Monthly Archives: March 2010

Challenge Day 42 – The Victory against Fear

Day 42 of my Challenge started at 9. That’s pretty early when you go to bed at 2 or so. But I managed to get up, have breakfast, jump into sports clothes and hop on the underground to go to a friend of mine with whom I faced my fear of running today. We went to a park near her home and ran two rounds in it – 2.5 km. And walked there and back for about 1.5 km each way. I know it’s not a record or so but I’m still proud that I moved my behind and did it :) . The only problem about it is, that my knees hurt now a bit and so I decided not to do Sports Active today even tho I was looking forward to it.

I made it to 3 and a half meals today, so a bit better again. Also a lot of salad and a Banana. Again no chocolate even tho I watched TV earlier the first time for a while again and saw a chocolate commercial followed by a chocolate ice cream commercial. Only 5 days left! At the grocery store I was already in the sweets corridor and thought about buying some sweets (without chocolate) but I thought that I managed it without any of these for so long now that I can wait with that until Sunday too (or Monday as I’m not buying anything before Sunday).

The rest of the day I didn’t do very much even tho I should have done something. Tomorrow is another day to try that. I already started to plan tomorrow. See you then!

Picture by mikebaird

Challenge Day 41 – The Shoppingtrip

Day 41 of my Challenge is already over. Five more days to go! I’m so proud of myself. Today I couldn’t resiste the Temptation anymore and went to the store and bought two things. I feel a bit guilty about it but I think it was for a good cause.

The first thing I bought, was a water filter. I’m not entirely sure, if this is really cheaper than buying bottled water, but it causes less waste and I don’t have to carry all the bottles every time I go grocery shopping.

The second thing I bought, was Sports Active – more Workouts and already tried the first workout and really liked it. Especially the obstacle course was causing heavy breathing but it made the exercises fun that were boring before.

I ate not very well today. I did eat a big bowl of salad and vegetables but I just had two meals today what is bad. But no chocolate again!

Tomorrow I will finally face something I want to do and I’m scared of at the same time – Running. I’ll meet with a friend and run a few rounds in a park near her. Let’s see how it works out – literally.

I’ll tell you tomorrow how it went at day 42.

Picture by Scienceheath

Challenge Day 40 – The last Week

Tomatoes!!Day 40 of my Challenge was uneventful. I slept long, had breakfast and planned to do some stuff for uni. I indeed did a little bit, but not a lot – as I planned in the beginning.

At least I could finally watch Episode 2 of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution today. The anger and sadness continued but at least there was some hope in the end. This time he went to a class full of 6-year-olds and showed them vegetables – and they didn’t know any of these! Not even tomatoes or potatoes. They were surprised, when Jamie told them, that Ketchup was made out of tomatoes and french fries out of potatoes. But their teachers did teach it to them on their own and in the end they knew every kind of vegetable he showed to them.

Also, the cooks at the school were shocked, when Jamie asked them to give forks and knives to the kids so that they can eat their lunch. HUH? They never used fork and knives before at the school! Naturally they didn’t know how to use them. At least, Jamie was finally successfull and the kids ate a lot more of the food he cooked than the first few days. This helped with the decision, to let him try for a few more weeks! Nice! I’m looking forward to next week’s episode.

I ate a big bowl of delicious salad with my meal today and again no chocolate. Today in one week the challenge is finally completed! Woho, I’m so proud of myself. I also did Sports Active again today plus the belly exercises which I added one more exercises to today. Also I had a (for me) crazy idea. I was thinking about going jogging but then was too scared of it to really do it. I’ll try again tomorrow. Then it is Sports Active Break Day anyway.

That’s it for today already. See you tomorrow at Day 41.

Picture by epSos.de

Challenge Day 39 – The Task Management

Challenge Day 39 was pretty boring. Just had to work at the studio for a few hours. I brought sandwiches so I didn’t have to starve.

I planned to talk about the second Episode of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution today but unfortunately there isn’t any link for me yet to watch. Just these I can’t watch because I’m not within the USA. So hopefully tomorrow.

The other thing I did today was, that I downloaded a free Task management software for my Plan of what I have to do for Uni. It looks pretty neat so far. I can make subtasks (that was important for me) and I can set a time I think the task will take and of course a due date. Let’s see if it works out as I hope.

I didn’t do Sports Active today as I did todays workout already yesterday. I had salad in my sandwiches and a banana in the morning and in the evening and no chocolate.

Tomorrow is the first day in 3 weeks or so that I don’t have either work or uni or both. Wohoo! This is the first real day of Holidays then! Exciting. A lot of time to catch up with the uni stuff *sigh*.

See you tomorrow at day 40.

Picture by J Dueck

Challenge Day 38 – The Shopping Trip

Day 38 of my Challenge started pretty early with friday’s screenplay writing class at 8:30. It ended around noon and the moment I stepped out the door a good friend of mine called me and asked if I wanna go shopping with her. So we went to the main shopping street here, ate at McDonalds (again) where I had the same I had yesterday and went shopping afterwards. I just got me a black basic t-shirt I need for my cosplay costume (I’ll have to modify it) and looked at the Sports Active more Workouts Game but resisted to buy it (yet).

