How a Hero Gathers His Act: Spark's Fifth Challenge

[Spark]

Because "How a Hero Gets His **** Together" didn't play well as a topic title.

 

So! Last challenge didn't go well for me. I started late, had a two-week vacation at the beginning, and then constant distractions and interruptions along the way. Ergo, I think it time to get my act together again.

 

So! Spark's life challenge is to get to 250 lbs. In the year and a half since I was first diagnosed with diabeetus, I have lost 34 pounds of fat, putting me at approximately 445 lbs. I will have more exact numbers tomorrow morning. This is a process, so I'm fine with the fact that I'm going slowly.

 

My other major goal is to get my writing career in a place where it's actually making me enough money to survive on my own (without the generous and deeply appreciated help from both friends and family).

 

Anyone remember this thread in Steve's blog, about becoming a superhero in real life? I figure that real life superheroes need a lot of the same training that you see in Ranger threads, so I'm going with that. After all, I'm proud to have friends here on this very forum who are real life superheroes. I need to invent a superhero to become, but that's okay. Right now I'm in training. I'm losing weight and becoming capable of more things every day. My goals are a reflection of that.

 

1. Work the workout.

This is the same goal that I had in my last challenge, for those taking notes. I have a workout plan that involves doing things six days a week, and I'm notorious for not doing all six. This is the challenge where I will do all six, hell or high water, unless I'm incapacitated by the flu or some damn thing. That's 36 workouts during this challenge cycle. Each workout involves work at home, and four per week involve work in the gym. So scoring this one is simple, neh?

 

2. Work the diet.

The Whole30 diet (basically paleo) is working wonders for me. But like any closed system, entropy creeps in. I find myself occasionally having a Hershey bar or something, or breaking the diet in other ways. These instances of entropy become more frequent every day, and while I haven't gotten to the "two pounds of sugar straight from the bag" point, I'd rather nip the entropy in the bud before it gets any worse. This is a holding action, in an effort to ingrain new habits a little deeper.

 

3. Work the books.

No, not the writing. That's going pretty well without the goad of a challenge, actually. What this challenge refers to is learning new exercises. Once a week, I plan to learn how to properly execute a new exercise. This includes making sure that I know what I'm doing when it comes to ones that I "know" but need more work on, such as the deadlift. I will burpee. I will do kettlebell exercises that I haven't done before. It will be good to add new things to my arsenal.

 

So there we have it, folks. Spark's challenge for this cycle. I look forward to seeing you guys working this cycle. Cheers!

[Sloth the Enduring]

I'm here again.  I'm still waiting for some slosh pipe action.

[DarK_RaideR]

Was wondering when you'd put up your challenge thread... I don't see any stat rewards or life quest, but what I do see is determination and solid goals. Good to read that your writing is moving on (a.k.a. I CAN HAZ MOAR SPARK BOOKZ PLZ KTHNXBAI)

[Tearose]

Yay Spark! Good goals! Subbed and following along. Onward to being a superhero!!

[Spark]

I'm here again.  I'm still waiting for some slosh pipe action.

 

My most recent blog post was about my slosh pipe, actually. It'll feature in my battle log during this challenge, fo sho.

 

Was wondering when you'd put up your challenge thread... I don't see any stat rewards or life quest, but what I do see is determination and solid goals. Good to read that your writing is moving on (a.k.a. I CAN HAZ MOAR SPARK BOOKZ PLZ KTHNXBAI)

 

Working on it! And my life quest is my same life quest that it's been from the start: Go from 480-ish pounds to 250. Like I said, I've done some of that already!

 

Thanks for the comments guys! It's gonna be a ride, huh?

[Sloth the Enduring]

I liked the article and the directions. *adds to to-do list*

[Spark]

Had a pretty good day yesterday!

 

1. Worked the workout for sure, had a good time. Since I do the whole stack on the machine when I do the leg curls, a little old lady came over all wide-eyed and asked if I was worried that I would break the machine. I told her that I sure hoped not, and did another set.

