Silverdrag0n

Week 5 Check-in: Well, OK. I had a serious meltdown in Week 4 that lasted through Week 5. I'm afraid I'm going to have to grade myself poorly on my diet goal -- if only because I refused to do the record keeping necessary to give myself an objective grade. On the other hand, I am on Rung 5 of 9, and feel like I may make 6 or even seven by the end of this week. So, I will do reasonably well on the fitness side of the equation. I need to be kind to myself. Once again, I had too many new "additive" habits to keep up with. I'm pleased it only took me two weeks to get back on track with fitness. I'm also improving diet. And I've "learned the game" a bit more; I need to minimize record processing. The elaborate spreadsheet I had going, with multiple exponential average curves -- this old hobbit isn't going to keep it up right now. I'm recording food in the FatSecret app. I'm recording both weight and exercise rung in Hacker's Diet Online. I transfer the averaged weight from there to FatSecret as well. The Pacer app on my iPhone lets me record blood pressure (my doc's been after me for ages to track it) and tracks walking, etc. without me having to do anything. Finally, the apple Health app will extract curves for all those things and display them without me having to maintain a spreadsheet with -- very elaborate formulae. Just because I CAN do a thing (make tracking spreadsheets with elaborate formulae and curves ) doesn't mean I should. While creating the thing is fun, maintaining it sucks. And if I could get that weight (exponentially averaged) into Apple Health by just stepping on the scale, I would. I know, I can buy a scale that does that. The problem is the "exponentially averaged" part...

Week 3 Check-in: I'm continuing to make progress towards my goals -- of course, never quickly enough to suit me, but still. Woot! I'm STILL cleaning up health issues from my medication reaction last month. The echoes are dying out, though, and I'm at about 85% now. Hopefully next week I'll be at 100% again.

Congrats, KylieWyotie, on the larger family to be! And good work on keeping up the workouts to some degree despite traveling.

Looking good, @Plitog!

Week 2 check-in: Thanks for the encouragement, @Plitog and @KylieWyotie! The workouts are going well. I skipped yesterday (bah!) but got back in today. The food is more of a struggle, but it's improving as you say, @Plitog. I found the NF Character Generator and agreed with it that I am a Hobbit (Short, overly fond of food, oversize feet, wavy if not curly hair... and the love of swimming seems to fit with lack of foot hair according to Official Hobbit Lore.) Level 0 seems the right level for me at present given how I stuffed up my first challenge over in Recruits...

Absolutely, @Kyliewyotie.

Thanks, @Plitog! Not only did I do my workout today, but . . . I bought a pair of real hiking shoes! I haven't bothered with anything save sneakers for, well, more years than I like to think about. Onward!

Level 1. I'm really out of shape...

The approaching figure is backlit by the setting sun--by design, of course. You and your comrades loosen your weapons, but your leader holds up her hand in caution. She had invited one last member to the party, and this was the last day for that worthy to arrive. The figure approaches slowly, sword on back, spear held upright in its right hand. Your flickering campfire displays a device on its leather tunic--a rampant silver wyvern. As it comes closer still, you can see from its halting steps that this person is using the spear as a walking stick. Closer still, and it is revealed as a woman, gray-haired with sun-wrinkled face. Her tunic is stained, her device tarnished. Her back is straight. Your youngest comrade in one swift movement stands and readies his throwing knife. "What do you want here, Grandma?" he shouts, voice dripping contempt. There is a blur of motion. When next you look, your young comrade is nursing a wounded hand. A spear is vibrating in the trunk of a tree behind him. There is a new tear in the old woman's left sleeve. And she is cursing in the accents of an educated provincial. "Criminy! Whatever happened to manners?" She limps through the camp and pulls her spear out of the tree. "Son, didn't your mama teach you to be polite to strangers? Were you raised in a barn?" She pauses a moment, breathing heavily. "Now, how am I going to mend this sleeve? It's not like glove leather is easy to come by out here." She glares at your comrade who's still cradling his hand. "Don't look at me like that. It ain't poisoned. Here..." She rummages in a pouch at her waist and hands him a small vial. "This should keep it from getting infected." She sighs. "I seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot, here. I'm Silverdrag0n, and I'm here by @Starsapart's invitation. Hasn't anyone invited me to a fight for, oh, nigh on thirty years, now, so I thought I'd come on in for the fun." She looks around at your assembled band. "So where's the son of a gun we're supposed to take out?" Overarching goal: It's still to build my fitness level to a point at which I can go on a long day hike in my local mountains (roughly 12 miles, with lots of elevation gain/loss) without fear. If I get some money, I may take up the sword again as well. Why: Other than the joy of getting out into the hills (and maybe stabbing something) -- I am moderately to severely ADHD. Medication for the condition is out of the question for reasons I won't go into. I want to be able to focus on the things that matter to me -- and a combination of diet and fitness is said to really help. I wouldn't know -- I haven't been there. Maybe on the diet (strict Paleo) for about a year, 4 years ago -- and maybe on the fitness, once or twice for a month or two. Never both at the same time. Quest #1: To improve my fitness by following the bodyweight workout known as The Fitness Ladder, by John Walker. I know, I know, it's not a NerdFitness workout -- I'm not ready for a NerdFitness workout. If I reach Level 9 in six weeks, I'll give myself an A. If I reach level 6, I get a B. If I work out every day, I'll get a C. Quest #2: To lower my carb intake to 100 g/day. If I've kept it under 100 for at least a week by the end of the challenge, I'll get an A. If it's under 150 for a week, I'll get a b. If the carbs are out of control, but the diet is clean Paleo, I'll get a C.

