Search the Community

Hello! I when I first came to this website, I was not in a good state of mind and was in a terrible relationship that was ruining my self-esteem and body image! I was telling myself that I wanted to get in shape for myself, but that was a huge lie! I actually wanted to get in shape for an ex, who was nothing but an asshole, while doing it for myself was only a tiny portion of a want. It's been years since I've been on this site and it was actually painful to look at for a while because of my past. All I could think about was my low self-esteem and wanting to change for a guy. I couldn't be happy returning to this site without a good reason for wanting to lose weight that wasn't about my body image. Since I've broken up with my ex, I found someone who truly loves me for me, no matter how much weight I've gained. On the flip side, my boyfriend has been a bad influence on me on eating and I've gained an incredible amount of weight. On the plus side, my boyfriend has actually taught me how to effectively diet to lose weight, which was done by me copying him whenever he got serious about losing weight. We've ended up on a yo-yo dieting cycle which isn't ever good. I've been trying to lecture my boyfriend on this, but he insists on just doing crash diets, when he gains too much weight, and then go back to his horrible eating habits to gain all the weight back. I've been dieting whenever my boyfriend diets and going back to bad eating habits when he goes back to his. It's kind of funny, but when I was with my ex, I was 135 lbs and I wanted to be 125 lbs. Now, with my man, I've went up to 170 lbs and now being back down to my 135 lb seems like a dream, while 130 lbs would be a stretch goal! I'm really getting sick of these diets, now. I'm getting really sick of going on calorie restrictive diets, which deprives me of every food I love to eat! And I just get all sad when I gain all the weight back when I go back to eating all my favorite junk food! I want to stop following my boyfriend's dieting pattern and style to a permanent, healthy eating lifestyle! I've now found a good reason for why I want to be on this site! .... And that reason is.... I love food!!! I want to be able to eat more tasty food without gaining weight! I don't want to be on such a calorie restrictive diet that I can't enjoy the food I eat! I want to be able to indulge in food without getting fat! I want to be able to enjoy some of my favorite junk food without worrying that I'll get fat again! This is now my main reason for wanting to get in shape now! Looking good has become a very small reason for getting in shape for me now. My reasons are ranked in this order: 1. Be able to indulge food without getting fat. 2. Be healthy. 3. Be able to fit some of my favorite clothes again. 4. Feel confident in a bikini again. As you can see, my body image is more of a bonus than a concern now. I don't feel too concerned about looking good in a bikini, I don't even care about wearing a bikini ever again, but it would be nice. I've tried telling myself that in the past that my body image was more of a bonus, but it was a total lie! I now have a much healthier reason for why I want to be in shape! My ultimate goal is to lose enough weight and build enough muscle that I can eat 2000 calories without getting fat!

Hey everyone! About four years ago I joined nerd fitness as a way to help me lose weight. It was a smashing success and between that and joining the National Guard I lost 100 pds. Then I came home however. I found a great job that I loved (I am a cook) but was forty five minutes away. Stopped working out beyond sporadic stuff, eating fast terrible food, and not sleeping well. Gained back 70 of those pounds. As a note still look much healthier, a full eight inches is still off my waist line. And my eating habits are still much better. I am back though. Found a new job ten minutes from my house walking that I start next month. So I am getting back into working out and eating well. I like roleplaying games, pirates, and all sorts of history and reenactment. So here I am joining the monks for my martial prowess. My current long term goal is get to the point where I can run a 5k without stopping, do forty push ups without stopping, and hold a plank for two minutes with no sagging. After that, joining the SCA to learn how to use a sword! So hello and I hope to see a lot of you!

