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Target: Engage others: Make 1-5 supportive and engaging fitness friends Manage calorie intake: less than 1700 Be more active Either daily to build habits OR 3-5 times a week to maximize the program. ** Though I see HUGE advantage from S.M.A.R.T ing this I am intentionally keeping it light to reduce underpants collecting and focus on doing/ reporting the battle. Narrative: I recently found out my medical insurance offer reimbursement for a gym membership and fees. Part of qualifying included a health assessment. The biggest gap it highlighted was my support network- I am here for a friend (pun/dual meaning intended) Therefore I am casting a wide net to address this. As a C/S (DISC assessment) introvert, I am looking for close inquisitive support; check-ins are a huge boost. ** I also want this whole post more fleshed out but secretly thirst to discuss and explore doing that with someone. The format of FB (specifically NFA) does not offer great support. I have tried the Accountabilibuddies forum a few times. These challenge forms have provided good support in the past with a few things I need to get over: a) I set SMART goals that are not what I really need b) Find it Difficult to stay in touch regularly (FB is good at this) *** Based on my level and objectives fit a bit better in the Rebel forums but... Ranger is more active and I feel a bit of comradery here (for target 1) Respawning. Looking to lose weight to get BP and Cholesterol in check. I have made a massive diet/lifestyle changes over the last 1.5-2 years and am eating very clean. A few years back I was turned away from donating blood because my thick arms make my vein to hard to get and last month because BP was too high. A month ago I was turned down for term life insurance (likely BMI and BP) I have never found a 'big why' that I connect with. Listing to "Level up Your Life" last week I identified that part of it is I have no interest in being adventurous etc. On a daily or weekly basis, there is not something I can't do, that i could then use as a motivator. Last week, thanks to a co-worker, I got around my excused for tracking calories. (Vs just managing portions sizes) Exercise, strength training, is a great fit for my mental health. I need professional guidance to decide it strength training is needed to help metabolism Or cardio for heart health. In the past (at college 15 years ago) I did great swimming ~30 min a day. Gym pass is not an issue (as of last week found out insurance does reimbursements) But as a dad of 3, I don't consistently get out of the house. Early summer, my work did an 'active minutes' challenge. I found that very motivating.

As a Rebel, I am breaking the rules: and posting mid-challenge. Target: Make 1-5 supportive and engaging fitness friends Keep my diet clean Either get better/more real about portions OR/by track calories Be more active Either daily to build habits OR 3-5 times a week to maximize the program. ** Though I see HUGE advantage form S.M.A.R.T ing this I am intentionally keeping it light to reduce underpants collecting and focus on doing/ reporting the battle. Narrative: I recently found out my medical insurance offer reimbursement for a gym membership and fees. part of qualifying included a health assessment. The biggest gap it highlighted was my support network- I am here for a friend (pun/dual meaning intended) Therefore I am casting a wide net to address this. As a C/S (DISC assessment) introvert, I am looking for close inquisitive support; check-ins are a huge boost. ** I also want this whole post more fleshed out but secretly thirst to discuss and explore doing that with someone. The format of FB (specifically NFA) does not offer great support. I have tried the Accountabilibuddies forum a few times. These challenge forms have provided good support in the past with a few things I need to get over: a) I set SMART goals that are not what I really need b) Find it Difficult to stay in touch regularly (FB is good at this) *** Based on my level and objectives fit a bit better in the Rebel forums but... Ranger is more active and I feel a bit of comradery here (for target 1) Respawning. Looking to lose weight to get BP and Cholesterol in check. I have made a massive diet/lifestyle changes over the last 1.5-2 years and am eating very clean. A few years back I was turned away from donating blood because my thick arms make my vein to hard to get and last month because BP was too high. A month ago I was turned down for term life insurance (likely BMI and BP) I have never found a 'big why' that I connect with. Listing to "Level up Your Life" last week I identified that part of it is I have no interest in being adventurous etc. On a daily or weekly basis, there is not something I can't do, that i could then use as a motivator. Last week, thanks to a co-worker, I got around my excused for tracking calories. (Vs just managing portions sizes) Exercise, strength training, is a great fit for my mental health. I need professional guidance to decide it strength training is needed to help metabolism Or cardio for heart health. In the past (at college 15 years ago) I did great swimming ~30 min a day. Gym pass is not an issue (as of last week found out insurance does reimbursements) But as a dad of 3, I don't consistently get out of the house. Early summer, my work did an 'active minutes' challenge. I found that very motivating.

