Briniel

I did have fun, even if it was demanding and tiring. And recently,I'm not that energized to begin with Saturday saw me having some not so healthy snacks - I had planned to drive back in the afternoon because my boyfriend and I had concert tickets in the evening. I was not going to go back home in between so I knew there would not be any food between noon and 11pm. I was hoping to find some somewhat healthy options at the train station if there was enough time between arrival and departure (which there wasn't). And right when we were about to leave, they brought the cake. And it was delicious Anyways, as of right now, I have 5 habits that I'm continually doing, which is pretty awesome. I didn't drink any calories last week. I mostly drink water and if I'm in the mood for some flavor, I drink tea. I haven't yet stepped into any hot-chocolate-cravings and I'm not even sure whether I'd want to forego that at all times, but right now, I'm good. I took the stairs instead of elevators and escalators all the time. I had to catch myself one or two times when my mind wandered, but I'm really proud of this one, especially considering the 6th floor I work on. Music helps. I did yoga and wrist exercises every single morning. On saturday, this was my view: I'm really, really happy that I managed to stick to this for a whole week, even when pressed for time. Yoga has truly become a habit for me, something that's important and just a part of my morning routine, that I'm not willing to skip. And since I always just stick the wrist exercises at the end of my yoga, I always get in those, too The last habit that stuck for a week is brushing my teeth, flossing and doing calf-raises. Well, the calf-raises only stuck at home, while I was away, I completely forgot about them, but that's okay Basic conditioning knowledge: you have to re-train the behaviour whenever you switch environments. So I'll give myself a pass for this one. Anyways, flossing has become much easier and quicker now that I do it regularly and I kinda can't wait for my next dentist appointment to see whether he notices any difference. Which is kinda weird, but hey. Anyways, my goal for next week is simply to keep to these five habits and make sure they really stick. If I can also tackle the next one (putting away my clothes every evening), that's great, but I won't be mad if I can't. Slow and steady. And since somebody (*cough* @fleaball *cough*) demanded cat pictures...

I will when I'm back from my weekend trip with the choir. Leaving today after work and a bit stressed out because I spent the evening yesterday trying to figure out how to get there with public transportation since everyone else leaves earlier than me. Ah, the joys of college life, to be able to skip any class and lecture without anyone noticing (or caring). Anyways, I just wanted to drop by with a short update with how I've been doing. This week has been really stressfull at work, with a solid 10 hour shift yesterday and lots of things not working out the way the should have. It was a four-day-week since monday was a bank holiday, but it sure doesn't feel like it. Still, I managed to get a full score on 6 of my habits without even trying (much). Candidates for "hey, I'm already doing those!": not drinking my calories having healthy snacks only (though that cherry pie at work yesterday looked so tempting...) taking the stairs only morning yoga wirst exercises brushing my teeth and flossing in the evening I also added the habit of doing calf raises while brushing my teeth. It just happened. I had studied my list and found that there's really not enough exercise related stuff on there for my liking, and the idea just popped into my head to do calf raises while brushing my teeth, or 10 squats before using the toilet or 10 incline push ups on the kitchen counter whenever I go there or something like that. And suddenly, when brushing my teeth, I though "hey, I might as well do those calf raises" and I did. They suck. But I did them I didn't do the other stuff but I'm not stressing out about it. Maybe I will do them later on, maybe I won't. Right now I'm trying to get in the mood for the weekend and not let the work stress get to me too much. With the prospect of a day with 5 one hour appointments in a row with no lunch break in between we'll see how that goes

congrats, flea!!! I'm so happy to see that all the work and tears and sweat and lack of sleep you put into this acutally paid off you're awesome! As for that e-mail... what sylvaa said

Holly crap, I'm late to this thread. Good luck with the presentation, yuccat this! Everything is going to be pine. (I'm so sorry )

Plant puns? I gotta see this... (Also, go do your homework. Despite the ughs. This, too, shall pass.)

woot!!! Thank you <3 Wooooo!!! I'm doing the thing! (notice the singular there? )

Thank you. I do feel this is the best way to go (or I wouldn't be doing it ), but it's still difficult to get into that mindset. <3333 I really got to catch up on how you've been doing! Haha, glad to have you following along. Now go and get that cleaning done