Simplicity 1. Get stuff done = work + earn (2 pts) 2. Sleep on time = in bed @11:30 (1 pt) 3. Hold back on spending = only needs (2 pts) = 5 pts / day 25 days total for 125 max points

Hello again, wonderful rebellion. Gosh, it's been a while since I was here! My name is Stoney and I need help. Mostly, a kick up the pants so I don't fall into a mental abyss of doing-nothingness. I left the rebellion last year after I finally felt comfortable in the real world, keeping up a healthy lifestyle and balancing being on the local Roller Derby team, going to the gym a few days a week, and working 40 hours a week on my feet in one of the local cafes. I was meal prepping, being awesome at my job, finally getting better as a derby player, getting enough sleep and generally kicking butt. So why am I back? Well, I broke my ankle. 11 days into January this year I stacked it at the skate park rolling backwards up a slight incline and snapped it in two places. Talk about ticking things off the bucket list! First skate park visit, first bone break, first hospital visit, first surgery... It was a fun week in hospital. Being forced to keep weight off one of my legs for 6 weeks basically took away all of the things that made me, well, me. No more working, no more derby, no more gym. Can't even drive a car (right ankle broken) so unless someone takes pity on me I am housebound. Going from that amount of activity to doing sweet FA has really thrown me for a loop. Coupled with the inability to sleep properly thanks to a moonboot strapped to my leg and I have completely lost my carefully crafted routine. I was really starting to enjoy my routine! For the first week at home I moped. To be fair I was also in a bit of pain and on some hard drugs for the pain of having 8 screws and a metal plate inserted into my leg so there's that... Plenty of napping and not a lot else. Week 2 and I gained a knee scooter so I am now a bit more mobile, but it doesn't help my wanting to go do things, like food shopping or drive my car or go to the gym. And I still can't weight bear so most exercises are out of the question. Doing basic household tasks are 12x harder then they should be. I ended up with a gym membership originally because being at the gym motivated me to do exercise more then being at home, knowing I could do stuff but choosing not to. But now I have no choice. After my 2-week post-op appointment and I got to see my leg for the first time since the break I knew I had to do something. My calf was deflated, bruised, and swollen all at once. I've already lost an inch off my immobile right calf and as a roller derby player who loves her legs it scares the crap out of me. I can't let the rest of my body deflate like that so it's exercise at home or turn into custard. This is where you guys come in. Because I have a bad track record of motivating myself and keeping up new habits like this I'm back on the forums to set some goals and hopefully stop the rest of my mind and body turning to jelly while I'm stuck at home twiddling my thumbs, waiting for my ankle to heal. My plan for now is to start right back at the beginning and work up. I've picked 5 basic bodyweight exercises I can do without the use of my right leg, and I'm going to do them every day. I started yesterday, on the 1st of February, with 1 rep of 1-leg pushups, tricep dips, and clamshells. I'm also throwing in a few core holds in 5 second increments - supermans and v-ups. Every day I'm gonna add a rep / time. It won't take very long for the first week or so, and it will get me back into the habit. I hope. If I fail a number of reps I'll take a rest day the next day and continue after that. My other plan is to generally look after myself while I'm here at home doing nothing. Might as well enjoy the break (haha) from everything while it lasts. I'm not doing much else but play video games and be on the computer, so I need to do so responsibly. 10 minutes break for every hour of technologising. And stretching / warming up before every exercise routine. My long-term goals right now are to walk like a normal person again, get back on skates and skate a full training session, get back into the gym, get back on my derby team and play a full bout. If I can do those things then I'll be as close to back-to-normal as I can possibly be. My surgeon said I might never get 100% movement back in my ankle so it's going to be a long road back to the derby track, but I reckon I can do it. I just need a kick up the pants occasionally. TL;DR; Roller Derby player, broke ankle, went from very physically active to non-weight-bearing and housebound. Hate it. Gonna do exercise. Help me.

Hello everyone! It's been a long time since I've been around these parts... you have my apologies. At the end of 2014 I started getting more and more to do at my job and as I got more and more stressed out there I found myself checking less emails and coming onto the forums here less and less until I just hid away from everything. Slowly over the past year (and a half almost) I've been letting my fitness slide more and just coming home to veg out in front of the TV. I wanted to come back here with you guys but always shied away from it. UNTIL NOW! Now I am vowing to stop my slow slide into the pasty, podgy world of the unfit and clamber back up the slope to where I once was before! I want to turn from Poliwag to Poliwrath! Let's do this! Quest #1: Eat within calorie limits and try for 80% or more as paleo (+1 CON +1 CHA +1 WIS) The 80% paleo has always worked well in the past, especially using the all-powerful NON-PALEO TOKENS (to be said in the booming voice of a god from on high in sparkly clouds). Basically, for every meal that I eat that isn't paleo I use a Non-Paleo Token (NPT) and given that I eat approximately 