Hulkine and the final touch

[Arkania]

Hulkine = female hulk (pronounced hul (as in bull) kee (knee without n) ne (somehow as in never)

(Yeah, we germans are a bit crazy )

 

As you can see on my profile pic I already got the green leggings.

Now it's time to get in shape like a hulkine.

 

As I wrote here it as a bit of an up and down.

So, I think about signing up for the rising heroes. But I am not sure yet.

So I first will think about my goals.

Tomorrow.
Now I have to sleep

[Arkania]

Motto:

Switching between "Harder, better, faster, stronger" and "Relax, take it easy!"

 

Placeholder Epic Goals

 

Body journey/Milestones:

(NSFW)

Spoiler

more Fotos on my Instagram arkania_x

 

Height: 1,72m (5'6")
Age: 30

05/2013 -> Highest weight ever -> 79kg (174lbs)
10/2016 -> 71kg (157lbs)
12/2016 -> body fat 19% (65kg/143lbs)
01/2017 -> lowest weight since the age of 18 -> 62,8kg (138lbs)

01/2018 -> 71kg (157lbs)

08/2018 -> 69kg (152lbs)

 

Weight/body goals: 60-65kg/132-143lbs with <20% body fat and a SMM >35% (at least)

I am not quit sure about the goal weight. I don't care if it's 60 or 65, if it looks good for me.

But I know, my "bananas" (the butt below the butt ) will be gone at around 64kg (when I add some booty workout),

I don't want my strength to decrease (is that something I can say? Sorry for my bad english!), so a recomposition model is the right for me, I think.

Also I don't have stress with timelines. Loosing 5-10kg until the end of 2018 is easy.

It will be a protein based diet (1,5-2g/kg body weight) with a medium calorie deficit (500-1000kcal, depends on my total consumption per day)

 

I use https://tdeecalculator.net/ to calculate my macros. With 3-5 times sport/week (2-3 bouldering, 1-3 times body weight or other sports) I am on a moderate level and can eat about 1800kcal a day. 

 

Moderate Carb Maintenance (30/35/35) should do the trick

137g protein, 71g fats, 160g carbs

 

Not 100% like that every day, but I aim for a 70% accuracy per week (5 out of 7 days "clean" and near these macros)

 

Sports goal:

I am not sure about that yet. I want to get better at bouldering. Want to do some cool things (handstand etc).

Have to specify this asap.

 

Challenges

I thought about doing a yearly challenge cycle.

Means:

Next challenge (1,5 weeks) -> Lvl 1 Challenge

After that every new challenge in another guild so that I have a lot of variety in my goals and get some specialities out of every "specialization". And maybe get some new impulses for the future.

 

Challenges/Goals September

Level 1 challenge (08/29 - 09/09)

 

Placeholder Goals Oktober

Placeholder Goals November

Placeholder Goals December

 

 

[Tobbe]

Please let us know if you pick the Academy or Rising Heroes! I'm very curious to hear what you think about RH if you choose that path  If you choose the Academy I'm looking forward to see your food log here  

 

 

[Arkania]

I am not sure, if I understand the difference between the RH and the Academy.

I like the idea of RH that I have some pressure doing this but I am not sure, if the given quests are maybe to easy. Or to "out of my focus".

I will think about that this week. Until then I will do all free quests in my account that I already can do and think about my goals.

(I am a very! rashly sometimes and want to have everything instantly (and then not using it....) and now trying to think first, then buy something

But I think, I will test RH for one month and then maybe switch to the Academy.

Maybe I find some review and insights about the academy.

[Tobbe]

As I wrote in your other post - I'm currently in the academy. If you have any questions about it, just let me know and I'll try to answer as well as I can

[Arkania]

Ok, thanks.

If I read that right, RH is about doing monthly themed given quests in a specific time and sometimes a team.

How about the Academy? Do you create your own quests? Is there any pressure other then your own?

