Muir's New Year Challenge

[Muir]

January is typically seen as a month of new beginnings. For me, it's going to be a month of going back to the basics and easing back into "regular" life after a month of feasting and eating all of the things. Over the course of December, I gained ~3 kgs, 2" around my waist, and 1" around my chest. This extra weight must be lost.

 

This month I'm doing another fitness challenge. This one is only going to last the month though. While the Push Up and Pull Up challenges had some great results, 10 weeks was a bit too long for my tastes. The New Year Fitness Challenge starts off slow with a simple timed fitness test and slowly ramps up in difficulty as the month progresses. It touches on a wide variety of exercises (cardio, yoga, body weight, etc) instead of just one.

 

In addition to the fitness challenge, I'm also going to work on getting back to my personalised NF diet, as follows.

 

1.  Week 1: I will drink only water between noon and 6pm every day. I can drink caffeinated drinks (tea, coffee, diet soda) before noon and between 6pm-8pm, but only one drink per hour. I will drink no alcohol during the week and will only have 1 bottle/can/glass per day on Fridays and Saturdays.
2. Week 2: I will eat zero foods with added sugar. Snacking between meals is allowed, but only healthy snacks (i.e. fresh fruit and veggies, crackers and cheese, etc). I will allow one exception to this which is our nightly pudding, but I will not allow myself to go overboard with it (small servings is the key here).
3. Week 3: I will eat only my two main meals per day with no snacking between meals except in one circumstance, which is if my blood sugar level drops too much and I need to eat something to keep myself from shaking or passing out. Each meal will contain at least 2 veggies and 1 serving of protein.
4. Week 4: My carbs intake will be reduced to no more than 4 servings per day. I will not eat any foods made from white wheat flour. While whole grain is acceptable, most of my carbs should come from other flour sources (rice, nuts, pulses), rice (preferably not white rice), and potatoes (sweet potatoes are preferable).

 

As always, I am allowing one variance day per week where the above rules are relaxed. This will usually be Mondays (games nights).

 

There are also two non fitness related tasks that I'm setting for myself during January. These are to apply for at least one job per week and to crochet 3 granny squares for the blanket I'm making Paul each week OR sew 8 squares together into a row.

[Muir]

Jan. 1 Fit Test
Do as many reps of the following as you can in 60 seconds. That's 60 seconds per exercise. Best way to do it is to get a voice activated timer (Siri works really well for this), get in position, then activate the timer and get to work. When the timer ends, note down the number of reps you did, rest for a minute or two, then do the next exercise.

Squats
Push Ups
Lunge Jumps
Burpees
Star Jumps

 

I did 28 Squats, 22 chest-to-floor Push Ups, 31 Lunge Jumps, 17 Burpees, and 67 Star Jumps.

[Muir]

Jan 2: Plank test

Hold a plank for as long as you can. Make sure you record it, so you can see how much you improve each time.

 

Time: 2 minutes 6 seconds.

[NeuroPunkNonsense]

Following along again!

[jonfirestar]

following along to see you rock the new challenge! 

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Following.

[Maggie-Miau]

Heyoo, Muir! Following and cheering for you!

[Muir]

Thanks everyone! Nice to see you all again.

 

@jonfirestar, your current challenge link in your sig links to this thread. Don't think that's what you meant to do, though I do appreciate the free publicity hehe  

[jonfirestar]

3 minutes ago, Muir said:

Thanks everyone! Nice to see you all again.

 

@jonfirestar, your current challenge link in your sig links to this thread. Don't think that's what you meant to do, though I do appreciate the free publicity hehe  

Thanks for letting me know. I don't know how I managed that  

[DJtrippyT]

following! you'll do great.

[Yasha92]

Following~

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Muir]

13 hours ago, jonfirestar said:

Thanks for letting me know. I don't know how I managed that  

 

Computers can do weird things when we're not watching them lol

 

6 hours ago, DJtrippyT said:

following! you'll do great.

 

Thank you!

 

3 hours ago, Yasha92 said:

Following~

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Thanks, Yasha! Nice to have you again.

[deftona]

Following along! 

