Achievement Unlocked: Below 280 lbs!

Starting Weight (SW): 299 lbs
Week 1 Weight Loss (WL):  7 lbs
Week 2 Weight Loss (WL):  10.4 lbs 
Week 3 Weight Loss (WL):  +4 lbs 
Week 4 Weight Loss (WL):  7.6 lbs
Total Weight Loss (TWL): 21 lbs

One of my milestone goals, self-imposed, was to lose 20 lbs. If I could do that I was confident I could lose 20 more, but I exceeded that. Even if it’s just one pound…it’s one pound I never want back on my body.

In my last post, Human Nature, I talked about the challenges of having a dip or plateau in your weight loss. I ended it with:

“That just means, provided you’re making healthy choices, your body is adjusting to the new direction. In the immortal words of Douglas Adams… DON’T PANIC!”

I am here to tell you that not panicking…was exactly the right thing to do.  I saw myself last week falling into that same Fibonacci spiral pattern of “oh no’s” over 4lbs.

For you math geeks, the Fibonacci spiral is a design is based on the Fibonacci sequence are the numbers in the following integer sequence. By definition, the first two numbers in the Fibonacci sequence are 0 and 1, and each subsequent number is the sum of the previous two.

There’s several sequences in between the second one and the last, but you get the idea. Four Fraking Pounds caused me to lose sight that I had lost seventeen. Your mind will play tricks on you. Don’t let it.

How does this relate to weight loss?

The problems in your brain begins with this one thought and then another. Those two thoughts join up and create a bigger problem. That problem adds the one before it and goes on. If you allow it to…it will detail you from your goal and all the work you put in.
Here’s the example that I used in the last post.

“Maybe I should juice again.”
“Maybe if I only ate one time a day.”
“Maybe I was never meant to do this to begin with.”

So what did I do to have such a big turn around?

I didn’t give into the spiral of worry, fear, or self-defeat. I kept moving forward with my plan. Eating healthy with a paleo like diet, making sure I keep in my walks, and, while I’ve failed the 30 day ab/arm challenge, I am finding ways to increase my movement from simply taking laps around a hotel while walking around a convention to asking “What can I do to help” when I see people needing help moving things. There’s always a chance to increase your movement even if you can’t get to a gym. Trust me, I’m doing a convention every weekend through October and if I can do it you can.

I wanted to leave you with one last thing that will help you. I have also learned a very valuable lesson that you’ve been told from day one, but sounds cliché as hell. Breakfast is the most important part of your day. The days I eat breakfast my I saw some decrease in my numbers the next day, but, most importantly, my energy and metabolism kicked way up.

If I can do keep up with it…you can do this too!

Human Nature

Starting Weight (SW): 299 lbs
Week 1 Weight Loss (WL):  7 lbs
Week 2 Weight Loss (WL):  10.4 lbs 
Week 3 Weight Loss (WL):  +4 lbs
Total Weight Loss (TWL): 13.4 lbs

Sorry for getting this in late. It’s been a challenging morning. Where week two was filled with pride and hope…this week ended feeling like a really good cliffhanger episode of Doctor Who. You know…the one’s where you have to wait six months to see what’s coming next?

Wednesday ended the Juice fast and I was uber conscious not to go full bore eating again. There are at least two options when transitioning after a fast. The first is to slowly incorporate solid food back into your diet. That’s what I did. I started with one meal a day for the first three days and then work your way up to 2-3 meals over the course of a week.

The other option is after you stop juicing all together that you eat only fresh fruits and vegetables for the week after you juice. This gives your body time to adjust and you are eating the same thing you are juicing which means your body isn’t going into shock and can adjust. This is the way I should have gone.

The weight gain of 4 lbs may not seem like much, but when it’s a pound a day and you’re just watching it climb it begins to create fear based illogical reasoning in your head.

“Maybe I should juice again.”
“Maybe if I only ate one time a day.”

