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Fnnngh. FNNNNGH. FNNNNNNGHHHH SIZZLE POP! Ah, that's better. Salambander here, although I guess I'm Gurdris now. Named after my most recent D&D character, Gurdris Frostbeard. I have respawned as Salambander so many times I felt like a fresher start. So, not a respawn but a regeneration entirely. All knobs have been twisted back to zero, and the neutrinos have mutated back to their original states. Long time no see! Things have happened. I'm engaged! And the ring didn't fit a month ago but now, 5kg down later, it does. It's a handy () reminder of my weight goals. I have a personal trainer! And he is a wizard with a foam roller. DOMS fear me now. But he can't speak any English so it's a little tricky. I got promoted! And now I'm in a leadership role and have to control my emotions much better. Eep. So, respawn. New goals, new 4 week quest. I'm starting early and I figured I'd keep things simple by having it all in one battle log, since I don't want to burn out and disappear again. I think I'm going to run this planning week as a tutorial level though. Oh, hey, have you met Kaeilia? She's awesome; we live in the same city and today I introduced her to NF, and now we're accountibilibuddies and eagerly anticipating this challenge. Without further ado, les goals for le now Fitness - complete a streak of 10 unmissed workouts, totalling 20 with my trainer Nutrition - track every bite on MFP and follow my trainer's diet plan Mental - read before bed every day Life - do laundry twice a week (folded and put away) Tracking them in my spreadsheet. Starting small and planning to go big. July is going to be much harder as I'll be in Dallas and everything usually falls apart around then.

Started my nerd fitness stuff 2 days ago. I'm happy with how I'm going so far on my 3rd day in. I'm going to start posting stuff on here to make myself accountable and stick to my goals. I want to full nerd this so please let me know any tips you think might help a beginner. I'm making a spreadsheet to track daily exercise and meals. I would love to get some cooking tips to get healthier. What are some of your favourite recipes that are quick and easy to cook to help keep healthy.

Hello there guys,We are a Barcelona's fitness center and we are planning to build our own "functional training / street workout park". Our idea is to buy all the materials and make it cheaper than it would be buying a pre-fabricated park. The objective is creating a park were to attract crossfit, streetworkout and calisthenic users.Since I'm sure that you have far more experience than us, I would like to know your opinion: First of all, what are those elements that you think its should be a must? I mean: high bars, parallel bars, crossfit jump box... On the other hand, we have a punching bag, a climbing rope and a training rope. All we need to do is create the structure for this three. We have searched measurements for high bars and parallels. What we have found is that high bars should have a height of 2,50 meters and around 1,50 meters of width and parallels around 1,50 meters of height. To me, that seems a little bit high. What do you think? Thank you so much for your help.

Does anyone have a good plan for returning to running after an injury? I have been down with a stress fracture for the past month. Going for an MRI tomorrow to tell if it's healed yet. Once I am cleared to run again I need to ease back into training for the fall marathons, without reinjury. Has anyone done a "return to running" plan that worked well for them?

Hi, I'm new to NF and am looking for a training partner. I live in Lebanon, TN and am basically starting from scratch with my new fitness lifestyle. I want to complete a triathlon and am interested in finding people to train or workout with. You don't have to be training for a triathlon, any workout buddy would do. PM me if you live in the Nashville area and would be interested! Thanks! - Leiros

I think this is my 3rd Daily Battle Log throughout my time here on NF. I am coming off an 8 week hiatus, or mental health break, just saying life got hard, shit got left gathering cobwebs and functioning to a level of breathing, keeping kids fed, clothes got washed, the rest is just a blur of WTF happened? So here I am starting over and giving life a go and getting fit and mentally healthy again.

What are the benefits strength training for women? Does it works for women?

Hey there! So in this little thread, I'm gonna be posting (hopefully regularly) about the workouts done along with some of the dietary stuff. Feel free to drop some protips or critique the hell out of me. The biggest problem I've had is trying to keep the focus on changing myself. So who am I? I'm shy of 300 pounds, out of shape, and have some shoulder issues. I also participate in some heavy combat through a group called the SCA. I'm not going to recruit for them but I will be referencing it during some of the workouts, as it's just as intense. You'll see me refer to myself as David, PandemoniumRave, or Malik in these entries and I'll try to keep the confusion to a minimum. The picture attached was taken a few months ago and will serve as the "Before" picture. I'm going to do a monthly progress photo just to see where I'm at and what's improving. So here goes nothing. It's time to be great again.

