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CW: Loss, death, cancer, Some of this is cross-posted from blunder-bolt.tumblr.com I have had an account here under the name "Kingclumsy" but combo of forgetting my password and coming out as transgender meant I wanted to change my user name. Bolt451 comes from my roller derby name "Blunderbolt" and my derby number. I used to skate with roller derby teams but a series of deep vein thromboses (bloody clots) left me with mobility problems and unable to skate, let alone take part in contact sports. I’ve got a plan for fitness and I hope I don’t set myself up for a fall and don’t follow through with this. If anyone reads this I’d be grateful if you pestered me into keeping up to this. I’m mostly writing this for myself to poke myself into doing this. Quick explanation for people who don’t know me that well and it starts on a massive downer. I lost my brother, Ian to cancer last year year, in the space of seven months he went from diagnosis to passing away. It’s been just about six months and it still effing hurts sometimes. I’ve set my mind to do something positive out of this in the grand tradition of raising money for charity and in Ian’s tradition of doing something epic with probably minimal preparation. A few years ago Ian tried to enter a charity London to Paris cycle ride but didn’t get a place on it. I can’t remember if he missed the deadline or didn’t raise enough money or just didn’t get a place but still wanting to raise money he instead cycled from his then house in Feltham, Greater London to my parents’ house in Dursley, Gloucestershire. He did this in a day. A quick google maps tells me this is approximately 110 miles and nine and a half hours of cycling. This was a relatively easy trip up the Thames valley and then cross the far harder Cotswold Hills. Apparently he got to mum and dad’s and pretty much slept for 24 hours. So in honour of the big bearded one that was my brother. I’m going to do the return trip. Dursley to Feltham. Hopefully in a day, but I’ll settle for two. There’s only one major flaw to this. Medically speaking: my legs are knackered. Again, apologies to people who know me well. Owing to an abnormality in my circulatory system I have a problem called post-thrombotic syndrome in both my legs. It means I can’t walk that well or for that far, I can’t run and I definitely can’t ride a normal bike! Instead I have a reyhatri handcycle. So I’ll use that My upper body strength is and always has been atrocious. Hills are really evil on this bike as it’s big, heavy and awkward and a quick google looks like there’s either several ranges of hills in the way or a big detour. The date I’had set myself for this big trip is around the sixteenth of May. It would’ve been Ian’s thirty sixth birthday but this has been delayed to to health problems. I’m going to self indulgently blog about this. Feel free to pester me into doing this, or follow me on any of the following, or here. I’ll try and keep this up to date with my training and other thoughts. Twitter: @bolt_451 Instagram: bolt451 Myfitnesspal: Blunder_bolt

So this morning I woke up, had a sandwich and said bye to my mom as she left for work, and then sat down to play Mass Effect 3 for about two hours. I took a lunch break, had a smoothie, watched some YouTube videos, and my younger brother offered to take me to the gym. "You've gained a lot of weight, so, like, just imagine turning that bulk into muscle." He's 6' tall and lean, and I'm 5'7" short, and lean...ing towards stocky. (About 190 pounds) I declined his offer, but after he left and I finished my pasta, I typed "how to start getting in shape" into google. I was looking for the basics. I found nerd fitness's article "A Beginner's Guide to Getting in Shape." I thought, "hey, that's me! A beginner!" and clicked the link. What follows next I'm sure you are all familiar with: I read the article, subscribed by email, and went on my first "fitness quest:" a ten minute walk. Me, being the overachiever that I am, made it fifteen minutes and jogged for part of it. I've done this before. I'm sure a lot of us have. We want to get fit, we start, we mess up somewhere, and give up or just forget about it. I really desperately want this time to be different. I'm sick of hating my body and feeling lethargic all the time. I'm sick of seeing other guys bodies and wishing I could look like them. Maybe you guessed from the title, but I'll say it now: I'm transgender. I was "born female" but I started transitioning to male when I was 18 or so. (I'm 23 now) I don't know if there are any other transgender members on this site, but I don't want that to hold me back. Sometimes I feel like being transgender holds me back, in a way. I feel restricted by bodily traits I feel are "female" and like I'll never have the body type I want. It's easy to get stuck in that mentality and I want to break that cycle. I don't know how I'm going to do it guys! But this post is a start. I hope some of you read it, at least. I could use the help and encouragement. Thanks, Will

Hello! I've been reading through the NF archives over the last week and finally got around to signing up for the forums. I've never been one to use forums much, but one of my goals is to level up my social skills and this seems like a good place to work on that! Basic info Age: 25 y/oGender: transgender manHeight: 5' 7"Weight: 226 lbs Starter goals level up fitness " " nutrition " " social skills " " bank account I've tried dieting and a variety of fitness programs (C25K, Starting Strength) but have never been able to stick with any for more than 2 weeks because I got "too busy". After reading through some NF articles, I recognize that it has always just an excuse and that I need to start prioritizing my health if I want to make any lasting changes and habits. To start, I'm going to slowly start transitioning to eating more Paleo-like (shooting for 75%-80% of the time) and doing bodyweight exercises at home. Once school starts up in August, I'll have access to the gym where I'll start more strength training exercises. I also plan on joining the Academy once my refund check comes in. So far this summer, my partner and I have tried cooking at home more, cutting out processed foods, and moving more. It's worked okay, and the cooking-at-home part has definitely begun to stuck. We've also been trying to try one new veggie a week to start incorporating more of those in our diet. So far, I have found roasted broccoli with some lemon pepper seasoning and garlic to be far too delicious. I hope to join in the next challenge when it starts and I hope to make some friends along the way. I hope that the semi-anonymity of the forums and a forced dedication to leveling up my social skills will help with that. Anyways, that's me!

