Skigh

Day 5 & 6 Yesterday (Friday) was my anniversary so it was a busy day. I didn't have time to do any physical activity but I'm pretty proud of the the decisions I made food wise. Just thinking about my health and taking responsibility for it is helping me make good decisions more frequently. And that is the result I am hoping for through my goals. Good decision #1: For lunch my co-worker wanted to go to In-N Out (Hamburger place for those not in the west). I talked him into going to Jimmy John's (deli sandwiches) instead. I got a Beach Club (turkey lettuce cucumber tomato mayo and avacado). That is my sandwich of choice there. Good decision #2: Instead of Dr. Pepper I got lemonade. One step closer to that boss fight. For dinner my wife and I went to Cowboy Grub. Local homestyle cooking. Good decision #3: I sprung for the salmon filet instead of the Pot Roast or Chicken Fried Steak, and Good decision #4: we drank water instead of Dr pepper. That's 4 decisions that are big victories for me. I would not have made those decisions if I wasn't on this site. Being a Friday, and my anniversary I would've gone to In-N-Out and had a double cheese burger, fries and dr pepper (+ a refill), and I would've gotten the Pot Roast Dinner, and the Dr. Pepper. I may not make these same decisions perfectly from here on out. But that's progress I'm proud of after just 5 days. After dinner we went and saw Frozen. If you've read my challenge you'll know I'm into animation, so I pay particular attention to character animation in every animated movie I see now. There are subtle touches that I can catch that I just love what it does to the character. One moment that I enjoyed in this movies is at the beginning when Anna gets knocked off of her sister's bed onto the floor. She lands on her butt with her legs straight out. Anna takes a quick second to persuade her sister to play, and untenable excitement causes her legs to wiggle. The movement is so simple but it sells the emotion perfectly. Today was better on the workout, but mediocre success on the food. I had a carnation breakfast this morning, some leftover pizza for lunch, and a chicken salad for dinner. I had a few snacks throughout the day. But I have an excuse! My wife gave me the most awesome birthday cake earlier this week at the worst possible timing. I've been spacing it out over the week, and letting her help me with it. But I'm not going to lie. I ate that whole can of Pringles by myself yesterday and today. Pringles and Dr Pepper are my crack. A few months from now I hope those positions have been replaced by....carrots and Simply Orange juice. Or something. Pringles don't come around nearly as often as DP. But once I pop I just can't stop. Here is the picture of my Birthday cake of vices! Okay, holidays are over. My birthday and anniversary are over. There is no important event happening for months now that should tempt me into the dark side. Today was a good day though. I was lifting some boxes and moving a bunch of stuff into storage today. That was quite the workout. And tonight I did my first BBWW! I was able to do 2 circuits! On the second circuit I could only do 10 lunges. My legs were dying! But crap it felt great! I'm happy to know I can still do 10 push-ups! I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to. After doing 2 circuits I felt as tired as I do after a half hour run on a treadmill. Very excited to keep doing this! Another plus is I'm well within my goal to keep under 9 hours of games this week. I'm at about 6 hours for the whole week. I was playing quite a bit today, but I didn't play very much during the week. And I pulled myself away from games specifically to do the BBWW. Tomorrow is day 7. I'll probably go on a run for my exercise and spend some time figuring out my grades for week 1 of my challenge.

I've been playing Mark of the Ninja on steam lately. Nomination for most satisfying stealth kill.

Reading through this post and thinking "am i the only one playing Guild Wars 2?"

I enjoy a brisk walk in the cold from time to time. I hope it went well! I have date night tomorrow night. Here's to making wise choices! @Fultonator, it took me a bit to figure out too. Its Beginner Body Weight Workout. On that page if you put your email in to get NF's e-books it sends you a link to get a lot of info. Cleared up a lot for me

Day 4! Played ball with my friends for an hour and 45 min tonight. We usually only play an hour so I have ran myself into the ground. Feels good. Food wise I had leftover pasta and alfredo for lunch and some tuna casserole for dinner. It was a long day so I had a bag of chips for a snack. We have a bag of veggie chips here at home. They taste like rice cakes but it would've kept me from getting potato chips if I had some at work so I will have to fix that tomorrow. I've finally done enough digging around on NF to discover the BBWW, so I plan to do that tomorrow night for my workout. I also discovered where the stats are described so I need to do some more reading on that as well. Did anyone else see Man of Steel for $10 on blu-ray on amazon around Christmas? I just got it in the mail today. This has been a good day.

