Category: GlibFit

Congratulations you motley crew of fitness fools! You’ve made it through one week of the fitness challenge. Some of you have already fallen off the wagon, and we’re here to shame you into slinking back on. You’re not gonna give up already, are you??

Just admit that you fucked up and start week 2 anew. We won’t judge you more harshly than you judge yourself, we promise.

Week one of a new routine is always hard. Motivating yourself to do stuff really sucks. The good news is that if you made it through the first week, you have evidence that you won’t die from the changes you made. The bad news is that weeks  2 and 3 are gonna suck worse before it gets better. But you want to be healthy and strong, right?

Oh geez, maybe I should add a carrot to balance out that giant Hillary sized stick I just dropped in this article.

For myself, I had an okay week. Superbowl weekend was a 48 hour glut, but I ate well otherwise. I only got one day of physical activity in, which is 1/4 of what I wanted. It’s going to be hard to find the time to do physical activity. How about y’all?

Hello GlibFit friends! The time has finally come for our first fitness challenge. The purpose of this challenge is to each push ourselves to make and meet fitness goals with shared accountability among our community. Please recognize the fact that, given the nature of fitness challenges, it’s not going to be easy for most folks. Keeping that in mind, don’t be an asshole.

Here’s how it works. The challenge is ten weeks long, starting today and ending Friday April 13th. Every Friday, we’re going to have a GlibFit thread for discussing progress and as a general fitness open thread. For ease of access during the week, all the GlibFit posts will live in their own category index in the website footer.

At the end of the 10 weeks, we take a look back at what we’ve accomplished. Then, if people are still into it, we start again in May with a second session.

It’s not too late to join in, and it’s not too late to revise your goal for this session. We’re not keeping track of your goals, so it’s up to you to keep track of your goal and your progress. As mentioned before, the best goals are quantifiable and achievable. Something like “spend 30 minutes 3x per week on the treadmill and run a 5k on April 3rd in 25:00” is a great goal. “Eat less carbs and turn the TV off” is harder to hold yourself accountable to.

Part of fitness accountability sometimes includes tracking your food and exercise on a daily basis on your phone. At the very least, I try to track my weight daily. The most commonly used app for that is My Fitness Pal. If you have a MFP account, join our group and become friends with your fellow Glibs. If there are other apps that people are using, please share in the comments.

We’re gonna try some participation from the peanut gallery for this one. I’m bringing an idea over from another online community. The idea is fairly simple. You sign up for one or more self-created fitness related goals in this thread. Then, starting February 1st and extending through April 15th, you do your best to meet your fitness goals. Each Friday, in the weekly GlibFit thread, we talk about how the week went, whether we met our goals, and whether we’re seeing progress.

There’s nothing beyond that. The point is some moral support and some third-party accountability in a digestible 10-week time segment. Your goal can be anything health and fitness related. It can be dietary, exercise related, or whatever else you want. From experience, having something quantifiable is more motivating than having some vague, subjective goal.

Here’s my goal:

• 4 days per week of physical activity
• 5 days per week of low-carb diet

If you’re a My Fitness Pal user, join our group here.