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Welcome, Guardians, to my 3rd (post-respawn) challenge! Over the course of the two prior challenges, I’ve made some observations as to what’s working for me, and, more importantly, what’s not working. Having taken this information into account, my challenges are getting an update. The gamification and such will still be there, it’s more about the content, tracking, and set up. If you would like to read the full, written out list of my observations, they can be found in the spoiler. You don’t have to read all that in order to follow this challenge, it’s just some insight and reasoning behind it. As some of you may have guessed, this is a Destiny themed challenge. I’ve been obsessed with this game since day 1, even more so than I ever was with Halo 2 (which is quite the feat, given that H2 was the game that turned me into a gamer). I’ve chosen this theme, not only for that reason, but because Destiny 2 came out on Sept 6 and I can’t get it off my mind, so I might as well incorporate it into other parts of my life. For those who are unfamiliar, here is a little background info from Destiny 1: “Destiny is set in the 28th century, in a post-apocalyptic setting. Humans had spread and colonized the Solar System with the help of a spherical entity known simply as "the Traveler". It reshaped planets and moons, and taught humanity new technologies and gave mystical powers that led to a time later called the Golden Age. An event known as "The Collapse", an attack from the Darkness, an unknown faction or entity, saw the dissolution of these colonies and left mankind on the brink of extinction. The only known survivors of the Collapse are those living on Earth, who were saved by the Traveler. Now the Traveler hovers above the last remaining human city as a large spherical body, and its presence gives the Guardians of the City—the last defenders of the human race—the ability to wield an unknown power. Upon mankind's first attempt to repopulate and reconstruct after the Collapse, it was discovered that hostile alien races have occupied mankind's former colonies and civilizations. The player takes on the role of a Guardian of the City, and is tasked with investigating and destroying these threats before the remnants of humanity are completely wiped out.” The situation as of Destiny 2: Humanity’s last safe city has fallen to an overwhelming invasion force, led by Ghaul, the imposing commander of the brutal Red Legion. He has stripped the city’s Guardians of their power, and forced the survivors to flee. You will venture to mysterious, unexplored worlds of our solar system to discover an arsenal of weapons and devastating new combat abilities. To defeat the Red Legion and confront Ghaul, you must reunite humanity’s scattered heroes, stand together, and fight back to reclaim our home. I am a Guardian - an Awoken, and a member of the Hunter class to be exact. I’ve reclaimed my Light, and have the ability to choose one of three subclasses: I typically go with the Gunslinger subclass, because it fits my play style best. I’m a short to mid range, sharp shooting run-and-gunner, who occasionally chooses to use a little stealth. It’s time for me to gather the Vanguard, fight the Red Legion, take down Gary-- I mean Ghaul -- and, most importantly, get back Cayde’s stuff! This challenge is 8 weeks long and has two parts, each spanning 4 weeks. Goals will be separated into 4 categories: Story Missions: These are the main goals - the meat and potatoes of my challenge, if you will. This is where most of the focus will be. Adventures: The side quests.These help me level up and gain more experience, but aren’t the main focus. Milestones: Tasks that must be completed within a set period of time. Some milestones have a certain date that they need to be done, while others need to be done within that part of the challenge (part 1 vs part 2). Lost Sectors: A type of ‘Patrol’ activity. I can do these at any time and at my own pace. They aren’t mandatory, but they are things that I would like to do by the end of the challenge. *Challenge drops 9/23/17*

Real simple - I need to work and study my brains out for another 2-3 years, so my challenges will not be nearly as awesome as everyone else's (no prose, no RPG narrative or GIF/MEME-posting). However, the challenge goes up anyway because this community, has been fantastic - as I got out of debt, moved my family to a new city, acclimated to new job, on and on! IT'S TIME TO FINISH my "life-repair" efforts before I transition to maintain-growth-pace-of-life! Time to stop dabbling and actually take care of my health and long-term vocational stuff (thus the 2-3 years of studying/working). Simply, in 3 years (or less) get lean and jacked and financially liberated (and, of course, enjoying the journey in the process) I want to track a daily checklist of items to keep the fitness going, while life is full of working and studying and family-ing, I'm going to borrow @Laghail's checklist format All of this toward fat loss, plus some strength building: drop 10 pounds. This should be do-able with beginner gains (all bloaty and lazy these days) Daily strive for □ Morning meditation □ Keto-calorie restriction (adjusting fat for activity levels) □ Steps □ NF Academy Bodyweight level 3 (4 days each week) □ Career studies Here we go - in 3 years I will be lean and jacked and financially liberated - and then will have cooler challenges

