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Ms. Moro's favorite show is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. So, it seems fitting that I do: I am basically keeping the goals I had made last challenge: Goals for this challenge - Wear my CPAP mask for at least 30 minutes a night - Get eight hours of sleep - Do the Ranger Workout six days a week - Meditate every day - Post to NF every day - Yoga 3 times a week - Get more than 232 points this time. Some day, I hope to be this cool: Avoid the "Bunnies": Things will be really unsettled - it's not clear if my son is getting married or not, due to visa difficulties. Also, my semester will start. I will not let the bunnies get to me: Details below:

Tiki Death flu is no fun: But I will try again. I managed to do NF Water A this evening, and will keep re-building... Irrelevant trivia: I had a Six-million dollar lunch box as a kid. As soon as possible, I lost it so I could get a Star Wars lunchbox... Details of challenge below:

Hello Everybody - Back for another challenge. I chose to step out last challenge because of the big project I had at work. To make a long story short - I had to do in 11 days a project that took me six weeks last time. I got it done, but it wasn't pretty. I also spent the next few weeks recovery. I did some yoga, and some walking but that's about it. So, this challenge is about rebuilding the good habits I had going before the project. Details are below the fold:

Jon Firestar, Superhero Part 1: Secret Origins I’ve said previously that the uber state is to look and perform like a superhero. Well unless you happen to be born Superman the only way to reach that state is through hard work and discipline! Every superhero has a their secret origin story. The tale of how they became so awesome. This is the start of my own road to awesomeness Discipline I need to continue to lose weight, and change my body composition. I need to keep giving my body the things it needs during this time so that I can maintain the physical stresses I am asking myself to endure. Food Plan and log: Continue to use MFP to plan and log all food every day. Stick to my calorie and macro targets. Water: At least 2 liters of water per day Time to contemplate and relax 5 minutes of contemplation per day. Super Strength I am not Superman but I am strong and I can be much stronger! My current program has me hitting the gym Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The days rotate through the four main lifts, Bench, Deadlift, Squat and OHP, so all four takes more than a single week. The challenge is to hit the gym at 6:30 am before work three days per week for the 5 weeks. Super Speed I am driven to run! I really want to do OCRs and one of the things these involve is a lot of running. For the first time in my life I’ve started to enjoy running. I want to pick up speed and I want to run further. My program has me running 3 days per week with an easy day on Tuesday, a tempo/speed run Thursday and a long run on Saturday. These need to be done at 6am before I leave for work. I can wait for daylight on Saturday . The program is built around slowly and steadily building my milage. I’ve signed up to a little 5k run at the end of February. Not a race, just a run I’m hoping to hit my sub 30 min 5k on that run although I’ll know closer to the time if I’m ready for that. It’ll be a bit of a practice for my first OCR a couple of weeks later Tech Genius Some hero's aren't born with power and must use technology to enhance their natural gifts! I work in IT as an infrastructure and network engineer, senior support dude, occasional devops and general point of call for confused support desk guys, oh and somehow, some when deputy manager (wtf). I’m very good at my job although I am a bit of a generalist (RangerBrain!). I could be better. I work in an industry with an infinite level of depth and I’ve managed to find a niche that I really enjoy and would like to focus on advancing my knowledge in that direction. I have my network exam coming up in February. The exam is not very high level and it’s not the course I want to do. I want to do the next one but I can only get the next cert if I have this one. I already know 90% of the stuff I’m studying and while I do think it's good to know the basics and to study and brush up on the basics it is a little boring. I need to buckle down some more and commit to 20 minutes of reading a day or one instructional video plus 30-60 minutes on the weekend to do some labs. On Saturday I can play video games only after study Sunday is my day off. Secret Lair Every superhero needs their secret lair. I call mine ‘my house’! Domestic rangering at it’s finest! One of my more nebulous goals for 2017 is to be more time efficient. This means keeping on top of the domestic rangering so that it doesn’t overwhelm. Therefore, the todo list makes a trumphant return! Fill Dishwasher, remember to hit play. You do need to empty it before filling, daily Make Bed, daily, change bedding on the weekend Clean Kitchen, 4x times per week after big cooking day. Mop Floors, 1x time per week. Clean Bathroom, 1x time per week Clean Living Room, 1x time per week Clean one other room, 2x times per week. Do Laundry: 3x times per week, wash fold put away. If it ain’t in the closet it doesn’t count. Prep Lunch: 1x time per week Prep Breakfast: 1x time per week Even Batman Needs Sleep Because it is still broken, I’m still working on my sleep goal. I want to work up to going to bed at 9pm but for now I’m going to settle with getting into bed before 10 for at least 7 hours sleep. Will be graded on in bed and lights out rather than quality of sleep because I suck at sleep.