Hi everyone! I'm kinda new to the boards but I'm looking for a martial arts buddy. I'm training with a dojo in Illinois studying Shotokan Karate (15 years) in which I hold a purple belt along with a green tip in Tae Kwon Do. Problem is I live in Indiana and travel quite far for class (2 hours). I am looking for someone in the Lafayette, IN area who would be interested in sparring, practicing forms, or just generally working out. Belt testing is in the summer along with Nationals and my goal is to test up twice so I can enter the competition with my brown belt. Don't care if you know a different style or what level you are (I'd actually value learning from the difference in styles... It's why I took up Tae Kwon Do!), just looking for someone to help me along my journey if you don't mind going up against a girl Thanks!

This is me right now. I might post later but knows - sort of gotten pretty disillusioned of late ... maybe that's just me.

So this is my first challenge on here but it's one that I've set myself a few times in the past. In short, no booze til competition day! It's 5 weeks away, not 4, but I know I won't drink in the week leading into a comp anyway, so it's really about the next four weeks. To clarify: I don't have alcohol problems and I'm not even a heavy drinker - it's just that whenever I do it really physically and mentally affects me and everything goes to hell. We definitely have a strong drink culture here in Britain so it's being foisted on you ALL THE TIME. My friends and family, love them though I do, are among the worst for it. Why am I doing this? Well, all the usual health reasons of course, but the main ones are to do with training: I want a 200kg deadlift! I know I have it in me, but in order to actually get it I'll really have to optimise training, nutrition and sleep - and I just can't if there's alcohol in my life in any capacity, because... I DO NOT recover well from drinking - I'm tired and out of sorts and depressed and eat badly for up to a full week afterward I can't sleep when I drink About 75% of the time I'm doing it because someone else wants/expects me to, even when I don't really want to I want to lean out (and I literally just can't unless I'm teetotal because of point #1 - my former booze habits are the reason I'm still bigger than I used to be and would like to be) The way I see it, if I want to be a powerlifter, I'm going to put everything into it and see how far I can go. Sabotaging myself to keep other people happy (or from feeling bad about their own drinking habits) is absolutely not the way forward. Must be strong! Just think of the 200kg... So anyway, the kicking of the drink is a means to an end of optimising my nutrition and sleep so that my training goes how I want it to, so I'll be posting primarily about my efforts to do that!

