Hey there, gang: it's zombie_dog, your lead cheerleader on this arm of the 21 Days Challenge!

I'm currently posting from the Bolt Bus (hooray for wi-fi and outlets on long bus trips), on my way back to Boston from my trip to DC. I haven't done my exercise for the day yet today, but I've got a DDR pad awaiting my arrival patiently. After commuting for 12 hours solid, I imagine movement will do me some good.

I've already had several people post about their progress so far: good on you!

Personally, I went to my old stomping grounds at the North Bethesda Dave and Buster's yesterday, and much as I would have liked to sit around drinking violently colored alcohol, I instead threw myself feet-first at the Pump it Up machine. I seem to have damaged my elbow at some point this past weekend, so I'm going to have to be creative about my upper body exercise.

If you haven't started yet, or got off to a non-start yesterday: feel free to take a late start on your 21 Days Challenge. Remember, this is for YOUR benefit, not mine.

If you haven't posted yet, how was your first day?

This is it!

As of today - Monday, July 13th - we begin our sojourn into the 21 Days Challenge! We will exercise EVERY DAY for 21 days, making exercise a GOOD HABIT that we will carry forward into the chilly months.

Reiterating the rules:

Begin: Monday, July 13th
Complete: Sunday, August 2

Type of Exercise: Your choice. I will be playing a lot of Dance Dance Revolution (Stepmania, actually), biking (when it's decent out) and shovelgloving.

Suggested Duration of Exercise: As with the original challenge, 45–60 minutes for 6 days of the week and 15–30 minutes for 1 day of the week is suggested. Since I'm still traveling, today's going to be my 'easy' day...
This is up to you too, though, as the real purpose of this challenge is to make exercise a HABIT!

To Participate: Just do it!
But if you want to share support and have other people around to help 'keep you honest', please comment here. If you find yourself coming into the challenge late, feel free to start whenever is convenient for you, and just extend your participation by however many days you missed.

I'll make progress posts as we go; feel free to do the same on your end of things. I know that I need all of the encouragement that I can get. :)

(crossposted to _weightwatchers and my journal)

(howling wind, tumbleweed)

Hello? (hello? hello? hello? hello?)

Anybody still here?

Well, here goes.

Some of you may be aware that much of the US's East Coast -- New England in particular -- has been beset by hideous nasty weather. Grey coffin skies, rain varying from gentle to torrential. I've been getting depressed and I'm not the only one. It's July, fer goodness sakes. It's supposed to be sunny! Everybody's spirits have been flagging, and frankly I think there's only one cure:

Endorphins.

I am personally throwing myself back into the 21 Days Challenge; specifically, the original one. 21 Days to a Rockin' Body, exercising every day for 21 days.

Since this community has laid fallow for nearly a year, I thought that it might be nice to invite those of you who are still watching it to come join me. Feel free to comment here or on my journal if you want to participate to any degree and share support.

Because I will be out of town until then, I won't be starting the challenge until a week from Monday; however, this is nice because it gives people time to gear up and join.
Begin: Monday, July 13th
Complete: Sunday, August 2

Type of Exercise: Your choice. I will be playing a lot of Dance Dance Revolution (Stepmania, actually), biking (when it's decent out) and shovelgloving.

Suggested Duration of Exercise: As with the original challenge, 45–60 minutes for 6 days of the week and 15–30 minutes for 1 day of the week is suggested.
This is up to you too, though, as the real purpose of this challenge is to make exercise a HABIT!

To Participate: Just do it!
But if you want to share support and have other people around to help 'keep you honest', please comment here before July 13th!

Provided the mods don't have any objection, I will go ahead and use this space to talk about the challenge.

Do you find it easier to work alone or in partners? Do you think it's easier to clean up other people's stuff or your own?

I find it way easier to work with someone else because i'm easily uninspired. Having that other person there keeps me objective. It's much easier for me to clean other people's stuff because again i can be more objective.

And dish!

I got my stuff done pretty early today! It mostly consisted of changing my sheets, but I can't remember the last time i had a flat sheet on my bed so it was definitely needed.

Have you learned anything about your cluttery habits so far?


I've learned that i'm waay more of a packrat than i thought and i need to realize when it's ok to toss stuff out.


Don't forget to dish!

What's your favorite way to reward yourself after working?

I had myself an ice cream cone, yum.

Don't forget to dish!

I organized the crafty area in my room and now i can actually find things in it!

So, how was everybody's weekend? Get much accomplished?

I sure didn't i'm off to do a hour and a half shift in my room so tell me something inspiring please.

So, what do you think your biggest contributing factor to clutter is: laziness or packrattery?

I am definitely a victim of packrattery. I've still got schoolwork from 8 years ago just sitting around as if i'm going to use it again someday.

and don't forget to update about your progress

Ugh my room looks more messy than when i started working on it, but that's only because we're cleaning out dressers and shelves first. It kinda almost makes me want to just shove everything back in the drawers because at least then it looks like i've made progress.

so Has decluttering one area made you realize you need to declutter others?

i know for me i realized i need to declutter my car as well as the other things on my list.


