Darquar Turbostarr Cannot Be Stopped

[Darci Nicole]

Introduction

 

My name is Darci-- you may know me from the NF Academy forums as darcibeta (my character name is Darquar Turbostarr). I joined the NF Academy in November 2014. Despite having been a member for almost 1.5 years now, I've had little success thus far. My biggest issues have been follow-through and consistency. However, this is about to change. Why will it be different this time? Because I gave birth to my second beautiful boy in May 2016, and throughout my pregnancy I was unhappy with my body and with the way I cared for it. I spent quite a bit of time during my pregnancy studying nutrition and learning about fitness competitions. I vowed that I would create healthy habits, sculpt a sexy, strong physique, and work towards my goal of competing. Therefore, my current plan is to spend a year or so changing my "default habits" and creating new, healthy habits-- exercising regularly, leveling up my diet, etc., -- and then I will begin prepping for a fitness competition. Why fitness competition? As a child and teenager, I enjoyed dancing (ballet, tap, jazz, etc..) and performing. I would love to work towards a goal and get up on stage to show off my accomplishments. I think having this goal in mind will help me to stick with the changes. Also, I have never had much in the muscle department, and I've always wanted to have more muscle mass and STRENGTH!

 

Because it's been so long since I've been active in the NF Academy, I'm resetting all of my quests and starting anew. I did the Benchmark Test and I'll be starting at Bodyweight Level 1 (due to my upper body strength being so weak). It's probably for the best to start at Level 1 anyway since I'm 5 weeks postpartum and have lost a lot of strength (especially in my core) during pregnancy. I want to start out slowly and build healthy habits.

 

My BIG "Why?"

 

• Because I'm tired of seeing my body in the shape it's in. I think what bothers me the most is my lack of muscle and strength. I look like I don't take care of myself, and that's not how I want others to see me.
• Because I want to prove to myself and others that I CAN accomplish my goals and that I'm not all talk.
• Because I want to look sexy AF.
• Because I want to be a great role model for my family and others.

 

My Goals

 

Long-term (i.e. where I will be in 1 year):

• I'm the type of person who is driven to continually improve myself and I will work relentlessly to do so. I'm somebody who will consistently eat nourishing foods by eating a paleo(ish) diet (level 7) 80% of the time and consistently exercise my body by strength-training 4 days a week and cardio-training 2 days a week.

 

Short-term (i.e. what I'm working on now):

1. I will eat 2400 healthy calories daily, aiming for a macro-nutrient ratio of 30% carbs, 15% protein, and 55% fat.
2. I will drink one gallon of water daily,
3. On weekdays, I will prepare a healthy lunch/supper for the next day before I go to bed.
4. I will exercise (in any form, at this point) 3 days per week.
5. I will begin each day with a low-carb breakfast instead of cereal, breads, etc.

 

My Batcave

 

I will remove steps to build healthy habits by:

1. Creating a lunch menu so I don't have to think about what to make (lunches must be quick and easy to prepare).
2. Prepping shredded chicken on Sundays so its ready for the week.
3. Filling up a gallon jug of water and refrigerating it at night so its cold for the next day.

 

I will add barriers to keep myself from falling back into unhealthy habits by:

1. Unfollowing people/groups on Facebook and Instagram and unsubscribing from emails to keep myself from wasting time and energy.
2. Leave`my purse at home/in the back of the car when I can to avoid impulsive buying of junk/fast food.
3. Order groceries online, save list, and pick-up to avoid buying and having unhealthy/unplanned food in the house.

 

My Measurements - 6/8/2016 (4 weeks + 5 days postpartum)

 

Weight: 154.4 lbs

Neck: 13.5"

Bust: 38"

Under bust: 31.5"

Waist: 33"

Pooch*: 40.5"

Hips: 40.5"

Upper arm: 11.5"

Forearm: 9.5"

Thigh: 23"

Calves: R 13.75" L 13.25"

 

*"Pooch" is a measurement my sisters and I thought we should keep track of.

 

I have also taken my before pictures, but I will wait to post those until I have something to compare them to. 

 

So there you have it! I'm excited for this journey and to see the transformation in my body and abilities. Hope to meet several great people along the way!

 

 

 

[LucentFrost]

I'm in my respawn point, too. Here supporting your goals!!!

[Mshrmit]

After being in a state of denial about the Academy forums, I recently became active over here as well.  Good luck on your respawn.

[LadyMonk]

How's your diet going? Have you stuck to the low carb breakfast? I've been super happy with the amount of fresh produce available lately, and that's helped me a lot.

[Darci Nicole]

Thank you @LucentFrost!

 

It's nice to see you here @Mshrmit -- here's to a new adventure!

