RunswithScissors: Shredding Excuses

[Wonderland Alice]

Hi.  Obviously I'm a newbie.  Geek I am but Nerd I'm not.  I don't have a clue what race I am.  My daughter says that I'm too pretty to
be a hobbit and I don't have any hair on my feet.  I call marshmallow.  Someone tell me what race I am!!  I am 5'0, slightly marshmallowy, very fair skinned, agile and super-flexible.  I chose to put myself in the Assassin category because I love body weight workouts (whispering quietly - my second love is kickboxing).

 

I am here because shortly I will be 40.  My husband is taking me on a cool cruise and I really don't want to look like a marshmallow when I go.  Everything and everyone around me is falling apart.  I barely have time to breath, so I need workouts that can go with me and people that will make sure I'm doing them!!  I am working full time, home schooling a high school teen learning to drive, my father in law is having lung
cancer surgery this week, my step-dad just finished radiation for throat cancer, and my mom goes in for surgery in 3 weeks.  I have the potential for Excusing myself out of exercise everyday.

 

I suck at goal setting!

 

Goal 1: Push Ups

Currently I can do about 10.  I may be able to do a couple more, but my dog was helping and I had to plank in the middle for a bit.  I would like to increase that number to 50.  If I can increase it to 100 - even better.

 

Goal 2: Jumping Rope 

I know how to jump rope.  I've been jumping since kindergarten.  I would like to be able to jump consistently without whacking myself in the
shins for at least 60 seconds.  Currently I can make it to 30 seconds (rarely).  If I can make it to 120 seconds - even better.

 

Goal 3: Losing Inches / Bodyfat

I have lost approximately 8 pounds over the last 8 weeks, but my bodyfat is high (probably near 30%).  In the event I cannot measure my bodyfat this evening, I can measure myself so - I would like to lose 3" overall.  I have harpenden calipers - I'm looking for a way to check my bodyfat myself. ** According to 1 site test 28.8%.  I'm not sure what a realistic drop in bodyfat is for a 6 week period so I'll stick with the inches and watch the bodyfat.

 

               Left           Right

Thigh      22             22.5

Calf                14.25

Tricep              11.0

Waist               31.0

Hips                 39.5

Chest               33.0

Weight           128.2

 

Goal 4: Prepare my business to launch May 18

I have a business I have been trying to launch for 2 years.  In the midst of all the crazy going on in my life, I have chosen to launch my business.  To reach this goal... I need to:  prepare an actual launch plan broken down into monthly, weekly, daily items and then be accountable for the items that occur between now and the end of this contest.

[Wolverine]

Welcome, Level 1 ??? Assassin!  

 

I think it's pretty awesome that you're interested in playing the RPG element of the challenge even though you have not experience with this type of thing.  If it ever gets to be too much, though, it's totally NOT required.

[Wonderland Alice]

I'm totally game - pun intended.  Just help me out.  I'm really good at mind games Just not so much this stuff!!

 

As promised... Here is my Biz Plan to do list.  Some details intentionally left out.

 

Research:
Website

• Ecommerce Plugins compatible with my theme - emailed and recvd response from designer 2/27 COMPLETE
• Payment Gateways - 2/27 chose Mijireh but still need to pick gateway
• New Hosting Providers - decided on Hostgator 2/27 COMPLETE
• How to xfer site without losing/crashing it (and email) 2/28 COMPLETE - i hope - slight bobble but mostly ok
• Website backup options 2/28 COMPLETE

Moving Forward:
Website

• Backup current site to avoid data loss 2/28 COMPLETE
• Purchase new hosting account 2/28 COMPLETE
• Transfer site / email to new hosting and ensure it is stable in current condition - 2/28 COMPLETE
• Determine and implement backup schedule 2/28 COMPLETE
• Install chosen ecommerce plugin.  (Allow 3-4 weeks for implementation/testing) - 2/27 installed.  implementation begun

Business

•     Legally change business name back with state
•     Get city business license
•     Change Bank account name
•     Logo Design
•     Biz Card Design
•     Label Design
•     Integrate Facebook with site so store is on FB

Purchases

•     Hosting Account 2/28 COMPLETE
•     Business License
•     Temporary Biz Cards
•     Labels