For those that didn't read my intro thread (although I'm sure all of you read it, because I'm such a fabulous writer; in fact, it's probably gone viral while I wasn't looking), here's where I'm at right now. I just turned 53 last month. I'm in recovery from alcohol and opiate addiction, and I take Suboxone (which causes constipation, sorry but that's important to know), along with Lexapro and Remeron for depression, Neurontin for anxiety (400 mg 3x a day), and Prilosec. The Remeron was supposed to be for sleep, but I find that it's not working, and I don't want to rely on a substance to put me to sleep on a daily basis anyway (even if it's non-narcotic), so I'm stopping that this week (gradually). I've had 3 children (sadly, my 7 year old was killed by a drunk driver while riding her bicycle last Labor Day), I'm a freelance writer so I sit at a computer pretty much all day, and I live in a house with 9 other adults. I have a very limited income. That's also important to know. Over the past year that I've been sober, I've gradually gone from 125 lbs. to 194. When I saw that number on the scale, I lost my mind (that was June 1, still haven't found it). I joined Planet Fitness and started going every day, along with restricting my calories. I've suffered from anorexia/bulimia in the past, and I was weighing myself every day, twice a day (once in the morning, once again after the gym), so I put the scale out of sight and decided to focus on how I looked and how I felt instead of the scale numbers. My workouts consisted of at least 60 minutes of cardio. After two weeks, I added the upper, lower and abdominal machines at the gym, alternating days between upper and lower/abs. I'd gotten down to 170 lbs. and was pretty freaking proud of myself, but then I weighed myself the other morning and it said 185. WUT??????? Apparently, you can't eat fatty snacks every night after starving all day and maintain weight loss. I've been getting a lot of conflicting information about what's the best way to go about losing fat and adding muscle. Obviously, since I'm like a delicate little hothouse flower, I don't want to get bulky. But I've gathered from everyone here that the best way to achieve my goal of fat loss, muscle addition and toning, is the do more weight work and maybe a little less cardio. I know that equipment like the weight machines at Planet Fitness are frowned upon in these here parts, but I don't have a clue what I'm doing with free weights and I don't want to hurt myself. My plan right now is to stack heavier weights on all the machines and do fewer reps at higher weight. I'm not cutting out my cardio, but I'm going to alternate the upper and lower/core workouts. Is that the right way to go about this? Should I be working my core every day? I'm struggling to do 10 reps with the majority of the machines stacked at 50-70 lbs., and I've been doing 3 sets of 10 reps on each machine. (Note: On the hip adductor/abductor machines I press 130 lbs.) I'd appreciate any advice you guys can give me. I dropped my cell phone in a pot of water and it's not working right now, so I can't bring video workouts with me to the gym at the moment (that's another $100 I don't have going to my phone company on the 1st of August to get a new phone. lol?) I want to really get moving here, but I'm scared of hurting myself by lifting the weights incorrectly. I already tore my left pectoral muscle just by putting too much weight on the fly machine. Thank you all for being here. This is an amazing site.

Howdy, I'm new to NF and love to climb. I have always been pretty active but my diet has been the main faulty point. Lately I have been using my work as an excuse saying things like, "I walked a ton today, so that caounts towards a workout." and "I'm just too exhausted to go workout.". Which is total BS and I know better. Diet-wise, I have been eating like garbage. It's been fast food, junk or no food at all. Here is my Challange for the next 4 weeks; Main: Get back to working out daily Body: Climb (in-gym or outdoors) x3 a week Mind: Yoga every morning & Meditate nightly Diet: Start switching to a Paleo based diet. I'll be posting updates daily to help keep myself accountable as well as logging every bit of food and water I intake onto MyFitness Pal. Let's crush out the next 4 weeks!

Hello all, I am looking to cut down from where I am at: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/4abtyj2tsfsd5w5/AABkWdpnrEtr1kJlouF6Rx0ga?dl=0 To where I want to be: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6wpex4hp9hqr8gh/AABmFoUAFdYHFWyY1BaR-kMra?dl=0 I should add I run cross country, am 5' 10" and weigh 175lbs. I have no idea how to obtain my goal of cutting down besides that it will involve nutrition and working out. Any help is appreciated! -Justin Jones

Run, run, run Late again. But it's nothing new this time around, just trying to clean up my diet further and and in more positive habits. I have a 20-mile and a 23-mile training run during this challenge, so I'm trying to not hyperventilate at the thought. I call it 'running' even though I do run/walk intervals. I may be going to France for 2 weeks during this challenge, and would have to adjust the training plan accordingly. A major mini-goal is to avoid deviating from the plan as much as possible, because I tend to get distracted/seduced by other plans easily. Overarching Goals: Body fat 25%. Making very slow progress. Marathon 11/5. Just aiming to finish. Be happier and more energetic This is mesmerizing to me Goal #1: THE FOOD 1a. Meal prep weekly - make breakfasts, and lunches including protein and veggies 1b. Limit alcohol - 3 days/wk max worked well for me last challenge 1c. Veggies at dinner - this is the area I want to clean up. I'm fine with some dairy/carbs, but want to at least get produce into every meal. hahahhaha nope Goal #2: THE WORKOUTS 2a. Run 3x/week per Jeff Galloway marathon training plan 2b. Lift or strength workout 2x/week 2c. Foam roll + stretch 3x/week Looking at sleeping puppy pictures = guaranteed mood boost Goal #3: THE BRAIN 3a. Sleep 8 hrs/night or as much as my body will allow me. I struggled with this last challenge 3b. Meditate. If I get through the free Headspace sessions I may subscribe, or just use calm.com 3c. No solo TV. I can watch with bf or other people (social-ish activity), but stick to music (for background) or reading on my own. If I succeed at this then I will upgrade my Spotify to the commercial-free version for a month.