[Tobbe]

In the Academy you get weekly emails with 4 - 6 quests to complete during the week. You get these emails for 12 weeks. And I have a hard time keeping up with all the quests. Some of those quests are about writing your own quests on your "Epic Quests" page. You have access to that page on the free account as well, but here you get more specific help and guidelines on how to think when writing those quests. But generally you will not create your own quests. There are a 176 quests that are only available if you're in the Academy. They are divided in three categories, Mindset, Nutrition and Fitness. I also got access to 200 Yoga quests when I joined.

 

When joining you also get access to the NF Facebook group. In the marketing for the Academy they say that these forums, and the FB group, is supposed to keep you accountable for doing the quests (or put pressure on you, as you say). But to be honest, I haven't felt like they do that at all. For me personally they don't seem to work like that. But I think it depends on who you "connect" with. If you find a friend on FB or on these forums I think that friend could give you the pressure you need.

[Mad Hatter]

Yeeeah another boulderer!  That makes me very happy.  

 

I don't know anything about either Rising Heroes or the Academy, so I can't really advise if it's right for you or not. But ask yourself whether

• the program fits your goals?
• Does it fit your schedule?
• Is it tailored to your level of ability?
• Will you be able to recover? For example I climb 3-4x/week and for me it's very hard to add in extra strength and especially pull workouts on top of climbing. (Though I keep trying. And failing ) 
• Are there better and/or free resources to achieve the same goals?
• Do you want quests or progressions? (Again I've no idea how these are structured so this might be a completely irrelevant question)

Another option is to wait with buying a program and join the 4-week challenges! *cough* assassin *cough* I actually think that's what most people here do. The challenges are super fun and you pick your own goals. There's a huge wealth of collective knowledge and I'm sure we'll be able to point you to helpful resources. You should definitely join in whether you get a program or not!

[Tobbe]

I'm super confused about the challenges, and have no idea how to approach them. But a lot of people seem to enjoy them, so they must be good if you "get" them

[Mad Hatter]

3 minutes ago, Tobbe said:

I'm super confused about the challenges, and have no idea how to approach them. But a lot of people seem to enjoy them, so they must be good if you "get" them

Honestly they're very freeform, especially for the people that have been around for a while. But basically you

• pick a guild. The guild is not set in stone and you can swap each challenge if you want to. There's a guild for first time challengers or you can go straight to the guild that calls to you.
• Create a thread with your goals, usually 3-4 goals is a good number. The goals can be related to anything, fitness, diet, hobbies, life, productivity, really anything that you want to improve. Poke around the different guilds for examples. They can be themed if you want to. Gifs are not necessary but we love them.  
• Say hi to other challengers! This is the most important and fun bit.  Nerds here are awesome for providing support and advice and accountability plus a whole bunch of random chit chat. 
• Keep track of your goals in your challenge thread
• At the end of each week and at the end of the challenge reflect on your goals, what went well, what can be improved etc.

Sometimes there are guild specific mini quests but those are completely optional.

 

But yeah that's basically it. You kind of just make it your own. I highly recommend joining though as most of the forum activity revolves around challenges! Battle logs are great too, but typically they don't get the same traffic and the community here is key.

[Tobbe]

44 minutes ago, Mad Hatter said:

Do you want quests or progressions?

 

The NF Academy gives you a bit of both. For several of the quests there are QuestFoo #1, QuestFoo #2, QuestFoo #3 etc where each # gets more and more difficult.

 

For the nutritional part of the Academy I feel the full list of quests builds a nice progression, where the first quests are really easy (at least for me) but then requires more and more dedication. One of the first quests I completed was for example this one "eat a non-typical breakfast food (example: leftover chicken and asparagus) for breakfast.", whereas something like this would be very difficult for me "At this point, the only sugars you should be consuming are from low sugar fruits and vegetables." as I love having a piece of cake whenever it's someone's birthday party.

