Blue Rogue Bulletin: Big Adam's Battle Log

[Big Adam]

Hey Rebels! This is Big Adam coming to you with his post-Camp Battle Log!  It also happens to be his first battle log  .

 

I've been around the forums for about a year and a half.  I've done a few challenges and haven't been super-active, but now that I know a few rebels in real life, I'm hoping to get on here more often.  We'll see how it works out.  This first post is going to be a bit meandering (and BIG).  I'll start off with my big takeaways from camp, then the goals and daily disciplines I had going before camp, then my thoughts on where I'd like to go in the future.  I'll be doing a bit of external processing as well to figure out what my plan will be going forward, so bear with that.

 

CAMP NERD FITNESS RECAP

 

Oh my gosh.  I knew camp was going to be a blast, but didn't expect the community to be quite so awesome.  I knew I was meeting fellow nerds so we'd hit it off, but damn, the positive vibes were incredible.  I'm still drinking in gallons of positivity from the facebook group..

 

Quick Summary: For the first time, I took workshops on Parkour, German Longsword-fighting, Tae-Kwon-Do, and Slacklining.  I took classroom sessions on Nutrition, Storytelling, Confidence, Goal Setting (The curiously-titled "Sexification), and "Eating to be a Sexual Beast" (Way out of my comfort zone, but there were some great insights into the parallel between food-relationships and person-relationships).  Outside of formal sessions: I met some great people, did Kali sparring with a fellow camper (don't know if he's on the forums), taught a few Kali drills to fellow campers (yo, Rowan!), and had a surprise Capoeria lesson and session!  WTF!  Oh yeah, I also danced a ton, wore a Steve Rodgers Costume, Lots of glow sticks, and bright yellow women's clothing - in that order.

 

So camp was a blast, but what am I taking back to my everyday life?  Here's what I got:

• On the diet side, I want to add some fermented foods to my diet besides yogurt and also ensure that I'm getting enough protein.
• Make sleep a priority - I already knew this was important, but Maggie's "Sexual Beast" class really drove it home.
• Meditation is awesome and I want to establish a daily practice other than using it just before bed to help me sleep.
• Mindset: This was the big thing (isn't it always?).  The confidence classes - plus seeing the other campers being their weird, vulnerable, awesome selves - really drove home the importance of being authentic and not shaping my words and actions around what I think people will think.  As Rog Law would say, conserve your fucks.

Pre-Camp Goals and Plans:

 

A few months ago, I laid out the following goals for myself:

• Health: Get a flat stomach by December 2015
• Career: Submit Peace Corps application by June 2016.  Obtain a position as a Project Manager sometime in the interim.  Not crazy about my current job and even with the Peace Corps plan, I'd like to get something new and move my career forward in the meantime.
• Mindset: Develop an unshakable confidence in myself, accepting my imperfections even as I seek to better myself, and freely, unashamedly show my true self with people.
• Romance: Get a girlfriend whom I'm crazy about.
• Social: Find a core group of friends in my new town
• Religious: Find a church or group of Christians I can relate to.  I've been a Christian for my whole life, but in recent years have been deliberately moving away from a lot of fundamentalism and exclusivity found in many churches.  I'm trying to find one that's a little more open minded and values the things I do.
• Hobbies: Reach Level 5 in my Kali / Wing Chun Club

​For the Kali, I was going to my club consistently.  Peace Corps - i joined a volunteer mentoring group called Friend Fitness which actually meshes amazingly with me and would mesh well with any NF member. Social and Romance, I've been taking more opportunities to get more social and go on meetup. I've been a little lazy on churches.  Regarding the rest, I was attempting the following daily disciplines:

• Calorie-Counting and staying under/around 2100 calories/day (number derived from the IIFYM calculator)

• Daily Exercise - even if only a warm up - and Stretching.  Bodyweight strength Train 2-3 x/week.

