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Ms. Moro's favorite show is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. So, it seems fitting that I do: I am basically keeping the goals I had made last challenge: Goals for this challenge - Wear my CPAP mask for at least 30 minutes a night - Get eight hours of sleep - Do the Ranger Workout six days a week - Meditate every day - Post to NF every day - Yoga 3 times a week - Get more than 232 points this time. Some day, I hope to be this cool: Avoid the "Bunnies": Things will be really unsettled - it's not clear if my son is getting married or not, due to visa difficulties. Also, my semester will start. I will not let the bunnies get to me: Details below:

Tiki Death flu is no fun: But I will try again. I managed to do NF Water A this evening, and will keep re-building... Irrelevant trivia: I had a Six-million dollar lunch box as a kid. As soon as possible, I lost it so I could get a Star Wars lunchbox... Details of challenge below:

Moment of honesty here; Starpuck is starting to falter. The Dark Side whispers temptations into my mind and they are growing harder and harder to resist. I'm just starting to feel like nothing works and when nothing works, hope is lost and motivation falls with it. I don't want that to be the case, so I must double my efforts. I need to SEEK these changes and have trust in the Force that it will come together. This challenge will be a lot of the same as last, though with a few tweaks. Bring Balance to the Force- Food. 1A) Eat as clean as possible, limit splurges, don't have frak it moments. 1B) Veggies and fruits - 3x / day. 1C) Debating yet on if I want to track or not. On one side, data is good - on the other side, with motivation at its low, maybe I should save it for some of the other tasks. Knowledge- the life of a Jedi should be one of constant learning, constant self-improvement. Mental/Spiritual Improvement 2A) Every morning, read a chapter. 2B) Every morning, write affirmation. 2C) Art - 3x/week + more frequent quick sketches. 2D) One night a week, set uninterrupted time aside to read book for 30 minutes. Physical Improvement 3A) Lift 2-3x / week. 3B) Sweat (without lifting) 2-3x / week. 3C) Yoga 1x / week I seriously have the biggest crush on this ^ Obi-wan. I love him. I want to marry him. And I think he was a really good Jedi. I have heard people debate and theorize on who was the stronger Jedi at the time of Revenge of the Sith. Obi-wan or Anakin. At the end of the short commentary this person put up, they said something that has stuck with me ever since. Anakin was more powerful naturally in the force, Obi-wan had to apply himself more and work harder- and due to that, he was able to defeat Anakin on Mustafar. I really want to emulate Obi-wan's commitment and perseverance. In NF terms, simply put: Obi-wan had to play on Hard Mode and he ended up kicking ass. I want to be like Obi-wan. There are a few other things I need to jot down here tomorrow (I have the day off) and I am officially starting this challenge on Monday because Monday's just work better for me. I also had a pretty hectic weekend of wakes, funerals, hockey games, birthday parties and then a dumping of 6" of snow to contend with today. But. Here's the challenge folks. Wish me luck.

This morning was a huge milestone for me and I wanted to brag! I didn't make it to sleep until about 3am last night (well, this morning I suppose); probably ate something bad and my body voicing its objections :-P. My normal routine calls for me to get up at 5:30 to hit the gym before my daily grind. The OLD me would have readily and justifiably said "nuts to that, we're sleeping in!" But not any more! Today was the first day I purposefully decided to kill that thought and get up and do it anyway. End result: one of my best and most personally record-setting days ever! Feeling tired, yes, but also pretty much like king of my own little world right now :-)

Introduction: Okay… So my first challenge didn’t go as well as I had hoped, so I think my goals were a little too lofty. For this challenge, I’m going to scale way back, and recognize that I can’t change my whole life overnight. Main Quest: I want my self-discipline back. I want to tell myself I’m going to do something, and then actually do it. My main goal is to finish the challenge and prove to myself I can stick with something and reach my goals. Quest 1: Complete the Beginner Bodyweight Workout in its entirety by the end of the challenge. Measurement: A = Complete all reps 3x, B = Complete all reps 2x, C = Complete all reps 1x Quest 2: Track my food intake to see just how many calories I consume a day. Measurement: A = 30+ Days, B = 25+ Days, C = 20+ Days Quest 3: Exercise for 30 minutes a day every day. Either do the beginner bodyweight workout, run, play DDR, do jumping jacks, or whatever. Just move. Measurement: A = 30+ Days; B = 25+ days; C = 20+ days Life Quest: Meditate for 10 minutes a day. To be purposeful in life is going to require me to learn to live in the moment. Measurement: A = 30+ days; B = 25+ days; C = 20+ days Motivation: I’m tired of feeling lost and demoralized. I want to feel the fire and passion and have the energy to experience life. I want to gain motivation by gaining energy and confidence.

