Sciread77 Posted August 24, 2017 Report Share Posted August 24, 2017 August 14-September 9 It's taken me some time to sit down and read through the structure of the 4-Week Challenges. I'm actually more or less in the middle of one anyway, so I'm going to post late and start moving some of the detail from my log to here. I'm an Adventurer by nature, and while I tend to have diverse physical goals they all lead in the same direction: to enable me to DO things. I love to travel, I love to see new sights, explore new places, and learn. It's a lot harder to do that when I'm out of shape and/or in pain. Long-term goals: Body fat: 12-15%. I'm currently sitting at ~22% Strength: I want functional strength. Ideally, I'll be able to carry my whole family at once. Endurance: I'd like to beat Gaston in a push up contest. With matching pull ups and lower body strength Social: Build a stable, loving family with strong roots among friends and family. Professional: I want to move up, making a greater impact and more money. Challenge Goals: Body fat: My target is to consistently lose fat while minimizing muscle loss. -> Lose an average of 0.5 to 2 lbs per week over the course of the challenge. I keep a spreadsheet with daily weight, weekly highs, weekly lows, total loss, average loss since I began tracking, and lbs to go until I hit my goal weight. Goal weight is a fuzzy, general number that corresponds to my 12-15% bodyfat goal. Diet: To maintain muscle, I will want to ensure -> Consume 1 gram of protein for every pound of lean bodymass, -> Eat no more than 1 thing per day that does not support this goal via nutritional value, ie sweets, junk food, etc. Strength: I'm in the early stages of activity after years of inconsistency and inactivity, so I've even been able to gain some strength. ->Increase my total push ups and pull ups by 30% over the course of the challenge from 23 push ups and 4 pull ups, respectively. PT: I must also fix my weak points before I can really achieve the overall progress I want. I will complete the Alfredson Protocol (negative calf exercises) on August 31st, and intend to continue using a similar protocol afterwards as a warm-up. I am working on strengthening my wrist/forearm/grip while improving flexibility. My goal is to do mobility and strengthening exercises daily, with an ultimate goal of being able to do traditional push ups and pull ups without pain. ->Complete PT daily. Rest: My third kid's ETA is October 1st. I am the primary caretaker in the postpartum period and need to be well-rested. I already have excellent sleep agility and decent habits, but I must be consistently rested when she comes. -> Obtain 7 Fitbit Hours of sleep/night (roughly 8 clock hours) 1 Quote Adventurer, Half-Dwarf Chaotic-Good Paladin Ne me dites jamais les chances! ¡Nunca me digas las probabilidades! Character Sheet Training Logs Challenges Prepping for Adventure Prep, Adventure Prep Fall Baby, When Are We Again, Anyway?, Whirlwind, The Leaf's Locus, Harnessing Hamingja New Roots More Beginnings, More Roots Cleaning Up Facing The Hailstorm Yo Ho Yo The... Keto Life For Me? Taming the Beast Another Step Towards the Future Baking, Suburban Homesteading, and Health, The Adventurers of the Lucky Vale I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII VIII, IX Spoiler Perennial goals: Sleep 7+ hours a night, retain (and continue to learn) French and Spanish as a family, increase Spanish Proficiency for work and play, read like a maniac on my own and with my kids, carry heavy stuff Long term goals: Cut to 13-15% bodyfat, And now that I'm grown I eat five dozen eggs, so I'm roughly the size of a baaaaarge! -> Someday I'll challenge a Disney world Gaston to a push up contest and win Link to comment
Sylvaa Posted August 25, 2017 Report Share Posted August 25, 2017 Welcome! Great job breaking up your long-term goals into challenge specific tasks! How are you tracking your challenge related goals? Quote Sylvaa's BattleLog Sylvaa's Tracking Spreadsheet Link to comment