• Career work: 10 mins of a Project Management book/day

• 1 NoFap Video or Exercise/day. (Warning: if a frank discussion of a sexual topic offends you, don't read the next paragraph)

• NoFap is an internet community in which people challenge themselves by abstaining from pornography and/or masturbation for a set period of time.  They may do this for moral reasons, recovery from self-diagnosed addiction, or as an experiment to see if it improves their life.  Some believe that abstaining for a period can increase testosterone levels, awareness, and help with social anxiety.  For myself, I'm doing it for a combination of moral reasons and a life experiment.  As a Christian, I've always been uncomfortable with masturbation, and part of improving my confidence is living in alignment with my own values.  It aint an addiction, but it is a difficult habit to kick.  I feel super-vulnerable mentioning this with you guys - particularly since I know some of you IRL. This is one of those topics people just don't talk about in real life.  During the "Eat Like a Sexual Beast" class at camp, Maddie mentioned it and it suddenly got REAL QUIET.  Ah well - 'dat authenticity.  If I'm going to start being more honest, then I won't start by hiding parts of myself.  I also trust this community more than most.

• Consistent Bedtime (around 11:00)

Moving Forward (This'll be short. I promise!)

A bunch of thoughts have been bouncing around my head the past few days.  One is that I think a performance-based fitness goal would serve me better than a particular appearance.  Another is that counting calories sucks and I takes a lot of time and takes the joy out of my food-relationship.  I think I'll go back to eating Primal and not sweat the calories.  I definitely want to add a 10-minute meditation to my morning routine.  I did that this morning.  I'll just need to make my lunch the night before.  Not too hard if I'm not counting calories anymore.

 

For strength training, I'm thinking of focusing a bit more on mobility work. I have a hard time getting into a full squat unless I'm warmed up.  I'm thinking of checking out some of Kate G's products.  I kind of wish I'd attended more of her sessions at camp.

 

As for authenticity and confidence, I think it's just a matter of doing the crap that scares me and remembering "My only goal here is showing up authentically.  Whatever the result, I win if I do that". I may set up confronting certain social fears as part of the next six-week challenge.  Not sure yet.

 

And thank you all for reading that Mammoth Post!  Good Lord, I have a lot of thoughts in my head. As a reward for sticking around, here's a picture from Skies of Arcadia: My Favorite game of all time. An RPG about Sky Pirates that deserves a little more recognition and the source of the "Blue Rogues" name.

 

[Big_Show]

Found your Battle Log! Subbed to see the awesome progress ahead.

Sent from my KFSOWI using Tapatalk

[Raxie]

Hooray I found you!

[rowan]

HAHA There you are!  Ok, let's see here...

 

Applying to the Peace Corps - what a cool goal!  Is there anything specific that you want to do, or a skill you want to bring to the table there?  Certainly a good way to shake up your life...

 

Wow, sleep goals.  I'm in the same boat.  Why is it so damn hard to just...stop doing stuff and go to bed?  Like, for me when I was little I had this irrational fear that after I went to sleep everyone else got back up and went and had parties and adventures and basically was having fun without me.  So far this has generally not been the case.  I think...

 

On that note - the NoFap stuff might make the sleep goal kind of interesting - for a lot of people this is a bedtime ritual and a natural sedative, although it's weird to think about in that way.  Meditation can help here - when you think about it it's just like any other automatic behavior to make yourself feel good, like eating or watching TV or taking drugs.  Everything we've learned about changing habits is absolutely applicable!  

 

I started making all my lunches at home as a part of a challenge a while back, and it is pretty awesome.  BATCH COOKING IS YOUR FRIEND.  It actually is kind of a nice ritual now, put on some music around 9pm and just putter around in the kitchen...

 

Let us know what kind of stuff you end up cooking!  TAKE PICTURES OF YOUR FOOD LIKE A PROPER AMERICAN!

 

Authenticity (read: vulnerability) is hard. It is just hard as fuck to show up and be willing to trust that you are enough for any given situation, for the people you are interacting with and the struggles you are facing.  For what it's worth, I think you did a great job of it at Camp - you're a super-cool guy who was a lot to offer the world, and it was such a pleasure to have your company  Also, I'm not sure what your stance is on self-help stuff, but if you're looking for something powerful and accessible with a minimum of "woo-woo" factor, check out Brene Brown!  

 

 

 

SUBBED!

