KayDubEff Respawns

[KayDubEff]

INTRODUCTION: Operation: Happy Nerd Levels Up! Hello!! My name is KayDubEff or KWF, and I'm back. Again.  I have a running streak of failures on these challenges, but I'm back--that's what matters right? I want to make excuses, but the truth is, it's hard and I gave up. I didn't do the last challenge, but I'm hoping to come back with renewed excitement. 

 

As for a bit about who I am: I'm a 27 year old professional working in the higher education field and a nerd of many types, from TV to gaming to books to science to comics to crafts and anywhere in between. I love to meet new people and make friends, so please say hello!!

 

MAIN QUEST: Get below 150 lbs.  This is more "because I can" than it is scientific.  It is the weight goal that I have failed to get to every time I've "tried".  (Big eye roll quotes there, y'all.)  Mostly, I'd just like to see the scale go below 150 and be within a healthy weight range for my height.  Ultimate goal weight is more or less whatever feels best on my body.  This is about 28 pounds away from my current weight (184).

 

QUEST 1: "My Food is Problematic..."  -  LOG ALL THE FOODS. 

I fuel myself with not great stuff. I am pretty good at justifying that by just putting my fingers in my ears and yelling "LALALALALA!" So my plan is to log LITERALLY everything. I don't have to eat good stuff, or stay within my goal. I just want to get into the habit. My hope is that by logging, I'll shame myself into eating better.

• A: 90% - 100% completion
• B: 80% - 89% completion 
• C: 70% - 79% completion
• F: 69% or less completion

 

QUEST 2: "One does not simply walk into Mordor" - 7.5K steps on my fitbit daily/ 52.5K weekly 

I've attempted to walk 10K a day in the past.... Given that much of my day is sitting at a desk, it was pretty regular for me to only have 1K when I came home, at which point 9K more seemed IMPOSSIBLE. Hopefully this is still a stretch, but also feasible.  Overall increased fitness will help me reach my weightloss goal.  Additionally, since I work in an office where much of my work takes place behind a desk, and my fitbit will blink one sad light at me at the end of the day.  Plus, I want to walk to MORDOR! Actually, I want to walk to the moon, but Mordor seems actually more feasible...

• A: 90% - 100% completion
• B: 80% - 89% completion 
• C: 70% - 79% completion
• F: 69% or less completion
•  

QUEST 3: "MAS AGUA!" - Drink 3L of water per day.

I get really lethargic after a day of sitting at a computer forever.  Part of that is because I fuel myself with whatever is nearest (spoilers: Skittles.), and part of that is that I don't hydrate well.  I'm going to work on drinking 4 water bottles full of water (750 ml each) a day out of my trusty camelbak. 

• A: 90% - 100% completion
• B: 80% - 89% completion 
• C: 70% - 79% completion
• F: 69% or less completion
•  

LIFE QUEST: "Player 2, START" -Reach out to a friend in some form once per day

I want to connect better with my friends. A lot of folks are several states away from me after moving following grad school, and I tend to be an "out of sight, out of mind" sort of friend. I get uncomfortable reaching out via phone, and so we don't talk until we get together months later. It's worked fine so far, but as I get father along in life, I'm finding I value those friendships more, and I want to better about keeping up on the day to day (or week to week) than the broad strokes of the lives of my friends.

 

MOTIVATION: My motivation is my failure to succeed thus far. I've tried to manage my weight for as long as I can remember (probably since my early early teens). Part of it is my desire to be happy, healthy, and fit. And part of it is just the same super selfish desire to prove to myself that I finally can. Also, I want to run all of the awesome OCR races. Last year I did a Warrior Dash and loved it but felt like death. I want to do that again, but feel great!

 

Thanks for coming along this ride with me.

[Sarah Barr]

Hey KayDubEff! 

Food logging is really helpful, good luck with it. I really like your life quest, maybe postcards could be a fun way of reaching out to far away friends!

Where do you plan on going for walks, is it a walking-between-work-and-home thing? (Found ditching my bus pass was a great way to force me to get in 3 miles a day)

 

Good luck, and remember if it feels like it's getting too tough, you can tap us in your accountability group on the shoulder and we'll help!

[DrFeelgood]

Looks like a solid challenge with good goals.  Logging food intake can be very eye opening if you've never done it before.