And the worst…. “Maybe I was never meant to do this to begin with.”

The problem is, Dear Reader, it’s all bullshit.

You’re going to have a natural bit of weight gain after a juice fast. You just can’t obsess about it…like I was until I started this post.

Seeing the words go onto the post I realized three things that were always there, but my mind did not see.

1) I am eating and living healthier than I have in a long, long time.

2) I am learning every day what will make me healthier in the long run.

And the most important…

3) I have a great support system of people who want to see me succeed. Even to remind me when I’m being neurotic about a few pounds. Adding on those few pounds…I’m still at one of the lowest weights I have been in years.

I’ll leave you with this. Shit is going to happen. Likely the number on the scale will go up a little or stay the same for a few days. That just means, provided you’re making healthy choices, your body is adjusting to the new direction. In the immortal words of Douglas Adams… DON’T PANIC!

Meet Our New Friday Guest Blogger: Simone

Greetings from London, Slayers! Anne here! I just wanted to drop a line quickly and let you all know I'll be on a brief hiatus until after the 30th. I'm on vacation and while I WANT to write, I also know I should be focusing on enjoying this once in a life time chance to explore instead of worrying about when I'll be able to get wifi access again and post my blog. Please don't think I love you all any less! I am very excited to post when I can over the next few weeks and give you the "skinny" on my exercise adventures in England! I'll definitely be taking a run around Chelsea tomorrow morning so that should be exciting! I'm also going to the Harry Potter Studio tour in the afternoon and I am pretty much DYING of excitment already. 

BUT, my dears! You shan't be without entertainment. You'll still have posts from Michael on Mondays and he is doing an AMAZING job with his juice fast. The guy is nearly down 20 lbs since he started blogging here and his progress is mindblowing. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!

I'd also like to use today's post to introduce you to Simone, our new guest blogger for Fridays! She's a Kung-Fu and Crossfit badass with the desire to get stronger. Her tale is so different from mine or Michael's and there is so much we can learn from each other! I could go on, but I'm going to let you hear about it from the horse's mouth!

Tell me a little bit about who you are and what you do.

My name is Simone, and like Anne and Michael, I’m a huge nerd, too. I’ve been reading voraciously since I was three years old, and I love good sci-fi and fantasy. I grew up without a gaming console (I know!) but dived in about two years ago with Assassin’s Creed and Skyrim, and I am currently loving my first taste of the Lara Croft world with Tomb Raider Reborn. The theme here is that for my entire life, I’ve loved adventuring from the safety of my home – but I’ve always been too afraid to get out there and try to be an adventurer myself. I don’t even have an arrow to the knee as an excuse!

When did you decide you needed to make a change in your health and fitness level and was there a specific moment where it clicked and you actually committed to doing it? 

I actually have a different story than many, and I’m a little guilty about it: I’m not on a weightloss journey, exactly. I’m a healthy weight. But for the majority of my life thus far, I have never been athletic, never strong; never particularly physically capable at, well, anything. I picked dandelions on the soccer field and spitefully walked my entire mile in gym class (still managing to turn bright red from the effort).

Because I’m in a healthy weight range, I’ve always felt like I should be perfectly happy with my body – like it was selfish of me to envy the strength and confidence of fit people when my own body was “fine.” My lack of talent at sports as a kid had convinced me that I just wasn’t cut out for physical activity. Oh well, right?

I’m the kind of person who overanalyzes and overthinks everything, so I haven’t really had a “moment” yet because I still don’t fully believe in myself. But I’ve had some major turning points in my life, such as joining a kung fu studio at 16, finding Nerd Fitness a year ago and learning about paleo and healthy habits, and starting CrossFit. I’m still too afraid to admit to myself that I might actually be able to be strong and capable – so for now I’m letting my progress kind of sneak up on me.

If you gave up or didn't make it a priority in the past, why do you think that was?

