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| Signed up: |
8 years ago (10/03/04)
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5 hours ago
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| GB330033 |
 | RT SideQuest |
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First Fit4RTX UpdateSo I'm two weeks into my plan for Fit4RTX, and things are going pretty well!
Using my Fitbit and MyFitnessPal, I've figured out more accurately how many calories I burn in a day. Armed with that knowledge, I've adjusted my calorie intake and I'm aiming to operate at a 750 calorie deficit each day. That should (Though everyone's body is different) equate to a 1.5 pound loss per week, and it has for me. That won't add up to be a huge loss by RTX, but that's not my goal. All in all I feel good, because I'm not starving myself, but the numbers add up.
Let this be a note to anyone else trying to be Fit4RTX: You can still eat and be fit. Just keep tabs on how much you eat and make sure it isn't more than you burn.
I've been sleeping a bit better, but still not where I want to be. That's something I still need to work on, because I feel SO much better when I get plenty of sleep and don't feel worn out every day. An upside of sleeping more is that I'll be able to save another 140 calories or so per day by cutting out my daily iced coffee.
I haven't quite reached the point I want to with my exercise regimen. Ironically, I think it's because I haven't spent as much time playing video games as usual. If I'm not sitting in front of the TV, then I'm not sitting on my exercise bike, so I'm not exercising. I need to fix that.
Adjusting nutrition is going to be a challenge. By tracking my food I've noticed that I tend to eat WAY too much sodium. Unfortunately, on days when I cut that back, I tend to turn towards fruit, and end up going overboard on sugar. Granted, it's "good" sugar because it's from fruit, but still. This is something I'm going to have to play with, because nutrition is definitely important.
All told, I'm happy with my efforts so far and I'm seeing results. Nothing really to write home about, but it's a start!
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How I'll be #Fit4RTXI'm sure that just about everyone saw the post about Fit for RTX yesterday. Hopefully you joined the group too! I'm going all-in on this project, for a number of reasons:
First, I just want to be healthier. I don't necessarily want to lose a ton of weight. I'm not terribly concerned with what I look like or anything like that. I just want to be healthy, losing weight will be a nice side effect.
Second, the timing of Fit for RTX works perfectly for me, since my wedding is two weeks after RTX. Have to look good for that, right?
Finally, I think it's a cool way to bring the community together. Group fitness challenges are great because you have instant accountability, and for me that's the most important thing when trying to get in shape.
Now, what do I plan to do to get Fit for RTX? Well, I've broken it down into a few steps, because trying to do a ton of different lifestyle changes at once is a sure path to failure. You get burned out way too quickly and give up easier. If you ease yourself into a variety of changes, then you're much more likely to succeed (At least in my experience). Anyway, here's my plan...
1. Adjust my calorie intake - Why? The simplest part of losing weight is calories in < calories burned. For this first step, I'm just focused on the numbers, not on the nutrition. Once I get to a good level where I'm burning more than I'm taking in every single day, I can adjust those things. To keep track of my calories in vs. out, I'm using my new Fitbit Zip and the app MyFitnessPal. Hooray technology!
2. Adjust my sleep schedule - Throughout college, I didn't need to sleep much. I don't know why, I just didn't. Now, in my adult life, I've mostly carried over that sleep schedule. I usually try to be asleep by midnight, and I wake up around 6:30. For this challenge, I'm bumping that back a bit, because sleep is another very basic part of fitness. I'm going to try to add at least one, but maybe two sleep cycles (1.5hrs) to my nightly routine. That means I should be asleep between 9 and 10 every night.
3. Exercise more - This seems like a no-brainer, right? Once I adjust my caloric intake, I'm going to add in regular exercise. Mostly cardio, since I'm looking to lose weight and not gain strength. I may do some light weight training, but nothing major. Inspired by Burnie's tale a while back about putting a treadmill in front of his Xbox/TV, I bought a cheap stationary bike. I've had it for quite some time, and use it on a semi-regular basis. With this challenge, I'm going to for sure use it more often.
4. Adjust my nutrition - Once I've got the previous three steps going for me, I'm going to take a close look at my nutrition and adjust it accordingly. I know that, like most people, I eat too much sodium. I'm pretty sure I don't get enough of some essential vitamins and minerals. I definitely rely too much on take-out and such, when I should be cooking for myself. This is definitely going to be the toughest step, but the most rewarding, since it will help me to be healthier AND save me money!
As it stands, I'm at about 270 pounds. I believe I was healthiest during my sophomore year of college (Weird, right? Somehow I LOST the freshman 15!), when I weighed between 225 and 230 and regularly exercised and cooked for myself. I had a really good system going back then, so that's my goal. Obviously losing 40 pounds in ~3 months would be extremely unlikely, and probably unhealthy, so I'm actually shooting to hit my goal by PAX Prime. However, I hope to have almost fully implemented all of my routines by RTX, so I'll at least be on the right track!
So, what say you journal readers? How are you going to be Fit for RTX?
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Another year passes by...Last year, I wrote a journal about how I discovered RvB, how I became active in the community, and how @Jfrosinski and I had started a new tradition of sorts of making Bailey's Irish Cream brownies each year for RT's anniversary. A year later, and a few things have changed...
First off, @Jfrosinski is no longer my girlfriend. Now she's my fiancé. Second, I'm even more active in the community, with RT SideQuest really starting to take off and all. It's hard to imagine that last year at this time @Count3D and I were planning this shindig and selling tickets and hoping to make maybe around $3,000 for Child's Play. How wrong we were... And finally, although we're still making Bailey's Irish Cream brownies, we've tweaked the recipe a bit..
Last year we used coffee Bailey's in the brownies and caramel Bailey's in the icing. This year we again used coffee Bailey's in the brownies, but used a combination of coffee Bailey's and hazelnut Kahlúa for the icing. My icing technique has improved a bit, with nicer looking teeth this year. However, I liked the 2012 rooster much more.
As I said at the end of last year's journal, hopefully we get to continue making these for many years to come!
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gdgtHey look! For the first time in 2 months I'm writing a journal entry NOT about SideQuest!
Does anyone else use the site gdgt? It launched back in 2009, and is easily one of my favorite sites on teh intarwebz. In case you haven't clicked on the link yet, gdgt is a huge gadget database, which really helps when trying to buy a new computer, phone, TV, etc. They also have want, have, and had lists, for keeping track of your personal gadgets.
I know this whole thing sounds like a big advertisement, but I just want to share a site that I use on a pretty regular basis that I think would be really useful to a bunch of people in the RT community too. Happy gdgt-ing!
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RTSQ PresentsSo I just posted a few announcements over in the RT SideQuest group, and one of them was "RTSQ Presents". I explain a bit more over in the group, and on the website, but the tl;dr version is this:
RTSQ Presents is a way for SideQuest to give back to the RT Community. We'll use our skills and resources to help ANY RT Community group plan a meet-up/gathering during RTX. All we need are a few details (via a form on our website), and we'll get started on planning.
I really hope that this idea ends up being helpful to the community at large. We know that not everyone can get to the big SideQuest events, and not every group can find a good place in Austin to meet. Hopefully this will help to further RTSQ's mission of "Connecting the RT Community"!
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PAX and RTXHey everyone!
Planning to go to PAX East? Perhaps you want to meet up with other people for some fun trivia? Check out PAX SideQuEAST! Tickets are available now, for a small donation of your choosing! Go get one!
Going to buy an RTX ticket later today? Plan accordingly if you're interested in SideQuest! Our preliminary schedule is posted, and we have applications for SideQuest Spectres (Our volunteer team) available!
Okay, enough self-promotion, back to Civ 5!
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