Asuka

Thanks! I will try out acrylic paint over the weekend and share my designs!

I love light, fruity teas. My current favs (they change all the time!) are Marco Polo from Mariage Freres, a rooibos, vanilla and cocoa nibs from Marks & Spencer and the orange and chocolate matte energizing tea from a company whose name I forgot. They are especially great because I am nursing a sore throat (pollution? change in temperature? who knows why...) and I don't want to take unnecessary medication. I Thai food I mostly like carby and heavy foods like pad thai. Any recommendations of lighter or healthier meals? Also I cannot eat spicy... Thanks @Norgaard!

Thanks a lot!! Feet in is much easier! I increased the weights and actually did not have sore muscles. So all good! Agree that my inner thighs also need it but not to the point where it is awkward and painful to walk... I was really close to taking a painkiller. But I managed without! Go have fun watching Black Panther and come back to share your favorite moments! (There will be several !!!)

And here is the picture I drew! @Jonesy yours are infinitely better! This was a LOT of fun, but I want to experiment with darker colors now!

Week 2 update! The week was mostly good, with lots of positive thinking and happy times. Some down moments too, but those are normal and I am forgiven! ALSO SO MUCH FUN HAD THIS WEEK! And when an activity was not fun, I stopped and found something better (e.g., The Handmaid's Tales is a wonderful book but it depresses me, so I alternate with a light romance novel!). Also I sometimes need to be PUSHED to do the right thing (e.g., go out, exercise, put down the bread ) so I need to do this too! Quest 1 - Tracking done every day, with 5/7 days below 40 points and 1 day where I just caved and ate bread and butter, which added a full 10 points But these days are okay too. Just not too often! Also, I manage not to have hot beverages outside the house (when I make hot chocolate at home it is only 3.5 points, so it is a good size snack, not like the gian 10-points lattes I looooove so much with whipped cream ). I brought nice teas to the office and got a larger cup, so I can enjoy tea (with zero calories!) in the office. So far it is working! - AND I was mindful about portions and listening to hunger signals. - Intermittent fasting was not easy, but it reminded me that hunger pangs are nothing to be scared of. They are disagreeable but I can live through them. - Sleep was AWESOME. Every week should have 5 days off. - Exercise: done EVERY DAY!!! 7/7. I did a bit of everything, cardio, dance, walk with friends, strength training, stretching and even on days when I did NOT want to exercise, I tried to find something fun to do while moving! - I overexerted my wristby moving furniture over the weekend So I will have to be careful next week! Quest 2 - I moved forward with the non judgmental book, it is good and helps giving good habits. I think I am more forgiving of myself already - I try to be less judgemental and reframe my thoughts. However I am SUPER judgemental when I see other people be judgemental, so I will need to curb that! - Still not doing the gratefulness journal well enough. Will try moving it to my night table, so I see it before going to bed. I am NOT letting go of it!! Quest 3 - This was a lot of fun this week! Of course holidays are great times to experiment new things and meet friends - I tried a new restaurant and it was great - I now see more restaurants I want to try, I am making a list! - I also made a new chicken recipe which ended up well! I will try to improve on it next week - Lots of free time, so I tried watercolor (will post picture!), but wanted to try something with more pigment (watercolor = light colors, #duh), so I bought some acrylic paint and pastels. I will try them next! - Also Black Panther. I wanna go see it again!!! #rhinoceros Plan for Week 2! Quest 1 - Continue to limit calories to 40 points a day if possible. Note when I want to go over and why. (For one my protein bars are bigger - can I eat half?) - Be mindful when eating bread. Bread is an important source of eating happiness for me, so I should continue to eat it, but I need to be careful about quantitied and not just finish it because it is next to me. - Continue to limit hot beverages to hot milk 3 times per week. Continue drinking tea! - Limit quantities to 1 serving (I promise it wil be enough). Try and eat more vegetables. - Switch afternoon high calory snacks for protein bars --> protein bars were delivered! I need to bring them to the office - Continue intermittent fasting - Continue to plan exercises for the weekend --> I have help there, so it should be fun! Quest 2 - Use the gratefulness journal more sytematically --> put it on the nightstand! - Continue listening to the audiobook - Recognize when I am the one being judgemental about other people being judgemental. Remember that I don't want to change others. Reframe to "I notice that he/she is being judgemental". And let it go. Quest 3 - Try the Thai restaurant! Or a new dish from the Vietnamese restaurant - Try to meal prep: cook in batch (I already do that) and then divide into portios for the week. MOstly to be done on Sat, because I will be eating out most days this week - Continue to read the Handmaid Tales and go to the book club session dedicated to it (on Feb 25) --> GO!!!!

