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Do I need to introduce myself? Goals: Marbles: I've been trying to figure out what's helping or hurting my mood on a daily basis. Since coloring in a pizza was a nice visual guide for tracking junk food consumption that helped quite a bit last challenge, I decided to do this with things that affect my mood and sort out the good days and the bad days and what's contributing to each. So I bought a few mini-goldfish bowls and a bunch of multi-colored marbles. The bowl in the middle holds the reservoir of marbles, and the marbles are color-coded as follows: Red = Writing Blue = Work Green = Health/fitness Yellow = social Multi-color swirl = environmental, aka all the little things The bowl on the left is for bad days, the bowl on the right is for good days. If I had a good day because of writing, I put a red marble in the right bowl. If I ruined the day by eating too much pizza and got indigestion, I put a marble in the left jar. If I had a 'meh' day with no strong feelings about it, no marbles move. Then at the end of the challenge, or whenever, I can look at the bowls and see if something is contributing disproportionately to good vs. bad days. Greyskull: Lift weights per Greyskull. I was on a really good run, but stopped for a break last week because of tendinitis in my wrist. I'm gonna restart this week with a deload on squats and switch from low bar squats to high bar squats Cholesterol: I still have to go in for a blood metabolic and lipid panel, but I'm not sure I've done enough to change habits and see if I can lower it. I've basically dropped whole eggs and eat mostly egg whites now... and my egg white omelette game is bangin'. But, I'm researching and finding that dietary cholesterol isn't the biggest driver, and it seems like eating lots of fiber is a bigger help. So starting the day with a bowl of oatmeal, and eating a can of beans daily should skyrocket my fiber intake. If I skip one or the other, I have some psylium husk fiber to make up for it. Writing: It's looking like we're going to keep going with our workshop, though without the author that kicked off the whole thing, so we'll see, but I likely won't need a writing goal since one of the driving forces of the workshop is daily accountability for word count and reading. Other stuff: I'm still playing chess regulary with kishi and KBGirl, and I have a 44 day streak on Duolingo studying Ukrainian.

Hi. I'm Stronkey Kong. I'm 38. I'm fat and I don't want to be fat anymore. I lift. I have a vague idea for how I need to eat to keep this weight loss + get stronker thing going. I write... in fact, I'm doing a writing workshop during this challenge. Also, I have weirdly intense hobbies that I tend to jump between at random intervals. Okay. Goals. Goal 1: DO NOT EAT A PIZZA As I've mentioned in the holiday mini. My worst habit/downfall is I'll go grocery shopping on the weekend, pick up a Meat Lover's-esque pizza and a bottle of wine/six-pack/booze/etc. and undo a week's worth of good eating in one evening. This challenge, I am not going to do this.(every week) Further, I'm going to track how I'm not eating a pizza. For the duration of the challenge I am going to avoid eating any ingredients that belong in that meal: 1 large meaty pizza and a bottle of wine. Those ingredients are: 12 servings of junky meat: any meat that can be described as fatty, salty, processed, cured, etc. 12 servings of cheese. 12 servings of junky carbs: white breads, pastas, desserts, candy, etc. 5 servings of alcohol. These are all foods I need to work on my relationship with, which is why they will be limited so much. Tomato sauce is fine. I'm going to track this by drawing a picture of a pizza, and drawing on the crust, cheese, and toppings, next to a bottle of wine that I'll fill up with reddish-purple ink. This will hang on the fridge. It will be an ever present visual reminder in my kitchen. And when I make mistakes, drawing stuff on will force me to spend time pondering my mistake. If I make it through the five weeks without eating a whole pizza, I can reward myself with a small pizza and a couple glasses of wine or beer. Other than that, I'm emphasizing proteins, fruits, and veggies, minimizing condiments, and judiciously adding whole grains and legumes for protein/mineral/fiber support. Goal 2: GREYSKULL and CARDIO Lift weights following Greyskull 3 days per week. 2x30 min med. intensity cardio sessions 2 days per week: stat bike, ring fit, racquetball, or any reasonable substitute. This has been going well the last two weeks. I just gotta keep doing it. Then I'm gonna take my 24 lbs. kettle bell to work. I don't have time for long walks... or even a good place to walk... when I'm at work, so I can do a quick KB sesh after food breaks. Not sure what. I just want to get my HR up and burn a few extra calories. Goal 3: COMPLETE MY WRITING WORKSHOP Starting Jan 15, by every Sunday I have to write 2500 words, and read up to 9 other people's 2500 words and provide feedback. Between now and then, I need to write 2500 words on a handful of projects, and pick one for the workshop. Goal 4: PLAY CHESS I've been on a chess kick lately. I used to play casually in high school. And the occasional game here and there. And I've been playing online games, and they stress me out in a weirdly good way. I've always wanted to really learn it and get good at it. Daily: play a game or study a game. (watching a YouTube video doesn't count... unless I set up the board and play through and analyze something I guess). Also, this counts as research for a middle grade novel I might do for the workshop... a portal fantasy about a chess prodigy. Goal 5: LEARN (at least some) UKRAINIAN. I've tried learning Slovene in the past as some way to connect to my own heritage, but resources are limited. Another way in is to learn another Slavic language. Though Russian is an obvious leader in terms of resources, learning Ukrainian is kinda trendy for solidarity. I started doing the Ukrainian course on Duolingo, and it's been fun and interesting so far. But I realized this morning all the sentences I've learned rely on an implied but omitted 'is.' I know no verbs, and the inflections are coming. Also, Pimsleur, I found out, is giving their Ukrainian course for free through 12/31/23 if you sign up by 12/31/22.

