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Not quite a week behind getting my challenge up, so that's something. I'm currently focusing on cutting the weight I've gained over the past few years. My goal is to cut a pound a week until I get back to 150lb, but the timeline is flexible. I started the year at 185lb and didn't really buckle down until early Feb, but after stalling for a couple weeks I'm only down to 180lb (as of this morning). Hoping to be a little more consistent going forward, so I can hit my goal by the end of this year. For this challenge, my plan is: Stay hydrated - something I've been having trouble with as the weather starts warming up again, so I need to pay attention or my workouts are going to suffer. Limit snacking - I have a tendency to boredom eat, especially before bed. I'm trying to only snack when I'm legitimately hungry, with the ultimate goal of also making them healthy snacks. Workout habit - trying to rebuild my old habits, but since it's been a few years, I keep struggling with it. My current goal is 3x a week with no limit on what counts. This week I've done the local nature trail twice and spent a night working in the garage, and hopefully will get another home improvement workout this weekend. Costuming - our next convention will be Dragoncon end of August, so working to get costumes ready. My current focus is this guy from one of my favorite artists that we meet up with every year:

As much as I like them, the timing for challenges hasn't been working for me this past year. So for my birthday, I've decided to start a battle log instead. If you've visited any of my past challenges, don't expect much to change here. My goals are all pretty ambiguous and rarely have timelines. I'm also not expecting to be any better about updating, though I will try. So happy Human Nature Day, everyone! Here's hoping this year brings out more of the good parts.

If Life could quit throwing me curveballs, that would be great... I had been planning to use this challenge to start working towards specific goals again, but I no longer have the time or energy for that, so I'm just going for a hoping for a participation trophy now. So I'll be here, doing healthy-ish things, and hopefully remembering post about them. I'm only a week late starting the challenge, so we'll see how it goes.

I know it's been a while since I did a challenge thread, but I haven't been on hiatus exactly. I've just been lurking while distracted by life. But after a week recovering from Dragoncon, I think I'm past due to get back to the forums. This challenge is going to be very laid back as I focus on rebuilding the habits I still haven't gotten back to. Current goals: -Do a dedicated workout 3x a week. Most of these are just going to be 30min walks to minimize barriers and excuses. -Be mindful of my eating habits. No actual diet goals, just paying attention to what I put in my body and not eating just because I'm bored. -Be more active on the forums. I'd like to get back into the community here, and maybe get some mini-challenges ready, since that was always my preferred interaction. -Start costumes for Pensacon (Feb). Plan is anthro fantasy OCs, OC Mandos, and Dr Who characters.

Unless you're new to my challenges, it shouldn't be a surprise that I'm bad at them. I'm currently still working to rebuild healthy habits after failing to stay consistent last year. So I'm starting off 2022 with another reboot and try slowly incorporating healthier habits into my current lifestyle. We'll see how this goes. In the theme of slow and steady progress, I'll be taking lessons from my pet tortoise, Speedy. Eat your greens One of the easiest ways to reduce my calorie intake is to start eating more veggies. The goal for this challenge is 5 veggies a week. Remember to Move Goal is 4 "workouts" a week to start, anything from an actual workout to physically demanding housework/projects to a day of GtG counts. Sleep Not sure what my sleep cycle needs to be, but the goal is to figure something out so I can actually be rested when showing up for work in the morning. I also (hopefully) have my first convention of the year at the end of this challenge, so working to get costumes finished in time. Let's see how this goes!

Between wedding prep, conventions, and honeymoon, my hiatus went a little longer than I had planned. But with a new challenging starting, it's a good time to hop back in and see if I've gotten any worse at this "healthy living" thing. So after a couple months of eating whatever I wanted whenever I felt like it, I officially broke all previous records and weighed in at my heaviest ever (180lb). After a week of being more conscious of my decisions and skipping snacks unless I was legitimately hungry, I'm down half a pound, so I don't actually need to make major changes to cut the weight. In the spirit of Small, Sustainable Changes, my goals for this challenge are just to maintain that habit and work on finding a fun fitness activity I can do a couple times a week. I'm currently eyeing HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts), since I just got a custom practice sword as a prop for my wedding. I haven't had any luck finding greatsword tutorials though, and don't want to jump on a paid plan until I know it's something I'll stick with, so I may end up using the longsword from my Aragorn cosplay instead.

I'm really bad at challenges right now, but I'm going to keep trying until it sticks again. This time around I'm just going to accept that it isn't my current priority, so I'll be playing fast and loose with the format just to get some momentum going. My wedding is now 45 days out, scheduled for the middle of next challenge cycle. All the big stuff is done, but we're still making decorations and finalizing plans. So that's my priority right now. My current to do list: -Finish head table backdrop -Finish reception outfit (R2-D2 vest) -Finish ringbearer outfit -Receive and detail groomsman gifts (swords) -Finish (sand/polish) resin table decorations -(If time allows) add eyeballs to giant sunflowers for aisle runners -Pre-buy drinks during normal shopping runs I'm also going to be trying to get back into good eating and exercise habits, but I'll be easing into it as energy and willpower allows. I did breakdown and redownload MyFitnessPal, so I'll be making an attempt to track my calories. I'm not really following a calorie goal yet, but I know that tracking will make me cut back anyway. I'm also back in the office full-time, which means I can get paid to workout again, and with some coordination do so on my way home. That removes a couple barriers I've been struggling with while teleworking, but I still have to actually do the thing. Pictures to come as I remember.

