Aran's superfun challenge part 1

[Aranrya]

Hallo!

 

This is my first challenge, and thus I am a Rebel! I've been dieting since the beginning of November or so (sans thanksgiving and Christmas, ick), but have only been working out for 2 weeks. I started out counting calories, and got my body used to eating less, and now I have turned that less into healthy foods. I started working out on the 21st of December with the Beginner Bodyweight Workout. I couldn't finish the whole thing, and couldn't walk straight for 2 days afterward, but I knuckled down and did it again. I can tell a huge difference in my strength and stamina after just two weeks, and I'm super excited to keep it up.

 

My main goal in all this is to be a healthier guy for my wife and kids. This means losing the gut, and being able to run around the house indefinitely chasing the kids, picking them up against their will and throwing them on the bed, etc.

 

Quests:

 

1. Do the Beginner Bodyweight Workout three times a week.

2. Eat an apple and a pack of veggies every day. (I'm already basically doing this, but I skimp on the apple sometimes. No more!)

3. Have only one cup of coffee every day, and only 2 tbsp of creamer at most with it. (Probably the hardest one of these, but I want to cut the stupicalories from the creamer)

Life: Read for an hour every week.

 

Bonus: Actually posting on this forum more frequently, and encouraging others on their first challenge! 

 

OK READY GO

 

 

Final Results!

Current Challenge Goals

Beginner Bodyweight workout 3x/week (12/12) Look at that beautiful bar.

100%

100%

Apple and pack of veggies every day (26/28)

96%

96%

One cup of coffee with 2tbsp of creamer MAX every day (25/28)

93%

93%

Read for 1hr/week (3/4)

100%

100%

[awesomesue]

Way to push through the workouts.  I started with that workout too and from there have had fun trying other workouts on NF.  I love eating an apple a day.  I bike commute and leave at 3:30.  Almost every day around 3:30 I eat an apple (usually left over from lunch).  It is such a habit that people know it is between 3-3:30 when they see me with my "3:30 apple".  LOL

[r7rok]

Noble got for why you want to lose weight and one I share too. Keep on going with the circuit and it will only get better. I Worked on stronglifts last year and my strength increased very quickly.

I agree with the coffee being difficult to bin my tactic has been to always have a water bottle by my side and if I drink that throughout the day I don't feel the urge for coffee quite as much.

Best of luck with the challenge I am sure you will smash it and will follow to see how it goes

[Tara]

As far as your coffee creamer goes (limiting that was a challenge for me as well) I found a new coconut milk one that was really good and is like 20 calories a tablespoon.  See if your grocery store has it.  Worth trying.

[Aranrya]

As far as your coffee creamer goes (limiting that was a challenge for me as well) I found a new coconut milk one that was really good and is like 20 calories a tablespoon.  See if your grocery store has it.  Worth trying.

 

Hey not a bad idea. My wife has started counting her calories as well, and has kinda switched to half and half. I'm not a fan of that stuff though. I'll check on the coconut milk!

[Aranrya]

Workout #2 down

 

Current emotional state: triumphant RAWR

 

This particular Beginner's BodyWeight Workout (Hereafter BBWW) involved some slight modifications to the ways I was doing the exercises. I am mainly focusing on getting my form down just right, and going slow, to prevent injury. Last week's Monday saw a tiny pain in my right knee, just under the upper right corner of the kneecap if you're looking at it. I was like "OK TIEM 4 TEH FIXING" so I introduced more stretches designed to help realign the kneecap. 

Additionally, I'm placing my hands more under my shoulders and less off to the side of my head for the push-ups, and that's definitely harder. I'm taking care to go straight down, but a little lower, on the squats than I was before; squats are noticeably harder. 

BUT ALL IN ALL... Knowing it was harder, and still following through and metaphorically kicking it's proverbial teeth in, feels very good. Plus my wife texted me and said "Super Star! (insert string of kissy emoticons here)" which basically makes me want to work out all over again.

