Starting out on the road to a new me

[Phoenix Rising]

Hi all,

 

This is my first challenge on the road to levelling up my life, starting a bit late due to just finding these forums, but as they say, better late than never.

 

I'm 39 years old, 6'2" weighting 70kg (11 stone), so tall and skinny.  I've been doing some exercise classes for the last few months about once or twice a week which I really enjoy but due to shift work don't always manage to get to, and if I don't make it I haven't yet managed to motivate myself enough to exercise at home, apart from on the odd occasion. 

 

Main aim

To improve my fitness level over the next 5 weeks so that at the end of them I (a) feel that the exercises I'm doing are easier than they were at the start and ( ideally have increased my muscle size even by 1mm.

 

Sub aims (SMART)

 

Undertake bodyweight exercise three times each week.  This will usually compromise a 2 hour self defence / fitness bootcamp on a Tuesday and a 1 hour fitness bootcamp on a Thursday plus home bodyweight exercise using the Nerd Fitness Level 1 bodyweight exercise programme on the Saturday.  In the event of shift work getting in the way I'll do one of the Nerd Fitness bodyweight exercises on a day adjacent to one of these days, but so I still manage exercise 3 times a week.  I'm using the Balanced App to remind me to undertake these.  For Accountability I'll log them on the Fitocracy App each time I do them and then post here once a week to let you all know how I've done.

 

Undertake yoga at least 4 times a week.  I'm following a 30 day yoga challenge (Yoga with Adrienne website) for January and so actually plan to do yoga each day lasting anywhere from 10 minutes to 30 minutes depending on the length of that days session.  Again reminders and accountability as above.

 

Eat a green vegetable at least 3 times a week.  I've been tracking my diet using MyFitnessPal app for the last 3 months and though I'm under calorie about about 600 calories a day I hardly eat any green veg and my protein levels are too low, so first step is to increase the amount of green veg.  Protein I've got a source in 2 out of 3 meals a day but its not enough.  I'll leave that for the next challenge (one step at a time).  Reminders: balanced app as above, progress posted here once a week.

 

Life side quest

 

To take up meditation with the view to being calmer and less stressed out and negative.  Plan to meditate daily starting with 5 minutes a day and increasing after each week by 5 minutes.  For SMARTness I'll consider 5 times a week to be a success.  Reminders: balanced app as above and accountability progress posted here once a week and on the SeaChange website (Zen Habits).

 

Guild

Just starting out so that makes me an adventurer.

 

Looking forward to the new improved future me.

 

 

[Amdhiel]

Hello and Welcome to the Rebellion!

My name is Amdhiel and I’m an ambassador for the Assassin Guild. I see that your challenge includes a few things that we Assassins enjoy and we’d love to help you crush your goals! 

If you want to gather some more information about the guild, stop buy the Assassin Guild Info & Announcements thread to find out what’s happening. If you want to find someone with similar interests, including various forms of body weight training, keep an eye out for the Assassins Phonebook.

If you want to get to know our crazy guild better or just ask a question stop by the Assassins' Den or the Level 1 Assassin Initiates Q&A/Chat thread for Level 1’s and introduce yourself. We’re a friendly and supportive guild so don’t be shy about sending us messages or asking for help!

If you ever have any questions or need any help, please let me or any Assassin Ambassador know.  You can get in touch with me by posting in my challenge thread or by sending me a private message. 

The Ambassadors and I will be checking in on you from time to time to see how you’re doing. Remember that most successful path is one that includes plenty of support. You're an amazingly strong person and I know you can crush those goals!

[fultonator]

Better late than never!

 

Best of luck this challenge

[Elastigirl]

Great goals!

[Texelsaur]

Hi Phoenix Rising, good luck tackling your first challenge!  

 

Being on the skinny side of the fence myself, I could probably learn something from every person fighting the battle of adding weight and muscle.  The last time I tracked calories, I had to make a conscious effort to avoid deficit.  It's not easy! Keep us up to date with how things are going.

[Phoenix Rising]

Progress report:  All looking good and on target after the first week (having started a week late).

 

I've managed to exercise 3 times this week as planned (2 hour self defence / fitness, 1 hour fitness bootcamp, and a session at home of bodyweight exercises).  

 

I've managed yoga on all the days I didn't undertake another form of exercise apart from Friday where a busy on call left me with no time to do it.  I've made up with it today by doing 3 days worth of yoga bringing me back on track to match one session a day on average.  

 

Green veg also a success, eaten three times this week.  

 

Meditation also managed each day at 5 mins a day, next week I plan to increase it to 10 mins.  

 

Feeling great and looking forward to continuing my progress next week.  Thanks all for the comments.

[TMedina]

Great job staying on target - welcome to Nerd Fitness!

[Phoenix Rising]

Thanks TMedina.  I was just trying to work out how to use the website properly and your signature has a load of great links.