Like many people, I’m afraid of failing. I get bursts of enthusiasm where I vow to do X workout and eat Y food EVERY DAY, and then I burn out and let it slip away. I’m a pro at rationalizing all the “I can’t” excuses in the book! Keeping a positive and realistic attitude is definitely something I’ve been working on for a long time.

What are your goals and how do you plan to accomplish them? 

I have so many goals, they’ll have to be in a separate post. Things like deadlifting twice my body weight, running a mile in under 8:30, and throwing a punch that would actually be effective are all on my long, long list. In short, I’d like to be a leaner, stronger, and more confident version of my current self!

As a recent graduate, I’m transitioning to a new job and uncertain future right now, so life is chaotic. For now, I do CrossFit twice a week and I just started adding two nights of running with the “Zombies, Run!” app that Anne recommended. I also plan on adding some extra stretching and will be targeting a few of my other goals in the near future as my schedule settles down. I’ll keep you posted!

There are so many options when it comes to diet and fitness. Why are you choosing this particular path?

I’m terrible at working out on my own. I really love the camaraderie and community of my kung fu studio and among my friends in my garage – it helps me to push myself and keeps me coming back each day. Running is more of a struggle for me, but having exciting radio transmissions of zombies shambling along behind me is definitely helping!

Even though I can still hardly believe that I am, in fact, becoming an athletic person, my own experience in the past year has been so heartening overall that I’m beginning to consider pursuing health and fitness as a career somehow. There are still a lot of things that I’m struggling with, but my life has improved drastically even with small changes, and I want to show other people that if this introverted bookworm can pick 200lbs up off the ground, they can, too!

What made you want to guest post about your journey on PR?

I loved Anne’s story on Nerd Fitness. I’m pretty sure nerds and fitness are my favorite combination! I think it will help me to have an outlet to share my struggles and successes – and even more, I hope that it helps other people who may be facing the same doubts and experiences. We’re all in this together!

My First 20k Run

In my recent "Challenge Accepted" post, I decided to take on my very first 20km run in order to celebrate reaching my first 20k unique views on the blog. It was definitely an insane thing to try considering I've only run about half that distance without stopping before but I decided to take it on anyways. I got my dad to film the whole thing so I could share a bit of schadenfreude with you all in thanks for your continued readership and support of my journey.

All in all, I did pretty well. I went out of the gate a little fast in the beginning because we had mapped out the distance wrong and the course I was visualizing in my mind was incorrect so I did run out of gas a little earlier than I had meant to. I ended up alternating walking 2 minutes and running 5 from 6-10 miles, but in the end those last two miles really almost did me in. My body just wanted to stop walking. There was a moment where I was telling my feet to keep moving but they just came to a halt for a split second and I had lots of cramping in my back. I just tried to run when I could but I couldn't seem to get back into my groove. I did manage to finish under 3 hours and without dying (always a plus!), which was my major goal, so I was happy. I'd have to do some more training before attempting anything like that again! As far as injuries, I only really have a sore toe, but that didn't keep me from running two days after the 20k, so I'm hoping it will heal up soon!

There are some more very cool things on the horizon for the blog that I'm excited to share with you. I'll let you know all about the developments as soon as I can!

My Big Damn Hero Challenge

It's Monday April 15th and that means it's the beginning of a new Nerd Fitness 6 Week Challenge! After the success I had with the last one, I'm ready to attack a new set of goals head on and continue to level up my life! You have until Wednesday April 17th to create your goals and post them in the guild thread you want to participate in for the challenge, so I highly recommend biting the bullet and joining the rebellion if you're not already a part of it! 

Last challenge, I gave my challenge a Rainbow Dash theme because I was preparing cosplay as her for PAX East. This time, I'll be using the ladies from Joss Whedon's Firefly to inspire my goals! Note: All artwork by Megan Lara.