[TurtleWings]

Hey fellow Rebel! Thanks for all the support you've been throwing my way. I appreciate it. It sounds like we are on similar paths. My major motivations for getting fit are also to keep up with the kids and to look foxy *insert Garth Algar here* for the spouse. 

 

Nice job listening to your body and adjusting your form to correct pain on the BBW. Nobody wants an injury to set them back and it sounds like you're being smart.

 

Question: how did you get the little progress bars in your signature? I am digging that.

[Maggie-Miau]

First off, love your description of chasing the kids. I always loved it when my did that. He also lugged me around on his back more than was probably normal. XD And you know what they say about an apple every day!

 

Ugggh the coffee creamer, too. Relating to that. That's the hardest dairy product for me to give up with allergies. Are you accustomed to powder or liquid kind? I haven't personally tried it yet, but have read that there's a creature, powdered coconut milk, that can be used in place of it. sounds pretty good, and surely has to be better than...whatever they make regular creamer from...(Oil, I think?) and then there's always nut milk. Coconut tasted okay when I tried it, but didn't have the 'creamy' effect I was hoping for. Cashew was gross to me, tasted like butter. Not nice in tea, that. Anyway, there are loads of kinds to try and I'm sure you'll find a good one!

 

Best of luck with the challenge, friend!

[Aranrya]

Question: how did you get the little progress bars in your signature? I am digging that.

 

SO! It's in the profile area. You go to Edit Profile, then on the left will be the signature. One of the buttons up where the Bold and Italics and whatnot is a little button that looks like a progress bar, stuck in between the "chat bubble" button and the "twitter" button. Click that, and you'll get a popup that's all intimidating and whatnot.

Said popup has three features.

1. Dropdown. It should say "progress bar." Don't change anything there.

2. It's as if somebody sneezed color words above the box. No idea what all that means, except for the last thing, which is the # followed by letters or numbers. This sets the color of your progress bar, and is called a hex code. Basically, if you google "pea green hex" the first thing that pops up will show you what you need to put after the # to get pea green (in this case, 99BD4B). So to make your progress bar pea green, put #99BD4B in this box.

3. Put whatever percent you're at in the last, biggest box.

 

110%

110%

 

Later, if you want to go into your signature and edit it, it will have a little line of code that represents the bar. Looks like {progress='#hexcode'}110{/progress} only with straight brackets instead of curvy. If you want to change the color, simply replace the hex code with the new color, and if you want to change the percent, just change the number in between the bracketed bits. Hooray!

 

Ugggh the coffee creamer, too. Relating to that. That's the hardest dairy product for me to give up with allergies. Are you accustomed to powder or liquid kind? I haven't personally tried it yet, but have read that there's a creature, powdered coconut milk, that can be used in place of it. sounds pretty good, and surely has to be better than...whatever they make regular creamer from...(Oil, I think?) and then there's always nut milk. Coconut tasted okay when I tried it, but didn't have the 'creamy' effect I was hoping for. Cashew was gross to me, tasted like butter. Not nice in tea, that. Anyway, there are loads of kinds to try and I'm sure you'll find a good one!

 

Yes. Ugggh sums it up lol. Although it's been OK half the days. The other half have been just like "what is this brown stuff and why am I drinking it?!" I'm certain half the fat on my body is from creamer. Someone else above mentioned coconut additives. I need to get out there and give some of them a good try. 

[Aranrya]

Yesterday's workout was hard and good. Definitely a new PR. Upped the reps on the dumbbell rows, held the planks for longer, and just generally kept good form.

 

Food has been consistently awesome and healthy stuff. An apple every afternoon really seems to give me a good pick-me-up boost of energy that ends up lasting well past dinner time. They're awesome like that.

 

Other than that, fairly mundane first week of the challenge. I know we have today and tomorrow, but that's just an apple and two packs of veggies away from a full 25% across the board.

[awesomesue]

I LOVE you are taking your time and focusing on form!    You are doing great.

