League of Extraordinary Nerds - Command Center

[TheMarvelPrincess]

ABOUT: This is the virtual Command Center for the League of Extraordinary Nerds. We will be using this thread to keep each other updated and accountable in all of our fitness goals - as well as to save and/or take over the universe as the need arises.  

 

For each challenge, our group is split into 2 teams: the Blue Team and the Gold Team. The idea is for them to be split based on what each members goals are for the current challenge...similar goals go together in a team. The teams do not compete with each other. Instead, they focus on encouraging those inside their own team and trading tips & tricks, although they are also encouraged to stay in contact with members of the opposite team if they have time.

 

Members taking a break from a challenge, or who are inactive for another personal reason, go on the "Reserve Members List". When members are on the Reserves list, that opens up space for others who might want to participate. If you would like to join the League, feel free to contact one of our members. We try to keep the numbers reasonable, but you never know when there will be a space to fill!

 

 

Member Roster: 

TheMarvelPrincess

JMitch

Milo

Aegle

Beck Fallowhide

jasx1333

Presea

 

Reserve Members: 

JohnyX

Joshimus_Maximus

 

Get to Know the League of Extraordinary Nerds! 
 

Name: TheMarvelPrincess

Alter-Ego: Marvel

Guild: Assassin 

Bio: A young superhero-in-training, Marvel focuses on a mix of brainpower and agility to bring down her enemies. She is currently focusing on improving her strength training and fencing skills. Marvel founded the League when she met Milo and JMItch, and has been on board ever since! When she's not saving the world, she daylights as an "average" college student, getting a degree in Musical Theatre...because it doesn't get much more undercover than that! 

 

Name: JMitch

Alter-Ego: Jym/Jenn

Guild: Assassin

Bio:  A runaway drow princess, Jym reached the surface world lost and confused. Fortunately, she learns fast. With a sizeable bounty on her head, Jym decided to join the Assassin's guild to improve her chances of surviving and getting the drop on her enemies first. In order to blend in with surface-world society, Jym takes on the human persona of Jenn, mild-mannered programmer. This allows her to avoid contact with sunlight, which is uncomfortable to her species.

 

Name: Milo

Alter-Ego:

Guild:

Bio:  

 

Name: Aegle

Alter-Ego:

Guild:

Bio:  

 

Name: Beck Fallowhide

Alter-Ego:

Guild:

Bio:  

 

Name: Jasx1333

Alter-Ego:

Guild:

Bio:  

 

Name: Presea

Alter-Ego:

Guild:

Bio:  

 

Group Requirements

• Follow all members' challenge threads
• Check in with progress at least once per week
• Be awesome 

 

Group Stats

Members earn Group Stat points for the group (not for themselves) by completing Mini-Quests and by participating in six week challenges.The goal is to build a stronger team as well as stronger individuals.

 

Team Spirit: 

Strength: 

Dexterity: 

Stamina: 1

Constitution: 3

Wisdom: 2.5

Charisma: 2.5

[Jett]

Once the challenge begins, please put a link to your thread in this one! :3

 

Challenge Feb 23 - April 5:

 

Gold Team:

Milo (captain)

Beck Fallowhide

JohnyX

Joshimus_Maximus

 

Blue Team:

JMitch (captain)

TheMarvelPrincess

Aegle

Jasx1333

[Milo]

Woohoo! I'm famous!

[JohnyX]

Is it to late to get in on this?

[Milo]

Johny, I think that would be fine. Would you tell us more about yourself? Here are some questions to get you started:

 

1) What is your Name? (Prefered name for us to call you.)

 

2) What is your Quest? (Are you trying to lose weight, become stronger, train for an athletic event, etc?)

 

3) What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow? How do you eat? (Paleo? Primal? Vegetarian? Interested in changing your diet?)

 

4) What "class" are you interested in becoming? (See a list of the NF professions here. On your first challenge, you are a Recruit, and if you haven't decided to specialize after that, you are an Adventurer. But if you do have a specific class you're interested in, please let us know!)

 

5) Choose one superhero to represent you, and tell us why that hero is a good fit.

[Milo]

Sorry I was largely absent over the weekend. It turned into a busy affair. Good times, but not much free time.

 

Josh! I'm glad you were able to check in! Absolutely, we can share a lot in terms of workouts and nutrition, etc. I'm glad to have you as part of the team.

 

No, our team is not a guild. People generally pick a class, and it looks like you picked Ranger. So you'll be in the ranger's guild. But if you haven't finished a six week challenge yet, then you're in the recruit's guild until you do.

