Your efforts kept him busy long enough for me to arrive and telepathically subdue him. The police were able to handle him from there." There was a knock at the door and with Professor X's beckoning, a tall man dressed in dark blue and yellow with a visor covering his eyes entered the room. "Kurt, this is Scott Summers, Cyclops. He is the leader of the X-Men." "Hello, Kurt. I hear you are the one we need to thank for stopping the Blob." "But I failed. It was the professor who stopped him." "Without you, Professor Xavier would not have gotten there in time and there would likely have been numerous injuries, if not fatalities. As part of a team, one is able to accomplish so much more than they would be able to on their own. I watched the footage from the encounter; your skills are impressive. With some training, I feel you could be a valuable member of our team." "And you do not mind the way I look?" "Don't hassle me about my shades and we'll call it even." "Zen I shall give you my best." Challenge 10(!!!!) Time to start training for the X-Men! Main Goal: Slim down and tone up. We got tickets to San Diego Comic Con this summer, so I need to look my best to try to fit in with all the amazing costumes I know will be there! Gymnastics: Continuing to work on back handspring combinations and aerials. Specific Quests: 1. T25! Got the program from a friend and I will be following this workout program IN ADDITION TO gymnastics workouts. I've done P90X and Insanity with great results, but got burned out from the minimum of one hour workouts seven days a week. I'm really excited about this program because it is supposed to be Insanity condensed down to just 25 minutes a day. 2. Eat right! I will be following the Weight Watchers program throughout the challenge and tracking my food/activity points. 3. Splits! Haven't made too much progress the last challenge, but going to continue working on these. Wont be devoting as much time to this as previous challenges due to time constraints (see "life" section!!). Stretching sessions will happen once daily, seven days a week. Life: Yet another super busy challenge! 1. School: I'm currently taking two classes, which are turning out to have a lot of homework and will need to be my priority. 2. Star Wars costume: I decided on Kyle Katarn because his costume is relatively simple and goes with my friend's Mara Jade costume. I would like to have this costume at least most of the way completed by the end of the challenge. 3. X-Men costume: Continuing to upgrade Gambit. By July, I will need to have an extendable staff, boots made of foam and warbla, inside pockets added to the trench coat, and sew a bodysuit. Current Gambit:

Nightcrawler_Bamff Beats Back The Blob! "Professor? Professor! We need backup! Professor!" The cry came over loudspeakers placed invisibly throughout the facility. Nightcrawler flew off a bar high overhead, flipping, and landing silently next to the professor. "Scott! What is it?" "We're engaged with the Brotherhood, but Blob is missing. I just overheard the police radio that he is across town robbing a bank. I think the rest of the Brotherhood are just the distraction, but it is taking all of us to keep the civilians safe. We cant get over there." Professor Xavier turned to Nightcrawler. "Kurt, I know you just got here and have yet to make a decision about staying with us, but I must ask for your help. I have no one else I can send to stop The Blob." "Heir Professor, I owe you my life. I will help you in this and make my decision later." Charles leads Kurt to a nearby TV screen and turned on the news, where a man larger than any Kurt has ever seen is standing outside a bank with bags of money in each hand. The police have him surrounded and were firing their weapons, but the bullets never penetrated his massive belly. "Mein Gott!" "Fred Dukes' mutant ability allows him to distort his own gravitational field, making him essentially immovable and allows his girth to stop nearly any projectile, as you can see." "How far is zis?" "It is quite close. I believe this is why the rest of the Brotherhood are causing mayhem on the other side of town; to draw the X-Men as far away as they could. This bank is only about one mile from here." BAMF! With a puff of smoke, Nightcrawler disappears from Professor X's side and appears facing The Blob. "Well arent you cute! Xavier sent me a pet!" "Zis does not need to get any uglier zan it already is, mein freund. Put ze money down and ve can all go home." "Show me what you got, furball! Nobody moves The Blob!" Challenge 9 Our hero is up against his first true villain! I felt Blob was an appropriate adversary choice for a fitness challenge! Haha! I set this challenge up a little differently than I've done in the past, so may end up needing some tweaking once we get going. Inspiration taken from previous mini-challenges! Main Goal: Gymnastics! Aerials have been feeling good fairly consistently. Seems mostly at this point that I need to get over the mental block and stop putting my hands down! Also working on back handspring passes. Lost my round off-back handspring-back-handspring-back tuck on the tumble track a few weeks ago and am working to get that back. Also lost my round off-back handsprings on the floor, so working those again too. Quest: Beat The Blob! Blob's HP bar has 150 hit points. Each exercise point earned using the Weight Watchers program deals one point of damage. To encourage real workouts instead of walking the mall all the time, true workouts (which will be subjective deciding what that consists of) will be worth an additional two points of damage. Gymnastics workouts do not get this addition because I don't need that as motivation to go! Don't Feed The Blob! The "crash diet" I did for the first half of last challenge gave me good results and was not nearly as difficult as I had anticipated. I will repeat this for this challenge, with some tweaks. Six WW points allowed per meal One WW point allowed for snack once daily (the rest will be fruit/vegetables, which are free on the program) This makes up to 19 points allowed per day. Each point over these allowances, The Blob is healed for one hit point. I have several events planned during the span of this challenge, so this will happen more than once, and will be allowed! Though I will have to work harder to defeat The Blob! Splits: Still working the splits. Again, I will be doing one stretching session each work day and two on my days off. Each missed session will heal Blob one hit point. Life: Busy again!! 1. Volunteering with United Heroes for Hope 2. American Sign Language Interpreter Program application due next month 3. Emerald City Comic Con is also next month 4. Continue working on Gambit costume - before July, I plan to have armor boots, a homemade spandex body suit, and an extendable bo staff. 5. Start working on Star Wars costume if I have time - will need to be completed by July.

