Tabula Rasa

[Tabula Rasa]

Hello, everyone.

 

First of all, please forgive my english. It is not my first language.

 

My introductions tend to be long winded, so I will spare you from that (mostly). I am an 25 year old active woman who had to take a 3 week break from exercising because I learned I have this condition called chondromalacia patellae (knee pain, really). The treatment involved knee injections and a bit of rest, but my paranoid side figured it would be better if I stopped doing all manner of extrenous and impact heavy activities (I do Crossfit, so..) for those three weeks. Anyway, the pain is gone, but this condiction is something I will have to treat all my life with supplements, strength training (YEY!) and stretching. My three week break ends on monday and I decided to see this as a respawn of sorts. This is not my first challenge, but I lost access to my old account and I figured I might as well start over on Nerd Fitness too.

 

 

Main Goal

After my somewhat forced three week break, my main goal for this challenge is to make exercising and eating well a habit again. Pure and simple.

 

 

Strength Goal

- Crossfit 4x/week.

I am a Crossfit junkie and before the break I was doing it from monday to friday. Chances are this is going to be this challenge's easiest quest and I have decided to include it here only for the accountability. Really.

 

- Starting Strength every tuesday and thursday.

I like lifting heavy stuff and my orthopedist said squats are a good exercise for people who suffer from chondromalacia patellae. Who am I to argue with a doctor's opinion?

 

Dexterity Goal
- Stretch my leg muscles everyday for at least 5 minutes.

My orthopedist also said it is important that I spend some time stretching my thighs and hamstrings. I figured I might as well make this a daily habit.

 

Constitution Goal
- Eat between 1800 to 2000 cals/day.

I follow the Eat to Perform protocol and according to their calculator, this is the range I should be aiming for. I will track it on My Fitness Pal.

 

 

Inteligence Goal

- Post on my post graduation forums once a day.

I enrolled in a post-grad program and a percentage of my grade comes from reading assigned articles and debating them in the courses' online forums. 

 

Wisdom Goal
- Mediate 5x/week.

I am a pretty anxious person and I learned that even 10 minutes of meditation makes a whole world of diference in my day.

 

 

Charisma Goal

- Lose % bodyfat.

I gained a bit of weight and I want to get back to where I was a month ago. My measurements will be taken on wednesday so only then will I be able to update this goal with an actual number.

[bsummers]

Excellent goals:) Good luck!

[fleaball]

Welcome back! Your English seems fine to me. What's your first language, if you don't mind my asking? (I'm really into languages so I get nosy about these things.)

 

Your goals look pretty solid. Way to be!

[Severine]

I too am a huge language geek (high five, @fleaball!) and would be curious to know your native language. I agree, your English is great. Sorry to hear about your knee diagnosis, but it sounds like your attitude toward it is very healthy.

 

I think your challenge looks really well put-together and shows evidence of good self-knowledge. I also got a kick out of the way you organized the goals by stats

 

If you don't mind me asking, what stretches do you do for your hamstrings? I have very very tight hamstrings (still not sure why) and it's something I have been wanting to tackle for a long time.

 

I love that you follow the Eat to Perform paradigm. I had never heard of that particular website until now, but the underlying philosophy is something I strongly believe in. I think dropping calories too low during a weight loss program is a mistake - I've had much better success losing weight and feeling good eating at 1800-2100 calories daily than I ever did when I was trying to eat 1400-1500 daily. 

 

I'll be following along on your challenge!

[Tabula Rasa]

21 hours ago, fleaball said:

Welcome back! Your English seems fine to me. What's your first language, if you don't mind my asking? (I'm really into languages so I get nosy about these things.)

 

Your goals look pretty solid. Way to be!

 

 

Heh, thanks. I started studying english when I was 10 years old and I consider myself fluent. I have zero issues undestanding it. It is the speaking and writing part that gets tricky sometimes. I struggle a LOT with prepositions and if I weren't so lazy I could probably sit down and actually learn them.