[Big Adam]

Hey Strangers!  Thanks for stopping in!

 

The first week back went well.  I've been able to get back into my daily disciplines without too much trouble and started meditating 10-minutes as part of my morning pre-work ritual.  The people at my work are probably all sick of hearing about how great Camp Nerd Fitness was, but too bad for them.  There are two really cool guys who I may be able to get to come next year.

 

I made some good progress in my Kali club this week.  I double-tested on Monday and am now a Level 3 practitioner.  Sifu said he's very impressed by my progress.  I'm starting to get some flow and look less like a robot going jerkily through the motions.  Also, we did Knife-Sparring on Thursday!  That's some fun stuff right there.  Also gets you sweating REAL quick.  One of the head students said we're going to be doing more of that moving forward.  I can't wait

 

The shoulder is still hurt from when I crunched it during a bad overly-ambitious parkour roll.  I have full range of motion, but I'm attempting to keep weight off of it and avoid doing all of the awesome breakdancing/capoeria/parkour that I learned at camp.  For the next week or two, I'm going to skip the arm exercises.  I'll just do my squats and then some shoulder mobility work to keep any scar tissue from restricting me in the future.

 

And speaking of squats! I think I'm almost ready for the next exercise in the squat progression.  I've been doing bulgarian split squats for the past couple weeks and can do about 10 on each leg.  I tried to do a beginner shrimp squat after Wednesday's workout.

image from Startbodyweight.com

 

I'm close.  My leg gets me to about 110 degrees, but looses power for that last 20 degrees of motion.  I'll stick with the bulgarians for a while and pay attention to going smoothly through that troublesome range.

 

Applying to the Peace Corps - what a cool goal!  Is there anything specific that you want to do, or a skill you want to bring to the table there?  Certainly a good way to shake up your life...

I'm hoping to do something in Youth Mentoring and development.  I've taken a look at the Peace Corps website and it looks like their main areas of Volunteering are: Education, Health and Health Education, Environmental work/Agriculture, Community and Business Development, and Youth Development.  All of those are awesome, but I feel I have the most to offer in Youth Development.  That's also one reason why I'm doing the Friend Fitness program.

Pictures of my food, eh?  Muahahaha.  I'm a very good cook, so prepare for some jealousy, my friends.

 

Authenticity (read: vulnerability) is hard. It is just hard as fuck to show up and be willing to trust that you are enough for any given situation, for the people you are interacting with and the struggles you are facing.  For what it's worth, I think you did a great job of it at Camp - you're a super-cool guy who was a lot to offer the world, and it was such a pleasure to have your company  Also, I'm not sure what your stance is on self-help stuff, but if you're looking for something powerful and accessible with a minimum of "woo-woo" factor, check out Brene Brown!  

 

 

 

SUBBED!

 

You know how much you rock?  A whole lot.  One. Entire. Lot.  Thanks.  I've never heard of Brene Brown, but I'll check out her talks.  I'm a believer in self-improvement/help/development/whatever and yay for minimizing the woo! (unless you're Amy Clover.  She's so sincere about her woo-ness that I don't mind)

[Big Adam]

SO! The first post was a whole bunch of ramblings about camp, what I was working on, where I'd like to go, and all that. Now, let's make things a little more concrete and establish my quest lines!

 

MAIN QUEST: Bodyweight Strength. (AKA Be Like Jim Bathurst)

 

Instead of worrying over appearance, I'm going to focus on performance. And those performance goals are:

• Squats: achieve a Pistol Squat [Current level: Bulgarian Split Squats. Intervening Progressions: 5]
• Pushups: Straddle 1-arm Pushup [Current level: Diamond Pushups, Intervening Progressions: 5]
• Handstand: Wall Handstand Pushup [Current level: Decline Pushups, Intervening Progressions:?]

I have a pretty good idea of what I need to do for the Squats and Pushups. The Handstand Pushup is a little less clear.  I'll need to do some research on possible progressions to the HS Pushup.  At any rate, I've gotta wait until my shoulders are better.

 

LIFE QUEST: Get a New Job!