Check out my current challenge here! And start reading about progress for that challenge here on my log! This is just a place for me to log my progress and for you all to come chat with me and keep me accountable! Also, I will post neat crossplay, cosplay, and fitness things I find or generate here. So, this is the start! Hi. I'm Dandy. I crossplay, I'm trying to get more fit, and I'm trying to get my degree in library science! I'm pretty friendly. I cycle a lot, I like doing strength training too! My idol is Erwin Smith from Attack on Titan and he is my fitness inspiration! Let's talk and keep tabs of my battle record here!

Nightcrawler_Bamff in the Danger Room Story: After touring the upper grounds of the mansion, Kurt and Professor Xavier descend to a hidden compound deep under the school itself using a hidden elevator. The first room they enter is small and empty other than an ornate, curved desk. Xavier pulled out a small, cordless machine that he had been carrying . "This is Cerebro. It enhances my telepathic abilities and allows me to locate any person on the planet and differentiate between human and mutant. I first learned of your brother's deeds and was on my to see if I could help in any way. I am truly sorry I was unable to get there in time to help. I then found you and felt your pain along with the fear of the villagers nearby and knew what was coming next." After placing Cerebro in the center of the desk, Xavier leads Kurt down the hall to another empty room. This room, in contrast, is massive. A football field could easily have fit. The walls, floors, and even the ceiling, all metal, are covered in scorch marks and deep gouges. "This is called the Danger Room. It is here my students learn to control their mutant abilities and how to use them to benefit all of mankind, mutant and human alike. Together they form the X-Men, which I am extending the offer to join to you. First, however, I think you may like to experience the Danger Room first hand." With the push of a button, all manor of obstacles and bars spring from hidden compartments within all surfaces of the room. Nightcrawler's eyes light up as he sees this massive jungle gym. To an acrobat this room is like a candy store is to a child. Forgetting his fatigue from merely hours before, he is eager to stretch his now sore muscles. "I have set the danger level to 0. After you warm up a bit, I can increase it to show you a little more of it's capabilities." Challenge Eight: It's been a year since I joined Nerd Fitness!! Happy anniversary to me!! This will be a two part challenge. Wizard World Comic Con will be here January 23rd and I still have a ton to get done by then. Due to these time constraints, the first half of the challenge will put more emphasis on weight loss via diet and the second half will focus a little more on activity. Main Goal: Gymnastics! Always! No specific goals for this challenge, but I am currently working on aerials and will soon start working on moving my round off-back handspring-back tuck on to the floor from the tumble track! Specific Tasks: 1. Weight loss! It's easier to throw your body around in gymnastics if there is less body to throw! Time to lose some of that "holiday spirit" I gained through Christmas time...several pounds of it...For this I will be tracking my Weight Watchers points daily throughout the entire challenge, with additional constraints applied to the first half of the challenge. Part 1: Definitely not the most healthy way to do this...but I am going to crash diet to get ready for the convention. Gotta look good in costume for the pictures!! I am normally allowed 29 points daily with an additional, optional allowance of 49 points to spread throughout the week if I choose. For the first half of the challenge, I will be dropping this allowance to no more than 6 points per meal and no points available for snacks. This means a maximum of 18 points per day. Fruit and vegetables are zero points, so I will be eating a lot of them.Part 2: The heavy constraints will be lifted and I will go back to being allowed 29 points daily and 49 extra weekly points if I so choose to use them. 2. Exercise! Cant do gymnastics if I get all lazy!! Some sort of exercise is to be performed every day off from work during the challenge. Part 1: Gymnastics counts as required exercise.Part 2: Gymnastics does not count toward required exercise and I will have do do some sort of exercise during the day in addition.3. Splits! Because flexibility! My normal routine is: Part 1: I will work splits every dayPart 2: I will work splits every day, twice on days off work. Life Challenge: Costuming again! Working on completely upgrading my Gambit costume I made a few years ago: With less than three weeks until the convention, I know I wont have enough time to get everything done. I knew that when I first made the plans. Whatever I am not able to finish can be reused from the previous costume. Reference picture:

Hi guys I'm a long time lurker (2 years) and have been enjoying the nerd fitness community and posts for a while now. I finally got the courage to post something here because I am venturing into a new adventure! I'm 27 years old and love to work out and eat a mostly clean diet. I love HIIT workouts and lifting heavy and love being around other strong women and just seeing girls kickass in general! For a long time I have wanted to do a Super Saiyan cosplay but have never considered myself fit enough or muscled enough to pull it off the way that I have wanted. I finally sat down with one of the coaches I work with at a box and asked for her advice on how to gain some more muscle for Anime Central in May so that I can look buff and like a muscley Saiyan For a long time I have been eating about 1,200 calories a day and doing HIIT in the morning and Crossfit at night. She told me what I thought all along but still feared hearing - I'm eating too little and working out too much to get the gains I want. As someone who spent 22 years of life overweight and worked hard to lose it by cutting and counting calories and working out...it's hard to break that cycle once it starts! And it's scary to think about gaining it back in fat when you worked so hard to lose it! But I told her I would do 100% what she says without question for 3 months and in return she would give me a nutrition plan and guide my workouts as long as she can use my before and after pics to get more clients. I agreed because I am always up for a challenge. The hardest part about this though is feeling okay about EATING MORE and TRAINING LESS! And also give up counting my calories. I want to be strong and look strong and be a strong example for other females - but it's difficult breaking past those barriers! Has anyone else struggled with anything like this? I suppose I'm looking for some solidarity as I quietly freakout in my brain. Has anyone else tried The Zone (Paleo) and seen good muscle gain results? I'm optimistic but, admittedly, a little scared. Thanks for any and all support <3 love this community