Hello Everyone - it's my 11th challenge: Last challenge was an improvement in terms of doing, but I was pretty lousy about posting. I'd like to both this time. The challenge itself is similar, but I'm adding Bodyweight exercises back in. It seems to work better if I organize my stuff by time of day: I'm also going to make this challenge more fun, but I have a few days to organize my fun

(No, it's not a typo). Cool/Funny Pictures will be added for everyone's amusement later. So, I am doing a bit of a respawn - I've been exercising, and working on my food plan with my NF assassin wife, but not been able to put a good challenge together. That's going to change. One of my major obstacles is my feet - I have a lot of pain. I do have Plantar Fasciitis, and I wear good orthotics for that, but I also have had a lot of pain while teaching and standing on my metatarsals. This makes it really hard to exercise, due to pain. Now, with the summer here for me, I can work on that part, and be in better shape for the fall. The first week of this challenge, I will be at a conference, with some vacation time at the end. So, although I plan to do most of what is planned here in that week, I'm not going to be upset if I don't do it all. I also joined a walking group at my work (and got a free Fitbit, yay.) The goal here is to get 10,000 steps daily, which I have yet to achieve. Still, toughening up my feet would probably help a lot. My challenge is made up of the following parts. Morning Start (6 x weekly): 21 minutes of walking (+1 minute for each week of the challenge). NF-Cool Down Stretches Morning Meditation High Protein Breakfast - goal here is 40g Core Workouts (3x weekly): In the morning of MWF, do my core workouts, starting back at the lowest level. Lunchtime Re-Boot (6x weekly): Read NF Forums for at least 10 minutes. Try to post supportive things to my fellow rangers. Take a short walk after lunch Evening Foot Stretches (6x weekly): Alternate between Kate Galliet's foot stretches and physical therapy stretches Food Plans Continue doing NF Level 4 food plan that my wife and I have gotten going Allow only two variances a week - one meal with my wife, and one meal with my friends - period. 6. Bonus Activities (3x weekly): There's a lot of things I would like to add back into my routine, but I'm not there yet. So, the idea is to add them back in as "Bonus Activities". These include: Swimming laps at my gym - something I really enjoy, and is easy on my feet "Adulting 101" - the name my wife and I have given back to basic chores. With her work schedule (4 jobs), and my crazy schedule up to now, a lot of basic things have slipped. De-cluttering our apartment, and selling stuff at a garage sale Learning more about foot pain - trying to look for better solutions Doing much neglected doctor's appointments Doing the NF Flexibility test Doing some NF Yoga Doing enough walking to get up to the 10,000 steps. There are some cool parks around here to ranger in.

So I have to confess I was having a bit of a hard time with things. It just seemed like one thing after another for a few months there. And my coping mechanisms left something to be desired. I wasn't happy with the choices I was making, but I just could not. Stop. Making. Them. Which was just making things worse. Vicious cycle. Exacerbated by continually failing challenge goals. So I took a break. Things have been going better lately though. And I've got my head back on straight. And I'm ready for another challenge! I've been working out, eating great. My house is... maintaining a baseline of cleanliness that is slowly increasing. And while we had to say good bye to a wonderful old friend and ranger companion.. we are going to get a dog in a couple months! So that's exciting to look forward to. Anyways, my optimism is renewed, I have awesome pumping through my veins once more, and I'm ready to challenge the F#&* out of March. And here it is: 1. Food is good: A) Metrics: Been killing this lately, and it's working. Calories: 1400-1800 Protein: >80g Carbs <100g 3 possible points per day, 6 days per week. B ) Evening Snacking: Pretty sure this was one of my first challenge goals... very early on anyways. I get over it, I slip back into it... can't seem to beat it for good. It's time for another round at this beast. Eating is done when dinner is. Sometimes this is a little late (kettlebells go until 7:30, and I need to eat afterwards). I'm going to give myself two freebies a week. 5 possible points per week. A=90+ B=82+ C=74+ D=66+ F+<66 2. Workout-Berserkout: 3x per week: Kettlebell class twice a week, and one additional workout of my choice. A=12 B=10 C=8 D=6 F+<6 3. Steps: Time to resurrect this one again. I've been still tracking, but not really making a very active effort. I'm hitting around 35,000-45,000 per week lately. I'm going to aim to hit 50,000 per week to start with - we're having a crazily mild winter, and barring any blizzard, I think I can really pick this up. A=200,000 B=185,000 C=170,000 D=155,000 F=<150,000 4. Puppy Prep: DH has decided that the house requires ultimate organization levels prior to canine companion acquisition. Fine, whatever. Actually we've been working on this for a bit, it's getting there. Task for this month are to get the storage rooms in order. There are two. That's one for every two weeks. Manageable methinks. A=Both C=One F=Neither Okay, alright.

Ok, my last few challenges have not gone well: The main reasons for this were: I moved across the country, and had to consolidate things from four different spaces into one apartment.My foot pain has been pretty bad - like cry like a small boy painMy job is like a energy drain - it's an unhappy place, and it takes an enormous amount of my energy. It makes it hard to do a lot.But, after some deep reflection, I have two thoughts:I have been a moron - I am trying to fight too many enemies at the same time. I need to re-build up my NF exercises more slowly, and nail them down before going on to the next thing.I need to be in the Rangers. Period. Now, I cannot yet wrestle bears with my bare hands, or carry large sledgehammers around, but these posts inspire me to get on with it. Plan: First off, I will stick with the parts of my previous challenges that have actually stuck: What I will do is re-add in four elements of my earlier challenge, one per week, until I get it back. In order they will be: Evening Stretches from my physical therapy, plus Kate Galliet's foot stretches - see here if you are interested.Drink only water and unsweetened iced tea for mealsFollow the NF Meal plan to the letter. Right now, food is all over the place, and this seems like a sane place to stabilize.Finally, re-start core exercises, with a plan for Tues, Thurs, and SatI hope to post daily, but I'm not making that a requirement of my challenge this time. I will post weekly. Clear Skies, everyone.