TwinBear's First Challenge

[TwinBear]

(Edit to add: Made lots of changes, but I put them into post #5 below rather than edit things here)

 

This is my first crack at participating in any challenge. I've got the basics fleshed out, but I want to mould them a bit more. In the meantime, here's the first go at them.

 

Main Quest

• To lose weight and fit into a size 36 jean.

Three Specific Tasks

1. Track my eating in MyFitnessPal (and reach the 100-day streak)
2. Do the "Daily Bodyweight Workout" from Neila Rey at least 3 times a week
3. By the end of these six weeks, I will weigh 210 or less (stepping on the scale Monday and Friday mornings)

Life Quest

• Pay an extra $500 off my credit card

My Motivation

I keep track of these in my profile in MyFitnessPal so I see them every time I open the app on my phone and when I look at my profile through the website. Here they are:

• I'm tired of being a fat slob.
• I want to feel better and feel better about myself.
• I want to be able to say, like in that old infomercial, "I look better at 42 than I did at 22"

[Blaidd]

Good man quest (and great motivation).  I'm a little concerned about your 3rd goal. I worry that you will feel like you've failed if you don't reach your goal weight. That and weight is tricksy - sometimes you gain more muscle than lose fat so the numbers on the scale don't go in the direction you're hoping. Or is the aim of that quest to actually weigh yourself on Mondays and Fridays

 

You might notice that I've added tags onto your thread.  This is not to pigeonhole you into a specific guild, but rather to attract the attention of the guild ambassadors because of your lifestyle or a grouping of goals, so that they might be able to motivate, encourage and advise you of anything during your challenge with us.  You don't even need to wait for them, you're welcome to pop into the Adventurers to say hi and introduce yourself and to see what they're about. Also you are more than welcome to drop me a line at any time if you need anything.

 

Good luck

AB xx

[Jill Beat]

I agree with the comments about goal three.  Try to re-structure it into a "thing you actively do" vs. something you want to happen.  Even if it's "Step on the scale Fridays and Mondays to make sure I don't go crazy over the weekend".  Just outta curiosity, is the Mondays and Fridays so that you don't go nuts on the weekend?  I typically think it's best to weigh in just once a week, but that's my opinion.  Some people like to do more frequently.  Whatever works/makes sense to you! 

[TwinBear]

Hi Blaidd and Jill Beat.  Thanks for the feedback. I appreciate it. I'm pretty open to modifying the goals. It's part of why I mentioned the desire to mould them a bit.

First off, here's some background information that I didn't include above:

• My initial goal when I first started using MyFitnessPal to track my eating habits a couple months ago was to get down to 195 from a starting weight of 235 (though I'd been considering a 20% drop to around 188 instead). The related goal of fitting into smaller jeans didn't really form in my head until a couple of weeks ago or so.
• The last time I'd visited the doctor, she had told me she wanted me to get below 200 so I'd always kept that in the back of my head as the first goal with a longer term goal of getting into better shape (still formulating what that means, honestly).
• Realistically speaking, I've got what I consider to be a lot of weight (body fat) to lose at this point and given my height. My thinking is it'll still come off even once I start building some muscle. And given I that've been shining a seat for quite a few years and am just getting back into exercising in anything resembling a motivated fashion, I think it'll take some time (into the first challenge of next year) until I see some noticeable gains in muscle mass.

For the third goal, I chose a number that I think is pretty achievable. I stepped on the scale on Monday and was at 217. That was the primary basis to choosing the 210 target. My thinking was that I've been seeing about 1.5 lbs loss in recent weeks and then I can use some numbers above it (211, 212, etc.) for the letter grading portion (an A if I meet or exceed my target and so on). The main reason I wanted to go with a number is because it's something I can actively measure and wasn't sure what else to put into that third slot. I hadn't considered it until just now (seriously, while I was typing this post), but what if I took the approach of using one of those scales that measures body fat and going that route instead? I'm more concerned about losing body fat anyway so maybe it'd be better to shift the goal in that direction?

As for why I step on the scale twice a week, there's a couple pieces to that one. The first was that I started finding myself standing on the scale way too requently for comfort and getting really bummed out when the numbers didn't go my way. Setting it at two was a way to let me step on the scale more than once a week, but it also was a way to see what was going on over the weekends (we'd recently traveled out of town for quite a few weekend trips and I wanted to see how well I could keep my eating under control during those trips). Also, I'm already stepping on the scale twice a week and have gotten a good habit built up around that so I didn't want to make that a goal because that is already something I do. I don't want to earn XP if I'm not actually accomplishing something new.