 

@LadyMonk -- I HAVE been sticking to my low carb breakfast. I eat the same thing for breakfast EVERYDAY: 2 fried eggs, 2 breakfast sausage links, one mandarin orange, and coffee with butter. I have some banana chocolate chip waffles frozen in the freezer and I was tempted to eat those this morning, but I fought through that temptation. I should probably just get them the hell away from my bat cave. 

 

Actually, I've been doing moderately well the past couple of weeks. I haven't stuck to my goals 100%, but I've been making some healthy choices and I'm feeling positive. Thursday morning I went on a hike through the woods with my mom and sisters-- I was carrying my newborn in a wrap and pushing my toddler in a jogging stroller (which needed the tires aired-up). It was terrible-- but kinda fun at the same time. Then I went swimming in the afternoon. And Friday I did Bodyweight Level 1A. I really tried to do each movement slowly and focus on REEEALLY flexing my muscles with each movement. I'm feeling sore today in my arms, back, hips, and butt-- WooHoo!

 

Last night I ate at a Mexican restaurant and was attempting to do the low-carb-thing by forgoing the tortillas and ordering a salad instead of the rice. Well I'll be damned... they brought me the tortillas and rice anyway. So I ate one tortilla and all of the rice. *Sigh* So I went over my carbs for the day. I'm trying to eat between 2300-2500 calories per day and stay under 200g of carbs. If you're wondering why so many, I'm currently breastfeeding a newborn! On most days I'm actually having trouble eating that many calories.

[Darci Nicole]

I did Bodyweight Level 1B today-- again, a little more difficult than I expected! I did the good mornings, but those felt easy so I'll probably advance to dumbbell Romanian deadlift next time. The inch worms felt easy too, but I don't have an ab wheel. For the other exercises, I did bodyweight lunges, seated external rotations, and planks with a toddler on my back!

 

My diet has been good today, except I'm on my third Goose Island IPA-- Sunday Fun-day! They're a bit carby, so I'm planning on eating a very low carb supper. 

[Darci Nicole]

I haven't done so well this past week or so... :-/ I didn't completely abandon my goals, but I didn't do as well as I would have liked. We've had a lot... errrhm... going on this week. I'll just leave it at that.

 

I've been using a sticker chart and points system ... I've tried various things like this in the past, but I think this has been the most successful so far. I love earning those damn stickers!

 

Today I did Bodyweight level 1A. My squats are feeling stronger. My push-ups are still weeeeeeaaak. I've almost earned my 50 points from my rewards system. I was originally planning to buy clothes, but I might get some gymnastics rings instead so I can level up my exercises.

[Darci Nicole]

I did Bodyweight Level 1B today with the aforementioned changes. I got a little shaky towards the end, but it felt goooood. Also tried listening to music during my exercises today, which did seem to help (why didn't I do that before? duh!). I like angry music-- a little gangster rap or hard rock gets me pumped.

 

Biweekly Reflection and Goal Progress:

 

Today marks the end of two weeks of my habit tracking experiment using my fancy-schmancy, kindergarten-esque sticker chart. I love having this tangible, visual reminder of what I'm working on and my progress. I started out pretty strong and then got off track somewhere in the middle, BUT I picked it up a bit at the end. The way I configured the chart, I had a possibility of earning 300 points with loot rewarded every 50 points. Well... I didn't come anywhere close to earning all 300 points! I FINALLY hit the 50 point mark today! Ha! Although I didn't do perfectly this past couple of weeks, I'm pleased that I've stuck with something this long and I'm still in it. So I think I deserve a little loot! ;-) I'm going to buy the gymnastics rings so I can keep working on these weak-ass arms.

 

Nutrition: I've done a fairly good job of tracking my food for the past couple of weeks with the exception of three days. I've stayed within my 2300-2500 calories range for several days. Some days I have been too low and some days I have been too high (and three days I didn't track at all, so I don't know!). It is HARD to drink 1 gallon of water a day because I'm such a camel. But I'm still going to try. I feel much better when I do. I think I had one soda in the entire two weeks, which is great! I've had several beers, but just on the weekends. I've ate a protein-filled breakfast on most days, except when I skipped breakfast altogether. One Sunday I did end up having some of those delicious waffles for breakfast. My carbs for the day usually stayed under 200g, so I was happy with that.  I completely failed at prepping lunches/suppers the night before.

 

I'm going to go ahead and allow myself to "check" those nutrition quests and level up to Nutrition Level 4. I haven't been perfect, but if I let perfection get in the way I don't think I'll ever progress. My vegetable intake is pretty weak, so I'm going to work on eating more veggies and leveling up to Nutrition Level 5 (or beyond?) this next week. As far as white bread and pasta goes, I don't eat those very often so it won't be hard to avoid them.