2 meals a day (I hardly ever have breakfast) that means over this four week challenge I get ~11 tokens to use. And I figured out my TDEE is about 2,400 for maintenance (actually more than I thought as I'm a relatively small guy) but I'm carrying a bit of fat around with me too so my MINIMUM calorie intake is about 1,200 so that's quite a bit of fat to burn... As that's the absolute minimum I'm going to go down to 1,500-1750 and see how that does me for this challenge. That should mean I lose 1.5-2lbs a week. Which is a brilliant amount to be losing if I can keep it up! Quest #2: Run 2+ times per week (+1 CON +1 STA) I used to run a lot, and it used to be one of my favourite ways to spend a summer evening. Running out of town and through the fields as the sunset turns them gold was a wonderful way to wind down. I did a half marathon at the end of last year and almost haven't run since. With the ruins of a castle nearby (just over 2 miles from my flat) I did run to the castle and back and it's about time I started doing that again. And I also have some squash games planned with a friend so those can take the place of a run although it would be best to do the running as well. Quest #3: Strength Training 2+ times per week (+2 STR +1 DEX) One of my favourite things about being an Assassin is being able to control your own weight, and I remember I was so chuffed when my Assassin training helped me to do my first pull up... which I can't do anymore! So my mini-goal here is to be able to do a pull up again! I’m umming and erring about whether to include HIIT/sprint training in with this quest - not least because this is me jumping straight back into things and adding in sprints may be too much. Quest #4: Complete a Life Quest at least 5 days a week (+1 WIS +1 CHA) With this one I wasn't really sure how to distil down doing something productive in terms of career/life goals into one quest... So what I have decided is that I will have a list of 'Life Quests' and that I must do at least one of those things to tick this off. Here they are: Write at least 500 words (or do an hour of story planning) Apply for a new job Practice proofreading Do an exercise in my copy-editing course Do an hour's work on the anthology and/or another book to publish Write a book review for the BFS (and/or Fantasy Faction if they'll have me) Read and critique a story on my online writing group I see that character stats are still an option although not mandatory so I will be using them as that was one of the best ways to motivate myself. I know it used to be 15 points per challenge, but that was for a 6 week challenge so I'm going to decrease it down to 10 points up for grabs this challenge. (But 15 points for my new level 1) As I'm obviously not at the same level I was before I'm going to be hitting the reset button and having my previous level as a high score and aiming to beat it. Current Level: STR: 2 | DEX: 2 | STA: 2 | CON: 3 | WIS: 3 | CHA: 3 Right... sorry, that went on a bit didn’t it... Let's do it!

Well, it's about time I give some news! I'm not even sure how many month (or years?) it's been. It's been quite gradual. First I stopped reading my mails, then my emails, then IRC, then the forums. Being connected freaked me out, being reached out freaked me out. I stopped going out, I avoided seeing my friends, the only social interaction I had were with my BF and people at the climbing gym as conversations with them were safe (mostly bouldering). Staying all day long in the apartment didn't helped, every-time I was hearing the front door opening I had some panic attacks and don't even start me on opening the door when someone was knocking, if it was not expected I was crawling under my desk. Fun days. I started to get a bit better a few month ago. Slowly seeing my friends again. Taking a peek from times to times to my emails. I was still freaking out at the front door but it was more manageable. I was gradually getting my "normal" life back. Then last October, BF got an email from a Danish company that was interested in him. Oh boy... Living in Denmark was my dream for the last 8 years, BF was definitely not against the idea. So while reading the famous email, we were both silents, mouth open. When we finally looked at each other, our firsts words were "Don't jinx it". We didn't tell about it to anyone, BF had many tests and interviews, online, via skype or phone. The last one was even in Copenhagen, all paid by the company. We were just crossing fingers, forbidding ourself about talking about it with "Don't jinx it". When we learned that BF was hired, we were ecstatic! Then, shortly after, stressed (well, mostly me) because that meant we would have to prepare for the move. I actually had to start it alone because BF's company was sending him in Brazil for one month. So I went in a decluttering frenzy. We decided to get rid of most of our furniture, just keeping a table, 6 chairs, my vintage wooden travel case and our mattress. I reduced my clothes by 60%, my books by 80%, sold what could be sold, donate what could be donated, discarded everything else. All our belongings could fit in 12m^3, it was such a relief to minimize all the things! The announcement of our departure went ok. Lots of good bye parties, my mother was convinced that Denmark was at the opposite of the globe, probably in the middle of icebergs and surrounded with polar bears and thus would never see me again. One in the other, it went alright, lots of alcohol to help me handle everything. Mid-February, BF flew to Copenhagen and on the 27, just after my birthday and the actual move of our furniture, it was my turn. So, here we are, living in Denmark! It only took us 3 weeks to find an awesome apartment. With huge windows and lots of light, with a communal garden