I sat out the last challenge and did an "anti-challenge" before that. It was nice to have a break and just free form my exercises, but it's time to dig back in and chase some goals down. Challenge Themesong: Tom Petty - Runnin Down a Dream Goals: 1: Handstands - Work on them at least 4 days a week. I can currently do a 30+ sec wall handstand, but my PR for a free handstand is ~5sec. 2: Muscle Up - Work towards them at least 4 days a week. Current workout includes supersets of chest-to-bar pullups and low dips, but I don't have anywhere handy to try an actual muscle up at the moment. (All the pullup bars I have access to are either free rotating or have the neutral grip handles in the way.) 3: Stretching - After every workout. I've been good about it the past couple months, but I'm starting to pickup my schedule again and need to make sure I stay on top of it. I'm not going to have a specific life goal this time around. There are a bunch of things I need to work on, but none of them jump out as "most important." I also won't be worrying about stat points any more; they weren't motivating me and the extra paperwork distracted from my real goals.

Totally random, but if you could pick ONE fantasy outfit to be acceptable in your day-to-day wardrobe, what would it be? This could be a costume from a favorite show or movie, or pieces of a fantasy-themed outfit you think would work well together. How about it? I would pick this, from Once Upon a Time's closet: But without the pigeon. Not like the poo would show up on the outfit.... I'd just prefer a falcon is all.

And what are you wearing? I love Halloween - I always have and always will. This is the first year I can dress up for Halloween at work in about eight years - my old work wasn't really into that - and so I'm going to dress up and it's going to be awesome. I found the perfect costume - blue Star Trek dress uniform + pointy ears + pixie haircut = fem!Spock. I just hope everything gets here in time, otherwise I'm going to have to go with my backup plan - pirate. So, who else is doing the costume thing? I want to know!!

I'm a 41 year old female, and my weight has been up and down a lot, but I've remained obese since about my mid-20s. I don't know precisely when I truly became overweight - starting around the time that I was about 12 or 13 (basically puberty), I got told by my parents that I "would be so pretty, if only you would lose a few pounds." I remember being a freshman in high school and being within the average weight range for my height according to the BMI, but believing that wearing size 12 jeans meant I was fat. Oh, to fit into those size 12's again. At some point in college, while STILL hearing that being pretty was completely dependent on me losing weight, I decided I just didn't care - if I was fat then I would just be fat. I would eat whatever I wanted, I would do whatever I wanted. This came at the same time as a lot of other anger and rebellion which I think was largely related to struggling with coming out of the closet as well, and around this same time I stopped being accountable for a lot of things, which in part meant I stopped weighing myself. So I don't really know when exactly all the weight came on, but it has stayed since. Imagine my surprise a year ago when a friend of mine posted a "Throwback Thursday" photo of the two of us from around about the time I was 13 or 14, and I realized that I was an absolutely, completely average looking kid. I stared at it for a long time trying to see why, exactly, that kid needed to lose weight. I still don't have any answers. And weight is still tied to my self-esteem and my sense of attractiveness. In the years since, mostly I've been healthy in spite of my weight. I did have acute pancreatitis due to mis-handling of gallstones, and had to have abdominal surgery and now, while I can do some ab exercises, I can't handle an entire ab workout (by doctor's orders). That situation going so wrong was due to bad practices by a doctor, but, well, gallstones are a really common problem for people who are overweight. I also had a little blood pressure scare this year, and while my doctor determined it isn't a chronic problem yet, I feel like I need to take it really seriously so that that doesn't happen. So there have been small health problems that can definitely be linked to my eating and exercise habits. Over a year ago I joined Weight Watchers and at first, I had really good momentum and lost 38 pounds. But then my willpower dropped, there were personal issues which made it really clear to me that I'm an emotional eater, and I've gained back 18 of those pounds and have found it very difficult to lose them again. What I would like to find here - what I really hope to find - is like-minded community. I'd like to find a group of regulars that I can hit it off with, who offer encouragement. While I attended Weight Watchers meetings, you don't really get that there. People just show up, weigh in, listen to what is said, and go about their day. People don't really bother to get to know each other or form bonds. I'd like a place where bonds can be formed. What I want to accomplish is weight loss, a greater sense of self REGARDLESS of how my body looks, and the ability to do a pull up! What I would LOVE to accomplish is looking awesome in my cosplay. I'd like my body to match the way I feel wearing costumes. I have a primary goal of losing 50 pounds through healthy eating and exercise. This is my goal because when I had pancreatitis, I lost that much due to sickness, in a really unhealthy way. I'd like to lose that much in a healthy way, and consider that a good starter goal. So that's me. Hi! I look forward to meeting you.

I keep running into the problem of my goals falling apart halfway through the challenge. Last challenge, I just didn't bother grading because I didn't care enough to remember what I claimed I was going to accomplish. So this time around I'm going completely free form. Challenge Themesong: General goals for this challenge are: Get in shape for Dragoncon - I'm down to a 30.5in waist at ~13.5%BF, and my goal is <10%BF. Rough estimates are telling me that's a 29in waist, but I'd be happy with <30in by the end of Aug. Finish costumes - I'm still working on Nightcrawler and a Diddy Kong/Jedi crossover. If I keep working, I should have just enough time to finish, but can't slack. The tail (I'll be using the same one for both with different color sleeves) is the hardest part, but will be epic if it works. Buy a house and move in - I'm working paperwork, and looks like everything will line up to close mid-to-late Aug. Then I have to pack, move, and clean my apartment so I can get my deposit back. Don't miss a day of PLP - I started 2 weeks ago and haven't missed a day yet, just have to keep momentum going and make sure I keep it in my schedule. Starting Stats (as of 28July): Height: 66in Weight: 145lb Waist: 30.5in BF: 13.5% Costume pictures to come.

