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Hey Guys, the ROK reporting back in for duty after a 6 week blip! You can read more about me in my previous challenges but will fill you in a bit, I'm 24 from Scotland and work in a bank, I used to be a fit and healthy lad until I ran into health problems when I was 16, the result of this was 10 surgical interventions from 2008-2013. During that time I lost all motivation for exercise, started smoking, and became a slave to video games and slowly and surely piled on the weight until I hit a massive 286lbs around August last year. I felt uncomfortable in my own skin, hated seeing pictures of myself, wore baggy clothes full time and became a bit of a recluse. From then until Christmas last year, I dabbled a bit in eating better and exercising infrequently and eventually stumbled upon here for the first challenge of the year which went really well. I progressed into challenge two fairly well until about the second week in when I took a bad cold, spent a couple of days gaming my little heart out, and feeling sorry for myself before reverting to type and losing sight of my end goal. As well as everything else going on with me I am currently awaiting another surgical operation for something new, I have had a tear in my quad in my left leg, which has calcified inside the muscle and I am now waiting on an appointment with the orthopaedic surgeon for removal. My Injury, FYI Anyways enough about me, feeling in the zone again and ready to crush some goals to get me back in the swing of it. Quest 1 - 3 Workouts per Week - As it turns out, I do really enjoy lifting, when I can manage to get myself there, aim is to return to doing stronglifts 3x per week starting tomorrow. Quest 2 - Log Food Daily on MFP - Aim for under 2k Cals - Again something which was working really well, but fell from the wayside, success for this would be doing this everyday, no excuse for failure Quest 3 - 7 Hours Sleep per night - Really got away from this after having massive success and again need to get this back under control Otherwise I also want to commit to getting back to posting here daily. Look forward to your support, and supporting you all too! ROK out!

Better late than never I always say. Been feeling unmotivated lately and my exercising and challenge mojo has suffered for it. Gonna put that all aside for now and put this challenge together. I wanted to shift my format to something that changed things up week to week but I was drawing a blank, so instead of doing that I'm just going to commit to doing stuff and then go do it. enough of that, on to the good stuff: The Theme! The image should say it all for most of you (You ARE nerds right?) but for everyone else my theme this time around is gonna be Final Fantasy VII which is the videogame that opened the door to a whole world of new games that I'd been missing out on. Its impact on me is so profound in terms of my nerdiness that I still consider getting the meteor symbol as a tattoo. So my main quest is unchaged from last time but now rebranded to reflect the new theme: Earn my rank as Soldier, First Class. And without further ado the goals: Swing the buster sword: (+4 str +1 sta) No idea how he moved that thing with one hand but I'm guessing gene manipuation and mako probably helped. Having access to neither of those things I will instead need to move heavy things around. Gonna try a non-bodywieght workout this time and instead do kettlebell routines. The fact that most kettlebell exercises are full body will really help me get back into exercising my leg muscles, which have been feeling better but need to start moving weight again. I'm hoping that this route will be a good stepping stone towards lifting really heavy things when I finally get it together and get a gym membership. A: 24 sessions B: 20: C: 16 D: 12 Earn the premium heart: (+3 wis, ) Tifa's utimate weapon, looks kinda silly but she was a monster and the only one who really used something approaching martial arts. My goal here is to improve my consistency with my techniques. Not going to focus on speed or power purely on form. Making sure my techniques are smooth and refined in their execution. 1 day of practice a week outside of class. A: 6 sessions B: 5 C: 4 D: 3 Bulk of Barrett (+2 con, +2 cha) Seriously, look at that guy, he's massive. My frame can hold muscle well so I want to work to put some more on. I haven't done many diet things because I don't want to start using it as an excuse to be less paleo than I currently am (which is about 80%) My goal here is to increase my bodyweight without increasing my belt size. Not sure how to grade it yet, once I get some feedback I'll plug in some numbers. (Hint hint, please give feedback on how to proceed here) Current stats: 32' waist 169.1 lbs. A ??? B ??? C ??? D ??? Grace of Red XIII (+3 dex) Red is a cat... cats are graceful... stretching makes you graceful? ...They can't all be winners. This is a repeat of a goal from last challenge but it did me a lot of good so I'm gonna carry it through to this one. Do 30 min of yoga/stretching once a week A: 6 sessions B: 5 sessions C: 4 D: 3

That's right folks, here we are at challenge #2 and I have been excited about this theme forever! My favourite show in the history of ever: Archer! Change in format tripped me up a bit but here we go: Main Quest: Become the world's most dangerous secret agent, Codename: Duchess. Seriously, all my fitness goals of strength, endurance and flexibility are rooted in my desire to excel in my martial art of choice: Hapkido. So that's what I've translated into my main goal. Step 1 "Are you s**tting me? Bionic legs and you lifted with your back?" - Archer to Ray Season 4 Episode 6 - Do a full 30 minute minimum stretch or yoga session at least once a week. (3 DEX, 2 CHA) So I have been having knee trouble due to the high number of kicks we've been doing in class, to help work on my stabilizers I'm gonna focus on stretching and yoga. Improving my balance and lessening pain is the name of the game with this goal. A 8 sessions B 6 sessions C 4 sessions D 2 sessions Step 2 Archer "Wow Barry, you're crazy super strong." Barry "What part of 'I'm a cyborg' are you not getting?" Archer "Core concept" Season 2 Episode 13 - Do Advanced Bodyweight routine twice a week (Knee permitting) (3 STR 2 CON) This goal is a bit tentative right now for a few reasons, primarily being that my knee seems to have a limited amount of physical activity before it starts to give me grief and if I need to choose between kicks and squats I'm gonna choose kicks. Last challenge was focused on gains this time I'm gonna focus on consistency A: 12 sessons B: 10 C: 8 D: 6 - Do 100 Pushups routine (Knee not permitting) (4 STR, 1 CON) This is my plan B if my knee starts giving me trouble. A: 90 pushups in a single set by the end B: 70 C: 50 D: 40 Step 3 - Start Drinking an acceptable amount of water So I don't drink enough... Water. I never drink alcohol but I don't drink enough water so doing all the fitness stuff I do I'm often doing it at low hydration levels... Especially in this insanely hot summer. A: ~2L 30 days B: ~2L 25 days C ~2L 20 Days D ~2L 10 days Side Quests: Get my knee looked at Pass Fail Get a Gym membership Pass Fail Updated with my stat points! Hooray.