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Tag: goals
MegsFitness on Nerd Fitness – Battle Logs!
I’ve blogged in the past about how much happier and more content I feel when I am following the core strengths of health and wellness – including eating well, sleeping well, exercising, and making time for personal goals. So, it stands to reason that now, more than ever, I need to get back into the patterns of healthy eating, getting enough (and higher quality) rest, exercising, and making time for personal goals.
This blog has become more of a personal journal for me, which will definitely incorporate health and wellness, but it’s always been about more than that. For me, it’s been about recognizing the fact that my journey — whether it’s to weight loss, muscle gain, social changes, or family life — is going to be completely different from someone else’s journey, even if we share many of the same characteristics. To that end, I still have every intention of maintaining this blog and getting back into writing about things that are fun, interesting, or relative to my personal narrative.
My day-to-day fitness narrative is going to be captured at Nerd Fitness. It’s a community of fitness-minded individuals and I really feel like that’s the sort of encouragement I could use at the moment. What that means for the MegsFitness blog is that I’ll be cross-posting my weekly summaries here, so that at least part of this journal can resonate with the “-Fitness” part of the name 😀
I’m ready to get back to good. I’m ready to lose weight, gain muscle, find my confidence, and conquer the world. If you’re interested in joining The Rebellion, my “battle log” is found here: http://rebellion.nerdfitness.com/index.php?/topic/52946-amis-last-first-post/
[Begin Crosspost]:
Name: Aminarra, aka “MegsFitness”
Occupation: Corporate Fleet Management Resolution
Previous Fitness Experience: 2 years on SparkPeople, 3 years with Weight Loss Warriors, 3 attempts at Weight Watchers, 1 attempt at Herbalife; 4 years high school strength training, 1 obstacle 5k, 10+ regular 5k Races, greatest weight loss 42lbs.
Current Level of Fitness: Sedentary. It’s been 2 years since I’ve worked out consistently due to a severe back injury after the Warrior Dash.
“End Game” Goal: Working out 4+x/week, Settling at a healthy weight, ideally ~180, but more importantly having functional strength and physical health.
Short-term Goal: Begin working out 1-3x/week, at a beginner level to become re-acclimated to the fitness world. Begin reintegrating Paleo Lifestyle into eating plan
Plan of Action: Use Nerd Fitness to launch new fitness goals; integrate fitness guild with gamer guild for inspiration. Generate weekly goals in the areas of nutrition, exercise, and personal. Update status on goals at least weekly.
Outside of NF:
https://megsfitness.wordpress.com/
http://www.vexxgaming.com/
Cruisin’ through Christmas season
We sent Christmas cards out this year. We ordered them from snapfish send the little proof card had a mini version of our Christmas cases on it. It’s about 1″x1/2″ … The size makes it totally cute.
It’s hard to believe how close we are to the new year. I feel like I’m getting a head start on my new years resolutions. We joined a gym, we do iaido, we’re operating on a balanced budget… Life is good.
Photo Re-cap :) Enjoy!
It’s too cold outside…. so I stayed inside and played GW2:
It’s a bad-back day.
Checking in on my K.I.S.S. Goals, as you already know, I’ve kind of slacked off on the exercise front. Packing meals has been going well, though. Today–not so much because we never went grocery shopping. I *did* plan out meals and snacks for the entire week, though. I have every intention of joining the fitness center (didn’t do that, either), so I planned out breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, snack, dinner. If you’re wondering why there are two snacks in the afternoon, it’s because I planned everything to be pretty light/even. Lunch, for example, is going to be an open-faced sandwich with an apple. That’s only about 200 calories and so two snacks spaced further apart will be required to get me the 8 hrs from lunch until dinner. The third goal, to be better at my job, has been going well. I took more training last week and I’m going strong in Toastmasters. The speech I’m going to present next week is about keeping it simple and having a meal plan.
My impromptu goal of eating no chocolate has been going alright. Last week was *really* difficult and I found myself thinking about chocolate quite frequently. I tallied it up and determined that I have 5 sources of free chocolate, 2 sources of obnoxiously cheap chocolate, and 3 sources of paid chocolate at work–without seeking it out. Add that to the multitude of places I see it throughout the day and it’s just asking for trouble. I did *really* well, though, in that I resisted temptation the whole week through. Last night, I had a small (dark) chocolate bar because I was getting to the point where if I did not make a conscious decision to have just a little bit, then I was going to backfire and binge on a whole lot. Today, I feel great and I’m ready to go another week without.
I met one of my goals that I set last week, and that’s to set pre-requisites for gaming. I made a post in my guild’s forums and basically asked for support in meeting my goals, which are as follows:
I have to get back into the routine of exercising daily and taking bio breaks every hour to two hours (max). I could do this behind the scenes but I wanted to throw it out there so that you know ahead of time and can give me a bit of a break, or maybe set similar goals. If we’re running WvWvW or back to back dungeons, maybe we could all take a fiver and save ourselves some of the back aches.