Aaaaand the new challenge is set up

If you're looking for a fancy, themed, gif-ified challenge with a detailed backstory, rpg-elements and fancy spreadsheets, this is not it. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I just don't have the time or the energy to set something up right now. So this will be just me trying to get back into habits while still settling in with a new job, working full-time for the first time in my life. But maybe, not having energy or time to set up anything big isn't such a bad thing. Maybe that way I won't fall into the trap of taking on too much, too fast and reign in that rangerbrain of mine. I just read this lovely article on habit-making (thanks to Karina from the Academy for posting this) and will use the remainder of this challenge to take a good look at my habit tracker to see which habit(s) already stick and which one I might tackle next challenge. The list currently consists of 15 things that I'd eventually like to do daily, some of them linked to each other. I've been using these trackers for a long while now, but never actually got to the point where a habit is so consistent and set into my mind that I don't have to think about doing it anymore. None of these things have actually become a habit. So to change that, I'll focus on one small change at a time. If I succeed, a year from now all of these things will be consistent habits that are just part of my daily routine (sound familiar, NTB?). That'd be pretty awesome, right? The list goes like this: drink more than 2.4l do not drink my calories have 3 healthy meals (healthy = no refined sugar, no white wheat flour, whole grain whenever possible, no processed foods whenever possible) have healthy snacks only eat 3 portions of freggies take the stairs instead of escalators or elevators do yoga in the morning (= before noon) do a set of NF yoga wrist exercises entertain the cats (play, clicker train, cuddle) enjoy the outsides (= be outside for the sake of being outside. Going somewhere on the bike doesn't count.) call or write 2 different people update my NF challenge post and comment on 2 more brush teeth twice and floss once put away worn clothes before going to bed do two housekeeping chores and the daily tasks (there's a seperate tracker for that in my kitchen) Any time-sensitive item will start with a goal of 5 minutes and I'll slowly add to this. The one habit that I'm going to start building today is tracking these things every day. If by the end of the challenge any of these already stick, great. If not, no biggie. I'll decide on one additional habit to focus on next challenge. Probably the one with the least amount of misses. Got to be gentle with my under-used habit-muscles I will use the next three weeks to build the foundation on which to build my future habits. ... That's the theory. I know this is the sensible way to do this and I really think it can work, but at the same time I have to really reign down my rangerbrain. I feel like this is too little, too easy and I am already two steps ahead of myself. And what if this doesn't work, either!? What else could I try then? Then again, ticking off squares in my habit tracker everyday is definitely something I can do. Like... it feels tacky. Like it's not even worth my effort. Gah, my brain is stupid sometimes! But I'm willing to slow down and give this a try. Because considering how tired I am after a work day, going back at it with full speed is just not going to work. I'll start small, build one habit until it doesn't take as much effort anymore, then start the next. Slow and steady. Wish me luck

Haha, that fits right in with the article I read just now: http://www.nomeatathlete.com/limitless/ The habit tracker is done, but I think I'll use next challenge to see which habits already stuck and decide on which ones to work on after that. Uh, this is going to be tough, especially for my rangerbrain.

Well... I didn't really find the time to set up a new challenge and that definitely influenced how motivated I felt to do stuff. Lot's of energy drainage from the job. But I stuck to what I could in the last week of april, with 72/133 points. I just set up my new tracker for may and will try to get a challenge up, too, but it won't be anything fancy, just enough to keep me accountable. I do want to get back into fitness and handstands and stuff! I met up with a few friends yesterday and became a bit reminiscent of last summer when I was at the peak of my fitness and could do all that cool stuff that I'd never done before. And I want to be able to do that again.