 

Anyway, I am from Brasil so my native language is portuguese. 

 

 

21 hours ago, Severine said:

I too am a huge language geek (high five, @fleaball!) and would be curious to know your native language. I agree, your English is great. 

 

I think your challenge looks really well put-together and shows evidence of good self-knowledge. I also got a kick out of the way you organized the goals by stats

 

If you don't mind me asking, what stretches do you do for your hamstrings? I have very very tight hamstrings (still not sure why) and it's something I have been wanting to tackle for a long time.

 

I love that you follow the Eat to Perform paradigm. I had never heard of that particular website until now, but the underlying philosophy is something I strongly believe in. I think dropping calories too low during a weight loss program is a mistake - I've had much better success losing weight and feeling good eating at 1800-2100 calories daily than I ever did when I was trying to eat 1400-1500 daily. 

 

I'll be following along on your challenge!

 

Heh, I am a D&D nerd

 

As for the hamstring stretch, I do mostly this one. It is great because you don't need elastic bands or anything, and it is possible to do while laying down on your bed.  

 

 

Eat to Perform helped me change my mindset about food and exercise for the better. I learned about it a couple of months ago and, while their science wasn't news to me (body recomp), they made an excellent job of "selling" me their philosophy. I had recently lost almost 10kgs (20lbs) in three months, so when I started eating more (I was at the 1300-1500 cals/day range as well) I was super afraid of putting some of that weight back. It didn't happen. My performance in the gym improved instantly and I started seeing the results in my physique pretty quick too. I think that hard work and the way that my body looks go so hand in hand, and the only way for me to work my ass off inside the box is if I fuel my body like the deadlifting machine it is.

[Severine]

Thanks for the video! Going to try that every day for a couple weeks and hopefully it'll reduce soreness/tightness in my hamstrings.

[fleaball]

16 minutes ago, Tabula Rasa said:

Heh, thanks. I started studying english when I was 10 years old and I consider myself fluent. I have zero issues undestanding it. It is the speaking and writing part that gets tricky sometimes. I struggle a LOT with prepositions and if I weren't so lazy I could probably sit down and actually learn them.

 

Anyway, I am from Brasil so my native language is portuguese. 

I hear you. Writing and speaking in a foreign language is obnoxious. Ahhh Portuguese is on my list of languages to learn eventually. 

[Tabula Rasa]

My goals will need an adjustment for this first week. I have a business trip (an e-commerce convention, really) scheduled that I wasn't considering when I first drafted my challenge. I will be out of town from wednesday evening to saturday afternoon without access to a proper gym or a Crossfit box, so no exercise for me (other than light yoga, lots of walking and maybe some bodyweight stuff) on thursday and friday. I also won't be able to track all my meals to the T since most of them will be done at restaurants. With that in mind, my adapted goals for this week are:

 

- Crossfit on monday (done), tuesday (done) and wednesday. Unfortunatelly, on saturdays my box opens only in the morning hours.

- No Starting Strength this week because I had to cut my time short in the gym today to get to work earlier. 

- No fast food while I am traveling or any sort of shitty food, seriously. Protein + veggies for lunch and dinner and eggs for breakfast. I will have an easier time tracking them too. My cal intake will likely be lower than 1800, but that won't be an issue.

- My meditation and post-grad goals don't need to suffer any changes.

 

Now for my day one review: 

 

Strength Goal: I went to Crossfit. It was pistol day. Success.

Dexterity Goal: the mobility block at Crossfit focused on our legs, so lots of stretching. Success.

Constitution Goal: my cal intake was less than it should have been (1700), but my macros were good (P112g, C101g, F88g). No harm done here. Success.

Inteligence Goal: I participated on one of my classes' forums. Success.

Wisdom Goal: took 10 minutes to meditate in the morning. Success.

Charisma Goal: I am yet to take my measurements.

 

A good start for this challenge.