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Hello All! So a bit of background to start things off. I have been lifting consistently for a bit over 2 years now. Last year I trained for and competed in my first strong woman competition, and I managed to walk away with a couple first place event medals and a 2nd place overall. I loved lifting heavy but it seems to have some not so great side effects for me. Once I started with a trainer specifically for powerlifting/strongman I kind of blew up from 164 to 193 (currently around 185-188). Now my measurements weren't up as far as I worried so I know some of it was in fact muscle gain but some was straight up me eating all of the things. I've also started having some joint pain and I am not a spring chick anymore, my current trainer said it was part of being an athlete... This mindset is not something I can run with. So I have decided to try out a new coach starting in July and this is going to chronicle my new journey. I will be tracking macros, measurements, lift videos, and workout's here, and an FYI there may be progress pictures in here of me in a sports bra and full coverage underwear, short shorts or a bathing suit bottom but that is TBD after they are taken, lol.

>> Citizen Balsquith, Big Brother has been watching you for some time now << >> We know that you are trying to be a good citizen but we have noticed that you are falling behind in some areas << >> Big Brother is your friend, therefore he will be paying especial attention to you in the future << I have enjoyed failing abysmally to slay some dragons over the past couple of challenges (actually enjoying much more success than the results would suggest), but it has occurred to me that I have lost track of many things and without knowing where I stand it makes it difficult to make positive changes. Therefore, in this challenge I will be doing a lot of tracking and if that goes well and highlights anything interesting I will make some changes. The goals of this challenge are: 1. Big Brother knows that you hit the snooze button! - Get up to alarm everyday 2. Big Brother wants to see your commitment to being the best citizen possible! - Make a daily task list 3. Big Brother knows exactly what is in your stomach! - Food logging daily 4. Big Brother knows that you didn’t need to spend that! - Track expenditure daily 5. Big Brother knows why your German is not improving! - Practise German daily 6. Big brother is always watching you! - Bad habits – record when tempted

New challenge! Finally. I’ve been waiting for ... well, days, surely. I sat the last challenge out, as there was a bit too much going on in my life to keep up with the forums. I did manage to keep up with exercising and eating OK until the last week before Easter, when I went into the final stage of finishing up a big translation project. For that last week, I worked almost non-stop, ate all the sugar and quick carbs to stay awake (terrible strategy, I know), slept poorly and didn’t exercise at all. Well, I got the project done and then, predictably, kind of crashed. This is what I tend to do, after all. So here I am – a few kilos heavier than I was when last we met, back sore from too much sitting and not enough moving, skin all broke out from too much bread and chocolate and stress. To be honest, it’s been a pretty harsh reminder of what happens when I let stuff go too much. I hope I’ll be able to handle things a bit better next time, but for now I’m not going to get too worked up about it. Shit happened, and maybe it needed to, and now I go back to being nice to myself again. The overall goal at the moment is to get back to my normal, healthy habits while also pushing myself a little bit further. I have a race coming up in June that I need to prepare for, I want to lose some weight and I want to keep my body strong enough to hold up for a long time to come. The quests are a mix of tried-and-true things that have worked in the past, with some bonus stuff thrown in to make it a bit more interesting. Here we go. 1. Food: I’m going back to tracking calories and macros to get more of an overview of what I eat. I’ll also steer clear of sugar (fruit is fine) and grains. Bonus: Inspired by the mighty Marauder, I’m going to give morning fasting a try. It’s not something I am able to manage every day, but every morning when I fast until 10:30 or lunch means one bonus point. Coffee doesn’t count, in the same way that oxygen doesn’t count. 2. Running: I’ve decided to follow the BUPA 10 mile running plan for beginners. This means running three days a week. I’ve been kind of unstructured with regards to running lately, so looking forward to having a program telling me what to do. Bonus: I really don’t like working out in the morning, but some days it’s the only viable option -- and I have this persistent idea that I could *learn* to like it. So, for this challenge, I get a bonus point for every run I do before work. 3. Other work-outs: Two sessions of whatever per week. This would normally be a mix of boxing and strength training, but I’m checking out a new gym with a friend, and we’re going to do some classes together, so I’ll have to be adaptive. Bonus: ? 4. Walking: My previous challenges this year helped me get into the habit of taking the route to work that means getting a fifteen minute walk. This is probably my favorite challenge victory this year. For this challenge, I’ll extend the morning walks to weekends. On Saturdays and Sundays, I’ll also take a 20-30 minute walk before breakfast (but after coffee!). Bonus: Taking the route to work that means getting a 40 minute walk. Not always feasible, time-wise, but every time I do it, I get a bonus point. I’m not sure yet what the bonus points mean. Gold star emojis? Actual rewards? I’ll try to figure this out as we go along. For now, it’s good to be back and I’m looking forward to following everyone’s progress! Oh, and also. I really have been waiting impatiently, so I kind of started yesterday. Week 0 is go.