Congrats on the wins in cleaning and reading, even if they feel like smaller ones. RE your feeling of new plan, I know starting small steps is important. But some days, you want to push yourself and you should! If you feel the momentum going, go for it! I wanted to start barbell training slowly, but Tuesday AM I felt really good, so I did a full 30min! Then I felt sore for 3 days, but I was happy and proud, which matters immensely too. So if you feel like you can do more, do so! You are strong and you KNOW what you can do. And now I will go do a load of laundry, and I will think about your chores too! And later today I will try watercoloring!

Week 1 Friday update! The nutrition is getting better, I am getting back on better habits. I am not yet able to cut everything, but I cut more than half, so I feel happy already. I want to get stabilized with not eating all of the food and lowering my portions first, then I can cut more things. I am on vacations so the sleeping is awesome, although I start my days later, which I don't care. I also think I was a bit too optimistic with strength straining 3 times a week. So I will dial this back to twice, so that I can keep up the effort. I did my second time today, followed by a 30-min stretching session! It was awesome, but I am definitely not as strong in my hands as I used to do, so I need to strengthen that. I will add grip exercises to some of my morning workout. Weights used: - Warm up: 15.5kg - Squats and deadlifts: 20.5kg --> the deadlift portion was hard on my grip more than on my quads and hamstrings! - Chest and triceps: 10.5kg --> This is still challenging, this is a good weight - Lunges: 10.5kg --> I went lighter to see if I could go deeper (I am currently doing half-lunges), well... no hahaha - Biceps: 15.5kg --> THIS WAS HARD but I knew I could do it. But the last 2 reps I had to use momentum to finish - Shoulders: 15.5kg --> last exercise in the rotation with low number of reps, no problem, but unsure if my wrists can lift much more I tried to pay attention to my posture and what muscles hurt when, especially since I had sore muscles in strange places. Well, I figured out the following: - I do squats with my feet pointing out, so I use my inner thighs a lot and my hamstrings less --> I focused on keeping my feet straight today, let's see if my legs hurt more - I use my calves SO MUCH during lunges - more than any other muscles, my calves hurt sosososososo much. I will look up if my lunge posture is wrong and in the meantime I do more calf stretches On the side quests, I am also happily living, meeting my friends and OH MY GOD BLACK PANTHER IS A WONDERFUL WONDERFUL MOVIE. I discovered a new great restaurant, and I had a great time. Also I tried a new thing: I drank a protein shake at the movie theater, and cut my popcorn intake in half! I ate as much as I wanted and still did not go crazy overboard. Small victory, but I felt so strong and happy and proud! Finally, @Jonesy I followed your advice - I bough a box of pencils that turn into watercolor with a paint brush, and 3 notebooks: 1 super cheap one to sketch my ideas, 1 cheap one for the first times when I will draw, and 1 from a good brand for when I will feel better about my designs! And because the stationery store had a big sale (back to school is next week in Korea) I got all notebooks for less than $15! I want to start today! And I will get better with time - I will post pictures of them! Thank you for the support!

Yes! This helps a bunch, even when I wake up at noon - because no matter what I know that I need to exercise, I just do other stuff later! I need to know how to build my tolerance to the detractors. On the other hand I am learning to loooove how much people do not care about me and have normal expectations from me. Thanks for the vote of confidence, I should definitely go dancing more often!

Totally spoke with new people at work (which scares little introsverted me) and I was basking in how happy I was to have actually done it and in a relatively natural manner that I forgot to enter them on the spreadsheet!! #teamamyforthewin (almost) Love this mini as much as I loved the former one

I am taking note and will try that either next summer or the folowing!!! It soudns amazing - I would definitely go to Glasgow, home town of my favorite Disney character, Scrooge McDuck!