Hi. I'm Stronkey Kong. I've been on NF for 9 years now. I am still fat big. I will probably always be big... but I think I can choose what kind of big I am. I tried a bit of running this summer... it didn't really work out. Walking was good, but I kept hurt my calf the more I tried to run. I'm just too heavy for my leg muscles at the moment. I need to get some daily cardio in though. I am actually 290 lbs. right now. I'd be freaking out a little bit, but I've been lifting weights and following Greyskull LP. I shot up about 5-10 lbs since I started that. I haven't really changed the way I've been eating, as far as I can tell, so I'm thinking it's because of 'da pump.' My muscles should be retaining more glycogen and water at they repair and grow. For a variety of reasons, I've been eating a mostly vegan or 'bad vegan' diet. That is, mostly plants and almost no meat or dairy, though, I let myself indulge in cravings a couple times a week, and don't nitpick minor animal based ingredients... hence 'bad vegan.' Most of the time it's because I didn't prep, and I went for convenient options. It's hard to go over on calories when I plan ahead and keep it healthy, but when I get lost in the mid-week chaos, and/or have available junk food, I can go off the rails and undo any calorie deficits fast. I've also been spending a lot of time thinking about the next move(s) in my career. I have a good, well paying job, and am staged to be out of (extraneous) debt within 3 years. Though I still need to work about 45 hours/week on average to meet those goals. And, when that 3 years is up, I want to be moving on to something new. Preferably something where I can be my own boss, and do something creative... don't we all... I've been thinking a lot about writing again, or failing that web development... but since I prefer writing and have three years to go, I might as well see if I can start getting words down and get a novel out. Goals: Daily Cardio -- walking, stationary bike, heavy bag, jogging (if/when that becomes possible) GreySkull LP -- stick to the program ( 'plug-ins' optional) Bad Vegan Meal Prep -- buy/prep meals for the work week and avoid snack/junk food Write a Novel -- Write daily I have everything I need in order to get these goals done. Including a power cage and workout buddy: I also live near a bike path for walking/biking/jogging. I have the stat. bike in the living room, and a heavy bag in the basement. Meal prep just takes some time on Sunday, and organized grocery shopping. All I need to write is a computer, a desk, and some time. That is a lot, though, and as I mentioned I work 45 hours a week -- Noon-10 pm (ish) M-R, Noon-(as late as 8pm) F How will I do it all? Get organized and follow through with my plans. Plans: Daily Cardio -- first thing in the morning (fasted even) (about 10 am) GreySkull LP -- Lift M, W, F, every evening when I get home from work. T,R are for stretching and ab work. Sunday is rest. Bad Vegan Meal Prep -- Get a hold of that vegan casserole recipe list and make one every Sunday. Make a grocery list every week and stick to it. Meal prep every Sunday. Write a Novel -- Write every evening from 1-2 am. Sit at the computer, open my novel, and type away. (not sure which novel yet 😕 ) Preliminary stuff: Yes, I saw the mini-challenge... I'll be doing the walking, but I saw some things posted about other stuff involving posting things somewhere, and was like meh, I'm not gonna bother. On Wed. Sept 13, I'm taking the day off of work to attend an online writing class with my local writing center (meet some local writers, connect, get advice). After that I will definitely be hacking away at writing and tracking word count. Until then I'll mostly be plotting, outlining, and sketching scenes. Reviewing old material. Etc. But I'm gonna put an hour or so into that every night until the class. The following weekend, Fri-Sun, I'm going up to Wisconsin to visit friends, eat cheese, and drink beer. So I'll miss those days on the schedule but whatever. It's fine. After that weekend, I will be back on the mostly straight and mostly narrow path of walking, lifting, eating plants, and writing.

