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I would say "I'm late posting this thread", but... Even magic space wizards. That said, I'm long overdue to come back home to the NF boards and let this place be the healthy, supportive part of my overall health - physical and emotional - that it was for over five years between 2013 and 2018. 2020 was at least as much a dumpster fire for me as it was for so many others. I have a ton of respect for people who were able to roll with the changes, be productive, and stay healthy over the past year. I'm not one of those people. As of today, I weigh 216 pounds. This is the heaviest I have been since 2013, when I changed my lifestyle (at 45 years old and around 238lbs, down from my 2011 high of 260). I was active, I kept to a schedule, and I had a lifestyle eating change. It was NOT a diet. I got my weight down to 193 by June of 2013, and stayed at or around that weight for five years while becoming the best version of myself. Over the past three years, I've had a couple significant issues come up that have changed my life, permanently. The most significant was the passing of my ex-wife in 2019, which led to my teenagers moving in with me full-time. I've also been dealing with arthritis. Combine those things with a global pandemic and social uprisings against a systemically racist and corrupt police state, and my anxiety levels spiked to occasionally un-manageable levels on a regular basis over the last year. I know how I got here. I also know what I need to do to get back where I belong, which is active and healthy. Goal: Re-establish Healthy Active Habits As recently as last year, pre-pandemic, I was working out at my gym a minimum of three times per week. Prior to that I would also run three to four times per week. I had changed my life from couch-bound in 2012 to perpetual motion when I was not at work. That's not my life now. Now, I work from home and the lack of disconnect has left me sedentary and unhealthy. I'm going to do something, every day. Walk, run, work out, doesn't matter. Do something every day. Log it and report it here. Every day. Goal: Re-establish Healthy Eating Habits For five years, I tracked my nutrition almost daily, and managed to maintain my weight while increasing strength, endurance, and without it affecting my mental health. I learned to track macros and identify good food choices. I need to lose weight - a lot of weight, honestly - but I'm not going to over-correct and try to lose two years of weight gain in just a few weeks. I'm going to set a reasonable goal for calories and macros and track - and report - my nutrition every day. I still won't call it a diet, because I hate that word and its connotations. This will probably be the easiest habit to re-establish. Goal: Re-establish Healthy Emotional Habits After my divorce in 2010 I spent a LOT of time in therapy. This dovetailed with my physical health changes. I established a lot of healthy emotional habits, which helped me cope with the daily stress of life which included an IT job, a volunteer leadership position with my church, and my family (a fiancee, five kids - three adults in various states of independence and two teenagers, a grandson, and two ex-wives). I always have a lot on my plate and stress is constant. Running and exercise were really my outlet. But the pandemic and the resulting isolation has done a number on my emotional well-being. I've fallen out of almost every healthy self-care habit that I had. This will be my hardest habit to pick up because it's a "soft" skill and my brain works best with concrete "I did a thing" goals. I picked up Obstacle Course Racing along the way and I used to have big, main "I'm going to compete in a race" or "I'm going to complete a race" or "I'm going to qualify for" goals. I'm not sure those things are important to me anymore as my life has changed, although I would like to get back to a point where I could do these things again. I know I'm not there now. But the world is round, if I keep moving forward, I could get back there again.

So, I've returned to nerd fitness and want to get back in shape. After I left the Army in May 2013 I stopped eating right and exercising due to a lack of motivation and being poor. I'm finally in a position where I can eat healthy again and I am almost up to 200 lbs which is my motivation to start working out again. Let's begin. I'll be doing 30 minutes of yoga and strength training via my Wii U 3 days a week starting today. On off days I will play the balance games for at least fifteen minutes and I will be running with my Wii Fit Meter. I'm going to eat at least one paleo meal each day for the first week and work my way up to full paleo by week three. I will also begin saving money again each time I get a check. I don't want to set any hard number since my money isn't too stable yet, so I will set a %. 50% of any money leftover after bills will be transferred to a savings account which is kind of difficult to access. Sorry I'm late, but I really wanted to join the six week challenge again to help with my goals.

I learned a lot from my first attempted challenge: I am in WAY worse shape than I thought. And in an effort to prove how cool I was (or some other stupid self-talk) I managed to make it all worse. Knees and elbows are suffering the most. FOOD: Do not use the "D" word AT ALL. 45 years of negative conditioning have me panicking at the very thought of "dieting" Last month I ate more garbage than I've bothered with in a long time. The notion of "Paleo" had me in a frenzy. This month, the goal is to write down everything I eat. I made a little weekly chart, and this challenge, I aim only to document. I'm cutting out a lot of corn, and white bread, but I'm not going to tell myself things that trigger panicky responses... taking it mellow. EXERCISE: still not working up a sweat. afraid I'll have a heart attack and drop dead. Prolly won't, but everybody has warned me about it for so long that I have to de-program that fear. so, I keep working on range of motion, warm-up kind of stuff & body weight exercises. My right knee is an issue, also one of the reasons I'm participating in this challenge; I figure that if I strengthen the muscles around my knee, and pay better attention to how I am moving, maybe I'll stop twisting it all the time. and last, but not least, I need to COLLECT MORE UNDERPANTS. Truly, I thought that my nerd fitness collection of hard-copy-print-outs was rather immense, but I am obviously mistaken. I need more data. Now, I admit that most of this is not a S.M.A.R.T. goal. But it is a goal, and I will know if I have achieved it. The mini-challenges and Role Players give me focus on things I might not think of myself. (I did LOTS of pushups throughout my day, today.) The support groups filled with amazing people are something I have not experienced before. It's outside my comfort zone, but I kinda like it. Maybe some day I will be able to create spreadsheets and point systems to document my progress, like all the cool ones I see in other peoples' goal documents, but that's just not something I can do right now. I am an adventurer... on an adventure. I want to last another 50 years -- strong and healthy. to do that I need to eat well, keep my body strong, and get my head together. (finding a creative outlet would be nice too, but I shall save that for another time, i s'pose.) it is a process and a journey. ***

Crap! I put my goal list in the wrong thread!!!!!! Let's try this again: I'm Karen. I'm a 30 year old mom in 'rural-ish' Estonia but I'm originally from Maryland (not the bay region, more the hillbilly, moon-shiner, mountain folk region). A daycare worker by day, crime fighter by night... and the rogue tutor on the weekends. I have been toying with the ideas of fitness and eating healthy (raw, vegan, vegetarian, etc.) for years and enough is enough. MAIN QUEST: Lose Weight I hate being the stereotypical "fat American". I am also in terrible shape. Case in point: Estonia has a song festival every five years. In the month(s) leading up to it, a torch (the spirit of Estonia) much like the Olympic torch, is carried through the country and is escorted from town to town by choirs on bikes. We rode only +-25km and I didn't make it. It was embarrassing and heartbreaking. Especially since I was the ONLY one having a problem. This brings me to my 3 goals. Goal 1: Keep eating healthy with fewer cheats (but none is better) I have been doing the "raw till 4" thing for a couple weeks and I really like it. As for the cheats, I won't say 'no' to occasionally sharing a chocolate- mint iced cream sandwich with my son. (Mint + Chocolate is my kryptonite) I will NOT, however, be eating them alone. I should also stop eating at the computer. GOAL 2: Find local workout buddies I know I can't do anything on my own. Since I moved out here, I find it hard to make friends. Any friends. I don't have a single one. *sigh* (forever alone) GOAL 3: Yoga every day I was really into yoga for a while but for the life of me I can't remember why I stopped. It's nice to know I have great people here who are also going on this crazy ride. I can't wait to hear back about your progress. Let's do it !!!! For motivational purposes I will submit a "before" photo. *eek*