Search the Community

So I am back and doing my best to respawn since getting royally pwned by life a year and a bit ago. To account for the absence I took myself down to level 1 (and adjusted my stat points accordingly). I'm restarting in the rebels since I don't feel that I can commit to any of the specific guilds just yet. I will continue to eye up the Warrior guild however, as I felt most happy lifting heavy things and for the first time in ever I saw progress I was loving and I didn't care about the scale at all. Maybe one day I will be able to make it back to that level of commitment, but baby steps, for now. Since I left NF, my weight hasn't really changed, but my body composition sure has. I've always had a 'base layer' of extra fat on my body that puts me into the overweight BMI category. I would use that Cartman excuse "I have big bones" and that may be somewhat true, but facing facts I know I overeat and I would really like to burn off some of that fat. I've read the paleo/weight lifter opinions that you need to strength train and eat lean proteins/veggies/fruits while avoiding grains and dairy to lose the fat and I totally respect that - but the intense paleo diet is too big of a commitment for me. I keep some grains in my diet - the whole ones, while mostly omitting breads and baked goods. Regardless, my current goals are calorie in vs. calorie out in nature as well as healthy foods in. I'll work my way up to the more intense diet plans perhaps, but for now I know it's not sustainable for me and I need to aim for something more realistic. I have always had good success with meal and fitness tracking when I was very determined to lose weight, but I found it easy to ignore my apps if I was feeling guilty about not living up to my goals. The most challenging part about having to enter all of your diet and fitness into a tracking app is that sometimes it's hard to know just how many calories you burned in a day (I don't know how far I walked or what my heart rate was) and many home made foods are tough to account for in terms of calories unless you enter all the ingredients separately and weigh/measure everything. It gets tedious. I wanted to try the Fitbit Charge HR to take some of the guesswork out of the calorie burn side of the equation. I've been using it since the beginning of December and am proud to say I have been consistently logging my food intake again (though home made foods still pose a challenge). Over the last month I have learned/confirmed a few things: my new job is resulting in me being more sedentary than ever before; I do not get enough sleep; I eat or want to eat much more than I burn in a day - even if it is nutritious food. So, with all that in mind, I set for myself the following challenge: Diet Reduce coffee-with-cream drink at office to one per day, after that, consume only black coffee or herbal tea drinksMeet my Fitbit calorie intake goal 5 out of 7 days of the week (I have committed to a 500 cal/day deficit - on the other two days I will not eat more than I burn) Fitness Meet my Fitbit activity goal of 5 active days per week (go for a 30+ min walk, use stationary bike 30+ minutes, cardio or yoga, etc) Level Up Your Life Go to bed 10 minutes earlier each week While these goals don't sound tough, I have been struggling on my own with them for some time - so hopefully some accountability will push me over the wall! Happy New Year and good luck to everyone!! ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ While this is unnecessary for the challenge, I'd like to celebrate some Past Achievements (things I'm already doing that I would like to continue): Diet: Only sweeten coffee/tea with stevia instead of sugar, or do not use sweetenerEating nutritious, whole foods - organic and local as much as possibleIncreasing produce purchase from local farmer's marketMeticulous food intake entry into calorie tracker appLevel Up Your Life: Choosing a few new recipes per week from my Clean Eating and Power Foods cookbooks - trying new ways to keep my diet clean and healthyReading 1-2 books for pleasure per month (brand new library card - aw yeah!)

[NEW USER ONLINE. VITAL SIGNS WITHIN NORMAL RANGE. CONDITIONING REGIMENT INITIATED.] Welp, the holidays were a complete gong-show where I pretty much forgot all my healthy eating rules. 4 months til my annual climb up the CN Tower, so now is a good time to get back in the zone. My Rebel Challenge: Quest #1 – Substitute one sugary drink per day for herbal tea (chocolate chai or toasted walnut, yum!) Quest #2 - Take one processed snack each day and replace it with a healthy protein smoothie (can’t wait to bust out my new blender!) Quest #3 - Complete the NF bodyweight workout at least 1x a week (this is such a lowkey goal, super realistic for my lazy ass) Quest #4 – Daily 5 minute dance minute partaaaaaay (more motivation to find THE BEST deep house on YouTube) I’m printing my quests out so that I can carry them with me at all times as a physical reminder of what I’m doing. Regarding my smoothie; there’s a smoothie wave going around work that started with my team and is spreading throughout the department! I’ve been inspired by my coworkers and plan on making a smoothie that contains… Spinach leavesFrozen mango and blueberriesRipe bananas (if I’ve got them on hand)Chia seedsAlmond milkProtein powderCan’t wait to try it out! To be honest I have always sucked at being healthy/active and I am swimming through a garbage pile of self-doubt right now. Fingers crossed the sweet siren call of SWGoH doesn’t sabotage my goals entirely.