 

This is much shorter-term. This week back from camp has really highlighted how bored I am with my current position. The people are fun and the work isn't bad, but I'm bored, not learning anything new, and I don't see a future in my department.

 

But then I'll get approached by an evil organization that wants me to test out their killer robot,

quit my job, and go on awesome adventures again.  Also I'll be a superhero.

 

If I can transfer into the Project Management department, awesome. If not, I'll have to look outside. About time I start taking some action on this front and turning that 40 hours per week into something useful.  Peace Corps may be the plan for a year from now, but I don't want to waste the intervening year doing something that drains me.

 

Main Quest Leveling Strategy:

2-3 Bodyweight Circuit Workouts per week

Move and stretch every day. Consistent Sleep.

Primal diet – cheating allowed only for weekend get-togethers with friends or holidays.

NEW: 1 “play†session each week. Can be sports, parkour, slacklining, going to the playground, bear crawling and rolling in a field, break-dancing practice. Whatever as long as it's fun and breaks up my usual movement patterns. And is fun.

(Today I biked to the park/playground, took off my shoes, and just played around on the equipment.  Also did some crawling and breakdance practice out in the surrounding field.  Fun stuff.  Really invigorating.)

 

This is all pretty similar to my pre-camp strategies. I'm still going to continue with the NoFap stuff, Morning Routine, and all that. Only a few small tweaks here and there, which is probably for the best. I've got a little more focus on taking care of myself than before. I think eliminating the calorie-counting will free up a lot of time and mental energy. Mental Energy to be used in the finding of a new job! Job-searching will be interesting. The last time I did it was after graduating college five years ago. I kind of just fell into the job I have now.

[rowan]

Wow, five years at the same job?  Definitely time to shake things up.  

 

 

Glad to hear you're taking care of that shoulder - as I recall you crunched it pretty good, and you're going to need that joint for super-hero-ing and saving the world and stuff!

[Big_Show]

Definitely sounds like the time for a move then! I was in the same job for seven years until the right one came up for a move, so I can definitely relate with feelings of inertia.

[Raxie]

NEW: 1 “play†session each week. Can be sports, parkour, slacklining, going to the playground, bear crawling and rolling in a field, break-dancing practice. Whatever as long as it's fun and breaks up my usual movement patterns. And is fun.

(Today I biked to the park/playground, took off my shoes, and just played around on the equipment.  Also did some crawling and breakdance practice out in the surrounding field.  Fun stuff.  Really invigorating.)

 

This is a super great idea! Bring in the fun Especially if you're feeling a little meh about your day job.

[Alanna]

Hello again! Wow, you've been busy the past several months--and it sounds like you've made a lot of progress towards finding your niche and figuring out where you want to head from here. You have a great set of goals, and I love the idea of a weekly "play" session. I kind of have a similar thing going at the moment (regular lifting sessions + "something else" every week), but my extra session hasn't been quite as adventurous.

 

Hope the shoulder heals soon, and best of luck with the job search/development!

[Big Adam]

Ok! Weekly update!

 

Workouts have been consistent this week.  Reading other people's challenges and Battle Logs is great motivation for me to get up and do my work out.   I've been doing low-weight shoulder mobility exercises in between my Squat sets during workouts and I think it's helping.  The shoulder injury is odd.  I can put weight directly on it with no trouble - pushups, holding myself up to try breakdance, planks, hanging from the pullup bar - but any outward rotational movement against force causes pain.  I'll feel a little bit when pulling my shoelaces tight and felt it when doing a weird motion during knife-sparring on Monday.  I'll need to keep being careful with it.

Workout Results for the week (Squats Only)

Mon 10/12:    6,5,6,6 - Bulgarian Split Squats

Wed               8,7,6,6

Fri:                 8,7,7,7

 

I've been trying to slow the Squats down and concentrate on loading up my front leg for that last 20 degrees of motion.  Last week I tried progressing to the next Squat progression (beginner Shrimp Squats) but failed in that last 20 degrees.  Hopefully slowing down the Bulgarians will help prepare me for the next step.