After that I went to my second class today that wasn’t THAT thrilling, then I went home and grabbed the library books that were due today and headed to the library. When I was there I got some new books I need this semester – these are a lot of paper to read but at least most of them are novels, so it is hopefully fun to read. When I was home (after I went for a quick grocery shopping) I was exhausted. It took me a while to motivate myself to cook dinner but finally managed to do it (including vegetables and salad and again no chocolate). After that I did my daily Sports Active + belly workout. But somehow the calender screwed it again so I did the workout for tomorrow already today (don’t ask me, how this is possible).

But this isn’t that bad as I have to work tomorrow anyway (and probably go to Uni before – but will decide that later) so I might not have a lot of time to do it anyway. Depending on what turns out tomorrow about the Class I might have I either have easter holidays from tomorrow or from Sunday evening. Let’s see. But I am excited. Two weeks of free time…….. filled with a huge workload I should/have to/want to/need to do.

That’s all for today already. It’s late (again) so see you tomorrow with Day 39!

Picture by Jeffreyw

Challenge Day 37 – The Fast food experience

Challenge Day 37, 9 Days to go. Wow. “It’s the final countdoooown” *sing*. Oh, sorry I got distracted.

So today I managed to do something pretty cool. I went to McDonalds with a friend of mine (no, that’s not the cool part) and ate a full meal there that was healthy! Ok, most of it. I did eat a Veggie Burger but I also ate a Salad, drank Sparkling water and had a fruit bag for desert! I counted the kcal in the end and got 505 kcal total! (400-something was already the burger). Normally I don’t count kcal as I don’t have to but today I was curious about it. I think thats pretty nice for a visit to a fast food restaurant.

After that I burned a lot of kcal already while doing a shopping marathon with the same friend to help find him white trousers for his next cosplay costume. After a lot of stores we finally succeeded! It still was exhausting.

Then I went to a class in the evening (the hardcore one I told you about already I think) and saw a light at the end of the tunnel. No, I didn’t die or so, I just finally have the hope to be able to talk about the short film I have to give a presentation about for at least a few minutes (until before the class I thought I might manage to do about 30 seconds, so this is already a big improvement) In all the presentation should be 15 minutes in the and so I hope I have a good partner for that presentation and we’ll find some more to talk about till then.

When I was home I cooked dinner and ate cucumbers with it, again no chocolate today. Afterwards I was tired and stuffed of food but after a while I still motivated myself to do Sports Active and the additional belly exercises even tho my belly and my bum still hurt from yesterday’s workout. So I’m proud of myself that I still did it even with all the points speaking against it!

Now it’s late and I have to get up early tomorrow and it is going to be a busy day again so see you tomorrow with Day 38!

Maybe you wanna tell me how your Challenge goes? Any problems or excitement? Leave me a comment!

Picture by Perfecto Insecto

Challenge Day 36 – The Sport Resumption

Day 36 of my Challenge already. Wow, an end is in sight! At the same time it was a new beginning today. You might already have asked yourself why I didn’t write about  my Sports Active activities. This has a pretty good reason: there weren’t any! Because of that I felt guilty and tried to hide it by not mentioning it. That’s kind of childish, isn’t it?

But today I did a fresh new Sports Active workout and I’m proud of it. I also still feel a bit of it in my legs, that feels good! Reminds me, that I have done something. Maybe you remember, that I wrote, that there aren’t really any exercises for the belly in these workouts, so I browsed through youtube today and found accidentally some exercises for that and immediately had to try them. You can watch, what I did in addition to the Workout here:

There is nothing really special about that, just more or less basic stuff but it made me confident about being able to do it, so i tryed and finished and my belly is still feeling it! :) .

Besides I found another site today that really motivated me. You can find it here. I didn’t dare to try one of this girl’s workouts as they look really badass. Also I really admire her shape, but her sixpack is a bit too much for me. It’s not what I’m aiming for, but it really motivated me especially because all of her workouts can be done at home with hardly any equipment (and the little she uses might be exchangeable with something else if you are a little creative).

Another thing that happened today was, that a friend of mine told me, that he will start going to the gym on friday again and I was thinking that it would be nice to just hop on a stepper or a bike and do some cardio and stuff. But as soon as he told me how much I would have to pay for the gym membership I knew I would stick another while just with my Sports Active. Maybe I should really try to start jogging even tho I have some kind of trauma from my teenage days about that. We will see.

Speaking of Sports Active I have to tell you something else I found out today. Something really exciting (for me). First, there is an expansion for Sports Active with new exercises AND with *drumroll* Belly exercises! Also some warm-up and cooldown exercises and stretching. I want that! But this is expensive too, so I better do my version for a while longer and see if I really stick to it and “deserve” it.

