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My Fourth Challenge: 1) Continue Tracking for a whole year on MFP, making sure to get proper nutrition, eating enough and figuring out what is best for me as I may be more insulin/carb sensitive than previously thought. Also, continue tracking exercise with Fitbit. 2) Lose that last 16 pounds by this summer, with 6 pounds for this challenge. 3) Continue keeping up with friends 4) Pass Garde Manger (Cold Foods) and graduate to Bakeshop 5) Put together new cosplay outfit. 6) Take care of ears, which tend to get clogged from time to time, eyes, which need to be examined, and right knee, which is still healing but is better than before. Progress so far: 1) Ongoing, still working on feelings of guilt for not being as athletic as some people on here. 2) Ongoing 3) Ongoing 4) Slightly behind. 5) I've got an absolutely perfect athletic jacket for my first female cosplay that isn't a female version of a male character, Kumiko "Yankumi" Yamaguchi, Acting Kumicho and High School Teacher from The Gokusen! I just need to get the pants, lose a bit of weight and fix up my hair.

I don't feel very heroic right now but I'm sure it will come back to me. About me: I'm a 38 year old woman living with my partner and a house full of pets in Missouri. I'm 5'10" and currently weigh about 295 (yes, back up from the end of last challenge *sigh*). My main quest is to get under 200 lbs. I'm not sure of my final goal weight but I would like to be around 25% body fat. I'm less concerned about a particular number. I would just like to be able to do things without the limitations of being obese. Boxing: Oh, how I miss my boxing classes. Time to get back. 3 times per week = A, 2 times per week = B, 1 per week = C, 0 = F Food: Jayne follows that up with "Girl's a mind-readin' genius, can't even figure out how to eat an ice planet." You could say the same about me if you change "ice planet" to "an appropriate amount of nutritious food". I'm continuing on with the plan I developed during the last challenge. I didn't track perfectly during the challenge break. I pretty much only tracked enough to keep my streak intact on MFP. So week 1 will be about tracking 100% and hitting my calorie goal of 2170 average calories per day. Weeks 2-6 will be about trying to hit macros. I don't know that I think macros is something I will do for the long term. I'm hoping to use that to help guide me into better instinctive eating habits. Life goal: I spend too much time alone in my bunk. Over the course of this challenge I need to get out and engage in activities, preferably with other people. This goal originally started out as a "being nice to myself" goal. So I still want to incorporate those elements of doing things I enjoy. The last 3 months of work have taken a lot out of me and I need to get back into real life. 4 activities = A, 3 = B, 2 = C, 1 = D, 0 = F Side quest: Did you know that if you google "tasmanian devil rage" you can find an article about perimenopause? I've noticed over the last 6 months or so that my anxiety gets really out of proportion during pre-shark week. Last week was pretty epic. I did some research and it appears that although a bit young, I'm probably beginning the change. Because I don't have enough other fun things going on... So my side quest is getting to the doc. I need to do my yearly check up and getting some prescriptions refilled. I will have to talk to her about what things I can do to help with the Tasmanian devil rage. Normally I wouldn't have made this a challenge goal. But the gif really spoke to how I'm feeling about my reproductive system right now. LOL!

Hello everyone My name is Damien and it's my first challenge here on Nerd Fitness. I guess I could introduce myself by starting with my "struggle". I've been overweight since I was about 15, you see I have growth hormone deficiency and it made it all the more difficult to stay in shape during the teen years. I was in athletics, and I gave it my all up until high school. I finally gave up, mentally and physically. I became a recluse and packed on more pounds. Just a few months ago I was diagnosed with diabetes, although I don't feel much different and I refuse to take the medicine, I saw this as a wake up call. I knew I had to start doing things the right way no matter how much it put me out. I started to "reinvent" myself about a month and a half ago and it feels great. I started walking around my college campus every night just for fun, I'm now learning how to play guitar as well as speak another language besides english. I've started to eat much, much better these days. Although I don't follow the paleo diet (I'm living the college student lifestyle, what'd you expect?) I've started eating more lean meats, fruit and lots of nuts and granola; the last thing to phase in would be more veggies. Anyways, this is my first challenge and like every anime hero I've ever gazed upon in awe, it's time to find my true potential and work towards it like there's no tomorrow. (Drum roll please) Now, for my goals! Main Quest: Unleash True Potential (Lose Weight, Get in Shape) 1. Find a workout plan/circuit to do at least three times a week. 2. To get 8-10 hrs. of sleep every night. No more, no less. 3. To eat more vegetables, starting with one serving at dinner. Side Quests: Life Quest: To be more sociable in my new environment. Would like to hang out with at least 3 new people before the end of the challenge. On another note, any "Kenichi, The Mightiest Disciple" fans on here? That show really gets me pumped! I lost 15 pounds one summer just by working out while I was watching the show. I would watch an episode while taking it easy on an elliptical then when the episode was over I'd go really intense for 10 minutes (It was the inspiration from the show, I swear) and then go back to the show and start all over again.