Continuing the ongoing theme from my favorite webcomic (it ran for 20 years, the art gets better, the characters and story are good throughout) the 70 Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries. I'll be using selected Maxims to explain my goals and keep things entertaining. I don't expect to get to all of them, and may reuse some of the more applicable ones. But they all have their own wisdom. So turns out this whole "return to normal" thing everyone's trying to pull right now is Hell if you're an extreme introvert. All of my energy and willpower is getting used relearning how to deal with people on a regular basis, and I don't like it. Hopefully, some more time here will help me prioritize the things that actually help me feel better over low-energy distractions. And because it's taken me a day to get this much written, I'm going to add actual goals later. For now, I'm just going to focus on being more active on the forums.

Continuing the ongoing theme from my favorite webcomic (it ran for 20 years, the art gets better, the characters and story are good throughout) the 70 Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries. I'll be using selected Maxims to explain my goals and keep things entertaining. I don't expect to get to all of them, and may reuse some of the more applicable ones. But they all have their own wisdom. Last challenge was a bit of a kick in the teeth. I picked some seemingly reasonable goals to build on the momentum I had built since the beginning of the year and everything was looking good. Then week one, life threw a couple wrenches in the plan and my mind went "oh, you thought that was momentum? Nope, that was all willpower!" I rolled back to my previous goals, but had very little extra energy for talking about it, so my challenge thread didn't see much activity. I'm hoping I have a handle on things again, and will be taking smaller steps with my goals, mostly continuing the progress I managed towards the end of last challenge. Maxim 47: Don't Expect the Enemy to Cooperate in the Creation of Your Dream Engagement. My plan last challenge did not go well. My intentions fell apart week one and it took most of the challenge to restart where I had been prior to the change. That said, I'm still seeing progress (back up to sets of 4 pullups from the 2 I started the year with). So I'm going to stick with my "randomly do something most days" plan for now. At some point, my life should get organized enough to have a dedicated workout time, but I'm not there yet and trying to force it is a proven recipe for disaster. Maxim 50: If It Only Works in Exactly the Way the Manufacturer Intended, It Is Defective. My waist cutting goal has been another point of frustration. I didn't stick with it as well as intended at the beginning of last challenge, but I was still eating better than last year. Yet somehow I was stuck at 36-1/4in for all of last month. Then I do my weigh-in this morning and I've suddenly dropped 3/4 of an inch without changing anything. I'm still behind on my overall goal (30in waist by mid-August for my wedding), but apparently none of this can be predicted, so I'm just going to keep at it and see how things go. Maxim 24: Any Sufficiently Advanced Technology Is Indistinguishable from a Big Gun. I still have a laundry list of projects to finish, but they all got sidetracked last month when my fiancee decided to sign us up for our first vendor event with less than a month notice. The only thing on my list from last challenge I finished was her storage cabinets, then the rest of the time was spent figuring out things we could make quickly to sell during a local BBQ festival. Pictures are on our FB page, if anyone's interested. But we did that last weekend, and seemed to do pretty well (covered the event fees and paid for ~1/2 of our booth supplies [tent, tables, displays, etc]) and the next one on our radar isn't until May. So I need to get back to my own projects and get some of them done before I have to start working on fair stuff again. Top priorities are: -Finish miniature painting (circle stones and lizardman tribe) -Work on my wedding outfit (shirt and tabard are done, need to start on pants) -Figure out base for the wedding bouquets (attaching a flower holder to a sonic screwdriver) -Build a storage shelf for our fair stuff (totes, tables, tent, etc) to keep it out of the way between events -Finish installing my wire rack "weapon wall" and move all of our cosplay weapons onto it And my obligatory plug for the new Artificer's Crafthall over in the adventuring parties, where you can see updates for some of my, and others, projects.

Intro: Hazard is presently a 43 years-old, 5'9" and 219 lbs male. (That's 174 cm and 99 kg for you metric folk). Epic Quest: Conquer the muscleup on Gymnastics Rings This is how it's done, yeah? In my last NF Challenge I... Current Quests to progress me along my Epic Quest: My goals for this NF Challenge are improvement on... Basic Support Hold on Rings Full Flexhang on Rings Testing: My starting numbers are... Rings Support Hold: 25 seconds Rings Full Flexhang: 24 seconds The Goals: Any amount of improvement is acceptable. Being better next month than I am this month is success. The Strategy: I have an already well-established personalized fitness routine using an 8-day split rotation. I'm going to try training the Support Hold and the Flexhang each 1 time per my 8-day training "week". Or roughly 5 times each during this NF Challenge period.