Starting Stats:

Hearthsinger the Wandering Bard

Level 2 Halfling Ranger

STR 4 | DEX 3 | STA 7 | CON 5 | WIS 6 | CHA 4

Starting Photos:

Starting Weight: 151.4 lbs.
Starting Measurements:

Bust: 36.25"
Waist: 36.5"
Hips: 42"
Thigh: 20.75"
Calves: 15.5"
Bicep: 12.25"

Fitness/Diet goals:

• "I need you up in the engine room figurin' out what caused this." ~Malcolm Reynolds 
• I'll use all the tech at my disposal to maximize the efficiency of my workouts and the effectiveness of my diet plan. 
• I'll log every meal I eat on Fitbit.
• I must meet my -1000 calorie deficit at least 6/7 days a week while still eating EVERYTHING I'm supposed to on my diet plan so I can stay on track with my weight loss. 
• No more starving myself to meet the deficit is allowed. I must consume at least 1100 calories every "day of rest." On active/working days, I must consume 1250-1350. 
• Reward: CON +4

• "You ever been with a warrior woman?" ~Wash
• Time to get more serious about my strength training with. Daily Yoga! 
• 20-30 minutes/day including vinyasa series and warrior dance to warm up the body, followed by focused work on the following three poses. 
• Hold crow for 10 seconds (right now I can just barely get both feet off the floor for a few seconds)
• Wheel for 10 seconds (I've gotten up into it one time, but mostly only make it to the top of my head)
• Hold shoulder stand for 10 minutes by the end of the challenge (right now my PR is four minutes). 
• Reward: STR +3, DEX +2

• "No power in the 'verse can stop me." ~River Tam
• I have graduated from the Zombies, Run 5K Training app so it's time to start doing 3 missions a week with the regular Zombies, Run app. 
• By the end of the challenge, I'd like to go from my 5k PR of: 33 min down to 30 min. 
• Reward: STA +3

Life Goal:

• "Should I start with the part where you're stranded in the middle of nowhere or the part where you have no clothes?" ~Inara Serra
• I'm running out of clothes that fit properly again and I don't have a lot of money, so it's time to get resourceful and list all my old designer clothes, shoes, and sundry items that no longer fit or are no longer wanted for sale on ebay. 
• They do not have to be sold by the end of the challenge, but all of the items have to be collected, organized, photographed, and listed by the end of six weeks. 
• I can use the proceeds to replenish my dwindling wardrobe! 
• Reward: CHA +3

So there you have it! In six weeks, I'll post a follow up on the blog to let you know how I did!

Zombies, Run 5k Trainer Review

Six weeks ago I embarked on a quest to become a distance runner. 

I didn't wake up at 250 lbs and say, "I'm going to run this weight off, hooray!" Hell no. I quit the cross country team two weeks into the first semester of my freshman year of high school. Growing up, running made me feel like I was going to die.

I never experienced runner's high, just runner's hell.

It wasn't until I lost some of the weight I'd been holding on to for years, realized I'd be out of town and away from the gym for several weeks during the summer, and started using the character I was preparing to cosplay as an inspiration for my workout routine that I finally decided to give running a real chance. I committed myself to at least eight weeks of running training with Couch to 5k. However, no sooner had I started my first week than someone brought Zombies, Run to my attention. It's an app that turns your boring, soul-sucking run into a post apocalyptic race for survival. That's right, fellow nerds! There's a fitness RPG for your phone that will knock your socks off and change the way you look at running forever, or at least that's what it did for me. You can collect resources and build up your base to resist attacks and of course, you can use all the statistics that the app tracks to see how you're doing as far as speed, distance, and much more. They have a website where you can log in and see detailed analysis of your run on a GPS map and accompanying timeline of the music that was playing and the descriptions of the part of the training program that you were on at the time. In this way, you can see how certain exercises affected you and how specific songs or locations may have influenced your run. When something matches fitness, entertainment, and geekdom this fantastically, I just can't resist.