 

Fitness: My goal was to exercise 6 days in two weeks. I did 5. And there were a few days in the middle during which I didn't do anything. Nevertheless, not too shabby. I tried to do a knee push-up yesterday. I can do it, but only with my arms pointing out to the sides. I want to try to get that military form down before I try to defeat Genereal DOMS. Therefore, I'm going to continue to do the Bodyweight Level 1 with some modifications for the next couple of weeks.

 

I think I need to start doing some cardio. I haven't decided how I want to do that yet. Maybe some running. I'd really like to do cardio kickboxing classes, but they don't start until 8:10pm and that is just too darn late... But maybe...

 

NFR: I sucked at my NFR goals. I can't get up early worth a damn. I'm really going to need to practice this before school starts... :-/ Also, I only read on three days out of two weeks. Better than nothing, I guess. I shall try again.

 

Monthly Measurement Comparison - 7/7/2016 (9 weeks postpartum)

 

Weight: 151.4 lbs (-3lbs)

Neck: 13" (-0.5")

Bust: 38" (SAME)

Under bust: 30.5" (-1")

Waist: 32.5"  (-0.5")

Pooch: 39" (-1.5")

Hips/butt: 40" (-0.5")

Upper arm: 12" (+0.5")

Forearm: 9.5" (SAME)

Thigh: 23.5"  (+0.5")

Calves: R 14" (+0.25") L 13.5" (+0.25")

 

I was a little bummed that I wasn't losing as much weight this past month as I did the first month postpartum. However, I can see that there has been some positive measurement changes. My thighs weren't supposed to get bigger though... Maybe it's muscle? Maybe measuring error? I won't sweat it.

 

I think I could stand to lose more weight though, so I may try to lower my daily caloric intake. I just don't want to lower it too much and risk losing my milk supply. 

[LadyMonk]

Hey, way to go with the detailed posts and awesome tracking!! It looks like you stayed fairly on target for a lot of your goals. Keep up the great work.

[Darci Nicole]

Thanks @LadyMonk !

 

I've been doing my BWL1 workouts regularly for the past week-- I had missed a couple workouts before that. So progress is slow, but I think I'm seeing some strength gains.

 

I got a little too confident today when I succeeded at doing a knee push-up with my arms close to my sides and decided to try to go into battle with General DOMS after doing Workout A. Come to find out, you will NOT beat General DOMS if you only do 3 knee push-ups ... Even if you beast the rest of it. Damn push-ups. I've been doing incline push-ups in my workouts, but I think I'm ready to start doing a few knee push-ups. I'll see if I can do the 6 push-ups tomorrow when I'm not tired from just doing a workout. I'm sure I could do them with my elbows sticking out, but I really want to do a proper military style push-up... Well that's enough about that.

[Darci Nicole]

I'm past due for a biweekly reflection...

 

Biweekly Reflection and Goal Progress:

 

So I finally beat General DOMS last Tuesday! Unfortunately, I took a weeklong break afterwards and I haven't done much good since...  When I get busy I tend to let my health/fitness goals fall by the wayside. This is why developing a solid routine is going to be of the utmost importance in the coming weeks since school will be starting.

 

I never did buy my gymnastics rings becaaaauuse I really just don't need to spend the money right now, so it really doesn't feel like much of a reward since I'm all anxious about making the purchase. But really, the stickers serve as a small reward themselves, and so I think I'm just going to work towards a bigger reward of a gym membership (our local gym just built a brand new building and I found out the membership is less expensive than it used to be!). So I'm going to forget about the 50-point rewards for now and just work towards my big 300-point reward. Plus, once I start school, I think I will need a gym membership to ensure I continue to workout since its very unlikely I'll workout after I get home and plant my ass on the couch.

 

I only earned 26 points these past two weeks... Not great. This brings me to a total of 80 points currently. I will need 220 points to earn myself a gym membership! Based on my performance from this past month, this will be very difficult to achieve before school starts!

 

Nutrition: I've been aiming to eat between 1800-2000 calories a day, which is about 500/day less than I was previously eating. I was hoping this would translate to a 1lb/week weight loss. In fact I think I lost more than 1lb over the course of the first week or so, but then I went off course during the second week. I think I'll keep my calories at this level for now as it seems to be enough that I don't feel like I'm starving, but it is still somewhat of a challenge because I can't eat everything I want to.

 

I also lowered my carb intake goal to 150g/day. 200g was easy-peasy, but 150g does seem to be a challenge. However, it is completely achievable. I just have to pay attention to what I put in my mouth and plan ahead a little. 

 

1 gallon of water a day is still super difficult. I completely gave up on this goal during these last two weeks. Water intake continues to be very difficult for me. 

 

I did a great job of eating more veggies, and even tried some new veggie dishes. I'm going to allow myself to level up to Nutrition Level 5, which is where I really think I have been for awhile now. In order to achieve Level 6, I'll need to include a veggie with every meal. This will be a challenge.