Last Edit: 4-Feb-2015 After starting this thread, I was informed that what I am doing is known as a Protein Sparing Modified Fast (PSMF). I am constantly consulting The Oracle (Google) to find out more about this subject and modify the diet plan as approriate. As of right now here is how I am planning on executing the diet: I am still learning more about it as the days go on. Based off of what I have learned so far, I will be trying the following diet/exercise plan: Every day my goal will be to consume 140 G of protein. I will cycle 2 days of nothing but protein shakes and fiber powder. 144G Protein, 10G Fat, 6G Sugar 30G Fiber, 738-ish Calories on a shake day the calorie count will be slightly higher - by how much depends on how you calculate the calories from fiber. This figured incorporates the calories from the 4mg of fish oil I will take. Every 3 days I will have have a big ol' egg white omelet made from 4-ish egg whites with spinach, red peppers, mushrooms and jalapenos. In addition I will eat a whole egg as well as a big plate of fresh spinach or lettuce, red peppers, cucumber, a couple of green olives, and about a big handful of salted mixed nuts. I will also have protein shakes to get my required grams of protein. Every other "food cycle" I will have a little bit of cantaloupe (half a cup-ish) and a banana in addition to the omelet, plate of low-carb veggies, olives, and nuts. I will take a multivitamin twice a day with food or a protein shake and a 2mg fish oil capsule. I will continue to workout as normal - Lift 6 days a week and cycle between running 3 miles and doing sprints (ideally 3 days a week). I have a hard time motivating myself to do cardio, so I often find excuses to not run. I will work on becoming more consistent. Before I lift or run I will take 10G of BCAAs. I will drink tons of water, and lots of tea. FOR THE EMPEROR!!!!! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here is the original post which led me down the path to discovering PSMF (Thanks Hazard) Hey everyone! This is the result of something I was mulling over in my head, and then spending about a week reading a bajilliondy different articles on nutrition, fat loss, muscle growth, carbohydrates, fats, etc etc etc.... TLDR version: Perhaps the best body recomposition (lose fat, gain muscle) thing to do is to focus on eating 1 Gram of protein per lb. of body weight per day, and then minimize both fat and carbohydrate intake while lifting heavy things and then putting them back down??? Note: I will be eating egg whites, chicken, beef, fish, and using protein shakes as needed to hit my 1G protein/lb/day goal while drinking copious amounts of water and tea (Earl Grey and Black Currant, both made by Twinings – it’s more to help keep me from boredom snacking than anything else). I am stuck with cafeteria style dining at the moment and cannot make my own food so I will be getting some carbs/fat as well but will limit them to only what I get as a byproduct of eating the aforementioned foods. Once I hit my desired body fat % (basically I want to look like Deadpool) I will add other foods for maintenance. Perhaps I could live off of just meat, but variety is the spice of life so I will be throwing in other food items once I get to a maintenance phase. Other people have a lot to say about why cardio isn’t the best thing for weight loss. Other people have a lot to say about why heavy weight training (4-6-ish reps for 3-ish sets) is best for increasing muscle strength/mass. Other people have a lot to say about why lifting to get gainz is better for fat loss than cardio for the same amount of time. I am a fan boy (not really, I have a mind more open than Olaf’s arms when administering warm hugs) of the aforementioned things… but I am just here to pose the following question and give my best guess as to the answer: SO…. a certain bit of dietary advice had always confused me, specifically the concept of caloric surplus/deficit in relation to muscle growth. Basically I keep reading that I cannot put on muscle if I eat fewer calories than my body needs in a day and you cannot lose fat when in a caloric surplus. The question: Can I lose fat while gaining muscle on a low calorie diet where I eat 1G Protein/Lb Bodyweight/Day and eating as little fat/carbs as possible? My body needs protein to build muscle. So I will eat lots of amino acids (the building blocks of protein). My body also needs energy to carry on all its myriad of functions (including building muscle). My body already has plenty of energy stored as fat. I can understand why I would need more building blocks to make new muscle, but I already have plenty of energy saved up. Why do I need to eat more energy? Why does using up my energy stores (IE the fat) prevent me from putting on muscle? The energy is already there in my body waiting to be used…. The body seems to me to be pretty efficient and does not appear to want to waste things, especially energy. Now, you can literally piss away glucose at times, but I’ve never read anything that shows this happening in significant amounts in healthy individuals. SO – according to conventional wisdom, it is impossible to put on muscle while eating fewer calories than your body needs to meet its daily energy needs. That doesn’t make sense to me. Why you ask? Well… most of us have huge energy reserves, I.E. fat. Fat is where your body stores the *VAST* amount of its energy. Sure, the body can breakdown muscle (NOTE ON THIS: I have not found any information on exactly when this happens. Since this would seem like a last-ditch sort of thing, I imagine that the body will tap into its fat before eating away at the muscle for energy in significant amounts. I have also heard that consumption of protein and exercise can stave this off, which is why I would want to keep up with the whole 1 G of protein per pound of body weight per day thing. If anyone can point me in the direction of some good information on when muscle cannibalization occurs, I would like it). There seem to be limits on how much muscle a person can put on. Our ability to put on fat appear to be limitless (people can weigh over 1,000 pounds). Our body obviously likes to, and will, easily use fat as an energy storage depot (really more like energy storage medium, but storage depot rolls off the tongue (fingers?) so well….). With this said, just because I don’t consume as many calories in a day as my body needs for all of its various functions does not mean that I do not have energy available. You can live off of your fat stores for a hot minute (here is a link to a report on an obese man whom fasted for a year under the care of a doctor http://pmj.bmj.com/content/49/569/203.short). Glucose is not an “essential nutrient†meaning that you do not have to consume glucose to live. You need glucose to live, but your body can produce it in sufficient amounts to live without you having to eat extra (google gluconeogenesis for more info – there isn’t a whole lot unfortunately). Supposedly you can make 150 G of glucose a day (http://www.marksdailyapple.com/a-metabolic-paradigm-shift-fat-carbs-human-body-metabolism/#axzz1za02xNxp – Go to the paragraph “So How Much Glucose Do You Really Need?†near the bottom. He doesn’t cite the source for this, and I have not been able to find any research backing it up myself. If someone can find something supporting/rejecting this number, *please* send me a link ). Anyways, unless you are doing some hardcore crossfit thing, doing some crazy bicycling thing, etc etc etc your body will keep up with whatever you are trying to do (Note: This isn’t a fault of gluconeogenesis… People can eat carbz for dayz and still run into these issues with extreme feats of humaning). If you are worried it can’t, then eat a little carbs right before/during the event as needed just to get you through. Your body only has about a teaspoon-ish of glucose floating around in the blood (this is closely regulated by the body) and can store about about 400 grams of glycogen (glycogen gets converted into glucose) in the muscles (I imagine this number varies a bit from person to person based on muscle mass) and about 100 grams of glycogen in the liver (again, probably varies a bit from person to person, but I imagine the biggest variance in individuals come from muscle stores of glycogen). http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/body-store-excess-calories-9627.html (not a direct link to the study which was conducted by Iowa State, a thousand pardons…). There are certain parts of your body which like glucose… the brain, for example, *needs* glucose (even when adapted to using ketones, it still needs 50% of its energy to come from glucose (UGH – Of course I cannot find a source for this now… Fear not though citizen I read it on the internet, so it must be true.. For cereal though, again, if anyone can find anything supporting/rejecting this, feel free to let me know! ) I think our blood glucose levels are pretty much just for the brain, but that is simply a guess with nothing to support it other than observations and my little bit of knowledge of how the body works… With that said, there are parts of your body that like ketones (cardiac muscle). A lot of your cells can use either glucose or ketones for energy once they become “adapted†(which supposedly takes a couple of weeks. I am not even gonna lie – I am getting burned out at the moment with googling things… If someone thinks that my aforementioned statement is wrong then at that point I will go verify it’s rightness or discover is wrongness). SO…. This is a little all over the place, but I think it’s a great starting point for a discussion…. Low Carb…. Low Fat…. Why not both?? https://literatastrophe.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/screen-shot-2012-11-08-at-6-08-31-pm.png As I stated before, I cannot get as low fat or low carb as I would like in my current situation, but I will start implementing this as of today (2-Feb-2015) and post pictures, weight, and tape measurements of different body parts (sorry, I do not have calipers yet… :\) as well as a log of what I eat everyday (with super guesstimated portions). Oh – a note on ketoacidosis… This is a disease state present in diabeetus-ified individuals…. IE their body forgot how to insulin properly. Supposedly insulin helps regulate ketones (this is argued a lot by science-ey people (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/749914). Protein stimulates insulin release (http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/72/1/96.full). So, I should not go into ketoacidosis since my body knows how to insulin. However, I will keep an eye out for signs of ketoacidosis (unfortunately I do not have the capability to run labs on myself). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I will post weekly updates. When I take pictures they are done with relaxed muscles, full exhaled breath. For the measurements: They are done with muscles relaxed, the fixed end of the tape measure (a plastic tape measure intended for use by a tailor) will remained pinned in place against my body while the free end is pulled tight. I close my eyes and let the free end slip through my fingers until it is barely snug against my body. I will re tighten and let it go loose 3 times before opening my eyes and taking note of the measurement. I purposefully keep things in 8ths. When doing measurements on the torso I do it with a fully exhaled breath, and take 3 measurements (everything is so squishy I have a hard time getting accurate results, so I don't want to rely on just one measurement). Here are the exact locations I measure: Neck - Widest point (over the peak of the adam's apple) Chest - Just under the nipples Bicep - Widest point (no landmark) Forearm - Widest point (no landmark) Waist - Narrowest point (which happens to be my last rib) Belly - Widest point of my pooch (which is just below my belly button) Butt - Widest point (I kind of figure out through trial and error where this this, there is no specific landmark) Upper Thigh (this is the widest point of the fatty area of my thigh. No landmark) Mid Thigh (this is the widest point of the muscular area of my thigh. No landmark) Calf (This is the widest point of my calf. No landmark) I do more exercises than just the ones listed... for sake of not having too much info here I will only post a few lifts. I will fill out a more comprehensive log at a later date and link it to this post. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2-Feb-2015 - (NOTE: I know this was not ideal but I took all of these measurements just before dinner. In the future I will do them first thing in the morning when I wake up) Weight - 141.9 pounds Neck - 15" | 14 7/8" | 15" Chest - 33 2/8" | 33 1/8" | 32 7/8" Bicep - 11 7/8" Forearm - 9 7/8" Waist - 29 2/8" | 29 3/8 " | 29 3/8" Belly - 32 7/8" | 33" | 32 6/8" Butt - 24" Upper Thigh - 40.5"" Mid Thigh - 43" Calf - 14 3/8" http://rebellion.nerdfitness.com/index.php?/gallery/image/9974-2feb15-front/ http://rebellion.nerdfitness.com/index.php?/gallery/image/9975-2feb15-side/ Deadlift: 150lbs 8r 3 Set (working on form) CHANGE: N/A Pullup: (On assist machine): -35lbs 7, 5, 4 Reps CHANGE: N/A Dumbbell Bench Press: 65lbs 4 reps, 65lbs 3 reps, 60 lbs 4 reps CHANGE: N/A Dip: 25lbs 5 reps for 3 sets CHANGE: N/A Squat (butt to calves): 135lbs 5 reps, 135lbs 7 reps, 135lbs 6 reps CHANGE: N/A Standing Shoulder Dumbbell Press: N/A CHANGE: N/A +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