 

I finished my first challenge. My clean eating and strength training goals were met, passed with flying colors. I also got points for two consecutive weeks without alcohol. I didn't make my weight loss goal, but it was rather ambitious. Overall, I'm pleased with my progress.

 

This past weekend ... wasn't so good. On the plus side, I had a good HIIT cardio session and a killer strength training session that's left me sore for days.

 

On the negative side, my calories and meal tracking basically went out the window. Saturday I had  "healthy" but not macro-friendly dinner of home-made spring rolls with my date. Alcohol happened as well, enough that I didn't bother counting calories for it. Sunday I had fish and chips for lunch. And Monday I ponied up the cash for my favorite all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant that I go to maybe once a year. It was amazing. And I ate so much. I didn't have any other foods yesterday in an attempt to manage the caloric surplus, but I did have a lot of alcohol last night which has calories. (Nerd points for it being mead?)

 

My weight jumped three pounds over the weekend, but I'm hoping some of that is still just food bulk in my system and some is water weight. Hopefully it will only have stalled progress for a day or two instead of a week or more. Here's my weight chart from January 4th, the day before I left the Shire:

 

 

The weekend "ended" way too close to the work week. I didn't have time to prep meals, and I've got stuff going on until late tonight. I'm really at a loss for macros and meals for today, and tomorrow too. It's an abrupt switch to be thrown back into counting and planning. I'll have to make sure I always schedule weekend time to plan and prep so this doesn't happen again.

 

Someone was asking about the classes in our group.  We are a little bit biased: four assassins, one ranger, one adventurer, and one warrior. It's gonna be difficult for me to maintain aggro, and we seriously need to get a healer.

 

Should we all have a common goal? I think that would be really tricky, since some of us have mad weight to lose, others just want to tweak strength or ability, and we're all in different classes. We could establish one team objective per class outside of the six week challenges. Or we could simply establish that we all need to take part in the six week challenges, and let that be our benchmark for activity and progress. Thoughts?

 

Who's ready for the next challenge? Are you guys psyched?

[Aegle]

Milo, congrats on meeting your clean eating and strength training goals for the Jan. 5th 6WC; that's definitely something to be proud of! Don't worry about the past weekend, you shouldn't feel too guilty about letting your healthy habits slip once in a while as long as you get back on track. This is only the beginning of the year, so just imagine the great strides you'll make on your Quest throughout the rest of the year  

[JohnyX]

Hi all, thank you for including me in the group.

 

1) You can just call me John

 

2) My quest is that I would like become more athletic. I.E. leaner, stronger and faster

 

3) What do you mean? a european swallow or an african swallow?

RIght now diet is my biggest weakness. I have read both Paleo Solution and the primal blue print, I have had some good success but never seem to be able to stick with it. One of my goals is to make a lasting change to paleo eating.

 

4) Right now I am looking at the Rangers or maybe a hybrid assassin ranger

 

5) I'll go with Captain America since we are both in the service

[Jett]

Hey John, welcome to the League!

 

Are you planning to do the 6 week challenge that starts on Monday? You can find out the details here - that's the thread for LAST challenge, 6 weeks ago, but the basic details stay the same from challenge to challenge. You pick specific, attainable goals, you formulate a plan of what you'll do each day/week to get to that goal, and then you also lay out a way to grade yourself, so you can actually say "yes I got closer" or "no, I didn't". Then you track your progress, and report it to us! (There's also an "RPG" aspect to it that is totally optional. As a tabletop gamer, I love it, but it's not for everyone.)

 

If you're trying to change your diet to paleo/primal, welcome to the club! I'm in the exact same situation right now, of trying to change my diet and make it stick. I'll write a post in a little bit detailing the things I'm trying to make it easier on myself, and we can all compare notes. I know Beck and Aegle are also trying to go paleo(ish), and TheMarvelPrincess already eats paleo most of the time. (Sorry if I forgot anyone else who is [trying to go] paleo!)

 

PS: John makes our #8, ie, our last member for now. (Just to make that clear for anyone else who might lurk our thread and want to join. Sorry!)

[Milo]

Welcome, John! And bonus points for answering the trick question with another question!

 

A few more questions:

 

1) Why are you here? 

 

2) Why now? 

 

3) What's going to be different this time? 

 

4) What are you going to do for the next challenge? 

 

5) What does the finish line look like? 

 

6) What will the best part about having crossed it? 

 

7) What do you do for fun? 

 

8) Biggest weakness?