The last thing about the guild was really helpful so it's cool to see that tag pop up. It's already telling me that my initial read on their descriptions matched up decently with what I am trying to accomplish. I'm going to read up more on them and see where things go during this first challenge.

 

Let me know what you think, please.

 

[TwinBear]

Hello everyone,

I've previously introduced myself in a different posting found here so I'll not repeat a lot of that here. Massive changes in this post in the details and flavor, but the overall intentions are still the same. Rather than edit the first post, I've put them here so people can see the history in the thread. I've added some grading and attribute distributions so I know what I'm trying to accomplish.

I'm a gaming geek but I'm also a movie buff. Between the two interests, I'll be tweaking my goals between this first challenge and future challenges.  Blaidd has already suggested I take a look at the Adventurers Guild and that sounds really interesting to me as I've not really settled on any one way to get physically active, but I am following the South Beach Diet to get my eating habits under control.

Here's my updated Quests and Goals with some movie quotes to help me track them better.

Main Quest:

• To lose weight and fit into a size 36 jean.

Task 1: "It is called fast food because it speeds you to the grave. "
I've already been using MyFitnessPal to track my eating habits and they've certainly improved as I've dropped from my starting weight of 235 to (as of Friday) a current weight of 216 and change. I'm not where I want to be, but I know I have to watch what I eat if I'm going to have long term success. In addition to tracking my eating, I've also been following the South Beach Diet. I want to continue following that diet (currently in Phase 2) as part of this. The biggest part of this goal, though, is to hit 100 consecutive days of tracking what I eat so that I can continue to make sure I'm making decent choices when it comes to watching what I eat.
Goal: Continue tracking my eating in MyFitnessPal so that I reach the 100-day streak.

• STA (1) WIS (1)

This is pretty much an all or nothing as I"ll either hit the goal or I won't.

Task 2: "I cannot lift this." "Then grow stronger."
Even though I've gotten better at not eating a lot of junk, I've really been slacking off when it comes to exercising. I want to stop shining a seat all day when I go to work and when I come home. I've decided to follow a bodyweight exercise program so that I'm not throwing money at a situation (a gym membership) and will feel more comfortable if things go badly. However, that's not a reason to cop out. Instead, I want to build up some abilty so that I can move on to the more challenging (and more hero themed) workouts as I build up my system. In later challenges, I'll introduce more goals, but this is my starting point.
Goal: Do the "Daily Bodyweight Workout" from Neila Rey at least 3 times a week even if that means only getting through one set, but by the end I want to be doing the full 3 sets listed for a beginning workout.

• 3 Times a week (18 or more workouts during the challenge): STR (2) DEX (2) STA (3) CON (3)
• 2 Times a week (12 - 17 workouts during the challenge): STR (2) DEX (2) STA (3) CON (3)
• 1 Times a week (6 - 11 workouts during the challenge): STR (2) DEX (2) STA (3) CON (3)
• 0 Times a week (Less tan 6 workouts during the challenge: "What's under the box? NOTHING!"

Task 3: "... Here at Globo Gym... We're better than you... And we know it!"
Prior to the start of this challenge, I've been tracking my weight (see above) and I want to get down to a healthier weight. I'm currently at 216 and while I know I want to build some muscle mass, I also have a lot of body fat to lose as well. Over the next few weeks of the challenge, I want to lose the fat so I can rebuild myself with more muscle. Based on my doctor's advice, I should get my weight down below 200, but that's a longer term goal than what I'll do during this challenge so this is my short-term goal.

Goal:  By the end of these six weeks, I will weigh 210 or less (stepping on the scale Monday and Friday mornings). I've picked up a body fat measuring scale and may change how this goal is phrased, but I don't know how to read the scale yet (just got home from the store).

• WIS (1) CHA (1)
• If I am above 210 but below 212, then I'll allocate Wis (1), but no CHA improvement. I'll have learned something, after all.
• Above 212, nothing will be allocated. Not enough learned, after all.