So introductions are in order. While my name is not really relevant and quite a personal issue, Bun is fine for now. What is relevant is that I want to mix in exercise into my weightloss program, I'm currently 85kg on 175cm tall and I need to get it down to 65kg or even slightly below that. I'm currently still losing about 0.5-1kg a week, on a healthy diet, cycling and a basic form of HIIT, but I feel like I am going to level out on that. So the solution I guess was simple, since I've moved into my new appartment, I have well over an hour of time to spend on exercise each day, so why not. My life however wouldn't be my life if I didn't have an additional challenge to overcome, I am a trans woman, which means that I am male to female transgender. I am not yet on hormones, so I have a for men healthy dose of testosterone running through me, while I am actually trying to reduce my bulk, mostly my legs (I'm Dutch, cycling is life), my arms are already pretty slim. This combination makes it rather hard to use weight exercise as part of my training routine and I really prefer cardio anyway. Another consequence of this is that I am pretty much deadly afraid of going to the gym, so anything I do needs to be doable at home. I guess I am wondering in it aswell if it is realistic to lose that weight and perhaps even compact some of that leg muscle, without gaining any muscle tone.... So perhaps I am looking for a work out that is mostly cardio oriented and perhaps something that if it does promote muscle formation is more oriented to compact muscles. Any takers on helping me figure out what to do ? -- Bun ps. I'll try to answer any questions this still leaves, I know this isn't quite the typical question you may get.

I'm Orchid! Non-binary FTM extraordinaire! For those who don't know what that means, the simple version is I'm transgender and mid transition from female to male. I'm hoping to build some strength and lose some weight to work on my physique and better achieve that oh-so-desireable masculine form I'm after. Starting weight: 200 lbs (90.7 kg) Goal 1: Build upper body strength Do a friggin' pushup (without knees on the floor) I'm starting from square one on the upper body strength. Gotta start somewhere. One whole pushup without my knees on the ground is the goal by the end of the 6 weeks. Maybe 15 with my knees down without stopping too. Goal 2: Shed some poundage Lose 5 lbs I have trouble not eating tons of junk so this is a tough one for me. Even if I can't lose, so long as I don't gain any more I'll be happy. Gonna try and eat more veggies and less crap. Goal 3: It's just the way that you walk Adjust my walk so that it is not so feminine. Too much hip swaying going on here. Those things are big enough as it is without anything drawing more attention to them. Gotta watch more men walk and take notes.

hey everyone. my name is Aiden and i am 28, from minnesota. i am a female to male transgender male who is in the process of changing things in my life. i quit smoking back in july and that has made a huge difference for me but lately i have been gaining weight a lot due to my weird over eating habits. i am in the process of eating better but once i started reading the things written on the site about the diet and ways grains effect your body i realized that i eat an obscene amount of grains and sugars and that is going to be my hardest issue. i also used to be a vegetarian but i love chicken and ham so it was really hard to stick to that. after reading further into the dieting part of the plan i realized this is exactly what i need. one thing that i am going to try my hardest at is working out at home. i work out better in a gym but right now we can not afford a gym membership since we only have one gym in our town and they are quite pricy. i am open to talking to everyone about everything. i am going to need all kinds of support in here with the dieting and working out so i am always open for any workout/ dieting buddies who are willing to harass me through facebook or texting once we get to know each other better. i know i am lazy and have been putting things off for most of my life but i need things to change and it is time. look forward to seeing the changes!

I need grounding. Few months ago I started a hormonal treatment which is changing a lot my inner balance. It is a good change, but still it puts me out of balance. And for a monk balance is everything . I still aim to become a fully fledge assassing one day, but for the moment I go back to my roots, and since I have been a monk all my life before I joined the rebellion, for this challenge I am back here. Grounding is a continuous exercise, a state of mind, so also my goals will be "continuous", more on building the daily habits than doing some heavy training few times. I'll check my "done" on this spreadsheet Seeds My Sensei died last May. After that I formally joined a new school where I have been training randomly for the past 8 years. I am learning the new style. I also have 2 brand new sort-of-students, two colleagues who discovered that I used to teach karate and asked me to teach them something. They are my "guinea pig" to whom I am teaching the new style. And yes, they agreed on that We work on technical stuff, nothing strenuous, just half hour before work or after lunch. My goal for this challenge is to dedicate at least half hour to them every day. Part of the task is also to keep them motivated so they are also willing to keep training. I take a partial break from the challenge while I am on vacation (15-18 November and 12-16 December) + 2 CHA, + 1 DEX Daily rain New style means new kata to learn. My challenge will be to practice at least 3 kata each day. I could be the same repeated 3 times, or 3 different ones, depending on the feedback I get from the sensei. Since in the school there are also many drills for kyu ranks that I have to learn, I can swap 1 kata with 3 drills. + 2 CON, + 2 DEX, + 1 STA The roots in the sky A couple of weeks ago there was a post on the blog about learning to do a handstand. I joined the 28 days program last week. My goal for this period is to keep my 5-10 minutes of daily practice. Good to work on a different kind of balance (plus, I think it is a cool skill to have) + 2 DEX, + 1 STR Life quest: talking sticks I should go to the dentist for a checkup. And I must speak with a local lawyer to get some documents recognized in the country where I live at the moment. The difficult part for me is to pick up the phone and call them. So my goal is to get an appointment with my dentist and with the lawyer + 4 WIS (2 point for the dentist, 2 for the lawyer)