A long time ago, In a six week challenge far, far away… Hello all! I am, In fact, alive! Last time you heard from me, It was back in August of 2013, almost a year ago, when I was at a breaking point. I had an unrealistic amount of commitments, and the quality of the work in everything I did was suffering as a result. I had to leave my sixth challenge part way through as a result. It killed me to quit, there are few things that I hate more than quitting. But after considering my options, It’s what needed to be done. One EXTREMELY busy school year later, I am back. And I am sad to say not much has changed. I got by, but didn’t make much progress. And almost exactly a year later, I am really disappointed to say that not much has changed. I have been really disappointed in myself lately. I just feel like I have lost my direction in life. A good chunk of my life was dedicated with the main goal of working towards Japan. And once that happened, I never found a new path. The exact details of what I am working on right now is different, but overall, I am just as unhappy as last year. And I refuse to accept that. I want to be the person I was when I was working towards Japan. The guy that worked really hard in everything he did, and loved life. AND SO I HAVE RETURNED. Nerd Fitness was a big part of my life leading up to Japan, and I have realized that this is a positive in my life, and I need it. So thank you to everyone who has supported me in the past, and those that may choose to join me in the future. *Hugs NF family* Without further ado, I give you my 7th Nerd Fitness 6 week challenge: Main Quest: Finding Makoto If you can’t tell by my profile picture, one of my biggest hobbies is Cosplay. Currently, I am working on my next costume which I plan to debut at Youmacon 2014 in Detroit, MI. This costume, though, is unlike any other costume I have done, because it involves not only making a costume for my body, but changing my body. The character who I will be cosplaying is Makoto Tachibana, from the Anime Free!! Iwatobi Swim Club. My main quest right now is obtaining this body. The other part of cosplay, besides the costume, is the acting side. To successfully wear the costume, I need to wear it not only body but with my attitude. Makoto is my favorite character because of his personality and ethics, and If I can become more like him, It will make me a happier and healthier person. I plan to work towards this costume by focusing on exercise, diet, and time management (To ensure I can find the time to sew the actual costume). Goals: Fitness/diet goals- 1) Running/Exercise goal 2) Diet Goal 3) Weight/BF% goal Life Goal- 4) Daily Work Period How I will reach these goals: 1)Running/Exercise goals This 6 week challenge comes at the end of one of my fitness goals I have been doing while on sabbatical from NF. I have been doing Insanity since May, and will have my final day on Monday, August 4 (My final “workout†is Saturday, but on Monday I do the Fit Test for the last time to assess my fitness progress). So the the first part of the fitness goal is to complete all of the remaining days of Insanity. Then, I will move onto Phase 2. Phase 2 is the scout part. I plan to Run at for least 5 hours a week, distributed among the days of the week (I should be running at least 5 days a week, I may edit this goal to make it more of a challenge should this be too easy). Because I am working towards a Makoto Cosplay body, I figured I would add in a bonus: swimming! After all, the best way to get a swimmer’s body must be to swim, right? So seeing as I live on a lake, I will be swimming 3 days a week for at least 20 minutes a day as well. 2)Diet Goal For my diet, I will continue with what I have been doing during Insanity. I have my calorie budget set, which I will stay within everyday. I will also be monitoring the quality of the food, trying to eat at least 80% paleo foods everyday. For me, no 6 week challenge would be complete without an unavoidable trip. I run on my school’s cross country team, and we will be traveling to Upstate New York for a week of Cross Country Camp. We will be running everyday, twice a day, which will be perfect for goal number one, but could give some trouble to my diet. The meals are prepared for the entire team at once, and the menu is set without our input. The food is always delicious, but not the healthiest. I will do my best to stay within these goals despite the adversity. 3) Lose 12 lbs. and body fat The Idea is to continue with my current plan of losing 2 lbs. per week, through means of the first 2 goals. I would also like to come up with a certain amount of BF% to lose, but I will figure out the exact details of that this weekend when I measure my current BF%. 4) Daily Work Period As I mentioned early, I have just felt worn out lately and I am sick of It. I want to be a productive human being who accomplishes his goals. So, every day, I will be creating a schedule down to the minute. In this, there is to be at least 1 hour dedicated to working on one of the projects that I would like to have completed by the end of this challenge. I have a list of things, but some of these include summer homework, working on other projects I have committed to, and planning a few events I have told people I would take care of. The idea is to spread this out evenly so it isn’t overwhelming, but I still accomplish my goals. NO PROCRASTINATION!!! I will be assigning points when I get a little more time. This is a very busy week for me coming up, so I will probably get to this after Friday. If you have any other suggestions, I will gladly listen! I am not sure that these are all the goals I want, but I feel it is what I can handle with the situation, but still feel challenged. Thanks for looking and the Support! Let’s find Makoto!!! P.S. - Thank you to my new friend, Croberts654 (His challenge can be found here), who convinced me to join this challenge, and is participating along side me. We met online a few days ago, and discovered we had similar stats and goals, so we teamed up! If you would all be so kind as to stop by his challenge thread (It’s his first!) and say hello and give some encouragement, it would mean a lot. Thank you! P.S.S.- Sorry For Joining Late, I wasn't sure If I was ready come back yet or not. Best of luck to everyone!

So, I've returned to nerd fitness and want to get back in shape. After I left the Army in May 2013 I stopped eating right and exercising due to a lack of motivation and being poor. I'm finally in a position where I can eat healthy again and I am almost up to 200 lbs which is my motivation to start working out again. Let's begin. I'll be doing 30 minutes of yoga and strength training via my Wii U 3 days a week starting today. On off days I will play the balance games for at least fifteen minutes and I will be running with my Wii Fit Meter. I'm going to eat at least one paleo meal each day for the first week and work my way up to full paleo by week three. I will also begin saving money again each time I get a check. I don't want to set any hard number since my money isn't too stable yet, so I will set a %. 50% of any money leftover after bills will be transferred to a savings account which is kind of difficult to access. Sorry I'm late, but I really wanted to join the six week challenge again to help with my goals.