[Muir]

So last night I signed up to The Rising, which is NF's new thing. Early days yet, so I can't really say if I'm going to like it or not, but it does seem rather fun. (The Sorting Hat put me in Havik, for any who are curious)

 

Jan 3: Short and sweet

Complete three rounds of:
1. 10 x squats
2. 10 x push ups
3. Do a 20 second plank hold
4. 20 x high knees
5. Five x burpees

 

I started today's fitness with a 10 minute NF Yoga video (Shoulder Mobility) as my left shoulder has been twinging all morning. The only thing I can think of is that I slept on it wrong because it was totally fine last night when I went to bed.

 

The 3 rounds went totally fine. I pushed each one out as fast as I could while listening to various System of a Down songs (one song per round) and took a ~60 second rest between each round.

 

[Charlie_Quinn]

Following! Good luck with Rising Heroes!

[Muir]

24 minutes ago, Charlie_Quinn said:

Following! Good luck with Rising Heroes!

 

Yay! And thanks.

 

------------------------

 

I watched the first episode of ShadowHunters season 2 and sewed 6 granny squares together. Another 2 squares will give me a full row.

[Elastigirl]

I love the ramp up idea for your challenge!

[shaar]

Ohai!!!

 

I'm interested in Rising Heroes!  But not for that monthly price, blech. ><;;  Maybe I just want to know what house I'm sorted into?? *o*

 

Nice variety in that fitness challenge. You're gonna rock it!!

[Muir]

18 minutes ago, Elastigirl said:

I love the ramp up idea for your challenge!

 

I wish I could take credit for it, but all I did was google "New Year Challenge"

2 minutes ago, shaar said:

Ohai!!!

 

I'm interested in Rising Heroes!  But not for that monthly price, blech. ><;;  Maybe I just want to know what house I'm sorted into?? *o*

 

Nice variety in that fitness challenge. You're gonna rock it!!

 

The price nearly had me turning away from it, but then I thought that if I had a gym membership, I would be paying about that per month anyway (and would probably only go a couple times per week), so why not pay for something I'm going to look at every day instead?

[Shello]

Following again!  I like the fitness challenge you've selected.  and 17 burpees in 60 seconds is great! 

[Wild Wolf]

Subbing for some hardcore Muir action! You know how to challenge yourself sir and I like that

 

Wolf

[iatetheyeti]

Hey hey! Following along

 

[Muir]

11 hours ago, LadyShello said:

Following again!  I like the fitness challenge you've selected.  and 17 burpees in 60 seconds is great! 

 

Thank you! I never know how many reps of an exercise is considered good, so I always aim to just beat my previous record. I figure when I get up to doing one rep per second, then I can say I've reached Master level hehe.

11 hours ago, Wild Wolf said:

Subbing for some hardcore Muir action! You know how to challenge yourself sir and I like that

 

Wolf

 

If I make it too easy, I'll get bored. Then I'll go away and we don't want that. Or do we? jk

11 hours ago, iatetheyeti said:

Hey hey! Following along

 

 

Hello!

[Muir]

Greetings! A few fun facts about today:

• In 2004, Spirit (a Mars rover) landed successfully on Mars.
• James Bond was born in 1900. No, not THAT Bond. This Bond was not a spy for MI5, but was an American ornithologist and zoologist whose name was borrowed for the fictional character. I had you going there for a minute though, right?

Last night I went with a friend to a Circuit Training class. It nearly killed me after doing nothing but push ups and pull ups during December, but I persevered and felt much better for going. Tonight we're going to Muay Thai kickboxing class. Should be fun.

 

Jan 4: Cardio

Aim to get in 30 minutes of cardio (i.e. run, fast walk, swim, kayak).

 

I think that Muay Thai will complete today's challenge, but just to make sure, I'm also going to walk around Armley town centre today. I'll aim to get 2 miles in.

 

[Muir]

So I got my 2 miles of walking in today. And I also bought all of the things. The charity café that I like to go to in Armley sells an ever changing variety of shelf food at a steep discount from what you'd get in the supermarkets. Today I got some miso ramen cups (3), some microwave rice (2), and some caramel and honey spreads (2) (as a treat for my pudding one night or on a variance day) from there. Total cost: £2.80. I also picked up a bunch of fruit and nut packs for snacks, some toothbrushes, hair lightener and hair dye (today I lightened my hair; tomorrow it's going to be "cosmic blue"), cleaning supplies, and a ton of Xmas themed shower gel (25p each).

 

I've eaten my supper already (2 hours early) so that I don't get nauseous during class tonight. I'll have a protein smoothie when I get home if I'm hungry. And yes, I'll take a picture of my blue hair when it's done lol