Products

•     Determine initial product line
•     Create 1 prototype for best 5 products to go live
•     Take pictures of products for site
•     Prepare ecommerce site with these products to go live May 18
   

[Elastigirl]

Welcome! You really are busy! Congrats for deciding to take time to take care of yourself too. Very cool that you are homeschooking highschool-I loved homeschooling my son in high school. Ok most the time I loved it, some days,er not so much  Do you have a plan for your push ups. I like the Angry Birds workout on the Nf site or http://www.hundredpushups.com/week3.html#sthash.yaZkz36h.dpbs

Your biz plan seems very well thought out-now you just have to find the time to do it

[Nyxy]

Hey, welcome!
It's great you chose to join us as a marshmallow assasin!
You seem to have a lot of stuff going on, so it's really neat you are working out in between there too!

Do you have some kind of plan for the jumping rope- goal?
Something like: "I will practice 4 times per week" or " I will do x-minutes of rope jumping..."  can be a good idea

[drsloomis]

A huge welcome, especially to another member of the fellowship! Awesome goals, and definitely doable. Looking forward to following your progress!

[Wonderland Alice]

Tue 2/27

 

Per Elastigirls suggestion, I downloaded the 100 pushup app.  While there I downloaded the 200 squat app as well.  Still haven't found a great jumping app - so I'm just going to stick to my timer.  Will get a chance to check it out later today at the hospital.

 

Completed Pushups Week 1 Day 1

Completed Squats Week 1 Day 1

Stairs: 18 flights (per fitbit)

Coca Cola: ZERO

Lunges: 15

I'm still trying to get my camera to play nice for photos

Business:

  1) Fired off email and received response from my website template designer (so stoked about this!!!)  He suggested WooCommerce so I'm following his suggestion.  It is his product I'm using!

  2) Signed up for Mijireh but haven't chosen actual gateway yet.

  3) Decided to go with Hostgator based on a few reviews that stated Bluehost was best for personal sites.

 

Not bad for day 1 methinks. 

[Elastigirl]

Great start to your goals.

What I did last time to improve my kettlebell swings and am now doing to hopefully improve my jump roping is to set a time for me 7 min. Then for the next 2-3 weeks , each time I jump I will see if I can beat the number of jumps I do in that time. Then for 2-3 weeks after that I will take my best set of jumps and try and do them in less time. If my best number was 500 then I will try to do that in 6:30 , then the next time in 6:15 and so on. It worked for my kettlebell swings and I hope it will for my jump ropes.

[Wonderland Alice]

Wed 2/28

VERY busy day.  I'm exhausted.  I had not planned to train today at all due to my father-in-laws surgery (it went very well - he is recovering and expected to be in the hospital about 5 days).  Due to the mini-challenge... I found ways to sneak stuff in and I'm excited about that.  It made me realize that as the days get crazier over the next couple weeks, I'll be able to fit things in - no matter what.  I don't have to set aside an hour to go to the gym right now every day.  I am disappointed however that I could not find a set of stairs in the hospital (they were all labeled staff only).  I'll be there plenty over the next few days to try to find some.

 

I went ahead and decided that since its practically glued to me now, I might as well go ahead and include what it says.  I don't believe its always accurate, but fairly consistent.  It does not count flights of stairs the same way that I do.  Today I counted over 20.  It counted 14.  One of us didn't count properly.

Fitbit Stats:

Stairs: 14

Miles: 2.97

Steps: 7507

Coca Cola: Day 2 of ZERO

 

Mini-Challenge - Stair Running - 341 stairs

 

Found a way to fit in: 30 jumping jax and 45 lunges

I did not jump rope again today, but I'm ok with that because I didn't expect to do anything with all the running I had to do today. 

 

Elastigirl - I found a jump rope app!!!  A free one at that.  I absolutely can't count when I jump.  I count to 9 and then I end up leaving the first number off and I forget where I am.  I hope it works well.  I think it does # of jumps and time too so I'll be able to do what you suggested.