Sciread77 Posted August 25, 2017 Author Report Share Posted August 25, 2017 I use FitBit tracking and logging for weight, sleep and diet. PT is basically a checkbox. For calisthenics I track reps/set and sets/day. I enter my numbers into the corresponding attribute tab in a Excel Spreadsheet that creates a D20 Modern character sheet, which I use to track most of my goals and abilities. (Most of my skills are Knowledge: skills and probably useless in the game, but it's fun). I generally determine scores based on percentile vs the population on a battery of tests and measures that I'll probably post about someday. I get a bit of an ego boost from a relatively high INT score, but I have an embarrassingly low CON score due to myriad factors. I use this sheet to track my other skill development as well. I also use that sheet to track NerdFitness class levels based on XP I earn for activities in a given class. I'll eventually post those levels in my signature. Currently, I'm in the prime season for health. Spring and summer have relatively few holidays, and summer schedules make Adventuring easy and commonplace for my family. The challenge is the upcoming Holiday season. My wife and I are proactively planning to make this year different, and that's a big part of why I joined the forums this year. 1 Quote Adventurer, Half-Dwarf Chaotic-Good Paladin Ne me dites jamais les chances! ¡Nunca me digas las probabilidades! Character Sheet Training Logs Challenges Prepping for Adventure Prep, Adventure Prep Fall Baby, When Are We Again, Anyway?, Whirlwind, The Leaf's Locus, Harnessing Hamingja New Roots More Beginnings, More Roots Cleaning Up Facing The Hailstorm Yo Ho Yo The... Keto Life For Me? Taming the Beast Another Step Towards the Future Baking, Suburban Homesteading, and Health, The Adventurers of the Lucky Vale I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII VIII, IX Spoiler Perennial goals: Sleep 7+ hours a night, retain (and continue to learn) French and Spanish as a family, increase Spanish Proficiency for work and play, read like a maniac on my own and with my kids, carry heavy stuff Long term goals: Cut to 13-15% bodyfat, And now that I'm grown I eat five dozen eggs, so I'm roughly the size of a baaaaarge! -> Someday I'll challenge a Disney world Gaston to a push up contest and win Link to comment
Sciread77 Posted August 25, 2017 Author Report Share Posted August 25, 2017 Challenge Progress Report: -> Lose an average of 0.5 to 2 lbs per week over the course of the challenge. This week I am down .78 lbs, with a challenge average of 1.25/week and a total average loss of .71/week for the month. Additionally, my waist is down half an inch. -> Consume 1 gram of protein for every pound of lean bodymass, -> Eat no more than 1 thing per day that does not support this goal via nutritional value, ie sweets, junk food, etc. I've noticed that if prioritize my protein, the other macros fall in line. I'm not paying attention I'll power a whole bag of chips or an entire pie. Frankly, I've never had a real issue getting enough fat or carbs in my diet, and those are pretty easy to balance out once I've gotten the necessary protein. I've excluded junk entirely 6/7 days this week. ->Increase my total push ups and pull ups by 30% over the course of the challenge from 23 push ups and 4 pull ups, respectively. I need to hit 30 push ups and 6 pull ups by September 9th. Wednesday, I completed 5 consecutive pullups, followed 60 seconds later by a second 5 consecutive pullups. I'm pretty sure I can nail the 6th and will try to do so tomorrow. I tested pull ups and table rows today, completing 28 push ups and 11 table rows respectively. Some magic happened at the end of the table rows, in which my back muscles really started to get involved and I held my chest to the table for 20 seconds. I'm extremely motivated by the progress here, especially what it means in the context of my other goals. Even in my previous peak condition I never did more than 2-3 consecutive pull ups, so 2 sets of 5 with that short of a break makes me feel superhuman. I'm surprised by how many push ups I've gone up too, although tbh I still secretly fight measuring myself against my 2008 record of 183. I think I have more balanced strength than before, and by the time I hit my goal weight and bodyfat I should be a lot better equipped for adventuring. ->Complete PT daily. Nailed it. -> Obtain 7 Fitbit Hours of sleep/night (roughly 8 clock hours) Nailed it. 11 minutes/day average under last week, but within goal. I still need an alarm clock to wake up. 1 Quote Adventurer, Half-Dwarf Chaotic-Good Paladin Ne me dites jamais les chances! ¡Nunca me digas las probabilidades! Character Sheet Training Logs Challenges Prepping for Adventure Prep, Adventure Prep Fall Baby, When Are We Again, Anyway?, Whirlwind, The Leaf's Locus, Harnessing Hamingja New Roots More Beginnings, More Roots Cleaning Up Facing The Hailstorm Yo Ho Yo The... Keto Life For Me? Taming the Beast Another Step Towards the Future Baking, Suburban Homesteading, and Health, The Adventurers of the Lucky Vale I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII VIII, IX Spoiler Perennial goals: Sleep 7+ hours a night, retain (and continue to learn) French and Spanish as a family, increase Spanish Proficiency for work and play, read like a maniac on my own and with my kids, carry heavy stuff Long term goals: Cut to 13-15% bodyfat, And now that I'm grown I eat five dozen eggs, so I'm roughly the size of a baaaaarge! -> Someday I'll challenge a Disney world Gaston to a push up contest and win Link to comment