Hi all. Callanthae here. I had a previous account on Nerd Fitness a long time ago, so I decided to skip the Level 1 Challenge and come straight to the Rangers. My challenge doesn't really have a theme, but it does have an inspiration. My favourite anime of all time, the reason I got into tennis, Baby Steps. For those who haven't seen it, Baby Steps is a tennis anime. What makes it so fantastic in my opinion is a host of factors: - Maruo Eiichiro, the protagonist, doesn't have impossible skills. He starts out as a complete beginner to the sport. While his eyesight and his studious nature are big strengths, they're strengths that need to be honed and trained to be of any real use. Because of this, we see his journey from the very beginning. - Maruo loses. Like...a lot. You really never know how any match, no matter how important or plot-crucial, is going to go. Maruo could easily lose at any time, and it makes it all the more thrilling when he wins. - The realism of the anime shines through in a thousand other small ways. The shots and feats of athleticism are almost never superhuman, they're very much achievable for skilled players. Maruo's a very analytical player, and you get to understand his thought process as he plays. When he ascends to a new level, it's never because of just "powering up" or "wanting it more"...it's always a result of some useful insight that occasionally even proves useful on the court in real life. You really feel like you're in a match, and you get an understanding of how strategic tennis really is. - Last but not least is the title of this challenge. "Baby steps to giant strides" sums up the mentality of this anime perfectly, and it's an expression that appears in Season 2. The protagonist doesn't have lofty goals...he just wants to get better at tennis, and over time, as he keeps working hard, he end up doing better and better in competitions. That's how I'd like to do as well. A series of baby steps that lead to giant strides as each one is steadily accomplished. Because of this, a week or two after I watched Baby Steps for the first time, I found a local tennis club and started playing. That was about six months ago. I now want to add in off-court training, getting back to running and lifting on a regular basis - and that's why I'm back. So, Baby Steps gets full credit for getting me active again, which is yet another reason I'm such a fan of it. Goal 1: Practice my serve twice a week. I don't think you're legally allowed to have a challenge here without at least one GIF. I already practice tennis with other people a couple of times a week, and on Fridays I compete with the juniors (12-14 years old). Being 5'4" and relatively new to tennis, I'm a pretty fair match for them despite being an adult. So that's 2-3 sessions a week already, and I need no motivation to keep attending them. However, sometimes you need to get some solo practice in and really drill something, and for me that's my serve. It lags significantly behind my groundstrokes, and I really need to dial in the new serve I learnt a few weeks ago - a solid pace on the first serve, and a spinning second serve that manages to be reliable without being easily attacked. My current first serve misses too much, and then I have a weak second serve with no spin or pace that's easily taken advantage of by better opponents. Goal 2: Lift weights at least twice a week. (Ideally 3x) For weights, I'll be following Phrakture's Greyskull LP variant. The Big 4 compound lifts, plus pulling added in as Pendlay Rows and Chin-Ups. (Assisted chin-ups for the time being.) I'll be tracking it using the Personal Training Coach app on Android, which has a bunch of workout templates, including the Greyskull variant I'm doing. I've started relatively light, but over the last couple of weeks the workouts have gotten harder. I'm still getting 10 reps on the last set for all the exercises except Chin-Ups though, so I've got plenty left in the tank. Over the next few weeks I expect that to change as the weights climb back up to my old levels of strength. Goal 3: Run at least twice a week. (Ideally 3x) For running, I'll be using Zombies, Run! to keep things interesting. For the first two weeks I'll be running 4 km (2.5 miles), and for the second two weeks, I'll be running 4.5 km (2.8 miles). At my peak I was running 5-6 km 4 times per week, but I went from 3 days a week to 4 too fast and got injured. I never really got back into it. The goal is to run at an Easy pace (Based on an estimated 27-minute 5k time from a recent max-effort run I performed) 2 days a week. On Saturdays, I'll be doing story runs, where I run faster. I allow the Zombies Run story to determine exactly how fast I do run, though I don't plan to run faster than Threshold pace (Comfortably hard) except at the very end of the challenge, where I'll be doing an all-out max-effort run if everything works out, probably a 5k time trial. I could fill plenty of words with various details, but I figured I'd leave it nice and short...and it'll give plenty of stuff to talk about throughout the challenge this way. Looking forward to the start of the challenge!