on one side, a little bit of sea on the other. Perfectly soundproof. The opposite of our previous apartment which was really dark and where you could hear the neighbors speaking. From all our previous furniture we only had to buy back one desk and one bed. A friend just offered us a sofa that was very useful since our furniture delivery was delayed. We also both bought a bike because it's the best way to circulate in Copenhagen! After a little battle with Danish paperwork, I got my CPR number 2 weeks ago and tomorrow I'll start danish lessons. We are still bouldering and took an annual card for Copenhagen boulders, on a different note, we also have an annual card for Tivoli and I can't wait for the classical music season to begin! I won't lie and tell you that I'm all better now! Despite the wonderful weather and all the things I have to see, I still have a lot of troubles to go out of the apartment but hopefully having to go out on a schedule will help me a bit. We'll see I'm actually not sure yet what I will do with this challenge, if I ever follow it. I still have one week to think about it, so, stay tuned I guess! And btw, if some of you can read french, you can also check the blog I started about this adventure. #UPDATED for challenge! #CHALLENGE Goal #1: Go out! It is surprisingly difficult for me to go out of the apartment and obviously spending the day at home is not good for my mood. My goal is to go out of the apartment at least one hour a day. It can be for shopping, biking, hooping, anything. I just need to put my shoes on and go outside. Goal #2: Cut it! Denmark, I love you and your food. Way too much. +5kg in 3 month and I don't believe all of them are from my newly earned tights muscles. So it's time for a cut again. My plan is to have a new estimate of what I eat/drink here and reduce accordingly. Goal #3: Keep at it! The mini challenge covers most of what I would have put in my challenge, so I'll just have to train my superpowers everyday. #MINI CHALLENGE My superpowers are Super intelligence Regeneration Flight I will train them with Super intelligence Danish lessons (9 hours/weeks at school + homework) Piano training Flight Bouldering (3 times a week at least) Hula hooping Regeneration Prepare some good snacks for when I'm at school Balanced meals

I've been absent for a while, and the things that happened while I was absent have led me to return with a lot of changes regarding how I approach fitness, so it's time to start a new Battle Log. While I was gone, I spent 6 months working with a holistic nutritionist. It was challenging and ultimately rewarding work. I learned a lot about the power of mindfulness and meditation. I learned that when I am under stress, I tend to get out of balance very quickly. Also, I learned that when I'm in a time of great creativity where I'm inspired to put forth a lot of energy on my art, I get out of balance. Those 6 months were great, having the personal support of a nutritionist daily. But then a great amount of stress was introduced to my life, and guess what? I got out of balance. Way out of balance. I felt so lost that I went to get a tarot card reading. And the reader told me I was out of balance (well, that wasn't surprising, was it?). He also advised me to let go of some of the burdens I am carrying and be a better judge of how much I can carry at once. He said my values and goals were in the right place, but the execution was off. It made me realize that that's pretty much the story of my life; tons of good intentions, but a poor plan (if any plan at all) on the execution. It's no wonder that I'm so easily pushed out of balance. So, right now I'm in the early stages of crafting a plan to get back into balance. I'd like to have the first phase planned out in time for the next six week challenge. I'm also going to join the Druids during that challenge, because it's pretty clear that my goals are much more Druid-oriented this time around. Here are the things I need that I will build my goals around: Sleep. Sleep is the first thing I sacrifice to overwork, or to creativity, or to stress. It makes each of those things worse, not better. I need to get enough sleep everyday, and the rest of my schedule must get out of the way of my sleep instead of the other way around. Mindfulness and meditation. Once sleep is restored, I need to set aside space for daily reflection. Currently I write Morning Pages in a journal every day, but I need to make that time sacred and truly do them first thing in the morning, which is the intention. I need time for meditation as well, perhaps after work each day, or before bed in order to wind down. Eating right. I need to give up processed food as entirely as is possible. I need to eat out only socially, during my weekly Artist's Dates if that's part of the date, and when travelling (I am currently in the habit of bringing food with me when I travel, but local cuisine is part of the joy of traveling, and being at Balance definitely means taking in joy. But of course, my dining out choices can also be good choices). I also need to be eating at least 5 fruits and veggie servings a day, with an emphasis on veg. I need to eat a variety of veg, rather than just relying on the same favorites over and over. I need to eat nuts daily. I need real whole grains (brown rice, millet, and oats; not processed foods labeled "whole grain"). Honey instead of sugar. I need easy meal prep as well, because the thing that makes me give up healthy eating habits is usually time. I need to exercise daily, at least five days a week. I need to get outdoors for exercise when I can. I need to start exploring good places in my area for hikes and long walks. I need to work on ways to exercise even during difficult times. I tend to sacrifice exercise