Personal Pre-requisites for gaming:
– 30 minutes exercise
– 10 minutes stretching
– pets taken care of (clean water, full food, ’empty’ litter box, snuggles for them)
Precautions during gaming:
– bio breaks every hour to two hours (max)
– curfew (weeknights) 10:30pm CST
If anyone else has anything similar that they’re doing, I’d like to hear it. Thanks for ‘listening’ such that it is.
Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail
The age old adage of ‘fail to plan, plan to fail’ has been used as the mantra for weight management (loss/gain/maintenance) for as long as I’ve been trying to manage my weight. What I have noticed, however, is that the more I plan, the more I fail. How terrible is that? Maybe I just rebel against authority, even if it’s my own.
Take, for example, the K.I.S.S. blog entry wherein I wrote about these easy workouts that I could and would do every single day. Ever since that entry–I haven’t worked out once.
Yes, the workouts are taped RIGHT TO THE FRONT DOOR. They are literally in my face whenever I go to leave the apartment and whenever I pass into the kitchen, and yet, I’ve turned a blind eye and ignored them completely.
The fitdecks and resistance bands, too, are gathering dust.
This is a pattern that I have noted more than once about myself. I start off with the best of intentions and I plan and plan and plan… but that’s as far as my motivation gets me. I finish up with the last detail of the diabolical weight loss scheme and my motivation goes (with a thick Minnesota accent) “Oof-da! That there is enough work–you betcha!” and my motivation just clocks out.
My latest endeavor is to participate in this 8 week book-learning course (through work, of course) that details healthy eating habits for all (not just people looking to lose weight, but really the right way to eat as a regular ol’ human being). I like to think I know it all, but the pre-test showed that I’ve got a lot to learn. I’m hoping that the structure of that class will help to keep my mind on fitness and that having a variety of OPTIONS available to be active and healthy will help me to succeed.
One of the healthy-minded girls that I interact with on Facebook posted a pin from pinterest that showed using post-it notes to set daily goals with daily rewards, so I decided to give it a whirl:
I liked the idea so much, actually, that I put the template in a frame with the post-it notes on top. In case it’s too difficult to read, the first goal is to “Clean up/off desk at work: wall, surface, files.” The reward for completing this task is “new batteries for my butterfly”
The second goal is to “Set limits for gaming: pre-requisites, curfew.” The reward for this task is a new set of batteries for my kitchen scale (CR2032).
The last goal is to “Check out/join community center.” Because of the area that I’m in, and the agreements that the localities have with each other, I can actually join any of three community centers in my area for about $30/month. The one I was looking at last night would let both Jeff and I join for $50/month for both of us. They have access to a 24 yard (I think?) lap pool, sauna, whirlpool, tennis courts, cardio machines, weight machines, free weights, and group classes including aqua zumba–whaaat?? I really want to check that out this weekend. The reward for checking out the community center is a walk outside with Jeff. D’awwe 🙂 He’s already agreed to be a part of my reward system hehe.
If you fail to plan, you plan to fail
Some days, I hate that quote because it is so completely negative and leaves no wiggle room for recovery. But most of the time it comes true.
This last weekend, I went to a big party with Rah-rah and it was a few days filled with chocolatey trail-mix, huge breakfasts, mini-doughnuts, cheese-curds, and alcohol. Even when we made it home, dinner was a pizza with soda. My body was practically SCREAMING for something healthy.
Last night, we decided to walk to the grocery store because I had reached my breaking point and I needed an apple. Stat. I also needed some fresh air too. When we got to the store, they didn’t have the awesome Honey Crisp apples as I was expecting, but I found a couple good Fuji apples that suited my needs nicely.
I don’t have a menu and we didn’t go grocery shopping for supplies. Rah-rah’s car is broken down, our room is a mess, we need to do laundry and work has been very busy after the long weekend. Given that, I’ll be hard-pressed to meet my goals for the week to have a healthy menu and get in some exercise… But, I’ve got a plan:
– On the way home tonight, I’ll pick up a new battery for Rah-rah’s car.
– Dinner tonight = Spaghetti Squash with Supreme Lean Ground Beef and Classico Tomato Basil Spaghetti Sauce. This will come together in under 20 minutes.
– Rah-rah and I will also tackle the pile-o-laundry that seemed to appear out of nowhere upon our return from vacation.
– While waiting for the laundry to finish, I will install the battery in Rah-rah’s car and hope that it fixes the problem. If not, we may have to make a few trips to the auto-parts store. If this wraps up quickly, maybe he and I can play some frisbee or ladder ball.
– Lastly, after switching the laundry from the washer to the dryer, I can sit down to work on the rest of the week’s menu.
This will all work, as long as I cancel the social plans that I had for this evening.
Ah, the joys of responsibility 🙂 I’ll be sure to take pictures and report back on how it goes. I hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend and that your Tuesday is shaping up nicely.
MegsFitness 