Challenge Summary I started with the Super Sim Theme, ordering my numerous goals by the basic needs in the game The Sims 4. I struggled through week 1, then was sick for week 2 and the first few days of week 3 and decided to set up my tried and trusted habit tracker again for the rest of the challenge. I used trackers like that last year (before my newly acquired full time position robbed me of all energy) and you can see some examples in my bullet journal album here. These trackers are set up by month, so this one only has the last two weeks of the challenge and will continue until the end of april. Then I'll see what to take over to may and what to leave out or change. Right now, it looks like this: Hydration (90%) drink >2.4l per day (12/15) I struggled with this more than I thought I would, but looking at the tracker, it doesn't even look that bad. What I've found works for me is having my 0.6l water bottle with me at all times, tracking how much I actually drink (and not relying on my memory, because it sucks) and setting specific goals over the day. I want to finish my first bottle before noon (ideally before starting work), my second before 3pm, my third before getting back from work and my forth before bed. I made little tags that help me track my refills (and other fluids I drink, like a cup of tea or something) and cross of whenever I empty a 0.2l or 0.6l unit. I've been doing really well lately and intend to keep it that way. I'm happy with the amount of hydration, too, so this goal is just going to stay this way. don't drink calories (15/15) This was incredibly easy to get back into. I don't usually drink soda or something like that, so for me this only meant cutting out the sugar in my tea and not having hot chocolates. I might drop this off the tracker next month, since I already track sugar whether I had refined sugar, so having a hot chocolate would currently cost me two points which doesn't seem that balanced Nutrition (73%) no refined sugar (10/15) no white flour (10/15) I feel like I did better than the numbers reflect. I dropped sugar and white flour from my three main meals and only had a few snacks over the course of the last weeks. The culprits were ice cream (when the weather was really nice for a few days, which is fine by me, though I could limit it to two balls of ice cream at a time) and work. I work with children and sometimes we bake waffles together or I visit their homes and the parents offer cake. It just feels weird to not have something then. What did happen was the slippery slope effect. Once I have something sweet, I tend to have more. The reasoning is that I already lost my "no sugar" point, so I might as well dig in. I'm not sure yet how to counter that within the system of my habit tracker. I do want to seperately track main meals and snacks, though. It felt wrong that one piece of cake would make it look like I had not reached my nutrition goals at all, when all other food choices had been good. So I think I'll have "3 healthy main meals" and "healthy snacks" as items next month, where healthy includes not having refined sugar or white flour and not eating overly processed food. 2x freggies (13/15) I definitely want to up this to 3x/day next month. I currently have a bowl of fruit with yoghurt and quark in the morning and try to get into the habit of eating a salad in the evening, so that's that. I'd like to add freggie snacks and make it a habit to eat that instead of sandwiches (even whole grain ones). But I'm really happy with how this one went, especially since veggies have been difficult for me before. Movement (63%) take the stairs (14/15) this one completely surprised me. From one day to the next I decided I would no longer take escalators or elevators, but take the stairs instead and there were only one or two slight mishaps (when I was rushed or carrying heavy things). I think this worked so well because it's an easy decision to make. I know when to do it (whenever there's a choice between the two) and what to do, it does not involve any decision making on my part and once I get unto the right path, there's no alternative but to finish through with it. It even worked for my second job which involves climbing 6 flights of stairs. And yes, it did get easier over time I even took the stairs when my coworkers took the elevator. So yeah, this one is a big win and makes me really happy morning yoga (12/15) I felt like I did worse than the numbers show. I wanted to get back into the habit of doing daily yoga and decided the best way would be to do it first thing in the morning, before work. I think it helps a lot to have a fixed time slot, so I don't have to make new plans daily, but this didn't work to well on the days I didn't have work. I also kind of tricked myself. The rule was to do 5 minutes, but these often consisted of "easy" stuff, instead of a full routine. which I followed through with. The next step is to find a routine I like (or several, depending on my mood) and maybe commit to a little bit more time. Any suggestions for morning practices are welcome. wrist exercises (12/15) I used the NF yoga wrist exercises for this one and tried to do them right after yoga. Sometimes I'd forget or not have enough time, but I'm pretty happy with how this went. And I guess my wrists are, too. I sometimes get a weird pain in them after yoga or when I put other stress on them and that hasn't happened in the last few weeks. Could be a coincidence, but I'm definitely going to continue this one. I want to get back into handstands and stuff, so strong wrists will definitely help workout/flexibility work (0/15) Ugh. So the idea behind this was to get back into the academy workouts or any other kind of workout and do the NF yin yoga or similar stretching routines in between. The reality was... different. There was so much other stuff and a full workout was such a large amount of effort and time in my mind that I rather did nothing. I definitely want to focus on this one next