Laureleye Springs into action

[Laureleye]

3 NFA Body Weight Brigade workouts/week – 3 weeks at level 1; 3 weeks at level 2.  Points – 3 points for each workout, 1 point for star-power finishers or bonus workout; 12 possible/week. 

1 outdoor cardio/weekend – This can be walking, running, intervals, jumprope or vigorous gardening.  I'm shooting for 6 of 7.

Ditch the wheaties – Weeks 1 & 2 three days with no baked/bread/wheat-type items.  Weeks 3 & 4 four days without wheat-type items.  Weeks 5 & 6 six days without.  Each day is going to be just pass/fail.

 

Life goal:  Talk to people.  Post on my own thread and at least 1 other thread 4 days/week.  

 

And blah, blah, blah....

 

I learned some things during the last challenge.  First, I really hate being stuck doing a workout indoors during the weekend.  So the plan is to shift my schedule a bit and do Mon/Wed/Fri strength & some (mostly) outdoor cardio on the weekend.  I also really liked the NF academy strength progression, but I think it progresses a bit more than I can do.  So I'll try spending 3 weeks at each level instead of two.  These workouts have an option of incline jogging as a finisher, so I'll be doing that instead of the squat thrusts I attempted last challenge.

 

Somehow, bread/grain/cookies/junk has been sneaking back into my diet.  I'm going allow brown rice and quinoa, but I'll eventually ease those down too. 

 

You may have noticed that I've been doing a terrible job of posting.  As I get emotionally tired, I tend to pull inwards more and more.  Time to come out of my shell and at least be talking on line, if not in person. 

[Laureleye]

It's Tuesday already, and while I'm late posting my thread, I did actually have my challenge in mind.  I did a workout with a running finisher yesterday.  So far, I'm 0/3 on grain-free days, but I'll get my act together for the rest of the week and finish strong.  I got some new plants for my birthday, so some serious hole-digging is on my schedule for Saturday. 

 

Also joined the mini-challenge.  Did my pre-workout warmups Monday & found a new ranger (or two) to chat with.

[IslandGirl_Becks]

3 NFA Body Weight Brigade workouts/week – 3 weeks at level 1; 3 weeks at level 2.  Points – 3 points for each workout, 1 point for star-power finishers or bonus workout; 12 possible/week. 

1 outdoor cardio/weekend – This can be walking, running, intervals, jumprope or vigorous gardening.  I'm shooting for 6 of 7.

Ditch the wheaties – Weeks 1 & 2 three days with no baked/bread/wheat-type items.  Weeks 3 & 4 four days without wheat-type items.  Weeks 5 & 6 six days without.  Each day is going to be just pass/fail.

 

Life goal:  Talk to people.  Post on my own thread and at least 1 other thread 4 days/week.  

 

...

 

You may have noticed that I've been doing a terrible job of posting.  As I get emotionally tired, I tend to pull inwards more and more.  Time to come out of my shell and at least be talking on line, if not in person. 

I really like that you specified some active outside time! It's one of my favorite ways to wind down and re-set after a week in the office. What sorts of greens are you planting this weekend?

 

I totally failed the first challenge I did because my posting petered out... kudos for holding yourself accountable!

[Laureleye]

I got all California native plant for my birthday.  A couple of ceonothus (aka California Lilac) and several columbine.  I have one garden that is all CA native plants, including salvia, mimulus, ceonothus, CA poppy and cotoneaster.  In the back yard, I have 2 very mature citrus, so I've only got about 1/2 CA natives there - its hard to find natives that will take soil as acid and wet as that location.  Most of the CA natives I have there are riparian.

 

I had a good day Wednesday. 

• BWB "B" workout done, with incline walking as a finisher.  These workouts have some substiture finishers, and my knees seem to be liking it better.  The finishers aren't really easier, just easier on my knees. 
• No "wheaties"
• I was a little lighter than usual on steps for the day - only finished up at little over 11,000.  I get a good number of these outside - walking to and from the metro stop and Starbucks. 

So far today has been so so.  I concentrated on steps at the train platform, and may do an errand on foot tonight too.  I got suckered into a bit of pastry this morning.  It was the 1st day back for a co-worker whose spouse died; she put a little coffee thing together to thank everyone for flowers, etc.  I did manage to limit my pastry to about 3 bites, so that was a success I think.  I'm gonna run off now and check up on the rest of you. 

