Red Five - Commencing bombing run

[Colossus In Progress]

So this is my own little slice of accountability huh? I like the idea of daily updates on my progress and how closely I am keeping to my goals. I think, even if I am not accountable to anyone else, just having to write out when I fail or when I succeed will help.
 
I'm going to spend the remainder of the current 6 week challenge working on my diet goals, those being:

• Cut out soft drink completely! I am completely addicted to sugar. Have gone two days now and my body is currently in the oh my god what the hell are you doing to me stage. This is a pass/fail kind of thing, I want to have had no soft rink by the May 25th, however I am going to work on the rule NEVER TWO IN A ROW. If I fail and have soft drink one day I am going to make sure it doesn't happen the next day.
• Work on eating healthier. I don't eat unhealthy because I want to I mostly just do it because it is easier. It's much simpler to go down to McDonalds or the local servo and get something deep fried than it is to go to the supermarket and get vegies and cook. I've also gotten into the mindset that I don't like vegetables and I need to break out of it.
• Start exercising. This is probably my least favourite of my three goals. I've never actually exercised before and I was never a big fan of PE in school, but I'm still going to give it my best shot. If I can manage to take a walk every day I will be happy 

I will also (and I shudder a little to do this) post pictures to help me track my progress. I've only stepped on scales when going to the doctor's so general weight is not something that interest me but hopefully pictures will help me track my progress.

 

 

[Cardinal_22]

Hey Red Five,

 

I'm not actually part of the Nerd Fitness leadership or anything, but welcome to the rebellion!  It sounds like you've got a great set of goals.  I went off soda myself during my last challenge, and it wasn't easy.  But definitely worth it.  =)

There's actually a different forum that you are supposed to post your 6-week challenge in.  It's in the Level 1 Rebels thread here.  There should also be a shortcut to get there at the top of your screen where it says "New challenge boards are up! Challenge starts on April 14th."

 

Good luck!

[Colossus In Progress]

Hey Red Five,

 

I'm not actually part of the Nerd Fitness leadership or anything, but welcome to the rebellion!  It sounds like you've got a great set of goals.  I went off soda myself during my last challenge, and it wasn't easy.  But definitely worth it.  =)

There's actually a different forum that you are supposed to post your 6-week challenge in.  It's in the Level 1 Rebels thread here.  There should also be a shortcut to get there at the top of your screen where it says "New challenge boards are up! Challenge starts on April 14th."

 

Good luck!

 

Hey Cardinal, thanks for the info. I saw the 6 week challenge forum, but seen as it has already been going for a week I thought I would just work on diet and general goals for the remainder of this current challenge and do a full six week challenge for the next one that comes around.

 

Basically I want to use this to track my progress overall and, when I start doing them, use the 6 week challenges to track specific goals, most likely related to exercise.

[Colossus In Progress]

Well, day one down, only the rest of my life to go!

 

Actually, everything went pretty well today. I managed to avoid sugar entirely.. well almost. Does a big serving of fruit count as sugar?

 

I also managed to go on an hours walk (light walk listening to music), which is on top of the 45 minute walk that I normal take to get to the shops.

 

So for "breakfast" I had:

 

75g of baby spinach, 100g of grape tomatoes, half a capsicum, half an onion and 75g of mushrooms sauteed together with a 200 gram steak and 1 packet of steamed vegetables (the kind you get frozen and steam in the microwave).

 

"Lunch" was basically an entire pineapple cut into chunks. I love pineapple and I live in northern Queensland where there are huge farms of them so it's kind of a match made in heaven. I'm not even going to look into how much fruit sugar there is in an entire pineapple and just take it as a win that I didn't eat any refined sugar.

 

"Dinner" was an omelette with 75g of baby spinach, 100g of grape tomatoes, half a capsicum, half an onion and 75g of mushrooms, 120g of ham and 6 (fairly small) eggs.

 

Eating healthy was easier than I expected. I think I've discovered that I don't hate vegetables nearly as much as I thought I did. Even tomatoes, which I have always claimed to hate, were quite nice sauteed together with everything else. Still don't think I will ever be able to eat them raw though.