CallunaTook Posted August 26, 2017 Report Share Posted August 26, 2017 Nice to meet you! Congratulations on your new little one. It sounds like you have a solid plan in place. 1 Quote Link to comment
Sciread77 Posted August 26, 2017 Author Report Share Posted August 26, 2017 1 hour ago, CallunaTook said: Nice to meet you! Congratulations on your new little one. It sounds like you have a solid plan in place. Thanks, and likewise! Let's see if it survives first contact with the enemy. Quote Adventurer, Half-Dwarf Chaotic-Good Paladin Ne me dites jamais les chances! ¡Nunca me digas las probabilidades! Character Sheet Training Logs Challenges Prepping for Adventure Prep, Adventure Prep Fall Baby, When Are We Again, Anyway?, Whirlwind, The Leaf's Locus, Harnessing Hamingja New Roots More Beginnings, More Roots Cleaning Up Facing The Hailstorm Yo Ho Yo The... Keto Life For Me? Taming the Beast Another Step Towards the Future Baking, Suburban Homesteading, and Health, The Adventurers of the Lucky Vale I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII VIII, IX Spoiler Perennial goals: Sleep 7+ hours a night, retain (and continue to learn) French and Spanish as a family, increase Spanish Proficiency for work and play, read like a maniac on my own and with my kids, carry heavy stuff Long term goals: Cut to 13-15% bodyfat, And now that I'm grown I eat five dozen eggs, so I'm roughly the size of a baaaaarge! -> Someday I'll challenge a Disney world Gaston to a push up contest and win Link to comment
Sciread77 Posted September 1, 2017 Author Report Share Posted September 1, 2017 Challenge Progress Report: -> Lose an average of 0.5 to 2 lbs per week over the course of the challenge. So I was sick this week, and extremely ill yesterday. I exercised early but couldn't keep anything but small amounts of water down. This led today's weight to be an extreme outlier that would skew the average to the point of uselessness. I'm going to weight again tomorrow to complete the weekly average since I can eat and drink normally today. I'm confident I'll hit my goals, minus the protein consumption yesterday which is likely zero. -> Consume 1 gram of protein for every pound of lean bodymass, -> Eat no more than 1 thing per day that does not support this goal via nutritional value, ie sweets, junk food, etc. ->Increase my total push ups and pull ups by 30% over the course of the challenge from 23 push ups and 4 pull ups, respectively. I can almost-but not quite- hit 6 pull ups. The brachioradialis is a weak point as are the lowest of the back muscles, which are probably the limiting factor keeping me from completing the next rep. I didn't test push ups or table rows this week but they're getting easier. I'll test everything again right before the challenge ->Complete PT daily. Nailed it. Alfredson Protocol is complete! -> Obtain 7 Fitbit Hours of sleep/night (roughly 8 clock hours) Nailed it. 4 minutes/day average under last week, but within goal. 1 Quote Adventurer, Half-Dwarf Chaotic-Good Paladin Ne me dites jamais les chances! ¡Nunca me digas las probabilidades! Character Sheet Training Logs Challenges Prepping for Adventure Prep, Adventure Prep Fall Baby, When Are We Again, Anyway?, Whirlwind, The Leaf's Locus, Harnessing Hamingja New Roots More Beginnings, More Roots Cleaning Up Facing The Hailstorm Yo Ho Yo The... Keto Life For Me? Taming the Beast Another Step Towards the Future Baking, Suburban Homesteading, and Health, The Adventurers of the Lucky Vale I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII VIII, IX Spoiler Perennial goals: Sleep 7+ hours a night, retain (and continue to learn) French and Spanish as a family, increase Spanish Proficiency for work and play, read like a maniac on my own and with my kids, carry heavy stuff Long term goals: Cut to 13-15% bodyfat, And now that I'm grown I eat five dozen eggs, so I'm roughly the size of a baaaaarge! -> Someday I'll challenge a Disney world Gaston to a push up contest and win Link to comment
