miss america: punch. everyone.

[miss america]

Hi guys!

 

I'm Emily. I just discovered this forum, and thus missed the first week of the challenge... but I'm buckling down and ready to go for the rest of it. No point in waiting another 6 weeks when I can start now, right?

 

Main Quest:

Lose weight/inches to fit into pretty vintage dresses!

-- As a concrete goal, go from a 36-inch waist to 32 inches, and I'd like to be able to wear one for my friend's wedding next summer.

 

Mission 1:

Do beginner bodyweight workout 3 times/week.

A: 3 times/week B: 1-2 times/week C: 0 times/week

 

Mission 2:

Track food everyday (even if I really don't want to because I know I'm going to go over my goal).

A: 6-7 times/week B: 3-5 times/week C: under 2 times/week

 

Mission 3:

Go for at least a 20-minute walk everyday.

A: 6-7 times/week B: 3-5 times/week C: under 2 times/week

 

Life Goal:

Apply to grad school!

 

I'm making my missions fairly easy for now, since I really want to focus on building good habits and making sure I can actually keep them up. 

 

Rewards:

All A's: Roots of Fight shirt

A's/B's: new waterbottle

 

Future fitness side quests (for reference):

- Improve agility/flexibility/strength/stamina

- Add and meet daily step goal

- Walk or bike to work

- Go to the nearby interval-style gym

- Join boxing gym or martial arts classes

- Take dance classes

- Take archery class

- Punch things

- Crush watermelon with thighs

 

Anyway, I'm really excited for this challenge! I have had moderate success working on my own before, but my problem is always that I try to keep it on the down-low—so I have no social accountability for keeping up with my good habits. I may not be ready to publicly post my intentions to everyone on Facebook, but I'm going to start out sharing with my fellow nerds!

[missycochran]

Welcome!  Counting calories is a great way to start.  I have noticed that if I count calories (even if I don't have a limit), I eat less.  It's great for accountability.

[miss america]

So, so true! I didn't even establish a hard daily goal here as part of the challenge, because I know I'll tend to self-police myself as long as I'm writing it down.

 

Thanks for the welcome... I'm very excited to be here!

[gregular]

Good luck in crushing those watermelons!

[miss america]

Week 1 mini quest: Make sure your goals are definitely SMART.

 

1. Is your overall quest achievable (over a short or long period of time)?  Is it reasonable? My overall quest is to lose 4 inches from my waist. I don't think I'll achieve this within the 6 weeks, but I'll definitely continue working towards it for however long it takes. I've been that size before, so it should be reasonable for me to accomplish.

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? Each of my missions are pretty straightforward and should be easy to adapt to my lifestyle, as they only involve keeping track of one element each.

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? I intentionally made my goals fairly modest, so that I can build up good habits and score myself a "win"! If I feel any of them are too easy, I can increase the difficulty as I go, but for now I'm focused on completing them.

4. Are your goals able to be measured and tracked?  What will you use to track them? I'm tracking food goals on Weight Watchers and workouts through Endomondo. And of course, here!

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€? Hmm, they are kind of pass/fail now. I will establish some more graded goals that give me more of a range in case I don't keep up perfectly. My goal at the final stage is my dress! But I may add some smaller rewards on a weekly or completed goal basis.

6. What is your plan for continuing/altering/grading those goals if you become ill or injured? I would still be able to track food, and hopefully (???) still walk, but with any more serious injury I would have to change up the BBWW with something easier. 

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? Thanksgiving will be coming up during the challenge—I think I'll do well not overeating the food, but it will make it a little harder to complete all of my goals due to traveling. I should be able to do my BBWWs in the hotel room, and walk up and down the halls as necessary.

8. Do any of your main goals conflict with each other? Will one goal make it hard to do another? Not really, just that I have to plan for a little more time in my day to complete all of them, and not only give myself 20 minutes.

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? Oops, I just started to answer this in the last one. I already do about 20 minutes walking every day, so that one is easy—I just have to remember to do that on weekends. My food logging can be completed fairly quickly as long as I stay on top of it during the day, not waiting until 11:59pm to struggle to remember everything I ate throughout the day. The biggest one I have to schedule are the workouts, which I'm planning to do either right before or right after my walks. I'll see how this works out for me tonight.

10. Are you trying to build multiple habits, or is all your energy focused on your main quest? Each of my missions represents a habit that will contribute to my quest, which is why I'm trying to make them all simple to complete to encourage me forward.

[miss america]

Good luck in crushing those watermelons!