(Revised) Goal Tracking: WMA bedtime 12:45 AM (moved from 2:15 AM!) WMA Sleep Quality 60% (up from 50% on March 23) Of the ancillary actions (darkening room, walking, recording food, using light visor, limiting caffeine) : I fell ill this week. The light visor, walking, and recording food, went out as the antibiotics came in. I just restarted the light visor and recording food today. I restarted walking yesterday. The darkened room and limited caffeine continued throughout. @Evermist, thanks for the encouragement! The last thing I tried before moving to a more gradual approach was the all-nighter. It works--I fell asleep early when I finally let myself sleep--but the change wasn't permanent. The next night I was right back to my old habits. And at 61, I find that an all-nighter kicks my older butt much worse than it did when I was 21. In any event, even though illness slowed my progress last week, I am encouraged. I didn't revert. Progress continued more slowly, but it did continue. I am back on track with all the new habits I've been working to form. My knee--it's better, but I think I'll continue with the mild walking for a while. It's not completely healed, and that too takes longer than it used to. *shrugs* As much as I might like to kid myself, improving at anything physical takes longer than it used to. Trying to "recapture the glory of youth" will just make it that much harder to keep moving forward instead of backward.

(Revised) Goal Tracking: Weighted Moving Average (WMA) bedtime 1:15 AM (moved from 2:15 AM!) WMA Sleep Quality 57% (up from 50% on March 23) Of the ancillary actions (darkening room, walking, recording food, using light visor, limiting caffeine) I've missed one day (Saturday) of using the light visor. I had caffeine at 5:30 pm on one day. All other actions have been taken daily. I'm finding that my major difficulty is convincing myself that I really need to/can go to sleep. I've trained myself for so long to keep going until I almost collapse that milder levels of fatigue... don't register as being fatigue. I don't think I'm tired unless I can't keep my eyes open. I'm hoping that sneaking up on my goal gradually (instead of just lying down at 10 pm even if I don't "feel tired". Doesn't work.) will retrain my brain to register milder levels of fatigue.

Finding something I don't loathe... well, that's the trick, isn't it?

Me -> You folks -> Thanks for your support, folks. It has not gone well -- I seem to have been guilty of the "Change Everything Right Now" syndrome... and re-activating an old knee injury with the Beginner's Body Weight workout did not help. So. I metaphorically curled up inside a cave for three weeks and did not want to emerge and own up to my part in this, much less actually _talk_ to anyone about it. Right now, I have reduced my expectations immensely. I am struggling to establish the habit of recording my food intake. Not modifying it -- just recording it. This is my second day of doing so. I've eliminated strength workouts for now, and am settling for mild walking until my knee feels better. Again, second day of that. Suggestions on how to proceed after my knee (re)heals are welcome. But the major issue of all that's impacting my health and making my life miserable now is my poor sleep habit. Really, seriously. It's a horrid method of coping with ADHD that I picked up in high school 35 years ago, and right now it's only getting worse. According to the Sleep Cycle app my sleep quality has hovered around 55% for the last 3 months. So, original six-week challenge is shelved -- to be picked up later, I hope. For now I'm taking the following steps to improve my sleep: 1. Use a light visor every morning at my target wake-up time to help reset my internal clock. (2 days and counting) 2. Really darken my room at night -- no LEDs on charging devices, windows shielded against the security lighting in my complex, etc. (new habit -- no record) 3. Go to bed earlier than my average bedtime (as measured by Sleep Cycle) every night. Right now, that would be 2:15 AM (!!) (1 day. But how hard can it be to beat 2:15?) 4. Start darkening my environment an hour _before_ my target bedtime. (Again, no record.) 5. No caffeine after 4pm. (this one's gonna be tough.) 6. No daytime naps. No matter how tired I am, they only screw up my internal clock even worse than it already is. (Not something I do daily -- more like every third or fourth day of not sleeping a heck of a lot.) The mild walking routine should also help with sleep, I hope. Thanks for your support and encouragement. At the next challenge, I hope to have a more realistic exercise plan that I can stick to.

Using my usual day planning software- Evernote, Swipes. How does a person get those cool progress bars?

Thank you for the invitation, StarsApart. I shall certainly stop by.