 

Sugar cravings are definitely going to be an issue though. It wasn't too bad for me today because I was at home (no work today) so if I felt too bad I would just go and play games or read an ebook, something to distract me from the problem. I was definitely more tired than I normally would be though (and probably crankier, I swore at my computer a little more often than I normally would).

 

I am worried about going to work tomorrow. I work night shift at a hotel so, while there is plenty to do, I have no one else around and it often gets boring as hell. I'm worried that boredom, combined with sugar cravings may lead me to head down to the 24 hour convenience store and fill up, either on unhealthy fried foods, or worse yet on coke.

 

If anyone has any tips on ways I can distract myself at work please feel free to bombard me with them.

[auro]

It's never too late to participate in the challenge, but of course it is entirely up to you

Just in case you didn't find it, here's the FAQ for the challenges http://rebellion.nerdfitness.com/index.php?/topic/33335-challenge-faq/

Good luck on the withdrawal stage; it's gonna get better.

 

I read your introduction-thread where you said you work as a night manager.. meaning you sit at a desk watching a screen all night? Can you read books? Bring your own computer perhaps?

[Colossus In Progress]

It's never too late to participate in the challenge, but of course it is entirely up to you

Just in case you didn't find it, here's the FAQ for the challenges http://rebellion.nerdfitness.com/index.php?/topic/33335-challenge-faq/

Good luck on the withdrawal stage; it's gonna get better.

 

I read your introduction-thread where you said you work as a night manager.. meaning you sit at a desk watching a screen all night? Can you read books? Bring your own computer perhaps?

 

Hey Auro. Reading books is a bit to attention intensive. I wish all I did was watch screens but my job mostly involves accounting and reconciliation. It's not the most exciting stuff but I need to actually pay attention to it. I am lucky enough to be able to take my computer along so i generally have Twitch running in the background, but most of the streamers I regularly watch don't live stream during the times I am at work so I am mostly catching up on streams I have missed.

 

We'll see how things go. I'm going to try and avoid coffee as well as soft drinks (when I have coffee I have it with milk and sugar!) but I do have some green tea at work so hopefully that will give me enough of a caffeine fix to keep me going through the night.

[Colossus In Progress]

Uhh, 4am with no coffee or soft drink is hell. I feel like I'm about to fall asleep in my chair. I think I'm going to have to bring something more substantial for lunch tomorrow. Only had fruit for lunch again today and I'm feeling exhausted right now.

[auro]

Yeah try with black tea? Perhaps try bringing food and eating during the night?

[Colossus In Progress]

Yeah try with black tea? Perhaps try bringing food and eating during the night?

Yeah, I think food is going to be the best idea. Maybe some sort of stirfry that I can just reheat in the microwave. I'm not a big fan of black tea.

[auro]

Primary reason for black is that it (to my knowledge) has the most caffeine. (Plus I find it tasty )

Do you work with any colleagues at night?

[Colossus In Progress]

Okay, daily update.

 

Day 2 was both harder and easier than day 1.

 

Easier in that I didn't seem to deal with as bad a headache today, though I did have little bit of a one when I first woke up but it went away when I walked to the shops to buy food for the day.

 

Harder though was dealing with plummeting energy levels at 4am and trying to focus on accounting and fact checking when all I could think about was how tired I was. I think I managed to get away with it without actually going into a micro sleep though so that's a plus!

 

Still managed to avoid soda and refined sugars, though more fruit was had. Exercise was only 45 minutes today but I'm not 100% sure if that was because I didn't go as far or because I walked faster. I'm going to start walking the same route each night so I have a way of comparing.

 

Food for today mainly consisted of some home made meatballs that contained (500g beef mince, 1 carrot, 1 capsicum, 2 onions, 1 grated zucchini and 200g of mushrooms) with a sauce made up of 2 x 400g tins of crushed tomatoes and 200g of fresh grape tomatoes.