Sciread77 Posted September 2, 2017 Author Report Share Posted September 2, 2017 Total down this week is .5 lbs. 7.48 total, 22.52 until I hit my goal. PT is really achieving its goals. I have occasional mild discomfort, but even when things start to act up the PT exercises help take the edge off and keep problems from becoming debilitating. I'm excited because of this keeps up, I can add some intensity without injuring myself. That'll really help me achieve some of my long term goals, in addition to helping me feel better on a day-to-day basis. 2 Quote Adventurer, Half-Dwarf Chaotic-Good Paladin Ne me dites jamais les chances! ¡Nunca me digas las probabilidades! Character Sheet Training Logs Challenges Prepping for Adventure Prep, Adventure Prep Fall Baby, When Are We Again, Anyway?, Whirlwind, The Leaf's Locus, Harnessing Hamingja New Roots More Beginnings, More Roots Cleaning Up Facing The Hailstorm Yo Ho Yo The... Keto Life For Me? Taming the Beast Another Step Towards the Future Baking, Suburban Homesteading, and Health, The Adventurers of the Lucky Vale I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII VIII, IX Spoiler Perennial goals: Sleep 7+ hours a night, retain (and continue to learn) French and Spanish as a family, increase Spanish Proficiency for work and play, read like a maniac on my own and with my kids, carry heavy stuff Long term goals: Cut to 13-15% bodyfat, And now that I'm grown I eat five dozen eggs, so I'm roughly the size of a baaaaarge! -> Someday I'll challenge a Disney world Gaston to a push up contest and win Link to comment
Sciread77 Posted September 8, 2017 Author Report Share Posted September 8, 2017 Challenge Progress Report: -> Lose an average of 0.5 to 2 lbs per week over the course of the challenge. This week I'm down 2.03 lbs, bringing my average loss to 1.25/week since I started tracking averages in mid-July. That's a totaly of 9.47 down in the last six weeks, and 20.53 to go. -> Consume 1 gram of protein for every pound of lean body mass, via nutritional value, i.e. sweets, junk food, etc. I nailed the protein every day. As I've said before, if I focus on protein first I tend to be full and everything else falls into place. -> Eat no more than 1 thing per day that does not support this goal I had a total fail on this Wednesday. I actually figured Monday would be the challenge, with the Labor Day holiday and all. But it was easy. Wednesday was a particularly stressful day, and I ate cookies, chocolate peanut butter hearts, more cookies, a cupcake, and then another cookie along with my protein and little else. That was a lot of empty calories that technically gave me energy but almost completely lacked nutrients. That said, my new day-at-a-time mentality got me past it instead of dwelling on it and ruining my performance and habits for the rest of the week. - >Increase my total push ups and pull ups by 30% over the course of the challenge from 23 push ups and 4 pull ups, respectively. Today is an active rest day. Tomorrow I need to complete at least 30 push ups and 6 pull ups to reach the challenge goal. I'll post it when I do. I'd say wish me luck, but in my experience there's no such thing as luck. ->Complete PT daily. Nailed it. Alfredson Protocol is officially complete, so I'm using a toned down version as a warm up. The wrist and forearm PT is still going and probably will until the end of the next challenge. -> Obtain 7 Fitbit Hours of sleep/night (roughly 8 clock hours) Nailed it again. I haven't slept this consistency well since shortly after my first kid was born. Prioritizing sleep has been incredibly helpful. I normally sleep an hour or more less a night with more variation. Summers are a particularly bad time of year for me, and this (summer end) is traditionally the worst for sleep and health. I've still had quite a few bumps, but for once the sleep part is pretty steady. 2 Quote Adventurer, Half-Dwarf Chaotic-Good Paladin Ne me dites jamais les chances! ¡Nunca me digas las probabilidades! Character Sheet Training Logs Challenges Prepping for Adventure Prep, Adventure Prep Fall Baby, When Are We Again, Anyway?, Whirlwind, The Leaf's Locus, Harnessing Hamingja New Roots More Beginnings, More Roots Cleaning Up Facing The Hailstorm Yo Ho Yo The... Keto Life For Me? Taming the Beast Another Step Towards the Future Baking, Suburban Homesteading, and Health, The Adventurers of the Lucky Vale I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII VIII, IX Spoiler Perennial goals: Sleep 7+ hours a night, retain (and continue to learn) French and Spanish as a family, increase Spanish Proficiency for work and play, read like a maniac on my own and with my kids, carry heavy stuff Long term goals: Cut to 13-15% bodyfat, And now that I'm grown I eat five dozen eggs, so I'm roughly the size of a baaaaarge! -> Someday I'll challenge a Disney world Gaston to a push up contest and win Link to comment
