Newbie alert!

[Ems]

Greetings from Wales, UK!

 

I stumbled on to Nerd Fitness while doing a google search about body fat percentages and been hooked ever since. I've recently started working with a new personal trainer (who is awesome!) and educated me on body composition, so I was keen to check out more about body fat averages. Turns out this site is SO MUCH MORE than body fat! I am loving getting stuck in and ready to level up sir!

 

I'm a dance teacher by trade and have danced myself since the age of 4, mainly ballet and contemporary dance (known as modern in the US). You'd think this would guarantee a perfect body right? WRONG! Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of benefits - posture, flexibility, co-ordination, lower body strength etc, but dance by nature is very start-stop, and if you combine this with an excessive calorie intake high in carbohydrates the body is not all that it could be! (Disclaimer - this is a unique situation, I am by no means saying dance is not good exercise!). This was what started me on my journey to level up my life, since years of dance have given me a considerable amount of muscle, especially in my lower body and core, but its all covered by unnecessary fat! I am happy to report that after a few weeks of training, my body fat percentage has dropped from 32% to 30% (my goal is to get to 20% at least), while my muscle has remained and even increased.

 

Another of my goals is to increase my upper body strength, so I am loving the focus on strength training, and the Paleo diet advice. This carb-oholic is making the transition, and it's so much easier that I thought it would be! I'm not 100% Paleo yet, easing in, but the eggs, bacon, chicken and tons of vegetables have been cooking away! Feeling so much better for it.I have also started rowing as part of my training, with promising 100m sprint times (19.2 seconds is my fastest so far but I know I can get that down!). I am thinking of joining a local rowing club to see if I could be any good at it, so watch this space! I knew my long legs would come in handy - would have told my 11 year old self this when she was all insecure about being taller than all the boys in her year at school

 

So to sum up, goals are:

 

-Body fat percentage down to 20%

-Get wicked strong, with the goal of completing a pull up

-Get my 100m row sprints down to 17 seconds

 

This site has already given me so much knowledge and enjoyment, thank you Steve and the team! Looking forward to taking the next step and interacting with all you lovely Nerd fitness peeps!

 

-Emily

[Laureleye]

Hi there Ems.  Hope you're going to dive into the challenge that will be opening up in about a week.  You'll need to join a guild and plan out some SMART goals, but I think you're well on your way. 

[Ems]

Hey Laureleye,

 

I am indeed, just signed up, going to go for the Adventurers for my first one, not sure yet where my fitness journey is going to go, but excited! Thank you I see that this is your 4th challenge? Any advice for a newbie?

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Steve has a blog post called do-a-pull-up (Searching for that should pull it up) that can give you some good advice on how to build up to a pull up.

[Ems]

Hey, great, I'll check it out, thank you