 

I drink my coffee black but once in a while I love to throw something in it.  I just tried coconut milk which is very good but mostly I toss in a bit of plain unsweetened almond milk.  For fun cinnamon but be ready if you drink it slow to have that be a snotty bit at the bottom of the cup (stir up frequently).  I actually do not mind it and will slurp up what is left.  

[Aranrya]

Holy cow. Just finished my 11th BBWW ever. So I noticed that I felt like I was getting a sinus infection (relatively common for me) yesterday, but I seemed to have fought it off. Woke up with similar but milder symptoms today, and again felt fine by lunch time. But ZOH MY GOODNESS I have to be fighting something off because the workout today roflstomped me. I finished it, but baaaaaaarely. Wow. Even the running I do to warm up was killing me. It doesn't help that today I had decided to ramp up on my exercises.

 

Squats are lower than they used to be. For the push-ups I kept my hands where I had most recently moved them to: right beneath my shoulders. Lunges are the same; those are always the hardest ones for me, and I haven't felt like I'm ready to try something harder than what I'm doing now. Dumbbell rows are up to 15 reps now. Planks are up to 25 seconds a piece (and that's definitely my limit right now). Jumping jacks are at 40 per cycle now.

Overall: improvement! Getting better, and making it hard for myself again. I felt like I was starting from scratch today, as hard as it all was. But I did every rep again. Friday will be easier because of it. But for now I need to stop trying to do more or make it harder, and focus on getting comfortable with where I'm at before I make a big jump to improve again.

[bikinibottom]

Aranrya,

 

I have a very similar reason for wanting to get in shape -- a 22-month old daughter who keeps me running! And I'm 45 years old, so... yeah. It's either get in shape or get run over by her. I'm with ya on the BBWW -- feels terrible and awesome, amiright?!

[Aranrya]

Aranrya,

 

I have a very similar reason for wanting to get in shape -- a 22-month old daughter who keeps me running! And I'm 45 years old, so... yeah. It's either get in shape or get run over by her. I'm with ya on the BBWW -- feels terrible and awesome, amiright?!

Oh man. Yes. It feels great about 20 minutes after I'm done, when all my muscles have been stretched back out. But doing it is killer sometimes. Other times it's not too bad. But yeah. Good on ya for chasing that little girl around!

[awesomesue]

I have a question.  Do you find planks boring and just hard to hold?  Mentally they drive me nuts.  

 

You are doing great and through it all seeing improvements.  Fantastic.

[Aranrya]

When I started out it felt like they didn't last very long. Right now, no, I don't really find them boring, because I'm constantly trying to do them longer/better. Right now I'm focusing on my ability to breathe deeply while holding one, which I've found to be a fun challenge. Keeping my focus on steady breathing makes the 25 seconds feel like nothing. Ok that's not entirely true, but it makes it seem faster than 25 seconds for sure. Maybe when I get up to like, a minute or so, then I'll let you know if they're boring

[bikinibottom]

Hmmm... I've never heard anyone say they get bored to an exercise, unless it's something crazy repetitive and looooong, like jogging. Physical challenges seem to give me a lot of mental focus. I've never understood those people who can sit and meditate to clear their minds. I need a long, vigorous walk to channel my mind. 

[Aranrya]

BBWW #12 Complete! Success! It wasn't NEARLY as hard as Wednesday's workout. I must be getting over whatever it was, or my body has adapted to the new difficulty, or both. But I couldn't help it: I know I said I was going to chill at the current difficulty and get comfortable with it... but when the first plank came around and 25 seconds was up I was like "meh, what's another 5 seconds?" So I did 30 seconds on all of them. By the time I was finishing my third I was like "Ok 25 seconds please?" then I was like "NO! 30 SECONDS YOU PANSY!" So that happened.

Otherwise the rest of my goals are rocking: still doing one apple, one pack of veggies, and 2 tbsp of creamer every day. Haven't gone looking for substitutes to the creamer yet. I'm fairly certain that would tip my willpower points into the negative for each day. I've already dropped my daily Duolingo since I started the challenge. I'm not feeling guilty about it though; I'm doing plenty of other awesome things to make myself better, and these are things that are much higher priority than learning a new language right now. I don't consider it a failure at all, just a temporary thing; I'll speak another language someday, just not now.