 

On the work front, I talked to my career counselor and let her know of my interest in switching departments. She was supportive and offered some help in getting the Project Management department head to move her butt and meet with me.  So that's hopeful.  I'm not counting on that though.  I know how slowly things move at my company and don't plan on staying in my department much longer.  Our performance reviews and end-of-year bonuses are around thanksgiving and I've set that as my "put in your two-weeks notice whether you have another job lined up or not"-date.  I sent out one resume this week and I'm planning to send out a few more this weekend.

 

Diet has been ... ok this week.  Feeling crappy about work gave me an excuse to indulge and I went though half a jar of cashew butter last night (not exaggerating).  Other than that, diet's been fairly solid.  I had a cookie on Monday but everything else was primal. Overall, not too bad.  I'm not beating myself up over the nut-butter binge.  I'm trying to apply Maddie's advice on taking shame out of the food relationship.  Binges are always bad, but in the long run it's not going to do much damage.

 

Other then job stuff, I'll be checking out This tomorrow.  Also, I just found out that there's a Ninja Warrior-themed gym near me!  I don't know if I'll have time this weekend, but I definitely gotta check that out

[Raxie]

Whattt a ninja warrior themed gym?! That's freakin' sweet.  Please take pictures if you can, my interest is super piqued..

[Big Adam]

Hello again! Wow, you've been busy the past several months--and it sounds like you've made a lot of progress towards finding your niche and figuring out where you want to head from here. You have a great set of goals, and I love the idea of a weekly "play" session. I kind of have a similar thing going at the moment (regular lifting sessions + "something else" every week), but my extra session hasn't been quite as adventurous.

 

Hope the shoulder heals soon, and best of luck with the job search/development!

 

Hey Alanna!  Thanks for stopping in! Yeah, I've been having fun with the weekly play session.  I saw the idea in someone else's topic and loved it.  I also really love Jonathan Mead's fitness philosophy (one of the headmasters at camp).  He recently wrote a post about varying your movement patterns so as not to lose mobility or develop weakness for movements outside of your normal strength routine.  And I've learned it's fun!  I love going to the park, taking off my shoes, and just seeing what I can do.  It's going to be too cold to do that much longer, but I'll find something to keep it going.  If I can get a slackline for Christmas, that'll be perfect.

 

 

Whattt a ninja warrior themed gym?! That's freakin' sweet.  Please take pictures if you can, my interest is super piqued..

Will Do!  I didn't get a chance this past weekend and... probably won't for this coming one either.  But I'll be sure to take some pictures. Another NF rebel from camp lives near that gym, so maybe I'll get her to come along.

 

Definitely sounds like the time for a move then! I was in the same job for seven years until the right one came up for a move, so I can definitely relate with feelings of inertia.

Yep.  Super-easy to get stuck in the same place just because it's what you're used to.  Striking into the unknown is scary.

 

 

Wow, five years at the same job?  Definitely time to shake things up.  

 

 

Glad to hear you're taking care of that shoulder - as I recall you crunched it pretty good, and you're going to need that joint for super-hero-ing and saving the world and stuff!

Why do you think I'm learning Kali?  That stuff will transfer over perfectly to cutlasses.  By the way, good call with those Brene Brown videos.  I was looking through my camp journal the other night and had "*Brene Brown - "Daring Greatly" & her TED talk" written above Rog's Confidence notes. The videos were really good and I placed a hold on her book at my library.  Definitely reading through that once it gets checked back in.

[Big Adam]

The weekend was decent.  I slacked a little on the job stuff, but sent out one more resume.  Diet was weaker than usual.  More nut butter, some Ice Cream at the Harry Potter festival.  When I eat food like that, it's usually to deal with some sort of negative emotion, so something's clearly bothering me.  I think it's the job stuff.  There's a fun cocktail of boredom, guilt, and future-fears going on. Boredom with my job, guilt over the fact that I'm kind of phoning it in, and fears of being rejected or failing at some new job.  yaaaaaay.

 

So that's definitely something to focus on this week.

