Archon Sneaks Back In

[Archon]

After a long hiatus, I am dragging myself back in here.

Going to keep it simple to start. Nothing flashy. No theme. Just hard work, discipline, increased physical  & forum activity. (#stalkmydoodlies)

 

Long-term goal is to lose weight. Specifically, I am shooting to average losing 1 pound per week from now until I hit 18% body fat. In a rough estimate, I am guessing that will be near 225 pounds, so probably around April 1st, 2018. However, I will adjust my challenge specific goals to increase the intensity as needed to get me to my goal.

 

History

Spoiler

I joined NF back in mid 2015 & was very active for 7-8 months. During the start of that period, my primary goal was losing weight and I did a lot of that. Towards the end of that period, I transitioned into a "gain strength" mentality and had a moderate amount of success towards that end, until I injured myself. Well... then I never got back here, and the amount of effort I put into becoming a better version of myself had a strong correlation to the amount of time I spent active on the forums here (which I attribute to increased accountability).

 

So now I am back. My 3-year weight history looks a bit like a smiley face and that needs to be corrected. I think I will again get to a strength training focus, possibly 1-2 challenges from now, but right now my focus is primarily on weight-loss achieved through increased activity and continued healthy eating. I significantly improved my overall eating habits back in 2015. I plan to maintain that going forward and possibly even tighten the belt on a few luxuries I have allowed myself over the past year. I have gained a half-pound per week on average over the past 10 months, after almost a year static at 235 pounds and have now been hovering up to around 255. The good news is that my lean-body-mass has increased as a result (I believe) of several months of strength training and proper dieting, so my body-fat percentage is much lower than mid-2015 when I first was dropping weight and hit the 255 mark.

 

Goal 1: Be more active: Walk >20 Minutes Daily. Clean, simple, straight-forward. I have been doing this for almost 2 weeks now on my lunch breaks at work, and after building a habit plan to eventually transition this into a morning routine and add some light jogging (actually following a modified couch-to-2k, though my goal goes beyond that).

 

Goal 2: Cardio Activity: 4+ points weekly (break-out in spoiler)

Spoiler

I have separated this into 2 categories for my tracking; +2 points for Intense (Lifting at gym, Playing Racquetball, BBWW- beginner body weight workout), and +1 point for Moderate (Yoga, Push-up contest with roomy).

 

When I lift, it is typically 30-45 minutes, and the most significant component is always squats, however, I have not been going to the gym regularly for almost a year (more sporadic, ranging from 0-2 times a week with an average of 1, as opposed to my previous 3x/week habit). A future challenge will contain the goal of getting me back into the gym regularly. Racquetball is typically 90-150 minutes of intense interval cardio. The BBWW will be probably 25-30 minutes starting off, I have gotten it done in as few as 16 minutes in the past, and will work up to that point, and then start adding higher volume.

 

Yoga is typically around 15 minutes of self practice. Over the past 3 weeks, I have probably averaged 4 days a week of competing with my new roommate in a push-up-off. I started with struggling to get through 13 reps per set, but we would do several sets over the course of an evening, and I made a goal of trying to add 1 rep each time. Now I can usually do around 25 reps per set and we do 3-4 sets an evening when competing.

 

Goal 3: Don't self-sabotage: I will allow myself 2 treats per week (includes desserts or drinks). If this is too much (for me to be hitting my goals) or I do not stay within my guided limit, I will cut both out 100% during next challenge. Reward (for staying at 2 or less & hitting weight goal): the number will stay at "2 per week" for next challenge. If I stay under 2 per week for the entire challenge but do not hit my weight-loss target, next challenge will be "1". If I go over 2, but still hit my targeted weight loss, I will drop this to "1". If I go over 2 and don't hit weight loss target, I'll go 4-weeks strictly without during next challenge. In the past, these are the few instances that significantly increase my average caloric intake.

 

 

This is just a rough draft of my challenge, and I may tweak it over the next few days as I ponder it.

[Cheetah]

Following.  Love the simplicity of it!

[NeverThatBored]

I see you sneaking in over here! Welcome back.

[deftona]

Here to stalk and support however I can! 

[Mr_Willes]

16 hours ago, Archon said:

Just hard work, discipline, increased physical  & forum activity.

[Archon]

16 hours ago, Cheetah said:

Following.  Love the simplicity of it!

Thanks! Will hunt down your challenge in a bit.

 

16 hours ago, NeverThatBored said:

I see you sneaking in over here! Welcome back.

HEY!!! Thanks.

 

10 hours ago, deftona said:

Here to stalk and support however I can! 

Thanks Def. Always appreciated. Your support & smut always lifts my... spirits.