This makes the twentieth time I have started a challenge on the NerdFitness forums. They should all be linked below in my signature. Some of them went really well, some of them were total failures. Most were somewhere in the middle. Current overall mission (admittedly a little fuzzy): Lose weight and get physically prepared for a family trip to Disney World in early November 2017. Fitness Goals: Goal 1: It's now or never/ I ain't gonna live forever Avoid sugar, corn syrup, grains, potatoes, and snacks. Record daily and report here. Goal 2: I just wanna live while I'm alive Strength training three times per week. Report here what I do. Life Goal: Tomorrow's getting harder make no mistake/ Luck ain't even lucky/ Got to make your own breaks At least ten minutes every day of focused, non-distracted meditation and scripture study. Report on this thread.

I can't remember who gave me this quote, but it will be with me all year: "Nothing tastes as good as being fit feels" Quest: lose 15lbs and enhance my mind 4am: Morning workouts, alternating between bodyweight days (from Academy workouts, likely Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays) and walking/cycling days (likely Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays) Stick to <1,500 calories and >180g protein, <50g carbs per day, adjusting fat as a lever if my activity levels merit more calories Quest: Master Prep Food: weekends most prep, then supplement Wednesday nights (will be tricky on travel weeks), in this challenge, improving my preparation of chicken breast and salmon (and some bacon) Quest: the mind and career goal of becoming a master trader/investor by passing CAIA Level 1 on March 10th 4am - after meditation and workout, study until time to work at 8am, then study more at lunch This image is not of me, but it makes me laugh (because it's too true!)

