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THE MAIN GOAL: From December 5th to December 25th, I will get up every weekday at 6:30 in the AM and, most importantly, I will not slam the snooze button 4 to 8 times. That is it. That is, literally, the whole challenge, because I've learned that the bar has to be set really low for me to be able to succeed at this habit building thing. (This is essentially the same thing as the Daily December challenge that some other NF Rebels and I are doing in the NF Prime Facebook group, but I figured I'd make a thread here as well for extra accountability. And to have an extra place to brain dump.) IDEALLY, I would like to establish a morning routine that I can actually stick with. Here is the routine I have in mind: - Wake up. - Do some quick movement/stretches. - Wash my face and shower, and not forget to use the expensive cleanser and moisturizer that is currently not being used. - Walk the dog, but longer and in less of a mad rush. - Drink my coffee (and have breakfast if I'm not doing IF) while relaxing and not being in a mad rush. Even though it's a really fucking basic and bare-minimum routine, it cannot happen if I don't get up on time 😐 So this will be it for the Holiday Challenge. And also for the next NF Challenge just to make sure the habit actually sticks.

It occured to me that I haven't been paying much attention to my 2017 Roadmap. With only 2 challenges left in this year, its time to take stock of the rest of my goals for the year and make as much progress as possible. I haven't necessarily been neglecting the Roadmap as most of my goals have been aligned with the goals I set out for the year but some goals are further along than others. The purpose of this challenge is to get out that map and follow it to my selected destination. I've taken stock here and come up with a list of goals that still need work. The two goals that still require the most work are sleep and achieving Onederland status (weight below 200). Sleep Not only am I addicted to my snooze button but I perpetually get too little sleep. I made the goal to work on my sleep habits so that I could wake up on a weekday, at least once, without the use of an alarm clock. What was I thinking? I've only got 2 challenges left to achieve this. I'm going to spend this challenge working on getting enough sleep and then next challenge I can work on timing. Goal: Get at least 7-1/2 hours of sleep every single night. This entails going to sleep by 11:30 on weeknights. I'll also keep track of how many times I hit the snooze button. Currently, the max is 8 times! Bonus points for reducing. However, this could work against the other goal if I wake up sooner than normal. To do these effectively, I'll aim for a 11:15 bed time and try to start the alarm later in the morning. Onederland I have no intentions of losing enough to get to Onederland in the next two challenges but I need to keep my focus on this. More importantly, I need to focus on doing things that bring me joy and keep me fit and losing fat as a means to enjoy those other activities. This has two components: training focused on activites I enjoy or preparing me to be able to do whatever I want, and eating to fuel those activities and to learn to eat smart in a sustainable way so that my weight doesn't keep me from doing any of those activities. I am still pursuing a way to incorporate the benefits of Whole30 in a sustainable way. I go back and forth between the desire to not have to track food by eating compliantly and being able to accommodate variances in a smart way. Goal 1: Continue eating Paleo Plus (Paleo plus moderate dairy and limited whole grains). Rather than counting variances, if I want to accommodate non-compliant foods, I just need to track calories for that day and make it work byn staying under 1600 calories. This has the benefits of eating mostly compliant food and not needing to track everything but also being able to work in other foods while being aware of calorie intake. Eating non compliant foods over the calorie limit count as a variance. Since this goal is more lenient than before, I'll only allow 1 variance per week. I've been thinking a lot about the right training to prep for the HammerRace next year and there is no reason to wait until next year to start. So I've really stepped up my training. I will continue lifting according to my 5/3/1 program twice a week. I need to be better about accessory work and getting the most from my gym days. Each lift day will have 3 accessory movements, 2 push/pull, and 1 ab. I am woefully weak in the cardio area so I need to stick to cardio 3 times a week. This will mostly be at home so walking still counts, as will running, rucking, dancing, etc... I am being deliberately open about this as long as I get the 3 cardio workouts in each week. In addition to this, I'll be doing a kettlebell swing 30 day challenge. This is a daily challenge that rotates 4 kettlebell workouts, hopefully improving time. The 4 workouts revolve around goblet squats and KB swings. But wait, there's more. On one of those cardio days, I'll also throw in a bodyweight workout. I wanted to lift three days a week but I don't really want to drive to the gym 3 days a week so this is the compromise. This workout will include donkey kicks, clamshells, squats, sideleg raises, and this darebee workout Goal 2: Stick to the workout schedule. This may seem like there is a lot going on but I have already edited for RangerBrain. I did schedule 2 rests day each week. Also, the schedule worked out well to stick to the 30 days of the KB challenge. So my challenge will start on Wednesday during 0 week and end on the final Thursday of the challenge. Tidbits I still want to keep track of decluttering/house projects as well as being more present and spending time with family. I'll continue to report on it in my updates though there aren't any goals attached to it.

