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sylvanwitchHello, Friends!
I cannot believe I've been doing this annually since 2012, but the archive doesn't lie, and here we are for yet another round of the Fitness Fellowship.
What is it?
The Fitness Fellowship is a very casual, no-pressure, supportive group for people who are interested in setting and keeping fitness goals for 2019.
How does it work?
You create your goals according to your own life and needs. You should feel free to define "fitness" however you'd like (see my own goals below for ideas).
I'll post a weekly update and ask you to offer your progress in the comments, which are open to everyone who wants to comment, offer support and encouragement, etc.
You can participate as often or as infrequently as you'd like. I find that the weekly accountability is very helpful for motivating me to stick to my goals, but maybe you prefer a lower-pressure approach, which is perfectly fine as well.
Who can join?
Everyone is welcome. Feel free to pimp it out. For these posts, I'll be keeping it open access.
If you're interested in joining, please reply in the comments with your goal(s) (short-term and/or long-term), your plan for achieving said goal(s), and anything else you want us to know about your fitness quest. Feel free to comment on each others', as well! The more encouragement and knowledge we share with each other, the better off we'll be!
Some background: I was a vegetarian for something like 16 years before I became a vegan in 2016. I try to live a whole-foods, plants-based lifestyle, which means no added sugar, oil, salt, etc., as well as no processed foods. In short, the food should be as close to its original form as possible (but not raw--that's a different lifestyle plan). While I have been pretty good at sticking to the vegan part (no animal products of any kind), I've been, frankly, really bad at not eating processed foods and at avoiding sugar and oil.
So: I'm not "going on a diet." I'm resuming the clean-living plan I committed to in 2016. If you're interested in knowing more about it yourself, you can check out Dr. Michael Greger's How Not to Die and/or his website: nutritionfacts.org. PLEASE NOTE: I am not a food evangelist. Eat whatever you'd like; I'm not here to make you vegan. This is MY plan. It's not yours, and I don't expect it to be. :-)
As I mentioned in a post earlier this month, I'd like to get down to a weight that allows me to run again. Generally speaking, my knees and ankles prefer it if I'm under 200 pounds. I've also been experiencing acid reflux, which I expect I can reduce or eliminate with both a return to clean living and some reasonable weight loss.
My overall goal is to reduce my weight to below 200 pounds. I haven't weighed myself lately, but I think I'm around 218, so let's say I'd like to lose 20 pounds by the end of May 2019, which seems both a reasonable amount of time and means that I'll be able to start running as the weather gets better around here and as I approach my long summer break.
I intend to lose weight by eating clean, as detailed above, and by exercising at least four days a week (to begin with) for at least 20 minutes per day. Exercise, in my case, means using the recumbent stationary bike, hopping on the treadmill, doing a fitness vid, and/or walking outdoors, weather permitting, or indoors, if I can stand our local malls.
To help increase the likelihood of weight loss and increased strength and stamina, I will try to be good about getting 7 hours of sleep a night (my personal threshold) and about meditating at all, since I haven't done much of it for years.
I hope you'll consider joining me for this low-stress, personalized fitness challenge. No goal is too big or too small, no definition of fitness unwelcome. Here's to reaching our goals in 2019!
I cannot believe I've been doing this annually since 2012, but the archive doesn't lie, and here we are for yet another round of the Fitness Fellowship.
What is it?
The Fitness Fellowship is a very casual, no-pressure, supportive group for people who are interested in setting and keeping fitness goals for 2019.
How does it work?
You create your goals according to your own life and needs. You should feel free to define "fitness" however you'd like (see my own goals below for ideas).
I'll post a weekly update and ask you to offer your progress in the comments, which are open to everyone who wants to comment, offer support and encouragement, etc.
You can participate as often or as infrequently as you'd like. I find that the weekly accountability is very helpful for motivating me to stick to my goals, but maybe you prefer a lower-pressure approach, which is perfectly fine as well.
Who can join?
Everyone is welcome. Feel free to pimp it out. For these posts, I'll be keeping it open access.
If you're interested in joining, please reply in the comments with your goal(s) (short-term and/or long-term), your plan for achieving said goal(s), and anything else you want us to know about your fitness quest. Feel free to comment on each others', as well! The more encouragement and knowledge we share with each other, the better off we'll be!
Some background: I was a vegetarian for something like 16 years before I became a vegan in 2016. I try to live a whole-foods, plants-based lifestyle, which means no added sugar, oil, salt, etc., as well as no processed foods. In short, the food should be as close to its original form as possible (but not raw--that's a different lifestyle plan). While I have been pretty good at sticking to the vegan part (no animal products of any kind), I've been, frankly, really bad at not eating processed foods and at avoiding sugar and oil.
