Nnimn - Effective Stratagizing for Glorious Victry

[Nnimn]

Basically this is a "Get My Crap Together" challenge.

 

Starting next month I enter a 3 month health and fitness competition and I'll suffer financial loss if I don't hit the target accomplishments -plus we have to take photos of our gains every two weeks and send them to all other challengers. Very  motivating. 

 

Thus I'm considering this challenge a tactical exercise -it'll be the research upon which I base my battle strategy for March - May. This means it will be flexible in nature as I figure out what's working and what isn't as regards any habits/routine. Once that's done I can squash the competition and, eventually, take over the world. I'm trying to attack this head on and not be intimidated since world domination isn't accomplished without a bit of forethought n a whole lot of effort and neither shall this.

 

 

(I can neither confirm nor deny whether Nick Fury will appear here in the the coming weeks)

 

Areas of focus for this study are:

 

1) Rationing of Provisions

 

I'm starting the Whole30 in March so this will be a precursor. I'm gonna try to stick with the principles of it (3 balanced meals a day, no snacking, no "treats") but I will eat quinoa, rice and corn tortillas for this month. My focus is figuring out which meals I really enjoy and finding the best days to cook meals ahead for the week. Grading will be based on # of meals, meal proportion and avoidance of snacking/dessert.

I'm allotting the most points to this as it will be the hardest and most important for overall success.

50% of Weekly Grade

 

2) Be Regimented In My Training 

 

I'm not focusing on a particular kind of exercise, as it will change each week, rather I need to set aside specific times each week to work on my goals. So I will set a schedule and try it for a week, if it works I'll see if I can keep it up the whole challenge. If it doesn't I'll adjust it and try again. I will be graded on how well I stick to the outlined schedule.

25% of Weekly Grade

 

3) Don't Let Other Aspects of Life Go To Crap.

 

This is one of the most important aspects of my focus. Since my life will be pretty packed I want to make sure I still take care of everything else as living life is the reason for health. Living Life means not neglecting my pup, keeping up with language studies, maintaining healthy relationships, etc. I'll outline the things I need to accomplish for the week and post it at the beginning of the week.  I will be graded based on the ratio of how many items I kept up with vs neglected. 

25% of Weekly Grade

 

Grading system TBA

 

Also, because I'm super nice here is:

 

TODAY'S RANDOM LIFE LESSON

 

Beware of The Hamsters! - An important warning as it is they who shall one day rule the galaxy (It's really not mice. Things like Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy and Pinky and The Brain are merely clever ploys developed by The Hamsters! to shift suspicion onto other, less ambitious rodents.) Think of how many homes they've already infiltrated, ingratiating themselves as members of our households with their cute snugly exterior ....Don't be fooled...

 

 

More to be reported on their nefarious behavior as we're made aware of it.

 

As usual I barely survived Monday with my limbs intact so this didn't get posted yesterday.

 

Edit - Also I just noticed I forgot the O in Victory - *facepalm* 

[Nnimn]

So I don't have time to post a complete update -works been insane (Mon and Tues were 9 hrs straight) but in brief summary:

• I've worked on Uneven Push-ups (did 56. I was aiming for 70 but hey, it's a start)
• Kept up with daily stuff like dishes, walking the dog, studying, etc 
• I have eaten 2 to 3 not-craptastic meals a day (I haven't been eating breakfast much).

 

At least I'm not failing spectacularly yet.

 

 

Yay. 

 

The goal for today is to finish working up my schedule for each day then, this evening, I can post the progress report for the week so far. Also on the list for today:  DON'T FORGET TO BUY A STINKING DAILY PLANNER!

 

And now, once again, promoting rodent awareness:

 

[NeverThatBored]

You're doing uneven pushups? That's so cool!!     

[Nnimn]

You know what's weird? I find them fun. For some reason I hate standard push-ups the way most people hate burpees. (I hear you'll be doing lots of those this challenge btw   my sympathies). Sometimes my preferences are so strange....

[Nnimn]

Okay so some highlights of the week so far:

 

Workouts:

Saturday I went snowboarding for about 8 hours so that was my weekend workout. It was crazy fun -this was a reward for completing last months challenge. 

 

Before that I focused on squats and push-ups. 

 

I've started doing decline push-ups in additions to uneven and standard. I'm trying to eventually get to handstand push-ups so over the next couple months I'll keep upping the height for my feet and working on holding my handstand as well. That's the focus for this week -beat my longest time for holding a handstand. To that end I will focus on core work as well. Primarily hanging leg raises and toe touches. So 5 days a week I will try to spend a little time just practicing hand stands in addition to my regular workout schedule. 

 

For squats I'm doing weighted, pistol or intermediate shrimp squats. The goal is to always push myself further so no going back to easier versions of workouts.  

 

Daily List Accomplishment:

I've been probably at a 70% success rate for the week. Yesterday was more like 40% on everything though and I completely blame the Super Bowl.   Sunday has lately been quite the play day so I'm learning I need to either schedule things I want to accomplish on my Sunday list earlier in the week or start buckling down that day. This week I'm gonna really try to get things done early Sunday since I think I do more stuff in the evening and we will see how this works. Also getting up around 6 is not happening yet. I'll continue to work on this but there is a small chance I may need to adjust in the requirements for this area also. If I can't get to bed by 10 or 10:30 I think 7 will have to be it. I can't function much on less than 8 hrs of sleep. But we're not giving up yet, we're gonna give this whole go to be early, get up early bit one more go.

 

Nutritional Requirements:

Again yesterday was a bit of a fail in this area. I didn't completely derail but snacking happened quite frequently and throughout the day. Apart from that though I've been keeping it around an 80/20 with 3 meals a day. I've found cooking a bunch of meat up ahead of time and then just reheating it each day helps A TON. So I will definitely implement this when I do the Whole30. This week's goal is to find a couple new recipes to freeze and reheat later that will still taste good. 

 

 That's all for now.

 

Please note there will be no rodent advisory updates today as I've still got much work to do. Just don't approach the rodents and you'll probably live....we think...

[NeverThatBored]

Yeah, the meal prep is a huge help for sticking with your eating goals. Have you found any good recipes for your Whole30 month yet?

 

This is a cool progression for handstand pushups if you want any more ideas. I've been working on pike presses lately.

[Nnimn]

Okay so apparently taking care of a two month old and his mother are not very compatible with accomplishing anything else, especially when you're doing it for the first time. 

 

In summation: the first two weeks I feel good about but the last two weeks I'm gonna have to scratch.

I pretty much lived with my sister in New Baby Land -where you pretty much just sleep and eat if/when you can while helping mama to take care of herself and the kiddo. It was great of course, and I consider it a whole other accomplishment, but as respects fitness I did minimum maintenance workouts and healthy eating -A bit of climbing, some calisthenics and walking, that it. Unless I can count swinging him in his heavy car seat for hours to keep him asleep as the best full body workout ever?? 

 

Mom's everywhere - you have my respect. You are amazing. 

 

I shall be taking to today to get my house in order and start meal making for next week since the competition starts then! And I start the whole30 so here goes nothing....

 

[NeverThatBored]

Will you be posting a new challenge thread?

[Nnimn]

Yup! I had to finish everything up yesterday but today starts the new challenge for me as I'm doing the whole30 for march so I'm starting everything as of today. So I'm off to post that and check out your new challenge...