Continuing the ongoing theme from my favorite webcomic (it ran for 20 years, the art gets better, the characters and story are good throughout) the 70 Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries. I'll be using selected Maxims to explain my goals and keep things entertaining. I don't expect to get to all of them, and may reuse some of the more applicable ones. But they all have their own wisdom. Maxim 63: The Brass knows how to do it by knowing Who can do it. I'm ready to try regular workouts again, and while I know I'll eventually want my own program, there's no reason to reinvent the wheel. So I'll be starting with a simplified version of the Start Bodyweight program just using the pushup, pullup, and squat progressions. My goal is to workout Tues/Thurs/Sun, so I can't use my Friday and Saturday gaming as an excuse. Maxim 7: If the Food is Good Enough the grunts will Stop Complaining about the incoming fire. I only got half of my waist loss goal last challenge (1/8" per week instead of 1/4"), so I'm going to try paying more attention to what and how much I'm eating. I'm still avoiding any kind of tracking or calorie counting, since those are NOT long-term solutions for my life. But I can start making better choices more in line with how I was eating before I gained all this weight. By the end of this challenge, I'd like to consistently be drinking 6-8 cups of water a day and eating some kind of veggie at least 5 days a week. Maxim 39: There is a Difference between "Spare" Parts and "Extra" Parts. Continuing my quest to actually finish some of my projects. My current priorities are: -Work on attic insulation (maybe, if I can find a weekend morning that's cool enough to be up there) -Finish the storage cabinets I started last challenge (waiting on good weather to poly them) -Finish the dragon egg box (still figuring out the lining) -Finish miniature painting (circle stones and lizardman tribe) -Work on my wedding outfit (tabard is done, shirt needs buttons, need to decide on pants) -Work on my dragonman (might switch to a tiefling?) knight armor (custom character that may become a Charizard in one rendition) and my Mad Max/Nintendo mashup Diddy Kong jetpack And my obligatory plug for the new Artificer's Crafthall over in the adventuring parties, where you can see updates for some of my, and others, projects.

I've decided to start off the new year with an ongoing theme from my favorite webcomic (it ran for 20 years, the art gets better, the characters and story are good throughout😞 the 70 Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries. I'll be using selected Maxims to explain my goals and keep things entertaining. I don't expect to get to all of them, and may reuse some of the more applicable ones. But they all have their own wisdom. Maxim 1: Pillage, then Burn. For my context, this means doing things in the right order, not getting bored or frustrated and skipping ahead. I'm back at the beginnings of habit building, so I need to stick to that. Do something that gets me moving and active at least once a day and watch my eating/snacking. Next steps will come later. Maxim 14: "Mad Science" means never stopping to ask "what's the Worst Thing that could happen?" For anyone new to my challenges, I always have a couple dozen projects in various stages of "I'll get back to it later" that I swap between as interest and energy allow. This goal is going to focus on actually finishing some of them, and cleaning up afterwards so I can get to other, more important ones. The specific Maxim is only peripherally related, so I'll probably keep the goal but change the Maxim in later challenges. My current priorities are: -Work on attic insulation while I'm on vacation next week and it's actually cool enough out to be in the attic (yay, Florida!) -Finish fixing the fiancee's treasure box that I broke a year ago -Finish my current woodworking projects (dragon egg box and ribbon/tulle racks) -Finish miniature painting (circle stones and lizardman tribe) -Work on my wedding outfit (finish the shirt and tabard, decide on pants) -Work on my dragonman knight armor (custom character that may become a Charizard in one rendition) and my Mad Max/Nintendo mashup Diddy Kong jetpack Maxim 70: Failure isn't an Option. It's Mandatory. The Option is whether or not to let Failure Be the Last Thing You Do. This is my favorite of the Maxims, for many reasons. In the current context, it's a reminder to keep working even when I make mistakes or things go wrong. So I need to quit kicking myself for falling off the fitness wagon, and focus on my current goal: getting into shape so I can be the best version of myself for my fiancee, and move comfortably in costume when conventions start up again. Well I think that does it for now. Obligatory plug for the new Artificer's Crafthall over in the adventuring parties. I'll post an update when I figure out what I'm forgetting.

I feel like 2020 was rather disorienting for everyone - like it just went and ... Yeah black eyes ... that's how 2020 felt. Wait ... not black eyes!!! uh ... oh ... Yes this will be a Supernatural themed challenge ... cause I'm rewatching the whole series ! Quest 1 - It's not the years, it's the mileage As always the main focus for me is running (comes with being a scout) Currently we are cruising at 5 and 6 miles during the church of the long run I'm looking to hit double digits on long run by the end of this challenge! Quest 2 - I'm trying to survive. Now let's be honest I'm NOT going to look like Sammie at the end of this but gotta start somewhere Now is the time to stop making excuses and getting back into body weight workouts! GOAL - 3 body weight workouts per week! Quest 3 - Bring me (no) Pie! With the shelter in place going on, the food stuffs have gotten a bit crazy - time to clean things up and stop eating so much pie Looking to limit myself to 1 sweet treat a day and up my fruit / veg intact with 3-4 snacks of them per day. Quest 4 - Learn the Lore Always keep reading! I've not found a new book yet but I'm on the hunt ... as it were. Let's see where the road leads us