Day 2 Week 1 As this is Ash Wednesday, I thought I would use this wonderful occasion to try again intermittent fasting (the fact that I had dance class last night and came home upset and went straight to bed also helped in starting the fast early!). I am happy to report that I survived! I had coffe (black) and tea (the not fancy kind - I like cocoa nibs and milk tea but had plain barley tea) and I managed to get to noon. The food at the cafeteria was okay but not to my taste, so I made sure to NOT eat all of it, only the parts I liked and stopping when I was not hungry. Still I looked at my plate with rice in it longingly. Good bike session this am - Will do some stretching tonight to try to ease my sore muscles. But we are starting on a 4-day weekend, so I am happy and planning my workouts for EVERY DAY to make sure I do them. My couch is going to miss me...

THIRDED!!

WOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW Avec les accents et tout !!! Trop impressionnee !! J'ai travaille au Quebec pendant longtemps - Personne ne devrait se moquer de l'accent de qui que ce soit. GRAVE. On a demande a un mec francais de ma division de parler anglais plus lentement parce que les clients ne comprenaient pas ce qu'il disait... "As you cane see in ze presentation.." Horrible.

In my office, our bags get X-rayed going out to make sure we don't steal any prototype (I work for Samsung). I can imagine the X-ray guy going "What is that in your bag?" "Oh, just 4 knives for Kendo. Wanna see?"

OOOOOOO I am a HUGE manga fan - I will try to find either the light novel or the manga. Actually I am a finance major, so the econ angle in the book I will LOVE!! Thanks for posting about it!

Love the "refuse to accept to be in pain" attitude. Same happened to my sister when several doctors told her "you will live with pain in your knee all your life" at 25 after a bike accident. Even walking was painful. We went to a chiropractor who managed to identify a problem other doctors had not seen. She now has exercises to help her build more muscles and she is pain-free! This is Tuesday in my time zone - plenty of days left this week to study!

I KNOOOOOOOOOOW!!! I realized I keep myself from doing things because of fear... of something. So no more. I want to go and bask in the knowledge that people do not care about me! I will dance in my house and I will dance outside!! And dance while singing out loud!!! This sounds terrible, but every time I do a rep with a barbell I can FEEL my muscles get stronger - I swear. This feeling is amazing. Surprisingly, I ache in a place I did not expect: my calves. I wonder if I changed my position, beacuse the exercises were the same as before! On the other hand my glutes, quads and harmstrings barely record any soreness - I feel more weight coming! Chest and arms are dying so no increasing the weights there... OMG - I am already planning to see Black Panther twice. My friends wants to see it but she is only available next week. While I have 4 days of vacations starting tomorrow and there is a movie theater with 3 screens showing Black Panther 2 blocks down. I don't think I can wait another 10 days. Tomorrow feels like a good day!!!! Totally - most people are happy to have me back! It's just this one guy who makes my skin crawl... L'iran - wow, ca doit etre un mega changement. J'ai toujours reve d'aller en Ecosse pour les vacances - Tu recommenderais quels endroits? Y a-t-il des trucs a voir ou a faire absolument? Pareil pour les JOs ici, C'est HYPER cher et comme il fait genre entre -15 et -20 degres avec de la neige... regarder les jeux a la tele c'est beaucoup mieux Lots of my friends are going to the Olympics since it is not very far away from Seoul (2-3 hours by train), but they all came back saying how cold it was (I think they were distributing blankets and hot packs) and how the food was just so unhealthy. Today is the first morning in 2 months that the celcius temperature is positive in the morning and it feels positively balmy despite it being like 3 degrees. I have no desire to go expose myself to -15 again...

The way I overcome this is: I do squats in the bathroom of new places... If you have more space you can do other exercises, but you can pretty much always squat in a place where you can close a door

Merveilleux!! Let;s make sure to drop proper adjectives here and there! hahaha I am more embarassed for not following your exercises closely enough to get everything! You explained all the details so I should be able to! Have a good challenge, with a happy but not too intrusive cat!

