Challenge

November: 6:00 AM Wakeup

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The return of the monthly challenges!

So this month I decided, somewhat randomly, to try a monthly challenge again. I’m not sure what brought it about, but I decided to try getting up at 6:00 every morning. Now, this may not seem like it is that challenging, but to a night owl like me, it was a serious shift in habit. I usually would roll out of bed around 7 and then get ready during the week, but the weekends were fair game for a 9:00 am wake up call. So this month, I will try and get up at 6:00 every morning.

Update: 12/3/2013

Well this has been a busy month, and a few times, I cursed myself for deciding to do this whole challenge thing this month. Overall though, after the first few days it wasn’t so bad. There were a few mornings I didn’t quite make it; usually on the weekend if I was out late, but other than that it went pretty smooth. Will I keep doing it? Maybe, I just bought a house so I have been busy and getting up that early has helped me still get to the gym, but we will see how long that lasts!

April: Blog Twice A Week

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This month I am going to continue on with the theme from last months challenge and get back into blogging. Teageek.org has been pretty stagnant the past year or so, and outside of my challenge updates this site hasn’t seen too much action either. Now, if you are thinking that blogging twice a week is a bit of a weak challenge; you would be correct. I am heading to New York and heading down to South Caroline for the convergeSE conference. Based on past experience, anything that is going to take a lot of effort is probably not going to happen if I am traveling that much, so blogging more seemed like great “attainable” challenge .

 

Update:  Well, you can see how that went! Oh well, better luck next time.

March: Online Overhaul

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For March I am going to try to redesign both www.brentswisher.com and www.thewebcounts.com, as well as update my profile on all of my social media accounts. Just one of those things that has needed to been done for a while that I keep putting off, so I thought I would make a challenge out of it. I also thing that one of the reasons I haven’t been posting as much as I used to is that the site has become a little dated and I just don’t care to look at it as much. Hopefully a redesign will get back on the blogging bandwagon a little more frequently.

Update: 4/6

Well it took a late night on the 31st and a few fixes after the fact, but I updated both brentswisher.com and www.thewebcounts.com this month. I also went through and updated my linkedIn/twitter/facebook info. The new redesign of this site is the first completely from scratch design I have created as a WordPress template. It was an interesting experience, definitely a different environment.  It was also a good php refresher, it had been a longer time than I had realized since I had done any actual coding outside of work.

February: No Lunch Out

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Well it has been a while! I wasn’t sure if I was going to continue doing the monthly challenges this year, so this will be the first one this year, but hopefully I will be able to do one every month for the rest of the year. I decided to start off with something a little easier, just to get back into the swing of things. this month I am not going to buy out lunch or snacks at all during the week. I’ve gotten into the habit, like most people do, of eating out at least once a week. On top of that, a few times a week I head over to Z’s – a convenience store across the street – for a pop or a snack.  While it’s not usually a problem, all the little things add up, so I am going to take a month and go without completely   Not the most challenging thing in the world, but her we all need a little momentum right?

Update 3/3:

This went really well, I didn’t buy out lunch or get a snack all month. I’m actually really glad I did this as it reminded me that I enjoy these monthly challenges and it was a good way to dive back in, look for more coming soon!

Weight Loss Take Two

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Once again running behind, so here is the challenge and the update all in one, aren’t you lucky?

May: Weight Loss Take Two

So the wedding is coming up pretty fast, and like every other groom, I’m trying to lose some weight before the big day.  You might remember that losing 37 lbs was one of my new years resolutions, and it has been going all right, I’ve lost 15 about so for just through the normal eat less, workout more strategy.  I would however, like to get it moving a little faster so I am going to redo my very first challenge, which was to lose 15 pounds in month.  Last time I came in really close, and I think this time i can actually do it.  I will be doing the slow carb diet from the four hour body.  It’s not the funnest diet, but it is effective and the overall health of it is not as bad as many of the other diet plans I have seem.

May Update:

So the total weight lost during May was 15.5 pounds, which I am very happy about.  I have to admit it always bothered me that the first time I tried this whole “monthly challenge” thing I didn’t quite make it, so this is a nice little vindication for me. The diet went well, it wasn’t all that fun but having the “cheat day” makes it bearable.  I’ll probably do it for a week more or so and then start slowly introducing more food.  I did miss the green smoothies from last month!