Intro: Hazard is presently a 43 years-old, 5'9" and 214 lbs male. (That's 174 cm and 97 kg for you metric folk). Epic Quest: Conquer the muscleup on Gymnastics Rings Current Quests to Get Me There: My goals for this NF Challenge are improvement on... Basic Support Hold on Rings Deadhang on Rings Testing: My starting numbers are... Rings Support Hold: 3 seconds Rings Deadhang: 26 seconds The Goals: Any amount of improvement is acceptable. Being better next month than I am this month is success. That being said, I'm expecting to break 1 minute on the ring deadhangs fairly quickly and move up the skilltree to training full flexed hangs during this challenge. My basic support holds, on the other hand, are starting at a very low time and need a lot of improvement to reach 1 minute, so I'm expecting to be training basic support holds throughout this entire challenge, while hoping they reach a minute by this challenge's end. The Strategy: I have an already well-established personalized fitness routine using an 8-day split rotation. I'm going to try training the Rings Basic Support Hold and the Rings Deadhang each 2 times per my 8-day training "week". Or roughly 10 times each during this NF Challenge period.

Intro Vid:

Welcome to the last full challenge of 2019! Push play on that youtube music video, and let's get some ***hype*** up in here!!! OVER-FAT UNDER-MUSCLED RECREATIONAL BODYBUILDER & KING OF THE NOOBS 5'9" ____________ 174 cm 196 lbs __________ 89 kg Primary Stat: Endurance/Stamina/Constitution About Me My Muggle name is Chris. I'm a 42 year old full-time father happily at home taking care of my 3 year old daughter. It's the best job ever! There's no pay, but the benefit package is adorable and calls me Daddy. <3 I'm also not new to Nerd Fitness. If you're a Level 1, then I'm your Guild Leader. I've been around NF for going on 6 years now, and I've been a Guild Leader almost that entire time. I'm a resource. I'm here to help you. So make use of me. My Current Training Rotation EVERY DAY ~40 minutes Elliptical ~20 minutes Cable Rowing CHEST day incline widegrip bench press cable crossover normal bench press LEGS day squats weighted lunges calf raises BACK day widegrip lat pulldowns straight-arm pulldowns landmine rows ABS day landmine twists SHOULDERS day overhead press cable laterals cable facepulls LEGS day deadlifts romanian deadlifts calf raises ARMS day EZ curls reverse grip pushdowns DB curls cable curls Hit that Follow button for my challenge thread! And remember...

Welcome to my challenge! I'm not new to Nerd Fitness. If you're a Level 1, then I'm your Guild Leader. My challenge thread is posted in this Level 1 subforum to serve as an example of a way to format and organize a challenge, in the hopes that seeing how I do it might help give you ideas for your own. About Me My Muggle name is Chris. I'm a 41 yr old semi-retired guy happily at home being the primary caregiver for my 3 yrs old daughter. Which is the Best Job Ever! There's no pay, but the benefit package is adorable and calls me "Daddy." Most of my time each day is invested with her. As such, I've taken inspiration from Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's early morning workouts, by building the habit of waking up in the early morning (a couple of hours before my daughter normally wakes up) so that I can ensure I get my exercise done each day. My Main Quest for this challenge is to... Get my bodyweight below 180 lbs. As of the end of the the previous challenge (yesterday), I weigh roughly 188 lbs. So we're going for a drop of 8 lbs over the next 5 weeks. My Support Quests that will help me reach that goal are to... Complete daily cardio. At least 500 calories burned via cardio each day. Restrict calories. My diet will vary from day to day, but I'll be trying to eat in the vicinity of 2000 calories. Protein will stay high. Train like The Rock. Inspired by -- but not identical to -- Dwayne Johnson's typical exercise routines, I'm doing a bodypart split schedule with relatively high exercise volume. I created an 8-day rotation for myself: DAY 1: chest DAY 2: legs [quads focus] DAY 3: upperbody pull / back DAY 4: rest (cardio only) DAY 5: shoulders DAY 6: legs [hamstrings/glutes focus] DAY 7: arms & abs DAY 8: rest (cardio only) repeat Thank you for reading. I'd be delighted if you continued to visit my challenge thread, and kept me company throughout this month as I continue along my journey. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to post them. Your comments are appreciated, and your questions are welcome.

