Search the Community

I am a female-bodied person who is about to turn 40. Unsurprisingly I am also a nerd, and one of fairly diverse interests. I'm happy with my weight, my diet is reasonably healthy, and I'm able-bodied and capable of doing the stuff I really need to be able to do, physically, so while I'd like to improve my stamina and strength some, my main concern is mental, not physical, fitness; I'm dealing with depression and probable (testing is in progress) AD(H)D and a lot of inertia/momentum issues. Last challenge did not go so well, but I'm giving it another shot with similar, but simplified, goals. Not sure if I'm more suited to the Druids or the Adventurers under the new system... I'm really more of a Cleric. 1) GET UP! At 9am (I have an alarm), get out of bed, take my meds, and stay out of bed. Occasionally I need to get up earlier, in which case it all happens whenever I need to get up. 2) GROUND AND CENTER! After my daily prayers (something I'm already pretty good at keeping up), do a basic grounding and centering exercise. Doesn't have to be fancy or take ten minutes, just has to actually get done. 3) EXERCISE! Between dinner and my night meds alarm (in fact I may set another alarm just for this), do some kind of brief workout. We have a bunch of stuff -- treadmill, exercise bike, various light dumbbells, some kind of TotalGym thing -- around the house that I can use, but I expect to be falling back on jumping jacks fairly often since they need neither equipment, space outside my own bedroom, nor advance preparation. (Note to self: choir rehearsal probably doesn't count, not even when both choirs are rehearsing. You can work out when you get home.) If I've done something that counts earlier in the day, like gone for a hike, or taken advantage of a rare moment of being alone in the house to shake my booty, then I'll probably skip the nighttime thing, but I think that's probably the best time to get the possible sleep-related benefits of exercise, plus it puts the exercise before my shower whether that's at night or in the morning. SIDE QUEST: TAROT CARD STUDY! Paradoxically I have kept this up better when I wasn't involved in a challenge, but now it's starting to become a habit. Keeping it simple, just drawing a card (not with any intention that it's meant to reflect the day or anything), writing down my own impressions, then taking notes from my favored book (Learning the Tarot by Joan Bunning) so they'll stick in my head better. Occasionally I do a three-card reading too; thus far they've been fairly insightful. (And good at telling me to get off my butt. Possibly because I'm using my Hanson-Roberts deck, and while I haven't actually READ with it that much, I've owned it for about 20 years, so it's probably used to my BS by now.) EXTRA SIDE QUEST: POST, YOU FOOL! Post about how I'm doing so I can't hide it if I slack off. Ideally all these things will happen every day, but I'm aiming for getting them done more often than not and not letting missing a day turn into giving up.

Hi! I am eager to get started. I've been practicing yoga, on and off, for 15 years, and teaching it for at least 5. I've been a devout Pagan polytheist for almost as long, of the organic farming, living in the woods, raising goats variety. So the "Druid" stuff is always going to be part of my life, but I'm looking to branch out. I've been fascinated by parkour for quite some time (even though I'm in the woods, not the city), so Assassin-type training looks like a lot of fun. I had a great experience starting strength training a few years back (using Mark Lauren's bodyweight-based book "You Are Your Own Gym"). I think on some level I assumed being a skinny nerd meant I was physiologically incapable of putting on muscle, but I saw notable results in just a few months. Then I got mono, and since then I've been either too floppy or too discouraged to get back to it. Until now! I grew up living with my uncles, who were steroid-using competitive powerlifters and bodybuilders, as well as my mother and sister, who were chronic dieters. So while I wouldn't say anything them had eating disorders, per se, I grew up surrounded by unhealthy relationships with food and body image. So I'm working hard to keep the diet goals focused on eating plenty of healthy, nourishing food, with as few restrictions as practical. I'm also trying to keep the fitness goals focused on things that I enjoy, things that efficiently facilitate me doing more of the things I enjoy, and things that have inherent value aside from fitness. My Main Quest is to explore the full physical potential of my body's interactions with my environment, through climbing, jumping, rolling, etc. in a natural wooded environment. The yoga has been all about exploring my body's potential in and of itself, under very simple and controlled circumstances. I love being out in the woods, and I want to be able to engage with all of that awesome nature in a more dynamic, physical way. There is a lot of stuff I would enjoy that I currently can't do because either I lack the upper body strength, or my ankle is too wobbly, or whatever, but I've made a lot of improvement, and I know I can do more. For this 6-week challenge, I am focusing on getting outdoors, exploring a new fitness routine, and building the healthy habits (diet and sleep) that will keep me from sabotaging myself.

