blast off

today is day 1 of my brand new shiny breakthrough challenge and i'm so excited to be getting started again. spent some time yesterday evening and this afternoon getting my goals in order and getting connected to my reasons for doing this and here's what i've come up with:

2nd transformation contest goals...

1) achieve 15% body fat. this was my main goal in the last challenge and i naively chose this number without knowing that it was a bit unrealistic from my starting point of 24.2%. this time around though i believe that it is a realistic goal and i expect to get there within the next 84 days.
2) don't miss a turbulence training workout in the next 84 days and successfully stick to my plan during travels to london and vancouver bc. this challenge will present some interesting hurdles for me as i will be moving out of my apartment in spain on may 24th and probably wont arrive in portland until june 8th or so (ie--two weeks of homelessness and traveling limbo). when i get home i have to find a place to live and get a job and basically re-start my life after a two year hiatus. so there will be lots going on and being a total creature of habit, i always do really well sticking to my plan when i can create a routine and i always crash and burn when anything interrupts that routine. i am determined to break that crash and burn habit during this challenge and be super diligent with my plan in the midst of all this craziness.
3) practice attentive eating at every meal. this is one of my biggest challenges as i always seem to be rushing off to the next thing and tend to rush through my meals in the same way. this is definitely something that needs to change and so will be a big focal point for me in this challenge.
4) shift towards more intuitive eating with less rules. in my last challenge i went from strict calorie counting to relaxing things a bit when i shifted to eat stop eat, but was still being incredibly strict with myself. i want to find a balance in this challenge between holding myself to high nutritional standards and making the majority of my food choices center on clean foods, while at the same time allowing myself the occasional cheat and simply learning to listen to my body and enjoy every bite of food that i put into my mouth guilt free. this will be a space that requires a bit of experimentation, but i feel as though if i can figure this out i will truly be where i want to be in terms of my relationship with food. i recently read that "the body is wise and the rewards for trusting it are great." this is a philosophy i want to learn to integrate into my life...to get to a point where my trust in my body's wisdom allows me to treat it as an ally instead of a foe.
5) blog progress daily for increased accountability
6) visible abs by day 84...i have never seen my abs before and i think it's about time.
7) and, of course, make turbulence training history by being the grand prize winner two times in a row!

the daily action steps that i will take to get me there are as follows:

1) drink at least 4 liters of water
2) avoid processed sugar
3) eat mindfully
4) feel good about my food choices
5) get at least 8 hours of sleep every night
6) get the vast majority of my calories from clean foods
7) review my goals and visualize their achievement

and finally my tentative nutrition and exercise plans, subject to change as results dictate:

my nutrition plan: i will be sticking with eat stop eat incorporating two days of fasting per week combined with a clean foods diet and will probably incorporate carb tapering as well (less carbs at the evening meals). focus here will be on mindful eating and enjoyment of all food consumed.

my exercise plan: since i'm going to be traveling and transitioning so much during this challenge, i decided that bodyweight workouts are probably the way to go. however, i might change this up a bit depending on how quickly i find/join a gym when i get back to portland and how much i'm digging the bodyweight manual.

weeks 1-4: 6 month bodyweight manual phase I
weeks 5-8: 6 month bodyweight manual phase II
weeks 9-12: 6 month bodyweight manual phase III

monday, wednesday, saturday will be turbulence training workouts. tuesday, thursday, sunday will be yoga (with hill sprints on sunday just for fun). friday is my glorious rest day.

so that's the plan, now it's just a matter of following through and putting it into action. starting stats and pics will be up next...