[Fonzico]

I hear you about the indoor workouts! I've ramped mine down so I can do more outdoors stuff as well. I think between the fresh air and sunlight, it will do us both a great deal of good.

 

Your goals are strong, best of luck in tackling them. I can also sympathize with the grain-y stuff sneaking back in, it's funny how that seems to happen just when you think you've gotten rid of them for real. For me, it's always random day dreams of grilled sandwiches, and once I give in and have one, it's all down hill from there. Sorry, I shouldn't speak of such tempting things. Belly bloat! Weight gain! Gas! (There, did that counteract it?)

[Tateman]

ugh, I hate how stuff sneaks back into the diet!  Sounds like you have some really nice gardens going on

[Laureleye]

I've done some posting out and about today, so here's an update on my thread.  I finished up okay yesterday with almost 11,000 steps; a reasonable total for a non-workout day.  I went and forgot my FitBit today - I can't believe I did that.  Now I'll have to make up numbers for the early part of the day.  I decided at stickers on a calendar thingy would be a more fun tracking method than a spreadsheet.  I hit City Target while I was out on my mid-day coffee jaunt, but no joy.  Couldn't think of anywhere else right around to find them down town; I guess sticker-fun isn't a big activity in law firms and banks. 

[Teros]

11k steps seems like a lot to me.  I've seen a bunch of people that use smiley face stickers and stars to track.  More satisfying than a checkmark.

[Fonzico]

Keep searching - the injection of fun into your tracking shall be worth it! (you KNOW I'm loving that idea )

[CrimsonTide2006]

Good luck & great job so far! 

[Laureleye]

Great week 1. 

Saturday I was in the garden digging holes and cleaning up.  Walked over to Staples and found my stickers. 

Sunday I went to my Brother's for Easter.  My husband was sick, but he didn't want company.Lots of fun with my grandnephew, especially the chocolate bunny. 

 

3 NFA Body Weight Brigade workouts/week – 12/12.  3 workouts; 3 finishers. 

1 outdoor cardio/weekend – Got this in by gardening.

Ditch the wheaties – 3 good days, which hit my target. 

I also posted 4 days posted on other threads as well. 

 

The upcoming week is going to require a bit of adjustment - Friday is my SIL's birthday & I don't think I'll have time for a workout.  Tentative plan is to do the weekend workout on Friday with a quick jumprope session, and then the workout on Saturday. 

[Fonzico]

Heh, I'm glad you found your stickers!

 

Good job getting those workouts in - you had an excellent first week - looks like straights A's to me.

 

Best of luck with week two and your scheduling challenges.

[Tateman]

Excellent work on Week 1!  Sounds like a good plan to make sure you get your workouts this week.

[Teros]

Woot.  Keep it going.  Was it a SOLID chocolate bunny? Those hollow ones I used to get where such a disappointment.  I always tried to bite the solid ones in half when I was little.

[Laureleye]

Woot.  Keep it going.  Was it a SOLID chocolate bunny? Those hollow ones I used to get where such a disappointment.  I always tried to bite the solid ones in half when I was little.

It was a hollow one, but he didn't seem to care. 

 

Monday was pretty good - I did my workout and some walking finishers. 

 

I was feeling so superior on Sunday because I was well & my husband was sick.  I got my comeuppance on Tuesday - I had to leave work early feeling awful.  Stayed home yesterday & skipped my workout.  I'll have to rearrange the whole week, but I can still do it.

 

This morning, I had an interview for the Detail in Wash, DC.  I think it went well.  I should hear back in a week or so. 

 

Off to check in on folks.

[Laureleye]

I think I did about as well as possible yesterday.  Between the job interview and staff meeting, my steps were lower than usual at work.  Then problems on the commute home ate away at most of my workout time.  I managed my BWB "A" workout, but no finishers.  No baked goodies, although there were some hanging around at work. 

 

Tonight's BD celebration for my SIL is off.  She's down with some sort of respiratory infection.  I'll still do my outdoor cardio this afternoon.  That will leave me doing my 3rd workout Saturday & I'll be back on track.

[Fonzico]

Way to make the best of the situation! And I think the avoidance of baked goods counters the lack of finishers How did the interview go?

[Laureleye]

Way to make the best of the situation! And I think the avoidance of baked goods counters the lack of finishers How did the interview go?

I think it went quite well.  I expect to hear something one way or the other by the end of the week.

