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So, a couple of words about my personal inspiration: I am a total fangirl for Kelly Sue DeConnick, comic book writer extraordinaire. She has a motivational text list you can subscribe to which she calls the bgsdlist, aka the Bitches Get Shit Done list. One of Kelly Sue's rallying cries is SMALL BITES. As if the wise words of Kelly Sue weren't enough, I also came across this article today. It's not actually all that different from a lot of the Nerd Fitness blog posts, but for some reason, reading this made it sink in. A problem I've had is goals being too big. I need to scale it down. SMALL BITES. So with that in mind, my goals for the current 4 week challenge are: 1. More sleep, with the following weekly goals: Week 1: Never go to bed after 1 a.m. on a weeknight. Week 2: Never go to bed after 12:50 a.m. on a weeknight. Week 3: Never go to bed after 12:40 a.m. on a weeknight. Week 4: Never go to bed after 12:30 a.m. on a weeknight. 2. Mindfulness about food. I must write down what I eat, taking notes on cravings I was having and how I felt after eating. Here are the weekly goals: Week 1: Record each meal for 4 days out of the week. Week 2: Record each meal for 5 days out of the week. Week 3: Record each meal for 6 days out of the week. Week 4: Record each meal for 7 days out of the week. Note: these are probably the biggest bites I'm taking, with the end goal of recording meals daily. But honestly, this habit is much easier to maintain once it's daily. It is a lot easier to do it every single day than it is to do it only some of the time. 3. Exercise. I must move some each day. Here are weekly goals: Week 1: 15 minutes of exercise daily. Week 2: 16.5 minutes of exercise daily. Week 3: 18 minutes of exercise daily. Week 4: 20 minutes of exercise daily. Note: The exercise can be basically anything - bodyweight, going for a walk, going to the gym, anything. I don't want to be able to give myself excuses not to do it. My life goal is to design and make a bag for my mom. I'm a leather worker, and I want to make a bag for her birthday. I'll be trying a new design on the construction of hers, so that will definitely be a learning experience. I'll work out what points go where at the end of the challenge. I tend to change my mind about what each goal is doing for me during the course of the challenge, so I figure it's better that way.

Last challenge was in fact a mid-year crisis; I bombed on all goals and bailed out of the entire thing a week early. No XP for me. I’ve spent the last two weeks reflecting on what’s been going wrong with my goals lately and trying to plan ways to improve and get things back on track. I have been using the workout plans that Steve has been selling on Nerd Fitness and Nerd Fitness Academy – and they’ve been really great at getting me started. But I keep hurting myself – nothing major, but I keep tweaking things just enough that I find myself back in the starting block more often than I make steady progress. So, I bought and read Lou Schuler’s The New Rules of Lifting for Life and The New Rules of Lifting for Women to learn more about 45-year-old women lifting and progressing safely. I also bought a set of super bands to help with pull-up training and as a way of building in some variety in the workouts in the future. Nothing says “commitment†like spending money, eh? I have been working on 4 major goals for the year: fitness, mental training (meditation and idea generation), completing a quilt, and non-fiction reading. This challenge, I’m abandoning all the other goals, and will be focused entirely on fitness. This doesn’t mean that I’m entirely abandoning those other goals, but I won’t be giving them the same emphasis as fitness will have these next few weeks. THE BIG GOAL: MAKE FITNESS A HABIT Mini Goal #1: Complete a weight workout 3 times a week. I’m using the beginner’s workout plan from The New Rules of Fitness for Life for the first 4 weeks of this challenge. We’ll see where I am then before deciding on the plan for the last 2 weeks. Grading: 18 possible points. A=16-18 points (+2STR, +2DEX), B = 13-15 points (+1STR, +2DEX), C= 10-12 points (+1STR, +1DEX), D = 8-10 points (+1STR) Mini Goal #2: Defeat the Lazies. During the summer, the only reason I have to get up at 5:30 am is so I can workout before anything else. During the rest of the year, I have to get up around then in order to make sure my eldest is awake in time to get ready for school – and I have no trouble getting up then. When I don’t have to get up for anyone else, I negotiate with myself; “If I don’t work out today, I can do it tomorrow†“An extra hour of sleep would do me more good right now...†etc. And that’s got to stop. For the next 6 weeks, I’ll get up at 5:30 every day – (gulp) even on weekends. Oh, I don’t think I’m going to like this. Grading: 42 possible points - A= 37-42 days (+2WIS, +2STA); B= 31-36 days (+2WIS, +1STA); C= 25-30 days (+1WIS, +1STA); D= 19-24 days (+WIS) Mini Goal #3: Walk at least 2 miles every day. I usually park about a mile away from my office, but this summer I’ve been making excuses to park closer. No more excuses: if I park close in the morning, I have to fit in those two miles somehow, even if I have to go back to the gym and get them in on the treadmill. Grading: 42 possible points - A= 37-42 days (+2CHA, +2CON); B= 31-36 days (+2CHA, +1CON); C= 25-30 days (+1CHA, +1CON); D= 19-24 days (+CHA) That's it. This changes up the workouts a bit to better accommodate my mid-aged self, so hopefully I won't tweak anything this challenge, and gets to work on my major impediment to regularly working out: the lazies. Onward!