[Wonderland Alice]

Ok... so I'm not terribly disappointed with how things are turning out.  I am plodding forwarding in spite of the fact that RORUS are attacking me from all angles.  I get that I'm a newbie, but I'm good with fighting the rats already.  I am making great strides with my business - only because I know that its going to slow to a screeching halt soon.  I got the new hosting account, transferred my site - made a stupid mistake - fixed that - and only had a small mishap transferring everything to my current site.  It looks mostly the same as it did.  I can fix it.  I wasn't terribly happy with it before, so it isn't a great loss.  I do have a full backup, but I think I'm better off starting where I am instead and going forward.

 

I have this mental block from where I am now.  I dislike programming.  I stopped doing it many years ago.  I dislike anything associated with it - including testing.  Due to financial constraints I have to install all this myself - which means testing.  I REALLY hate testing.  Truthfully I don't like myself when I program.  I fall into this deep dark pit and I turn into some nasty night creature that feeds on human souls. It really isn't pretty - so I just stopped doing it - for the health of those around me.

 

So if anyone is really good at Genesis and Woo Commerce and wants to take pity on me - I'm game

 

Well - pieces are set.  Time to play.

[maegs]

Nice job fitting exercise in here and there! And I totally understand where you're coming from re: programming. I took an intro to programming course that used python, and even though we were doing pretty simple stuff, it got pretty frustrating at times.

[Wonderland Alice]

Thur 2/28

 

Not a great day. Totally exhausting - mentally.

 

Fitbit stats: (I'm really beginning to not believe this thing)

Steps:3299

Flights: 16

Miles 1.31

 

I actually ran up/down 444 stairs that I counted - which was 18 flights.  I'm not digging the way fitbit counts!!!

I did 60 lunges

Coca Cola: Day 3 Zero!!

 

I started skipping today - I didn't sleep well and I quit.  It was the 1st night my husband didn't sleep at home (he was with his mom).  This is my excuse and I'm sticking to it.  I have been doing well in the other areas so I will let myself slide today.  Just today.  I think I'm making great progress with Goals 1 and 4 (although 3 is probably the most important to me right now because of the cruise).

[Jakob Kopfeld]

Hello RunswithScissors  

 

Just wanted to drop by and wish you best of luck with this challenge! I hope you manage to achieve all your goals

Your goals seem great to me, do you have a plan how to get there aswell? The 100 pushup app is awesome as far as I've heard. What about the weigth loss thing? Cutting out soda and liquid calories is an awesome place to start. I'd recommend paleo diet if you want to kick it up another notch! Remember that 85% of Weigthloss is diet.

 

I think it's admirable that amidst the storm that is your life right now, you decided to take steps towards a healthier lifestyle. Most people wouldn't have the willpower to do that, which makes what you're doing even more impressive. I hope you Succeed!

[Wonderland Alice]

Substix - thank you for the encouragement!  I've had a horrible week but I'm not letting it slow me down.  I've still be keeping to my plan as best as possible.   I haven't been on here for a bunch of reasons, but I'm here tonight trying to catch up a little!!

[kawatan]

Oh wow! We seem to have a lot in common: short and marshmallowy, working on the Hundred Push Ups plan and weight loss, family member in the hospital, and educators too. (I'm about 60% of your age, though!) It's a long road but we'll get there together, I hope. Best of luck to you!

[Elastigirl]

Glad you could check in .Sorry its been such a hard week. Take care of yourself

[Wonderland Alice]

I left my fitbit piece at work, so I'll try to post all my stats tomorrow to completely catch me up.  I haven't done a bunch of anything lately.  I AM convinced my fitbit hates me.  It tracks approximately half of the flights of stairs that I walk.  But at least I know this - and its consistent.  When I check my steps - it seems to count them accurately.  As Heidi suggested in my accountability group - I've been trying to walk a little bit (not much just yet).  A slight recap of the last well (we shall call it Hell week).  And truthfully - this is why I chose to do this challenge and call it Shredding Excuses - I knew it wouldn't be easy.

 

Last Wed am… My 15 year old daughter is home schooled.  The morning started out with prepping her for yearbook pictures at 7 am.  The photographer was of course 30 min late (9am).  Then I hurried off to work to do payroll.  We were supposed to go to the beach for her birthday horse ride, but due to an incredible amount of rain we weren't able to go.  Now I realize it seems just plain wrong to go on a horseback ride when my father in law was actually in surgery, but we have been trying to go on this ride since before her birthday in January.  That was the last day we could go for the season - the beach is now closed because of sea turtles - so we will have to wait ……  Regardless, when I finished payroll, we grabbed a bite to eat, stopped by the house (30 min from my office) to check on the doggies and then drove to the hospital (another hour from the house).  We stayed there until about 9 pm and drove that hour home.