challenge, but I'm going to start slowly. A friend of mine has had great success with daily seven minute workouts. She has an app that tracks her progress and tallys her streak for daily workouts. I might have a look into that. I also might just change this to another "5 minutes of exercise" thing and just work on pushups, handstands, squats or anything else that comes to mind. The idea is to get back into the habit of moving daily. It doesn't have to be a fully grown workout right away. Fun (65%) play with cats (8/15) I'm kinda torn on this one. I'm happy that I spend more time playing with the cats, but ashamed that it wasn't more and that I needed to make this a task in order to actually do it. I'm also not sure if and how I want to continue this one. I'm considering changing it to "spending time w/ cats", because right now cuddling, petting and brushing them doesn't count, but I also think that might make it too easy. Maybe I just need to look into other activities to do with them instead of just waving a rod with a toy in front of them... I might get back into clicker training, but that seems too dauting right now. Ugh... I'm undecided. I'll see how the next two weeks go and decide then on how to proceed. read something (14/15) This was fun. Again, I feel like I should not need a tracker to do this, but it helped me remembering to take time for reading and I usually read more than the "required" 5 minutes. I'll keep at it for the rest of the month and then see whether I want to keep it or whether the habit sticks on its own. sing (7/15) This number will definitely go up the next two weeks - choir starts again!! I definitely could have done more here, but I did do some preparation for the first rehearsal on wednesday. This one of those things that I would not have done as much without the challenge, so yay! I'll keep on tracking this and try to get some private lessons again. Those have been scarce, but mainly due to my teachers full schedule. enjoy outsides (10/15) This mainly included going for walks or sitting on the balcony. There still were days when I didn't leave the house, but I made an effort and got to enjoy some fresh air. I could still improve on this, mainly taking the chance when good weather is around instead of postponing it until it's dark and/or rainy again. I'll definitely keep this one and try to make this a daily thing. Social (58%) 2x socialize (8/15) Again, this is not something I'm proud of. There are days when I don't talk to anyone but my boyfriend or people at work. I want to make a bigger effort of staying in touch with friends, so any meaningfull conversation counted for this, be it via phone, text message or face to face. Still, I didn't get as much points as I would have liked. I especially want to get back to calling my family regularly, so I'll focus on that in the future. meet up with someone (7/15) I'm not actually sure whether this one helped or whether I would have met people regardless. I do however noticed that it doesn't work well with how the tracker is set up. It's supposed to have daily habits and it's just not feasable for me to meet someone each and every day. So I'll probably just add a bonus point to the socialize item when the socializing is done in person update & comment NF (11/15) I did great up until the last few days. I'm not actually sure what happened, but maybe I felt like I didn't really have anything to say. My updates consisted mostly of just dropping down the daily number of points. Maybe I should try to get into more detail of how my day went and what worked well and what I struggled with (like I'm doing now ) so it actually feels worthwile to post here and so that I can look bet and get a better grasp of what's going on. Not sure. I also want to comment on at least 3 posts daily instead of 2, like I did so far. And I'd like to spread out more next challenge and stay in touch with more people. Hygiene (96%) brush teeth and floss (15/15) Such a big win on this one!! I've actually struggled with this before, oftentimes forgetting to brush my teeth before going to bed and then not wanting to get back up (and out of my warm, cozy covers) to go and do it. I do the flossing in the evening and since I check my habit tracker frequently over the course of the day I remembered to brush and floss before bed most of the time. And if I didn't, the prospect of losing a point was enough to get me back out of bed I'm really happy with this one, and my dentist probably is, too put away clothes (15/15) I have a habit of leaving clothes all over the flat, to the dismay of my boyfriend. Oftentimes clothes were found over our bed or his office chair or the floor and we had our few share of dicussions about this. The solution was simple. I put up two clothe hangers on the door of my wardrobe and hung up any used-but-not-dirty clothes there in the evening. Problem solved. It worked really, really well for me. And my boyfriend's happy 2 housekeeping tasks + daily tasks (13/15) I have a seperate housekeeping tracker that both my boyfriend and I use and we did really well this month. I could take a picture if anyone's interested, but basically it's a list of tasks with indications of how often they should be done and then we just cross off what we did. If both of us do 2 tasks daily, we should be able to get everything done over the course of the month. It's working well for us so far and I definitely want to stick with it. So yeah, that's it. Looking back at that wall of text and all those numbers, I'm really happy with how it went. I definitely got back into the game and I'm ready to continue this journey. I'll stick to my habit tracker for the next week and get some stuff in the flat done during my free time next week. For the next challenge I want to focus on exercise. I'll keep my habit tracker running monthly and try to figure out a weekly workout routine that works for me and fits into the time I have. Right now I just want to enjoy the holidays and relax a little bit.