 

Fitness: My goal was to strength-train 3x/week and do cardio 1x/week. I did well for about 1 week, which is typical for me. I can't ever seem to exercise regularly for more than 1 week. 

 

NFR: Once again, I sucked at these. I've been trying to develop morning and night routines and this seems to be SO HARD! 

 

My goals for the next two weeks will be continuing to eat 1800-2000 calories and less than 150g carbs per day, eating a veggie with every meal, drinking 1 gallon of water per day, strength training 3x per week with BWL2 and cardio 1x per week, and continuing to try to develop those morning and night routines (which includes things like waking up early, getting kids to bed early, reading before bedtime, etc.). 

[Mshrmit]

If you beat the general, you are doing pretty good.  Those boss battles are hard!  I just wish they had a life bar on them, so you knew how close you actually got.

[LadyMonk]

Hey! You rock. I am super impressed with how you beat the general and are keeping on top of so many things. You're just going to keep getting better.

 

Sorry I've been such a sucky accountability buddy! I'm respawning on August 3rd (my first full day back in the states) and doing Whole30. I'm going to try and be more on top of things, so I hope I see a bunch of posts from you to respond to. 

[Darci Nicole]

Oh man @LadyMonk, I've been doing a poor job as accountability buddy too. But change is a process, right? Why is it SO hard to change diet/fitness habits?!

 

Biweekly-ish Reflection and Goal Progress:

 

Nutrition: My diet has been all over the place. Some days have been good, most have not... :-( I started nursing school last Thursday. They provided lunch Thursday, and then we ate lunch at the convent with the Sisters on Friday, which was an awesome experience. This week we have to pack our own lunches, so I'm hoping this will sort of force me to plan ahead and eat well. 

 

Fitness: I'm planning on getting a gym membership tomorrow. I know that was supposed to be my "big reward," but let's face it... That is not working. I think I just need to ixnay the whole loot idea because it just doesn't work for me. Mostly because I can't stick to my own rewards... LOL But as I said earlier, change is a process and I'm learning about how to create change in myself. 

 

I exercised somewhat regularly for about a month (my pathetic personal record LOL) before I became pregnant with Marshall. I had a gym membership and I just packed my gym bag and went immediately after work. I quit after I became pregnant (tiredness, nausea, etc.) That's why I think I oughta just get a damn gym membership and go immediately after school. I didn't want to spend the money, but come to find out our local gym is only like $27.50 a month if I buy a 6 month membership. And I feel like that's worth it because otherwise I'd need to spend more than that to buy exercise equipment for home that I really don't have room in my house for.

 

NFR: Not bad, but room for improvement. I'm just trying to be more consistent in my daily routines, and not waste time watching TV, interneting excessively, and what not.

 

Sooo plan for the next two weeks: Ixnay the rewards system (but continue to utilize sticker chart to keep track). Pack healthy lunches and snacks, crockpot suppers, and workout after school. I'll still be trying to hit 1800-2000 calories and less than 150g carbs, drinking a gallon of water per day, strength-training 3x week AND cardio 2x/week. Eating a veggie at every meal is way beyond my skill level at this time, so I'm abandoning that goal for awhile. Also, I'm still working on my morning/evening routines. 

[LadyMonk]

Way to go on the life level up of going back to school!! I really liked the recent article on motivation that nerdfitness put out. Use the burst of motivation you're having now in order to set yourself up for success in the future.

 

Keep up with the successes! You got this girl

[Darci Nicole]

Thanks @LadyMonk! On the first day I was questioning whether I'd lost my marbles, but I'm really happy with this decision and I just hope I can make it out without going bankrupt! :-D It's only 18 months though, so I know it will go by quickly.

 

Monday was rainy and I had a headache all day, so to the gym I did not get. However, I did make it there after school today, bought a 6-month membership, and did a KILLER workout! I decided that I'd like to mix things up a bit because I get bored easily, so I did a LEG day. Maybe I was a little too excited and I think I overdid it a little because I literally could barely walk afterwards. I'm planning to focus on arms tomorrow. I really like the gym atmosphere and I feel motivated not to slack off when I'm around other people.

[LadyMonk]

Sounds like today was a big win!! I'm happy for you, and I'm excited to hear about your arm day. Are you a machines or a free weights kind of warrior?

[Darci Nicole]

@LadyMonk I'm doing the free weights -- it's a little anxiety provoking as I feel like everyone's watching me, but "fake it till you make it," right? And I know nobody really cares what I'm doing. LOL

[LadyMonk]

That's awesome!!!! I'm so proud of you. I know they're better, but I don't have the nerve.

[LadyMonk]

So have you been working out at the gym since school started? How's it going?

 

I think I'll try the weightlifting lessons at Camp NF next month!