 

The fitness/workout part of the Academy is even more about progressions. First and foremost there are different levels you go through. And between each level there is a "boss battle". When you've defeated the boss you're ready to progress to the next level. But even for each of the exercises within a level there are instructional videos on how to make that exercise more (or less) difficult. Or guidelines on how to switch out one exercise for another if/when you need something more challenging. I just did my first scheduled workout yesterday and can't wait to fight in my first boss battle

[Arkania]

Thank you both for these information.
I like the playful idea of these quests (and that I don't have to create my own!) but I am not sure, if they fit my goals.

I am not new to sports and nutrition (as you can see in the place holder now) and may find some quests (too) easy (-> for the price of the Academy). Or not neccessary for my journey.

So, I think I will have my little Thread here with all my (epic) goals and will participate in the challenges and take the free quests.

Maybe some day I will buy one month of RH or the Academy just for fun.

 

Oh @Mad Hatter I already chose the assassins https://www.nerdfitness.com/character/307639

Thank you both for helping me with my decision!

 

And now I will read the Level 1 Beginner Challenge


@Tobbe Do you get this edit-mention as a notification?

[Mad Hatter]

5 minutes ago, Arkania said:

Oh @Mad Hatter I already chose the assassins https://www.nerdfitness.com/character/307639

 

Awesome!  Looking forward to seeing your bouldering and handstands goals - two of my favourite things!

[Tobbe]

If you don't want to change anything about how you eat and/or train I would not buy any of the programs. But if you're open to changing (or adding to) your fitness/workout routines I think it's worth it

 

I have a pretty good understanding of nutrition as well. But I still make bad food choices too often, and eat too much too often. But that's more of a mindset problem than a knowledge problem. And I also did keep active (walking, running, weight lifting) before joining. So I mostly joined for the mindset quests, but also for a new take on strength training. And I have had a lot of fun with the nutrition quests too, even if they haven't really tough me anything new yet.

[Tobbe]

24 minutes ago, Arkania said:

and will participate in the challenges

 

Just to be clear here. You don't really "participate" in challenges. At least not in the way I would have wanted. You create your own challenges, and try to complete them to the best of your abilities. 

[Mad Hatter]

1 minute ago, Tobbe said:

 

Just to be clear here. You don't really "participate" in challenges. At least not in the way I would have wanted. You create your own challenges, and try to complete them to the best of your abilities. 

That's the great part of it though, the challenges will be 100% specific to your goals and needs!  

[Tobbe]

2 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

There's a guild for first time challengers or you can go straight to the guild that calls to you.

 

The challenge rules specifically says that your first quest should NOT go in a specific guild thread. It should always be in the "first time" part of the forum. It sounds really strict about that.

 

2 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Create a thread with your goals, usually 3-4 goals is a good number. The goals can be related to anything, fitness, diet, hobbies, life, productivity, really anything that you want to improve.

 

Again, the rules seems super picky about this part. You are supposed to pick two diet goals, one fitness goal and one "level up your life" goal.

 

2 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

They can be themed if you want to. Gifs are not necessary but we love them.

 

 

This is probably just a sign that I don't fit in here, but I don't know a whole lot about comics, super heroes or anything like that. And I'm not creative enough to create my own fantasy character with a back-story to create a good themed challenge. And I don't have a collection of funny gifs to use. 

 

For all of the above reasons I've been really hesitant to create my own challenge thread. But @Mad Hatter you make it sound way more relaxed, and way more fun, than what I have been believing! If it's more like you're describing it I might have to give it a go soon

[Arkania]

39 minutes ago, Mad Hatter said:

That's the great part of it though, the challenges will be 100% specific to your goals and needs!  

Maybe could be a problem

I think, for the final touch I need something where I don't have to think about how to achieve my goals.

Sure, I want to achieve MY goals but I think I can achieve them in many ways.

Sort of a "demo" for NF/RH would be great or a trial.

 

Read about that @Tobbe and unfortunately I have reached the maximum number of posts I can make per day.

I am not sure, if I want to use that.

 

 

So, I will edit a lot then
Couldn't find anything regarding the maximum number of posts. Is this because of my rank? Is there any FAQ for that?