So I'm finally posting my new challenge! I've already started today, but finishing the last one yesterday buggered up the preparation side somewhat. So without further ado.... Why have one festival themed challenge when you can have two? At the end of week 1 I'm off to Ramblin' Man Fair: Not a camping weekend this time, just two day tickets, so shouldn't be quite such a pause in my goals for this. I love a bit of classic rock and prog, so this should be a great weekend out with my Dad. To Goals! The Final Countdown - 25XP What? Finally counting down my smoking, to be virtually smoke free by the time the next challenge rolls around. Why? I'm sick of not being able to keep up with people, be it walking, swimming or manual work, because I've spent the past 11 years deliberately destroying my lung capacity. I'm also training for an OCR at the start of October, and running training and smoking do not mix. How? Follow these rules: No smoking at work At last challenge, no smoking at home, at the gym (or climbing gym) or in the car Count how many cigarettes I have and track on here This should mean that I have several completely smoke free days throughout the month, and only really smoke socially. I have however set the XP really high as I'm expecting to fail a fair bit whilst I adjust. Still of the Night - 10XP What? Get to bed at a sensible time, and get up at a sensible time too Why? Because I need sleep to recover from workouts and get stronger, not to mention to keep me sane and awake at work. And I hate sleeping in and rushing or feeling like I've wasted half a day. How? Every night I will be in bed by 11pm, or within 1 hour of getting home, whichever later. No more "up to bed at..." though, must be in bed, lights off, by that time. Workday mornings I will be out of bed by 7am. Punishment: I will do 1 burpee for every 5 minutes late I get to bed, 1 burpee for every 5 minutes late getting up, 5 burpees for every time I hit snooze and 20 burpees if I turn my alarm off and go back to sleep. Seen this work for a couple of people, so hopefully it'll work for me too. Runnin' Wild - 15XP I forgot Lemmy drives the truck in that video... What? Get in some running training in preparation for the OCR. Why? In preparation for the OCR, I just told you! It's 14km, I want to make sure I complete it, and hopefully complete it without too much injury. And the futhest I've run in one go is 5 miles, so definitely going to need a lot of training. How? Stick to the Runkeeper plan I'm currently working on - usually means running 4 times per week on days beginning with T and S. Blind Man - 5XP What? Track weight and body fat % weekly. Why? I'm not currently calorie/diet tracking, or sticking to any sort of plan. I'm just trying to eat sensibly intuitively. So if I'm not tracking what's going in, I at least need to keep an eye on the result, otherwise I'm blind to it (see, the song totally fits). How? Sunday nights, before bed, weigh self and then measure self and input into this handy spreadsheet. (Not my work, all credit to @Geek On Fire for making this). Killer on the Loose - 10XP What? Keep up strength training the the gym and bouldering. Why? Because I want a level of functional strength that I'm never held back from enjoying myself by my body. Plus the aforementioned OCR, the bouldering particularly will help with that. And because it's fun. And of course to look good naked . How? 2 sessions minimum in the gym or bouldering per week. Bonus: +5XP for 12 sessions in the challenge. A Better Man - 15XP What? Sort myself out to sort my house out (or vice versa?). Why? Because tidy house tidy mind, and also it would be nice to be able to have friends round without worrying about the state of the place. And hopefully if I keep on top of the simple things it will make my life easier. How? Do the following every week: Clean kitchen or clean bathroom Hoover either downstairs or upstairs At least 20 minutes tidying a room Run a load of washing at the weekend, and put out to dry Prep breakfasts on a Sunday (preferably for the whole week) Housekeeping: I expect to find some loopholes in my challenges as I work through - I will enjoy them for the week and then all known loopholes to be closed on Mondays. Expect profanity, long rambling stories and a lot of Pokémon GO! in this thread. Please feel free to join in with any of these. All units may be in metric or imperial, SI or non-SI, Gregorian, Julian or Aramaeic, Lunar, Solar or Nebular, or just plain made up. So that's pretty much all from me, lets rock on with this one!

