Shaylavan

Alright, I'm still working on the challenge, but not going quite as strong as before. Suffering from a bit of a motivation issue, where my goals just seem so puny and like they won't get me anywhere...generally in a funk I guess. Keeping on plugging though; may need to more tightly focus my goals for next challenge.

Yes, definitely stronger on the language than last time. Rounding out the week, Sunday hit all my daily targets. Yes! Getting in 3 workouts this week will be difficult because I am out of town this weekend, but I did one today (running 1 mile, then sprint/walk alternating for another mile). But, assuming I didn't totally wreck my calves today (which is possible) I'll try for a bodyweight workout tomorrow and then another running workout Wednesday.

Good luck with the language learning! I also was not aware that Italian martial arts were a thing, but that seminar looks super cool - enjoy!

Alright, first week going pretty well so far. 1. Stretchies - 6/6 (not counting today yet). Good work self! 2. Workout - 3/3, including one BJJ session yesterday (f yeah, I missed that!) 3. No Sugar - 5/6 - in my defense the one slip was a gorgeous modernist chocolate mousse dessert at a dinner I wasn't paying for...other than that I have been v. good on this 4. Mandarin - 4/6 - better than last time, still trying to improve on this though. Pretty strong start!

Sounds like exciting times! Good call making sure you have de-stress time - self care is important! You got this :-).

Adding in a week over week tracker for ease of calculating at the end. Starting Weight: 196.8 lbs Week 1: Stretching - 7/7 Workout - 3/3 No Sugar - 6/7 Mandarin practice - 5/7 Week 2: Stretching - x/7 Workout - x/3 No Sugar - x/7 Mandarin practice - x/7 Week 3: Stretching - x/7 Workout - x/3 No Sugar - x/7 Mandarin practice - x/7 Week 4: Stretching - x/7 Workout - x/3 No Sugar - x/7 Mandarin practice - x/7 Ending Challenge Weight:

I love this theme, and reading all of those quotes is making me want to go reread all the Discworld novels. Good luck with all of your challenges!

Last challenge actually went pretty well! Well, compared to the previous three which I bailed on. I'm planning to now chain this plus the next three challenges as part of an overarching, semester long challenge. I have several semester long goals, as well as specific ones I'll try to achieve in February. I'm also making my challenge run Feb 1 - Feb 28, so it's a solid 4 weeks rather than 26 days. Semester Goals: 1. Maintain my weight all semester (196.8 lbs on Feb 1). 2. Workout 3x/week all semester 3. Work with a personal trainer at least 1 session to fix my lifting form (so I don't mess up my back trying to deadlift again) 4. Work on my flexibility this term, goal to be able to finally touch my toes by the end of May. 5. Crack a 9:30 mile this term. The next four challenges will be building to/supporting these goals (also up on my EQ page linked in sig). Feb Challenge Goals: Many of these are recycled goals from last time that are either habits I'm still trying to build, or things I didn't do that need more grinding. 1. Stretch daily. Aiming for perfect completion this time since I'm trying to make this an automatic, unconscious habit. 28 possible, graded straight percentage. 2. Workout 3x/week. No day restrictions. What counts: running at least 1.5 mile, bodyweight circuits (pushups/squats/planks) from last challenge, lifting (once I work with a trainer), or any BJJ/Muay Thai training group work. Like the stretching, this one is about grinding on the habit formation more so than any specific performance goal (though the mile runs will be working towards cracking that mile time goal ultimately) 12 possible, graded straight percentage. 3. Cut out sugar and desserts (building in a single exception for a pre-planned event on Valentine's Day - otherwise, no sugar). 28 possible, graded straight percentage. 4. [edited goal] Work on Mandarin EdX course every day. Realized that the goal of "finish this lesson" was too big, so I'm bite-sizing it. Besides with language learning you can't grind it, have to consistently practice. So "working on" Mandarin course means doing any of the following: watching one of the lesson videos, completing a worksheet, flipping through my flashcards, completing the lesson quiz, completing any other specified assignment. I may not finish the whole course in this challenge, but hopefully will actually make progress as opposed to last time. 28 possible.