 

Thursday wasn't horrible, but I have to do contractor checks - and I hate them.  They are always messy.  Its usually a 12 hour day.  Then when I got home I had to make sure my daughter was all packed and ready to go because we had to leave so early in the morning.

 

Friday we had to drive 30 min south to go to a Dr. Appointment and then I had to drive my daughter 230 miles North to drop her off with her dad and then another 230 miles home.

 

Saturday I was lucky enough to spend the day with my mother-in-law.  She is 86 and was born in England.  She is Catholic and I am not.  Each time she sees me she draws a cross on my forehead and says that God will forgive me for being protestant.  She also pours milk in my tea eventho I protest and beg for sugar.  She hasn't driven but about 10 years in her entire life, and she surely hasn't driven in the last 30.  She also hasn't grocery shopped - my father in law does all the shopping.  So for the next few weeks, I'll be taking her shopping.  It took us 2 - YES 2 HOURS inside the grocery store for about $50 worth of groceries. Now 5 years ago I totally wouldn't have appreciated the time spent with her - now I do.  But I would have much rather spent that time drinking tea with her and her being relaxed instead of being stressed out at the market!

 

Sunday - I repeated Friday.

 

I had a migraine the entire weekend.  Starting Friday on the trip back.  I totally can't imagine why.  But it finally went away today.

 

The one major thing that I have gotten out of this is my Coca Cola habit is broken.  It just tastes like garbage. On one hand I am heartbroken.  On the other - I'm glad the calories are gone.  I'd like to say that I'll put sweet tea out there in a future challenge - but that will happens when hell freezes over.  I'll never give up my sweet tea.  The good thing is I don't drink much of it.

 

I don't want to really be premature but I'm pretty sure I've lost a pound.  I climbed on the scale on Monday and it was down, but I really only like to weigh every other week.  We will see what happens next Monday

[drsloomis]

Dumping soda is huge! I dropped a bunch of weight when I gave up sodas. Congratulations!

[Jakob Kopfeld]

Substix - thank you for the encouragement!  I've had a horrible week but I'm not letting it slow me down.  I've still be keeping to my plan as best as possible.   I haven't been on here for a bunch of reasons, but I'm here tonight trying to catch up a little!!

You're very welcome!! As long as you manage to drop by every couple of days it really is enough.

 

It seems that you're really involved with taking care of your familiy! In todays 21st century world that is not a given anymore and I want to express how hugely impressive it is to me that you manage to do all that and still have enough energy to take stepts towards a healthier lifestyle! I wish you the very best of luck and all the energy necessary to succeed You definately deserve it!!

[Wonderland Alice]

Ok - I officially hate my fitbit or rather it hates me.  For the first time I had to let it really charge because it was dead and I left it in my car all day - bummer.  

 

               Beginning                  March 10

 

               Left           Right

Thigh      22             22.5        22      22.5

Calf                14.25                   14.0

Tricep              11.0                    10.5

Waist               31.0                     31.0

Hips                 39.5                     39.0

Chest               33.0                     33.0

Weight           128.2                     126.2

 

What is it with my scale and that whole .2 thing?  Can't we just call it 126.0 and make me feel like I lost a whole extra pound?

So 0.25 in each calf (total surprise) plus 0.5 in each tricep (bigger surprise - guess its from all the pushups) and 0.5 in my hippies.  All in all I'm pleased.

I can do 20 pushups without stopping - although I'm concerned about my knee.  A few years back when I was working as a restaurant manager, I slipped and fell in the kitchen.  Just a couple days later, I was in the work storage shed and fell through the bottom of it and completely torqued that same knee.  I ended up having to have it cleaned out.  It hasn't ever really given me any problems until now - doing pushups??  Pushups.  I can run, kickbox, do darn near anything I want, but seems that doing pushups puts a little too much stress in just the wrong spot.  Guess I'll be doing 1 leg pushups.