 

So "breakfast" was half of the above meatballs, 75g of a baby spinach & rocket leaf mix and 600g sweet potato par boiled and then fried. In hindsight the sweet potato was too large, I probably should have halved it. By the time I was through I was absolutely stuffed (have to clean the plate though, thanks for that little bit of conditioning Mum )

 

"Lunch" was fruit again. 3 nashi pears. Never had nashi pears before but they were really nice, as sweet as a pear but with the texture of an apple.

 

"Dinner" was the remainder of the meatballs alongside an omelette of 5 eggs and 75g of the spinach and rocket leaf mix.

 

Like I said earlier the hardest part was making sure I had the energy to get through the night. Like Auro mentioned I'm probably going to have to bring something more substantial in to eat, even if it is a smaller portion. I generally don't get to hungry while at work. I think it's a biological thing, I read somewhere that the digestive system tends to shut down at night.

 

Also going to try and cut down my fruit intake a little as well. It's no good cutting out refined sugar if I just replace it with fructose. I'll limit myself to one piece of fruit each day for now and keep an eye on it.

 

 

Primary reason for black is that it (to my knowledge) has the most caffeine. (Plus I find it tasty )

Do you work with any colleagues at night?

 

 

No, that's probably the hardest part is that I am generally completely alone at night. Don't get me wrong, it's also why I love the job. But it's hard at the moment trying to keep myself focused and active while dealing with the ups and downs of sugar crashing.

 

Maybe I will try black tea. Maybe I don't dislike it as much as I think I do.

 

I'm sure, given another week or two it will get better (at least here's hoping).

[auro]

Great you kept yourself off soda and refined sugar. Perhaps get used to the black tea by not making it very strong the first few times? 

I wonder though. Why on earth is accounting and fact checking put in during the night and not the day? :-)

 

Looking forward to following your epic quest to become healthier and more fit!

[Colossus In Progress]

Day Three and I'm still alive!

 

I think my sugar levels may be starting to normalize a bit. I had an okay nights sleep last night and I don't feel as if I tossed and turned as much. I took a more substantial lunch into work today and I didn't get quite as tired in the early hours of the morning.

 

Downside is I feel like I didn't eat as healthy yesterday. Still a million times more healthy than what I am used to eating but not as healthy as I have been doing. There was a lot of sauces, both on the stir fry and the chicken wings I made today, so I feel like I want to try and avoid that if I can.

 

Exercise ended up being two walks to the shops. I forgot something the first time I went and by the time I got back from the second trip it was too late to go on another walk. Still it's about 45 minutes return to the shops so I'm counting that as exercise.

 

Food consisted of a vegie stir fry containing 1 onion, 3 cloves of garlic, 250g of broccoli, 1 corn cob (minus the cob), 180g of mushrooms, 1 carrot and 1 zucchini.

 

Breakfast was 3/4 of the stir fry, along with 5 three joint chicken wings and 75g of spinach rocket leaf mix.

 

Lunch was the remainder of the stir fry, another 4 of the chicken wings and 1 kiwi fruit.

 

Dinner was 3 eggs, 75g of spinach rocket leaf mix and 3 rashers of shortcut bacon (about 80g).

 

Still no soft drinks and I am starting to feel less like I need them. Now it's just a matter of how much I WANT them! I'm having some pretty bad sugar cravings, but I feel like I can get through them. After all if I gave in I'd have to come here and explain to you guys how weak I am!

 

 

 

I wonder though. Why on earth is accounting and fact checking put in during the night and not the day? :-)

 

 

It's kind of a catch all position. I'm actually the night (or duty) manager for the hotel. That means I deal with customer service, fire warden duties, security issues. But because we are a fairly quiet property and most of the time (after about 11pm) I have very little reason to leave the desk it falls to me to do things like double checking paperwork and reconciling accounts.

[auro]

Great to hear that you're starting to get off the "need"-stage - the sugar cravings are awful, I've still got them. But they were worst for me at the start, now they're slowly fading out, which I consider to be awesome.

 

Catch-all is awesome - How much light is there in the room where you are sitting? temperature?

[Colossus In Progress]

Day Four!

 

Unfortunately no extra exercise today, just the walk to the shops.