Welcome to my challenge thread. I'm not new to Nerd Fitness. If you're a Level 1, then I'm your Guild Leader. My 4-week challenge thread is posted in this Level 1 subforum as an example, in the hope that you seeing how I format and organize my challenge might help give you ideas for your own. About Me My Muggle name is Chris. I'm a 41 yr old semi-retired guy happily at home being the primary caregiver for my 3 yrs old daughter. Which is the Best. Job. Ever. The pay is non-existent, but the benefit package is fantastic and calls me "Daddy." For the first part of this year, my main fitness drive was weightloss. I dropped 19+ lbs in January's challenge. I dropped another 7+ lbs in the February-March challenge. Then illness struck during the March-April challenge. After it passed, I ended up kind of spinning my wheels. I'm not the type of person who likes getting stuck. I recognized that I simply didn't feel like being hungry anymore at that time. So dieting down was out the window for a month. Instead, I shifted gears and spent the previous challenge month learning to eat and train like The Rock! It was fun. It was enlightening. Then I vacationed in Florida for a week and put on 7 lbs of fat. I'm mentally ready to do a cut again, so I'm shifting gears back to doing that. I have a longterm goal of significantly trimming down this year, and the first couple of weeks of this challenge will be dedicated to making strong progress toward that longterm goal. My Main Quest for this challenge is to... Get my bodyweight below 185 lbs. My weight as of this morning was 197.2 lbs. I don't like dieting for long periods. It makes me feel blah. I'm very good at losing weight quickly. Get in, cut hard, get out. My intention this challenge is to get below 185 as fast as reasonably possible. Ideally in 2 weeks of cutting, but, realistically, it'll probably be more like 3-and-a-half weeks. Then I'll bring my calories back up to maintenance level, or maybe just a little above maintenance, and chill there for the rest of the challenge so my hormones can stabilize before cutting again. My Support Quests for this challenge are to... Complete daily cardio. At least 500 calories burned via cardio each day. Restrict calories. My diet will probably vary from day to day, but I'll be trying to eat somewhere in the vicinity of 2000 calorie intake by restricting my fats and carbs. Protein will stay high. Train like The Rock. Following on the heels of my previous Challenge, I'll be sticking with a high volume bodypart split. This is still very much an experiment for me, so I may make changes to it on-the-fly over the next few weeks. But for now my plan is to do an 8 day rotation: DAY 1: upperbody push (chest focus) DAY 2: legs DAY 3: upperbody pull DAY 4: rest (cardio only) DAY 5: upperbody push (shoulders focus) DAY 6: legs DAY 7: arms & abs DAY 8: rest (cardio only) repeat Thank you for reading. I'd be delighted if you continued to visit my challenge thread, and kept me company throughout this month as I continue along my journey. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to post them. Your comments are appreciated, and your questions are welcome.

Welcome to my challenge thread. I'm not new to Nerd Fitness. If you're a Level 1, then I'm your Guild Leader. My 4-week challenge thread is posted in this Level 1 subforum as an example, in the hope that you seeing how I format and organize my challenge might help give you ideas for your own. About Me My Muggle name is Chris. I'm a 41 yr old semi-retired guy happily at home being the primary caregiver for my almost-3 yrs old daughter. Which is the Best. Job. Ever. The pay is non-existent, but the benefit package is fantastic and calls me "Daddy." For the past few months my main fitness drive has been weightloss. I dropped 19+ lbs in January's challenge. I dropped another 7+ lbs in the February-March challenge. Then illness struck during the March-April challenge. After it passed, I ended up kind of spinning my wheels. I'm not the type of person who likes getting stuck. I recognized that I simply don't feel like being hungry right now. So dieting down via low calories is out the window for the time being. Instead, I'm going to shift gears and spend some time eating well and working hard. My Main Quest presently is to... Eat and Train like "The Rock" My Support Quests for this challenge are to... Cardio like The Rock. 45 minutes to 1 hour a day on my treadmill and/or exercise bike. Lift like The Rock. Info for his typical workout routines is all over the internet. I'll post my daily training anyway, for public accountability, so you'll see the exercises in my daily updates. Eat like The Rock. A couple of provisos here. DJ is 6'5" and 260 lbs. I'm significantly smaller at 5'9" and under 200. I'll be eating like the Rock, but not identical to him. I'll have big meals like he does, but I won't eat after a meal until I'm hungry again. I'm not going to force-feed myself if I'm not hungry. That would just lead to me being uncomfortable and pukey. So while my meals may be big, I'll probably eat fewer meals per day than he does. I'm not setting a number on that. I'll be listening to my body. When it's hungry, I'll eat. When it isn't, I won't. Secondly, I'm not rich. I'm substituting a few things in the Rock's diet to bring the cost of his food down into my affordability range. Instead of pricey fish, I'll be relying on good ol' cheap chicken breast. And when I have steak, I'll be using cheaper cuts like Eye of Round. With regard to exercise, I don't have access to all the equipment that he has. But I want to keep the overall work volume in the gym the same as he does. So when he's got exercises that require equipment that I don't have, I'll be doing my best to sub in similar exercises. If you got this far, thank you very much for reading. I'd be delighted if you continued to visit my challenge thread, and kept me company throughout this month as I continue along my journey. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to post them. Your comments are appreciated, and your questions are welcome.