Day 3. My daily physical activity was gift wrapped by mother nature today. Ain't she sweet? Snowed today which left me with an hour of shoveling to do. Put on a bluetooth headset and listened to the Comedy Icons radio station on Pandora while doing so. I think the laughter added to the work out a bit. Aziz Ansari kills me. People tell me I really need to get into Parks & Rec. Maybe I'll have time when HIMYM finally ends. (Don't judge). I only give time to follow 1 or 2 tv shows at a time. Right now it's Agents of Shield and HIMYM. On rare occasion I watch an episode of Arrow on netflix. A podcast I listen to insists I do. (Same podcast that got me here.) So eventually that will move up the ranks. I've seen some episodes of Parks & Rec but it didn't hook me. I've heard I need to make it to season 2. I didn't give in to the dark side of hunger so much today. I had a carnation breakfast this morning, a banana, yogurt and granola for lunch. And wife made fettuccine alfredo with a salad for dinner. And leftovers will be lunch tomorrow. I was hoping to go to the gym tonight but snow took up the time I had for that. Worse things could happen. They gym is still overcrowded this time of year isn't it? On most Thursdays I get to play basketball with my brothers and some friends. This is probably the only environment I enjoy playing sports cause no one gives about the result. We're all there for exercise and win or lose it's always a good time. So I'm looking forward to that tomorrow.

Like the drawing citizenkade. And mad props to over a month of quest tracking. + 39 to inspiration.

Day 2. +1 age is a stat increase, right? Made 1 choice that was in the lesser of 2 evils category (a tostada at Cafe Rio instead of a burrito) and a few not so great choices. Pizza for my birthday dinner with my family and enough Dr Pepper for the week. Giving up the Dr Pepper is a boss battle for another challenge. But I am trying to limit my intake for now. Also with family wanting my attention I wasn't able to do any physical activity. Which now I need to get some exercise in each day for the rest of the week to hit my goal. No big. I'm probably to a total of 2 "evil" meals this week. So there's that. Not a good day challenge wise but I enjoyed my birthday. Good thing about bad days. There's a new one just a few hours away.

Starting my first challenge today. I logged my first day in my quest topic and after looking around I saw this section for daily record keeping. I enjoyed the result of thinking all day about the things I'll write on here tonight. So I think working towards daily accountability could yield some good results. So I'll copy what I wrote in the other location here and pick up here. Day 1! Not all that spectacular but the journey started. I did okay on food. I had a buffalo chicken wrap with a side of fries for lunch, but didn't finish the fries. Some tortilla soup from Costco for dinner. All night after work I kept telling myself to do some simple exercises at home but it wasn't happening. Around 9:00 p.m. my wife told me she wanted some ice cream. I took the opportunity to tell her we can go only if we walk. (You can imagine her delight...) So I did get a brisk nightly walk to the store and back. (5 city blocks 1 way.) That's more than I would have done if I wasn't planning on writing this summary of my day, so I guess that's a win. Tomorrow is my birthday and I've got a brother taking me out to eat for lunch and my dad taking me out for dinner. Dear future Skigh: Make good choices! Considering doing the picture thing tomorrow. I have high hopes for what those pictures will look like on my birthday in 2015. This last weekend I also talked my wife into buying a scale (mostly for challenge tracking). Which was good because while she's still small she's gained a little weight for the first time since High School. Slowly opening her eyes to the need to eat healthy and be active. "Slow moves." Weight: 227 lbs.

Day 1! Not all that spectacular but the journey started. I did okay on food. I had a buffalo chicken wrap with a side of fries for lunch, but didn't finish the fries. Some tortilla soup from Costco for dinner. All night after work I kept telling myself to do some simple exercises at home but it wasn't happening. Around 9:00 p.m. my wife told me she wanted some ice cream. I took the opportunity to tell her we can go only if we walk. So I did get a brisk nightly walk to the store and back. (5 city blocks 1 way.) That's more than I would have done if I wasn't planning on writing this summary of my day, so I guess that's a win. Tomorrow is my birthday and I've got a brother taking me out to eat for lunch and my dad taking me out for dinner. Dear future Skigh: Make good choices! Considering doing the picture thing tomorrow. I have high hopes for what those pictures will look like on my birthday in 2015. @Determined: Thanks for the well wishes. And gaming is a great reward. It will definitely be used as a reward. Just need to keep it as that instead of the over fed hobby. [Edit]: I started a new topic in Daily Battle Logs. I plan to keep daily notes there and give weekly grades here. Maybe post the milestone or two. Also, starting weight: 227 lbs.