Hey, guys! This will be my third time starting this journey! The first time I lost weight through self-teaching myself weight training through YouTube and from help on here. I stopped because of college and marching band. Luckily, marching band was so intense that year that the weight I lost stayed off me all through marching season (football season, for those that don't speak music nerd). I started at about 235-240 and ended up at 210-215. I didn't eat bread or pasta and incorporated more veggies/greens and grilled meat into my diet. I felt AMAZING! But I got into a relationship (which is awesome!) but my partner doesn't have the best eating habits, so I picked up the weight again. I was so sad. And now, I'm at 240 lbs and I feel horrible with myself. I wear the clothes that I had then and think "Wow, this is kinda tight. I remember getting these because they fit PERFECTLY just a year ago!" Then I get a bit depressed. I'm willing to start back because of 3 reasons: 1.) My back has been hurting and I know it's from the lack of exercise. I work at a daycare and since majority of my work requires me to bend down to tend to little ones, I need to be fit enough to deal with it and not have pain. 2.) During the time I lost weight, I didn't get as sick as I am now. My allergies basically CORRECTED themselves, even my doctor was amazed! But as soon as I gained the weight back, I started snoring again and I can only breathe out of my nose maybe twice a week. ANNOYING! 3.) It's about that time to really make that change in my life! I'm 22, almost 23. The time is now!! The only problem will be getting over my anxiety to go to the school gym and getting started with weight training officially!! Any words of advice/encouragement/whatevers will be welcomed!

It took me a couple tries to figure out how I was going to share this image with you but this is my NF Challenge for myself. It's imperfect because that's just how life is sometimes. I'm The Most Loathed and I've done a few challenges and been keeping a battle log lately. I've decided to jump into a challenge because it's been a while since I've done one and because I've dealt with a lot of change in recent weeks and am working on trying to settle into habits one again. First, the big ass photo above. These are my quests for the challenge. They come in the categories of Social, Training and Writing. If I decide to add more, I'll add more but those are my baselines. Training I've been working out for years. It hasn't always been perfect, it hasn't always been good, but it's been there. My new schedule has really cramped my training schedule so I'm trying to reestablish the habit. I teach fitness classes on Tuesday and Wednesday. Saturday I take a fitness class but at least once a month, sometimes twice a month I teach that class instead. It's a mixed class so it's not really my normal level of intensity. When I'm not training I'm trying to balance my relationships versus my need to train. In a magical world where I had all the time in the world, I'd work out everyday but I know enough by now to leave at least one day empty and also to realize that it's quite likely that at least one additional training session per week will get blown up. In addition, when I write the training program for my classes each week, I like to give it a trial run, so that's one more workout eaten right there. I'm trying to trail three times a week, outside of classes. I know I'm going to be traveling one week so that's 9 sessions. I'm giving myself one session of mercy. I have noticed that my mobility has suffered in recent months. The best fix that I know for this is Active Release, foam rolling for most people. I also get a marathon stick and a lacrosse ball involved but the principle is the same. So, I'm going to challenge myself to do two sessions of this per week, during the challenge as well. Writing I've made a choice to improve my handwriting. To take some the of the drudgery out of that I have bought two refillable fountain pens and some nice paper. My fountain pens are bottom of the price spectrum for refillables, a pair of Pilot Metropolitans, one in a medium nib and one in a fine nib. I also bought a Retro 51 rollerball pen for times when that's the right choice. I bought some Rhodia A5 dotpads for the fountain pens and that's what you see in the image above. I've been working on my printing and it's gotten better but I have lots of practice ahead of me. So far it's largely been just free form writing which is a good opportunity to pratice writing and just clear my head. What I've not been doing are deliberate exercises like just repeating a letter and really trying to get it right. I have 28 days and 26 letters. I feel like I should give the whole alphabet a go in lower case. Next challenge I can try uper case. I also got me a penpal. It's not on the list specifically because writing to him will fall under the freeform writing. I've had three penpals in my life now. Sometime back in middle school or so we were assigned one from another school. In college I got a german penpal because I was studying german. She wanted to practice her English (which was pretty close to as good as mine) and I wanted to practice my German (which had a long ways to go to fluency). Now, this guy who live down in Georgia. I sent my first letter yesterday and am awaiting my own first letter. Social I'm a nerd just like most of you. I'm quite content to not talk to people. When I do they often do things like ask about my family or weekend. I sometimes respond but don't bother to ask in return, which I think is the social norm. To try and make myself take a more active interest, I'm going to try and learn the names of the family members of my three closest coworkers. I have no idea how I'll go about it but I'm going to try. Also, because I'm now teaching these classes, I'm going to try and learn several of the attendees names. I've picked up a few already but being able to call anyone by name seems like a good skill to have I'm taking a trip during this challenge This heading one compounding factor to this challenge is tha the week of the 20th, I'll be running around the Rocky Mountains with some friends. I've attempted to account for this in my calculations but we'll just see how this plays. I've never taken a vacation with another couple before. I know the other husband has ambitions of summitting fourteeners but I also think he's physically less prepared than he thinks. I also think he may try to push on regardless. Deliberately Excluded I'm not trying to do everything, here are some things that i'm not doing this challenge although they may just come up from time to time. Diet - I'm not following a specific diet. I tend to eat paleo-ish but I've not been particularly dialed in of late. I'm just going to try and keep myself below 210 and call it good enough, especially with a trip in here. I will likely mention what I eat at times but I'm not tracking anything here. Meditation - I got on a good kick of meditation several months back. It lasted about three months before I just dropped it. At some point I'd like to get back to the habit but for now it's not on the radar. Classes/Instruction - I don't have any goals around the act of teaching my classes. I will definitely talk about it but I'm not trying to measure it.

