Jarric

What's up dude? Was this morning any better?

I was definitely nervous the first time I went to the gym; I put it off for over a month after starting the membership! For me, I had one trainer session and got him to put a routine together for me. Then when I go in I've got a plan of attack. I know what I'm doing so it doesn't matter what anyone else is doing, I can just zone them out.

Wow, 10k before work's a hell of a way to start the day; don't think I'd survive 10k at any time! Diet wise, a couple of basic bits I found that helped me: -Chocolate - buy expensive chocolate and ration it. You'll like it more for having quality chocolate rather than the cheap stuff, and you'll want to make a bar last due to the cost as well as your waistline. Some studies also show that dark chocolate in moderation can suppress your appetite, although I don't think there's enough evidence yet to say that that's conclusive. -Learn to cook (if you can't already) and eat more home cooked meals. Helps to know what goes into your meal (and if you ever decide to go down the route of calorie tracking it makes it much easier). -Read the recommended portion sizes on anything packaged you eat (including chocolate), it's often amazing how small the recommended amount is compared to what you would pour out for yourself. -Cut out (or cut down) liquid calories. A couple of pints of orange juice is essential a meal (and the same goes for a couple of pints of beer).

So just over a year ago I set out to lose weight. At the time (and without me noticing) I had got up to 12 stone 10 (178lbs). I lost enough weight to get into a normal BMI zone and started worrying more about fitness than weight. But I got on the scales this morning and they came in at 10 stone 8 (148lbs)! Don't know when I last weighed so little, but I'm guessing at least 4-6 years.

Update at the half way point: Staying in the Gym Went Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday, so still on this. After really struggling with it during the week Sunday was much easier, so feeling good about that. Gonna try and add some weight to something by the end of this week. Trying Yoga Managed my three times by doing it after each time I got back to the gym. Need to make more of an effort to do it on non-gym days as well. Caffeine Cut-Back Still going. Had a great swim this morning (with a couple of new PRs!) so hopefully that will inspire me to keep getting up in the mornings. Parle en français Still going well, putting a bit of additional time into it as well so all good.

You will always have some slips; just remember that you can always rectify them. How did you finish yesterday in the end? Also, congrats on the 6lbs!

Solid challenges, and good on you for getting up the courage to start posting. Will be following along. If you're looking for bodyweight/gymnastic/parkour type stuff the NF Green Arrow workout looks cool: http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2015/11/02/can-you-complete-the-green-arrow-workout-save-star-city/. Not tried it myself yet, although probably going to go for it in a couple of months when the weather improves and I can get outside for it.

Sounds like you made really great progress last year, even after a bit of a slip back, and well done for sticking with it and pushing forward. Alcohol is my biggest diet issue too, I was having a couple every day when I got home from work and then going out for a lot more at the weekend. I dealt with it by stopping having alcohol in the house altogether, because I know if it's there I'll drink it instead of anything else. I still go out and drink 3 nights most weeks, but knowing that I have at least 4 dry days each week does help and did bring my weight down.

Great goals, best of luck with them all (and with the pregnancy in general)! Will be following.

No I do need to learn flip turns at some point, definitely a good thought; will give them a go. A bit worried about getting in people's way with butterfly, though I should do it really to round off the full four. That's excellent, thank you! I'll go through these and put together some kind of routine for myself. Also any video links you do have would be great.

Mid week update: Staying in the Gym Went Tuesday, going again tonight so that will clear this week. Planning to go again at the weekend as well. Trying Yoga Only once this week so far, need to remember to keep doing it. Caffeine Cut-Back Still on this. Woke up too late to go swimming yesterday and today though, so it hasn't helped with that (yet). Parle en français Still going on this (though I forgot to do it at home and ended up doing it in the pub last night...). May have to up the goal for next month as at the moment I'm just going back over things which I learnt a while ago.