Sciread77 Posted September 8, 2017 Author Report Share Posted September 8, 2017 Weekly: --- -2.03 for the week, weekly average -1.25 Total: -9.47 To go: 20.53 PT: 5/5. I've officially completed the Alfredson Protocol, but I'm keeping a shorter version of the protocol as a warm up. My wrists continue to improve, although I'll be continuing at least another month or two with them. Rest: Still hit all my goals! Calisthenics: 3/5. I had set build last Saturday and helped someone move on short notice Sunday. I took Wednesday and Today (Friday) as active rest days. Tomorrow I take my AMRAP tests! Steps: Averaged over 10,100 for the week. It's been a rough week. I've been completely exhausted and moody; I'm sort of burning out at work and feeling stuck. We've been at about 50% of our workforce for 9 months now, and I'm getting tired. My wonderful wife really diagnosed it and I'm taking active steps to mitigate it, especially my moodiness at home. That's not who I want to be. It also doesn't help that summer and early fall are historically the worst times of the year for me mentally. I think that kick starting my physical routine has helped, as has some of the dietary changes I've made. Controlling what I can and setting small, attainable goals has really helped me this summer, but not as much as being married to the most amazing human being on the planet. 1 Quote Adventurer, Half-Dwarf Chaotic-Good Paladin Ne me dites jamais les chances! ¡Nunca me digas las probabilidades! Character Sheet Training Logs Challenges Prepping for Adventure Prep, Adventure Prep Fall Baby, When Are We Again, Anyway?, Whirlwind, The Leaf's Locus, Harnessing Hamingja New Roots More Beginnings, More Roots Cleaning Up Facing The Hailstorm Yo Ho Yo The... Keto Life For Me? Taming the Beast Another Step Towards the Future Baking, Suburban Homesteading, and Health, The Adventurers of the Lucky Vale I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII VIII, IX Spoiler Perennial goals: Sleep 7+ hours a night, retain (and continue to learn) French and Spanish as a family, increase Spanish Proficiency for work and play, read like a maniac on my own and with my kids, carry heavy stuff Long term goals: Cut to 13-15% bodyfat, And now that I'm grown I eat five dozen eggs, so I'm roughly the size of a baaaaarge! -> Someday I'll challenge a Disney world Gaston to a push up contest and win Link to comment
Sciread77 Posted September 9, 2017 Author Report Share Posted September 9, 2017 Pull ups: 6. Challenge goal met. Push ups: 28. My muscles completely gave out halfway through 29. The weird thing is, I tried it twice this morning and got to the same point both times. I'm not entirely surprised though. Losing weight and gaining strength is difficult and progress is not linear, in spite of what we'd like to believe. 1 Quote Adventurer, Half-Dwarf Chaotic-Good Paladin Ne me dites jamais les chances! ¡Nunca me digas las probabilidades! Character Sheet Training Logs Challenges Prepping for Adventure Prep, Adventure Prep Fall Baby, When Are We Again, Anyway?, Whirlwind, The Leaf's Locus, Harnessing Hamingja New Roots More Beginnings, More Roots Cleaning Up Facing The Hailstorm Yo Ho Yo The... Keto Life For Me? Taming the Beast Another Step Towards the Future Baking, Suburban Homesteading, and Health, The Adventurers of the Lucky Vale I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII VIII, IX Spoiler Perennial goals: Sleep 7+ hours a night, retain (and continue to learn) French and Spanish as a family, increase Spanish Proficiency for work and play, read like a maniac on my own and with my kids, carry heavy stuff Long term goals: Cut to 13-15% bodyfat, And now that I'm grown I eat five dozen eggs, so I'm roughly the size of a baaaaarge! -> Someday I'll challenge a Disney world Gaston to a push up contest and win Link to comment
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