The Second thing I found out about Sports Active today is, that there will be a Sports Active 2.0 (that’s just the working title at the moment) out in Autum – including a Heart rate monitor! Pure Excitement for a Geek like me! :) . I’m really looking forward to that.

Ok, that’s it for today. Regarding my Challenge I had again no chocolate (this starts to get boring already, maybe I should eat some just to make the blog more exciting! :D ) but some vegetable today.

In case you want to be a Sponsor for my gym membership or my Sports Active upgrade send me a message :D . (I could wear a t-shirt with the sponsor’s Name/Homepage everytime I hit the gym ;) )

Wow, that seems to be a long Post today. Thank you, if you read until here – you are free now :) . See you tomorrow with Day 37.

Picture by lululemon athletica

Challenge Day 35 – The Food Revolution

Day 35 of my Challenge had a lot to do with food. It started with the moment that I found the new show with Jamie Oliver called “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution” and watched it before and after my first two classes today. I’m definitely watching this more often because I really wanna know how this turns out as Jamie hasn’t had a good start at all and all this makes me angry, shocked and sad at the same time but gives me also a little hope that it is maybe not too late to change.

The Summary for the Show is told pretty fast. Jamie Oliver travelled to the USA and visits schools and families and wants to help them change their Nutrition to live healthier (and longer). He starts in the area where the statistics say that the most obese people in the whole world live. I’m not sure which area it was, I think either Virginia or West Virginia but I could be wrong. I first thought “wohoo, great! They really need it sooo badly, especially the little schoolchildren” and then I saw the reaction of all the people there. They all were against Jamie! He has to fight so hard to make the cooks in the elementary school, he is first at, believe him and help him (he didn’t manage to do that in episode one, so I really hope this is going to be better in the next episode(s)). One of all the shocking moments was probably when he (and me) saw, what the kids get for breakfast at their school – PIZZA! What the heck? And they made hardly anything fresh not even stuff like mashed potatoes. Hopefully Jamie can change that! You find information about that here and if you live in the USA you can sign his petition there too.

At least the family he visited was happy to see him and was really into letting him help them. What surprised me most was one of the kids. It was a little 12-year-old boy, who said that he is glad that Jamie is here and when Jamie suggested, to teach him cooking, he was excited and said, that he is looking forward to do that! He wants to become a chef one day!

Another thing today about food was, that I remembered this project called “Team Österreich Tafel”. This project is about volunteers who help giving leftover food of supermarkets to people who don’t have a lot of money. This is good in two ways: First, Supermarkets don’t have to throw away that much food (It’s unbelievable how much that is!) and second, people who don’t have a lot of money can get good food for free. Even tho I have a really packed schedule at uni at the moment I still signed up for that project to volunteer. So one step closer to one of the things I spoke about in an earlier post of mine, that I want to change something in the world, even if it’s just a very little thing. If you live here in my area and want to help too or want more information about that, you can check it out here and a report at Austrian TV (in german) here (after clicking the link, a media player will open).

Myself I ate a bit of vegetables today and no chocolate again – and only 10 Days left of the Challenge! Wow! See you tomorrow at Day 36.

Picture by Masahiro Ihara

Challenge Day 34 – The Monday Madness

Day 34 of my Challenge is a monday. That means that today is my hardcore uni day and I was brave enough to do all classes. That meant to get up at 7, go to class, go home, make sandwiches and stuff (sandwiches with cucumber + grapes), go to uni, have 3 classes where I had to fight not to fall asleep (I lost two times), go back home, have 1,5 hours to do something, go back to Uni for the last class and be back home at 9 in the evening. Exhausting! When I think that my first class started at 8:30 this were nearly 12 hours straight when I don’t count the breaks. After I was home I had some leftovers of yesterday and the rest of the salad I had and no chocolate again. It seems that I’m going to make it to the end with that :) .

I’m so tired now, I’m close to falling off  my chair and sleep on the floor.

That means I better stop blogging now :) . See you tomorrow at day 35.

Picture by Jennie Farber

Challenge Day 33 – The wasted Sunday

So today at Day 33 of my Challenge I went up early to go to uni and had to sit for 4 hours straight on an unconfortable chair but at least it was the the second part of the interesting class that I was at already yesterday. Today we watched less weird movies :) and our teacher told us about how it is to work with Klaus Kinsky (who is known for being complicated).

Other than that I planned to do serious uni stuff today but I didn’t do a lot except that I sorted my notes and wrote a list of what I will have to do this semester (this became a really long list, including at least 5 presentations – gosh, I hate presentations) and a list of books I have to get me.

And now, instead of going to bed I watched a cute girly-movie and ate the rest of my lunch *sigh*. But no chocolate again and I wasn’t missing it either.

As it is late already and the movie is finally over I go to bed now. See you tomorrow on day 34 (oh, for all of you who wonder – yes, I count the Sundays, even tho I don’t have to, but I want to, so the challenge should last around 46 days total).

Picture by @boetter