So, it's been awhile since my last challenge. Over the summer break I have gotten settled into my new house, got married, went on a honeymoon, and gotten off track with my fitness. Now that summer is ending it is time to get back on track and (sadly) it's time to get back to school. Goal: Lose 12 lbs over the course of this challenge. Quests Mathematics: I will have to practice my counting everyday. Particularly, I will be counting my calories and logging them into Lose It! Drivers Ed: I will have to study driving past fast food restaurants over the course of this challenge. I will not eat at any restaurant that has a drive through. Physical Education: I will work on my physical fitness by lifting following the Greyskull LP 3 days a week over the course of this challenge. Home Economics: Now that I will be back to work, I still need to maintain the house. So, I will spend a minimum of 15 minutes a day cleaning or organizing the house.

Hello, This is CJ the (soon-to-be) Mighty, and I am taking my first challenge as a Warrior. A bit about myself, in the past 2 years I have lost almost 80 lbs (and would like to lose another 100+), I bought my first house about 6 weeks ago, and I am getting married to The Love of My Life this summer. My first 2 challenges were very successful this year, but since buying the house most of my free time and energy has gone into various renovation projects as opposed to exercising and eating like an adult. However, the hard renovation work is just about done and I can return to focusing on my diet and exercise. Goals Lose 15 lbs by the end of this challenge. Quests I am going to go back to focusing on the Quests from my first challenge and get myself back on the right path. Quest 1: Strength Training: I will do my Greyskull LP routine 3 days per week. There should be 15 opportunities this challenge. Quest 2: Additional Exercise: Three times per week I will do some other sort of exercise - working out with my trainer, cardio at the gym, or a nice long walk. Again, there should be 15 opportunities this challenge. Quest 3: Chart Calories: I will chart what I eat and stay under my calorie limits everyday, using the Lose It! app. There will be 34 opportunities this challenge. LUYL Quest: Finish Moving In: By the end of the challenge I need everything from my apartment to be moved in to the new house and (hopefully) unboxed. Grading The first 3 questions will be graded on their percentage of completion using the following scale. 90% - 100% --> A 80% - 89% --> B 70% --> 79% --> C 60% - 69% --> D 59% and below --> F

A bit about myself, I am a nerdy math teacher and football coach who bought his first home and is getting married to his best friend this year. In the past year and a half, I have lost about 80 lbs, but I still have a way to go. Last year. while researching how to measure body fat percentage, I ran across Nerd Fitness and I was immediately hooked on their message. After completing a couple of challenges early in the year, I have sorta feel on my face the last month or so in terms of diet and exercise. I am going to use this training log to chart my workouts, calories, weight, weekly measurements and body fat calculations. Long Term Goal: Get below 15% bodyfat - which probably involves losing 100 lbs. Once I reach that goal, I would like to get involved in some sort of strength/athletic activity, right now I am thinking about Strongman type training, but I will research more options as I get closer to that goal. Plan: I will be working out 6 days per week. 3 days of following the Greyskull LP program (I will spell out the routines more as I do them). 3 days of moderate cardio work on the elliptical or tread mill. I will be charting my calories on Lose It! with a calorie setting of losing 2 lbs per week.