[TurtleWings]

 By the time I was finishing my third I was like "Ok 25 seconds please?" then I was like "NO! 30 SECONDS YOU PANSY!" So that happened.

You crack me up! Way to go, extending your plank time! Once we are aware that our body can do something new (30 sec vs 25 sec) it becomes hard to ignore. Keep improving! You're doing great.

[Aranrya]

FIFTY PERCENT COMPLETE Y'ALL. Boo yah. Halfway done with the challenge. I'm sitting here today like, "OK! Didn't work out yesterday. Work out today, right? NO?! WHAT DO I DO DURING THE LITTLE ONE'S NAP TIME! Oh read, cuz you haven't done that yet." Idk I just really feel like I need to work out on Sundays, but I don't, and it's weird to feel that way.

[Aranrya]

Ok so this isn't a direct challenge update, but I had to share: I have lost enough fat to be able to fit into my original wedding ring. We never had it resized because it has a specific border, and a "comfort fit" which costs extra to fill in and whatnot. So we eventually just got a very plain gold band for me to wear. But as I type this I am wearing my REAL wedding ring, and it feels awesome. It's still just a little tight, but it slides on and off without having to "work it on" so to speak. WIN!

 

It's these little accomplishments, things I didn't intentionally set out to do, that help make this all worthwhile.

[Aranrya]

Just finished BBWW number 13. I dare say it was... easy? I still have a difficult time on the very last one, really just fighting to get myself back up. But I do it, and I feel exactly which muscles are going to be strengthened, and that's cool. Other than that, this time the lunges didn't just drain me, which is a hefty change. 

 

So back when, I signed up to get the initial blast of introductory emails from Nerd Fitness. Eventually around came the email encouraging me to take that embarrassing "before" picture that I really didn't want to take. But I said "Wife... take my picture." And she was like "oooook. If you're sure..." And I said "Of course I'm not sure just take the picture."

 

Today I took another picture. And boy am I glad I took the first. There are insane improvements that you don't see until you see yourself side by side in a before and after. I am really actually losing the weight, and the tangible differences are incredibly encouraging. If anyone hasn't done it yet, do it now, and in three or four weeks, take another one. It is very encouraging. 

[brianhicks]

Ok so this isn't a direct challenge update, but I had to share: I have lost enough fat to be able to fit into my original wedding ring.

 

I would say that's an very relevant challenge update, actually! Well done!

[Aranrya]

BBWW number 14 TEETHKICKED WHABAM! Actually it was mediocre as far as difficulty was concerned. Still working on push-ups and lunges; everything else seems to be coming along. Still proud of my 30 second planks.

 

I'm leaving Michigan partly against my will tomorrow. My wife has an awards banquet to attend for her company on Friday night, and I am invited. I am a dutiful husband and will be attending with her. Naturally our kids come too, and the company is paying for their tickets as well, so it's easy to go. I just hate airport security T_T I'm always afraid they're going to find something I knew nothing about.

 

"Sir what's this"

"I have no idea"

"This looks like a 12 inch blade sir"

"Yes... Yes it does"

"Sir why is there a 12 inch blade up your butt sir?"

"I have no idea. I felt like I had some indigestion earlier. Maybe heartburn."
"Sir come with me."

T________________T

 

So yeah! Might not be able to hit the apple and veggie pack per day goals, but I'm going to do my darndest to eat extra veggies and get a fruit in there somewhere. If I end up doing well, I'll count it toward my goals. Coffee is going to be interesting, but it will NOT BE LEFT OUT! And you BETCHA I'll be working out on Friday. Best thing about the BBWW is that you can do it ANYWHERE (Even the airport!). 

 

"Sir why are you doing push-ups?"

"I'm trying...*grunt* to join.... *grunt* the Assassin's Guild!"

"Sir come with me."

[TurtleWings]

If you use the word "Assassin" with airport security, I think you should get extra challenge points.