right after I sacrifice sleep when I'm stressed and time is at a minimum. I need to work on my art regularly. I'm an amateur leather worker, and so I need training time to build my skill. I need to work on orders I currently have, and on building up stock for an online shop. I need to make things I've never made before in order to get the experience. I also need scheduled play time where I just experiment with dye and tools, with the freedom to fail, to see what may come out of it. I also need to find a way to balance exercise and art. Usually I feel like one of these crowds the other out, as if art and exercise are at war with each other. I need a peace agreement between art and exercise. They need to live in harmony. I need to examine the burdens I place on myself that throw me out of balance. Why do I do that? What can I do to stop? How do I do a better job of saying no, or asking for help, or simply acknowledging that I'm making things harder than they need to be? It's a lot, right? But I've declared myself a Jedi Apprentice, and I'm starting the work here and now (apologies for the color coding if it's unpleasant for you to look at; I'm doing it to make the categories easier for me to separate when I reference back to this post). First off, sleep. I need to get to bed at 11 on work nights. On weekends, I need to get 7 - 8 hours of sleep, even if I stayed up late. This is my most concrete goal right now. Secondly, I need to audit my use of time, because clearly time is my biggest issue. It is lack of time that makes me do a poor job of balancing my life. If I were using my time wisely, for example, I wouldn't feel like there's no way I can both have time for art and for exercise. (Fun fact: if I could have a super power, it would be the power of multiplicity. I would be able to multiply into multiple selves. I would also be able to come back to a single body at will, and then absorb the knowledge of what the multiple selves did that day into a single consciousness. This would enable me to get a lot more done without time being a limit. As you can see, I've put a lot of thought into this. This is how obsessed I am with wishing I had more time). After that, I will work on a schedule for mindfulness, exercise, and art. I'm also going to be spending a lot of time looking at time saving ways to get good food easily. I've started making green smoothies, and they are great! It's a really quick way to get a couple of servings of fruit and veg all at once. I'm also going to look into gathering more slow cooker recipes and things I can cook ahead that leave-over well or perhaps can be used for multiple leftover meals. Sorry for the lengthy essay; this first post is mostly to set myself a starting point to reference back to. The quest for Balance begins here!

I will clean this post up as the days go on, but I am squeezing it in at lunch, and wanted to get in on the fun before this 6-week challenge got to far along! I was a Scout at the beginning of last year, trained all summer long and left the 6-week challenge Nerd-Crew due to time and changes in my training focus... Ran my first half-marathon in September and it was solid! SUCCESS!! Then I took a break, recovered and relaxed... Winter started up and disaster struck! I tore the ligaments in my big toe on my left foot while running in the ice and snow... Everything has been reset to zero, I was on crutches for 2 weeks over the Holidays and haven't ran since that fateful December evening. SO... Here I am... I've returned to my Nerd-fitness 6-Week roots to get back on track. Main Quest: Half-Marathon in September 2015 (I would be in heaven if I can do this again!) Goals: Run 32 miles, over 3 runs, adhering to a plan that will put me at half-marathon ready by September 23rd. -Grading based on final percentage of miles completed on the scheduled days. Dumb-bells & bench: 2 times a week. -Grading based on final percentage missed workouts. Drop to 177 lbs making smart eating choices and portion control. -Grading based on delta weight to final pounds. Life Quest: [WIS +1] Work & Home: Get in on time everyday to work M-F & Work on one project at home S/U. - Grading 6wks * 6 days = 36 days, percentage of days achieved. Motivation: Getting myself back from the injured battered runner and get back to where I was in September. Starting Stats: 38 - Male 5'10" ~187.8 lbs

Hey Guys I'm back. I fell off the wagon pretty hard. I've been taking time adjusting to my life in Japan and things have been really hectic for me but I really want to get back on the horse and ride it to my healthy new self. I'm currently living in Kagoshima in Japan so tracking my food has become a real nightmare! Sometimes I don't know what I am eating let alone its nutritional value. I don't feel I control of my food because I can't read a lot of it. My carb intake is up and so my weight is also creeping up which has made me loose motivation to exercise But I've come back because I need help getting to where i want to be. I'm currently 90 kg and I'm still 5'4''(despite trying to grow) and I've stopped all exercise and nutritional things in September. My old plan was Primal and Body weight exercises but as Rice is pretty much everywhere here I think I want to try a different way of eating but I'm not sure what would be best for me. I have asthma and allergies to both wheat and strawberries which is caused by IBS. I used to cook a lot of my own food but here there is very limited cooking equipment (I have one hob and a rice cooker and a kettle) and eating out is actually cheaper than cooking. TL;DR I want to get back on track but I have very little free time here ( study study study) so can anyone recommend some time effective asthma friendly exercises and diet ideas I can follow whilst here in Japan?