Thanks! I should probably start small, like an orange or something. Baby steps!

[gregular]

Thanks! I should probably start small, like an orange or something. Baby steps!

I think the physics might be on your side for a larger object, maybe something with a less durable shell?

[Balthazar]

Hi Emily, welcome to Nerd Fitness

 

Loving your attitude, you're damn right there is no point waiting for the next challenge, there is no better day to get started than today.

 

Loving your goals and your motivations, can't wait for your first update

[Toxophilite]

- Crush watermelon with thighs

Lmao very nearly sprayed coffee over my computer screen. Best goal ever

[Hodor]

Welcome fellow newby! I really like your goals, and your side quest of punching things. What things do you plan on punching? Good luck and I'll be following you. You'll kick ass!

[miss america]

Thanks for all the support, guys! Been online for 10 minutes and already feel like a superhero.

 

UPDATE 1

 

Mission 1: did my first BBWW! I only did one circuit to start, but I should definitely be able to increase those. The arm exercises in particular are much harder for me, so I may try to add some additional exercises to build strength as time/energy allows. I also took some time to do all my measurements, about 10 minutes, so I know I'll normally have at least that much time to spare.

 

Mission 2: tracked e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g, including a fancy dessert treat that, well, once I put it down, realized that it didn't actually put me too much over my daily goal because I'd been eating well the rest of the day. It's almost like if you moderate what you eat, you can still have occasional treats? Weird concept, I know.

 

Mission 3: I was a little TOO motivated and did my normal, 20-minute path in only 19 minutes! So I may have to add on a little extra to my path instead of pacing the hallway before I can go in.

 

Other stuff:

- I got a replacement band for a borrowed Fitbit, so I will start using that as well! It should be here tomorrow.

- I would like to switch my workouts to the morning, when the house is quieter, but sleepy-me is a scumbag and a bad influence. As long as the evening workouts keep working for me, I'll stick to that and not worry about it.

- My scale of course ran out of batteries last night, so this is my reminder to actually get those replacements. I want FULL CREDIT for my transformation.

- I signed up for the NF newsletter almost immediately before finding this forum (and starting the challenge), so I'm still getting gentle reminders to maybe try going for a 10 minute walk today, which is making me feel good about my actual progress! GET ON MY LEVEL, NEWSLETTER.

 

[Teirin]

Hi Emily, welcome to Nerdfitness!  You have some excellent starting goals and I love your list of future goals.  If you have an interest in martial arts, you may be interested in stopping by the Monk's Courtyard to say hi. 

 

If you have any questions or need anything, please ask!

[miss america]

What things do you plan on punching?

 

Hmm, I'm not sure yet! I would like to join some sort of fighting gym at some point, but in the mean time I'll settle for my UFC training game and maybe hang a side of beef up, Rocky-style.

 

Hi Emily, welcome to Nerdfitness!  You have some excellent starting goals and I love your list of future goals.  If you have an interest in martial arts, you may be interested in stopping by the Monk's Courtyard to say hi. 

 

If you have any questions or need anything, please ask!

 

Thanks, Teirin! I will definitely check it out.

[Solstice Tiger]

Hey, welcome! So happy to have you around and I love your goals!

 

I find the arm workouts on the beginner bodyweight circuit are tougher for me than the leg ones too. Pushups especially. My solution is to slowly work up to being able to do all 10 on my toes, which is impossible for me right now. So this week I'm doing 2 of each set on my toes and the other 8 on my knees ("girly" pushups, psh, whatev, say that to my face I'll show you girly! *ahem*). Next week I'll see about doing 3 of each set on my toes and so on. Adding more reps on my toes as opposed to knees will definitely add to the strength in my arm muscles. I'm pretty sure there are several pushup modifications out there that you can use and slowly transition out of as you build strength.

 

And of course, as you do more workouts over the next few weeks, you'll just keep getting stronger! Crush it!

[miss america]

My solution is to slowly work up to being able to do all 10 on my toes, which is impossible for me right now. So this week I'm doing 2 of each set on my toes and the other 8 on my knees ("girly" pushups, psh, whatev, say that to my face I'll show you girly! *ahem*). 

 

That's a great idea—I knew I couldn't do 10 full ones on my toes, but I will definitely try adding them into the rotation on a partial basis to transition up, instead of just doing all or nothing!

 

DAILY UPDATE

 

Mission 1: no BBWW due today(/yesterday), but I did a few sets of incline pushups throughout the day.

 

Mission 2: tracked everything!