Final wrap up: End of the day, I'm happy I stuck with it the whole challenge - definitely proud of myself for that. How'd I actually stack up though? GOALS 1. Daily Stretching: 21/26 = 80% = B- Did better than the last time I tried a daily stretch goal though, so there's that. 2. Bodyweight Exercises. 9/12, 8/12 on the correct day. So that's 73% by the weighting = C Again though, a technically passing grade! And I did up my pushup progression to 5-4-3-2-1 real pushups 3. Food Logging.26/26 = 100% = A+ That was easy because it required no willpower...and I discovered I have started eating sweets literally every day again. Bummer. But, that'll inform my next challenge's goal! 4. Life Goal - Complete EdX Mandarin Course. 0/6 = F Oops. Well, going to try to kickstart that this weekend and recycle this goal for Feb. Thanks for reading!

Thank you guys for checking in! My progress fell off a little bit, but been mostly tracking. Progress so far: Stretching, I am at 18 of 23 possible so far (missed quite a few while traveling for interviews). Not bad though, this is a better record than I have managed to maintain when trying to stretch daily so far. Workouts: Week 1: 3/3 on right days Week 2: 2/3 (missed Friday b/c interview) Week 3: 2/3 (missed Friday b/c no good reason) Week 4: 1 so far, on Tuesday (and should get one more in on Thursday, since I've got all day commitments wed and fri that I don't believe I'll get workouts around...maybe Friday night though). I've gotten the squats up to starting ladder from 17. Still doing pushups full down from 5 to 1. Today also added extra sets of planks at 40s and 20s to do a 10 set ladder rather than a 6 set ladder, and cuz I was feeling it. Logging food: Yes! Some of them were reconstructed after the fact, but still got all the food recorded every day. Mandarin: A hahaha that goal fell off a cliff. I'll try to finish lesson 1 this weekend (slash, refresh myself on it), but o/w punting this goal to next challenge. In other awesome life news, I've locked down my summer internship! In my first choice industry! So now I don't have to do any recruiting, applying, or interviewing all spring, leaving much more time for the important things like working out :-) Overall actually pretty happy with how this challenge has gone down, since last time I tried I I fell off completely. I like this 4 week cadence...easier to stick it out. Will do a final wrap up update on Friday to tabulate final results.

OMG that video is hilarious. And good luck with the injury :-( Hopefully it will heal quickly with rehab!

Posting frequency fell off, but despite this week being jam-packed w/interviews for summer internships (meep!) still more or less on track! Stretching: Still hitting every day. And I think I'm getting incrementally closer to touching my toes....:-D Food logging: Yep, still logging every day (or, writing dinner the next morning...but it's completely accurate so counting it). Workouts: Giving myself credit for this, although on Monday I was a little sick and on very little sleep (see prev source of stress this week), so I couldn't finish the workout. But killed it today, upped the squats ladder to start at 16 AND got 5-4-3-2-1 as full pushups! Although my form may not be the best there, so I'm going to work on getting perfect form on those sets before trying to do the whole ladder as full. Mandarin...not on track with that >.< But, interviews are tapering off so that may be a back half of January project. Perusing the project list for that class today though, so let's see if that motivates me to at least flip through the flashcards. @BoutThatActionBoss, I've tried 100 pushups challenge before, and the 200 squats challenge, but have such trouble sticking with the regular workout schedule. If I ingrain that 3x/week workout habit with this challenge though, mb I'll take another crack at one of them :-)

So ladders are generally exactly that, start at 15, then go down to 14 in the next set, then 13, etc down to 6. Then next week trying to scale it up by starting at 16, then 15, etc down to 7 (chose to do a max of ten sets for time's sake). For efficiency's sake I've started doing it in rounds so 15 squats, 10 knee pushups, 60 s plank, rest, then 14 squats, 9 k pushups, 50 s plank, so forth (my plank ladders are shorter). On pushup progression I'm doing knee pushups atm, but have managed to work in full pushups at the tail ends of the sets (so I'll do 10-5 knee pushups, then 4-1 full pushups). Which is faster progress than I expected - guess I'm just really rusty, but still have that strength in me somewhere :-) Progress update, got all 3 workouts in this week, and 5 days of stretching and logging so far. Woo! On the Mandarin front, still in the first lesson, but rewatched the lessons on numbers and general pronunciation and made flashcards. This weekend the plan for that is to rewatch the other two vocab lectures, do the worksheets, and take the quiz. Good first week!