[Phoenix Rising]

Hi Texelsaur,

 

I know what you mean.  Adding weight seems to be so much more difficult that I thought it would be.  

[Phoenix Rising]

Rewards.  I've decided that I'm going to add some rewards into my challenge to keep myself going.  

 

So successful completion of my first week means I've just ordered myself a lovely new yoga mat and a yoga block (it would seem that daily yoga has resulted in my cheap current yoga mat starting to fall apart).  

 

If I manage to complete the next week with complete success I'm going to buy myself a kettle bell so I can add using it to my bodyweight workouts.

[fultonator]

ooo rewards! Why didn't I think of that ?

[starsapart]

Awesome first week!

[Phoenix Rising]

@starsapart, thanks i'm well chuffed.

@fultonator rewards have to be the way forwaed. I'm excited just to think about coming up with one a week. Guess it may be a sign i enjoy shopping a bit too much!

[Amdhiel]

How did this week go for you?

[Phoenix Rising]

Update End of Week 2:

 

So a mixed bag.  

 

Eating vegetables 3 / week:  Success (Salad, Broccoli, Green beans).  

 

Exercise 3 / week:  Success: 2 x bodyweight, 1 x bodyweight exercise class.  

 

Meditation 1 / day:  success (amount varies between 5 mins and 10 a day, trying out guided meditations at present which seem to work well).  

 

Yoga:  not so good.  My aim was to do yoga each day with a success set at a more achievable 4 / week.  However this week I only managed 3 days of yoga (though today I'm catching up by doing a number of sessions). 

 

What I've realised is that with having to get up really early for work I'm never going to get yoga done until I get home in the evening.  On my exercise nights yoga and exercise together seems a bit much so therefore yoga 4 times a week should be doable.  My ideal place to do yoga would be in the living room so I can stream the yoga videos onto the TV, however that relies on my wife being out at work in the evening (we both do shift work).  This week that didn't happen so my evening yogas were in a somewhat cramped spare room using my laptop.  Worked OK modifying a couple of poses to make up for lack of space.  However in essence rather than doing yoga on a couple of nights I choose to stay downstairs and watch TV together using the excuse that I could always do the yoga later in the week.  Later came and passed and now I find I've run out of days to manage 4 separate days of yoga this week.  

 

So all in all, 3 success, 1 failure.  Planning to do better next week where the challenge will be the exercising as I'm working 10-21 shifts all week so can't attend my exercise classes and know already I won't feel like exercising when I get home at 10pm.

[Phoenix Rising]

So mid challenge / end of week update:

 

All success's this week on exercising, yoga, eating vegetables and meditation.

 

Stat points allocation.  Exercising feels like it should get me strength, agility and stamina.  Yoga should get me agility and wisdom.  Eating vegetables should get me stamina and constitution.  Meditation should get me wisdom.

 

So far the weeks are going very well so my points allocation will be:

 

Str 1, Dex 2, Sta 3, Con 1, Wis 3, Cha 0.

[Amdhiel]

Glad to hear you're doing well, keep up the good work!

[Chris-Tien Jinn]

[starsapart]

The challenge is almost over and we haven't seen you in awhile - but I hope you're just too busy rocking it out there to post.  Remember - you don't have to be perfect, just a little bit better than the you of yesterday.  Hope you'll be back soon to wrap up with us!

[Phoenix Rising]

Hi Team,

 

Thanks for checking up on me.  My work got extra mad as I had to change my shifts kind of last minute to cover some sickness which has resulted in my ending up doing loads of 12 hour night shifts last week and this.

 

So update wise:

 

Last week was all looking good until the arrival of 4 12 hour night shifts in a row towards the end of the week.  I thought I might be able to squeeze in some exercise between them but instead slept, woke and went to work.  So I achieved the eating green veg and meditating but failed on the exercise and yoga managing 2 days of exercise and 3 of yoga rather than the minimum I had set of 3 days and 4 days respectively.

 

This week similar story, more night shifts, again I've managed the daily meditation and eating green veg, I'm on track for 4 days of yoga (will do a short session today before going off to work tonight) but have only managed 2 days of exercise rather than 3.

 

I think on reflection my objectives just weren't as SMART as I thought they were.  With planned nights I can shift my fitness to earlier in the week to ensure I get them all done but short notice mid week just stuffs me.  It shouldn't happen too often though so in the long term game plan it shouldn't prove a massive problem.

 

Thanks for continuing to drop by and check I'm OK.  It means a lot.

[Phoenix Rising]

Hi all,

 

Well, this is the last post for this challenge.  I've updated my signature to reflect the final points and level.  I've given myself 3 final points out of a possible 5 due to not managing to achieve all the workouts and yoga sessions I wanted to in the last 2 weeks of the challenge.

 

Overall I think its gone really well and been a great source of accountability.  I'm looking forward to the next challenge starting next week with my new assassin class buddies.