I have been gaining weight steadily for sometime now and I am trying this to hold myself accountable to live healthy and change directions overall in my life. I'm 29 years old this month and I have been married for 3 years. I have been floating through life quite happily but never really driven to make sure I'm taking care of myself and keep myself fit. Up until the last few years I have maintained a weight of ~180-190 lbs. After some time of not watching what I eat and not exercising as much as I should I'm now pushing 220. I've always wished I was around 160 lbs. My ideal self image has been an agile guy. Its been well over a decade since I've been that weight, so I'm not sure what my build will actually be at that weight. But when I reach that goal I expect I'll be happy with however I will look. I've always been into video games. At times in my life I have definitely given more time to that hobby than anyone ought to. But it could be worse. I do enjoy my time outside not in front of a screen. Mountain biking is my favorite past time. I've been known to spend time hiking, camping, playing ultimate frisbee, basketball, or football. Goals to support my Main Quest: These are the things I hope to accomplish during this challenge to begin my journey towards a weight of 160 lbs. Goal #1: Estabilsh an active lifestyle If I'm going to lose weight I need to be active more often than not. I need to take time out of each day to promote active an active lifestyle and develop good habits. A walk, or exercise. Anything that gets me outside and active counts. For this challenge I'll start small and work my way up. A: 5 days a week with physical activity B: 4 days a week with physical activity C: 3 days a week with physical activity D: 2 days a week with physical activity E: 1 days a week with physical activity Goal #2: Exercise While it may be better than nothing, going for a walk around the block every day won't take me to victory in my quest. While this will support my 1st goal I need to make sure I'm working out and burning the fat. A: 3 Hours of exercise per week B: 2.5 hours of exercise per week C: 2 Hours of exercise per week D: 1.5 hours of exercise per week E: 1 Hour of exercise per week Goal #3: Good food Like I said, I give in to cheap food often. Its lazy and not healthy at all. (Since it is in direct opposition to my quest I will use the term “evilâ€.) I need to pass on the fast food. If the wife insists on a fast food restaurant for dinner, I need to choose a vegetarian salad and not succumb to the dark side. A: 0 meals of horrible food in a week. B: 1 meal of evil food in a week C: 2 meals of evil food in a week D: 3 meals of evil food in a week E: 4 meals of evil food in a week Life Quest: Complete a demo reel. A little more history on me. I've always been interested in 3D animation and visual effects. My older brother studied 3D animation (in the broad sense of the term) and I haven't found anything else that I feel I would love doing for 40+ hours a week for the rest of my life. I eventually attended an online character animation school and my dream career is in that industry. Movies, games, whatever. I finished that school in 2011 and haven't put enough personal effort into pursuing that career since. It needs to happen. And it won't until I actually have something to show. [Life quest adjustment: 1/22/2014] I am now going to grade myself beginning this week on how much animation I do. If I animate a minimum of 1 hour per day I will move leaps and bounds towards finishing my demo reel. A: 6 hours of animating B: 5 Hours of animating C: 4 hours of animating D: 3 hours of animating E: 2 hours of animating Side Quest: Cut back on the video games I'm not crazy addicted to video games. But I'm not proud of how much I've been playing lately. If I'm doing everything in my quest that should naturally cut back on my time for games. But I still want to make note of this goal. 9 hours a week is more than enough time to play games. So that will be my goal to stay under for this challenge. My motivation: My long lasting health and happiness. My mother's family has a bad record against cancer. Ever since she passed away in 2011 it has weighed on my mind that I need to alter my lifestyle so my body can be as prepared as it can be if that fight ever comes my way. I hope to live a long life with my family and the longer I delay living a healthy lifestyle, the harder it will be to achieve.