Hello guys, this is my first challenge so this post will be brief and simple I'm improving my life and my body, so this challenge will be about good habits and overall development. [1] Empire of the Sun : Waking up early. My workplace is 50km from my house and i dont have a car, so i need to wake not later than 5:00am. In the last two months i managed to reduce my waking time from 5:00 am to 4:20 am using the 1 minute rule: everyday reduce your waking time by one minute. On mondays the time is incemented to 5 minutes. Starting point : 4:20 am 4 weeks goal : 3:50 am Estimated effort: 21days. I'm doing this because after work i dont have enought energy to do both cardio and weight training. Waking up this early may seem crazy to many, but i like it and i have felt better about myself. [2] Running around the room : Distance challenge. I love running and in the last 3 months i have made great improvement, in particular i almost doubled my running time. Now i want to do something different, i will count the km instead of the workout days. I want to increase my running distance, along with my running time so these are some ideas. Starting point : 0.00 km 4 weeks goal : 80.00 km Estimated effort : 24 days minimum, i im sure that i will accomplish this goal, at a rate of 5km a day, so i will increase my goal to keep myself challenged. [3] Power Overwhelming : weight training. I was always suprised of how my strenght isn't nearly paragonable to my size. So, i want to focus first on good habits, such as workout with weights at least 4 times a week. Nothing extreme, no deadlifts and no gym. Just training my whole body 3-4 times a week to become more comfortable with the idea of weight training and with dumbells. Rather that count reps, weight or time i will count the numbers of workouts that i was able to complete. Starting point : 0 workouts 4 weeks goal : 12 workouts minimum. if my body will respond weel, i will increase the weight of the dumbells Estimated effort : 28 days. Weight training was always something i hated because of my weak body, so this is a very important goal for me. I cant dream being strong, i need to do something about it. Even a workout of 15m will be great. Greatness is on the path! [4] Everyone Can Cook : Drawning. Easy, i love the idea of drawning things, but i actually suck at it. So, i will draw something every day to improve myself. Starting point : i dont remember the last time i drew something 4 weeks goal : 15 minutes of drawing every day. [5] The Fellowship of the Ring : support others. I'm new here, so i want to meet other people and be supportive with the community. Starting point : ??? 4 weeks goal : visit the rebellion forum at least one time a day and encourage others to accomplish their goals. Well, just writing this stuff made me feel better about myself. I'm determined to finish this challenge and i wish good luck to everyone on the path! Feel free to correct my english mistakes, i will appreciate that.

yo dudes, I am gaining weight again. I mean, I'm still down from my start weight! but, over the last two months I definitely gained a bit. But that's ok, because I am UNSTOPPABLE in the sense that I literally perhaps do not know how to stop. So I am going to UNSTOPPABLY STOP this weight gain. I BELIEVE! MAIN QUEST LOSE FAT. This could be signified by either losing weight, or using fancy schmancy tracking tools (wifi scale, skulpt device, measurements, photos) to double check. In an effort to be more scientific-like, I went back to where my weight dropped again -- last July I tracked a bunch of actual data, and then the August Challenge I tried to put it into effect, with an outcome of some loss. SO what did I do right in August 2016, and how can I keep it up? Well, upon review, I learned that I didn't actually identify any challenge goals in August 2016. I ate less, and I ran a BUNCH. After reviewing July's challenge, I have a hypothesis that I didn't exercise as much as I should for my food intake over the last couple of months, which is contributing to GAINING. I had data for this hypothesis in July, and the hypothesis mildly substantiated with no actual data because literally I did not exercise at all in November and December. SIDEBAR you guys did you know I have a stack of paper notes from many of my old challenges? I'm missing some from the beginning, like, 11/2013-11/2014, but it's cool to have them around - even though they don't have much usable information noted. /SIDEBAR ENOUGH ABOUT THE PAST LET'S TALK ABOUT THE FUTURE. Goal 1: Exercise More / Don't Break The Chain I need to do something every day. Running, TKD, going to the gym and doing weights, SOMETHING. If I can't do a formal thing exercise for at least 30 minutes (20 if it's running, plus a cool down at the end), these are my options for not breaking the chain: * do at least 5 sets of 100 jumping jacks * go for a real 30 minute walk. Poke-walking counts. just WALK. * hula hoop practice for at least 15 minutes. * other things that are like these things that will be good for me. Track this in my new #hobobujo planner. Show you photos. (HEY trying to do some kind of bullet journal planner is ALSO a thing that I am experimenting with and I DO NOT FEAR FAILURE) Goal 2: Eat Less / Eat Better STICK WITH THE PLAN, STAN. my loseit plan is still set at losing 1 lb a week, which is a 500 calorie / day deficit over where it thinks I actually am. ALSO I am going to start logging half and half in coffee / milk in tea. DIRTY SECRET I never logged that. I did decrease my budget by 75 cal to accommodate but the more coffees I drink in a day, the less close I am to that being reality. "LUCKILY," I am also embarking on a version of "no spend january" this month. My husband is going back to school full time and I am the only breadwinner right now. Funds are tight - we have an expensive mortgage. So, I gave myself a few passes for eating out, but mostly, I will be bringing my lunches to work. which means I can EAT BETTER with no problems. Other considerations: DO NOT eat back exercise calories unless I've burned like 1000 exercise calories (i.e., dojo sat.) Goal 3: Put the NERD back in NERD FITNESS. Use the tools! Track food, daily weigh, dust off my nutty excel spreadsheet and fill in the last few challenges. ALSO weekly photos weekly measurements weekly or MORE skulpt readings. it's annoying but the more I do it, the faster I am at doing it. and most importantly! USE THIS TOOL! the forums are like my A+ Number 1 tool for success, USE THEM. DUDE. Check in every day. Say hi. update log. YOU CAN DO IT.

I think this is my 3rd Daily Battle Log throughout my time here on NF. I am coming off an 8 week hiatus, or mental health break, just saying life got hard, shit got left gathering cobwebs and functioning to a level of breathing, keeping kids fed, clothes got washed, the rest is just a blur of WTF happened? So here I am starting over and giving life a go and getting fit and mentally healthy again.

