Greetings Fellow Rebels!

[imadog]

Hello everyone!

 

I'm new to this forum, but certainly not to Nerd Fitness or fitness in general. The upcoming challenge will be my first.

 

I've always been in decent shape. I was an endurance athlete during high school and took a few physical education classes for fun during college. Granted, I was/am what you might call "skinny fat". My eating isn't exactly aligned with my exercise for optimum performance, and after my runs, it wasn't unusual for me to come home and chow down on ice cream or baked goods. And oh the pasta...because endurance athletes need to "carb load", right?

 

All the running finally caught up to me two years ago when I was training for a marathon and got plantar faciitis in my foot. I already have two painful (but bareable) injuries in both of my knees and ended up with serious arthritis (I wore knee braces for two years during high school but STILL RAN! Why didn't anyone tell me not to keep running on an injury?! I ran a half marathon this way!).

 

Anyway, over the last few years, because I was unable to exercise in the way that I knew how (and because I love to cook and bake and I work at starbucks and am overloaded with sugary caffeinated drinks and surrounded by pastries at all hours of my work day), I started to put on some weight. I gained about 20 lbs and finally qualified as "overweight" on the BMI scale when I knew something had to change. So in February, I went 100% paleo (from 5 years on a vegetarian/vegan diet) with a personal 8 week challenge. I changed my exercise from long distance running to bodyweight exercises, jumproping, and sprinting, exercising 6 days per week in rotation. And my god, it worked. I lost 15 pounds and looked and felt great. (I also have an incredible number of food allergies and intolerances and paleo made me realize how crappy I was used to feeling on a soy and dairy centric diet -- both of which I have major allergies to!)

 

I was on the road to success when summer vacation time hit and threw me completely off track. Also, I've developed a major weakness for ice cream in the past couple of months, which is mildly embarrassing, but it's almost 100 degrees here every day during summer, and the air conditioning in my workplace and home aren't exactly great. Traveling and the heat have prevented me from keeping a consistent exercise schedule (though I know this is just a lame excuse), and wanting to "treat myself" and eat exciting foods that I can't get back home while on vacation have catapulted me off the paleo wagon. (I also haven't wanted to inconvenience my hosts with worrying about my new weird "diet"...again, lame excuses).

 

I've gained a little bit of weight in the past month. It's not something I'm too concerned about, but also not something that I want to see continue after I worked so freakin' hard for those first 8 weeks!

 

So now I'm looking to have a form of accountability to get me back on track and keep me there (making promises to myself is obviously not working anymore, and I've been struggling back and forth between behaving myself and treating myself in the last couple of weeks).

 

So I'm glad to be here and excited to start this new challenge! I look forward to making some friends and encouraging other people to level up their lives and be the best versions of themselves that they can be!

[Laureleye]

Take it slow and easy building your knees back up.  I can tell you from personal experience it doesn't get easier to build them up as you age.  Good luck on your goals.