Life Quest: "Money isn't everything, Mortimer... Mother always said you were greedy."
Once upon a time, I was really horrible with money management. I don't want to slip back into old ways. I'm going to pay more than just the minimum payment during the challenge cycle so that I can finally bring that balance down to something more manageable. Longer term, I will pay the credit card off completely, but, as I've said previous, this is my starting point.
Goal: Pay an extra $500 off my credit card

• WIS (1)

I'm going to treat this as an all or nothing goal since there's only a single point of WIS on the line here. Kind of hard for some middle ground.
    
Since the challenge kicks off tomorrow (still Sunday here), Best of Luck to everyone. I'm looking forward to this.

TwinBear

[TwinBear]

Ahh... The first day with its shiny newness....

 

Last night, my wife and I set up that new scale that measures body fat. It shows my weight at about a pound heavier than the scale I'd been using since starting on my trek. I'll show both numbers here while I figure out which I want to use....

 

Old Scale: 216.6

New Scale: 217.4

 

And while we're at it, here's the Body Fat reading:

% Body Fat: 33.4

 

I'm not sure what to do with the body fat reading so I'll keep tracking it along with my weight.

 

Also, I finished my first workout.  I couldn't get past the first set (the beginner version is listed as 3 sets) so I definitely have my work cut out for me.  I'll see how things go on Wednesday, but in the meantime, I'm definitely feeling the impact of even the first workout already.

[Jill Beat]

Ah yes, new shiny "fresh cut grass" loveliness of a new challenge!  

 

I think it doesn't really matter which scale you use, so long as you use it consistently.  Like you've said, you want to change the body composition, not just "lose weight" so which specific scale you use matters lets.  

 

Way to go with starting the workout! You'll be getting through all three sets at some time and look back on this time and be like "wow! I've come a long way!"  

[TwinBear]

It's almost as welcoming as New Car Smell, but I digress.

 

That's a good point. I'll record both here while I get used to the new one, but I think I'm going to use only the numbers from the new scale (weight and body fat %) in the MFP app for tracking purposes.

 

I'm really looking forward to when I can complete all three. It's funny. I've already started wondering what I'm going to plan for the next few challenges. I have to make sure to keep my head on straight and focus on getting through this challenge first.

[TwinBear]

1. Is your overall quest achievable (over a short or long period of time)?  Is it reasonable?
   • Yes and yes
2. Do your 3 quests all build towards your main quest in little ways, or are you taking on too much? Do your quests have sub-quests or is it just one thing to focus on?
   • They all contribute to my main quest. Each focuses on a single task. I feel they are all within reach.
3. Are your main goals realistic? Can you scale them to smaller steps to fit your life better, even if it will make it take a little longer to achieve them?
   • Very much so. I've already broken it into smaller goals along the way and am looking forward to reaching the halfway point during this challenge.
4. Are your goals able to be measured and tracked?  What will you use to track them?
   • They are measurable. I'm using MyFitnessPal to track all three of the tasks. My Life Quest, on the other hand, is being tracked through a different tool (by necessity).
5. How are you grading your goals?  Are they pass/fail (“every dayâ€, “not even once over the six weeksâ€)?  Is there a reward for the effort, or are you only grading yourself on whether or not you “lose the weight†or “run the distanceâ€?
   • I have the grading for the tasks and goals shown above. There are a couple that are pass/fail, but that's due to how they are being measured. The others are on a gradation.
6. What is your plan for continuing/altering/grading those goals if you become ill or injured?
   • I would have to alter the workouts should I get ill or injured. The others should still be achievable even if that should happen.
7. Did you take into consideration any special occasions (Labour Day, Independence Day, birthdays, anniversaries, etc) that may occur during the challenge?  What modifications do you need to build into your goals for those?
   • We will hit Thanksgiving (I live in the US) during this challenge. I kept that in mind when laying out these plans. Should I be diligent in my workout task, the eating habits should be under control and the weight goal still reachable by the end of the challenge period.
8. Do any of your main goals conflict with each other? Will one goal make it hard to do another?
   • None of my goals conflict with each other. It's all good from this view point.
9. Do you already have the time in your schedule to actually complete the goals you’ve set?  If not, what are you planning to do to make time for them?
   • I've put times into my calendar to meet the workout tasks. The rest are things I do along the way, as I'm sitting at my desk at work or when I get home and can use the computer.
10. Are you trying to build multiple habits, or is all your energy focused on your main quest?
    • The key habit I'm trying to build here is working out consistently and getting over the excuses I've always made for why I shouldn't exercise. My hope is that by building up some smaller habits, the bigger goals will be easier to reach.