Welcome, welcome. Mind the third rail there, it's hot. I hear a lot of talk about going OFF the grid. Well, the contrarian in me says it's to to go ON the grid. Nope, not that grid. That kind of grid. Specifically, this one (actual link to be added tonight) What's the deal with this grid business? I'm glad you asked imaginary person with whom I'm pretending to have a conversation. I've kind of taken the last six months or so off. I've worked out and stuff, heck I even taught some other people to work out, but I haven't been serious about any of it, it's just be some down time. However, it's gone on too long. It's time to do some work. To do that, I need a plan. As I execute that plan I need to document my efforts and my outcomes. Hence, the spreadsheet. I'm deliberately going to keep things super simple. Everyday I work out, is good although you'll see me record them using a color code which I'll explain later. Everyday I don't eating sweets and consuming alcohol is marked as good but I get a buffer in there of a few per week Everyday I record what I eat is good Doing foam rolling or similar is good Meditating is good Working on a dexterity project is good Working on my reading project is good I'll get into the nuts and bolts more in my next post What's all this for? Oh, it's you again, imaginary person, let em tell you. My time off has left me overweight to the point that my clothes aren't fitting well. I'd like to shed those pounds. I also just need to get back in shape to hit the weights next year. Since this is tune up time I'm less worried about getting my lifting exactly right and planning to focus on the scale. I'll shed the weight, set the rhythms back in motion and get ready to light it up next year

Welcome back my friends, followers, lurkers. And welcome new friends, followers, and lurkers. As usual, if you have any questions for me, don't hesitate to ask. July Quest Fat Mass: 41.6 lbs <---- Go Down This is a link to view my personal tracking GoogleSheet Quick Summary, 7-Day Average: Date Weight (lbs) Fat Mass (lbs) Lean Mass (lbs) LM to FM ratio Fat left to lose (lbs) 10 Jul 192.0 41.6 150.3 3.61 28.6 What you can expect: Strength Training summaries. Usually three days a week. An updated Quick Summary chart showing my body composition progress from week to week. What else do you want me to post?

Hi, I'm a 15 year old, and I am 5' 8" and weigh 140-145 pounds (it fluctuates). For the longest time, I had a really fast metabolism, and I never gained weight, and was almost always overweight, but now that metabolism has gone away, so I have to exercise to make up for it. I am looking for a workout routine that will help me lose weight and fat, but not have too much stress on my body. I don't have access, or have interest in using weights, so I'm looking for a workout that is purely cardio and things I can do with my body. any suggestions. also, I have started a challenge for myself where I attempt to run everyday, not focusing on distance, and staying consistent. would that also be good for reaching my goal? thanks a bunch -Joe

Simple challenge this time, I hope. Main goal: maintain a 13,000 steps/day average, including actual walking/running and other exercise converted into steps, for the course of the next two challenges (technically, June 6 through July 31). Reward: $100 gift card, courtesy of the office exercise challenge. Secondary goal: fix up my diet and lose some of this fat in time for my vacation. Reward: new bathing suit, possibly a bikini if I lose enough. The plan: For my main goal, it's to be to get up and walk more during the day. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. I've also got roller derby practice twice a week (which counts for lots of steps, yay!) and I'm going to try to do something exercise-wise every day I don't have derby (typical choices will be yoga, pilates, Zumba. I may attempt to start running, as well). For the secondary goal, I'm going to just jump to the Academy diet level 7. I've printed off the meal plan and have it posted on my fridge, and I put together a rudimentary shopping list for it (hopefully I can get that fixed up soon). I won't be able to start that during zero week, because there is much crazy right now, but so far I've been doing a pretty good job of not eating grains or sugary things. I'm not going to stress about having something with grains and/or sugar sometimes, but mostly I don't eat them now. I will get my starting stats recorded before the challenge actually starts, and hopefully I'll have some good progress to report at the end of it!

Trying to work on leveling up my diet, and not rambling too much in setting up my challenge, because I don't have a fancy theme or anything. See that picture? I look like a bad ass, don't I? That was my first thought when I saw it. Sadly, my second was that my gut is still quite a bit bigger than I'd like it to be. The fact that my waistbands fell in 3 different spots, and I'm leaning over, aren't doing me any favors, but still. I've been doing ok on the NF Academy quests so far. I think I even made a bit of progress last month. I'd like to make a lot more this month, though. I am currently sitting at diet level 4. I should be at diet level 5, but I kinda fell apart the last few days, so I effectively need to start over. Which brings me to Goal One: complete the quest to reach diet level 5! I need to replace a carb with a veggie at lunch or dinner for 12 days out of the next 14. Or, I guess, just eat an extra veggie if I hadn't been planning to have carbs with the meal? If I'm good, I'll have this complete by the end of week one. After that, depending on how much of a struggle it was, I'll either stay there for a week or two until it's solid, or jump into going for level 6. This is the part where it starts getting hard without Husband working on it with me. I may hang out at level 5 until he's getting there, just to not make things too hard for me. He's supposedly going to start after he graduates, but I don't want to wait until June. Because Goal Two: lose the fat! I would like to drop 2% body fat, or a 1/2 inch off my waist. I have no idea how well those correlate to each other, but I would consider either one to be a success. Going after my gut specifically is pretty much a pure vanity goal. I'll admit it. I do want to reduce my body fat for health reasons, as well. Avoiding the heart disease that runs in my family is a big motivation for me. I'm also hoping that by reducing my body fat I'll get some improvements in my endurance for derby, since I won't be hauling around extra weight. Speaking of derby... Goal Three: Do your exercise! I've got a mentor from my league now. She gave me "homework" to do on top of coming to practice. For this week, I'm supposed to do 30 squats a day, in 3 sets of 10 spread out over the course of the day. I'm also supposed to check out some derby-focused workout she gave me the link to. On top of that, I've got some rehab (I guess? Not an injury, yet, but setting the stage for one if not fixed) exercise for my back/shoulders I'm trying to do. I've been hunching somewhat in front of my computer at work too much, and my shoulders are starting to get stuck that way! Yikes! I need a lighter weight for my exercises, though, because the muscles are so bad I can't do 10 lbs. Going to try to pick that up tonight, and probably some tiny dumbbells for the boys so they can exercise with me. The goal is to do those 3 times a week. I think I'm going to hold off on starting any of the NF exercise quests for a bit, because when you look at what's there, and then consider I have a full time job, two little boys, and derby practice at least twice a week, that's a lot! I do NOT want to burn myself out by trying to do too much at once. Bonus Goal: Move more! This is another continuing goal from last challenge. I've been making pretty good progress on this, aside from the couple of days when my tracker wasn't working. By the end of zero week, I'll hopefully be done with a week of 700 points/day. So I'll be going for 800, and then 900, and maybe even up to 1000 points/day over the course of the challenge. I suspect I won't get through all of that, though. Bonus Goal Extra: The exercise challenge at work starts on June 6. To win the $100 gift card, I need to average 13,000 steps/day. Skating for two hours twice a week counts for enough steps that I only need a bit over 8k steps/day to meet that target. I so got this this year! Especially if I can manage to get up to 900 points/day, not counting my skating, by the end of the challenge. So, really, this is a goal for the next two challenges, but I guess my bonus goal here is prep for that?