I just joined NF at the start of the previous 4 week challenge. Now that my renegade initiation is complete I'm going to try things out over here in the Warriors guild. I have a preference for barbell training and you people own the most barbells. I don't have a vast amount of experience with self-improvement so I'll be taking all the free advice that's offered. So far the one I've enjoyed the most was from SpecialSundae; ice cream for breakfast. I have very much enjoyed that tip. Being new to the world of picking things up I am trying to settle on a program that is both fun and efficient/useful. I just finished a month and change on Ice Cream Fitness but the duration of the actual sessions is way over what I can sustain when I get back home. I need something that is easier to run in the 75-90 minute range. This month I'll try Greyskull LP, this will cut out a ton of accessory work that I don't believe was appropriate for my experience level. The plan for this challenge? Since I am not going to have unlimited access to food and gym time in the very near future I will be scaling back the demands on my time required by the challenge. Ice Cream Fitness is OUT, Greyskull LP is IN! Food will be a balanced goal as opposed to a volume goal. Reading was a good goal while away from my family, but I read to my kid every night so that'd be a freebie this time, instead I will PLAY with my kid everyday. I know it doesn't sound like a lot but I need to be honest with myself, watching cartoons with her isn't quite the same as building something out of lego. Any day she isn't on board with dad-time that's fine, I still have to try. Since I've been away a while I think my wife needs to know I missed her too. Romance isn't really something I do well but I'd like to make my family a priority over the next challenge. Diet: (1) In all things balance / 10 EXP: 3 balanced meals a day. I'll figure out what counts as balanced later but certainly no breakfasts made entirely of frosted cocoa bombs and no lunches made of blocks of cheese. Fitness: (2) Still on the horse part one / 10 EXP: New program, Greyskull LP is 3x per week. I'll be throwing in some frequency stuff too which means I'll have to do push ups, chin ups and pull ups everyday instead of just gym days. Full plan in my Battle Log. LUYL: (3) These are the days / 10 EXP: Play with kid every day. No min or max, just have to sit down and have some fun (or chase her until one of the two of us can't run anymore) with a great little kid without a tv to distract. BONUS: (4) Well ain't that nice / 1 EXP each - MAX 5: I gotta do something nice for my wife. Either a letter in the mail or a dad/daughter day just to give mom a break. I'm open to suggestions. At least one a week seems like a good start. --------------------- As before, any comments be it encouragement, tips, book recommendations or anything else is all welcome. I'll be asking for program help in other threads but I'm wide open to feedback here as well. Good luck and happy hunting.

Its been a couple of months but I'm happy to be back on a challenge. Making this challenge pretty simple and similar to pretty much all my challenges before. Get more sleep: Goal here is at least 7 hours each night. Tracked using sleep bot app. Get those lifts in: Lift at least 2x per week. Planning for more but for a couple weeks i know i'll miss it cause of travelling. Tracked in my battlelog and fitnotes app. Eat food: Get at least 2400 calories each day. Tracked with MFP Life goal: Read something professional for 30mins 3x per week. Currently doing Phraks Greyskull LP variant and working on my form with some good advice. Will try to post a formcheck video at least once a week but not making it a goal cause i should be able to nitpick a lil by now.

A new year, a new battle log. THE THING I'm committing 2015 to one year of weight training using the Greyskull program as a template. THE WHAT? The Greyskull template is - like just about every novice program online - a modification of Mark Rippetoe's Starting Strength programming, made up by a dude who didn't like some things about SS programming.Phrak's Greyskull variant is a variant version of the Greyskull program, made up by a dude who wanted to row. GOAL I'm hoping to hit the Level 50 numbers of my Epic Quest by the end of 2015. BASIC STATS Male5'9" (174cm)late 30s ANYTHING ELSE? I'm an NF Assassin Guild Leader. Of course I'll be doing other stuff. But my bodyweight work for six-week challenges will mostly be low intensity, conditioning, and some skills practice. I won't be posting that stuff here. It'll be in my guild challenge threads.Edit: Oh! And my first workout with this will be Jan 5th. No access to barbells from now till then. Holidays, yo.