 

Other than that, the weekend was pretty good.  Harry Potter Festival was fun even though it was SUPER crowded.  Seriously, the line for butterbeer was 30 feet OUTSIDE THE DOOR.  And I think it wasn't even alcoholic butterbeer.  Saw some awesome costumes though.  Several severe-looking Mcgonagalls, a greasy Snape, and one AMAZING Mad-Eye Moody (Crazy eye included).  Also a great Dumbledore.  Thankfully he was the grandfatherly first-two-movies Dumbledore, not angry-later-movies Dumbledore.

 

Overall Week Results:

 

Workouts: 3/3

Daily Movement and Stretch: 7/7

7-8 hrs Sleep: 5/7

Primal Diet: 2/7

Career: 2 resumes sent.  1 recruiter contacted.

[Raxie]

Ah man that Harry Potter fest sounds awesome. Wish I could have made it!

Great job with your goals last week

Sent by TARDIS delivery service. Apologies for typos caused by interactions with the time vortex.

[Big_Show]

Looks like a good week to me mate, well done on it. Would have loved to see the Mad-Eye Moody, that would be a fun character to cosplay. Maybe for Camp next year...

[Big Adam]

Looks like a good week to me mate, well done on it. Would have loved to see the Mad-Eye Moody, that would be a fun character to cosplay. Maybe for Camp next year...

You would make a killer Mad-Eye Moody.  You already have the advantage of being british, and I've seen you scowl.  It's something fierce.

[Big Adam]

Greetings and Happy Friday, everyone!  I'm checking in for a quick update prior to starting the weekend festivities.

 

Workouts: Still sticking to Squats + Shoulder Mobility.  I'm seeing improvement on the squats. Should be ready for beginner shrimp squats soon.

Workout Results for the week (Squats Only)

Mon 10/12:    8,8,7,7  - Bulgarian Split Squats

Wed               8,8,8,7

Fri:                 8,8,8,8

I'll give beginner shrimps a shot on Monday, I think.  If they're crazy-hard I'll just do one set then go back to Bulgarians.

 

Shoulder continues to improve - albeit slowly.  I still can't sleep on my side but outside of that I rarely notice any pain.  Barring any setbacks, I think I'll bring pushups next week (carefully) and see how they feel.

 

Food's been mixed this week.  Had two cookies at work on Wednesday when someone brought in delicious white macadamia nut cookies (my favorite) and I had eaten a small lunch.  Other than that, I ate primal but snacked more than I'd like to.  Come next challenge, I'll be implementing a habit or two to try to curb that mindless snacking in front of the Computer.  That stuff's no good.

 

Career Stuff: Yeah, this didn't really happen this week.  I was beating myself up over this for a while, but last night I realized why I've been putting this off and why I snacked so much and was generally so unproductive this week.

My Expectations were too high.

Now I know that sounds like pessimism, but hear me out.  I was going home with the expectation "I'm going to be so productive tonight.  I'll send out a bunch of resumes, and I'll spend like an hour going through the career tools at Live Your Legend to help clarify my vision, and I'll do some mobility work, and do a NoFap Exercise, and then go to bed early!".  Then I'd eat dinner, finish, and think "OK, time to start! Hmmmm, but it's going to be hard so let's maybe have another apple with Greek Yogurt and check facebook.  I should really get to work now, but man that looks intimidating.  I'll play a little Bravely Default before I get to it.  Oh man, now it's 7:30.  I wasted all that time. I suck.  Guess I'll just call tonight a loss"  That's more or less what happened last night.  But before bed I thought back to Rog's advice during his confidence class "keep your expectations low" and to the more universal advice of "Keep It Simple Stupid".  So today I dialed back my expectations a bit.  I'll aim for 10 minutes of career work a night.  I'll likely end up doing more than that once I get into the groove, but that's all I'm aiming for.

 

With that mentality, I've put in my 10 minutes of career work tonight, nailed my workout, and am about to post my battle-log update, so I'll be off shortly to hang out with some High School buddies.  Then Saturday I'm getting together with some fellow PA-campers for a Halloween Party.

[Raxie]

I think your approach to your nightly schedule is a good switch.  Putting your hard hat on for 10 minutes will usually get you into the groove enough to get stuff done.  And if you aren't... well then at least you tried and you did more than nothing. 