The Fool is the first card in the Tarot deck. It symbolizes new beginnings and adventures. There are unlimited possibilities out there and I'm going to seek them out. A bit of background on me, this is not the first time I've tried to complete a challenge. It's probably the fourth. I do really well for about a week, then disappear into the void that is the internet. That's probably because I was making myself accountable to people I didn't actually know. This time, however, I've gone and made a promise/bet with a very good friend, and I don't feel like losing. Main Quest: COSPLAY! That friend of mine is spending a year in Japan (lucky sod). When she comes back, we're cosplaying characters from Fire Emblem: Awakening. She's going to be Lucina and I, ambitious Fool that I am, am crossplaying as Chrom. I am really hoping to fool people into thinking that I am merely cosplaying as Chrom, but there's (at least) one significant problem: Chrom is significantly leaner than I am now. I'd be better off crossplaying as Stay Puft, but he doesn't exactly make a cameo in FE:A. This means I have little over a year (she hasn't left yet) to go from flab to fit and I'm going to love every minute of it (except the parts where I'm sure I'm going to die and why did I think this was a good idea?). I have to get used to moving and using parts of my body that normally just sit there, wondering what the meaning to life is. Quest One - Upper Body Goal: 1 standard pushup and 1 standard pullup Start: 2x5 knee pushups/assisted pullups/10lb shoulder press Quest Two - Lower Body Goal: 2x20 assisted squats/static lunges Start: 2x5 assisted squats/static lunges, ankle exercises at work Quest Three - Diet Goal: Back to Paleo Start: Eat breakfast!! Life Quest - Environment Goal: Make my bed daily and unfuck my mornings I follow a blog called Unfuck Your Habitat, and it's... incredibly inspiring. Almost overwhelming. But it's got some amazing techniques that seem to work really well. Plus more tidy space means more room to work out, right?

Still no idea what I'm doing with my life, beyond doing what I can to enjoy it and Nightcrawler is still the current focus. DragonCon is now less than 3months away, so plenty of time as long as I keep working on it. I learned a lot about what works and doesn't work for me last challenge when I dove into tracking and then all but quit halfway through. Calorie/macro tracking, specifically, is too much work for me to do on a daily basis, but not tracking at all doesn't give me the results I want (I cut from 18.5%BF to 16%BF while gaining 3lb overall in ~4weeks, then stalled when I quit tracking daily). Additionally, following a structured workout plan makes exercise a chore instead of playtime. And I'm terrible about doing anything I see as a chore. Finally, as soon as I become involved in a competition, it becomes my sole focus and anything that interferes gets marginalized. Last challenge I joined the Pushup Quidditch PVP, and it was great, but I quit doing a lot of other exercises so I could crank out more pushups each week, which is counter to my overall goals. Challenge Themesong: Halestorm - Freak Like Me Challenge Goals: 1: Diet Guidelines (Con +2, Wis +2) Last challenge I tried counting calories and grams of protein, which was really helpful in keeping me on track, but ended up taking so much time and willpower that I started skipping workouts and cooking. This challenge I'll continue tracking my weight, waist, and %BF weekly, then create and follow rules for the week and see how it affects the numbers. Each week I'll tweak the rules to address problems, either in the results or my ability to follow the rules. As an example, this week (pre-challenge) I'm attempting to get the equivalent of 1 chicken breast, 2 cups of veggies, and 1 large sweet potato a day with the rest of my diet filled in with healthy snacks. And I'm allowed 2 "cheat" meals during the week when hanging out with friends. 2: Record Workouts (Str +2, Dex +2, Sta +2) I tried following a set exercise plan and got bored in less than 3 weeks. As soon as working out became a chore, I started coming up with excuses not to. This challenge I'll be going back to the "whatever sounds fun at the time" workout plan, but focus on recording what the work out was and how well I did. That way I'll have some kind of record to look back at. 3: Skill Work (Str +1, Dex +2) Yet another goal last challenge where too little flexibility led to an unhappy Anim. I like monkey hangs, but they still get boring after a month straight and a week of early mornings at work was all the excuse I needed to stop completely. This challenge I'll loosen the chain a little and try to reduce the time requirement: work on a "skill" for at least 5min at least 5 times a week. For the purpose of this goal, a "skill" is any exercise that relies on balance and/or coordination at least as much as strength. Examples (and ones I'm currently trying) are crow pose, PK roll, and anything leading to a handstand, lever, or back lever. Life: Nightcrawler Ready for Action (Cha +2) I'm actually pretty far along on the costume, the only things left are the tail, reinforcing the sash, and the makeup. But with only 3 months left to prep and at least one other costume to work on, I want to make sure this one is finished by the end of the challenge. The tail in particular is being difficult, as I'm trying to make it move and figure out how to make it support my weight after wrapping around a branch/pole. I've been doing trial and error building for the past couple months and the next plan is to build some sort of skeleton for the primary length to prevent the cable I'm using as the core from twisting. Once that's accomplished, it should be a simple matter of reattaching the brake cables and tweaking placement/lengths to get the motion I want. Starting Stats (as of 2June): Age: 30 Height: 66in Weight: 150lb Waist: 31.5in Body Fat: 15.8%

Hello, everyone. After spending quite a lot of time bouncing around the NF site, I think I've finally figured out what I need to include in my thread. I haven't used message boards since I was in college (2003), so I'm pretty rusty, but here goes: "Doctor Song" Main Goal: Drop 70 pounds. 1. Do the beginner bodyweight circuit 3 times per week. 2. Do at least 30 mins on my elliptical 3 times per week. 3. Reduce my carb intake so that carbs are only a small portion of my daily diet, rather than the majority. Motivation: To rock a River Song cosplay at DragonCon, either this year or next. Race: Hobbit Intended Guild: Monk Starting weight: 188 Size: 16

