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Main quest Be a strong bad ass and look killer in a bikini. Taking a challenge off has been helpful in a few ways – redefining my goals and looking at what I really want to achieve. I started here on NF just over a year ago. I was a bit disappointed to look back and think that there isn’t really anything specific that I have done in the last year that I can say “Yay! I achieved Xâ€. In the spirit of always growing, I do feel like I’m more awesome than I was a year ago, and that I’m armed with more knowledge too. I’ve definitely done some things I never would have over the past year if I didn’t participate in these challenges – especially completing my first whole30. One thing I found I’ve been lacking is specific fitness goals for myself. My post a year ago was that I want to reduce my bf%. That’s great, but I had no measure, no pictures, no big driving force. Upon (many!) chats with a good friend around here (Teros – honestly, I’m not sure how he had time to talk to anyone else, plus be the awesome guild leader that he is, with the amount of PMs we had flying back and forth! ) I’ve realized that yes, losing that fat would be awesome and make me happy, but it’s not a big driving force. When I was cheerleading in university, we would do fitness testing a couple of times a year and I loved feeling that strong, squatting my own body weight and more. My new main quest is to be a strong bad ass and look killer in a bikini. The strong bad ass is because I need to set specific goals to hit that will motivate and drive me. Right now, it’s the end goal of a pull-up. This is the ultimate in badassery. As far as looking killer in a bikini, this still keeps with the idea of dropping bf %, but I’ve taken photos to make it more measurable (I'm not brave enough to post them yet, but they exist, I promise). Don’t get me wrong, I look decent in a bikini, and I do go to the beach like that, but if I dropped just a little bit more body fat I would look killer I’m short, and so I know what is realistic of my body and what isn’t, so my definition of “killer†is rooted in reality. I was looking for examples of what my goal would be, but honestly, every picture I found was either some girl who was too skinny or too ripped. So I'm just gonna do me. My three goals to achieve my main quest are: 1. Whole30 – I have completed one and once I set my mind to it, it actually wasn’t that hard. It’s like going to the gym – the hardest part is deciding you’re going to do it and get your butt there. Once you’re there, you have a good workout and it was totally worth it. I haven’t been able to make myself commit again, and it’s been discouraging. For me, bad eating is a super slippery slope. It tends to be all or nothing. When I did the first one I saw major results – the overall shape of my body changed, I lost pounds, and I felt great. My boyfriend even said that I felt smaller. This one is 100% 7 days a week. Doing a whole 6 week challenge is 42 days, plus I started this on Oct 27, so technically my whole30 ends November 26. Another part of my reason for doing a whole30 is that I have psoriasis on my scalp, and I'm hoping that reforming my eating habits will help get this under control. 2. Bedtime routine – I have a few goals that I would like to roll into one, and luckily they work together. I would like to spend more time working on my flexibility, rolling with my foam roller and using my yoga tune up balls (amazing!!) and doing some meditation. Hopefully getting enough sleep too. Luckily it makes sense to do all of this at once/in combination. I might night get to EVERYTHING every night, but I want to make sure I do some of it, if nothing else a few minutes of meditation. I should be getting a book in the mail on this next week called The Role Model, which is very exciting for me, and should hopefully help keep me motivated. I would love to do this every night, but weekends might not be realistic, so I'm going to shoot for 5 days a week. 3. Rows – Here’s where my fit bad ass part comes in. I want to work on inverted rows daily as a progression to pull ups. I will do inverted rows daily, adding one rep/day with my TRX suspension trainer. I will be marking where my feet are (aka the steepness of my incline) and once I reach a certain number of reps (maybe 20?) I’ll move the mark so that it’s harder, and likely reset the number of reps down to 10. This goal is going to be 6 of 7 days a week. It's kind of like the PLP challenge (but just the one P!) so I don't see a problem doing it every day and giving myself one day off. Side/life quest – I plan to start working towards my CanFit Pro personal training certification at the beginning of December (when most of my fitness classes wrap up for the year). At that point, I want to create a timeline for getting my certification. Until I get the material though, I really can’t make a schedule for myself. Motivation is the part I always have a tough time defining. I have a passion for health and fitness and I just want to keep growing, learning and getting better, being better. I'm going to be a personal trainer to spread my love of fitness, and one day in the near future own my own fitness business and I feel it's important to practice what you preach, show people that' it's doable. I think it's important for clients to see that you're not perfect either. I will never be tall and thin, but I can rock what I have going on. It's always a journey, and different phases of our lives will require different things from our bodies and minds. Scoring: 1. Whole 30: 7/7 7/7 3/7 1/7 0/7 0/7 2. Bedtime: 5/5 4/5 4/5 1/5 1/5 0/5 3. Rows: 6/6 6/6 4/6 1/6 1/6 0/6