PHD-Student on a journey to fitness

[SirHammerlock]

Hello fellow rebels,

 

my name is Sara, and I am from Göttingen, Germany. I have a Master's Degree in History and Medieval Latin and am currently working on my PHD in history. I have been a gamer almost my whole life (starting with NES and a 486PC with Windows 3.11 and 8 mb Ram, playing SimCity and CommanderKeen in DOS), I like Star Wars, Star Trek, Dr. Who, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, Futurama, Simpsons, Warhammer, especially Borderlands and many more. I am japanophile and am playing WoW and other Blizzard-Games and I love reading science fiction. For fun sports I do archery and a little bit of rugby.

 

I have been a follower of Nerd Fitness since about the beginning of March, when I started my journey to become fit and loose weight. I started at 184 pounds and aprox. 35 % body fat (I don't know the last for sure, because I took the measurement some time after I had started my diet). I had tried to lose weight before, but it just didn't work, because I had big problems to change my diet (I just love to eat, and when I am depressed, I eat...). When I read about (s)low carb diets, I was sceptical at first, but I decided to give it a try for at least a month - and it worked!!

 

I came to Nerd Fitness throug Mark's Daily Apple, which I discovered through a review of Timothy Ferris' "4-Hour-Body". After I tried Ferris diet (slow carb with legumes), but just couldn't stand it anymore (I just hate legumes and I was missing fruit so much, as well as some dairy) after a week, I went paleo, which wasn't so difficult after I had tortured myself through slow carb. Since then I have followed Mark's Primal Blueprint most of the time (when I went to a conference, which my gradschool had organised, I did not eat any of the food they offered there, which was quite hard, since I couldn't eat anything for almost a whole day, but I was very proud of myself that I had been so strong). I made a very few exceptions to paleo (I eat dairy), especially when I am at the cafeteria and I don't want to eat salad (for example, I seldom eat goulash containing starch).

 

So far I lost about 14 pounds in 9 weeks, my fitness has improved through the Rebel Fitness Plan and I made it through level 1 and 2. I feel much more energetic and happy since I started and for the first time in my life I am having fun at doing sports containing strength training (at school, I never was fat or anything, but I was one of the worst at sports, which was quite nagging..). So here are my currents stats and my future gaming plan:

 

 

Current Stats:

 

Age: 26

Height: 5 feet 10.87 inch

Weight: about 169 pounds

Body Fat % : 29

Skills: will power

Need to improve: strength, endurance.

 

Goals:

 

• Lose 29 pounds by 09/30/2013.
• Get Body Fat % down to 20 by end of 2013.
• Do 30 push ups in 3 intervalls (a 10) by End of June (current: 30 incline pushups in a row at a dining table).
• Do 20 minutes of HIT-Cardio (cycling, 2 minutes easy, 1 minute hard = lvl 3 rebel fitness training) by June 1st (current 10 minutes). -> Completed by May 20st.

Game Plan:

1. Follow Paleo at least 90% (I am eating dairy, try to limit myself to 75g of carbohydrates a day, eat 90g of protein and aprox. 1300 calories).
2. Complete Rebel Fitness Workout-Plan Lvl 3 Outsider every week.
3. Track caloric and macronutritient intake every day.
4. Walk to my office and back, walk everywhere possible (currently about 3-5 miles a day).
5. yeah, well, more to come .

 

So, for everyone out there, who is struggeling with his or her diet: YOU CAN DO IT! Just stay focused on your goals. Let your tiniest improvements fuel your power of endurance - and DON'T GIVE UP! A whole lot of other people out here tried and succeeded, so you can do it too!

 

 

Thanks for reading!

[sysydo]

my name is Sara,

...

So far I lost about 14 pounds in 9 weeks, my fitness has improved through the Rebel Fitness Plan and I made it through level 1 and 2. I feel much more energetic and happy since I started and for the first time in my life I am having fun at doing sports containing strength training (at school, I never was fat or anything, but I was one of the worst at sports, which was quite nagging..). So here are my currents stats and my future gaming plan:

 

...