So this is my first challenge, and I'll appreciate input from the Rebellion. (Repost from Challenge goals thread) I'm focusing on forming new habits, in fitness and eating. I think I should start small, because it's a long journey, and I don't want to break down partway. 1. Form a solid, three workout days a week schedule. This includes doing 10 minutes of yoga 3 times a week ( 7.5 minutes for flexibility, 2.5 minutes for abs); Angry Birds workout twice a week, and going to the gym three times a week (I've been averaging twice a week, and sometimes thrice so far). I started this this week, and the schedule is as follows: - Tuesday morning - Modified Angry Birds workout - Tuesday evening - Circuit at my gym - Curves - Thursday - same as Tuesday - Saturday - Curves circuit. This might actually be [No more] 2 goals in one. 2. Eating - I've gone paleo, not full paleo, but I cut out grains, breads, sugar, and most processed foods. The processed "foods" I use are powdered chai tea, unsweetened almond milk, kefir - plain and strawberry, kettle corn[these were a pretty easy stretch, since I've decided that it's my time to lose weight], spices, etc. I'm not sure if I can list them all. Now to keep that up for the next six weeks. In order to keep up with this, and increase my veggie intake, I'm thinking of the following schedule: - Saturdays - Buy meat, veggies and fruit from farmers market & grocery store - Chop up veggies for the week, and make veggie & fruit smoothies. Not sustainable, and I'm not passionate about them, so I'm crossing those out. Going the extra mile would be marinating the relevant meats. - Sunday - Make breakfasts and lunches for the work week. I've been sorta doing this for the past few months, but just for three days because I feared getting bored with eating the same things. If I make three dishes, this may be avoided. But I'll start with two. [These are pretty sustainable, are a stretch, and I'm happy to do them since it saves me money] 3. Start and maintain a food journal. I also started this this week. 4. Life goal: Focus on enjoying the new changes in my life. Rather than wallowing in guilt for not being able to bound up the mountain, I'll revel in making progress in small steps up that mountain. I may not have studied like I want to, but I'm expending willpower saying no to foods I should not eat, and working out even when I don't want to. So I'll take +1 WIS and Fireflower now. Start studying for an exam I've been putting off. I'm not sure if this won't be too much for me, because studying takes so much time. So it's either studying, or cleaning up my apartment. I already have a plan for this, so that might be the most appropriate goal, at least until I'm settled in my new eating and working out habits. [Well I've taken care of cleaning my apartment, and lately I've been feeling like I don't have any willpower left for studying, but it's still gnawing at me. Any advice here?] If I'm understanding this correctly, we have 15 points to distribute in the attributes right? So I'll distribute mine as follows: 1. +1 STR +1 DEX +2 STA 2. +3 CON +2 STA 3. +1 CON + 2 WIS 4. +1 STR +1 WIS +1 CHA (The +1 STR is for mental strength, since half of this fight is mental after all.) All this PLUS the win from the Mini Challenge #1 - +1 WIS and one FireFlower Yippee! Since this is still undefined I don't know what I can do here.