 

9) What inspires/motivates you? 

[Milo]

MarvelPrincess, when are we getting our doomsday devices? And how are we choosing? Randomly allocated? Round-robin picking? Draw names out of a hat? I want the one that looks like a pulsing octarine orb...

[Jett]

 

I call the one that looks like a lava lamp.

[Jett]

Okay, so. Changing my diet.

 

Last year, I tried to diet by simply counting calories and staying below my needed calories. I think I used the wrong formula back then, though, because I calculated 1800 as my "maintenance" calories, and was sticking to 1500/day. Now that I've gone back and revisited the formulas with a little more knowledge, I realize that 1800 is my "minimum requirement", aka BMR, aka, my body isn't working right for maintaining life if I don't get at least that many. I don't know the exact science for it, but I do know that the body changes how it uses nutrients when it's deprived of its minimal needs for that long. It finds a way to hang on to as much fat as possible, so that it can survive the "famine". End result: I was tired all the time and didn't actually lose any weight.

 

This time, I'm trying to be smart about it. If 1800 is my minimal need, then I'm not going to eat below that amount. My calculations suggest that 2100-2200 is the amount I need to ingest if I want to keep everything the same (I don't). So I'm going to eat 1800 calories, and on days that I expend more calories by exercising, I'm going to eat 200 extra calories to make up for it. I'm still learning about it, but "a calorie is a calorie" isn't entirely true. So not only do I need to eat within the right range of calories, but I need to eat the right things. I educated myself about how carbs and insulin effect the metabolic process, and decided to drastically reduce the amount of carbohydrates and sugars that I eat, as a result. (In a nutshell, things with a high glycemic index cause a high spike in blood sugar, and thus a corresponding spike in insulin. While there's insulin in your bloodstream, your body can't oxidize fat, so all dietary fat gets stored, and none of your body fat gets burned.) I also learned that if you're eating at a caloric deficit, it's good to eat lots of protein and to exercise, because your body will prioritize repairing and building muscle, rather than breaking down both muscle and fat for fuel. High protein, low carbs, lots of exercise? Wait, this is starting to sound like the Primal Blueprint...

 

And that's why I'm trying to do the "primal" diet. It's not even really that I'm following Mark Sisson's blueprint or anything. I'm not even sure I agree with him about the evolutionary science stuff. It's just that, after educating myself, the plan that made sense happens to coincide with the primal/paleo ideas. It's just easy to tell people I'm doing the primal thing, and to look for primal-friendly recipes, etc. It means I'm not one weirdo trying to follow the science on her own - other people have discovered the same thing, and it's easier to piggyback on that community.

 

Okay, so that's great and all, but I'm only at week 1 of my new diet. I'm coming from a very pasta-heavy diet, and oh yeah, meat is expensive. How do I do this on a budget??

 

This is what I'm doing so far, and I'd love to hear what the rest of you are doing. Like I said, this is week 1, so I can't say for sure if any of this will work long-term. But it seems to be helping so far:

 

1) Find recipes. I'm still doing this, and will continue to do this probably forever. But once I find a nice core of 10 or so dinners and lunches that fit my preferences, diet, and wallet, I'll stick more to those. You can see my recipes so far in the "Recipe Box" section at the bottom of my first post on my "daily blarg" linked in my sig. New recipe suggestions very welcome!

 

2) Make a shopping list. Pick out the recipes you're going to make this week. Write them down. (IE, Monday = pork chops) Now write down all the ingredients and amounts from those recipes in a big list. This is your shopping list!

 

3) Only buy what's on your list. You planned for each meal for each day of the week, right? (Don't forget snacks!) Now you have to make your recipes, because you don't have any other food.

 

4) Track your meals on MyFitnessPal (or another calorie/macro tracker). Even if you hate tracking calories, do this at first, until you get a good sense for which of your meals is heavier in which macronutrients (fat, protien, carbs) and higher or lower in calories. Eventually, you should get familiar with what you're eating, and be able to balance it automatically. At that point, you can stop tracking, if you want.

[TheMarvelPrincess]

MarvelPrincess, when are we getting our doomsday devices? And how are we choosing? Randomly allocated? Round-robin picking? Draw names out of a hat? I want the one that looks like a pulsing octarine orb...

 

 

I call the one that looks like a lava lamp.

 

I say we throw them up into the air and then whichever one you catch is the one you keep. Adds that extra "risk of immediate death" spice. 

[Milo]

Adds that extra "risk of immediate death for the entire universe" spice. 

 

Fixed that for you.