So: I'm not "going on a diet." I'm resuming the clean-living plan I committed to in 2016. If you're interested in knowing more about it yourself, you can check out Dr. Michael Greger's How Not to Die and/or his website: nutritionfacts.org. PLEASE NOTE: I am not a food evangelist. Eat whatever you'd like; I'm not here to make you vegan. This is MY plan. It's not yours, and I don't expect it to be. :-)
As I mentioned in a post earlier this month, I'd like to get down to a weight that allows me to run again. Generally speaking, my knees and ankles prefer it if I'm under 200 pounds. I've also been experiencing acid reflux, which I expect I can reduce or eliminate with both a return to clean living and some reasonable weight loss.
My overall goal is to reduce my weight to below 200 pounds. I haven't weighed myself lately, but I think I'm around 218, so let's say I'd like to lose 20 pounds by the end of May 2019, which seems both a reasonable amount of time and means that I'll be able to start running as the weather gets better around here and as I approach my long summer break.
I intend to lose weight by eating clean, as detailed above, and by exercising at least four days a week (to begin with) for at least 20 minutes per day. Exercise, in my case, means using the recumbent stationary bike, hopping on the treadmill, doing a fitness vid, and/or walking outdoors, weather permitting, or indoors, if I can stand our local malls.
To help increase the likelihood of weight loss and increased strength and stamina, I will try to be good about getting 7 hours of sleep a night (my personal threshold) and about meditating at all, since I haven't done much of it for years.
I hope you'll consider joining me for this low-stress, personalized fitness challenge. No goal is too big or too small, no definition of fitness unwelcome. Here's to reaching our goals in 2019!
(no subject)
Date: Tuesday, 1 January 2019 08:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: Tuesday, 1 January 2019 10:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: Tuesday, 1 January 2019 11:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: Wednesday, 2 January 2019 12:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: Thursday, 3 January 2019 11:32 am (UTC)This year I'd like to get into some good habits rather than set specific weight loss goals. I'm not very overweight (according to the BMI tracker I should aim to lose 3.6kgs to be in the middle of my healthy range) but I am really unhealthy in other ways and have become so sedentary. I've also been smoking again since October - although I did give up again yesterday. One day down. Fuck, it's hard. I'm adamant to kick it for good this time. I'm in a good head space I think for practising self control.
So my plan is to start with really simple, low-stakes goals: four wine-free days a week (5 would be better); exercising two days a week (3 would be better); fasting one day a week. I tend to have a pretty healthy diet anyway, but as soon as I cut out drinking wine then I start to get sugar cravings, so I need to figure out ways to deal with that - more fruit, smoothies etc. I think I should start making alcohol-free cocktails. There are some great recipes for drinks containing fruit juice, sparkling water and things like ginger or lemongrass for zing (and a cocktail umbrella for the added happiness factor :)
(no subject)
Date: Thursday, 3 January 2019 01:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: Thursday, 10 January 2019 01:02 am (UTC)Things I want to do: try my friend U's Qi Gong classes (I'd love to to Tai Chi again, but I have no classes available at a time and distance that work for me); get outside for walks at daylight more (always difficult in winter for me); make room in my sewing room (which used to be the guest/exercise room *g* ) to use the training bike again; walk my daily minimum of 7000 steps each day (I manage most days just by going about my day, but on some days it's hard to even get to 4000 or I would lose even more sleep); improve my sleeping pattern (which is so disrupted that about anything is improving it, but I mean improving it a lot). There is more, but I'll keep that for another time. But I'm mainly also looking forward to us interacting also here! ♥
(no subject)
Date: Thursday, 10 January 2019 01:07 am (UTC)I can definitely relate to all of your goals, particularly wanting to get outside more. Often, I don't get home until dark or just after, and if it's cold out, I don't want to go out, though our road is safe enough to walk on at night if we carry our LED lamps. Anyway, working up the energy to go outside when it's winter is a challenge, for sure. I hope you find the motivation for it.
I also wish you luck in pursuing all of your other goals, but I also don't want you to put undue pressure on yourself. That's why I like doing this weekly check-in; I try to make sure it's very low-key, so that it still offers accountability but doesn't promise any sort of punishment or bad feeling if you don't hit your goal some week or other.
What I know is that my greatest challenge is balance, and it sounds like that's yours, too. Here's hoping we can help each other achieve MORE balance, if not perfect balance, this year!
*hugs*