So I swim a couple of times a week at the moment before work, and I am a proficient swimmer (though not that fast). I was wondering if anyone can suggest any drills or tips to improve my technique, or whether I can improve technique without getting a trainer to actually watch my current form? As a guide, a typical swim session for me looks roughly like this at the moment: 400m Breaststroke warm-up Stretch ~£1k Front Crawl With any leftover time Crawl sprint/Breaststroke set/Backstroke (though rarely; I don't really like not seeing where I'm going). Any and all advice appreciated. Cheers!

Good on you, 155 push ups is a great start! The weight training sounds like it will definitely help you too. Keep at it, and beware the peanut butter ninja!

Interesting article. I think I'm probably "The Absent Minded Professor", with maybe some of "The Deadliner" thrown in for good measure. May have to make timekeeping a target for my next challenge. Well done on the snow run, very brave!

Congratulations on the weight loss and the successful first week! Good quote to follow for the month as well so keep on keeping on.

Yeah, similar issue. I completed two 5XP goals, and was only showing 5 XP total. Messed around un-checking and re-checking them all, and now I have 15XP! Still can't work out how the make it show the correct amount though.

Best of luck to you, I'll be following. Though given you're already up to 11 miles I'm sure you're going to smash it!

Love this topic (what I understand of it!); was good at maths in college, but then never went on to uni so I'm a bit rusty. Gonna follow along for more. Here's one I like: Imagine you have a piece of string wrapped tightly around the earth (it's a long piece of string!). Now imagine you want to lift that string off the ground by 1m all the way round. You'd need a lot of extra string for that, right? After all, the earth's pretty big... Actually, you would only need about 6.3m of extra string for the whole planet. The length of the original piece of string is 2*pi*r, where r is the radius of the earth in meters. So if we lift the string 1m off the ground the radius from the center of the earth to the string = r+1, therefore the new string length is 2*pi*(r+1) =2*pi*r +2*pi*1 minus the original length of 2*pi*r and the extra string needed is 2*pi~6.3

Yeah, that's a good idea actually. Birthday's next month so may well get the family to chip in for it. Will probably go for the Charge, it's a bit more expensive than the Flex but by the time I've spent £70 odd I might as well add another £20-£30.

That's cool, well I hope I find I enjoy it as much as you do. As far as I know you can only update the progress bars manually. You can either click on the button to the left of the twitter button, and type in the colour you want and the % complete, or you can go straight for the code. This is the code for my current ones: Stay in the Gym [progress='#000000']25[/progress]Trying Yoga [progress='#333333']25[/progress]Caffeine Cut-Back [progress='#666666']19[/progress]Parle en français [progress='#999999']21[/progress]The numbers in the brackets are the colours I wanted in hex, but you can just put in 'red', 'blue', 'grey' etc. if you prefer. The number between the two brackets is the % complete. Hope that helps!

Wore my Power Rangers t-shirt to the gym yesterday, so there's that... Also, sometimes wear one with this on it:

Heya, looks like you've got some great goals; will be following along. I know what you mean about being late to everything too; if you find a trick to beat that teach me how!

Update time; so far so good I think! Staying in the Gym Went Monday, Thursday and Sunday, so success there. Also managed to get through all my sets of inverted rows on Sunday, which i struggle with, so happy with that. Trying Yoga Made it so far - tried it out Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. Also looking into booking a proper class towards the end of the month. Caffeine Cut-Back No problems so far. Will have to wait and see whether it helps me wake up for swimming each morning as the month wears on. Parle en français Had a bit of a blip on Friday; didn't get round to doing it until I got back from the pub at near enough midnight, so Duolingo broker my streak and put the points over to the following day. Still, have otherwise been up to date so I'll let myself off.

Thanks for the support. I have the Fitbit app at the moment, but just step tracking on my phone. Seriously considering treating myself to a wristband though. Are they worth it? Which one have you got?

Hey, looks like you're making a good start to the challenge; will be following along! I've got French Duolingo on my challenge this month too, so if you need any help send me a message (though I'm by no means an expert in it!).