 

2. The diet went fairly well, though I had some pizza with dinner. Outside of the crust, there, I pretty well nailed it.

 

3. Completely forgot that I was going to do deadlifts last night. I spaced. Silly Spark. I can try it again when I do arms, which will be either today or (more likely) tomorrow.

 

Cheers!

[Beaucastle]

*Lurking about*

[ShadowLion]

What a rangeriffic device, the slosh-pipe! And you had to use "firefighter math" to figure out the volume of water in a cylinder to determine it's weight - too cool!

 

Looking forward to seeing your challenge progress in super-herodom. Do you know what your superpowers will be? Or, should your loyal readership make suggestions?

[Phayze]

Hey Spark! Back again to watch you awesome through another challenge. ^^

If your taking suggestions for superpowers, I'd recommend hypnosis. Clever dude like you could rule the world with hypnosis. Just sayin.

[Spark]

Aw, thanks guys! Right now I'm sort of using the name Monster for the hero in my head (thanks to the song by Skillet). "What would Monster do? Would Monster quit before that last set, Will? I think not." Basically it's sort of a super-Ranger in my head. Something to aspire to!

 

Anyway! I need to add an addendum challenge: Post every day. Yeesh.

 

1: Work the workout. Aw yeah. Kicking ass, thanks, and it feels good to be back in the groove!

 

2. Do the diet. This isn't going QUITE as well, but I'm sticking with it a lot better than I was in the last couple of weeks. Basically, outside of some pizza and the occasional chocolate, I've been nailing it. Oh, and some cheese. But hey, 95% is an A in any class I've been a part of. =D

 

3. Hit the books. This week I've been working on improving my calf raises, using machines and just going solo. I need to work on my balance, so that's one thing. They're easier to do than they were at the start, which makes sense with the weight loss/strength gains I've been (slowly) making.

 

Hope that everyone else is doing well! <3 to all.

[Spark]

Today!

 

1. Worked it. Hard, baby. I wanted to stop about halfway through, wanted to go home and half-ass the rest of it with a kettlebell too light for what I'm doing, but I summoned Monster and fought through that emotion. Then I finished the workout!

 

2. ...and then I had a Frostee from Wendy's. *sigh* Monster apparently sucks at diets.

 

3. Pretty much didn't think about calf-work today; they're sore, and I don't want to get back to that "omg, my calves are full of broken glass" feeling that I get when I overdo it.

[Beaucastle]

that broken glass thing..  be careful with that.  

Monster will get the hang of it, and sometimes you have to have a Frosty.  Makes life worth doing all the work for.   Keep going!

[Spark]

No broken glass yet! The slosh pipe is working to make that change, but none yet.

 

1. Continued working it! The Monster is helping me quite a bit, really.

 

2. Anti-Monster tried to talk me into things like ice cream, but Anti-Monster isn't the boss of me! I made a hell of a big pot of paleo vegetable-beef soup, and I've been eating from that for several days now. Naturally I mix it up a bit, but the soup has been a big help.

 

3. This week I plan to learn KB get-ups. I've done them without KBs, twice, but this time I'ma try it with my 25-lb bell. I'm a lot stronger now than when I tried it last time, so I'm confident that Monster and I can get it going.

 

Cheers!

[Phayze]

Woo! "Doctor Sparkle and Monster Hyde" is my new favorite show! ^^

[Spark]

And here I was thinking that I had posted here recently, like in the last three days. Turns out Monster sucks at calendars. It's his one of his main weaknesses, right before rabid ferrets and right after Flemish carpenters.

 

1. Working hard, working smart. I missed a day, specifically Thursday, thanks to various family issues and errands. Our outside cat, Callie, the World's Ugliest Calico (who is a total sweetheart) had to go to the vet, where we found out that the swelling on her face is actually a soft-tissue tumor. According to the vet, it's going to be the end of her, but for now she's not in pain and seems cheerful enough (Callie, though the vet was nice about the whole thing). Anyway, the day was lost, gym-wise, thanks to running Miss Cat to the vet.