 

Also, white chocolate macadamia nut cookies are basically perfection, I do not think you are at any fault for having some.  Especially if it was your only non paleo thing all week!

[Big Adam]

The weekend was fun overall.  Hanging out with the old High School buddies was fun, even though it reminded me that we don't have as much in common as we once did. I was explaining Camp to them and how awesome it was and I don't think they really understood it.  It's strange how very old friends sometimes don't understand when you show a new side of yourself.  It's like they're so used to the old you that they don't know how to handle the new one.

 

Saturday night was Awesome.  I drove two hours up to Scranton, PA to go to a Halloween Party with two people from camp.  I don't think either of them are on the message boards.  Cool girls though.  A bunch of their friends were there at all.  I felt a little weird driving so far to go to a party where I only knew two people, but it turned out to be a ton of fun.  It was probably the most fun I've had at an alcohol-based house party.  I'm usually pretty shy at those things but this time I did my little mental Rog Law Confidence Ritual ("I'm enough. Show up Authentically.  Conserve your fucks") and just went and talked to strangers.  I ended up talking about Camp a lot since that's how I knew the host and actually connected with some really cool people.  Maybe some are reading this and going "yeah, that's what happens when you talk to people" but this is a fairly big deal for me.  I usually feel very uncomfortable in those kinds of social settings so having a great time and making some new friends was a big win.  Also, I did something spontaneous and drove two hours to visit some people I only knew from three days at a Nerd Camp. Go me!

 

My Diet was weak at the party, as you might expect.  I drank a good bit and there were lots of snacks around.  Also had some ice cream during the drive home.  I'm going to try to tighten that up over the next few weeks.  I have another halloween party coming up next weekend, so I'm going to decide beforehand how much junk I'll eat and stick to that once I get there.

 

Finally: WHOA, the next 6-week Challenge is already up! I'd better start writing

 

Overall Week Results:

 

Workouts: 3/3

Daily Movement and Stretch: 7/7

7-8 hrs Sleep: 3/7

Primal Diet: 4/7

Career: Did some work with Scott Dinsmore's Live Your Legend Tools to try to figure out what kind of new job I even want if I can't swing the PM thing.  Some direction is starting to emerge.

[Big Adam]

Six Week Challenge is up!  I'm pretty proud of this one:

 

http://rebellion.nerdfitness.com/index.php?/topic/73398-blue-rogue-broadcast-big-adams-5th-challenge/#entry1683146

[Big Adam]

Welp, I've been out for a while.  I'll probably just skim the last page of everyone's updates over the past week.

 

Wow! The six-week challenge ended two weeks ago, huh?  It feels like it hasn't been that long.  Nothing new for me over the past two weeks.  I let myself slack off a bit on... pretty much everything up until a few days ago.  Not enough to derail any of my fitness goals, but I didn't make much forward progress. I bought Undertale off of Steam and got pretty wrapped up in it for about a week. It's a great little RPG that I'd recommend for anyone who loves JRPGs or story-based games.

 

 I ate pretty poorly during Christmas at my parents house (as expected) and will probably eat some junk at my friends' place during our New Years party.  I'll keep up the workouts though, so I don't expect the temporary diet slip to do too much damage.  

 

Workouts over the past two weeks:

Mon:

                   Crow Stand: 35, 35, 37, 40

          B. Shrimp Squats: 6, 6, 6, 5

                      Pullups: 6, 6, 6, 5

          Uneven Pushups: 6, 6, 6, 6

Wed:

                    Crow Stand: 40, 40, 40

          B. Shrimp Squats: 6 ,6, 6

                          Pullups: 6 ,6, 6

          Uneven Pushups: 7 ,6, 6

Sat:

                   Crow Stand: 37,40,40

          B. Shrimp Squats: 7,6,6

                          Pullups: 6,6,6

          Uneven Pushups: 7, 5, 6

Wed 12/23:

                    Crow Stand: 45, 40, 40

          B. Shrimp Squats: 7, 6, 6

                          Pullups: 7, 6, 6

          Uneven Pushups: 7 ,6, 6

Fri 12,25:

                   Crow Stand: 45 ,40,40

          B. Shrimp Squats: 7,7,6

                          Pullups: None – No pullup bar at parents' house.

