WxStormer's New Year Continuing Challenge

[wxstormer]

Welcome to 2015.  This challenge pretty much is a continuation of Challenge #3, which I passed, but had an incomplete based on some activities I was not able to complete.  The new activities that will be happening in the next six weeks include:

 

*  Attending Pax South at the end of January

*  Restarting Graduate School at Georgia Tech in Computer Science

 

For a quick background on me, I'm a considerably overweight 42 year old guy who started to get serious on the fitness journey last April after being diagnosed as a Type II Diabetic.  I'm also motivated in losing weight in order to have a much needed major surgery that will make a significant impact on my standard of living (and hopefully keep me out of the hospital).  I've bonded with a great group of people last September when I attended Camp Nerd Fitness 2014.

 

What is my current regime?  

I currently do the StrongLifts 5x5 program two or three days a week and try to do a bodyweight regime on the off days along with a healthy dose of walking, jogging, and hiking.  I'm currently involved in an almost continuous Fitbit challenge with a few rebels and currently average over 70,000 steps a week. 

 

My Main Quest:  

As of now, I want to lose another 100 pounds.  I currently have lost approximately 50 pounds since April 2014.  The problem?  Since I've started adding bodyweight and StrongLifts, my weight loss has ceased and somewhat reversed.  I'm getting smaller and fitter, but I am struggling to meet my goal.  With more workouts, eventually I'll reach a point where I will start to re-lose the weight.

 

Continuting Quest:  

During the last challenge, I made a goal of doing 70K steps a week (averaging 10K a day, but with variance due to workout days, weather, and wellness - hey, it is mountain cedar season right now).  This year, I have changed health insurance carriers at work and the new one has a wellness benefit that will earn you points based on activity.  So I would like to maximize this, if possible.  I will increase my goal to 77K steps a week (thus averaging 11K a day).

 

Challenge 1:

Continue doing my workouts.  I need to be more consistent with my gym workouts and make sure I don't skip a day, even if it does hurt like hell.  But more importantly, I need to work consistently on bodyweight and push myself on my walks and hikes.

 

Challenge 2:

Diet.  I suck at diet.  I'm starting to make food to take with me to work, but I haven't gotten the vegetable balance in my life.  Part of it is the limited amounts of veggies that I can eat.  I'm good with meat.  I've also been good at grains (or the lack of).  I still have to get a minimum amount of carbs since I'm on a basal insulin (dose half of what it was in April) and have had a few pretty bad lows, so I'm being careful.  I'll consider this a roaring success if I don't eat out more than twice a week, OR find that I can stand broccoli or eggs.  I highlight this challenge because I completely sucked at it last Challenge.

 

Challenge 3:

This is the pushing the envelope challenge.  I gave myself an incomplete on this one last time because I didn't do the Texas Ren Fest -OR- do hiking on a regular basis.  Well, once Mountain Cedar allergy season ends, I'm going to tackle all of the trails at Purgatory Creek and maybe investigate McAllister in San Antonio or Barton Greenbelt in Austin.  I'll also be attending Pax South in San Antonio at the end of January which is definitely something I have never done before.

 

My Reward for Challenges 1 & 2 will be happening sometime in the next three months - so a nice hike up Mt. Rainier or Baker, seeing friends, and maybe hanging with some of my fellow campers.

 

By the way, my current Strong Lift Stats - 135 pounds Bench Press, 115 pounds Overhead Press, 175 pounds Squat, 180 pound Deadlift.

[wildross]

Looks like a great plan to start and finish the year with.

[Alexandrite]

Hi there, it's week 2 starting today! How are things going?

 

You should check out the Scullery if you need more food ideas. New type of thread started this challenge to share recipes and such. Is there a specific reason you don't do well with veggies? Personal preference or allergies? I had a NF friend that actually made it a challenge goal to try one new veggie a week so he could get used to eating veggies.