I totally feel you. This is amazing - GO 2018 JONESY! And I LOVE how you are taking this slow to make it stick. You got this!! This is super important - actually I am struggling with who I will become. I know I cannot continue to live my life the way it was, but as I don't have yet a clear picture of who I want to be, it is difficult sometimes - I feel like I am losing my identity. I will try to do just what you did and project myself - how do I see myself? At the same time, I hope you won't be too hard on yourself if you are not your ideal Jonesy all the time... Tracking is WONDERFUL - and you will absolutely see patterns emerge and excuses. Actually I think you won't need to track your excuses: when you see the times when you deviated from the plan, you can immediately see why. Weekly reviews of excuses / deviations from plan help me a lot correct the course early. Also I want to print your BuJo pages and put them on my fridge. Also learn to draw. Then do the same. They are really great!!! I love the elephant card!! Yep. Totally feel you. Changes make me nervous, and changes to myself especially. But you got this! And you are moving slowly so you are in control. And if you don't like the changes, you can go back! Also impressed by the weights you are moving around. I am at about half of yours. PS: Can I get free cake too?

#storyofmylife #currentquest Hahahahaha! I totally agree, and would totally die in a Zombie apocalypse, unless they do run really slowly. Another great challenge - these knives are really cool! I love the picture you post of your crafts. I remember pictures of your garden last year - I will expect some this year too

Ohhh AWESOME! This cover looks I would totally love it - What is the story? Also impressed by your progress towards handstand. I want to progress towards that too, but I am still far away. I can hold against a wall, but as I use the wall a lot, progressing without it is difficult. Following!!

Usually it is judgment along the line "you are not good enough - I am way better than you" that throw me off. While I was on my 5-month dispatch, one guy who had started 3 months after me got promoted so he is now higher than me and every time he speaks to me I can feel condescension in each of his word. He managed to not find 5 minutes for me for 4 days, then was only available at a moment super inconvenient for me, and then everything he said was like "I am so good I don't need you", while I was offering help and he is telling everyone he is stretched sooo thin and needs help. Not being good enough (not being ABC enough really) is a big button for me. Other times, I just notice people being unnecessary judgy like "she is terrible" instead of "I don't like what she did" or "she could have done better". These don't affect me, but I notice them and I realize it does not reflect well on these people. Yes, I am French! I moved to Korea 4 and a half years ago. It is lots of fun! But very different, so definitely need and adjustment phase. Where do you live?

Awesome challenge!! I love the cat, the paper doll with a belt... and the no strangulation protocol! I second everyone saying how cool you look and sound (and how much I don't understand!). How much French do you speak? It is rather rare to find fellow francophone here... Stocked for your challenge and following!!