Main Quest: COLOR RUN in Sept with my team (Might try to do one in August if I can get a buddy) Side Quests: Complete Zombie Run's 5k program (starting this week)Complete 6 weeks (hopefully go for full 10) of Bodyweight Training App's program at beginner levelGo on a hike/walk adventure weeklyMOTIVATION: I want to have the stamina and the energy to live my life not just survive it. I've always been self conscious because even though I have been of average size my face has always been chubby. I really want to tone up and gain some muscle to bump up my confidence and hopefully it will help me stop being so shy. I have a certain cosplay that I have purposefully not finished because I'm scared to wear it but THIS IS THE YEAR. The end of the month I will wear the damn thing, I know I can get myself there! This is the dress, Life Quest: Complete my online course with at least 90%

I'm still deciding what I want to do with my life overall, but I at least have a goal for the next 5 months: at DragonCon this year, I must be able to do Nightcrawler true justice. Last year was acceptable, but this year will be better. To that end, and taking into account my progress last challenge, it's time to organize my workout and diet. Challenge Themesong: Metallica - Fuel (edit: I'll save the other songs for another challenge) Goals for this Challenge: 1: Start Tracking (Con +2, Wis +2) I've been flying by the seat of my pants for the past few months while I reacquaint myself with this "fitness" thing. It's worked well enough, but it's taken me as far as it can. I've started a spreadsheet to track body fat % and signed up for Calorie Count; turns out I have no idea how to properly feed myself, even after a Taco Bell run for dinner, I'm still 250 calories short of maintenance for the day and 25-30g of protein lower than I'd like. I'm 5'6" and currently 147lb, but with ~18.5% body fat, so I'll spend the rest of this week uploading my regular meals and tweaking the recipes to hit my current targets of 2400 cal and 120g protein per day. That should put me on solid footing to track my diet and the results throughout the challenge. 2: Workout Plan (Str +2, Dex +2, Sta +2) As much fun as "random workouts of whatever I feel like at the time" are, they make it difficult to track progress. Time to pick a plan and go with it. I'm starting at Level 2 of the Bodyweight Brigade workout plan, but should make it to Level 3 on some of the exercises this challenge. Anything past that will follow the progression from Start Bodyweight. Additionally, I plan to do 1-2 days of sprints or sports and a beach run of increasing length each week. 3: Grip Training (Str +2) I let a lot of my training slip while I was worried about wrist pain, but the doctors didn't find anything. Plus not working out didn't make it hurt less, but starting back seems to have helped. I'm now at the point where grip strength is a major limiting factors on my workouts, and it annoys me. Plus Nightcrawler should be able to hang long enough to get a decent photo. To reach that, I'll start with 5min of grip training every day, probably monkey hangs, and increase as I progress. Life: Early to Bed, Early to Rise (Con +2, Wis +1) There are a lot of things I'd like to put as a life goal this time around (finishing my costume - with robotic tail, cleaning/organizing my closets, selling my old Magic cards, etc), but this one is really the most important. Plus if I can get my sleep schedule back under control, everything else will become much easier. The goal will be 8hrs of sleep per night and get up at 0600 every work day.

Righto! So, I've been passively using NerdFitness for awhile now, in conjuncture with HabitRPG. I decided it was time to step up my game. I'm a 24 year old YA librarian who just needs to get fit. I used to do theatre and marching band, and ride my bike everyday to my classes! Those were great ways to keep trim and toned! But now, the most I do is pick up a few boxes of books or push around a cart and hours or grueling practice just aren't there. Since leaving the university setting, I've gotten more into crafting, table top gaming, and reading. All very sedentary. I've also gotten into cosplaying! I want to be able to crossplay and when you're a (now) curvy gal, creating the male mirage is hard! And I've got a super big, super important cosplay coming up in September! My friends, all fabulous cosplayers, and I are going down to Atlanta for AWA. We'll be doing the entire Survey Corp from the super popular Attack on Titan and I'm set to play the dashing Jean Kirschtein. Now, there's no way I can be in the Survey Corp (those guys spend three years training in fighting, acrobatics, strength and cardio), but I at least want to look closer to the part. So, I figure I'll use the Jedi work out as my strength and acrobatics, and use my cycling as the 3D Maneuver Gear! So, my goal is to get trimmed and toned the way I used to be so I can make suave cut figure at AWA. From November to present, I was doing the beginning Jedi Work out three times a week, plus some cardio on my off days. I started cutting sugar, but not so much the grains (i'm also a vegetarian, which makes the paleo diet hard, but not impossible!) Now it's time to up the game and make an official challenge here for all of you to see! MAIN QUEST: GET FIT FOR SURVEY CORP 1. Do Intermediate Jedi Work Out 3 times a week! 2. Cut back my grains to one meal with grains a week. Weeks 1-2: One meal with grains a day. Weeks 3-4: Three meals with grains a week. Weeks 5-6: One meal with grains a week. 3. Start cycling everyday! I love cycling and now that the winter months are over and my bike is ready to go, I want to ride for a minimum of an hour a day. Weeks 1-2: Ride to and from work whenever I have work. Weeks 3-4: Ride for 45 minutes a day, even non-work days. Weeks 5-6: Ride an hour a day, everyday! Side Quests: Life Quest Take the GRE. (I live in Idaho, so you can be a librarian here without a masters. I just want to have a masters!) -Get the money to take it. -Schedule a date. -Study 20-30 minutes a day once date is set! Fitness Quest: Cut high fructose corn syrup out all together! I'm just gonna stop eating it! I'm sure this will really help me lose my girlish figure. XD Current Weight: 168lbs. 5'10" 40-30-42 measurements! Welp, that's it! I'm gonna do it!

