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Have a question about nutrition? Post it here. Want to ask for some recipes? Yup, we'll have them. Want to just show off food porn? We in fact DEMAND it. And ask that you're prepared to show the recipe. Eat up, Monks!

In honor of Earth Day I'm going to: After a little reflection I realized that I've been too cute with some of my challenge goals. So, I looked over past challenges and made a list of things that worked/felt right and pushed aside the things that stressed me out or made me judge myself. None of these things are truly hard, I just need to be consistent and make a lifestyle shift. So here are my recycled goals... 5 servings of fruit and vegetables Fiber Probiotics Water/Tea 24oz Body Weight 3x a week (with cardio mixed in) Weekly Meal Planning Food Prep 2x/week Pack healthy snacks Mindful eating (going to try taking pics of meals for accountability/reminder) I will use my bullet journal to track my challenge. I actually have a chart that I made for a past challenge, but never used, so I'm going to recycle it and use it for this challenge.

I’ve debated over and over how to start this log, and, to be completely honest, I still don’t know how. Introductions have never been my specialty, but I suppose I could start by telling you a little bit about myself. I started my Nerd Fitness journey in October of 2014. I had just moved into my first apartment with my boyfriend and was ready to get myself on track. Or so I thought. I wasn’t happy with how I looked, my recent-ish weight gain, lack of strength, and incredibly sedentary lifestyle. During a google search, I came across an article of Steve’s - I don’t remember which one for the life of me. It was the name of the site that drew me in first (‘Nerd Fitness? I’m a nerd...I should do this!’), and then I wanted to absorb as much info as possible. All of it made sense to me, it was just a matter of applying it. A week later, I signed up for an Academy membership and started going through the modules located therein. Since that time I’ve had fleeting encounters with Paleo, Whole30, and various fitness plans. In early 2015, I discovered, joined, and started following the NFWA facebook page (which has since exploded to enormous proportions after the closing of the NFA forums). After some time I decided to give the forums a try (again), but waited until the latter half of summer to join a 6 week challenge. I’ve started 3, but have since withdrawn from my third. The Rangers have become my home, and I have made more friends in the last few months than I have in the last few years. I’ve been influenced, supported, and motivated by them more than anything else, for which I am thankful In here you will find: -My Crossfit journey -Workouts -Food porn -Goals -Random thoughts/life occurrences -Geekery -All the gifs -Much, much more Now,

The Holidays-encompassing challenge. The last challenge of the year. Probably the hardest challenge many of us face with lots of parties, which usually contain less-than-ideal fare. So, we're going to take a life lesson from Final Fantasy IX's Blue Mage, Quina. Quina goes around and eats EVERYTHING, just to expand her culinary palate. You challenge for this week? Find a new, healthy dish and cook it. The ultimate goal? Become comfortable with the dish and offer to bring it to a party so you know you have at least one healthy option to fall back on. If your families are anything like mine, that's potentially the only healthy dish around (seriously, two years ago my family had NO green veggies at all at Thanksgiving OR Xmas). So, find a dish, or ask for ideas. Try cooking it up, and then share the results! Happy eating!

