{"id":16298,"date":"2017-01-16T06:45:44","date_gmt":"2017-01-16T12:45:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brubakers.us\/?p=16298"},"modified":"2017-01-22T12:33:25","modified_gmt":"2017-01-22T18:33:25","slug":"the-flip-ching-plank-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/?p=16298","title":{"rendered":"The FLIP + CHING Plank Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Brian and I have been on various health kicks over the years. There was <a href=\"http:\/\/brubakers.us\/?p=22\" >that time that we bought a Bowflex<\/a> thinking that it would allow us to workout at home more. In reality, it turned out to be the most expensive <em>cat-toy-slash-coat-rack<\/em> that we had ever bought. We realized shortly after that we didn&#8217;t have the self-discipline to workout at home, <a href=\"http:\/\/brubakers.us\/?p=2184\" >we joined the YMCA only to give up on it a few years later<\/a> because we decided that &#8220;we no longer had time to go.&#8221; It was a really short hiatus because we rejoined a few months later and rediscovered <a href=\"http:\/\/brubakers.us\/?p=3676\" >racquetball<\/a> (<a href=\"http:\/\/brubakers.us\/?p=257\" >one of our favorite activities at the Y from years before<\/a>). <\/p>\n<blockquote><p><BIG>Those were fun times. We loved playing racquetball. Here are some funny racquetball memories:<\/BIG><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li><BIG>The time <a href=\"http:\/\/brubakers.us\/?p=3798\" >we stole someone else&#8217;s racquetball court<\/a>, unintentionally.<\/BIG><\/li>\n<li><BIG>The time that made us realized that <a href=\"http:\/\/brubakers.us\/?p=3579\" >we should really wear eye protection<\/a> when playing (specially when playing with Jay).<\/BIG><\/li>\n<li><BIG><a href=\"http:\/\/brubakers.us\/?p=3685\" >We actually bought our own racquetball rackets<\/a> and named them.<\/BIG><\/li>\n<li><BIG>There were <a href=\"http:\/\/brubakers.us\/?p=263\" >plenty of wagers<\/a> made. <a href=\"http:\/\/brubakers.us\/?p=4442\" >Brian even wins sometimes<\/a>. We even instituted a rule where the loser posts the results of the racquetball session on their Facebook status.<\/BIG><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I have a love-hate relationship with working out. <a href=\"http:\/\/brubakers.us\/?p=5197\" >There are times that I get into a regular routine<\/a> and there are times when I fall off the wagon completely. There was even a time when I had multiple gym memberships. We had a Genesis Health Clubs membership, YMCA membership, and we were also paying for access to our wellness center (fitness\/workout facility) at work. That&#8217;s when we were living at <a href=\"http:\/\/brubakers.us\/?p=8164\" >Quarters at Cambridge<\/a>, which incidentally also has a small fitness center onsite. <\/p>\n<blockquote><p><BIG>We were most successful with our health goals around that time. <a href=\"http:\/\/brubakers.us\/?p=6650\" >I actually got down to 120 lbs<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/brubakers.us\/?p=6498\" >had to get rid of a bunch of clothes<\/a>.<\/BIG><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/brubakers.us\/?p=4394\" >Brian has never enjoyed going to the gym<\/a>. Actually, he doesn&#8217;t like working out period. <a href=\"http:\/\/brubakers.us\/?p=4482\" >Here&#8217;s Brian doing P90X<\/a>. We often joke that he doesn&#8217;t like to sweat. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/brubakers.us\/?p=3827\" >We usually have to make a contest<\/a> out of it in order to get him motivated enough to workout. That&#8217;s why I was surprised when he came up with the idea of the &#8220;Plank Challenge&#8221; at the beginning of the year. <\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ching\/32091264866\/in\/datetaken-public\/\"  title=\"Untitled\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/c1.staticflickr.com\/1\/263\/32091264866_84477a26f3.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"261\" alt=\"Untitled\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>He read somewhere that doing four 1-minute planks for 28 consecutive days is good for you so he suggested that we do it. I loved the idea, naturally, because it&#8217;s something that we can do together, even when we are apart. And, it&#8217;s not too challenging and it takers hardly any time at all &#8212; six minutes tops. <\/p>\n<p>We started on January 2 and haven&#8217;t missed a single day yet. Although, I have to say that I feel like I&#8217;m forcing Brian to do it with me some days. I think he wouldn&#8217;t mind it one bit if we &#8220;forgot&#8221; to do it one day. He hasn&#8217;t gotten too whiny at yet but I have had to remind him that this was his idea &#8212; and it&#8217;s a great one!<\/p>\n<p>This challenge is going so well that we&#8217;re actually thinking of doing a different challenge each month for the rest of the year. Our plan is to come up with something quick, easy, and doable to do for 28 days straight each month. <\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ve also been inspired to restart our weekly weigh ins. I couldn&#8217;t find the old spreadsheet we used for the <a href=\"http:\/\/brubakers.us\/?p=3827\" >Battle of the Brubakers<\/a> that we did years ago so I had to create a new one. You can keep track of our progress here:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"380\" src=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/spreadsheets\/d\/1dvcSPkEzpuL42xgmQmIwcmnliJAE8zbZVn2osi5-7qE\/pubchart?oid=1843774185&amp;format=interactive\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"380\" src=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/spreadsheets\/d\/1dvcSPkEzpuL42xgmQmIwcmnliJAE8zbZVn2osi5-7qE\/pubchart?oid=1660137930&amp;format=interactive\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Anyway, our 2017 is off to a great start. How about you? How is your year going so far? Will you be doing next month&#8217;s challenge with us?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Brian and I have been on various health kicks over the years. There was that time that we bought a Bowflex thinking that it would allow us to workout at home more. In reality, it turned out to be the most expensive cat-toy-slash-coat-rack that we had ever bought. We realized shortly after that we didn&#8217;t [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[81,931,1469,2498,2855,2856,2857],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16298"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16298"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16350,"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16298\/revisions\/16350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}