Greetings! Total n00b here, please forgive any annoying enthusiasm as I can be that person sometimes. I am excited about joining my first challenge and the accountability, which I need. The last three years I have gained and lost the same 15 pounds at least four times so yeah, time to stop the madness. Lifestyle changes are my battle plans and they include conversion to a paleo diet and work outs to build muscle and lose fat. I cannot do even one chin up or pull up now but that is going to change soon!

Hey everyone! This will be my second challenge, but my first was a bit of a wash unfortunately so hopefully this one goes better! My goals this challenge will be more based around keeping habits than actually getting to a specific place in my health/fitness journey so all I have to do is keep doing what I'm doing. I couldn't wait for the challenge to start forming new habits so this will be an accountability exercise more than anything else. I'm so glad I've got you guys to cheer me on! I was with the Scouts my first time around but I want to focus on a more rounded fitness journey so I thought I'd poke around here with the Rangers and see what this is all about. Thanks for being around. GOAL ONE: The Vegan Challenge I've been vegetarian for eight years now and I really feel like it's time to up the challenge, diet wise. This is mainly a moral/ethical choice for me but I'm also interested to see how it will affect my health. It took me a while when I first became vegetarian to be healthy and disciplined and so I've decided to step it up. So, my goal: to be vegan for six weeks and see how it affects my health/weight/wellbeing. GOAL TWO: The Documentation Challenge Because I'm working out quite a bit, I feel it may be a challenge to get enough (healthy) calories being vegan so this is my challenge to write down everything I eat and figure out if I'm eating enough and what I need to eat more of. I'll also be writing down my workouts. GOAL THREE: The Running Challenge I've just purchased the Rebel Running and Strength Guides and I'd like to sign up for a 15 km charity run in March. I've been running on and off for the past few years so this is me stepping it up (once again) and getting back into the swing of running regularly. The last time I was training for a fun run I mostly neglected strength work and I fell off the wagon pretty soon after the race so hopefully this time I'll stick to my guns and be more disciplined. I'll be following the Rebel Running guide, using the bodyweight workouts from the Strength guide for my gym days. GOAL FOUR: [LIFE] The Guitar Challenge I like knowing how to do things, but I'm often too impatient to learn how to do them. I just started getting guitar lessons from a friend of mine and I want to challenge myself to practise every day, even if it's just for five minutes. Apparently it takes just 20 hours of dedicated work to learn how to do something on a basic, just-for-fun level, and that's where I want to get with guitar.

So just about a year ago I joined Nerd Fitness with all of the best intentions. I started eating a diet closer to primal than paleo, I bought and began the workout in the Convict Conditioning book (which I personally find awesome because it doesn't automatically assume you can immediately do something like a squat or a pushup straight off) and then something really horrible started to happen..... I got complacent, I started listening to all of the people around me at work that couldn't understand that the weight/inches I was loosing was because I was doing something besides going home from my very sedentary desk job and plopping down with a book or a movie, I let my mother talk me into trying all the "gluten free" (and still carb laden) foods that her doctor recommended when we found out she's allergic to that horrendous GMO wheat protien and I let my body weight exercises slide. I am ashamed.... and things would have kept on in that vein if I hadn't started getting bullied at work and treated like a slave and a doormat. Three-ish months ago I realized that things were only going to get worse where I was when one of my long time sales guys (an incedentally someone who I had up until that point highly respeced) went completely totally ballistic when I ordered a single thin crust vegetarian pizza for several employees who have legitimate health reasons for no eating meat during a building wide meeting but refused to order a thin crust meat pizza because that's what he (all by his lonesome) prefers to eat. The very next day I took a long lunch an applied for a job that every single person (with the exception of my best friend who now lives in CT) told me I would never get or survive. A month later I started working the assemby line at Nissan in Smyrna, TN helping to build SUVs. Yes, it's a complete turn around from years and years of desk work but damned if I don't love the movement and sense of accomplishment I feel at the end of the shift because I actually contributed to something in a tangible manner instead of just processing hundreds of phone calls and pieces of paper. I'm 10 days away from being there for 2 months, the body aches are mostly under control (with the exception of a single finger on my right hand), my appetite isn't quite as voracious as it was in the first few weeks, I'm loosing inches in all parts of my body as my muscles take over with constant movement and use, and I'm ready to amp up this transformation even more. After this week I'm determined to clean my diet up to what I'd been doing before: No more gluten free breads, pretzels and cookies! After this week I'm going back to the beginning of the Convict Conditioning circuit: Wall Push-ups here I come! After this week I'm not letting ANYTHING stop me! 12/25/13 Update: Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays fellow Nerds!! As I sit at my mother's laptop in her empty (except for me and three dogs) house in Nashville, TN I thought I should give you a quick update on my progress. The workout schedule is going great, the diet... could still use a little work. It's been a bit easier this week since I'm on holiday break from work and can't in any way justify a fast food stop (yay) but those gluten free products are still popping up despite my best intentions. I can't help loving GF toaster waffles with my bacon and eggs for breakfast and maufin (rice straws) with my stirfry and soups. Maybe if I solemly swear not to buy any more? Maybe a few of you can give me some pointers on quick, easy and portable snacks to take with me when work starts back up on Jan 2? That's where and when I know things are likely to go really downhill fast. I love the nuts and dried fruit option but I could really use some variety so any help would be awesome thanks!!