[Milo]

JMitch,

 

Good call on fixing your calories. I really hope it helps.

 

Funny, you're research is leading you to reduce your carbs and mine is encouraging me to increase it (from a reduced-carb diet, not a standard American diet). I'm almost finished with my first book, and I think I'm going to fly through the next book because I've been looking forward to reading it so much. If you like, when I find any key quotes on why carbs shouldn't be reduced too low, I could share them with you. It may or may not provide sufficient evidence to counter things you're reading, but I personally like to see both arguments and compare them side-by-side.

 

To be clear, I'm not trying to throw a wet blanket on what you're doing. You're probably already familiar with Rule #9: http://www.nerdfitness.com/about-2/rules-of-the-rebellion/We're both learning about carbs, just from different directions.

 

I sure wish this stuff was easier! 

[Jett]

Milo, a major difference between our strategies is that I'm relying on diet to do 95% of the work, and only exercising to tighten up my muscles and become a little bit stronger. You're actually weightlifting pretty seriously. You need the carbs to make more glycogen for your muscles so you can lift more. I think that probably accounts for the differences in diet needs for us. :3

 

But if you find out information that contradicts that, please do send it to me! I'm learning all the time, and open minded to changing things if evidence comes to light that changes what I think I know.

(In my opinion, that's an important part of being a nerd!)

[Milo]

(In my opinion, that's an important part of being a nerd!)

 

That and the ability to quote the original Star Wars trilogy.

[Jett]

[Milo]

[Jett]

 

Wait. Wrong movie???

 

Anyway, guys, the forum for the next challenge is up!!!

 

My thread is here!

[Beck Fallowhide]

 

Such a good movie~

 

Mine's up too!  Ta-Daa-

[TheMarvelPrincess]

Oh man - The Princess Bride. Great movie and book! I just finished Cary Elwes' "As You Wish".  It was a great fan read!

[JohnyX]

Hey Milo sorry it took so long to get back to you,

 

1) Why are you here?

I’m here to find a support group of likeminded individuals. People who I can count on for motivation and in turn can motivate to do bigger and better things not only in their fitness quest but in life also. I really like how this site is based on positivity and helping others and I find the whole RPG/gamer slant to be a really interesting way to stay motivated. I have seen some other fitness related communities and they seem very self-centered and pretentious at times whereas here at the rebellion I have found normal people I can relate to.

2) Why now?

 Never a better time than the present.

3) What's going to be different this time?

 I’m focused on making over all changes to my life style in order to positively affect my health. In the past I was so concerned with what the scale said or how many calories I had per meal that any set back or bump in the road would cause me to just give up and throwing the towel. For me it wasn’t a very sustainable lifestyle and has led to a lot of yo yo dieting and an unhealthy way of looking at food and eating in general.

4) What are you going to do for the next challenge?

 This challenge will be a good opportunity for me to start taking small steps toward healthy lifestyle changes, also I will slowly ramp up my physical training as I am just coming off an injury. I am looking to have all the specifics done by Saturday depending on my schedule at work.

5) What does the finish line look like?

 I don’t think there is a finish line since my goal is overall lifestyle change. There will always be the temptation to start old habits so I think it will be a lifelong battle that will hopefully get easier with time.

6) What will the best part about having crossed it?

 See above

7) What do you do for fun?

 Read, play/listen to music, video games, ocean fun,

8) Biggest weakness?

I think right now my biggest weakness is that I eat when I am stressed, mostly junk food. I’m working on finding ways to cope that don’t involve eating a box of cookies or a pizza.

9) What inspires/motivates you?

Being able to keep up with my kids and trying to ensure I will be there for them for many years to come.

[JohnyX]

JMitch, 

I think your headed down the right path diet wise. I'm only 9 days in to my change over to paleo but I feel significantly better already.The first 3-4 days I felt worn out or in a fog but recently I have been feeling more refreshed and alert than I have in quite some time. I did sneak a bowl of cereal in during a midnight snack on day 3 and I paid for it by having major stomach cramps for the next ten hours, for me its proof I am on the right track. Also as a former calorie counter myself I think you may be surprised at how full you feel after eating quality calories. In my mind I still look at what I am eating and estimate the calories(trying to break that habit) and there has been a few days when I swore I didn't even get 1600 cals in yet still felt energized and full.

As far as shopping goes I have found what works best for me is to buy my meat in bulk and separate it and freeze.I have been making trips to the local grocery store every 4 days or so to load up on fresh veggies. I'm currently looking for quick and easy recipes that can be made on the fly.