 

Mission 3: I MISSED MY WALK. Before the challenge, I had been doing 20-minute walks most days, but in aiming to do them everyday, I forgot to account for the fact that I usually only miss them when there is some extenuating circumstance. So, last night, I went straight from work to go see a movie (during the time I would've normally done my walk) and then didn't get home until late. I think what my actual challenge is going to be here is to anticipate these changes in my schedule, and find a time to do the walk earlier in the day.

 

Other stuff:

- My Fitbit band was allegedly delivered this morning, but I see no sign of the package... hopefully it actually arrives safe and sound later today.

- I actually got up a tiny bit early this morning to do today's BBWW! I was really excited and proud about this because sleepy-me is usually able to convince regular-me to just stay in bed, even if it's just an extra 20 minutes. Take that, sleepy-me!

- I also ate a WHOLE BOWL OF OATMEAL for breakfast, which is an accomplishment because I really do not like the stuff. It also takes me a long time to eat, so being up early gave me some extra time to scarf it down. I managed to condition myself to like almonds last year, so I'm hoping I can do the same for oatmeal now. More cinnamon is the answer, probably.

- I should've saved all of these entries for tomorrow's update (because they all technically happened this morning), but I was excited.

 

EYE ON THE PRIZE

[missycochran]

All your GIFs are so fun too

[miss america]

All your GIFs are so fun too

 

Thanks! I'm trying to make it fun so I keep coming back to post—and hopefully fun for people reading along!

[missycochran]

Great idea!  That is exactly what I thought when I read this challenge, "What a fun person!"

[miss america]

Happy weekend, everyone!

 

DAILY UPDATE 3

 

Mission 1: woke up early to do some BBWW in the morning (as I spoiled yesterday), so that's a check! I also tried another bodyweight workout from My Fitness Pal that was pretty fun, and had wacky names like "lizard plank" and "glute bridge." It's here, so I can find it later. I may continue adding this on to the BBWW base when I can, for extra credit.

 

Mission 2: tracked everything, and came in right on budget!

 

Mission 3: went on my walk! Rewarded when I saw a funny pair of raccoons staring out at me from someone's yard, then try to slink away as though they hadn't been spotted.

 

Other stuff: 

- Fitbit band DID make it here safely so I'm adding that to the routine.

- Considering switching back to MFP for my food logging for better accuracy, though may wait 'til challenge is over since this seems to be working fine for now.

 

 

"Well, I logged that I ate a WHOLE cookie, so these crumbs are technically mine."

[Teirin]

Cherries are good in oatmeal too, if you like them.  Good work getting up early to workout!

[missycochran]

Bam!  Nailed it!!  As things are working out in this challenge it is so fun to plan for the next one

[Solstice Tiger]

Hey Miss America!

 

The Assassin guild leader just put together a video for push up progression, and since we'd just talked about that very thing, I thought I'd share it! 

Clicken here to go to the post with the video.

[miss america]

Cherries are good in oatmeal too, if you like them.  Good work getting up early to workout!

 

Great tip, thanks! I'm definitely going to start experimenting to keep this up—even just a small amount keeps me feeling full throughout the day.

 

Hey Miss America!

 

The Assassin guild leader just put together a video for push up progression, and since we'd just talked about that very thing, I thought I'd share it! 

Clicken here to go to the post with the video.

 

Oh wow, perfect! I'm looking around my house trying find things I can incline off of now... thanks for the heads up!

[miss america]

Hello all!

 

DAILY UPDATE 4

 

Mission 1: "recovery" day but I did try some incline pushups in good form!

 

Mission 2: tracked everything and was under my goal again! I tend to eat the same thing everyday, at least for breakfast and lunch, so I think I've found a good combo that keeps me full throughout the day and also leaves me plenty of room for fun stuff for dinner or snacks.

 

Mission 3: walked! No wildlife spotted today, sadly.

 

Other stuff:

- Finished reading my book within the 3 week library deadline, which hardly ever happens. Now to pick a new one...

- Went to the movies last night (Birdman) and brought my own popcorn pack

- Coming home from the movie, stopped at the GROCERY STORE to get a quick, healthy dinner I could make instead of just grabbing take out

- Always struggled with going overboard on the weekends... stayed on track this time (so far) and my weekly weigh-in is DOWN this week! Funny how those almost correlate with each other...

 

thank you, thank you

[missycochran]

Wah-hoo!  Nice job this weekend.  That is a super accomplishment.  I am the same with food habits and I haven't met very many who are similar in this way

 

I tend to eat the same thing everyday, at least for breakfast and lunch