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After planning comes... Action! Trigger warning: I post pictures of food and tempting stuff. @Naxius So yeah, I am going to start swimming this month and hopefully keep at it all summer. Since my knee is not showing any sign of getting better, I had to find and alternative to running and high impact sport, so obviously, like every recovering athlete in the making, I went for swimming. In addition, I have decided to start trying something new. NerdFitness might be a fitness-based website, but I don't think I am the only one that has found the community amazingly supporting in all areas for life. It is truly amazing to get to see the "behind-the-scenes" of people's progress, when normally you only get to hear the success stories. It really makes you realise that in the end, everyone is just doing their best to try and balance busy lives while staying healthy. Anyhow, I don't just want to level-up my fitness level, but level up all areas of my life - Emotional, Physical, Spiritual and Mental. Now as all Nerds know, it is not a good idea to try and do too many things at once, so every month I will focus mostly on one aspect, with one week . The last challenge was mostly a mental one - I focused mostly on self-discipline, study and overall setting the ground for what is coming now, which is the physical practice. Aside from the holistic approach, there is also a bit of non-formal learning theory applied here that I might get into a further post. So, what does this challenge concretely look like? Well - here it goes: Health - Physical 1) Get your cardio Go swimming 2x a week The number is dictated by my budget, unfortunately, as I have quite a few things to pay for this month. I am going back home for the holidays though so I will be able to go more often then. 2) Nourish your body I have started to suspect that one of the reasons my knee is not healing is that the time of injury (whatever it may be) also coincides with the time I decided to try and go on a diet because I had started spotting my abs. This period was, however, also combined with what I suspect is a real underestimation of my current physical activity, which lead to a cycle of binges as well as one week in between where I was constantly eating - but eating junk. Which in turn was followed by a week where I barely ate anything because I felt so sick... sooo... yeah... Because of this, I figured I should try eating instead. Eat between 1600 and 1800 calories Get at least 103g of protein 5x a week 3) Fight mindless snacking This has been a problem lately... it has always been, really, in my life. I had managed to curb it at the beginning of the year thanks to, um, having barely enough budget to eat, but it has come back with a vengeance lately. So, yeah, that needs to stop. No mindless snacking: if I want to snack, I need to take prepare the snack, like our moms and grandmothers did for us when we were children. So, let's say I feel like a slice of bread with nutella on it. This is what I would have to do: take out the bio-nutella equivalent and the orange juice and put it on the table together with cutlery, plates and glasses. Take out the bread, toast the bread, put it on a plate. Sit down, serve myself, then put everything back. I am pretty sure that should be too much effort 9/10. Once a week, fast till the 9th hour This is a fasting method I have found where you don't eat anything until 9 hours after you wake up, then break the fast with a light meal, and have a hearty meal later on for dinner. This is to teach myself to be patient with food - part of the snacking issue comes from just not being able to wait until the next meal. This should train it. This is also why I have a calorie range - I should be eating around 1650 calories a day form what I gathered, so going over on certain days will ensure I make up for the deficit I will certainly have on fasting days. So those are my health goals for the physical aspect of my life. Social - Emotional Blogging practice I really want a blog one day. Check in daily into NF Post a daily animation on my Tumblr (here, for those interested, though it's mostly a collection of mind blurbs and some of those are in French) Art - Spiritual Draw I haven't drawn anything in weeks and it's starting to get closer to months Set aside at least 1h per week to draw. Post progress picture. Learn - Mental Finish the edX Nutrition Course Nutrition and Health Part 1: Macronutrients and Overnutrition It's excellent, approaches the whole question of nutrition from a biological and medical standpoint while being very honest about the limitations of research. It anybody has the time to audit it or wish to get a certificate, they will re-run it this month. I have been on and off it for months, no thanks to the "self-paced" format. I really, really want to wrap it up over the next couple weeks and move on to Part 2. Work on the assignments of the course at least 4 hrs every week. That is it. I think you can see how this works - there is a "main area" for development, and then small goals for all the rest. They rotate. Side Quest: Monkey Level 2. I have not forgotten, no. ^^

Lifestyle goals Hide in plain sight First time back in school for a long time. In the 6 weeks of the challenge I can’t miss a day of university!A = 0 lessens missedB = 1-2 Lesson missedC = 3-4 Lesson missedF = 5+ fitness: 1 Head2toe Complete 3*72 reps of the head to toe stretch EVERY dayA = EverydayF = 1 fail 2 HandstandDaily Handstand/Headstand at least 5 holds 3 CrawlCrawl 3 times pr week . on stairs or on ground doesn't really matter. Will update this more later