I've been selected for the Hunger Games! I guess that's a bad thing... but maybe it'll teach me some things. My diet is my biggest barrier to progression right now, so that'll be the main focus for this challenge. The 4 Missions: Defeat Opponents - Complete 3 NFA Body Weight Level 4 workouts each week - /12 Dodge Traps - Skills training/extra activity 3x each week - /12 I might consider trying my first PvP challenge as part of this... any suggestions? Find Food - Eat at Diet Level 5 every day - /27 - Vegetables with each lunch and dinner - Keep to calorie and macro goals - White breads/pasta only once/week or less - Sweets only once/week or less -Halloween gets a free pass Outsmart the Capitol - Meaningful study daily - /28 BONUS QUEST Save Peeta - Try intermittent fasting for one week Keeping up the exercise and study, and really trying to focus on diet. I thought about doing intermittent fasting for the whole challenge, but I don't think it would work that well - I have a feeling I would eat like a maniac when not fasting, and then actually put on a bunch of weight. So I decided to give it a try as a bonus quest, just to see how it would work for me. Scoring - 90% to pass, zero week is bonus points I really need to be more consistent, especially in my diet, if I want to succeed. So as always,

I've been realizing recently that I am in need of some re-branding. I need to start seeing myself differently than I have before if I'm going to make the changes I want to see in my life. I need to really commit, and decide what is most important. And I need to have some more meaningful inspiration. I've recently found that inspiration in an assassin of old, Teancum (pronounced tee-ANG-come). He was a stalwart general, and a deadly assassin. He was fit in body, mind, and spirit. He is someone I would like to emulate. In order to re-brand myself, and have a fresh start, I decided I would like to change my display name to Teancum, but that first I have to earn it. As such that will be my reward if I can live up to the name this challenge. Teancum was strong, active, faithful, and disciplined, so I must be too. This might be particularly difficult, as I will be away on vacation for 2 weeks during this challenge, so I have built some contingency plans into each goal. I think this test of continuing even when it is difficult while I'm away is exactly what I need though. I've also had trouble in my past few challenges accurately measuring my progress, so I've instituted a scoring system with clear pass/fail marks. My challenge will be as follows: First: Never miss 2 in a row - I will never 2 bad health choices in a row (ex. missing a workout, eating junk food, etc.). If I miss a workout one day, I will do it the next day. If I have a bad meal, my next one will be healthy. I think it will be so important for me to finally get this down, so that I avoid going into my spiral of apathy and giving up that tends to happen at the end of each challenge. Scoring: missing 2 in a row even once = challenge fail With that overarching goal, I will emulate Teancum by being... Strong - NFA Body Weight level 3 work out 3x per week Contingency: Do equipment free exercises of same type (ex. push, pull, legs, core) Scoring: 3/week x 4 weeks so Score/12, 90% is pass, zero week workouts are bonus Active - Skills training 3x per week on off days (Assassin skills: balancing, climbing, parkour, crawling, hanging, etc.) Scoring: 3/week x 4 weeks, so Score/12, 90% is pass, zero week activities are bonus Faithful - Scripture study daily Scoring: 7 days x 4 weeks, so Score/28, 90% is pass, zero week sessions are bonus Disciplined - NFA modified Level 4 diet (no sugar or fast food, vegetable daily, whole grains). If I cannot meet these guidelines (ex. fail to pack my lunch) I will fast for that meal to build self control and prepare to eventually try intermittent fasting. Contingency: While traveling I will need to eat out, but I will pick healthier option from menus (ex. Substitute veggies for fries, etc.). For sugar, if I feel I really can't refuse or make a better choice in a social situation, I may have one small serving, and never 2 in a row. Scoring: pass if above guidelines followed all month (I couldn't think of a proper way to score this, so it is just do or do not do. I think I have the right contingencies in place to allow enough flexibility to do it properly) I am really looking forward to this challenge, as I know it will be difficult, but I think it will be just what I need to change my mindset and my view of myself such that I can continue to succeed in the future. Also having a reward based on something inspiring to me will help increase my motivation. I'll try to post daily to update scores and get some encouragement!

Looks like I took an unexpected trip to the spirit world again. I'm still a little bit disconnected so the fast travel seems to be switched off. I'm switching things up again for this quest. I do love switching. I will be doing a different set of quests each week. I'm not making these quests up on my own since I've had issues sticking ith self-created quests. For the first two weeks, I'll be sticking to Rising Heroes quests since I signed back up with them for a month. I thought rejoining would help me get my priorities straight since the first month I had tried it out was a huge success for me. Once the RH is done for the month I'll switch back to the academy quests and log those here. Glad you could make it. Let's see where this quest leads.