 

So, for everyone out there, who is struggeling with his or her diet: YOU CAN DO IT! Just stay focused on your goals. Let your tiniest improvements fuel your power of endurance - and DON'T GIVE UP! A whole lot of other people out here tried and succeeded, so you can do it too!

 

 

Thanks for reading!

 

Welcome Sara,

 

Wow, your story and outlook are inspiring.  I'll be following you on your journey. 

 

I'm particularly interested in hearing about your paleo diet.  I'm  not sure I want to go paleo, but I certainly want to go "more natural".  I'll be looking for some tips ;-)

 

Keep up the great work!

[marionette]

You are doing really well with your fitness journey but just an FYI, you may want to look at the math of your goals.

 

Currently you have about 120lbs lean body mass. (169x.29 = 49 169-49 = 120)

If you lose 29lbs and aim for a body fat percentage of 20 your lean body mass will go down to about 112lbs, meaning that not only will you have lost fat, but also lean body mass, which may affect your goals in relation to strength. It comes down to what you really want at this point, and you are at the perfect point to make the choice between overall weight vs. overall strength.

[girljen]

Oh heck yeah, strong start! 

[SirHammerlock]

@All: Thanks very much for the warm welcome!

 

@sysydo: For me personal, paleo as Mark at Mark's Daily Apple describes it, works pretty well. The good thing about paleo for me was that I could eat many things I love eating (bacon for example). In my opinion, there is a proper substitution for almost every meal you like (i.e. http://www.marksdailyapple.com/mushroom-and-bacon-risotto/#axzz2SnO7bIbP

or http://www.marksdailyapple.com/hazelnut-coffee-pancakes/#axzz2TqPYV5Bh).

 

When going paleo, and I am relying on Mark's and Steve's Tips here, and if you are having problems to renounce certain foods, go paleo step by step and replace certain aspects of your diet with paleo approved food. For me it helped a lot that I am allowed to eat fruit and yoghurt from time to time, so I can satisfy my craving for something sweet. And if I can't take it anymore, I just eat a piece of dark chocolate (90%) - dark chocolate (80% or more) might taste a little odd at first, but once you get used to it, you never want to eat any other of those sugar loaded bars and milk chocolate, because they taste soooo sweet. One of my greatest problems when going paleo accured when I took my meals with people who eat food I am not allowed (i.e. my boyfriend doesn't eat paleo). At first, it was very hard to look at all those things I liked so very much like cake or pasta.. But then I noticed, that when I was craving for those "sad"-foods the most was the time when I was hungry. Therefore, I tried to trick my mind by saying to myself: "Well, you can't eat that right now, but you have XY you can eat, which is not only much tastier but also much more healthy than ABC which PERSON's eating over there." For me, this took a little bit of training, but it works most of the time - you just need to think about something you'd like to eat very much and which is paleo - and then you won't crave for the SADs anymore.

 

So, I hope I could give you a few tips helping you to start going paleo - it really is a life-changing improvement.

 

@Marionette: Thank you very much for this tip. I hadn't thought about that - most of all, I just want to look lean and fit, and I just didn't consider, that I would lose lean mass with these goals. I think, I will go for overall strength, let's say I try to aim for body fat about 20 % and lose fewer pounds then (didn't do the math yet ).

 

[sysydo]

Thanks for the tips SirHammerlock (and thanks for friending me  )

 

This Mushroom and bacon "risotto" is going to be perfect with the chicken we plan on eating tonight.

 

[SirHammerlock]

@Sysydo: Hey, I'm glad to hear that. For more great recipes just checkout the site; and I can totally reccomend http://primalblueprint.com/products/Primal-Cravings.html. It's not quite cheap, but it sure is a great resource for more great recipes. If you got anymore questions, you can ask me .

 

@all: I DID IT! YEAH: http://nerdfitnessrebellion.com/index.php?/topic/28764-first-time-cardio-of-rebel-fitness-training-lvl-3-complete/