Love the theme I've been going without artificial sugar again and I think I'd choose bread. There's more sugar than salt in some breads. But it was really interesting to think about this, there's no typical sweet stuff I can think off that I couldn't go without. Sweet

Thanks, guys!! The last two days of the challenge landed on a solid 15/19. I'll post a summary tomorrow with pics of my trackers and such. I already got plans for next challenge

Ugh. That's so frustrating. I hope you figure something out!!

It did go by super fast, didn't it? Also, here's some more cats: It's funny how preferences can just change like that. It sounds like you did a great job of figuring out what works and what doesn't on the smoothie/salad front! And you inspired me to start having salads in the evening, so thanks for that You'll get there. I feel like finding a routine that really works for you isn't that easy (especially if it involves a lot of different things, like elements AND runs AND yoga AND bootcamp) but you'll figure it out eventually. Just stick with it. If all else fails, do whatever seems most fun right now. The best routine is the one you can follow through with, right? What's WOW (in the fitness related world, anyways)? Don't I know it. You'd think it would be easier to get stuff done, since you have more time, right? Nope. I totally feel you on this one. Would a morning routine spread help, where you tick of each item one by one every morning (instead of having to write it over and over on your daily spreads)? In any case, breaking tasks down into smaller tasks isn't silly, not if it's working I really like your plans for this one, sounds like you put some good though into it and figured out a strategy that's both attainable and effective. You're aware of your spendings and consciously trying to improve and get more control over your money and that's more than most can say (*cough*me*cough*) Why didn't your more stringent approach work out in the long run? As I understood it, you decided to go slow, one habit at a time, to make sure these habits actually stick. It's to be expected that some things will feel slower or worse than before, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're on the wrong path, just that your focus has shifted... Remember that despite all the stress and things not working out as well as you wanted them to, you also learned a lot of new things about yourself and what works for you. That's worth a lot. I'm really impressed with your summary here, especially the lessons for next time. Not only did you make new experiences this challenge and tried new things, you also took the time to reflect and take what you can to improve on it in the future. You're awesome!!

True that. I want to be like her when I grow up.

I'm so sorry to hear about the migraine, that sounds really hard. But you seem to have a good routine that works for you (or makes it somewhat bearable, at least). Good job of taking care of yourself and I definitely agree that you can be lenient with those points in circumstances like this. How are you doing today?

Wooo, that's exciting!!! I get your morning update problems. I often wonder whether it's just me or everyone's memory works that way, but I have a really hard time recalling details of the last few days. Sounds like you did pretty awesome this challenge!! I'm especially happy that you figured out a daily routine that works for you and that has become habit. That will make it a lot easier when things get rough. You got this!! (Still wishing you luck, though, it can't hurt )

I just realized that the challenge only runs until tomorrow. My habit tracker is set up by month, so I'm not even halfway through and since I was sick for the second week of the challenge, it doesn't feel like I've been at it that long. I was going to put up a mid-challenge-habit-tracker-update, but I guess I'll wait with that until sunday So for now, just a quick tally (since I missed a few days of updates): Monday had me at 13/19. Tuesday was only 14/19, even though it was my day off. I did not get that workout done (in fact, it's the only task that I haven't done once this month) Wednesday ended up with 17/19 to make up for it. Aaand yesterday I got only to 13/19 again. I'm still pretty happy with how the challenge went. I got back into some old habits and started a few new ones and, most importantly, made a conscious offer to improve. True, I could have done more, but I definitely did more than I would have without the challenge, so that's a win for me.

ha, I was just going to suggest yoghurt. That's what I have for breakfast everyday, to get in my daily serving of fruit. Depending on the fruit, you could also add it to salad? Or just make a fruit salad out of it (with a little bit of honey and roasted almonds...)? Or maybe little pies if you find something to use for a cake base?

Yay for progress! And bujo trackers, and washi tape It sounds like your slowly and steadily moving into the direction you want to go, so just keep at it! And pancakes are definitely worth it

Wow. That's just... eewww.

Checking in to update on yesterday. I got up to 15/19 points, which is a pretty great score for a pretty great day. Today was a bit more difficult, there was just too much food tempting me and once I had given in to one thing, my brain went "well, you're not going to get those points anyway, so you might as well indulge fully". There was lots of cake and sweets involved (which I haven't had in ages). I'm trying to focus on the fact that I haven't had sweets in ages, which is awesome, and not let the one day that I had some drag me down the slippery slope Aaanyways, I don't have work tomorrow and I'm determined to make the most of my day off and actually get a workout it. I don't care if it's a 7-minute-workout or something, but that's the only row in my tracker that's still completely empty and I intend to change that. If you have any recommendations, let me know