Don't forget to dish about your progress in the comments

Sorry this is so late forgot about it. I think I'm gonna keep this combined format tho at least for now because it's a little easier on me.


QOTD: What do you listen to as you clean?

and don't forget to dish on your progress!

Make any progress today?


I ended up doing mostly stuff that made my room look messier like taking stuff off of shelves so i could dust them. I still feel like i'm covered in dust from that.

What's your room cleaning style or strategy? Do you push everything to the middle or work in from the edges or what?

I tend to pick something to work on, like clothes and deal with all of them before moving on to something else.




As an aside would anyone want to do like picture posts to show progress?

So how did you do today? Did you manage to work in your half hour of decluttering?

My half hour turned into over an hour! Tomorrow Helping Hands for the Blind is picking up donations so I had to do my clothing purge pretty quick!

Alright challengers its day one today, so get yourselves into declutter mode! Here's our first question of the day.

What do you want to get accomplished in this challenge?

The things I want to get accomplished are: getting my room clean (i don't remember the last time i vacuumed it's been a mess for so long) and more importantly getting into the habit of keeping it clean. Part of cleaning my room is also doing a clothing purge. I'd also like to get my bathroom organized and delete a bunch of emails and computer files that I don't need.

So I'm a mod now and i was thinking we could start this challenge tomorrow if that sounds cool with every one. We could push it back a couple days if this seems too soon.

I don't have control of membership as a moderator, so people would be free to join as they wished.

HOW THIS WILL WORK

Challenge #3: Declutter your life
This challenge will run 21 consecutive days during which you (as a participant) will deliberately work on decluttering your life. The specifics of how you accomplish this goal are up to you. You could interpret it pretty literally and think of it as tossing out and organizing your stuff, but time management could also fit under the challenge just as easily.

Challenge Details

Start Date: Monday, August 4th
End Date: Sunday, August 28th

Type of Decluttering: Your choice

Suggested Duration of Decluttering time: Something like half hour a day

Everyday a Question of the Day (posted in the morning) and a Daily Dish (posted in the evening) would be posted as well as any tips or inspiration members wanted to submit (these posts will be moderated). Please respond to these in their comments rather than in separate posts.

Anyone have any other suggestions? or ideas for QOTD's?

Hey anyone wanna do a "Declutter your life" type challenge with me like the first three weeks of August? I know its kinda short notice, but i'm gonna do it anyway and i feel like i'd do better with some support :-)

I know i'm not a mod and if asked i can take this down, but i figure the comm's been dead for awhile so it's probably alright.

ETA:
Ok so my thoughts for the challenge were to leave it pretty open ended. Tasks I'm going to try to get done include cleaning my room, doing a clothing purge, organizing my bathroom and clearing out my computer and email. These all fit into the idea of decluttering my life and i'm sure there are zillions of other things that you need to do that fit the challenge.

There'd be a QOTD like in the other challenge and i guess the habit we'd be forming would be to get rid of things we don't need? Simplify your life maybe? Please let me know your ideas. We can probably push the start date back a little cuz the first of august is tomorrow. Maybe starting monday?

It doesn't look like any of the mods are active so I'll look into getting modship I guess.

Around this time of year, everyone starts thinking about all of our delicious fall-feast foods and one of the favourites is always pumpkin pie. Well sure, pumpkin is fabulous when mixed with cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and cream, but how else can you use this squash?

One of my favourite ways to eat it is in a curry. I love heating up pumpkin with carmelized onions, spinach and chickpeas, flavoured with curry powder, garam masala, nutmeg, cumin and ginger.

It also makes fabulous bread!

( recipe )

Roasted pumpkin seeds are also a great snack, being high in essential fatty acids.

How do you like YOUR pumpkin?

It's raspberry day at twenty1days! Unfortunately raspberries can be pricey at times and fresh berries are often in short supply (found most readily and cheaply during the summer growing season). Thankfully you can always utilize frozen raspberries, which are just as tasty, while also allowing you to be a bit more frugal.

I love to bake so I tend to add raspberries to muffins, pies, or pancakes. When I was a little girl my grandmother had a huge patch of raspberry bushes in her yard. She and I would pick fresh berries and eat them in dainty glass cups served with a little bit of cold skim milk and just a dash of sugar.



For more information, WHFoods.com has a really wonderful article detailing the A, B, C's of raspberries, their health benefits, recipes, and historical introduction to the world.

What's your berry story?

Good Evening Fellow Veg Heads!

We haven't been properly "dishing" during this challenge so now is your chance to spill all of your successes and set backs. Go ahead! Don't be shy. Your fellow community members need to hear all of those creative ideas for getting in their 5 a day.

So you’ve undertaken this challenge, because you’re serious about servings—you’ve been getting *at least* 5 fruits and veggies a day and you feel fantastic, right?

well, how’d you like to do better than fantastic? How would you like to be super?

If you want to be super you need to eat super … super foods, that is.

NOT ALL FOODS ARE CREATED EQUAL. SOME ARE CREATED SUPER.
Exceptionally good for us, there are certain foods that outshine others when it comes to nutrient and antioxidant density. These foods are called super foods and they’re jam-packed with health giving benefits.