       

[TwinBear]

I did my second workout today.  I have discovered (rather painfully) that my core is very weak. I am having a hard time doing the crunches. The rest didn't seem as hard though they were still difficult.  I do feel there was some progress at least. That was good.

 

I also changed things up today by doing the workout routine when I first woke up. I really wanted to go gaming tonight (D&D Encounters) so I made a deal with myself that I would only go gaming tonight if I did the workout in the morning since otherwise I'd get home late (around this time, actually) and not want to workout.

 

Thankfully, I pushed myself enough and got it done and got to game. Win/win!

[Jill Beat]

Yay! Way to go with prioritizing!  Also, I think it's great to have "rewards" like that that aren't food-based  Nice work! 

[TwinBear]

Thanks!

 

I'm glad you post here. Seeing the input does help me a lot. I appreciate it.

[TwinBear]

Ok, so here we go with today's results.

 

First off some numbers:

Old Scale: 215.0 (Halfway point! Since I first started trying to lose weight and weighing myself, I've now hit the halfway point to my original goal.)

New Scale: 216.0 (Hmm... the gap grew between the two scales.)

% Body Fat: 32.4 (Really not sure how this gets calculated. Still learning just what this number really means and I'm not sure about what it means. I'm thinking that if I'm going to record this number from the scale, I should record the other pieces it displays at the same time: water weight and muscle percentage.)

 

Second, the workout.

I did the workout tonight, not this morning. I was really tired and slept in, but I knew I would have the time available tonight to do the workout.  I didn't realize how tired I was tonight, though. It took me a few more minutes to get through the workout and I was really feeling the efforts. I can tell it's getting a bit easier, but those crunches are still working me hard.

 

And with this, I've met my goal of working out at least three days this week. Yay! Given that I have to do some overtime tomorrow and have friends coming over to game, I won't have a lot of free time. I'm not sure what'll happen on Sunday yet.  At least I met my goal, though. That pleases me.  There have been too many times in the past where I wouldn't even finish the first week of workouts that I laid out for myself.  I'm hopeful for where this may lead.

[TwinBear]

First Week Summary

 

Well, here we are and I managed to get through the first week. I'm pretty happy about that.

 

I did have a bit of a splurge over the weekend when it came to eating, but I managed to just barely keep myself contained and not overdo things. I was really tempted by the brisk Saturday evening air to get a hot chocolate with my wife. We each got one instead of sharing one like we normally do. I never realized those little drinks have 500 calories each!  That meant that I went over my calorie budget by a few hundred that night according to MyFitnessPal. I'll have to keep that in mind in the future.

 

During the course of the week, I did complete my target number of workouts. I didn't do any extra over the weekend, but that's pretty much what I expected given what was planned for those two days. I'm still having troubles with the crunches, but it felt like most of the rest was getting easier to manage. Heh... I still have to build up the number of sets I'm doing to get to the beginner level, but I'm making some progress.

 

All in all, I think it was a good week.

[TwinBear]

Week 2 Monday's Numbers:

 

This time, I made sure to note all the numbers the scale showed me. I am going to try recording those going forward so I can get familiar with what they mean and what that is telling me about my body.

 

Old scale: 215.0
New scale: 215.4 -- I'm really not sure what to think of this. The numbers should have been further apart, but now they aren't.  I don't know. I'll keep using both just so I can keep something consistent between the two of them.
% Body Fat: 33.8
WW: 48.4 -- The manual calls this the body water %
MM: 34.4 -- The manual calls this the muscle mass %

 

Hmm... Something seems of about those percentages because that doesn't add up to 100%. Isn't it supposed to? I'll have to read the manual more closely.

 

The key number, though, is weight and both scales are saying in the low 215 range. Yay. Half way to my goal. Oh, that means I can update that progress bar.  I'll go do that next.

Still uncertain of the numbers on the new scale.

[Erick the Red]

I also changed things up today by doing the workout routine when I first woke up. I really wanted to go gaming tonight (D&D Encounters) so I made a deal with myself that I would only go gaming tonight if I did the workout in the morning since otherwise I'd get home late (around this time, actually) and not want to workout.

 

I call this self-blackmail and as long as I am honest with myself it works for me.  Good job.