 

Instead of shaming yourself into eating "better", though, I've had more success by making a mini-game out of it.  Experiment with different ratios for macro-nutrients and then try to plan out your eating a day in advance to get as close to the target(s) as possible.  See what happens to the ratio if you try to max out your RDA of fiber (or any other micro-nutrient) in a given day.  Find and try new foods that hit your numbers--I ate an avocado this weekend for the first time ever because it was a perfect fit for my fat and fiber targets.  And do you know what?  I liked it (paired with some rotisserie chicken).  I'm having fun trying to make the best meals possible while sticking as close to my targets as I can.  Logging isn't a chore now--it's a quest.

[artemisia victoria]

Hi! I absolutely love your challenge! I've had a very similar experience, starting motivated then barely trying when it gets hard. We got this!

 

Food logging has worked great for me in the past because it is so much harder to make excuses when you see 'wow that muffin was 800 calories and took up how much of my daily intake'! Are you using the fitbit's food journal or another platform? Which fitbit do you have?

[Lag a'mhuilin]

After reading your life quest I have to ask, "Are you me?!" These are some solid challenge goals. I'm going to have to try out your life quest too.

 

I agree with the others. I think food shaming has led to most of my pre-maturely ended challenges. Don't be so hard on yourself. Logging is good, but I hope you also have a plan for what kinds of foods you'd like to make a habit of eating.

[wilkymouse]

Love your goals!  I can empathize with sitting at a desk all day and being motionless at work.  The secretaries here joke that I'm "in the dungeon" all day, but it's true.  Unless I need something printed, I'm just sitting at a desk.  Plus, I get questioned about why I'm not at my desk if I venture elsewhere, which makes me feel more confined.

I'm not sure what your workplace is like, but my previous jobs were in office buildings where I had to walk to get to things like water and bathrooms.  So, any time I needed those things, I would "take a lap" in some way to walk a little more.  It's also nice to take an extra few minutes on those breaks to clear your head.  I know walking around an office isn't always feasible, but even pacing in the lobby on the phone during lunch is something.

 

Logging food can be a good start.  That's how I kickstarted my weightloss last year.  I would enter calories before I ate things to get a sense of whether it was worth it.  I know it doesn't work for everyone, but it kept me eating only a few pieces of chocolate as opposed to an entire bag of it.  Which makes a big difference.  I also put in what I planned to eat for the whole day, which kept me from going to Taco Bell every night and consuming 1,000 calories there.  I wasn't super-healthy at first with it, but just seeing the numbers make it a lot easier to choose veggies over junk, even just looking at calories.

 

 

I've got a water-drinking goal too!  That one is always hard for me to stick to because I hate the initial adjustment...waking up multiple times at night because of a full bladder is no fun.

 

I'm excited to see your progress!

[Shello]

Great goals.  I like that you are trying new ways of meeting your goals given what you've learned from past challenges.  There are never failed challenges if you learn something and then do something about it.  

 

Do you have a plan to get some walking in during that day at work?  I like the suggestion of using other breaks to get an extra lap in.  maybe set a goal for how much of the 7.5k steps you want to be done by the end of the work day?   Set a time and walk around your desk every hour clucking like a chicken?  Ok, skip the clucking part.  

[Shello]

So how has it gone with those goals for these first couple days?  

[artemisia victoria]

Haven't heard from you, how are the goals going?

[Sarah Barr]

How're you getting on? Hope you had a good Week 1!

[KayDubEff]

Look at all of you wonderful folks checking in!  I super appreciate that I was able to come back to you all stopping in!

 

Week 1 was unnecessarily busy at work, so I resigned myself to doing a week 1 wrap-up overall this week instead of more regular check ins.  I'm looking forward to doing more regular updates and checking in on my crew regularly; I can't wait to see how everyone is doing, and I'll be posting some love to you all specifically tomorrow! <3 <3 <3

 

Week 1 was....okay.  Here's how it sort of stacked up.

 

Goal 1-Food logging: Eh.  50%. Part of the hectic work week was that I was traveling, which meant that I was eating at restaurants. And because I was eating at restaurants, my general feelings on food logging was "Eh, fuck it."  This is a clear, easy area I can improve.

 

Goal 2- Walking!: 90% YEAH! I got my butt moving. Thankfully it was a warmer week here on the frozen tundra, which tends to be directly proportional to my desire to move :-)

 

Goal 3- MAS AGUA: 100% Nailed it!

 

So....Not awful, but certainly not great.  I'm ready for another week and another set of successes, particularly around food logging.  