Phoenix is probably my favorite character, so Imma channel her this round. Strength 2 NFA workouts + warmup/cooldown per week. I am still level 1, but I am going to bump up the difficulty of a few of the exercises as I can for this challenge. At 2 weeks, I'm going to try to beat General DOMS again. Total 8pts Cardio/Toning 2 classes per week - preferably 1 Zumba and 1 Pound, however that will depend on babysitter availability. I love having an excuse to get out of the house and get moving doing someting *other* than go for a walk. Total 8pts PT 3 PT leg exercises per week - not on class days. The knee I injured and ultimately needed surgery is not happy with my newfound movement. I need to get back into the habit of doing my band exercises to strengthen the small muscles around my knees so I don't reinjure myself. That would be bad. Total 12pts Food I am adding a goal of 1 serving of fruit per day with a minimum of 5 per week. Total 20-28pts Random Bonuses Since the Cardio and PT aspects focus so much on my lower body, I'm going to give myself bonus points for any upper body workouts I do that aren't a part of the NFA ones. This may include a random set of doorway rows, stair push-ups, baby presses or curls, or anything else that's just a standalone arm exercise. Not more than 1pt per day None of the at-home exercises (NFA, PT) take a super long period of time, so I just need to willpower myself to take care of it when baby naps those days. Everything will be logged in my journal (new journal coming soon because I wanted to give the dot-layouts a try for ease with design and trackers and whatnot, so pictures forthcoming!)

Well, this will be a fun one. I’ve got my handy hunter’s checklist and added a few more items to it. After all there are a few items other than salt and a sawed-off shotgun needed. Exercise NFA represent! I’m still level 1 and I’m ok with that. Baby steps. Some of the exercises are easy, some I’m doing modified versions, and a few I can totally tell that I need to do more of - not because they’re hard to do, necessarily, but because it’s more that they work muscles that I have issues with due to my work of choice (damn you, computers and poor posture!). NFA Workouts, starting with lvl 1. I may level up during the challenge, but this quest item will stay for the duration Walks 5x/wk. The weather is turning from hot to cool so now all I need to do is get up off my butt, strap the baby in the stroller, and get out there. Walks should be at least 20 minutes. Front plank. This is my epic quest for this challenge. One of the exercises for my NFA L1 is to do 3 20 second front planks. Well, since I had a c-section back in March, my abs are all lolnope. My goal for this one is to reach one 30 sec. full elbow-toes front plank by the end of the challenge. I will start at 5 sec knee planks once or twice a day and slowly work my way up. Food Diet is important. I am not scaling back on anything specific because accounting for breastfeeding makes numbers awkward, but I am food-logging everything. Sugar Beast I want to defeat the Sugar Beast. Whenever I crave chocolate or candy or any other sweet crap, I will grab a bite of fruit or a glass of water. The Sugar Beast for this round is more mental recognition than numbers tracking. Here is the actual NFA quest: The quest says to defeat 5 cravings, I am going to do this for the entire challenge. My goal is to become more mindful about what I'm grabbing to eat. I have a horrible sweet tooth and love candy. I don't drink sugary soda that often, so I'm ok on that one, but the candy (and lately, chocolate) has become a mindless snack for me. How I'm going to track this is that if I walk into the kitchen to grab crap food and deliberately and mindfully decide to grab some fruit, healthy snack, or glass of water (since a lot of hunger symptoms can be hydration related), I will mark off a win for the day. If I mindlessly grab some junk food but catch myself eating it mindlessly and put it away, I will mark half a square. This is a "I did it" once during a day thing as far as the tracker is concerned, but in my daily logs, I'll make sure to note each good decision so that at the end of the week, I can see my good decisions. Water Water. Consuming you is my bane and I wish I could just drop this challenge, but I really need to keep it in mind and log how much I drink and increase my intake. Household Cleaning sucks. Luckily, for the past 6 months my husband has picked up the slack while I’ve focused on the new baby. But now that he’s old enough to entertain himself for a bit (the baby, not the husband, though I suppose the husband is also old enough to entertain himself...), I need to start stepping it up. Anything from dishes to laundry to deep cleaning a room falls into this category. As for how often I'm cleaning, my goal is one cleaning per day. I'd love it if that line of my tracker was full for the entire challenge, though being realistic, I'll be happy with 5/7 cleanings per week. Tracking Things Tracking everything in my fancy fitness zibaldone with a tracker checklist as well as daily logging. Bonus is that I get to be super creative a bunch with the journal and coloring and practicing fun ways to handletter.