Week 0 update! Quest 1: Establish healthy living habits! - Super useful week where I ate basically everything in sight due to high stress at work (I just came back to my former job - and I forgot how MEAN and JUDGEMENTAL the bunch of us are when we are together!). But this was really great to establish patterns and try to generate better habits. I noted the following things and will build on them for week 1: * I eat larger quantities if I am eating healthy food (like chicken breast and vegetables) * I had a warm beverage almost every day (high calorie hot chocolates and English tea lattes, not low cal coffee or tea) * I overate because of stress at work - especially candy - and I ate them mindlessly, so in larger quantities * In times of stress, i eat bread like it is zero calorie. Except Not. * I at between 45 and 70 WW points per day. At my current weight, the WW recommendation is 33+7 (including weekly portion), so on good days, I was not far from the recommended intake These are the four things I will improve on Week 1. - I slept much more overall. However when I am SUPER REALLY STRESSED I get scared about everything and I won't go to bed. I need to spend more time understanding my feelings to get over this challenge - I exercised 6/7 days. Sunday I just did nothing. I walked 10 min because I don't know how to drive and needed to get something from the store and that was IT. And on Saturday I only exercised because I went out clubbing and danced for hours (I totally count it as a workout because I woke up and my abs hurt, proof that I had done some good dancing!!) Quest 2: Flex my non-judgmental muscles! - I tried to be less judgemental and I think I am improving. However, I had forgotten how much people at work were judgemental (including some of my closest work friends!) and it really threw me off, because now I don't know how to defend myself anymore. I was so shaken that I stayed home Thursday night because I needed time to analyze my feelings and remin myself that I was not the horrible person they judge me to be. I know who these people are, and I will try to avoid them in the future. I also try to enjoy spending more time with less judgemental people, even if I am not as close to them as to other people, because it feels better. - I have not done the gratefulness exercise everyday, but I will do it and catch up for other days. On days when I don't write it down, I try to think about things to be grateful for before going to bed or after waking up, which also helps settle my feelings. Quest 3: Try out new things and see what makes me happy - I tried a new restaurant I had noticed several times but not yet tried - excellent food! Too spicy for me, but my friend asked for broth without any additional spices and it was delicious! Yay for new things! - The piano arrived!!!!! I feel super happy. The teacher is on vacations until the 20th, but I will practice reading notes in the meantime. - This is not a new thing, but it is a newly return thing, so it still counts: I went clubbing Saturday night! It was wonderful. I realized I had not gone in THREE YEARS despite the fact that I LOVE to go to hip-hop clubs. The ebst part, is that I got to meet new people and get hit on, which does wonders for my self confidence! None of the people I met that night thought I was too ABC or not XYZ enough and chose to spend time with me and have fun. This is when I realize that @Manarelle is so so so so right and it is ALL IN MY HEAD. So I will continue to try and put myself out there and gather more of this good feeling, which will hopefully compensate for bad work feelings. - Also a newly back thing: Weightlifting. Everytime I am done with a weightlifting session (even only 30min!), I feel on top of the world and I don't understand why I don't do that every day. Then the fear comes back - what if I get hurt, should I really do it? So I started with 10 reps, 7 exercises Monday night. 3.5 minutes (same as in a previous challenge). This morning, I wanted to do 2 sets, but then I thought, hey, let's try a full 30min session (following a vid on YT). And once I got over the first 30 seconds I was hooked again. I used relatively light weights, but since they were challenging, I feel good about it. And today, everytime I move and feel sore muscles, I feel so proud of myself! (Stairs tonight will be horrible HAHAHAHA!) Plan for Week 1! Quest 1 - Limit calories to 40 points a day if possible. - Limit bread to 2 slices if possible, and after 1 slice stop eating bread for at least 15 minutes. If after 15 minutes I still want some, then have more. - Limit high calorie hot beverages to 3 times per week. It is SUPER cold here in Korea, so I drink warm beverages just to keep myself warm. And I can drink as much tea as I want! --> This is only for Monday / Tuesday this week. Since lent starts Wednesday, switch all high cal warm beverages to warm milk - Limit quantities to 1 serving (I promise it wil be enough). - Listen to the feeling of hunger. It is normal, especially in the morning. Listen to the feeling of NOT hunger, especially in the afternoon, and try not to snack before feeling hungry - Switch afternoon high calory snacks for protein bars (which means.... buy more protein bars and bring them to the office) and fruits - Since Lent is here, my special Lent quest will be intermittent fasting, which I used to do. So every Thursday stop eating at 6pm (after dinner) and start eating again Friday at noon. This is perfectly doable, although I expect the first week will be hard since I am on vacations. - Plan the exercises for the weekend, do them as soon as I wake up or come back from classes, in order to keep momentum. Saturdays are good for more intense workouts and Sundays for stretching. Do not plan on exercising after visiting the chiropractor - it is a PIPE DREAM. Quest 2 - Use the gratefulness journal more sytematically - Listen to the audiobook during vacations (yay for Lunar New Year!) - Recognize when I am the one being judgemental about myself and take a minute to try and let it go. Practice the 30 seconds of courage to push myself to go in places Quest 3 - Try one of the Japanese restaurants I identified last week. GO SEE BLACK PANTHER!!!! (Plan on eating pop corn, let's be realistic!!) - Practice music - Do the 3.5 min weightlifting exercise every day when coming home or waking up. It is not difficult and it will take away the fear of the barbell. Ty to do 1 free weight serie for triceps - If possible, do 30min of weights twice more this week (Thur / Sat?). Current weights: * Squats and back: 18kg --> work up to 20.5kg, which was my previous comfortable challenge position * Chest press and triceps: 10.5kg --> work up progressively to 13kg, which was my previous comfortable challenge position * Lunges, biceps and shoulders: 15.5kg - Read the Handmaid Tales and go to the book club session dedicated to it (on Feb 25)