 

I'm jumping rope anywhere from 5-10 min a day.  Still smacking myself in the legs frequently.  I haven't learned how to jump slowly tho - I basically jump 2 jumps per second.  I've tried to slow down but can't jump that way either.  

 

Currently stuck on the biz.  Purchased a font from a local girl and waiting for it to arrive.  I'll redesign my cards and get those ordered as well as the clothing labels I need. I need to re-research all the stupid laws I have to know as well.  I am working on getting the store installed.  I'm trying to watch videos to make sure I'm doing it properly.  I'm kind of stuck because I'm afraid I don't really know what I'm doing.

 

I've had a minor setback on a project I thot I was almost done with.  I am building a database for our church food pantry.  The database is built and although we tried to auto import all 2.5 years of data, we weren't able to.  The person who was doing the data entry just went into the hospital for spine surgery and is now out for 4 months - so the project has been dropped back into my lap.  I am now the proud owner of 5 high school (home schooled) volunteers to get the data entered and get the project off my lap for good.   Arrrgggghhh - this was my week with no one in the hospital - and now - I have someone in the hospital - and 5 volunteers to train.  The only good part about this is… high school kids learn REALLY fast!

 

Up this week - mom's pre-op and grocery shopping with the mother in law

[Elastigirl]

Are you talking about knee pushups or regular? Just seems weird that they would bother your knee. My new favorite tip is to film yourself  doing the excercise.If you video yourself then you can see if you are doing something weird with your leg to put pressure on your knee.

 

I can't figure out how to jump rope slow either.  Guess its better cardio faster anyway.

 

 Hopefully you can tell the kids what to do with the data entry and they can just do it quickly and it won't be too time consuming for you. And hopefully it will actually even be kind of fun to work with the high schoolers.

[Wonderland Alice]

Are you talking about knee pushups or regular? Just seems weird that they would bother your knee. My new favorite tip is to film yourself  doing the excercise.If you video yourself then you can see if you are doing something weird with your leg to put pressure on your knee.

 

I can't figure out how to jump rope slow either.  Guess its better cardio faster anyway.

 

 Hopefully you can tell the kids what to do with the data entry and they can just do it quickly and it won't be too time consuming for you. And hopefully it will actually even be kind of fun to work with the high schoolers.

I'm doing regular ole pushups - not on my knees - just strait legged pushups.  

 

Aaahhhh - I have been working with a chiropractor lately and he's really working to move my spine and hips around.  I wonder if I'm compensating somehow… I think I will video myself to see what I'm doing to cause extra pressure on that knee.  It may just be that before my left knee was absorbing the extra pressure because I wasn't "even" and now that he's evening me out, I feel the strain.  Video here I come!!

[Elastigirl]

I'm doing regular ole pushups - not on my knees - just strait legged pushups.  

 

Aaahhhh - I have been working with a chiropractor lately and he's really working to move my spine and hips around.  I wonder if I'm compensating somehow… I think I will video myself to see what I'm doing to cause extra pressure on that knee.  It may just be that before my left knee was absorbing the extra pressure because I wasn't "even" and now that he's evening me out, I feel the strain.  Video here I come!!

I had never video'd myself excercising before this challenge. I was suprised at how  what I was really doing didn't match to what I felt like I was doing

[Jakob Kopfeld]

Oh the joyous monotony of database entry work. I once spent an entire summer cleaning up and updating a 120k entry database. I know your pain. Hopefully your volunteers can get it done

 

Videotaping yourself is a great way to check up on your form on exercises!

[Wonderland Alice]

I'm still hanging in there!!  Its rough… My chiropractor was not real happy with me today.  He told me I had way too much stress in my life.  Not much I can do about that!!

 

Momma made it through pre-op and her surgery is scheduled for 10am next Wed.  Shopping with my Mother in Law still took 2 hours but my momma got to share in the joy.  This weekend I get to celebrate her 87th birthday with her.  My daughter also has her drivers ed course….  We also found out that my father in law is going to require an MRI on his brain as well as chemo.  I'm only going to be able to drive him for so long, so this will be an added stress to my husband.  My father in law is 6'8" (he is very skinny but still VERY tall - I am only 5'0").  I just will not be able to hold him up if he isn't strong enough to stand on his own.  

 

I'm digging the stress!!!!