I enjoy NFA but I do not use FB. During the first year we would get a "hey how ya doing" email. If we responded then there was a person that responded back and it was very much appreciated. The next contact the person would ask how whatever it was I mentioned was going. Very cool. I am into year 2 and although I did not always reply back it was nice having that little email. I did reply a couple times. After the last one I had lost track of time and was going to email back but decided to wait for the next contact which never happened. Sort of left me a little sad and realizing how much I appreciated that point of contact.

Last challenge I started with the theme of doing one challenge for each Color Kid: Here's the backstory for that. Last challenge was Red Butler, and I addressed social and relationship goals and that went about as well as most challenges, started out one way, and ended up really fucking different, but still great! This time around it's LaLa Orange LaLa is very sweet, frilly, and feminine. She can often be found primping and preening until she looks, as she puts it, "just so." She is a vivacious and energetic girl who knows exactly what she wants, and she usually gets it. Though she can be a little pushy and overbearing at times, she means well. LaLa is quite flirtatious, especially with her favorite beau, Red Butler, on whom she has a giant crush. Orange, the color of energy and zest, is hers. (see why I said I have most of her already figured out, lol!) So basically she is me (or how I see myself anyways), but a super girly beauty queen version, which I am able to do, I just don't, but I think I need to find a balance in it, just like everything else. Let's work on that, shall we? Goal 1: Develop and implement a basic daily/weekly beauty routine by week 2, and continue it for the duration of the 6 weeks (dudes like smooth legs and hair that doesn't make you look like Radagast) Goal 2: Get dressed neatly everyday (a questionably clean tank top and pajama shorts, is NOT dressed) Goal 3: Drink at least 100 oz of water a day (its good for your skin) Goal 4: Follow the NFA Dumbbell Level 1 workout (because muscles are sexy)

Mindset Measurements 1 Mar 2015 [8:45am] Height: 171 cm Weight: 62 kg Neck: 32 cm Chest: 95.5 cm Waist: 75.6 cm Hips: 94.6 cm Biceps: R27.6 cm L27.3 cm Thighs: R58.5 cm L58.5 cm Calves: R32.9 cm L32.8 cm The Big Why I don't want to look in the mirror for the next 30 years and see a forgettable human being. I want to be someone I would notice, be attracted to and admire. Every day I live pointlessly, I feel lost, anxious and miserable. I want to be comfortable in my own skin, happy with the life I'm living, and proud of the choices and progress I've made.

The WonderPhoenix has returned. YES. I was lost in the black hole of doom until I decided it was enough. (Excuses!) The bad news is now I have high bad cholesterol (250 mg) and I asked the doctor not to give me medication and he gave me 6 months to reduce the numbers. My motivations (randomly) Health: Drop my cholesterol rateBe inspiring: I want to be a better ME, healthier, persistent and fitter. I want to be inspiring to my family and my friendsSelf-appreciation: I take care of myself because I deserve it I want to be a healthier self, more energetic so I am cleaning my life from obstacles, dirt (processed carbs). I am working on building habits, train my consistency and building a fence between me and sickness. Main quest : Fit in a French size 40 (US 10, UK 12) and drop weight to 72 kg (158 lbs) Here comes the Cleaning Challenge. Challenge #3 main Goal : At the end of the challenge I want to fit perfectly in the French size 42 (US 12, UK 14) jeans I bought in October ! I want to be proud of the 180 burpees a week I have done(6/7) I won’t let processed carbs in. I will be proud of my daily morning exercise no matter what my mood was originally. Goal 1: 30 burpees a day keep the doctor away I know I am a burpee freak. I can do them in row, separately. ******Rating ****** 1 day missed per week 2 days missed 3 days missed 4 days missed 5 days missed Goal 2: Up to 4 paleo meals a day kicks the cholesterol out It’s a positive way to say no to snacking, no to processed carbs. ******Rating ****** 7 or 6 healthy days 5 healthy days 4 healthy days 3 healthy days 2 healthy days Goal 3: 30 mn of morning exercises brings the peace in I love morning workouts, so even if I will still be crossfitting 3 times a week and cardioing 2 to 3 times a week, I will exercise EVERYDAY 30 mn when I wake up. ******Rating ****** 1 day missed per week 2 days missed 3 days missed 4 days missed 5 days missed Life challenge : Productivity, efficiency and Power of FOCUS 10 pm is when Facebook is allowed in. Yeah, I am a huge procrastinor, blame it on me facebook, so for the next 6 weeks, I will not hit the facebook button until 10 pm. That’ll force me to work on more useful things (aka Job search, online training and useful books) ******Rating ****** A.After 10 pm E.Before 10 pm I’m posting my measurements tomorrow !