 

Thanks for staying along for the ride, y'all.  I promise more engagement here forward!

[artemisia victoria]

Look at all of you wonderful folks checking in!  I super appreciate that I was able to come back to you all stopping in!

 

Week 1 was unnecessarily busy at work, so I resigned myself to doing a week 1 wrap-up overall this week instead of more regular check ins.  I'm looking forward to doing more regular updates and checking in on my crew regularly; I can't wait to see how everyone is doing, and I'll be posting some love to you all specifically tomorrow! <3 <3 <3

 

Week 1 was....okay.  Here's how it sort of stacked up.

 

Goal 1-Food logging: Eh.  50%. Part of the hectic work week was that I was traveling, which meant that I was eating at restaurants. And because I was eating at restaurants, my general feelings on food logging was "Eh, fuck it."  This is a clear, easy area I can improve.

 

Since you're using a fitbit, you can download their phone app to log on the go! Sometimes I will just pull this out and log my food at work because otherwise I can be forgetful/deliberately 'forget' to log that snack I shouldn't have had.

[Shello]

Welcome back.  That was a pretty good start considering you had all the travel.  Hopefully it will be a warm enough week so you can get out there and walk.  The other day i really wanted to go for a walk but just didn't want to brave the weather.... or a treadmill  ...  so we went to the mall.  it was a little tough to walk there because everyone else is there in a leisurely way and their pace tells the tale.  But we used the GPS to track our miles and and then rewarded ourselves with some shopping.  

[deftona]

Wow, you were swimming in water and the walking goal was pretty close to perfect too! As for the logging - what do you use to log your food? I find the fitbit food log really hard to use but luckily it syncs with my fitness pal and sparkpeople, both of which I find much easier for logging what I eat, the shortcuts are better and especially for MFP, the interface on the app is much easier to use. 

 

Awesome work on the first week!

[Sarah Barr]

Woot, kick ass!

[mikey08]

Look at all of you wonderful folks checking in!  I super appreciate that I was able to come back to you all stopping in!

 

Week 1 was unnecessarily busy at work, so I resigned myself to doing a week 1 wrap-up overall this week instead of more regular check ins.  I'm looking forward to doing more regular updates and checking in on my crew regularly; I can't wait to see how everyone is doing, and I'll be posting some love to you all specifically tomorrow! <3 <3 <3

 

Week 1 was....okay.  Here's how it sort of stacked up.

 

Goal 1-Food logging: Eh.  50%. Part of the hectic work week was that I was traveling, which meant that I was eating at restaurants. And because I was eating at restaurants, my general feelings on food logging was "Eh, fuck it."  This is a clear, easy area I can improve.

 

Goal 2- Walking!: 90% YEAH! I got my butt moving. Thankfully it was a warmer week here on the frozen tundra, which tends to be directly proportional to my desire to move :-)

 

Goal 3- MAS AGUA: 100% Nailed it!

 

So....Not awful, but certainly not great.  I'm ready for another week and another set of successes, particularly around food logging.  

 

Thanks for staying along for the ride, y'all.  I promise more engagement here forward!

 

Sounds like we were in the same boat for week one. You still did better than me though. It is def hard to eat healthy on the road. For me it is hard to pay for the healthy option when I know I won't enjoy it as much as my normal favorites. Keep up the good work. Let's kick butt in week 2.

[Sarah Barr]

How goes it?

[KayDubEff]

Alright friends....

 

Despite my promises earlier, I clearly wasn't able to hold up my end of the bargain. Life has sort of broadsided me as of late, and I just haven't been able to commit the time to you all that I'd like. And that's not fair to you all.  So, as sad as it is for me, I'm going to bow out of this challenge. That's not so say I'm not going to try to keep up the habits, but at this point in time, I can't seem to be able to commit to what I consider the most important part: the community. So best of luck all--I'll keep checking in on you, and I hope you CRUSH IT! (I have full faith that you will <3)

 

-KWF

[Sarah Barr]

<3

How've you been with keeping up habits and things?

[Teros]

Best of luck.  I know that the community made a big difference in trying to stick with things.

[DrFeelgood]

Cheering you on anyway.  Even if you're not working on a challenge there's always something you can be doing to move forward, even if it's very small.

[Teros]

Cheering you on anyway.  Even if you're not working on a challenge there's always something you can be doing to move forward, even if it's very small.

/dig it