Okay, so, I'm taking a quick break from warrior training to get cut open. So, seeing as I've already been told that post surgery I won't be allowed to workout the way that I've fallen in love with, I've decided to pop in here and see what the whole adventurer life is like. Backstory: I've always been bigger, but during University I packed on a lot of weight, and then got a job that was mostly inactive and gained more weight. Then got another job with even less activity (i.e. completely desk bound) and peaked at around 147.2kg around the age of 27. That was a few years ago now, and after yo-yo dieting for a while, I found NF back up around 142.7kg at the start of 2014. That's sort of where everything changed for me, and I've been improving gradually ever since. After my level 1 challenge I joined the assassin's primarily because I didn't have a gym membership, and was really inspired by "the world is your playground" idea. And I even stuck with it mostly. I got stronger, althought I never did manage that elusive pull-up, and remained with the assassin's guild until the end of 2014. Then, for the first challenge of this year, because I now have a gym membership, and had started the Strong Lifts program, I joined the warrior guild. And they were fantastic. Everyone there was so inspiring, and motivating, and so many of them know so much about lifting that to pretty much any question about strength training you could think of, someone there had an answer, and oftentimes, multiple people had the answer. It was great. But now, I'm staring at the start of a new challenge, and know for a fact that in a week and a half I go under the knife, and I'm not allowed to lift for 6 weeks after that. And that brings me here. I want to continue (or more accurately restart) my weightloss journey without the assistance of lifting heavy weights. The Challenge: Lose weight. It always sounds so simple, and yet it never is. Goals: 1) Stick to my eating plan and use meal prep to keep it easy. I have a very basic meal plan already put together that I'm constantly working on making more diverse. I'll try and post the food porns here, when I remember (which I'm not going to garauntee because I'm lazy). 2) Exercise as much as is medically safe and allowed by your recovery. Basically, my surgeon has told me that I will be able to do more and more towards the end of my 6 weeks of recovery, so I want to use that to incrementaly increase the intensity of what I'm doing. And I should post here what I'm doing each week for the purposes of accountability. 3) Continue on Mobility training. So it turns out, lifting weights requires a lot more flexibility than I expected. More than I have to be specific. So, for the next 6 weeks, I'm going to take the lack of DOMS as an opportunity to work on my lower body mobility each and every single day. So I have to spend 5-10 minutes each day completing a stretching routine that I already have established. This is about consistency, and accountability because I already know to do this, and every now and then I actually do it. So now I just need to make it a habit. Reward: If I can stick to this, and let myself take the time I need to in order to recover properly, I am going to splurge on myself a little, and buy a few training sessions from the strength and conditioning trainer at my gym to work on my deadlift form. Bonus Goal: Update here more than just once a week. I know once a week is technially enough, but I've been pretty slack in the past about posting updates. So, 2-3 times a week is my goal for this. And I'm not sure how I'm going to reward myself for this one, but I'll think of something (and include it in one of my many updates ). Anyway, that's it for now.

Back after a hiatus, because I remembered to put it up this time. Post your food porn, your recipes, if you want help with diet, and just general dietary accountability. People who can figure out new and tasty ways for me to deal with a chicken-and-broccoli cut diet for this challenge will recieve ONE BAJILLION MILLION Guild Leader Points*. *Not really redeemable for anything other than maybe a hug or high five.