          Uneven Pushups: 7,7,6

 

 

Oh yes! I just remembered that I do have some new news. I quit my old martial arts class. I mentioned earlier in the challenge that I was thinking of switching to another school. Well, I haven't yet found a new school, but I quit this one. The more I talked about the class with other people, the more I realized that I wasn't getting much out of it. So I sent the Sifu an email and canceled my registration. Unfortunately he has one of those 30-day notice policies, so I'm still paying for January. But now I can use that time for other things.

 

And speaking of doing other things, I signed up for a 10-week Swing Dance class which starts in the new year! I've really enjoyed all of the Swing Events I've gone to so I think that taking the time to do some formal lessons will be worth it.

[Alanna]

Welp, I've been out for a while.  I'll probably just skim the last page of everyone's updates over the past week.

 

Wow! The six-week challenge ended two weeks ago, huh?  It feels like it hasn't been that long.  Nothing new for me over the past two weeks.  I let myself slack off a bit on... pretty much everything up until a few days ago.  Not enough to derail any of my fitness goals, but I didn't make much forward progress. I bought Undertale off of Steam and got pretty wrapped up in it for about a week. It's a great little RPG that I'd recommend for anyone who loves JRPGs or story-based games.

 

 I ate pretty poorly during Christmas at my parents house (as expected) and will probably eat some junk at my friends' place during our New Years party.  I'll keep up the workouts though, so I don't expect the temporary diet slip to do too much damage.  

 

Workouts over the past two weeks:

Mon:

                   Crow Stand: 35, 35, 37, 40

          B. Shrimp Squats: 6, 6, 6, 5

                      Pullups: 6, 6, 6, 5

          Uneven Pushups: 6, 6, 6, 6

Wed:

                    Crow Stand: 40, 40, 40

          B. Shrimp Squats: 6 ,6, 6

                          Pullups: 6 ,6, 6

          Uneven Pushups: 7 ,6, 6

Sat:

                   Crow Stand: 37,40,40

          B. Shrimp Squats: 7,6,6

                          Pullups: 6,6,6

          Uneven Pushups: 7, 5, 6

Wed 12/23:

                    Crow Stand: 45, 40, 40

          B. Shrimp Squats: 7, 6, 6

                          Pullups: 7, 6, 6

          Uneven Pushups: 7 ,6, 6

Fri 12,25:

                   Crow Stand: 45 ,40,40

          B. Shrimp Squats: 7,7,6

                          Pullups: None – No pullup bar at parents' house.

          Uneven Pushups: 7,7,6

 

 

Oh yes! I just remembered that I do have some new news. I quit my old martial arts class. I mentioned earlier in the challenge that I was thinking of switching to another school. Well, I haven't yet found a new school, but I quit this one. The more I talked about the class with other people, the more I realized that I wasn't getting much out of it. So I sent the Sifu an email and canceled my registration. Unfortunately he has one of those 30-day notice policies, so I'm still paying for January. But now I can use that time for other things.

 

And speaking of doing other things, I signed up for a 10-week Swing Dance class which starts in the new year! I've really enjoyed all of the Swing Events I've gone to so I think that taking the time to do some formal lessons will be worth it.

 

I'm jealous of those pull-ups . I need to start weighting my negatives.

 

Best of luck finding a new martial arts school, and have fun with the swing dance classes! I got a lot out of taking lessons to complement the social dancing. What style of swing are they teaching?

[Big Adam]

I'm jealous of those pull-ups . I need to start weighting my negatives.

 

Best of luck finding a new martial arts school, and have fun with the swing dance classes! I got a lot out of taking lessons to complement the social dancing. What style of swing are they teaching?

I'm 90% sure that it's East Coast Swing.  Now that I check, it doesn't actually name a style on the website.

[Big Adam]

Hey All.  New challenge is up:

 

http://rebellion.nerdfitness.com/index.php?/topic/76346-blue-rogue-broadcast-adam-hangs-out-with-some-suspicious-characters/

 

Plus, I got Nerdfitness Yoga for Christmas!  Yay!