So this pretty much is my first post here and not as a lurker. I need some help with some issues I've noticed that keep cropping up which is sabotaging my weight loss goals. Some background on myself: I'm 5'2'', weigh anywhere from 140-150lbs (stopped weighing myself long ago as I became too obsessed), my bodyfat was 19% but has gone up to about 21% because of having a Fleur De Lis with ab repair done 7 months ago and have just been laying around but within the last few months have I been able to slowly get back into working out. I wear a size 4-6 jeans depending on the maker. My biggest size was a 24. At my maximum weight I weighed closed to 300 and have lost 150lbs. Of course with that you get loose skin which is why I had the surgery on my tummy. It has been 4 years since starting my journey in case anyone would be interested. I still have a lot of loose skin on my inner thighs but I'm not here for that. I will say this, after being on this life changing journey I'm on, no one tells you that you may get some "mental" battles. I still see myself as that huge girl. But I have my good days and bad ones. Everyday is a work in progress. Couple issues I've been noticing is that ever since getting into a relationship 2 1/2 years ago my "perfect" diet i was able to maintain being alone in the beginning for almost 2 years has sort of clashed with my boyfriend's way of eating. He's naturally very thin, 5'11'' 155lbs, and has AMAZING food control but can eat pretty much anything and never gains weight. He can have a piece of cake sitting on his lap and somehow forget it's there. :/ It's hard to tell him no don't bring home nutella, pasta, chips, etc without feeling like I'm an ass for "controlling" what he brings into the house. I don't want to be that person. My self control with food sucks. Period. I never grew up knowing how to eat and before my lifestyle change I would eat out 2/3X a day every day or boxed meals. Never ate veggies. So you can say I don't have a healthy relationship with food. I on occasions have binged and my mindset has unhealthly gone back and forth on I should remain in "lose weight" mode and not maintain mode. I don't eat anything near what I use to and never eat at fast food places but my bf has taught me to enjoy eating out at all natural restaurants. Thank you PDX for having so many options on healthy restaurants! But where I'm getting at is that with my horrible self control I catch myself eating things I shouldn't be eating every week. It wont be everyday but overtime stuff does add up. I haven't been able to lose the stubborn fat I have because of my self control that doesn't work. I know we shouldn't be obsessed with the number of our weight but I'd love to be around 130lb. When I'm on tract I eat my protein, carbs, and healthy fats. Another habit I've recently started as in within 2 months and I'm kicking myself over this, is alcohol. I'm what someone would call a social drinker. I pretty much never drink at home and when my bf and I go out to eat, which is once a week, I have one maybe two beers. But when we go clubbing with friends or to bars with friends or boating with friends it turns into binge drinking where I drink like 4-6 shots or have a whole bunch of beer where it went from enjoying to I want to get drunk like everyone else. I need to kick this but with my self control and even low self esteem I for some reason can't. Funny thing is I hate the taste of hard liquor but love the drunk side effect.. I'm thinking of telling myself two alcohol beverages a week to start with until I can just go without having to feel like I need to "fit in" and get drunk. I'm a little socially awkward but I'm friendly. When I'm drunk I turn into super outgoing and everybody is my friend. Not sure what some peoples' thoughts on this subject would be but any advice would be helpful. Learning to love myself is a major hard one for me but I have an amazing man who tells me I'm beautiful. I am planning on seeing a therapist but any input from you group of lovely men and women will be gladly helpful. I'll add a photo of myself

ME This is my second challenge. I already started C25K the day after the last challenge ended and I'm currently on Week 2 MY MISSION Get stronger mentally, physically and be able to run for 30 minutes without stopping. (Around 5 kilometers) HOW DO I GET THERE? 1) Run 3 times a week; follow the C25K program. Repeating weeks does not deduct. (+5 STA) 2) Do some kind of strength workout 2 times per week. Any kind, any length. (+ 5 STR) 3) Meditate for at least 5 minutes every day (+5 WIS) MOTIVATION - I want to be able to run! I don't wanna be the one who's panting AND falling behind when other people run. Also I need to be able to run 3 kilometers in maximum 15 minutes by the end of the year. - I want to be strong and look good. - I want more mental energy; this makes me happy. UPDATES? I will update this thread AT LEAST 2 times per week. Spreadsheet (more or less) daily 24-06-2014 I've removed my side goal since it was threatning my challenge.