I'm tired of being fat, feeling old, and having aches and pains. Rather than being pissed off at myself for allowing it, I'm starting a Personal Rebellion--a Rebellion against fat and all the age-related symptoms that I have that I can reverse. 1. Food: I won't try to starve off the fat; I have to burn it off and eating clean is the first step. Follow Whole 30 Meal Template for most meals, allowing for a "splurge" day once each week. Try one new menu item each week. 2. Activity: I can't exercise if I hurt. If I don't exercise, the aging process will accelerate. Weeks 1 + 2: Do the Deskbound 14-Day challenge Weeks 3 + 4: Resume Simple & Sinister and practice it 3+ times each week. Walk or ride bikes with DH at least once a week. 3. Accountability: I need to "report" my behaviors and progress to keep myself honest. Track food and activity daily and post recaps to my challenge thread at least weekly. 4. Life: I have some things that I say I "should" do but never seem to find the time…. Call or e-mail a different friend or relative at least once each week. Contribute daily to NF Forums Work in garden at least twice each week. That's good for a start, anyway. I've been sitting long enough.

I'm a 32 year old, male, ~280lb trail runner with a powerlifting background. I've completed a 50k trail race in 10 hours at 270lbs. I'm signed up for another ultra in October. I really want to perform well but I'm first going to focus on fat loss for May and June for both my health and to give myself a better opportunity out on the trails. Ill add more details soon. I heard the NF episode on Robb Wolf's podcast and I figured I'd check this place out. -Cole

Hello, everyone. First of all, please forgive my english. It is not my first language. My introductions tend to be long winded, so I will spare you from that (mostly). I am an 25 year old active woman who had to take a 3 week break from exercising because I learned I have this condition called chondromalacia patellae (knee pain, really). The treatment involved knee injections and a bit of rest, but my paranoid side figured it would be better if I stopped doing all manner of extrenous and impact heavy activities (I do Crossfit, so..) for those three weeks. Anyway, the pain is gone, but this condiction is something I will have to treat all my life with supplements, strength training (YEY!) and stretching. My three week break ends on monday and I decided to see this as a respawn of sorts. This is not my first challenge, but I lost access to my old account and I figured I might as well start over on Nerd Fitness too. Main Goal After my somewhat forced three week break, my main goal for this challenge is to make exercising and eating well a habit again. Pure and simple. Strength Goal - Crossfit 4x/week. I am a Crossfit junkie and before the break I was doing it from monday to friday. Chances are this is going to be this challenge's easiest quest and I have decided to include it here only for the accountability. Really. - Starting Strength every tuesday and thursday. I like lifting heavy stuff and my orthopedist said squats are a good exercise for people who suffer from chondromalacia patellae. Who am I to argue with a doctor's opinion? Dexterity Goal - Stretch my leg muscles everyday for at least 5 minutes. My orthopedist also said it is important that I spend some time stretching my thighs and hamstrings. I figured I might as well make this a daily habit. Constitution Goal - Eat between 1800 to 2000 cals/day. I follow the Eat to Perform protocol and according to their calculator, this is the range I should be aiming for. I will track it on My Fitness Pal. Inteligence Goal - Post on my post graduation forums once a day. I enrolled in a post-grad program and a percentage of my grade comes from reading assigned articles and debating them in the courses' online forums. Wisdom Goal - Mediate 5x/week. I am a pretty anxious person and I learned that even 10 minutes of meditation makes a whole world of diference in my day. Charisma Goal - Lose % bodyfat. I gained a bit of weight and I want to get back to where I was a month ago. My measurements will be taken on wednesday so only then will I be able to update this goal with an actual number.

