Parsnip's first challenge

[Parsnip]

OK, my challenge--

 

Food: Track what I eat (macros)

Fitness: 1. Do Stronglifts 3x week

2. Go on a bike ride or walk once a week with my partner

Life: 1. Go to sleep 10 min earlier every week (start 10:30pm this week)

2. Play the violin 2x week for 10 minutes

 

I am almost 26, want to get strong enough to do pull-ups / bodyweight fun stuff. I have been doing basic weight training since Feb and so far have gone from 10 knee pushups to 8 decline pushups I weigh the same, but I've dropped some fat. I want to start barbell heavy lifting so I can get down <25% bodyfat...

[Parsnip]

So far this is working really well

 

Setting a bedtime is doing the trick to keep me trying to sleep, rather than staying up reading if I'm having trouble drifting off. Hopefully by the end of the challenge I will have trained myself to go to sleep early.

 

Already achieved the first weekly walk! Yay!

[Rurik Harrgath]

Consider yourself moved and accounted for. 

 

Challenge looks good too; pleased to have you with the Rangers!

[Elastigirl]

Great start to zero week!

[Xena]

Hi Parsnip! Looks like you have some solid goals, and I'm happy to see you signed up on the mini challenge. I'm not 100% sure, but I think we're even on the same crew :-)

[OwlBean]

Woohooooo

[Oramac]

12 hours ago, Parsnip said:

Setting a bedtime is doing the trick to keep me trying to sleep, rather than staying up reading if I'm having trouble drifting off. Hopefully by the end of the challenge I will have trained myself to go to sleep early.

 

Welcome to NF!!  

 

For sleeping, keep in mind that TV screens and computer monitors (and even regular lights!) can trigger the brains response to stay awake.  I've found it helps to avoid TV/computers for ~half an hour before going to bed too.  Though I admit I'm terrible at taking my own advice on this one.  

[Parsnip]

On 7/14/2016 at 10:44 PM, Oramac said:

 

Welcome to NF!!  

 

For sleeping, keep in mind that TV screens and computer monitors (and even regular lights!) can trigger the brains response to stay awake.  I've found it helps to avoid TV/computers for ~half an hour before going to bed too.  Though I admit I'm terrible at taking my own advice on this one.  

 

It's a good reminder - i think next challenge i will add reading physical books for 30min before bed to my challenge. I literally have two stacks of books waiting to be read that i keep under my bed. (Lots of awesome sci-fi I am looking forward to reading.) I have them sorted into reading order and everything! But I get distracted researching stuff / reading forums during my chill out time and then they don't get looked at.

[Parsnip]

I was trying to keep my first challenge really simple and not add to many different things (like a true ranger, this is hard :P), but i couldn't resist adding one more:

2nd life goal - play the violin twice a week (10 minutes)

 

I'm used to doing long practices, as i am classically trained (to a semi-pro level on piano, but advanced level on violin). I stopped having formal lessons in 2007, and the kind of skills i am trying to train - oral learning, memorisation - do better if you do them really frequently. But I don't get it out enough because I think I don't have the time. I need to teach myself that 10 min is enough!!

[Oramac]

9 hours ago, Parsnip said:

I was trying to keep my first challenge really simple and not add to many different things (like a true ranger, this is hard :P), but i couldn't resist adding one more:

2nd life goal - play the violin twice a week (10 minutes)

 

I'm used to doing long practices, as i am classically trained (to a semi-pro level on piano, but advanced level on violin). I stopped having formal lessons in 2007, and the kind of skills i am trying to train - oral learning, memorisation - do better if you do them really frequently. But I don't get it out enough because I think I don't have the time. I need to teach myself that 10 min is enough!!

 

You have all the time that you make for it!  10 minutes may not seem like much, but it's 10 better than zero! 

[shaar]

Settling in for this!!

 

How far along are you with SL5x5?  Or, have you started yet?  I LOVE barbells, so empowering, so FUN!  Yarrrr~

[Parsnip]

5 hours ago, shaarawy said:

Settling in for this!!

 

How far along are you with SL5x5?  Or, have you started yet?  I LOVE barbells, so empowering, so FUN!  Yarrrr~

 

Good to have you here I read Starting Strength 3 weeks ago, spent the first 4 sessions working out how to use it all...but now i am already at ~50kg with both the squat and deadlift. Pretty exciting!

[shaar]

16 hours ago, Parsnip said:

 

Good to have you here I read Starting Strength 3 weeks ago, spent the first 4 sessions working out how to use it all...but now i am already at ~50kg with both the squat and deadlift. Pretty exciting!

 

NICE!!! Go go early gains!!!

[Oramac]

16 hours ago, Parsnip said:

Good to have you here I read Starting Strength 3 weeks ago, spent the first 4 sessions working out how to use it all...but now i am already at ~50kg with both the squat and deadlift. Pretty exciting!

 

Way to go!  Just keep in mind gains tend to be huge at the beginning and taper off once you get to lifting higher weights.  It can be discouraging, but if you know it happens and prepare for it, it's easy to keep in perspective.  

 

Keep up the good work! 