Welcome to my Challenge thread. I'm not new to NF. If you're a Level 1, then I'm your Guild Leader. My 4 Week Challenge is posted in this Level 1 subforum in the hope that you seeing how I format and organize my Challenge might help give you ideas for your own. What I hope you'll take away from reading my Challenge is how straight-forward my Main Quest is, and how my Support Quests are directly aimed at helping me make progress on my Main Quest. There's great power in simplicity. My Main Quest presently is to... Drop bodyfat. At least 1 lb per week. My Support Quests for this challenge Eat 2400 calories daily. (I'm tracking via MyFitnessPal). Burn off calories jogging for an hour, 6 days per week. Quest Note: In this challenge I'm trying to eat as many calories as I can get away with eating -- while still losing at least 1 lb per week on average. I'll be adjusting my calorie allowance every two weeks (down or up), if needed, based on my rate of weightloss. (Optional, Side Quest) As a side quest, I may start doing some strength training again. But it's optional, and not a priority. If I do it, it'll come after I get my jogging done for the day. About Me My Muggle name is Chris. I'm a 41 yr old sort-of-retired guy happily at home being the primary caregiver for my two-and-three-quarters year old daughter. Which is the Best. Job. Ever. The pay is non-existent, but the benefit package is fantastic and calls me "Daddy." Which is the most awesome word that's ever been invented, and if you disagree, then dishonor on your cow. My recent(ish) fitness journey: For eight months, I did a Walk to Mordor, walking the 1700+ miles it's estimated Frodo and Sam walked from Hobbiton to Mt. Doom. It started off slow, just a couple of miles a day, but as my feet toughened up all Hobbity-like I was able to put in more and more daily distance. That Walk to Mordor became the foundation upon which I've been building up to what I'm doing now. My daughter still slept most of the day back during my Walk to Mordor, which gave me a lot of time to walk. But as she's gotten older, she sleeps less during the day. When she's awake, my focus is on her. Which means as she's gotten older, I've had less and less time for exercising. In order to keep getting those wonderful calorie-burning miles done with less time, I've had to do them faster. To do that, I had to start doing some jogging, and so I transitioned from doing only walking to doing jog/walk intervals. I use an iPad to watch videos while on my treadmill, which keeps me from getting bored. For the last couple of months, I've also entertained myself by doing curls and overhead presses with dumbbells during the walk intervals. Which made me kinda feel like I'm in an action video game, doing my 'attack moves' while on the go. When I first started doing jog/walk intervals, my only intention was to get to the point where I could jog a 5k every day. But jogging was hard! I couldn't jog for very far. And when I did jog, I got out of breath quickly. Plus, it made me sore (my poor knees, ankles, and foot arches!). I kept working at it though, and got to the point where I could do a jog/walk 5k nearly every day. I would jog a little distance, then walk that same distance. Over and over until I finished. I still wanted more though. I wanted to be able to jog the full 5k distance without walking any. In fact, I wanted to be able to jog further than a 5k. I wanted a 5k distance to feel easy, so that I wouldn't have to worry about whether I could complete 5k distance, but instead I'd know I could complete the distance and could focus on getting faster at it. To make a 5k feel easy, I decided to improve my conditioning -- by pushing myself to go further with my jog/walk intervals. Even if I had to do the longer distance at a slower pace. I went from doing jogged/walked 5ks nearly every day, to challenging myself to do jogged/walked 10ks nearly every day. And that quickly turned into me pushing myself even harder, so that I was doing 10 miles (16k) nearly every day. Then, at the beginning of last challenge, I thought to myself... if I'm doing 10 miles regularly, well, that's ooonly 3-ish miles away from a half-Marathon. Could I.... possibly.... maybe...... do half-Marathons every day?!? The thought excited me! And scared me. I had this thought rolling around in my head for several days. Did I really want to try it? I wasn't sure that I could pull it off. 13.1 miles (21.1 km) seemed like such a long distance. People spend time training just to do a half-Marathon once, and here I was thinking about trying to do it every, single, day? That's insane!! So, of course, I did it. Because that's how I roll. *thuglife*. During last challenge, I completed 25 half-Marathons. Not only that, but on one of those days, without taking a single walking step, I actually jogged a complete half-Marathon! Something I've never done before in my life. Achievement Unlocked! But. But, but, but. Doing that much distance takes me a lot of time. I'm slow at it. I was having to wake up very, very early in the morning in order to get all those miles done before my daughter woke up. I was persistently sleep-deprived during last challenge, living off only 5-6 hours of sleep most nights. That was fine for a short-term challenge. But it couldn't continue. I knew I had to make some changes so that I could get better sleep. And, I remembered why I started increasing the distance in the first place. It was just to improve my conditioning. To make jogging a short distance feel easier. I had succeeded. The job I set out to do, was done. It was time to get back to the point of it all. I've had a couple of good months of weightloss. Between the 19+ lbs (8.6+ kg) I lost in January, and the 7+ lbs (3.2+ kg) I lost in February, I've had a fast start to this big "Cut". I'm actually several months ahead of where I expected to be. So it's time to chill a bit, and let my cut settle into something that will be sustainable for the months to come. That's where my Quest goals for this month's challenge come into play. If you got this far, thank you very much for reading. I'd be delighted if you continued to visit my challenge thread, and kept me company throughout this month as I continue along my journey. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to post them. Your comments are appreciated, and your questions are welcome.