Oh hey, it's been exactly 1 year since I tried a challenge (and failed to complete that challenge). But, four weeks seems far more manageable, and fits beautifully into my schedule, so let's give this another go. 2015 was a hectic year - I started grad school, which has been amazing. This meant I had to leave my Muay Thai gym I was training at due to both money and time reasons (I'm still in the same city, but my school schedule conflicted with the classes there). Fortunately I found people in my grad program who used to train BJJ and Muay Thai, and so was able to get in a few workout sessions with them last semester. I also now have access to the school gym for weightlifting. Neither better nor worse then, just different. However, January is a term break so my training group isn't around, and there's no classes so I'm not going to campus very often. I risk spending this break just eating leftover Christmas cookies and watching Netflix; trying to use this challenge to do a little bit more than just that! Overarching Goal: Use January to build basic habits to carry me through the rest of the year, and keep in decent enough shape to train with my ad hoc martial arts group in the spring semester. GOALS 1. Daily Stretching. Do each of these three stretches for at least five breaths, at least once per day: Hamstring stretch (forward fold)Hip flexor stretch (kneeling hip flexor stretch)Calf stretch (lunge against wall)This is one I'd like to build on in future challenges, and by the end of the year be stretching more of me, 3x/day. But, starting small and manageable. Total possible: 26 Grading will be a straight percentage of days achieved it. 2. Bodyweight Exercises. 3x/week on M/W/F. Choosing those specific days since those are the days I'll be able to work out next semester, so I want to get into the habit of exercising those days now to make it easier to keep going once classes start again. Just doing bodyweight squats, knee pushups, and planks to keep it simple and something I can do at home if I don't go to the campus gym. Squats: ladder sets from 15 down to 5 (15 reps, 14 reps, 13 reps, etc - aiming to increase starting reps by 1 each week so by end of challenge doing 19-18-17 down to 9)Knee Pushups: ladder sets from 10 down to 1 (goal by end is to be doing full pushups for 5 reps through 1 rep)Planks: ladder sets from 60 seconds to 10 secondsTotal possible: 12 Grading: 80% will be number of workouts accomplished, period. 20% will be how many were on the correct days of the week (i.e. if I do 10 workouts, but only 8 were on MWF as planned, I'll give myself an 8/10 in that section of the grade). Upping squat reps and knee pushups to real pushups is a nice to have, but that's more to keep the exercises interesting and won't count for grading. 3. Food Logging. Just collecting data and trying to be more mindful of what I'm eating to start the year. I'm not planning on making major diet changes right now, but want to get a baseline of what I'm eating now. Total possible: 26 Grading is a straight percentage of days achieved it. 4. Life Goal - Complete EdX Mandarin Course. I'm going to China over spring break (!!) The only New Year's resolution I made for myself was a) visit 3 countries this year, and have a conversation in the local language everywhere I go (can be very brief and very basic, but should be an actual exchange with a native speaker). So to that end, I want to finish all six lessons of this course (https://courses.edx.org/courses/course-v1:MandarinX+MX101x+3T2015/info) in this challenge to get the basics down. Total possible: 6 lessons Grading is a straight percentage of how many lessons I complete within the challenge. Let's see how this goes!

I don't often woot myself, especially in such a public way, but I thought I'd make an exception today. Today is my 365th day in a row of logging my food and exercise! What do I have to show for a full year of food and exercise tracking? The most obvious is that I'm down 60 lbs, about 50% of my total weight loss goal. This is a huge deal for me, something I never thought I'd see a year ago. Also I have some new habits: I log my food every dayI eat breakfast every dayI eat healthier overallAre things perfect now? No, I still have a considerable ways to go, but I'm really proud of how far I've come. In a real way, having traveled this distance makes it easier to keep going, because I already know I can succeed. Just sharing, thanks for reading!