Hey there. I'm Raven the reindeer shaman. I cope with disabilities and a chronic illness that is going to kill me eventually ... but not this year, if I have anything to say about it. I'm part of the Asphodel crew and two of my partners are on here. My Main Quest: Slowing my rate of health deterioration. Every year above ground and doing something meaningful is a good year. My three goals for this first challenge: 1) Eating leafy greens of some kind EVERY DAY. 2) Doing Tai Chi twice a week. I need it because my lower limbs are becoming unstable and it is said to help prevent falls. 3) Getting outside and taking a walk at least three times a week. My Motivation: Prolonging my life. -RK

I'm on week 2 of my first 6-Week Challenge here, and I'm working on the plan described in Mark Sisson's Primal Blueprint Fitness ebook. (It's free with an email signup, or there is an older version of it here, but the old version includes the overhead press which has been dropped from his fundamental strength routine.) His fitness plan involves: 3-5 hours a week of low-level aerobic activity (55-75%) which I am aiming to mostly to hiking in the woods around my house.Two bodyweight-based strength training sessions a week - fairly high-rep progressions of pushups, pullups, squats, and plank.One short session of some kind of "sprints" - any maximal cardio exertion, running, biking, rowing, etc. He recommends aiming for anywhere between six 30-second sprints and 8-10 15 second sprints, with 1-2 minutes of rest between. Or a few Tabatas. My 6-week challenge is just to work on all of these, to put the time in, preferably in the woods, This thread is to track my actual progress with the strength training sessions. I've done three sessions so far, and I've gotten the hang of it. Sisson gives easier and harder variants, but his benchmark "Essential Movements" is two circuits of: 50 pushups12 pullups (strict hang. chinups in the second circuit)50 bodyweight squats (all the way down)90 sec. plank (on forearms) and 45 sec side plank on each side.Basically you try to do all on the reps in one set, with a minute or so to rest between. You can break it up if you need to, but if you are doing single reps or taking longer than about three minutes for the set, move on. If you can do the full number without resting in both circuits, you can move on to a harder version. He's got a self-assessment to determine whether you should start out with an easier variant. Currently, I am working on: knee pushups. I can do maybe 15 straight through, and around 25 total per circuit. Goal is 50. pullups/chinups - just the negative. Jump to the top, lower slowly. Goal is 7, before moving on to the benchmark."side-to-side" squats - I've got the benchmark and can do 50 "prisoner" squats, so the next step in the progression is keeping the normal-width stance, but shifting the weight over one leg. Goal is 30 each side.plank - on forearms. I can do 60 seconds, but I'm not quite at the benchmark yet. (At least not after the pushups and pullups!)I'm going to give myself a progress bar for this, because I love progress bars. It'll just measure how close I am do the benchmarks. Here is the point breakdown, out of 100pts, for the max I can do in a row: pushups: benchmark is 50, so 1/2pt each.pullups: benchmark is 12, so 2pts each for strict pullups, and one extra point for the first one.squats: benchmark is 50. ALREADY DONE. 25pts.plank: benchmarks 90s/45s. 2pts per 10sec of plank. For side plank, 7pts for benchmark, 5pt for 30sec. So currently, that gives me 25pts for squats, 12+5pts for plank, total of 42pts. Not bad for a start. UPDATED BENCHMARK PROGRESS: wk5 = 64% pushups: 14 of 50. (7pts)pullups: 3 of 12. (7pts)squats: DONE. 25pts.plank: DONE. 25pts.