Just want to let everyone know I have started putting up instructional videos on my youtube channel so everyone can benefit from getting detailed information on performing all different types of exercises in the gym. I have put up quite a bit now and will be filming more to put up very soon (today hopefully). They are organized in playlists by body part. If you want go check it out search Hodgeapp on youtube and subscribe. I am also available to answer any training or diet questions for you guys in here if you want so just message me or reply to this post and I'll be happy to offer what I can. Thanks guys!!!!!

I have been working for days to come up with a good challenge theme and I just wasn't having any of it, so I figured my birthday coming up (tomorrow) would be a good way to reflect and set some new goals up for the year. Reflections/Plans: As some of you know I started work on opening a fitness apparel online shop with a friend (updates on this to come soon, we have our first official design created and I seriously can't wait to show you guys). This was in part due to the fact that I want to move home to MI, and need to find ways of making a decent income once I get there. My second idea has been to start training people, and maybe run a set of cross training type classes. I know I have the passion for it, and I have learned a lot (yet have a lot left to learn) so I spoke to my trainer about it and he had no hesitation in saying I was good enough to train people. My current self-imposed issue is I don't look like a trainer because I don't know that I would go to someone who didn't. The initial plan is to get back up to MI in June of next year, so I have 1 year to get into a better physical form and learn all I can from my trainer about the business and see what certifications would be best for me. For my plan to work I need to focus on 4 main things, and honestly these may be my goals for far longer than this 4 week challenge. Goal 1: Training Plan for a 6 day program, 3 days strength/circuit training, 2 days cardio, 1 day stretching, and 1 rest day. Goal 2: Drink water like it's going out of style. A minimum of 64 oz every day. I have made this easy to track because my boyfriend got me a bucket of gatorade (took like a week to drink it, and he was helping) which is 64oz. I have to empty that at the least every day. Goal 3: Find a proper nutrition plan that doesn't hinder training, but is also effective for weight loss. The Ketogenic diet worked really well at losing weight, but I was exhausted all the time, didn't have any want to eat, and lost some decent strength. I need to find a more balanced approach that I can stick with long term, and maybe it will eventually help others Goal 4: Get my Ducks in a row. In order to be able to move up north again I will need to pay off any frivolous debt and practice living on a smaller scaled budget. We will also need some training in home repair/fixing up, and sell both our places. So this will be a multi functional goal. Part 1: Debt payoff plan, and proper grocery allowance followed. Set a debt payoff plan that is manageable (because I am known to be overzealous in paying off debt so I have to use a CC to get gas, ect....), and find a proper grocery budget and follow it.