@Mad Hatter I unfortunately can't think of small goals :S

My life is a lot of big goals that are hard to achieve (if indeed possible). I am a perfectionest and as my motto says: Harder, better, faster, stronger (asap!). I think because of that I had a smal burn out

But I am surfing through all these forums right now and thinking about small goals to achieve. And tomorrow, when I have another 10 (?) posts for the day, I can create one thread for the Newbie-Challenge

 

[Tobbe]

3 minutes ago, Arkania said:

Sort of a "demo" for NF/RH would be great or a trial.

 

There is the "money back guarantee". You can try the Academy for 60 days (I think). If you don't like it and decide to quit you'll get your money back.

[Tobbe]

Found this on the site

 

Quote

We want you to be 100% happy with the Nerd Fitness Academy. If you're not, no problem. Email us within 60 days and we'll issue you a full refund. No hoops to jump through, no questions asked.

 

[Mad Hatter]

11 minutes ago, Tobbe said:

The challenge rules specifically says that your first quest should NOT go in a specific guild thread. It should always be in the "first time" part of the forum. It sounds really strict about that.

Haha maybe. I've been here for such a long time I do a lot of rule breaking at this point.  But I honestly really don't think it matters! There's plenty of support to be had in every guild.

 

19 minutes ago, Arkania said:

Maybe could be a problem

 

The thing is that there's no rule police here.  The "rules" are just guidelines at best. The idea behind this is that you don't pick one gazillion conflicting goals that are impossible to achieve in four weeks. But if for example your eating is fine then why pick diet goals? Or if you really want to focus on making small changes maybe one goal is perfect! It's really up to you. 3-4 goals just happens to be a good number, any more is difficult to keep track of and hard to form habits out of, 1-2 might be too few in case you "fail" at them and get discouraged.

 

17 minutes ago, Tobbe said:

This is probably just a sign that I don't fit in here, but I don't know a whole lot about comics, super heroes or anything like that. And I'm not creative enough to create my own fantasy character with a back-story to create a good themed challenge. And I don't have a collection of funny gifs to use. 

That's perfectly fine too! Everyone can be a nerd in their own way.  

 

18 minutes ago, Tobbe said:

For all of the above reasons I've been really hesitant to create my own challenge thread. But @Mad Hatter you make it sound way more relaxed, and way more fun, than what I have been believing! If it's more like you're describing it I might have to give it a go soon

I absolutely think you should give it a try! It's good fun, and if you want to follow the quests you can simply make that part of your goals.  Everyone follows their own programming, sometimes it's NF related sometimes not.

 

17 minutes ago, Arkania said:

unfortunately I have reached the maximum number of posts I can make per day.

Oops  

 

19 minutes ago, Arkania said:

Maybe could be a problem

Haha that can indeed be tricky!  But it's a great way to learn about what works and what doesn't. Maybe one day I'll even figure it out.  

[Tobbe]

17 hours ago, Arkania said:

SMM >35% (at least)

 

How do you measure your skeletal muscle mass?

 

17 hours ago, Arkania said:

I don't want my strength to decrease (is that something I can say? Sorry for my bad english!)

 

Yes, that's perfectly good English. And a perfectly good goal too!

[Tobbe]

1 hour ago, Arkania said:

So, I will edit a lot then

 

The problem with editing is that nobody is notified about the edits. So they will mostly get unnoticed. I had no idea you had edited your "place holder" post for example...

[Mad Hatter]

Oh I missed the ranking question - I’ve no idea about post limits but I’d think it should go away pretty soon, like a few days maybe, a week?

 

Epic goals are awesome! But you can still always break them down into smaller goals. They don’t have to be outcome based, like say climb 3 grades higher, they can also be things like climb 3x/week or practice *insert least favourite climbing movement* for 15 min every session. Let me know if you need help brainstorming  

[Tobbe]

2 hours ago, Arkania said:

@Tobbe Do you get this edit-mention as a notification?

 

Yes, if you @mention someone they will always get a notification