Welcome to my Challenge thread. I'm not new to NF. If you're a Level 1, then I'm your Guild Leader. My 4 Week Challenge is posted in this Level 1 subforum in the hope that seeing how I format and organize my Challenge might help give you ideas for your own. What I hope you'll take away from reading my Challenge is how straight-forward my Main Quest is, and how my Support Quests are directly aimed at helping me make progress on my Main Quest. There's great power in simplicity. My Main Quest presently is to... Drop bodyfat. At least 1 lb per week. My Support Quests for this challenge Keep getting on the treadmill daily. For a minimum half-marathon (13.1 miles, 21.1 km) every day. Eat no more than 1800 calories daily. (I'm tracking via MyFitnessPal). About Me My Muggle name is Chris. I'm a 41 yr old sort-of-retired guy happily at home being the primary caregiver for my two-and-three-quarters year old daughter. Which is the Best. Job. Ever. The pay is non-existent, but the benefit package is fantastic and calls me "Daddy." Which is the most awesome word that's ever been invented, and if you disagree, then dishonor on your cow. My recent(ish) fitness journey: For eight months, I did a Walk to Mordor, walking the 1700+ miles it's estimated Frodo and Sam walked from Hobbiton to Mt. Doom. It started off slow, just a couple of miles a day, but as my feet toughened up all Hobbity-like I was able to put in more and more daily distance. That Walk to Mordor became the foundation upon which I've been building up to what I'm doing now. My daughter still slept most of the day back during my Walk to Mordor, which gave me a lot of time to walk. But as she's gotten older, she sleeps less during the day. When she's awake, my focus is on her. Which means as she's gotten older, I've had less and less time for exercising. In order to get those wonderful calorie-burning miles done with less time, I've had to do them faster. To do that, I transitioned from walking to doing jog/walk intervals. I use an iPad to watch videos while on my treadmill, which keeps me from getting bored. I also entertain myself by doing curls and overhead presses with dumbbells during the walk intervals. Which makes me kinda feel like I'm in an action video game, doing my 'attack moves' while on the go. Keeping the nerd in Nerd Fitness.  Any questions?

Welcome to my 4 Week Challenge thread. I'm not new to NF. If you're a Level 1, then I'm your Guild Leader. My 4 Week Challenge is posted in this Level 1 subforum in the hope that you seeing how I format and organize my Challenge might help give you ideas for your own. My Main Quest presently is to... Drop bodyweight. At least 1 lb per week. My Support Quests for this challenge Keep getting on the treadmill daily. 5k minimum distance. Eat no more than 1800 calories daily. (I'm tracking via MyFitnessPal). About Me My Muggle name is Chris. I'm a 41 yr old sort-of-retired guy happily at home being the primary caregiver for my daughter. Which is the Best. Job. Ever. The pay is non-existent, but the benefit package is fantastic and calls me "Daddy." Which is the most awesome word that's ever been invented, and if you disagree, then dishonor on your cow. In my recent-ish fitness history ---> from August 2017 through April 2018 I completed a Walk to Mordor. Eight straight months of daily walking, during which I covered the 1700+ miles that it's estimated Frodo and Sam walked from Hobbiton to Mt. Doom. It started off slow, but as my feet toughened up all Hobbity-like I was able to put in more and more miles per day. My daughter still slept most of the day back then, which gave me a lot of time to walk. But as she's gotten older, she sleeps less during the day. When she's awake, my focus is on her. Which means as she's gotten older, I've had less and less time for exercising. In order to get those wonderful calorie-burning miles done with less time, I've had to do them faster. To do that, I started jogging some. My time on the treadmill is split into jogging/walking intervals. I always have my ipad on the treadmill's shelf in front of me. Usually watching music videos on Youtube. The music helps keep my energy up and keep me from getting bored. I also entertain myself further during the walk intervals by doing dumbbell curls and dumbbell overhead presses. Which makes me kinda feel like I'm in an action-oriented video game, doing my 'moves' on the go. Keeping the nerd in Nerd Fitness.

