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I learned a lot from my first attempted challenge: I am in WAY worse shape than I thought. And in an effort to prove how cool I was (or some other stupid self-talk) I managed to make it all worse. Knees and elbows are suffering the most. FOOD: Do not use the "D" word AT ALL. 45 years of negative conditioning have me panicking at the very thought of "dieting" Last month I ate more garbage than I've bothered with in a long time. The notion of "Paleo" had me in a frenzy. This month, the goal is to write down everything I eat. I made a little weekly chart, and this challenge, I aim only to document. I'm cutting out a lot of corn, and white bread, but I'm not going to tell myself things that trigger panicky responses... taking it mellow. EXERCISE: still not working up a sweat. afraid I'll have a heart attack and drop dead. Prolly won't, but everybody has warned me about it for so long that I have to de-program that fear. so, I keep working on range of motion, warm-up kind of stuff & body weight exercises. My right knee is an issue, also one of the reasons I'm participating in this challenge; I figure that if I strengthen the muscles around my knee, and pay better attention to how I am moving, maybe I'll stop twisting it all the time. and last, but not least, I need to COLLECT MORE UNDERPANTS. Truly, I thought that my nerd fitness collection of hard-copy-print-outs was rather immense, but I am obviously mistaken. I need more data. Now, I admit that most of this is not a S.M.A.R.T. goal. But it is a goal, and I will know if I have achieved it. The mini-challenges and Role Players give me focus on things I might not think of myself. (I did LOTS of pushups throughout my day, today.) The support groups filled with amazing people are something I have not experienced before. It's outside my comfort zone, but I kinda like it. Maybe some day I will be able to create spreadsheets and point systems to document my progress, like all the cool ones I see in other peoples' goal documents, but that's just not something I can do right now. I am an adventurer... on an adventure. I want to last another 50 years -- strong and healthy. to do that I need to eat well, keep my body strong, and get my head together. (finding a creative outlet would be nice too, but I shall save that for another time, i s'pose.) it is a process and a journey. ***