2025 health/fitness challenge

October done.

Almost there on all the numbers (which, again, are mostly meaningless now due to the different weights used over time). I’m also slightly heavier again, but still under control. The salty pizza I ate yesterday is just making me retain water. And possibly the chocolate I ate didn’t help either. Either way this weight isn’t a problem. My 85 kg goal was an arbitrary number, and I’m looking pretty good right now :D See you next month!

New PBs:

10 pull ups, 9.5 chin ups

Funnily enough, I got to 10 on the pull ups first (they used to be 1 behind the chin ups every time). Not sure if I had a good pull up day, or a bad chin up day when I last tested them, but I’ll take it either way. When I first started this seemed pretty much impossible, so yay me!

My back is definitely fine again. Push ups fully started back up (no weight but more reps). Squats also back (more weight, fewer reps).

September done.

Back has recoved pretty fast compared to usual. Started doing push ups again, no added weight for now until I’m 100% sure my back can handle it, and then I will very slowly easy into it. Will probably start squats again as well. I also picked up a few other exercises, but no regular days for them yet, should probably work that out. It looks like I’m slightly heavier again (because I am, haha), but it’s all under control. See you in a month.

And it’s that time again. My back hurts quite a lot. Was reorganizing a messy room at work with a lot of heavy stuff in it, and overexerted myself. On the plus side, it’s less severe than it has been in the past, so I don’t think it’ll last very long.

My back also didn’t improve the last weeks where I didn’t do squats or running. My new suspect is doing too many reps/sets of weighted push ups. It’s quite taxing, and I think doing that combined with all the stuff I lifted at work pushed my back over the edge.

Will adjust my workout plan when I’m healed. Rest time for now. Not a great month, but if this is really the cause of my achy back lately, it was worth it to find out. Also, still plenty of time to reach my goals for the year.

August done.

Arm is all good now, yay. Took about 3 months to fully heal, whatever it was I did to it. Weight is up a little bit, but I can’t expect to stay on exactly 85.0 kg all the time. It’s probably water weight (it’s probably also chocolate weight). A few less snacks in september it is.

My back’s been hurting for a while now, and not in the DOMS sort of way. Surprisingly, lifting lots of heavy things all the time doesn’t fix it, so I’m going to stop squats for a while since that’s one of my main suspects.

My other suspect is the running I’ve introduced a while back. I’ve been doing it a bit off and on and not payed attention to when the back pain started and when I did the running, so hard to say for sure.

Let’s see what a couple of weeks of rest from those will do. Numbers will be down this month, and probably the next as well, but I’ve already reached my squat goal so I’m not too bothered. I swear I’m not making this up to get out of doing squats, haha.

Reached 10,000 squats. That’s my squat goal done for this year. Still not enjoying them much, but I’ll continue anyway. Currently doing 5 sets of 20 with 10 kg in the weight vest. I’ll just go up in weight whenever I go up in weight with push ups, that way I don’t have to keep changing weights in the vest every time.

Reached 7,500 push ups. Currently doing them with 10 kg in the weight vest, and working up to 5 sets of 20.

All my quarter 3 goals are done now, with 1,5 months to spare.

July done.

Back to around 85 kg. Changed the “Weight Loss” column into Weight, since it looks stupid when it’s gonna sit around 0 for the rest of the year (or at least that’s the aim now). Arm still kinda hurts sometimes, but it’s very slowly improving. Must have torn something judging by the time it’s taking. But as long as it’s improving I guess it’s fine.

June done. That’s half a year already.

I lost more weight than I wanted due to being sick. I had to skip a bunch of meals this last week, and I’m now 83.1 kg. I have a feeling I’m just low on water weight though, because the calorie math isn’t mathing too well, so I might bounce back rather quickly. Feeling fine again now, hopefully it stays this way. I think I should be able to get close to 85 kg again this month.

Shoulder/arm not exactly recovered yet, but I’ll pick up the workouts again. Don’t want to sit idle too long. Will see how it goes.

A few thoughts:

Bought a weighted vest. Push ups and squats are much more fun now. Currently using 10 kg out of the 20 kg total.

My shoulder and arm have been hurting for the past few weeks. Probably from pull ups, but not 100% sure. It doesn’t hurt when I do them, but this is still my main suspect. I’ve also been sick yesterday and today, so this seems like a good enough time to take a break for a bit. I’ll take the rest of this month off from workouts and see how things feel.