I've got the Monday blues. It's not been a particularly good day. For a start, I'm back at work. I'm rather glad of this in a sense, as the Christmas break has utterly bewildered my brain's sense of what day it is. Having a routine again is a big help. But that's not the problem. I've started practising the keyboard. I had piano lessons back at school but it's been twenty years since I seriously did anything with a keyboard and I'm horribly out of step with it all. My aim is half an hour, three times a week. I have some sheet music and a keyboard. Today was my second session - I've taken a step back from the piece I was practising last time and selected a simpler one. Much as I know this is the right thing for me to do at the moment, I'm still disappointed. I've resumed my chin-up training this morning. I have lost ground over Christmas. Now I need to work myself back up again. And I'm attempting to move my blog to its own hosting, a task that has proven Herculean. It still isn't done, despite much time and money, and the latest step failed to take my payment several times before my bank telephoned me to check I wasn't being defrauded. I'm despairing of ever getting this working, though I am now stepped in blood so far that to turn back would be as tedious as to go ere... Tonight's run should have helped to brighten me up. And it might have done, if I'd managed a decent one. Unfortunately some rather nasty stitches on both sides at once limited my run to a mere ten minutes. Barely more than a mile. Glad I got out at all, but again, disappointing. Everything is going badly and I'm questioning why I'm even bothering. But somehow, I'm still going. Tomorrow I'll get that damned website moving, get my work done, make some progress. Screw Monday. Bring on Tuesday.

Keliswicked checking in here, back to the NF world with a determination to make these changes in my life stick! Here is how I explain myself in NF challenge terminology: My current long-term goal: lose about 30lb of fat by combining a smart diet and exercise routine. My active fitness goals: do a pull-up and get an average of 15 minutes/day of cardio per week (super goal is 30 minutes). My active life goals: learn a new programming language this summer (either .NET or Python) and continue self-teaching Japenese by doing one grammar lesson a week and learning 10 new vocabulary terms. My dietary goal: making it a basic consideration to eat Paleo as frequently as possible, logging everything I eat My cardio goal is determined Sunday-Saturday. My strength training I hope to do 3 times a week. I will quiz myself on Japanese vocabulary on Friday and grammar on Tuesday. Diet I will log as yesterday's dinner, today's breakfast and lunch. I attached the self-made eating and exercise log I use on Google Docs. I also use My Fitness Pal to keep an eye on my caloric and macronutrient intake, especially noting the amount of sugar. I'm going to immediately update with today's log. Comments and critiques always welcomed! EDIT 7/10/2013: While most of the above is still in effect, I'm updating my information. My long-term goals: Lose fat and gain muscle to feel better! Continue to study piano and be excellent at it Learn to read and write Japanese My fitness goals: Do a pull-up Do a backbend Do a split Do a handstand Become better at yoga through consistent practice Squat my bodyweight My diet goals: Finish up my Whole30 on July 14th After, eat an 80/20 Paleo diet I understand that that's a lot of goals, but in my mind they are all deeply intertwined. Eating healthy will allow me to lose weight and strength training will make most of my fitness goals easier. I'm working diligently at lat pull-downs right now to improve my back strength. Yoga will help with my flexibility to do a split. It's all a big web of things that I want to do, but not all at one time. I strength train 3 times a week and am getting into the habit of going to yoga 2-3 times a week.