rathlan

I've had a pretty hectic year or two and have managed to keep a few of my good habits going. I've been more able to keep my diet going than I have been able to keep exercise regular, and my maintenance of mental health has dropped back to simply ensuring I take my meds (anxiety related). So my aim for this challenge is to start focusing on getting back to exercise more and to start some better mental hygiene practices, as well as some skills growth. Health * 5 x exercise each week (2 strength, 2 cardio, 1 Yoga) - 15 points each. * Packing lunch each working day - 15 points each Mental health * Waking up by 6:30am on working days - 15 points each. * Planning my weeks - 25 points Leveling up my life: * Music practice 3 times a week - 10 points a practice * Every week, I will pick a task to do, which will count 20 points. My evaluation will work our to 250 points a week, and I'll use that to get an XP value for my avatar. I will likely edit this post tomorrow to neaten it up a bit, I wanted to get something up before the 28th, so that I kept to the start of the challenge. [emoji16] Sent from my CLT-L09 using Tapatalk

I've had a lot of other things to sort out to prepare me for the challenge. I've signed up for the Academy and Yoga, have started preparing my sleep/wake routine, setup a bit of a mental health routine, and am starting to work on dailies and habits in Habatica. While I haven't framed it as a "mini/partial challenge", it's been a preparation time for me.

The last year has been pretty rough, I've managed to get through a lot of personal changes and upheaval and still keep bits of fitness, diet, and mental health going alone "ok". I've picked up a bit of weight, and my posture and flexibility has dropped significantly which is what got me thinking about NF again. So now I'm respawning and getting back to my core of good habits and exercises. I've been "banting" for the past month and it's going well, even if I make the conscious decision to eat outside the plan sometimes. I'm going to use the next few weeks (before the next challenge) to start getting into more regular exercise, and especially more regular stretching/mobility work.

Yesterday was just stretching and some meditation. Had some great clarity afterwards. :-) Today I should have been running, but swam instead (1km). I haven't done any swimming in quite a while and really enjoyed getting back in the pool.

Today was "upper body" and wow - will I only be sore tomorrow. It was great fun though :-)

I am just trying to continually get up at the same time, no excuses. A friend of mine told me once "there's no such thing as a morning person, only a person who makes excuses for not getting up early" - so I'm just trying to stop making excuses. :-)

The run today was pretty slow (3.5 or so km in 20 mins - around 10.5km per hour), but my legs were taking some strain from the leg workout yesterday. It was fun to get back to my daily commute on the train & bus, but walking up the escalators from the train (maybe 7 floors or so) was tough ... "Thanks Leg Day!" Tomorrow, it's time for another upper body workout, and my earliest wake up yet - I need to leave home by 6am. So far this "become a morning person" routine is working out ok. I know it's only day 3, but I'm looking at the small wins here ;-)

Oh - never mind, I see the forum does it nicely for you automatically. Yay! Looks like you've made some great progress in your challenge. Nice going!

Thanks for the encouragement... How did you get that instagram pic in here so nicely?

Gym was still pretty empty this morning. Tomorrow is back to work, and I'm not entirely looking forward to giving up the holiday vibe. ;-) Had a great leg workout today, and tomorrow I run.

Today was my intro to "Becoming a morning person" - since it seems the best time for me to gym is in the morning, before I've become tired and drained from the day. Had a great run and steam/sauna - not sure why but the heat helps me with meditation. Getting up early was actually easier than I had thought. Now I just need to get to bed on time so I can do it again tomorrow. Work starts on Wednesday, so I'm getting two days to practice the routine before it "goes live". I suspect the gym will be PACKED tomorrow - first day after all the public holidays, and sure to be filled with everyone working out their new year resolution energy.

The "light run" turned into a basic weight lifting session. I was intrigued to try out the Freeletics gym app, and did a starter workout. I quite dig their warm up and stretch work, and really found that I enjoyed lifting weights instead of just my body. I was able to map out my week, and get some plans for how I will keep up with exercise in the next month or three... tomorrow is a dry run for that. :-)

Much better today, managed to get through a decent steam room session without dizziness.. so tomorrow I will try a light run and stretch.

Woke up this morning and found that moving around made me dizzy. Turns out my ears were affected as a side effect of a bout of bronchitis I had. Went to a doc, got meds, and approval for some "light exercise". Apparently my ears disagree... I chose to do some stretching and while doing a down-dog, I completely lost balance and had to sit for an age before I could move again. Sigh, time to rest more fully.

Final day was yesterday- went for an early run before we left. Got home late but happy to be home.