Nice progress so far! Also, *joins you in complaining about the MBTA* For veggies I like stir fries since they're so customizable, cook fast, and you can make a ton and then eat leftovers for a few days. My go to is a Thai-style one: - saute minced garlic and diced onions in ~1-2 T of canola oil until soft - add any meats (diced chicken, ground pork, wev) or tofu and saute until cooked over med-high - add vegetables of choice (I usually go w/broccoli, peppers, carrots, and snow peas, but most things'll work), and while that's cooking add 1 T sugar, 1 T soy sauce, 1 T fish sauce (can turn it into 2 T soy sauce in total if you don't like fish sauce...acquired taste), and the juice of one lime, and hot sauce to taste. Cook over high heat until the veggies are cooked - serve over rice Another veggie heavy recipe I found last year was for Russian cabbage stew, which is better than I expected something with cabbage in it to be... http://www.food.com/recipe/shchi-russian-cabbage-soup-309210, not a crockpot version but could probably be adapted. Good luck!

Thanks 'BoutThatActionBoss! Update time: Stretching: did yesterday and today, 3/3 so far. Journalling, same Workout, did today as scheduled, and even managed the 3-2-1 of the pushups ladder as regular pushups. Woo!

Thank you! The exact location not determined yet - basically it is for a project class, and there are several possible locations for the projects (most are centered in Beijing or Shanghai). This month I'll be finding out what projects are available and choosing the one I'll be working on. I'll update when I know exactly where I'm going! And I've never been - where did you go when you were there? I should have a little time to travel around - what are the can't-miss things to see and do?

Day 1: Workout - just finished! Stretching - also just finished! Food logging - logged everything eaten so far today Mandarin - actually started first lesson on Saturday, though have not taken the quiz yet. Good start, self.

Cool! I used to do Shotokan when I was a kid. Good luck!

Oh hey, it's been exactly 1 year since I tried a challenge (and failed to complete that challenge). But, four weeks seems far more manageable, and fits beautifully into my schedule, so let's give this another go. 2015 was a hectic year - I started grad school, which has been amazing. This meant I had to leave my Muay Thai gym I was training at due to both money and time reasons (I'm still in the same city, but my school schedule conflicted with the classes there). Fortunately I found people in my grad program who used to train BJJ and Muay Thai, and so was able to get in a few workout sessions with them last semester. I also now have access to the school gym for weightlifting. Neither better nor worse then, just different. However, January is a term break so my training group isn't around, and there's no classes so I'm not going to campus very often. I risk spending this break just eating leftover Christmas cookies and watching Netflix; trying to use this challenge to do a little bit more than just that! Overarching Goal: Use January to build basic habits to carry me through the rest of the year, and keep in decent enough shape to train with my ad hoc martial arts group in the spring semester. GOALS 1. Daily Stretching. Do each of these three stretches for at least five breaths, at least once per day: Hamstring stretch (forward fold)Hip flexor stretch (kneeling hip flexor stretch)Calf stretch (lunge against wall)This is one I'd like to build on in future challenges, and by the end of the year be stretching more of me, 3x/day. But, starting small and manageable. Total possible: 26 Grading will be a straight percentage of days achieved it. 2. Bodyweight Exercises. 3x/week on M/W/F. Choosing those specific days since those are the days I'll be able to work out next semester, so I want to get into the habit of exercising those days now to make it easier to keep going once classes start again. Just doing bodyweight squats, knee pushups, and planks to keep it simple and something I can do at home if I don't go to the campus gym. Squats: ladder sets from 15 down to 5 (15 reps, 14 reps, 13 reps, etc - aiming to increase starting reps by 1 each week so by end of challenge doing 19-18-17 down to 9)Knee Pushups: ladder sets from 10 down to 1 (goal by end is to be doing full pushups for 5 reps through 1 rep)Planks: ladder sets from 60 seconds to 10 secondsTotal possible: 12 Grading: 80% will be number of workouts accomplished, period. 20% will be how many were on the correct days of the week (i.e. if I do 10 workouts, but only 8 were on MWF as planned, I'll give myself an 8/10 in that section of the grade). Upping squat reps and knee pushups to real pushups is a nice to have, but that's more to keep the exercises interesting and won't count for grading. 3. Food Logging. Just collecting data and trying to be more mindful of what I'm eating to start the year. I'm not planning on making major diet changes right now, but want to get a baseline of what I'm eating now. Total possible: 26 Grading is a straight percentage of days achieved it. 4. Life Goal - Complete EdX Mandarin Course. I'm going to China over spring break (!!) The only New Year's resolution I made for myself was a) visit 3 countries this year, and have a conversation in the local language everywhere I go (can be very brief and very basic, but should be an actual exchange with a native speaker). So to that end, I want to finish all six lessons of this course (https://courses.edx.org/courses/course-v1:MandarinX+MX101x+3T2015/info) in this challenge to get the basics down. Total possible: 6 lessons Grading is a straight percentage of how many lessons I complete within the challenge. Let's see how this goes!