Backstory I have not been seeing the progress I’d like. As far as fat lost, I’ve gone a little backwards. Overall I am making better food choices but I am just not consistent with it. My variances have been too frequent and too large. I keep undoing any progress I have made. I’ve got a solid workout schedule in place but diet is 80% of the success. And I am not succeeding in that area. So this challenge will focus on diet. I’m not giving up on the workouts. I still have 3 planned events for this year that I need to train for. But it’s still early enough in the year that I can focus on specific training for those events next challenge. Though running will start to make an appearance during this challenge. Eat right. Lift. Ruck. Run. Sleep. Fight Villains. Repeat. Bulletproof Bracelets Eat Right. I just recently bought these new containers for batch cooked meals. I absolutely love them. I’ve been batch cooking for quite a few challenges now but we usually just store each item separately in larger containers and then for dinners everyone serves up their own plates and we eat. But I’ve found that we either run out of food too early in the week and then scramble to come up with something mid-week or we overcompensate and make too much food. Part of the problem is there is no governing the portion sizes. I log my recipe on MFP and then say it makes 6 servings. But there isn’t a reliable way to know that my plate is 1 / 6 of the whole. So now I will plan each week’s meals ahead of time on the weekend. Sunday is batch cooking day, and then all meals will be pre-portioned in the new containers. I’ll know exactly how many I need for me and the rest of the family. It may not be glamorous, but it’s effective. The Plan. Each weekend I will prepare the menu for the week and batch cook all the meals and plan the macros for the week. This should make it really easy to stick to it and allow little room for excuses. And my portions and food logging will be more accurate, allowing me to make better decisions. My current macro goals are 1600 calories on most days, 1700 on recovery days. Protein should be at least 100g but preferably in the 120’s. I don’t have a specific carb goal but it should be lower than the protein for any given day. Macros are subject to change but only as part of the weekly plan. Variances are allowed but with restriction. Variances must be planned ahead when I make the weekly menu. 1 spontaneous variance allowed for the entire challenge. Another tweak: The menu will consist of 3 meals and 1 snack per day. This still leaves room in the macros for more. I don’t have to use them but I suspect using them will alleviate cravings down the road. I will prepare a list of pre-approved snacks that can be added, on the fly, on any given day to accommodate hunger or energy levels. Each snack has the macros predetermined so I can easily select one that fits the day. And everything must be measured. Amazonian Strength Lift. 3 days a week. I have a trainer for the time being and he gives me 2 new workouts each month to move into my rotation. Currently I am on a nice schedule with 1 upper body day, 1 lower body day, and 1 full body day. But this is subject to change. I am also working on accessory work for a combination of personal projects - Best Ass of the Midwest (P:BAM), pullup, and shoulder rehab. At the moment the shoulder rehab is the top priority. Lasso of Truth Ruck. or Run. The plan is to ruck or run three days a week. I am thinking the best combination now is to run twice during the weekdays and then a ruck on the weekend. But I will fiddle with this ratio a bit I’m sure. Bonus Points: 1 Ruck WOD during the challenge, 1 Ruck with coupon during the challenge, 1 Long Ruck (4 hours?) during the challenge. Tiara Sleep and a Few Other Things. This is where I focus on all the other aspects of my 2016 Roadmap and just trying to be a better adult, have more fun, and be happy with myself. I’m still working on being more productive. The format from the last challenge was a good start but it didn’t really work for me. I’m still planning on making a list each week but I need to make a distinction between adulting things that need to get done and things that I would like to get done as part of my roadmap. The latter are typically enrichment activities that I need to make a priority in order for it to become a habit, but they aren’t necessarily To-Dos for the week. I’ll continue with the pomodoro method but rather than dedicate 1 pomodoro to each task category, I’ll just pick 2 or 3 things each day from the weekly task list that need to get done and work on all them for a tomato. I’ll keep working with the goal of 5 for this challenge until I find out what works best. I’ll also track pomodoros for enrichment activities (reading, duolingo, music, art, etc). Perhaps a goal of 2 a week would round this off nicely for a total of 7 pomodoro’s a week. The evil monkey and the Dark Playground metaphor from this article is still helpful. If you haven’t read it (including part II) I think you should. Plus I’ll refer to it and it will only make sense if you do. Konmari. I have most of the books and movies done. I still need to do my Philosophy books and some of the cookbooks in the basement. Then I’ll be starting on the kids’ clothes. Villain Face-Off Battle This is where the magic happens. If you are new to this, other NF rebels sign up to represent a villain. Each week I randomly roll for a new villain who brings with them a particular skill set that I must defeat. When a new villain is selected, each of us set our own goals in the given categories and compete for the week. The closest to reaching their goal at 100% wins the week. I get 1 stat point for each villain I defeat or that ends in a draw. I really dug the new format for last challenge where you guys get to pick your own villains (or in some cases good guys or somewhere in the middle) and then select the goal category as you see fit. Afterall, each villain brings a unique battle and Wonder Woman is prepared for them all! If you are interested, please sign up here. Try and stick to DC villains, though exceptions have been made. Then select two of the goal categories to be your specialty. I am being pretty strict on food already so you will notice that food is not one of the categories. I’ve tried to spread things out a bit to replace it with a different category so there is more variety.

It's been a very long time since I successfully completed a challenge, so I'm jumping back in here with something like a plan to make sure that doesn't happen again. I've already got some good habits forming, but I think I need the structure of setting actionable goals for myself in order to keep from running out of steam. Though I think it's really cool how NF is growing and changing, I really just want all my updates to be in one place, so I'll be giving myself (old school) stats for accomplishing these goals. Goal #1: Be Prepaaaaaaaaared! I've used my boyfriend's absolutely awful food choices to justify my better-but-not-nearly-as-healthy-as-I-want-them-to-be food choices. To help avoid that, we've made an agreement in regards to meal planning. I work Tuesday-Saturday and he makes way more money and has an extra fridge. Without getting into the rather unfortunate details of my living situation, this is what we've agreed: he'll buy most of what we need to feed both of us for the week and I'll stay at his place during the day on Mondays to actually prep the food. We tried it out yesterday and it was actually pretty great! I really love cooking and having a day off when most other people work allows me to get a lot done. Weeks prepped: 4 => A, 3 => B, 2 => C, 1 => D, 0 => F Progress: 4/4 Goal #2: Grain-Free Livin' My food choices have been less than stellar lately. (I may or may not have eaten half a box of Thin Mints before deciding to come here and write out my challenge goals!) I will maintain a grain-free existence six days out of the week throughout the challenge. Grain-free days: 24+ => A, 22 => B, 20 => C, 18 => D, 14 or less => F Progress: 21/24 Goal #3: Hitting the Gym My personal trainer and I shared some Real Talk the other day. He was basically like, "Aisha, you need to prioritize your health and I don't want to hear your excuses." He's super tough, but he's pretty much always right about stuff like that and he doesn't back down. I felt forced to take an honest look at my own behavior and it hurt to really see and understand what I'm doing to my body out of habit. I already have two appointments with him per week, but I've been avoiding the gym when I don't have a scheduled session. I'll go to the gym at least 3 times per week during this challenge. Gym days: 12+ => A, 10 => B, 8 => C, 6 => D, 4 or less => F Progress: 8/12 Goal #4: Answer the Call There are a bunch of tech conferences out there in the world and I don't have the money to attend them. It's much, much easier to attend a conference as a speaker because my small company doesn't really have the budget to send us anywhere. Since speaking is the only way I'll get to go to a lot of these awesome events, I have to actually take the time to respond to calls for proposals. By the end of the challenge, I'll have applied to: Frontend Conference Zurich CSS Dev Conf (volunteer) Abstractions (GOT A FREE TICKET!! WOO!) The Women in Tech Summit - Raleigh Write/Speak/Code Chicago (WoC scholarship) Forward Web Summit 5 Applications: 5+ => A, 4 => B, 3 => C, 2 => D, 1 => F Progress: 5/5