 

4 hours ago, mr_willes said:

MR. WILLES!!!

Your energy... so good.

Been loving the videos you have shared of your lifts on Insta!!!

 

*Looking forward to stalking all y'all*

[Mr_Willes]

12 hours ago, Archon said:

*Looking forward to stalking all y'all*

 

[Mikroftt]

If I had somewhere to play, racquetball would be my cardio of choice!  I played with a friend in college but have dropped it since.  However I would do it hands down over running any day!  Looks like a good set of goals!

[DrFeelgood]

Welcome back!  Clean and simple challenge to get started again, I like it.

[SomeGuyFromScotland]

Count me in, brudda!

[Archon]

Weekend 0 summary:
2 weeks ago I got a Fitbit Blaze because I was interested in tracking my heart rate (during sleep, racquetball, etc). This past Saturday I think I blew its mind. I got in over 30,000 steps, over 14 miles of distance, and spent 4 hours with my heart rate over 130 bpm and another 4 hours between 100-130. It was like an all-day cardio-fest. Started with 2.5 hours of racquetball in the morning and then I went to a food-truck festival with a few buddies in the afternoon (lots of walking) and ended the day by going to an Irish Music Festival which meant more walking and some dancing / jumping around in the evening.

 

Was a great weekend. Lots of sleep (as a data-nut, I really enjoy that it tracks sleep cycles too).

 

Anyway, so today I still need to get out and so some walking this evening to hit goal 1. And I will keep goals 2 & 3 in mind as I go. I weighed in this morning at 253.8 lbs. and right around 27% body fat.

 

Hope everyone is having a great Day 1!!!

[Mikroftt]

Woot for the new Blaze!  I have that one as well.  I will say for the first few days of tracking the heart rate is a little high (or at least it was for me and when my wife got hers).  That sounds like a very busy day.  Only twice have I managed over 30k steps!  Great work!

[Xena]

Love the push-up contests with your roommate. I often have planking contests with my best friend and her husband :-)

[Archon]

Week 1 Summary: Bad news first

Well there was some good mixed in with the bad, but if I was grading myself, a 60% would be generous (better than a 0% at least). I only got 3 cardio points, only walked 3 days, and ate 4 treats... I saw improvement in my sleep schedule. I got out the foam roller and used it on 2 different occasions and felt great thereafter. Must continue. Also got addicted to a great book and read 400 pages between Friday evening & Saturday afternoon (better IMHO than a weekend of Netflix at least). A minor disclaimer: mitigating my underwhelming week was the fact that it was balls hot here in Michigan last week. Like 90-96 degrees every day (32-35C)... and humid... and it did not cool down much in the evenings, for the past 9 or 10 days now. Guys... I am a polar bear / yeti... I do not do well in this extreme heat and am anxious for fall to start up in earnest.

 

Action plan: Make week 2 less weak (I only just barely resisted the temptation to replace "less weak" with "great again")

- No treats Week 2 (to make up for doubling my allowance in week 1)

- Walking every day at lunch (until I start getting up in mornings to do this)

- Going to do a BBWW tonight

- Going to shop for groceries tonight (on my way home from work) to start cooking at home more

- Continue improving sleep (stay away from video games)

- I am contemplating / experimenting with some intermittent fasting techniques

[Shello]

17 minutes ago, Archon said:

No treats Week 2 (to make up for doubling my allowance in week 1)

Sounds like The Way of Pain TM. I am debating the same for this week.  Give Week 2 hell. 

[Mr_Willes]

How is week 2 going? Hopefully you are back at swinging at full force (and i hope things have cooled down a bit)!

[Archon]

On ‎9‎/‎27‎/‎2017 at 3:49 AM, mr_willes said:

How is week 2 going? Hopefully you are back at swinging at full force (and i hope things have cooled down a bit)!

Better. Much better. The heat wave finally ended yesterday. Work is calming down. Thanks for checking in!

 

Eating better.

Started cooking at home.

Went to the gym.

Got in a few extra exercises already this week.

[Cheetah]

6 hours ago, Archon said:

Much better.

 

Good work!  Keep it up!

[Archon]

Well... I stayed break-even on the weight. I actually hit 20 minutes a day of walking, as an average, though I did not get out every day to do it. But... I did not hit my goals on food. So next challenge is going to be about cleaning up my diet. 0 treats. My cardio points for the week goal was 4+ and the results were: 3, 4, 3, 6, 3, 2 with an average of 3.5

 

Overall I would grade myself a C+ on this challenge. I put in more effort than I had been for the past several months, but I need to up the ante. I will create my new challenge here shortly and update the links in my signature. I am going to give myself credit for this challenge by adding a level, but I am not going to award any bonus to stats.