New; Trying to Make Desk Jockey Life Epic.

[concretecavewoman]

Hi! I'm new 'round these parts. 27, code warrior by day, gym rat by night.

Short term goals: Get back on track. With paleo, with lifting, with being consistent in general, bolstered by community support. I started the lifestyle about a year and a half ago. Did super well for about 6 months, then began to flounder in part due to a heavy work travel schedule. I switched jobs and am not traveling nearly as much, but find myself spending longer hours in the office and getting just plain lazy about things, so it's time for me to get my a** in gear and learn to reintegrate paleo with my new work-lifestyle.

Long term goals: Get STRONG. No barbie weights, thanks. I was a tennis player for many years and then a runner, neither of which helps with the whole "strength" thing; now I split my time between running and lifting with a bias towards the latter. While I know these are not generally thought of as complementary goals, my dad was both a competitive power lifter and marathoner, so I think it can be done. I'd also love to try boxing at some point, but really don't feel like I'm strong enough to try at my current level of fitness.

A little history: I guess you could say I've always been a "fit geek", always been active, but when I wasn't playing sports I was reading books and umbilically attached to video games. Over the years I've tried a lot of different approaches to health and fitness. In my teens it was tennis and vegetarianism; later I tried veganism and running; when I got heavy into MMOs I became waify thin while leading raid groups (yeah, how does -that- happen, I'll tell you how: running incessantly and quinoa). In my early 20s I recovered from the veg-induced madness and became a "CW healthy" runner gorging on whole wheat bread and granola. My health and fitness flatlined and I became kind of pudge-tastic. Then, a couple years ago I discovered the New Rules of Lifting, and have been gradually retooling from a cardio-only person to a 60-40 weights-running/metcon person and really making an effort to increase my protein intake. Paleo and crossfit helped accelerate that process along, but I'm still trying to sort out the day to day tactics of it all.

What I do now: 3x/week I do Wendler 5/3/1, adding in some jump rope and/or C2 rower sprints. 2x a week I run a total of about 15 miles. I also play racquetball and tennis. I have a standing desk in my office, which is pretty killer. That said, I'm kind of a neophyte at the lifting heavy stuff business.

What I eat now: Very inconsistent paleo. So let's call it, "paleo". Or paleo + heavy cream + the occasional "paleo" brownie + lots of fruit + too many nuts, etc etc.

Other random stuff: My deadlift PR is 140lbs. I'm 5'6". I have a slightly disturbed yen to run a 50k next year. I've been working on reading every Hugo award-winning novel (not in chronological order). I've attended the Penny Arcade Expo 5 years in a row.

Looking forward to jumping in! From what I've read perusing the forums, people here seem very cool.

[BAMF]

Welcome, CCW! I live in Seattle, too. I noticed the gym emptying out now that people think it's fall! Suits me fine, but I'm not looking forward to the New Year's Resolution crowd!

[concretecavewoman]

The trails are emptying out too. All the fair-weather runners are going back into hibernation

[MakeItSo]

Welcome, and awesome avatar! I just moved from Seattle, which probably explains why a lot of the cool people have left the trails...