Welcome to my 4 Week Challenge thread. I'm not new to NF. If you're a Level 1, then I'm your Guild Leader. My 4 Week Challenge is posted in this Level 1 forum in the hope that you seeing how I format and organize my Challenge might help give you ideas for your own. My Main Quest presently is to... Re-establish consistency in my exercise and diet lifestyle. The Reason: I got sick. I needed to sleep longer and eat differently so my body could effectively fight the illness and recover. I did so. But then I kept on sleeping longer and eating in a way that's detrimental to my lifestyle goals and longer-term goals even after the illness passed. Booo. Naughty Hazard. I'm fixing that now. My Support Quests for this challenge Keep my alarm turned on for mornings, get my butt out of bed when it goes off, and get on the treadmill. I can take a day off each week if I want to. I don't have to. But I can, if I want. Cover 5 km (3.1 miles) per day on the treadmill. Minimum. This minimum is to ensure I don't let myself get on the treadmill for like - a lap - and then hop off again. My "Level" has advanced beyond that. At my present Level, doing less than 5k a day is just me being lazy. Plus, the treadmill is my primary method of burning extra calories. More distance is better. So while my quest minimum is 5k a day, I'll actually be aiming for 10k (6.2 miles) a day. Stick to my diet lifestyle plan: 4-6 oz of meat at every meal. serving of fibrous veggie at every meal 100-150 calories of mostly carby food allowed at each meal. If I still want it after eating the meat and veggie. About Me My Muggle name is Chris. I'm a 41 yr old sort-of-retired guy happily at home being the primary caregiver for my daughter. Which is the Best. Job. Ever. The pay is non-existent, but the benefit package is fantastic and calls me "Daddy." Which I firmly believe is the most awesome word that's ever been invented, and if you disagree, then dishonor on your cow. Anyway, for my recent-ish fitness history ----> from August 2017 through April 2018 I completed a Walk to Mordor. Which involved 8 straight months of daily walking, during which I covered the 1700+ miles that it's estimated Frodo and Sam walked from Hobbiton to Mt. Doom. It started off slow, but as my feet toughened up all Hobbity-like I was able to put in more and more miles per day. By the end of the journey, I was averaging 7 miles of walking per day. And by the end, I had dropped 20 lbs and several inches off my waist. By then my daughter was transitioning from Infant to Toddler, and so sleeping less and less during the day. Thus needing more of my time/attention, which I happily wanted to give to her. So while I wanted to keep putting in the calorie-burning miles from day to day, I decided I needed to get those miles done somewhat faster, to free up more of my time. Which meant I needed to be jogging, not just walking. That's the simplified origin of my treadmill quests. There's a lot more to my fitness history than this. But this is enough for a short intro. If you stick around Nerd Fitness, you can get to know me more over time.

Hi! Hello! How's it going?! I haven't been around much lately but here I am, back and ready to kick back...side. Not kick back. That's relaxing. Hard work, Wobbe. Focus. It's been a while since I did a challenge, and even longer since I did a serious one with real goals, but I'm kind of in the perfect place to start one right now so let's go for it! I will conveniently overlook the fact that my life will not be quite so NF accommodating later in the challenge for now. Here's a not-so-quick overview of my life as it currently relates to my health goals for those who are interested. On to the good stuff! CHALLENGE CRITERIA: Nutrition - Meal Planning That means figure out what meals I'm going to be responsible for in the upcoming week and plan out what to eat. Leave room for inevitable gift vegetables. This also ties into budget, because I basically only spend money on food and I currently spend too much on vegetables I forget to eat and take-out when I don't want to cook. So. Meal planning. Plan weekly meals IN WRITING 1x/week Source ingredients 1-2x/week Exercise - Flexibility and Strength Morning wrist strengthening and apartment crawl 5x/week Evening bodyweight OR walk AND stretch 5x/week Lifestyle - Reduce Waste Time "Waste time" is time that is spent doing things that don't help me. Sleep is not waste time. Unwinding after work in front of the TV is not waste time (but watching an extra episode on Netflix because "eh, I guess it started already, so I might as well" is). Scrolling through Facebook in the morning when there are no new stories because everyone I know is asleep and I really need to be getting ready for my day is waste time. Stop doing that. Lately when I feel like I have "nothing to do" usually the issue is just that I don't remember all of the amazing things I could be doing, and I end up wasting my time. So! No Internet before work (5x/week) Make a list of Things You Can Do in Your Free Time and post it somewhere visible (1x/challenge, update as needed)

Hello Rebels! I'm back(? never left) and ready to go after a new challenge! Who's with me?! A quick bio for those of you who don't know me: Now on to the fun part! My goals this challenge period. I have some. Eating: In addition to last challenge's continuing goals of visiting the grocery store once per week and making 4/5 weekday breakfasts for myself, this period I'm doing a kind of weird flax challenge. One tbsp freshly ground flaxseed 4/5 weekdays. Let's just see how it goes. Eating2: Second goal is "do not buy food I know is crap." I can still eat it if someone gives it to me, but I can't bring more into my life on purpose. Yoga: I am still working on my C25K program, but I am adding a yoga practice because I am stiiiiiiff and it's terrible. So: on C25K mornings, do AT LEAST ONE Sun Salutation. On other mornings, as lengthy a yoga program as desired of no shorter than 10 minutes. Goal is six days a week, but seven is of course preferable. I also have an hourly alarm set reminding me to get up and either stretch or walk around for five minutes. FSF: Finish Shit February is a LUYL challenge designed to incentivize finishing ongoing projects in the month of February. I am not aiming to finish something every day because that would be ridiculous, but here is an incomplete list of some of the projects I am working on this month: Paint By Numbers Rebel Minis -- prepare at least three Nonfiction -- I have a one book per month goal this year AMTRAK Trip (plan it, don't actually go) Fanfiction -- I have a couple ongoing projects but there's one in particular I really want to finish That should be enough to keep me busy. Here we go!