 

2. Anti-Monster still rampages at the gates of my psyche, but Monster is able to hold it back for the most part (except for cheese...when it comes to paleo, I fail hard at cheese). Finished off my soup, but I think I'm gonna start having that stuff on hand for snacks and things. It serves a two-fold purpose when it comes to snacks: It fits all my diet goals, and it's a pain in the ass to just pull out of the fridge and eat (thus making me work for it, thus making me question whether I want a snack at all, usually making me conclude "the hell with it").

 

3. It turns out I can do get-ups with my 25-lb bell! This is so neat! True, I'm a bit unsteady, but the first time I ever did a get-up with a weight I flailed all over the place like I was drunk.

 

Oh! Also! I found out that my shoulders have become flexible enough that I can actually hold a bar on my shoulders instead of up on my neck! Granted, I have to grip wide, but I'm not worried about that. Now I can start working on real squats! Win!

[DarK_RaideR]

Go get em, beast!

[Beaucastle]

Poor Miss Callie, hope she manages to keep the inevitable away for a long while.

 

Yea on shoulder flexibility, and proper squats!

 

I have no idea what a get up is... (besides a circa 1970s outfit)  but *cheers* that you can do them!

[Phayze]

Woo, get-ups and squats! Great job, Spark! ^^

I'm sorry to hear about Callie, though. That kind of news is the worst part about having pets.

[ShadowLion]

Sorry to hear about Callie. Hope she does well in spite of it.

You, Sir, are officially awesome. I will take burpees any day over get-ups! Get-ups are hard!

[Sloth the Enduring]

Sorry about Callie, but excited for get ups. I'm throwing those back on those mix again too. I hear you about flailing around.

[Chris-Tien Jinn]

I'm sorry to hear about your cat!!  Glad she's feeling ok and that you can enjoy some time together now.

 

Maybe if you like cheese, you can call yourself "primal" rather than "paleo"?  

[Spark]

Primal Spark is primal. Rawr.

 

Thanks for the kind words about Callie, all. I'm afraid that she hasn't been seen in the last week; we suspect that something got hold of her or she found a quiet spot to lie down for the last time. I can only hope that there wasn't much pain involved. She was a good cat. /toast.

 

On to the challenge stuff.

 

1. Work the workout: Didn't do that great this last week. On Monday and Wednesday, I moved a ton of wood pellets on each day. I mean an actual ton (US ton, that is, 2000 lbs or around 907 kg) in each case; we have one of those pellet-burning stoves, and it's part of our prep for winter. On the plus side, we're prepped for winter. On the minus side, I felt like crap the next couple of days. I went to the gym on Tuesday and did some half-ass core stuff with the BT Slosh Pipe and the heavy sledge on Friday, but I missed a couple days.

 

That said, I also moved 4000 pounds of wood pellets in two days. =D

 

Today I got back on track, though, hitting the gym hard and even upping the resistance on my calf workout.

 

2. Work the diet. Apparently I've moved on to the primal diet that Chris-Tien Jinn mentioned up there. I need to get back into full paleo, though; the doctor said that I should keep doing what I was doing that got my weight and blood sugar and blood pressure down, and that was the paleo diet and the working out. It's tempting to simply throw away all the sugar and flour and grain and such, but I know that I need to learn to live next to it even if I don't partake. =/

 

3. New thing for this week? I think I'll go with Kettlebell cleans. I did pretty well last week with the squatting. Basically I learned that while my flexibility is enough to allow me to squat correctly, it's BARELY enough for that. More work needs to be done, so right now I wade gingerly at the shallow end of the...squat...pool. I need to revise that analogy.

 

Hope you guys rock as hard as I think you do. Cheers!

[Phayze]

Yeah, I'd call the pellet moving thing an effective workout. Bonus points for having beast mode ready when life demands!

[Beaucastle]

*sits down and gets comfy waiting for the revision of  the "squat pool"*

 

side note:: read that and choked on my water.... trying not to giggle aloud.