This won't be a daily log. I'm too busy for that. Since I'm not doing the NF challenges any more (the format change clashes with my training regimen; I decided that trying to align them was too much overhead), I wanted a place to drop semi-regular updates to my NF friends for accountability's sake. This first post contains some general info for anyone who'd like to follow. If you don't know me and want to, you might reference my introduction post and/or the post on why I am a Ranger. Generally speaking, I'm focused on functional strength training, with a side of physical skills training and endurance-building activities. The mix varies depending on what's going on in my life. My favorite resources right now are my awesome trainer, Mitch Evans, and the Tactical Barbell series of ebooks by K. Black. Mitch has done an amazing job of helping me untangle the fitness issues I ran into being obese and very strong at the same time, which had stymied every other trainer I tried. Black's books were a great fit for me, and have helped me become much more independent in planning my training. The TB series is written for tactical operators -- military, law enforcement, SAR, and so on -- so it's hyperfocused on functional strength, avoiding bulk (not that we ladies must worry about that much), fitting workouts into a busy life with a variable schedule, and keeping steady progress without ever winding it out so hard that you are too sore to get the job done...all the things I want. I welcome comments and feedback from others, so please don't hesitate to post.

I've been working on my fitness for about 6 weeks now and I'm trying to lose fat and get muscle definition, and the more I research how to do this the more confused I get :// I know that to lose weight you have to eat a calorie deficit, so that's what I've been trying to do for these last 6 weeks as I want to lose extra unnecessary fat. I've also been running 2-3 times a week (mostly interval training 20-30 mins or steady state jogging 20-50 mins), and strength training 2-3 times a week. I want to build muscle definition and I know that muscle burns more calories, but how can I lose fat and achieve muscle definition if I'm eating a calorie deficit to lose weight when you have to eat a calorie surplus to gain muscle?? I really want to achieve a body I'm proud of and I've seen very little results and I just don't know what to do

My last challenge I crashed and burned, because my entire family kept getting sick. One thing after another, sometimes all of us at once. Not fun. I have also had a bit of trouble recently coming up with good challenges, mostly through a combination of not really knowing where to set my goal and having some trouble laying out a solid plan that works with my life. I have a plan to fix that this time! This challenge won't really be a challenge. It will be a month of data gathering. I'm going to list all of the many things I would like to work on, do my best to work on them as life allows, and record every day how I did. After that, I can see what's going well, what I have a long way to go on, and where I can best start making improvements to get things rolling with the small changes. I will set my next challenge based on all of that. Scoring for this one is going to be solely based on recording things. Each day I record how I did will get me 3.85 points (for a total of 100 by the end of the challenge). 50% of my level-up points will go into wisdom, the rest will be distributed based on what I did best. List of stuff I want to work on: Roller derby Cycling Taking the bus to work on non-roller derby practice days Eating better Getting more sleep/getting to bed earlier Improved flexibility Weight lifting Fat loss Pullups Let the data-gathering commence!

Gunna trim / cut for summer. I can has cross country skis and a bicycle. I also can has weights. I can has cook. Will update topic soon but I'm working on a deadline for 3 hours from now so I gotta bounce!!

So I'm struggling to lose fat particularly around my hips and would really appreciate any suggestions for exercises which build muscle around the lower waist (i.e. love handles, lower abs/stomach). I mostly do leg raises and use the abdominal machine to work my abs and have just started doing Russian twists with a medicine ball too. One of my long-term goals is to have a v-line/defined hips - does anyone have any advice for achieving this? [if relevant, i'm a girl, 5'6", 61kg/134lb]

A Ranger Respawns I was chasing down dinner when I got sidetracked, fell into a ravine, and was eaten by beasts. Thankfully I have respawned and I am ready to fight once again. Main Quest: Fat Loss, My jerkins are too tight!! Fit into my cargo pants How? 1. Weight training at least 4x a week- Make this into a habit again. I have been going well, this is my second week. 2. Follow my macros. I am currently tracking macros and it is working very well. Macros are subject to change based on results. 3. Cardio 2x HIIT a week, walking the rest of the days of the week. I started with 5 min and am slowly adding a little more time each week. I recently hurt both of my feet, ( I don't really know how) and don't want to get injured again

I am stealing this theme from a challenge I did back in November 2013, one of my most successful. I hope it helps with my current respawn. My main quest is based on a Nerd Fitness blog post from a while back, the A Beginner's Guide to Getting Bigger Muscle and Bulking Up, specifically this part: I am currently at about 25% bodyfat, so if I get to 23% (about five pounds of fat loss) by the end of February that would be great. Fitness Goals: Goal 1: It's now or never/ I ain't gonna live forever Avoid sugar, corn syrup, grains, potatoes, and snacks. Record daily and report here. Goal 2: I just wanna live while I'm alive Body-weight strength training three times per week. Life Goal: Tomorrow's getting harder make no mistake/ Luck ain't even lucky/ Got to make your own breaks At least ten minutes every day of focused, non-distracted meditation and scripture study. Report on this thread. Good luck to you all. 'Cause it's my life!