"Even an instant counts. In a battle for your life, a second is an eternity, an eternity that may decide the outcome. Warriors aim at succeeding, therefore they compress time." --Carlos Castañeda Having forged a sword of willpower through discipline, to follow the Way of The Warrior (druidic lore) will require training. The next step must be learning to aim the sword. Direction is crucial for success. This challenge is about achieving focus on the path, and beginning to transform that focus into results. For that, I must sharpen the mighty sword and work on form: Timely Morning ritual started - on time - 7 AM - Scores (0, 50 within 15 min, 100) In bed, ready to fall sleep - on time - 10:20 PM - Scores (0, 50 within 15 min, 100) Productive Work on Start up - hours per day - 1 to 4 - Scores (0, 30, 60, 90, 100) Earn money - hours per day - 1 to 4 - Scores (0, 30, 60, 90, 100) Clear Visualize - twice a week (short daily is optional) - Sun & Wed Meditate - daily - PM Energized Workout - thrice a week - Mon, Wed, Fri Tai Chi - thrice a week - Tue, Thu, Sat Evaluate physical stats on the 4th week for reference, each must be possible to be done in controlled form Able to sustain interval training for 6 min? (2, 1, 2, 1) Able to do 2 full pushups? Able to do 1 full dip? Able to do a 15 sec dead hang? Able to hold plank positions (plank; lift each arm, each leg, alternates arm+leg; plank) for 12 sec, 3 sec, 6 sec? Able to sustain continuous cycle of upward both-legs raise to push up and repeat, for 30 sec with 8 cycles? Body fat and muscle percentages. Replacing some things in the phys stats evaluation, to allow the knees to recover and gradually get stronger legs. Will pay attention to their response to the changes. Grading: A "With Honors" = All done, all 4 weeks A > = 90% B > = 80% C > = 70% D > = 60% F < = 59.9% To begin the 3rd of April Preparations are being taken care of

Just a little shout out to the Assassin's guild. Thanks to the encouragement they have provided me over the last 18 months, I have dropped a whopping 108 lbs!!!!!! Current Weight is 200 even. Still going strong but had to give a shout out. I m sure people will as how this was done so here is the short version: 1. water intake increased by approx. 30% 2. small portions with multiple meals over the day/night 3. body weight exercises such as planks, pushups, etc. 4. plenty of patience while waiting for results. Was about 2 months before i saw noticeable change that's it. simple,