Well, here I am again. A little blurb for those who don't know me: I'm a stay-at-home-mom who really needs to lose some weight. I think this will be my 4th challenge, but I've rarely finished for various reasons. Last challenge I stayed out, opting to do a Battle Log instead, but I didn't even stick with that. But I really need to change. I need to lose this weight, not only to feel better, but so I can be there for my little girl. I want to be able to keep up with her never-ending energy. While listening to Pandora, this song came on, and it was part of the reason that inspired me to do a challenge this time around (as well as some pushing from Teros. )I've heard it before, but this time, it resonated with me for different reasons than it has before. Lately, I've been struggling with depression a lot. I've had to force myself to get out of bed, and even then, I normally stayed on or near the couch. A couple of weeks ago, I actually got to the point of suicidal thoughts and almost reverted back to cutting. I'm still struggling, but I can see the light outside of the cave. So, I'm going to attempt to keep things simple this challenge to help me get back up on my feet. I'll be focusing on creating habits that I can stick with and that will help me achieve my weight loss goal. My Main Goal is to get down to 130 pounds, which is about 80 or so pounds. Of course I'm not going to lose all that in one challenge period, but at least I can get a start. To achieve this goal I need to: Log all the foodz! Normally when I log food, I just get "close enough" or I give up halfway through the day because I decided to scarf down an entired frozen pizza or something. Not any more. I need to get back into the habit of food logging and log everything.Exercise. Last November I joined a gym and I haven't been very consistant about going. I enjoy being there, but getting there is the battle. So, I need to get to the gym at least 3 days a week, though I'm going to try and start going 5, but only 3 are neccesary to pass. I'm also going to start measuring how much I walk in a day, as on another forum we're starting the Walk to Mordor challenge.No Soda. My husband has to have soda in the house, so it's a huge temptation. I have gotten better about drinking more water, but I really need to cut this sugar demon out. My goal is to have 3 or less sodas the entire challenge.I do have a Life Goal of becoming a better housewife. I really suck at doing chores and the like. There's some sort of mental block going on there that I'm struggling to get over. I have a few simple steps that I can take to start going in the right direction. Get some clothes on. One bad habit of being a SAHM is not getting dressed some days. It's way too easy to just stay in your PJs when you don't have anywhere to go. So, I need to start getting me and my DD dressed when we get up. Simple chores done every day husband works. I recently read somewhere about a mindset that another SAHM started to take, and that was "If my husband is working, than I need to be working". That doesn't mean that you need to thoroughly clean the house everyday, but I need to be spending less time on the computer and other things that aren't completely productive. Here are some simple things that I need to get done every day DH is at work:Wash dishesHave DD pick up toys at end of the dayClean up after cookingMake sure most (if not all) my stuff is picked up​I'm still working on a grading scale for everything. As for the point system, I'm going to take a page out of our guild leader's book and just divvy them out as I think I earned at the end of the challenge. Will be less stressful at the start, and at the end I can accurately gauge which stats went up. Come Monday, I'll post my starting stats and all that jazz. Just gotta survive the weekend first.

I am in need of some desperate help to be held accountable. I need to make these changes stick this year. So here is what I have come up with for a challenge: 1) Get your butt moving This means that everyday I will will get up and move continuously for a minimum of 30 minutes. It can be mall walking, walking outside, doing some sort of beginning running program or walking in place. I need to break out in a sweat, no matter the activity. 2) Get your body stronger This means that three times per week I will be doing some bodyweight exercises. I will follow the beginner body weight workout, minus the walking lunges (I HATE lunges). I will start out with only doing one circuit per day workout and add as I go am successful from there, but by the end of the 6 weeks, I want to be able to do 3 circuits three times per week. 3) Get your stuff logged Since I am on a weight loss pill, I need to make sure that I am logging all of my food, which I am pretty good at, but I haven't been logging everything that I am drinking. Nor have I been getting enought plain water in, so I am going to make sure I focus on that again. I hate logging but I have seen that when I don't, I make poor choices and eat way to much, so I have to make sure I am doing it. 4) Get your veggies and fruits in I need to work on increasing this per doctor. So, I am going to work on adding 1 serving of fruit or veggies per day. I am not sure if I want to have it be pass/fail or if there will actually be grading involved. I will post about that later. But there it is - my plan for the next 6 weeks. If you read this and don't see me post daily on all 4 of these goals, please harass me. Send me a msg, post on the thread, post on my battle log(where all of this is posted also), come to chat and bug me, email me(if you have my email), call/text me(if you have my phone number), just do something to force me to be honest about what I am doing and helping to hold me accountable. Also, if you have any other suggestions as to how to help me stay accountable, it would be greatly appreciated.

Serenity's Galley Pull up a worn-in chair around the dinner table and tell us your stories and give us your food porn! Any recipes, or help with diet can go here, as well! And in general just another place to lounge about with one another.