I'm still working on the exact wording for my main quest, something to encapsulate the desire to perfect myself, body, mind, and soul, and constantly seeking new challenges to test how far I've come along that path. For now I'll stick with something simple: Let's go have an adventure! My motivation is equally simple: Grow or Die. Every time I've gotten to a place in my life where I start to think I'm doing well enough, I stagnate and lose a piece of my life. I'm tired of letting that happen, so I've got to accept that the only way to live is to constantly challenge myself. Challenge Themesong: Stone Sour - "Reborn" Goals for this Challenge: 1: Cook twice a week and eat all the leftovers (+2 Con, +2 Wis)- this is something I keep having problems with. Either I don't cook and eat fast food or I cook too much and throw half of it away. I'm getting better at cooking for one, but need to make it a consistent habit. Prepping for a week's worth of protein shakes or omelets will count for one "meal" as well. 2: Workout 5 days per week (+1 Str, +2 Dex, +1 Sta)- I made it here by the end of last challenge, but want to ensure it becomes a permanent habit. No set schedule yet, though ideally I'll do 3 days of bodyweight/sand bag training and 2-3 days of running/sports. Also want to find a regular yoga class I like. 3: Stay hydrated (+2 Con, +2 Sta)- For me this typically means 3-4 bottles of water a day. I've been doing well at work, but forgetting over the weekends. If I want to keep performing at my best, especially with another Florida summer on its way, I need to get this under control now. Life: Clean house/Finish what I started (+3 Wis)- My apartment is currently full of half finished projects and it's almost to the point where I can't work on the current projects because of all the junk leftover from previous ones. I need to either finish or get rid of 4 major projects this challenge, then reassess. Two minor projects will count as one major for scoring purposes. No definitive list of what counts, as writing one would be a major project by itself.

Hi guys, this is the first challenge I'm doing while actually talking in the forums! Yay for not lurking anymore! I made a post in the druids, but I'll repost here in case there are friends I haven't met yet in both places :3 Hi my already favorite people!! This is my second challenge outright, but I have a habit of lurking. I'm breaking that habit now!! Based off Panczo's thread, I like the division of the different goals, so I'm gonna shamelessly copy him on his four points (and I'll update this with a photo later): 1. Philosohpy: "One thing at a time"- focus on the task at hand- I have a horrible habit of not being able to just do ONE thing. I feel unproductive only focusing on one activity. Movies drive me INSANE. "Good is the enemy of the great" -Voltaire - Don't half ass two things, whole ass one thing! 2. Nutrition: No mindless eating. If I get bored and snack-ey, meditate and drink water. Whole foods/paleo- my diet now, just strengthen and stick to it <3 No wrappers! 3. Fitness: Daily yoga- already my normal routine, but I can do more. Walks and runs! - building up my endurance and patience, don't get bored. Think and move. Swim and surf- I just moved to Hawaii from AZ, so being outdoors is a MUCH more pleasant experience now. I love the forest and have plenty of that here, and beach too! So that's that. My idols for fitness and philosophy, at least fictional character wise, are the elves in most fictional stories- tall, like the wind, graceful, natural-and Princess Mononoke, as close to a wolf as humans can get. I'll be cross training with the scouts and assassins, I think, at least a little, and have a definite interest in Monk for next time. I'm also a "professional" (pffft that word sounds funny) cosplayer and while most of my goals are simple self improvement, looking good in costume is a huge plus!! I'm so happy to be here with you guys!! Oh, and of course I forgot one of the most important parts- My life quest!! I'm still kind of all over the place on this one. I want to be happy, healthy, and creative. I have a daily and weekly schedule I follow to work towards those things. Anythign beyond that is gravy, but that's too broad, I think. So, my life goals are to paint a personal masterpeice, be as fit as my body type allows (I have more personal goals to that one, but I'm always changing exactly how that's measured- weight? BMI? Measurements? Eh, whatever), and to let my diet, excercise, and personal choices keep me well. It's just crazy enough to work.