I’ll probably switch from doing push ups, squats and pull ups 3 times per week, to doing them 2 times per week. I’ll also switch from 3 days per week to 6 days per week. This way I can do 1 type of exercise per day. This will make sure I can go harder at it, and I won’t have to block out big chunks of time to rest between types, so I can pretty much do them whenever I want. I think a bit of extra rest will help with the shoulder/arm issue as well.

Also, I’ve realized the numbers I’m posting here are pretty much useless, since I keep doing harder exercises. My spreadsheet is more detailed, but it would get too messy posting all the details here. I’ll just continue working towards the total here, since I don’t have a better way to solve this. At least when I finish now, I can feel extra proud.

84.9 kg. Weight loss done!

7,500 squats reached. Last set I did 35, 30, 30, 30, 30. I should really get some extra weights so I can cut down on the numbers. Although I guess some cardio isn’t bad to get either.

I’ve also not really been enjoying my decline push ups that much. The extra height hurts my big toes, and getting down is a bit clumsy when I’m tired. So far no real problems, but I’m not looking to get hurt either.

These things combined, I’m thinking a weighted vest would be good to get, since I can use it on push ups, squats, and pull ups when I’m further along with those.

May done.

I lost 1.7 kg this month. Like last month, it could’ve been more. My mom just had major surgery, and I’ve been spending the evenings with her, doing some chores around her house, and enjoying some cookies and ice cream together afterwards. My weight has been almost stagnant for the last 2 weeks or so. Only 0.7 kg to go to get to my goal weight of 85 kg. I should easily reach that in June.

Push ups and squats still going fine.

Chin up PB is still 6. Pull up PB is now also 6. Looks like 10 should be easily doable before the end of the year.

5,000 push ups reached. I’ve now completed all my quarter 2 goals.

I’m doing the decline push ups with my feet on a table (80 cm up) now. Gaining reps every workout, so I should be going up a notch in the next couple of weeks.

Also, new PBs:

Pull ups: 5

Chin ups: 6

Squats still suck, but I’m hanging in there :P Might pick up some extra plates for my dumbells so I can decrease the reps.

April done.

I lost 1.9 kg this month. Could’ve been slightly more, but I was at my mom’s for easter and we ate a box of cookies over 2 days. We only had 6 each in total, but turns out they were 475 kcal each. Oh well, still progress and at least they tasted amazing.

Wasn’t making much progress on pushups for most of this month, so switched to decline pushups. Going to get back to 5 x 20 again, then keep adding height and repeat, until I can do handstand pushups.

And not that it was part of this challenge, but my PBs are now 4 chin ups, and 2 pull ups. Aiming for 10 pull ups before the end of the year.

Q3 weight loss goal achieved. Almost there for my weight goal.

First quarter done.

I lost 2.2 kg this month. My weight is now 89.3 kg. Getting kinda close to the end. 2 more months at this pace. Can’t wait to start eating a bit more again.

First pullup of my life achieved, yay!

2,500 total pushups done. That’s quarter 1 of this year complete, with more than a week to spare.

I’ve started working towards 5 sets of 25 pushups instead of 20. Squats too, but I reached that the first time so that shouldn’t be a problem in the future either (although it was challenging).

I reached a few new milestones.

• Pushups are now 5 x 20. Did it twice this week so it’s not a fluke.
• I’m now just below 90 kg, which is the first time in probably 10 years.

I also received my pull up bar. As I feared, I can currently do 0 pull ups :P Let’s see how much I can improve before the end of the year.

2,500 squats done, which I wanted to reach before the end of this month, so easily within time. I’m also below 91 kg, so halfway there for my total weight loss goal.

Second month down, still doing good.

I lost 2.8 kg this month. My weight is now 91.5 kg, so almost at my Q2 goal.

Pushups increased quite a bit again, last workout I did 20,20,20,18,12. When I reach 5 x 20, I’m going to aim for 5 sets of 25. I’ll also increase squats from 20 to 25 (even though I previously said I wouldn’t). I’m already regretting this, but who knows, maybe the squats will finally become fun (spoiler: they won’t).

I also ordered a pullup bar. Should arrive soon.

I also noticed there hasn’t been a 30 day challenge in quite a while, and probably nobody reads this. But I don’t care, I’m going to keep posting my progress :D

I’m below my Q1 weight goal. I also made enough pushup progress to still reach my Q1 pushup goal in time. Let’s keep going!