I am a wonderful, fantastic, mess of a human being. I'm 27 and I already have on hell of a life story to tell, and I only plan to add more as time goes on. I have overcame, changed, and had to come to terms with my method of understanding the world that was left unchallenged for most of my life. My grad work has pushed me further into trying to understand myself, my priorities, what I consider a well lived-life, and how well I'm doing at living up to my expectations. The wonderful community here at NF, and the wisdom you all share have helped me in this process, where as a lot of others in my life have not. So even though this is my fifth challenge, it's time to focus on the bigger picture (thank you format/rules change!). Am I actually becoming the person I want to be? Am I giving enough attention to the different roles I take and the things I love to do? Am I actually doing what I say? Therefore, my Main Quest here at NF is: Become the Heroine Worthy of the Story - Creating my Own Myth There are numerous areas that I can address when it comes to becoming the best version of myself that I could be. It could be the healthiest, the most hard working, the fearless performer, and so on. While my overall goal is vague and has numerous areas, I will attempt to focus on one per challenge for here on out, and maybe one other area with the Side Quest Life Goal. So most of the time this will be health-related, because I'm no where near heroine status yet. I'm getting there, I've made major life improvements since starting at NF, but I have a ways to go. Last time it was all about food! Once upon a time Jess had cable and would regularly binge on Food Network shows for entire evenings and days. She always dreamed of being in love with cooking and impressing people all the time with her mad kitchen skillz. Unfortunately life kept getting in the way. She always made excuses about being too busy, too tired, or too stressed to cook great meals and keep her kitchen clean. That challenge didn't go very well by the end mostly because I was running low on my sanity points. Stress has been taking over my life as of late and self-care has definitely fallen to the side. So not good, and definitely not myth-making behavior. So for this challenge I am going to focus on gaining back some sanity. This challenge will probably look a little strange goal-wise, but I think it's the only way I am going to be successful this time around. So I'm going to put on my super-nerdy hat, mix up some tabletop gaming references, and present my sub goals. Making a Sanity Check When a character encounters a gruesome, unnatural, or supernatural situation, the GM may require the player to make a Sanity check using percentile dice (d%). The check succeeds if the result is equal to or less than the character’s current Sanity. On a successful check, the character either loses no Sanity points or loses only a minimal amount. Potential Sanity loss is usually shown as two numbers or die rolls separated by a slash, such as 0/1d4. The number before the slash indicates the number of Sanity points lost if the Sanity check succeeds (in this case, none); the number after the slash indicates the number of Sanity points lost if the Sanity check fails (in this case, between 1 and 4 points). - Call of Cthulhu So I'm kind of a gaming junkie. I love being involved in tabletop games and playing numerous types of characters. I actually haven't played Call of Cthulhu for years, but sanity checks have made their way into almost all of my other campaigns because my usual gaming group finds them to be so much fun. And I think giving myself sanity checks may help remind me when I need a little self care, and when I need to stop pretending things are out of my control and it stresses me out. I have way more control than I like to tell myself, and it's time to stop making excuses. Taking charge of my stress level is a part of this, and I have done nothing but make it harder for myself this semester. That needs to stop. So this challenge will be covering the last part of my semester. Supporting Goals: 1) Constitution – Food is not a drug, it is fuel that you need to be awesome So Constitution is usually my dump stat. I used to play a lot of elves in D&D (which take a Con hit automatically), but generally just did not see the point. This is mostly due to my usual DM, who runs combat-light, RP-heavy sort of games. Once I started branching out with new DMs I realized Constitution is important. So now my characters generally have a good Constitution, and I need to as well. As someone who works in education, I am constantly around children (who I affectionately call germ factories). When I was teaching I was sick constantly, yet last year I as fairly illness free thanks to some good life choices. I want to continue that, and while I know some illness will happen no matter what (for instance, I’m coming down from an awful cold at the moment), I need to buff my Constitution to be better able to stay healthy. While exercise plays