Hello! After over a year away from the forums, I'm back for my third challenge. I never should have left. I thought I would be able to sustain a consistent workout plan outside of here, but what I realized is that I work well with goals and structure. NF challenge = structure = good. I was able to find structure in some other health-related ways while I was gone - I completed a Whole30, which lead to the realization that dairy does not agree with me (after a lifelong love affair with cheese . That said, I feel so much better after cutting it out so it's worth it). I did the Couch to 5K program and ran a 5K without stopping for the first time ever on Thanksgiving (major goal for me). After C25K, I felt a bit lost. I need structure again! So here I am. Ultimately I need to create ingrained enough health (working out especially) habits that the structure is less necessary, but until then, here are my challenge goals: 1) Workout 3x/week I will run a 5K once a week and do strength training workouts (probably either NFA bodyweight 3 workouts or the BBWW) 2x/week. I want to maintain the cardiovascular fitness I gained from the C25K program, but I also want to make room for increasing strength. I'm hoping to get my 5K time under 30 min by the end of the challenge, but I'm not sure how much progress I can expect to make with a once/week run. Might change that time goal if I decide to start doing longer runs instead. 2) Stop. Snoozing. The. Alarm. Despite getting PLENTY of sleep, I'm still really bad at getting out of bed in the morning. I'll snooze incessantly, feeling less awake each time. I'm convinced that it is psychological. I struggle with snoozing no matter how much sleep I get, but if I have a legitimately important reason to be up early, I suddenly don't have trouble getting up. Part of it is subconscious calculation of how much time I need to minimally get my day started at a reasonable time (aka, if I sleep another 20 min, will I still have time to scarf down breakfast? yes? good, now go back to sleep.) So, I think I need to be mindful about setting my alarms for the time I really want to wake up. I also need a more aggressive strategy especially for starting out. I think I will start with putting my phone, which I use as my alarm, out of reach of my bed. Does anyone have a good strategy for dealing with this issue? 3) Read (a book) every day I go through phases of reading a lot and then phases of not reading at all, aside from what I read for work or on the internet (which don't count here). I am happier when I read more, and there are a lot of books on my reading list so I need to get cracking. My boyfriend and I are doing a little long-distance book club where we read the same book between visits, so I'm going to finish reading Invisible Man by February 10. I'm going to put these goals into Habitica as well to keep me accountable on a daily basis. Good luck everyone!

Hey everyone, my name's Maiki and I'm really excited to get started on this challenge! Technically, this is my second go at it... I entered in the last 6CW (mid-April), but pretty much dropped out two weeks into the game because a.) school was crazy and it was a real struggle maintaining any kind of a routine and b.) I got blindsided by an acute episode of depression. This being my first encounter with mental illness, I'm still in the process of figuring things out. The good news is that I've found help. And this is really just an episode, triggered by a combination of factors in my life that just came together to form on helluva cocktail of hurt and struggle... and when left untreated, after simmering for a couple of months, that can develop into a real problem. Which is what happened in my case. By the same token, rather than being a disease it's a temporary condition. With a little help I'll come out at the other end just fine. If anything I'll be stronger than I was before. Isn't that awesome? Anyway, the reason I mention this is because to me, the real challenge during the next couple of weeks will be re-establishing a basic rhythym (or set of routines) in my everyday life that help me in the healing process and just promote basic well-being. It's as simple as that. In terms of what I like to do and what my aspirations are for physical fitness, I'm headed for the assassins. But scanning through their forum I was slightly overwhelmed by the sheer mass of information. Plus, their challenges are specifically geared towards "their" forms of activity... and I feel I'm not quite at that point yet. So for the sake of keeping things simple, I decided to stick in the recruits corner for this challenge and just ease in...