My whole childhood/teen years I was told many things, such as the following (with the best of intentions); "Oh, you're a great drawer, very artistic!" "You should be a designer!" "You're a good student, you could do [insert higher education purpose here]" "You're not even trying!" "You can do anything!" Which was great. Except inherent talent didn't do shit when I didn't have the push to improve, to excel, to better myself. People assumed I was doing well and left me to it. Well, instead of excelling, getting great at everything, I slacked. Got lazy. I did things to benefit myself in the moment instead of thinking ahead. I was a child, you don't think of your future when you're still in school. Ain't nobody got time for that! I learnt things for long enough to pass the test on them, then promptly forgot them - and that's disregarding the fact that sitting in a class or reading wikipedia is not my way of learning at all. Once I hit high school, and hormones, I slowly mentally slipped into the spiral of "oh well, I can't do anything well enough to make my mark on the world. I'm 15, I should know what I want to do with the rest of my life by now; like every other person in my age group planning the rest of their schooling lives and possibly the rest of their whole life. Having no plan, I gave up. I never really thought ahead to the rest of my life because for a long while I never thought I would actually make it to adulthood. I'm 22 now. There's no way I thought I was going to make it this far. I doubted every move I took, and was constantly strangled by self hatred, doubt, loathing, and the wish to be anyone else. As well as a healthy dose of, "Oh well, this is it, I'll start getting used to it now." Screw you subconscious. Looking back now I was probably suffering some variation of Depression or Anxiety but people just thought I was different; and instead of being offended I took that and wove it into my self-image. Tried to control the darkness. (We all know how that ended, hey Gollum?) (Shut up, Lord of The Rings is on TV.) Anyway, I did make it through school and did try to use some of my natural talent to shape my life, even if I had no idea of where I was actually going. Picking a vocation on a whim is great and all, but going straight from high school to trade school pretty much just extended high school for me, although the skills did sink in a bit more because I was taught as I participated; learning web design while typing the code myself; learning to drive the Adobe suite while I clicked through procedures as the teacher did. Again I excelled and got the "You don't even have to try" treatment, so again I stopped trying. relied too much on my basic instinct. Having no clear picture of where I wanted these skills to take me left me just doing things because they were in the course and had to be completed; and I was spending too much of my parent's (and later my own) money on a class so I had to complete it. Basically, the idea of making a living drawing silly pictures and making web apps was a trendy idea at the time and I was going with the flow, thinking it would be a future-proof way of utilising my natural creative instincts. {insert childish raspberry noise here.} Fast forward a few years after a failed attempt at freelancing, attempting to juggle freelancing with casual waitress work, then having hospitality slowly creep into my life like an insidious parasite until it was all consuming, fighting back and slowly taking back some of my life, mixed with news of people my age going onto success and great things; here I am, typing this, feeling a tad empty and achivement-less. I've just fought back from my latest dark period, remembering that I am happy with who I am and I just need to learn how to improve; and it doesn't matter how long it takes me. I am a continuing member of The Rebellion, and while I had some successes in my last few challenges learning the basics of diet and exercise, I also lacked a clear mission to aim for - an ongoing problem of mine it seems. Now after my latest emotional crash I’ve come back to re-direct my life before it sails merrily down Shit Creek. I don’t want to count calories, I don’t want to lift mountains. I want to be comfortable just being. I have a battle log, an epic quest; I can comfortably say I have a plan. My name is Tegan. (But you can call me Teagarden. Or Tea, if you’re the nicknaming kind). I love fantasy. Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, zombies, magical creatures. I love craft. Crochet, sculpting, blogging. Many other things. I love gaming. PS3s and any game tolerant enough to support the Macintosh computer. I love coffee. And Tea. I love food. I find life both exciting and depressing. I struggle to find a work/life, and happy/serious balance. I will have the skills needed to take on any challenge life throws at me. I will be physically fit enough to enjoy life without pause. I will use my skills for good; helping people, and spending time doing things I love to do. I will have a way to sustain my life doing a job that I enjoy going to. I will get out of bed each and every day with a purpose. I will fail. But I will get back up. Again, and again. I will die happy.