So I was thinking about a 6 million dollar man thread title but then thought it was a little pretentious so went instead for Bob the Builder He's not as cool as the 6 million dollar man but neither am I. After the previous challenge I definitely need some fixing. I want to run and i want to run longer distances than I ever have before but I am currently at a point where I am walking without a limp for the first time in about 2 1/2 weeks so I need to start from scratch and get myself right this time. 1. Stretch and Roll When I went to the Osteopath last week she asked if I ever stretched. I laughed and said no and she said good I wanted to see if you were going to lie! She told me that I need to do a lot of foam rolling. This isn't even related to the injury I went to see her about but apparently my legs are knotted up enough that she saw great mirth in the idea that I might "keep on running." It was a pretty good reality check so I propose that I stretch/roll for 10 minutes minimum 5 days per week. I need to do some research to establish what to focus on but I was able to find stretches for the ligament in my ankle once I knew what the injury was so general running leg and back stretches should be a piece of cake to source. 2. Just add Veggies I don't hide from vegetables and have been going crazy for brussel sprouts over the past month but tonight I made a vegetarian dish that was amazing (photos to follow). It made me realise that I rely on meat far too much to flesh (snigger) out a meal. So I intend to incorporate at least 1 new vegetarian meal into our diet every week. 3. Early Riser I have challenged myself over several challenges to get to bed earlier. About the best I have done is a 50% success rate so far. I pondered how to do this in a different way and came up with the idea of getting up earlier in the morning. Then I'm not focusing on lights out to just beat the clock I am making my decision to go to bed earlier based on the fact that I am getting up earlier. So the ranking for this will be based on getting out of bed at 6:30 or earlier 5 times per week. 4. Target Weight Loss I have lost a lot of weight over the past 2 years but I have hit a plateau over the past 3 months for reasons that are more mental than physical. Mentally I am in a period of great stability so I want to take advantage of that and try to avoid a lot of emotional eating and a heavy reliance on chocolate to finish my day. By the end of the challenge I want to hit 85.0kg. I am currently around 88kg depending on which part of the week we are in and my goal is somewhere between 80kg and 83kg so this is a good stepping stone to aim for. 5. Train like an Athlete I need to create a program that goes beyond stretching and rolling. I need a focus on strength training and running. I wont allow myself to run for another 2 weeks, at least, so in the interim I want to work on strength for running. Following on from that I want to continue with strength training as well as incorporating a planned and measured schedule for running. I really want to run either the 10km or Half in the Melbourne Marathon in October but I am not sure that I will be ready in time. This task is as much mental as it is physical. I need to acquire patience and wisdom in order to get on track, stay on track and not injure myself again. I will figure out the parameters for the successful completion of this task over the next few days. 5 tasks within a challenge seems like a lot but they are all related to at least one other aspect so I definitely don't think I am spreading myself to thin. Prepare to be foodporned by what I have spent my weekend making

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.

My past two challenges have been about trying to lose weight with the end result of being happy and accepted. I have had zero success in losing weight or feeling sustained happiness even though I completed half of my goals (the eating and walking ones) per challenge. I worried and stressed myself to a point where I just give up half way through the challenge. So for this challenge, I’m changing the focus of my main quest. Also, this will be the last challenge I do as an Adventurer. I plan on finally advancing to the Assassins, which has been my goal since I first joined the rebellion. This challenge should help me focus on the fun activity I want to pursue. Main Quest To love myself for who I am and get healthy while doing it. Goal 1: Cut out processed foods. +3 CON Part of this is to steer my eating to more of a real food focused kind of diet, borderline Paleo. This is to eat more natural foods and to enjoy the food I eat. I love cooking but I tend to use the “I’m lazy†excuse quite often. Replace at least one processed food each day. This replacement may or may not stick for each day. It's more to exercise control over food choices by choosing something better over something processed or filled with sugar. Goal 2: Be more active. +3 STA Movement makes me happy and walking does make me feel better. What I’m truly striving for here is to remember that I feel better after walking, or moving in general, and that’s why I’m doing it. It’s not solely to lose weight. I’ll continue the walking at work but at home, I want to explore some of my interests in the fun exercise category. This will help me for when I join the Assassins. Goal 3: Focus on the positive things. +2 WIS & +2 CHA Spend five minutes each day to write down the positive thoughts or events each day. Like many others, I tend to say and focus on the negative things in my life. Sometimes, these are things I can’t change or have no influence on. Sometimes, these things aren't actually a negative. They should be positive ideas. Side Quest: Try a new recipe each week. +2 CON I did something similar to this in my last challenge but I did a new vegetable each week and then ran out of vegetables/ideas available to me. Then again, I didn't try to find a new vegetable the last week. Ideally, I want to try 2 breakfast, 2 dinner and 2 dessert recipes during these 6 weeks but this may not happen. The goal is 6 total new recipes. I may be leaning towards more dessert recipes than the others. Here's to an excellent new challenge! Tracker Goal 1: 6/7 6/7 7/7 7/7 6/7 7/7 | 39/42 Goal 2: 4/5 4/5 4/5 5/5 5/5 5/5 | 27/30 Goal 3: 6/7 7/7 6/7 5/7 5/7 6/7 | 35/42 Side Quest: 1/1 1/1 1/1 1/1 0/1 1/1 | 5/6