[Parsnip]

Whoops! I logged monday's food last night and MFP told me off for starving myself!! I was tired from my epic hiking weekend and forgot to take breakfast supplies to work

 

I wasn't hungry (ate a MASSIVE dinner sunday night >1000cal which took me to a perfect total of 2000 for sunday), so i just ate like normal the rest of the day...but i only got in 963 calories?! To top it off, i just put in yesterday's meals and i'm under again - only 1385 cals

 

I'm aiming for 1800-2000 a day!! Maintenance for me is meant to be 2100-2500...

 

I think the problem is I'm not used to eating higher protein / lower carb. I'm going to have to go back to entering stuff during the day of so I can follow it better.

 

 

[Elastigirl]

Tracking it during the day sounds like a great way to make sure you are getting enough.  I've done that before too, where I get to the end of the day and I'm supposed to eat 900 calories, which isn't likely to happen.  SInce you are trying to maintain and get stronger, you could try upper your carbs too.

[Maggie-Miau]

Hello, teammate Parsnip, and welcome to the Ranger Guild! We are so thrilled and fortunate to have you in our midst!

You have a great first Challenge set up! Looking forward to watching you continue to rock it!

[Parsnip]

On 7/20/2016 at 2:37 PM, Elastigirl said:

Tracking it during the day sounds like a great way to make sure you are getting enough.  I've done that before too, where I get to the end of the day and I'm supposed to eat 900 calories, which isn't likely to happen.  SInce you are trying to maintain and get stronger, you could try upper your carbs too.

 

It's nice to hear your perspective. I basically just read a whole bunch of the advice in the bb.com forums and did all the various calcs for BMR (I spreadsheet everything in life, like a true nerd).

 

Maybe I should put a detailed post up in the nutrition forums. I want to err on the side of a small deficit atm (relying on newbie gains to get stronger), so hopefully I can get my waist a little smaller. It's not a looks thing, I have trouble losing fat there (insulin resistance) and I unfortunately know how small my ribcage is (thanks to when I first got coeliac disease), so I know I'm carrying a good 10cm (14%) extra there (AFTER assuming much bigger ab muscles).

 

idk, it's probably not as important as I think it is. I don't have any way of getting body fat % checked properly, so I'm relying on measurements.

[Parsnip]

WEEK 1 UPDATE

 

Food: Track what I eat (macros)

This has been going fine, except for struggling to eat enough at the start of the week! I'll do a thread in the nutrition forum at some point.

 

Not too shabby! I was aiming for in between the red line (1800) and the line above it (2000). Hopefully the extra carbs I ate tonight made up for Monday and Tuesday deficits. I got served a LOT of rice with dinner tonight, but figured I better just eat it all since I was probably under calories anyway.

 

 

Fitness: 1. Do Stronglifts 3x week

I've been having lots of fun with lifting I deadlifted 60kg today, got to use the 20kg plates for the first time

 

2. Go on a bike ride or walk once a week with my partner

Not complete yet, we have a bike ride planned tomorrow afternoon

 

Life: 1. Go to sleep 10 min earlier every week (10:20pm this week)

Almost forgot last night, but remembered right on 10:20...actually had an easy time of it this week, had several early nights.

 

2. Play the violin 2x week for 10 minutes

I played for 15 minutes on Wednesday, I better remember to play tomorrow too!

 

[Oramac]

Looking good!!  Deadlifts are great!  Glad to see you're enjoying them.  Keep it up! 

[Parsnip]

So life has got in the way a bit this week, but things are still going well. I don't know why I added the violin goal, that was stupid since I'm spending so much time away from home this month!

 

Food is on track. Turns out I was retaining tons of water last week, which was hiding 3-4kg of weight loss... That wasn't really my aim! That's a kg a week!! My average calories for the 3 weeks I've tracked is only 1750. I've put the cal goal in MFP up to encourage me to eat more. I think it's working so far

 

I failed a bedtime Monday night I spent too much time socialising instead of packing for my trip (left Tues am). Stayed up until 11pm. On the plus side, it meant I had time to fit in an extra meal before bed

[Parsnip]

Also, a shout out to @Juni0r83, it was really cool meeting you guys at the gym

[Juni0r83]

11 minutes ago, Parsnip said:

Also, a shout out to @Juni0r83, it was really cool meeting you guys at the gym

Awesome to meet you too. It's very cool not being the only NF member in town now.

[Oramac]

2 hours ago, Parsnip said:

Also, a shout out to @Juni0r83, it was really cool meeting you guys at the gym

 

2 hours ago, Juni0r83 said:

Awesome to meet you too. It's very cool not being the only NF member in town now.

 

From experience, Nerd meetups are amazing!  

 

Don't worry so much about the water weight.  It is what it is.  And being well-hydrated is good, long term.  It might suck when you step on the scale sometimes, but overall it's not bad to stay hydrated.  

[Juni0r83]

8 minutes ago, Oramac said:

 

 

From experience, Nerd meetups are amazing!  

 

 

Yeah, I had the opportunity to meet @SpecialSundae and @Tankweazel last year, but I had to go HALFWAY AROUND THE WORLD in order to do it. This is virtually in my lounge room by comparison!