So, hello; I'm Odonate, or Thea, whichever, a female-bodied nerdy Pagan about to turn 40. I'm no stranger to gamification -- I've been using Habitica, formerly HabitRPG, for a couple of years, and I've tried SuperBetter too (and probably will again someday if I can arrange better support) -- but I wouldn't have thought to join a gamified fitness site until some people I know and see on a regular basis RL started using it and decided to invite the rest of us. While I'm not all that genuinely FIT, I'm able-bodied, eat a reasonably healthy diet, and am happy with my weight. I know that getting more exercise would be good for me for several reasons, but I keep running up against the issue I REALLY need to work on, which is executive function. I'm seeking treatment for what's probably AD(H)D, but it's slow going with a lot of hoops to jump through, so for now I'm not getting too ambitious... but one thing that I know helps more than almost anything else is having other people to check in with, especially (but not only!) people I already know, so here I am. My MAIN QUEST is just plain sticking to this routine. That's absolutely the hardest part for me, keeping up with something that requires doing every day, or every week, and it's doubly (or triply or possibly exponentially) hard if no one other than me cares if I do it. (Tracking helps, but tracking is ALSO a thing I have to keep doing on a regular basis that's harder to stick to when no one knows or cares if I don't.) My sub-quests are 1) SLEEP I will adjust my times for going to bed and waking up from 1am/10am the first week, to 1am/9am the second week, 12am/9am the third week, then 12am/8am, 11pm/8am, 11pm/7am through the end of the challenge. I will support that process by starting to get ready for bed an hour beforehand -- backlit screens mostly off, shower if I can get in there (5 people + 1 shower sucks), pajamas, brushing teeth, meds, skin care, daily review and prepare for the next day in my planner notebook, etc. In the morning, I will shower right away if I didn't do it the night before, get dressed, take meds/vitamins, and eat something. I think this is pretty reasonable, since I've maintained those sorts of sleep/wake times before, even when not working (which I'm not currently), but it may not be easy at first NOW, since I've had some trouble getting to sleep lately (which has contributed to my staying up later on purpose, because lying in bed awake in the dark is no fun). The get-ready-for-bed routine should help, though. 2) MEDITATION I will do mindfulness meditatation every day, for five minutes the first week, ten minutes the second week, and an additional five minutes each week through the end of the challenge. I will also do lovingkindness meditation once a week (probably Sunday), and keep up with my current daily prayers. This one... is not going to be easy. On top of the difficulty I have with regular practice, no matter what the activity is, meditation really does not come easily to me. I'm hopeful that proper AD(H)D treatment will make it at least a LITTLE bit easier, but I haven't got that yet. If it works out particularly badly, I will probably switch to guided meditations, since I have lots of those in various lengths so that I can still extend the time each week, and they work a little (if not much) better than silence. I am still trying to figure out when the best time of day to do this is. 3) EXERCISE I will do three sets of jumping jacks every day, starting with 10 and adding 5 more to each set every three days. I will also try the beginner body weight workout at least twice during the challenge so that I can see where I stand about possibly doing it in the next challenge. The jumping jacks honestly aren't even meant to be physically challenging, they're just meant to establish a habit of doing physical activity every day and increasing it a little on a regular basis. The last time I had any success with exercising regularly, even a little bit, I started so small that there was literally no excuse for me not to do it, and worked up from there, so that's what I'm doing here. I want to do my exercise in the late afternoon or early evening -- when most of my day is over, but not too close to bedtime either. My SIDE QUEST will be a daily tarot card study (not a reading) with a weekly three-card reading. In the long term there will probably always be a spiritual component to the stuff I want to work on here, so I figure that makes me a Druid. I'm going to post regularly here (ideally daily) about my progress, and would appreciate encouragement, gold stars (when earned), feedback, etc., since accountability is one of my best motivators.

Okay, this is the thread for our various Asphodel folks to check in with each other during our first 6-Week challenge, starting Nov 2.

Main Quest: To make my baseline a little less sucky. I’ve struggled my whole life with a chronic illness and the repeated, inevitable return to “Square 1â€. So instead of further wallowing, I’m trying to make “Square 1†a little less miserable for my visits... as well as easier to leave. I’ve managed some improvements that have been a satisfactory proof of this concept, and I hope to keep building upon them. I'm on SSI for my disability, which provides a low-presure environment for self-improvement, and I have ADHD, which is hard to improve upon without structure. So I’ve got my fingers crossed that using the exoskeleton of this program can help keep me on track! Quests 1) Water Roots Drink at least 100 ounces of water a day. 2) Move Do at least one thing off my list of fitness activities daily depending on physical and mental capability. 3) Say Something Worth Saying Meditate and pray daily. Side Quest - Art Do art daily, be it a doodle or a long-overdue commission. Motivation (Picture reads "My transformation begins with me getting tired of my own bullshit". Credit to Skeletor is Love for the best summary I've yet to find of my greatest motivation.) I've been given so many gifts in my life and I'm tired of squandering them with trauma coping mechanisms that are much in need of an overhaul. It's time to face down my diminishing health. It's time to get my ADHD under control. I didn't fight for a better life to then do nothing with it.

I recently saw a note on Facebook about someone who commonly used the phrase "man up!" to express support and encouragement for people struggling against something hard, but they were no longer comfortable with the various gender connotations of it, so they decided to instead say, "FORTIFY!" I like that. Anyway, this is a thread for our various Asphodel folks to check in with each other as we assemble for our first 6-Week challenge. For right now, we're going to ask that this stay exclusively to members of Asphodel and their direct friends, though Asphodel folks should realize anyone on the site can actually read and reply to this. So, if you are an Asphodelian (even if you won't be doing the next 6-week challenge) post here so we will know your screen name, and say something about what you are looking to get out of this. Also, if you tag threads you start with "asphodel" we can all easy keep track of each other.