 

I got in my 3rd workout for the week, with finishers so I didn't let my little flu bug knock me out.  No baked/wheat/grain goods today so far - and I'm sure I can finish up clean. 

[Tateman]

dang, nice job getting stuff done even with being sick.

[Laureleye]

Nice weekend with great weather.  Saturday's finisher was the scenic route to Starbuck which takes me up a nice little hill - about 3/4 mile.  Then the annual spring clothes swap where I pack away my "winter" stuff and pull out the summer things.  Sunday I did some garden cleanup and quickie job on most of the house. 

 

I managed a good week 2.

 

3 NFA Body Weight Brigade workouts/week – 3 workouts + 2 finishers = 11 pts

1 outdoor cardio/weekend – Got in a mile of intervals plus about 1/3 mile cool down on Friday.  It was a great day for it; cool and slightly hazy.

Ditch the wheaties – 3 days clean.

I've been posting pretty regularly, but I'd like to up it a bit more. 

 

My husband seems excited about the possibility of me going to DC.  Grand experiment on Tuesday - he's going to try cooking a simple meal. 

[Fonzico]

Great week! Every thing is looking awesome, good job! Good luck with the job situation..

[Laureleye]

Got week 3 off to a good start.  I did my workout and finishers.  I'm thinking I didn't really say that I'd had to back off on my pushups.  It seems that my form was wrong, and wasn't able to improve and struggled so bad - it seemed like the best solution was back off a bit.  So I backed up to incline pushups with focus on form.  I'm now back to knee pushups with good form.  I did 3 sets of ten good-form knee pushups last night.  I'm feeling like I'm finally on track with this.  I had a no grain day yesterday, but tonight's dinner plan includes corn bread.  Since this is my husband's dinner plan, I'll have a little.

 

It's been insane today.  I started the day out with a headache (dontcha hate that?)  Outlook is acting crazy on some machines.  Others are suddenly losing group policies.  Not a fun day to be a computer support type.  Worked through most of lunch but nabbed enough time to make this post.  Tonight's fun activities will include checking my home PC to make sure I have the latest toolkit for that MSIE vulnerability that's been found. 

[Laureleye]

Tuesday was not a workout night.  I did get 12,000 steps in.  My husband's cooking adventure didn't go well.  He was making white beans and ham in the CrockPot.  Unfortunately, he just followed the instructions exactly & the darned things weren't done.  We ate out & since I'd allowed for grains, I had tamales.  He's going to try finishing the beans today and since it will be too hot to bake, substitute diced fruit for the corn bread.  I got my home PC updated so I'm all caught up.

[Teros]

  Then the annual spring clothes swap where I pack away my "winter" stuff and pull out the summer things. 

Yeah I did that too and then it dropped into the 40s for about a week. Comforter and sweatshirts are already packed away. It's finally getting into the low 60s.

 

For some reasons carrots take forever in my crockpot. It's the only thing though. It's weird.

[Laureleye]

Delayed, but finally catching up!

 

Wednesday - My husband's white beans turned out well.  I didn't want to eat, but I couldn't do that to him.  It has turn HOT, and I always lose my appetite the first few days of hot weather.  No worries that I swapped out my clothes to soon - it was 96 degrees.  Did a workout and finishers.  No grain-type stuff, so all in all a good day.  The NF BWB "B" workout has diamond knee pushups - and I set a PR of 3 sets of 7. 

 

Thursday was wacky at work.  Came in and my server room was 90 degrees cause the A/C died.  It's only 3 months old!  A/C installer came, and of course I had to monitor him; after 2.5 hours he figured out he needed a spare part.  Configured my server to text me with temperature alarms.  I sent out an email to staff, but of course there's always 30% that don't read it so I had to explain the situation a dozen more times, and give status to headquarters and my management.  I did get tapatalk installed on my phone and made a couple of updates, but not as many as I hoped.  Thankfully it was not wa workout night.  My husband took me out for dinner since I was wiped out - sadly I got talked into a brownie for dessert.  On an up side, all that running around netted me 12,500 steps. 

 

My husband wants me to help him update the recipe book he started when he tried cooking a few years ago.  It takes a lot of patience because he doesn't get "about".  If he's going to put oil in a pan, he wants to know to the 1/4 teaspoon how much.  I'm not sure if that's just his personality or if it's 30 years of the Marine Corps. 

 

I still haven't heard back about the temporary job in DC.  I've started a list of things I'll need to prep to turnover "just in case".