First month is done and things are going well.

After weighing myself the first couple of times I realized I should always weigh myself at the same time of day (when I wake up, after bathroom, before eating or drinking). My actual starting weight was probably about 1 kg lighter than I first reported, so about 96.6 kg. I’ve adjusted all my quarterly goals accordingly.

I lost 2.3 kg this month. My weight is now 94.3 kg, so I’m already close to my Q1 goal. Admittedly since I set my goal at losing just 1 kg per month, this isn’t the hard part. And since this is the easiest weight to lose, this one is even more doable. But of course I’m still happy to see my work pay off.

Pushups went from 20,12,6,4,4 to 20,20,12,7,7, so I’m already doing 20 more than when I started. Because my numbers were lower at the start, I might not reach my Q1 goal in time, but I’ll make up for it later since I’ll keep improving as time goes on.

Squats are always 5 x 20 (with two 10 kg dumbells). I’m not going to push myself further here. I’ve thrown my back out a bunch of times in the past, and I don’t want to overdo things and risk that again.

I just realized weekly updates are impossible. Not all months have the same number of days, so it’s too hard to decide where to end each week. Monthly updates it is.

In other news: I have acquired a scale. I’m currently 97.6 kg (215 lbs). I guess I am a bit fat after all. I want to lose at least 12 kg (~26 lbs) this year, since it’s a nice round number each month, and it’ll get me within a more normal weight for my height. I’m 188 cm (6’2").

I’ve also decided to do my workout each sunday, tuesday and thursday. Today I was still a bit sore from last time and only managed to do 1 additional pushup, so if 2 days rest time turns out to be too little I’ll have to adjust it.

A bit more about what I’m actually doing:

Pushups:

• 5 sets of 20 reps.
• 2 minutes rest time between sets.

Squats:

• 5 sets of 20 reps.
• 2 minutes rest time between sets.
• 2 dumbells of 10kg each (so 20kg total) for extra weight.

I’ll be starting with the pushups and doing the squats after that. Probably every 3 days since that’s what I did previously. I’ll be doing everything at home; gyms are too much extra work, and would take a lot more time. I can manage 20 minutes every 3 days.

Why these reps/sets/rest time? I’m just doing things, I don’t really care about optimum strength gain or whatever. I’ve tried things in the past and this worked for me. I’m mostly just trying to build better habits (again).

Also, just did my first session. Squats went fine. I guess biking to work every day keeps the legs going. Although I can definitely feel it already, so I might change my mind about the “fine” part in a day or two. Pushups were a different story. Managed to do 20, 12, 6, 4, 4, for a total of 46 instead of my 100 target. Thought about having another go after the squats, but I figured I’d better see how I feel in the coming days first. Can always catch up later, when my body is more used to it again.

So, I’ve never really been an athlete, but I’ve been in better shape than I am now. I’m also not fat, but I’ve spent most of the last few months (or maybe even the whole year) eating lots of cookies and chocolate, so I need to change my ways.

I’m not planning to starve myself and take all the fun out of life. For example, if I’m at a birthday I’ll definitely have some cake and things. But I do plan to not buy any snacks for a long time. If I do, I just end up eating everything I have (like an entire box of cookies in 1 sitting). I’m not good at eating tasty things in moderation, but my solution of not buying anything works well for me.

I think it was 2021, during COVID lockdowns, where I did 10,000 pushups and squats in 1 year. It sounds like a lot, but on average it’s only ~28 a day. I used to do 100 of each every 3 days or so, so it still felt like a lot at times, but it was manageable.

And in case anyone cares how I got to this point: 2024 was the worst year of my life. Sad things happened, and I was drowning in emotions and stupid administrative things that had to be handled. I had no time or motivation to do much, and now I’m weak. But not for much longer, hopefully. Although these first weeks especially will be hard.

I think I’ll do weekly updates. I’m a bit behind on the pushups and squats already since I’m starting 4 days late, but the year is still young so plenty of time to catch up. No snacks so far this year, so that’s good at least.

I don’t own a scale, so judging my weight could turn out to not be super accurate. But maybe I’ll get a cheap one. Or maybe I’ll do some before/after pics (which I don’t know if I’ll share). But I’ll be honest about my progress.