 

Breakfast was a 250g steak, 75g of baby spinach leaves and a stirfry containing (carrot,zucchini,grape tomatoes, capsicum, onion, garlic, mushrooms)

 

Lunch was approx 100g of chicken  with the left over stir fry

 

Dinner was an omelette with 4 eggs, 75g spinach and 2 bacon rashers.

 

Pretty exhausted today so I am going to cut this short and head to bed. Going to the movies with a friend when I wake up to see Amazing Spiderman 2. I wonder how badly they can butcher Spiderman this time!

[Colossus In Progress]

Day five is over and it was kind of a weird one.

 

Went to the movies with a friend to see The new Spiderman. It was... meh. Not horrendously bad but it just didn't draw you in. I found myself sitting during the movie and picking apart little things that were annoying me. At one point Peter was watching a home recording of a graduation speech and it was meant to be all emotional and inspiring and all I could think was "There was no one that was shot on a camcorder". It was a perfectly straight on, face framed, steady shot, in HD. Then they superimposed that image on a laptop screen and it just screamed fake.

 

It also went half an hour longer than it should.

 

Anyway, now to the good and bad of day five in terms of diet. The good: STILL NO SUGAR!!

 

I'm actually really proud of this. Normally when I go to the movies I'd have the largest frozen coke, a large popcorn and the largest bag of skittles they have. Instead, today I went to the shops before the movie and bought a bag of Bhuja Nut mix. Not exactly paleo, but is gluten free and no sugar. I didn't have anything to drink and no popcorn. I did miss the skittles something awful though.

 

Now the bad. I did go off the rails in terms of healthy eating yesterday. After the movie the friend and I went out and grabbed something to eat and I ended up getting KFC. I had a two piece meal (with the roll and the chips AND the potato and gravy) The one redeeming moment is that I got a bottle of water, instead of a soft drink to go with it.

 

And... I didn't actually eat anything else yesterday. Had the night off from work (someone wanted to swap shifts so I had a short week this week) and when I got home from the movie I fell asleep on the couch watching Suckerpunch. SO now my sleeping patterns are all messed up, I'm going to have to stay awake for the next 24 hours if I want to be able to stay awake at work tomorrow night.

[auro]

Day five is over and it was kind of a weird one.

 

Went to the movies with a friend to see The new Spiderman. It was... meh. Not horrendously bad but it just didn't draw you in. I found myself sitting during the movie and picking apart little things that were annoying me. At one point Peter was watching a home recording of a graduation speech and it was meant to be all emotional and inspiring and all I could think was "There was no one that was shot on a camcorder". It was a perfectly straight on, face framed, steady shot, in HD. Then they superimposed that image on a laptop screen and it just screamed fake.

 

It also went half an hour longer than it should.

 

Anyway, now to the good and bad of day five in terms of diet. The good: STILL NO SUGAR!!

 

I'm actually really proud of this. Normally when I go to the movies I'd have the largest frozen coke, a large popcorn and the largest bag of skittles they have. Instead, today I went to the shops before the movie and bought a bag of Bhuja Nut mix. Not exactly paleo, but is gluten free and no sugar. I didn't have anything to drink and no popcorn. I did miss the skittles something awful though.

 

Now the bad. I did go off the rails in terms of healthy eating yesterday. After the movie the friend and I went out and grabbed something to eat and I ended up getting KFC. I had a two piece meal (with the roll and the chips AND the potato and gravy) The one redeeming moment is that I got a bottle of water, instead of a soft drink to go with it.

 

And... I didn't actually eat anything else yesterday. Had the night off from work (someone wanted to swap shifts so I had a short week this week) and when I got home from the movie I fell asleep on the couch watching Suckerpunch. SO now my sleeping patterns are all messed up, I'm going to have to stay awake for the next 24 hours if I want to be able to stay awake at work tomorrow night.

 

Just get back on track with your diet and it'll all be fine

Awesomesauce job on accessories to watching a movie.

 

Did you consider just sleeping 4½ hours and then going to bed at proper time instead of staying awake for 24h?