 

I did have a bit of a splurge over the weekend when it came to eating, but I managed to just barely keep myself contained and not overdo things. I was really tempted by the brisk Saturday evening air to get a hot chocolate with my wife. We each got one instead of sharing one like we normally do. I never realized those little drinks have 500 calories each!  That meant that I went over my calorie budget by a few hundred that night according to MyFitnessPal. I'll have to keep that in mind in the future.

 

Liquid calories are hard.  During this challenge I am trying to avoid all of the modern processed foods because they are so calorie-dense and often other wise nutritionally a waste.  But I had to work up to this for a long time, including eating a pretty strict paleo for a while.

 

Week 2 Monday's Numbers:

 

This time, I made sure to note all the numbers the scale showed me. I am going to try recording those going forward so I can get familiar with what they mean and what that is telling me about my body.

 

Old scale: 215.0

New scale: 215.4 -- I'm really not sure what to think of this. The numbers should have been further apart, but now they aren't.  I don't know. I'll keep using both just so I can keep something consistent between the two of them.

% Body Fat: 33.8

WW: 48.4 -- The manual calls this the body water %

MM: 34.4 -- The manual calls this the muscle mass %

 

Hmm... Something seems of about those percentages because that doesn't add up to 100%. Isn't it supposed to? I'll have to read the manual more closely.

 

The key number, though, is weight and both scales are saying in the low 215 range. Yay. Half way to my goal. Oh, that means I can update that progress bar.  I'll go do that next.

Still uncertain of the numbers on the new scale.

 

Body has water and muscle and guts and bones and brains (sweet, sweet brains) (sorry, my inner mind-flayer kicks in sometimes).

 

For earlier challenges I tracked bodyfat using an online calculator and a mix of taped body measurements and caliper testing.  I felt that between the different measurement methods I could avoid errors somehow.  Probably your two scales are doing the same thing -- since they are calibrated slightly differently, you can notice how inreliable they can be in small increments.

 

 

And I am jealous of your progress bar.  I have never had the patience to get that to work fo me.

 

Slicing and dicing this challenge so far.  Good work!

[Jill Beat]

Yay for a great week 1!  And you're right! Drinks are a sneaky source of calories and lots of sugar.  I try to remember this, but they're so tasty! 

[elinox]

Great goals, good luck!

And MyFitnessPal is a wonderful tool, very useful.

[TwinBear]

@Erick Thanks for the in-depth response. Lots of good things there.

 

@Jill Beat Thanks! And yes, very sneaky but so much melted chocolaty goodness was so tasty.... But now I know better.

 

@Elinox Thanks! And yes, it's very useful. I'm even now still learning new parts of it.

[TwinBear]

@Erick the Red When it comes to the progress bars, I had to play around with things a bit to get it to work.

 

Here's the basic form: [progress='#5D9B9B'>A number between 0 and 100 goes here[/progress>

 

Just put a number in the middle of the section (swap out the "A number between 0 and 100 goes here" portion) and then change the right arrows to right brackets. Once you have that in your signature file, it should display correctly.

[Erick the Red]

Here's the basic form:

 

Victory!

[TwinBear]

Victory!

 

 

Fantastic!

[TwinBear]

My week so far:

 

Well, not much to report so far this week. Here we are at Wednesday and I've been keeping track on the food tracking and the weighing portions of my challenge.

 

I've only worked out once this week (yesterday), but that was because I had to shift my workouts to Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday due to previous commitments on Monday crowding out the workout from that day.  I haven't quite decided on if working out in the morning or in the evening is better. I do like having the evenings freed up if I've already done my workout in the morning, but some days it is so hard to get out of the nice warm bed. I'll play tomorrow by ear and see how things go.

 

I'm also starting to feel better after a workout. I'm still sore and can really feel it in my torso when I'm done, but I'm getting through the first set in a bit faster time now. I think I'll be ready to add that second set by next Monday after all. I'm really looking forward to ramping that up. On one hand, I'm wanting to start doing more now, but on the other, I know I don't want to overdo things and get discouraged when they don't go well.

 

All in all, though, this hunt is off to a good start.

[Erick the Red]

All in all, though, this hunt is off to a good start.

 

Great.  I had the best progress when I had a clear weekly exercise routine (in my case, it was Tuesday and Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings) that I scheduled around.  Since a lot of my schedule has changed since then (kids sports, wife works evenings) I am having a harder time.  But that just means all the points double at the end, right, like on Oregon Trail?

 

[PositiveBlue]

Good luck with adding the second set soon!

Morning vs Evening for workouts is something I fight with too.