Tag Archives: diet

Year-Long Challenge Begins!

Posted on December 1, 2011 by Melissa

A couple of posts ago, I asked for ideas for a year-long challenge. In November I challenged myself to get up at 5am every morning for dedicated writing time on my novel. It went so well that I wanted a bigger challenge — a year-long challenge! After mulling and discussing and negotiating, I came up with a plan.

The challenge runs from today, Dec. 1, 2011, to Dec. 1, 2012, and includes two main parts:

100% adherence to a Slow Carb/Primal Lifestyle diet
225 cardio minutes per week

The diet is no grains, no sugar, no potatoes or corn, no fruit, and no dairy 6 days per week. The seventh day is a planned cheat day. I was actually willing to try without cheat days, but my husband felt like this would make it easier for both of us.

The success of the eating portion depends on my having food I want to eat in the house. That means it depends really heavily on my husband, because he’s the cook. We discussed this today, and I think what we’re going to do is identify nine different meals that I like well enough to eat as leftovers, and then he will cook three per week, in rotation. That way, he knows ahead of time exactly what he needs to make, so he doesn’t have to stress about getting a menu from me.

The fitness portion of the challenge focuses on cardio because cardio is the difficult part for me. I’m built for power, and strength work comes easy to me. It’s not a challenge to make time for weights, but it is a challenge for me to do cardio consistently.

I will continue to do strength work and Pilates, but those aren’t officially part of the challenge. In fact, I have an appointment with a new trainer at the gym in Woodinville this evening. His name is Bernard, and he’s a power lifter. I will still be doing Crossfit with Jenny once a week — love that WAY too much to stop — but I’ll be doing my workout in Woodinville with Bernard rather than JR. I love JR, but B is a power lifter, and that’s what I’m built for. I want that workout to be solely about STRENGTH.

So today is Day 1. I did my 45 minutes on the treadmill (4th day this week!) before work this morning, and I’m tracking the things my naturopath wants me to track. Food will be my challenge — most specifically, coming off sugar. Working out with my trainer tonight will help me make it through today, I think, and today will probably be the hardest day.

Okay, world, this year is MINE!

Posted in Challenge | Tagged diet, fitness, year-long challenge | 8 Comments

Wanted: a year-long challenge

Posted on November 15, 2011 by Melissa

At the beginning of November, I challenged myself to get up at 5 every morning and work on my novel. That has gone so well that I want to challenge myself to a year-long goal. This one, however, I want to be fitness- or diet-related. The caveat is that meeting the challenge has to have a payoff commensurate with the effort — success is not its own reward, but thank you for playing — and my husband will have to agree to the payoff terms. The challenge will be all-or-nothing though, so he wouldn’t have to cough up the reward unless I am 100% successful.

So I want to hear your opinions and ideas. What challenge should I undertake? What reward should I ask for? Here are some challenge ideas I’ve thought of, in order of difficulty:

A year of working out, a minimum of 30 minutes a day, 6 days per week
A year following the Primal Lifestyle workout recommendations
A year following the Slow Carb diet
A year without sugar
A year without grains
A year following the Primal Lifestyle diet
A year following the Primal Lifestyle diet AND workout recommendations

The degree of difficulty from the top of the list to the bottom of the list is massively different, and it would require some pretty significant motivation for me to commit to something at the bottom of the list. In all honesty, I don’t think my husband can afford the challenges at the bottom of the list. (I’m not sure he wants to afford the ones at the top of the list either, for that matter.)

As far as rewards go, I’ve come up with two: money or a trip. Money would probably be used for a trip. My husband isn’t wild about the idea of a trip, because I don’t like leaving the dogs alone — ergo, he would get stuck at home while I was off doing something fun. I won’t lie and say that’s not a risk. It would depend entirely upon the trip. I don’t think he’d much enjoy a week at Bitterroot Ranch.

So I want and need your comments on this one. What challenge do you think I should undertake? What reward should I request?