Wooo Muay Thai! Good luck!

Good luck! I'm doing that for one of my goals too. IMHO just being mindful of food intake helps regulate it a bit, and also gets you data to make subsequent changes. What discipline do you train?

Sunday: Stretch - yes! Sleep - n/a since I took Monday off (so it's out of a 29 possible for the whole challenge, not 30). Got a solid 8 hours in b/c of it. Monday Stretch - yes! Sleep - I got wound down and into bed by 11, but had wicked insomnia and a panic attack over it in the middle of the night. So, credit, but only if I get my butt into bed, heavily sedated by Zzquil, by 10 tonight. No Whole30 yesterday, because of the great nerdy excuse of we were gonna make dinner, but then we found an ocean monument in Minecraft, first one we found on our server, so we absolutely *had* to raid it last night and....long story short, chicken didn't happen last night. But it's on the docket for this week. Running tally: Sleep: 7/10 Whole30: 1/3 Stretch: 9/15

Alright, I need to tally up all of these points so far, I've been bad at keeping track of overall progress. Sleeps - I was really good about this Wed and Thursday Wed: Sleep - yes stretch - yes Thurs: Sleep - yes stretch - ...shoot I honestly can't remember. That's a probably not though, since I was at work til 6:30. Fri Sleep - n/a stretch - no Saturday Sleep - n/a stretch - yes! Just finished! So what's my tally so far... Sleep: 6/9 possible so far Whole30: 1/2 so far found the shawarma recipe I want to make, but probably won't make it this week (since going to UFC FIGHT IN BOSTON OMGGGGGGGG tomorrow night. So not so much time to cook for that one). But, that's why I have one free week out of this. But, plan is to make this on Monday, so it'll count for next week. Stretch: 7/13 Also gonna throw that paleo sushi recipe up I alluded to. No source, I just based it on maki I usually eat, and took out the rice. Ingredients per roll: 1 Nori sheet 1/4 avocado, cut into vaguely strip like pieces 1/8-1/4 cucumber, cut into matchsticks ~1.5 oz smoked salmon (about 1/3 of the standard size supermarket package I've found, which I think is 4 oz) couple drops sushi vinegar spoonful of coconut aminos for dipping Using a sushi rolling mat (could maybe replicate w/parchment paper?), lay the nori flat and put the avocado, cucumber, and smoked salmon at one end, evenly distributed in a line across it. Sprinkle a few drops of sushi vinegar evenly along the filling (sushi vinegar is what you'd put in the sushi rice, so it gives it a hint of sushi rice without actually putting rice in). Fold the nori over to cover the whole pile of food, and roll it tightly (hard to explain, but I'm sure there are youtube videos to see how to roll sushi - I had a friend teach me tho so can't point to a specific resource). Cut the cylinder into sushi pieces. Drizzle with coconut aminos to replicate soy sauce (actually a pretty good substitute). Enjoy! I found that I was full after two of these plus half a sweet potato (I'd roasted that to include in the sushi as well, but failed and put olive oil and salt on it like baked sweet potato fries on autopilot...oops).

Damn Lou be Lou you are a powerhouse! Awesome job killing it so far, and enjoy tons of delicious food to fuel your continued awesome that cornbread chorizo and cheese sounds very tasty

Thanks for the encouragement! Alright where am I at... Monday: another double class! Stretched 3x like a boss. It's actually pretty doable to remember that on class days because I get to class so early (work/train schedules). So that was good. Bedtime: nope. Absolutely no good excuse that night. Tuesday: Stretch...no :/ that is a good idea doing it on a schedule, I just am usually super rushed in the morning. I should make the effort to carve out five minutes though Sleep: no, but better excuse - long distance partner got into town late on Tuesday night, and I wanted to spend some time together catching up. He's here for two weeks, but knows I'm working on my sleep so will hopefully help nudge me sleep wards early. Today: Stretch, success! Sleep, tbd. No time to cook really this week yet, but have earmarked Saturday for a whole30 meal. Planning to find a compliant chicken sharma recipe to try, plus a Lebanese garlic paste I know works, plus a big salad to put it on. Yummmm.