As someone who couldn't run for any serious distances, I was really happy to see that they had a Couch to 5k equivalent. Zombies, Run 5k Training builds up your capacity for distance running while roping you into it's own engrossing story line that keeps you coming back for more in your quest to train as a "runner," one of Abel township's most valuable resources. In the world of Zombies, Run, runners function as lines of communication to the outside world, rescue mission operatives, and collectors for survival gear in the area. Rather than fight the zombies, your job is to move as quickly and quietly as you can so as not to attract undue attention, but more often then not, you do end up outrunning your fair share of hordes while you're out on missions. There's nothing like the fear of having your brains ripped out of your head and eaten by hungry zombies to keep you running at a good clip even when you feel like you want to stop pushing yourself. 

With Zombies, Run 5k Training, you have three missions to complete per week for eight weeks that get you in good enough shape to complete a 5k without stopping to walk. You can repeat missions if you're not ready to move on and all the distance running is labeled as "freeform" (run or walk if you need to).

Here are the pros. The story keeps me invested in my training even when I don't feel like I want to work out. The voice acting is surprisingly great! There is a colorful cast of characters and I always look forward to the times when I get to learn more about them. There's a great mix of drama, comedy, and color commentary on the exercises you're being asked to do during drills (high knees, heel lifts, skipping, etc.). I love inhabiting the character of Runner 5. Going on rescue and resource missions makes me feel like a badass. You can create a workout playlist and use it through the app so that the mission directions and storyline play on top of it throughout your workout. You can use GPS or the accelerometer to track your stats which means if you have bad weather or you prefer to use a treadmill on a regular basis, you have that option available to you. I love being able to assess my improvement or any shortcomings by looking at my run stats on the website. Every week when a new mission program comes up, I always think that it will be an insurmountable challenge, and yet every time I step up to the plate, I finish just fine- not easily, but I feel like my training has really paid off. However they put together the progression of the missions, I completely trust it because I've never felt the need to repeat a mission along the way and I've never stopped to walk during my "freeruns." You can also share your maps and your runs on Facebook and Twitter, which can be fun as well if you're into that sort of thing. The bottom line is that this app makes me look forward to doing something I've always hated. 

Here are the cons. The app does glitch out sometimes. The music player has trouble with large playlists and will sometimes tell you it can't use certain tracks. I usually select "run anyway" and it still has plenty of songs to choose from, but it is a drag that the bug hasn't been fixed despite complaints on their website and in iTunes reviews. Personally, I've used the accelerometer feature over the GPS twice on the treadmill to avoid dangerous running conditions due to inclement weather. The first time it completely bugged out my workout playlist and no music would play. I fixed it by selecting a different playlist but every few minutes it would stop playing any music at all and I'd have stop the mission and restart it. No one wants to be constantly fiddling with their phone and pulling it in and out of their pocket while they're running. It's distracting and very annoying. I got through it, but the statistics were pretty much useless when that happened because my mission got recorded in 4-5 separate pieces. At the very least it didn't make me start the whole mission over every time or I would have rage quit. If running on a treadmill is your thing, I have to say it isn't the best for this particular training app because there are several missions that ask you to stop and do heel lifts, squats, or stretches, causing you to constantly pause your machine. It's also frustrating to constantly be changing the speed on the treadmill to match the commands that the trainer is giving you. Maybe this wouldn't be an issue with the regular Zombies, Run app, but I'm not sure as I haven't had a chance to dig into that yet. The only other bug I've seen is that sometimes it doesn't immediately record my training session statistics on the website. This has happened twice over the six weeks I've used it and the stats usually show up when I complete the following mission. It's not like they're lost or I'm aren't permitted to continue to the next level, but they just don't show up for whatever reason which is a drag. 

Honestly, despite the bugs I mentioned, this is one of the best fitness apps I've ever used. It's taken me from zero to near hero in just six weeks and I can't wait to sink my teeth into the regular Zombies, Run app when I'm done. It's well worth the little bit of money it takes to purchase it and the fun you'll have becoming "Runner 5" will make you wonder why you didn't start running sooner.