This is Queenie. This horse has been the bane of my life since the day I got her. At first, I had a grudge against her since I had to swap to her from Tommy. Tommy was amazing and we could do anything tgether. Then I didn't like her because she fights every decision you make whether you're on her or at her side. Then we started getting on. Then there was a large string of injuries, one of which took 6 months of daily bandaging, cleaning, trying not to get kicked, failing to not get kicked, STOP-IT-QUEENIE-YOU'RE-JUST-BEING-STUPID-NOW kinda happenings. But during the healing was bonding, and now she neighs when I come to get her in the field, even walks over to me. She lets me cuddle her face, and no one else is allowed to do that. I do love my stupid, stubborn, naughty mare. Tantrums and scars and all. In December I could bring her back to work. She shoved her head in a bush and almost poked her eye out. That pretty much healed. She then got the worst case of lice I've ever seen, warrenting the need to be clipped. Yard Owner tells me Queenie can't be clipped. Last time it was attempted, she was sedated, had her bridle on, had three seperate twitches designed to numb and calm a horse... She reared on the yard, shook everyone off her and ran off the yard and down the lane. 'You can try Pixie because she needs it, but it's not gonna happen. You may be able to see that in the above picture, Queenie has had a (almost) full clip. She would have let me do the rest of her head but as I'd never clipped before, I didn't want to risk her moving at the wrong time and me clipping her ear off or something. Would kind of ruin the 4 weeks of clipping desensitisation I'd just put her through. ANYWAY. Her leg's healed, her eye's healed, the lump on her leg hasn't really gone away but it's not bothering her so whatever. She's clipped, she's on her third dose of louse powder, and she's back into work. I bought her all new tack(except the saddle because her's is perfectly fine), we've done walk, trot, canter, and two days ago I even managed to hack her for 5 minutes on the roads without a whisper of a fuss. She's underweight, undermuscled, she's got a terrible clip (but come on, I wasn't exactly sure what I was doing and just wanted it done), and it's time to sort her out. As horse riding is exercise (and my horse riding muscles have decidedly gotten flabby after not riding for so long), and every assassin should know not just how to ride, but how to ride a 'problem' horse (because when you're making a speedy getaway and you jump on a horse you don't know, you need to be confident with whatever it could throw at you!), THIS IS MY CHALLENGE!! Mane(haha)Quest: Be able to see a positive difference in a before and after comparison of Queenie (18XP, CHA+2) Anything. Better muscle tone, posture, hooves, whatever. Just as long as we both look better at the end of the challenge than she did at the start. Have a written out lesson plan for 5 days a week (18XP, WIS+2) Structure is important to record progress and plan for improvement! Work on in hand manners and voice commands (16XP CHA+1) Because she needs to listen to me when I'm on the ground, not just when I'm on her back. Don't fall off Queenie! (16XP, STA+2) Practice hanging off her in (OMG-IM-FALLING-OFF) positions while cooling down. Lie sideways on the saddle, sit in front of the saddle clinging to her neck, practice getting back in the saddle from there.Falling off any other horses(or ponies) doesn't count. [if I ride my friend's pony Bilbo again I can guarentee I'll be on my ass... Again.) Make sure she eats enough (16XP, DEX+2) No gains without enough food! Queenie needs at least 1 haynet a day plus her feed with her supplements. Maybe two feeds if I can get the time in. Side Quest: Be able to tick off 2 thing's from Queenie's Epic Quest list (16XP, CON+1) My Epic Quests can be found by clicking the CHARACTERYAY link in my siggy. I think I'll aim to start jumping, and execute a turn on the forehand. We'll see how this goes. I've just joing the Academy so I've gotta go take my before photos and measurements, so I'll do that and then go get Queenie's before photo, and start training!

So at this point making it to my scheduled workouts as a goal is kind of cheating/easy A... Which is awesome, but I need to move on from my new easy mode. Also, I ended last challenge with a 2lb weight loss after I finally got my ass in gear and I want to keep the momentum up. And it's time for some serious spring cleaning (In FL it's already back in the damn 80s so there is no excuse with the amount of work that needs to be done to the house). Goal 1: Embrace the Keto I have notice on a ketogenic diet I tend to feel better in general, and it does help with losing weight. I have to stick to a 90% keto/ 1 non keto friendly meal a week max. Goal 2: Embrace the supplements Not a crazy amount, but I need create and stick to a set that helps me feel better and get stronger. I must have fish oil, MCT oil, magnesium, and a probiotic daily. Goal 3: Embrace the Clean Ben (my SO) and I finally got a decent amount of work on the house done this past weekend, but we both still have SO MUCH STUFF.... And we tend to let chores go to hell by mid week. This challenge I will make sure we clean up the kitchen daily, have one larger (1hr+) project to work on during the weekend, and spend an extra 20 min 3 times a week to keep other areas clean. This weekend, and possibly the rest since it's a super huge job will be tearing up the back deck so that we can redo it. The people that installed it never sealed the damn thing so it was rotten by the time Ben bought the house. Fortunately only the top and railing need redoing, and we can save the frame.

I have been lifting weights (I started a new program where I am lifting a lot heavier than I was before) and doing cardio 4-5 days a week. I swap out upper and lower body days,and do some light cardio on rest days (hiking or a long walk with the dogs, etc...). I've also been monitoring my diet closely. I don't necessarily need to lose weight, but I would like to decrease my body fat percentage. I can tell that I am definitely stronger, but I haven't lost any weight or seen any change in measurements. A lot of the stuff I've read says that it's normal for body fluid retention to obscure fat loss or muscle gains for a while, but I've been on this program for more than 2 months, and I'm not seeing any visible results. I'm in no big hurry, but I can't tell if what I'm doing is working or if I should make some changes to my diet and exercise routine. Has anyone else had similar experiences?