THE SETUP I know the next challenge doesn't start until November 11 but... I can't resist College. Senior year. A director friend, M. Doyle, asked me to play a part in a student film she was working on called Project Delta. Despite my shyness and lack of acting experience I said yes. Best decision ever. Because of the excitement around the project and the fact that I had to look good on camera while doing fight choreography over multiple takes, I consistently exercised and was in pretty good shape. It turns out that nothing in the world gets me motivated like being in a film does. From this base I have two slightly divergent reasons that I'm really motivated this time around. DIVERGENCE ONE: HATTER Doyle and I are turning the story idea behind the film into a webcomic called DELTA that she's writing and I'm illustrating, and because I've been looking at the characters so much recently I've decided that my character, Hatter, is kind of tired of being trapped in my body. I want to become more like her. Physically. Because I definitely do not want the violent homicidal tendencies and insanity DIVERGENCE TWO: TAKE OVER THE WORLD I saw Doyle recently and she mentioned another film idea she's been thinking about in which I would play the villain... again (Type cast much? Haha! I promise I'm not actually evil...). The outfit I would wear would be of the tightly-fitting variety so if/when this film happens I'd like to actually look good in the costume. It would also make a rocking awesome GLaDOS costume so I will be using it as such, meaning that I have until February to shape up as much as possible. SO THE POINT OF ALL THAT IS... I'm slim and at peace with my pear-shaped body, but I'm the consistency of a well-worn throw pillow. I'd like to be stronger, gain some muscle mass (and definition, but it's more important to me to be strong and healthy than "toned") so I will not only look good but will be able to do physical activities as needed without feeling like I'm going to keel over and die. GOALS 1) HATTER HANDSTANDS. No real reason for this except I would feel super cool if I was able to do a handstand. And Hatter would love it. She's such a goob. (Yes, I talk about my characters as if they're real people. It's normal.) I started working on this back during my Project Delta days and worked up to being able to do a wall handstand for about 10 seconds but I haven't done any for a while so it's back to square one. Success means I can hold a wall handstand (or close to one) for at least 30 seconds by the end of the challenge. STR1 DEX4 2) SHAPE UP FOR WORLD DOMINATION. I started doing some light weight training this week so I'm going to keep that up every other day and increase the intensity as I feel comfortable. I'm focusing on my arms and abs mostly. I've made walking a habit so I'm not as worried about my legs. I will keep track of how many reps I do and how heavy the weights are so I can track improvement. I will consider myself successful if I feel good about my improvements by the end of this challenge. STR4 3) FUEL UP ON PREMIUM. I have a gluten intolerance and a couple of other food-related problems. My family is supportive, but it's too expensive for us all to go gluten free and they sometimes forget that I need to eat differently, leaving me to scrounge the fridge while they're eating fancy lasagna or breaded chicken with broccoli (which I love but my esophagus does not). I've wanted to take charge of my own meal plan but our house is tiny and there's not enough room for me to have a totally different food area for my stuff. I've decided the best way to handle this is to take over all the meal planning for the whole family. That way I can control what is eaten, reduce and provide myself alternatives for gluten-containing meals, and help out my very busy mom at the same time. I will be successful if I can make a healthy and relatively inexpensive meal plan, and cook at least three of the major meals for the whole family each week. CON3 WIS1 SIDE GOAL. I've never been consistent with reading my Bible except when I was in college and brought it with me to study between classes. I'd like to make it a habit again, so I aim to read and study at least 15 minutes a day every day. I know 15 minutes isn't much, but I need to start somewhere and it's better than what I'm doing now! WIS2 A PRESENT FOR YOU! I also wanted to share a Level Up Tracking Sheet that I designed and have been using for the last three challenges. It's really helpful to me so I figured someone else out there might like to print it out and use it. It was too big to download into this post so you can find it here.

THE SETUP College. Senior year. A director friend, M. Doyle, asked me to play a part in a student film she was working on called . Despite my shyness and lack of acting experience I said yes. Best decision ever. Because of the excitement around the project and the fact that I had to look good on camera while doing fight choreography over multiple takes, I consistently exercised and was in pretty good shape. It turns out that nothing in the world gets me motivated like being in a film does. From this base I have two slightly divergent reasons that I'm really motivated this time around. DIVERGENCE ONE: HATTER Doyle and I are turning the story idea behind the film into a webcomic called DELTA that she's writing and I'm illustrating, and because I've been looking at the characters so much recently I've decided that my character, Hatter, is kind of tired of being trapped in my body. I want to become more like her. Physically. Because I definitely do not want the violent homicidal tendencies and insanity DIVERGENCE TWO: TAKE OVER THE WORLD I saw Doyle recently and she mentioned another film idea she's been thinking about in which I would play the villain... again (Type cast much? Haha! I promise I'm not actually evil...). The outfit I would wear would be of the tightly-fitting variety so if/when this film happens I'd like to actually look good in the costume. It would also make a rocking awesome GLaDOS costume so I will be using it as such, meaning that I have until February to shape up as much as possible. SO THE POINT OF ALL THAT IS... I'm slim and at peace with my pear-shaped body, but I'm the consistency of a well-worn throw pillow. I'd like to be stronger, gain some muscle mass (and definition, but it's more important to me to be strong and healthy than "toned") so I will not only look good but will be able to do physical activities as needed without feeling like I'm going to keel over and die. GOALS 1) HATTER HANDSTANDS. No real reason for this except I would feel super cool if I was able to do a handstand. And Hatter would love it. She's such a goob. (Yes, I talk about my characters as if they're real people. It's normal.) I started working on this back during my Project Delta days and worked up to being able to do a wall handstand for about 10 seconds but I haven't done any for a while so it's back to square one. Success means I can hold a wall handstand (or close to one) for at least 30 seconds by the end of the challenge. STR1 DEX4 2) SHAPE UP FOR WORLD DOMINATION. I started doing some light weight training this week so I'm going to keep that up every other day and increase the intensity as I feel comfortable. I'm focusing on my arms and abs mostly. I've made walking a habit so I'm not as worried about my legs. I will keep track of how many reps I do and how heavy the weights are so I can track improvement. I will consider myself successful if I feel good about my improvements by the end of this challenge. STR4 3) FUEL UP ON PREMIUM. I have a gluten intolerance and a couple of other food-related problems. My family is supportive, but it's too expensive for us all to go gluten free and they sometimes forget that I need to eat differently, leaving me to scrounge the fridge while they're eating fancy lasagna or breaded chicken with broccoli (which I love but my esophagus does not). I've wanted to take charge of my own meal plan but our house is tiny and there's not enough room for me to have a totally different food area for my stuff. I've decided the best way to handle this is to take over all the meal planning for the whole family. That way I can control what is eaten, reduce and provide myself alternatives for gluten-containing meals, and help out my very busy mom at the same time. I will be successful if I can make a healthy and relatively inexpensive meal plan, and cook at least three of the major meals for the whole family each week. CON3 WIS1 SIDE GOAL. I've never been consistent with reading my Bible except when I was in college and brought it with me to study between classes. I'd like to make it a habit again, so I aim to read and study at least 15 minutes a day every day. I know 15 minutes isn't much, but I need to start somewhere and it's better than what I'm doing now! WIS2 A PRESENT FOR YOU! I also wanted to share a Level Up Tracking Sheet that I designed and have been using for the last three challenges. It's really helpful to me so I figured someone else out there might like to print it out and use it. It was too big to download into this post so you can find it here.