a role in this, for this goal I’m looking towards food. Like many people, I abuse food. I use it as a reward, I use it as an excuse, and I always find a way to get out making the better choices when it comes to what I eat. Not only that, but I have been terrible as of late being prepared and making sure I’m eating period. Stress does that to me. I tend to lose my appetite, not pay attention, and then I made bad food choices when I realize what I’ve done. Does preparing and watching what I eat stress me out? Yes, but not nearly as much as the guilt I feel after I screw up so much. So in order to meet my goal, I must: Actually eat three meals a dayCook at least three times a weekKeep a reason journal. Write down WHY you are making a bad decision. Time to be a bit more self-aware. 2) Intelligence – Being a good student Playing intelligent characters has always been easy for me because I’m a smart-cookie. My brain has its own unique way of functioning that sometimes makes school a hassle, but there’s also a lot of fun, weird, creative stuff going on in there too. I’ve come to realize that seems to be the case with everyone. However, so far I have been very successful in my graduate education. Not so much this semester. So it’s time to buff my intelligence. At the moment my fulltime job is a graduate student. For the past two semesters I have allowed myself to shift from an internal locus of control to an external, and have used my “loss†of control to become excuses for why I’m not doing my best. I’m in jeopardy of losing my 4.0 because I’ve been a slacker this semester. It’s also been my hardest semester, so all of the more reason for me to take charge of things and get it together. I spent the first month and a half feeling awfully sorry for myself, my lack of free time, and all the things going wrong in my program. I’m done with that. The past two weeks I’ve been working on getting it together. I now have a behavior plan for my classes (to keep me attentive and force interaction), and I need to rock it on these last few assignments. So in order to meet this goal I must: Finish all reading and homework the day before it is due (at least. No waiting till the last few minutes before class/frantically finishing something during work) Follow my behavior plan (which I’ll share with you all in another post)3) Strength – Focus on getting strong There is something really cool about playing a character who wields a greatsword like it’s no big thang. When I go for fighter-type characters, I definitely enjoy carrying a big stick and speaking softly. Now that I am done with my 5k obligations I want to get back into lifting like crazy. The last time I went to the gym to lift (which was embarrassingly long ago), I had definitely lost some of my gains, mainly in bench and squat. The end of May will mark one year I’ve been experimenting with lifting, and I want to be able to look back and be blown away by my progress. I know that finding the time has been hard for me, but too often have I listened to my excuse-making-sorry-self and not gone to the gym when I could have. So right now I’m getting over being sick, but I want to at least make it to the gym to lift twice a week. I know that isn’t much, but I’m going to need baby steps here. After all, the overall goal of this challenge is to be a sane Jess. So in order to meet this goal I must: Lift 2x a week4) (Life-Goal) Charisma – Social Life Ahem, contrary to the gif, I generally play high Charisma characters in table-top games because I’m good at it. I’ve always been an extrovert, and I’m generally only happy if my social life is full of stuff to do. So playing the sweet-talking swashbuckler or the charming bard isn’t a challenge for me. Usually I make friends before I do something awkward, which apparently people find endearing at that point. While I do need alone time sometimes (not by choice, persay), I find myself often depressed when I feel that my social life is stagnating. That’s been the case all semester. My social life has definitely gotten smaller since moving to Maryland, and grad school has not been the place to find new friends. However, it’s been really easy to not push myself to meet new people. So that’s changing. In order to meet this goal I must: Invite my cohort to an event at least onceAttend two new meetupsTry to make plans with friends at least twice

So I've made it through my first week of Paleo quite successfully, but will be going out to the pub tomorrow night. When I was on Weight Watchers my go-to was Diet Coke (which didn't always work - I'd end up drinking anyway) but that's now been ruled out with Paleo. What do you guys do on nights out? What do you drink that's Paleo? How to you stop the urge to have a drink or two or successfully say no to that friend who keeps in insisting on buying you a pint/getting you to drink one? The worse part is I'm painfully shy and am only ever fun and talkative with a couple of drinks in me (and yes, I realize that's another problem I need to sort out!).