Mahnshooth

I love Insight Timer. It is a great basic timer with nice sounding bells, but there are tons of options there too. I never found anything close to being as good as it. I would like to see some better controls in the guided meditations and podcasts they have in the app. But I mostly use the timer so it works great for me. They just released a new version that ties in to Apple Health as well.

March went badly...very badly. Lots of personal things came up that I will not go into detail on...but I will be starting again on the next challenge to get to level 2.

I have heard the different flavors of quest bars are significantly different. I have had the cookie dough one a few times and it is not bad I thought. Sorry about that...try this one: https://www.nerdfitness.com/login/

So far this week has been going well for the challenge. I have been watching a YouTube series I found every morning, 30 day yoga for beginners. The sessions are 15-18 minutes so it is a good step up from my 10 minutes of walking last challenge...but not a massive increase in time like going to 30 minute sessions. I think that makes it easier to do since I am only adding 5 minutes to my established routine. So far so good. Another key improvement happened this morning. Both my wife and I had to work late last night so we were lazy and picked up food through a drive thru on the way home. So that was a bad meal. Then, this morning someone brought doughnuts into work. But, because of my challenge item of not having 2 bad meals in a row, I did not give in! Even though it is a small thing, sticking to the challenge quests I set for myself were more important than a doughnut.

Thanks. The soda change was incremental. Started with switching to diet soda. Then cutting back on how much of that I was having. Now that it had gotten down to only 1 or 2 a day I made the move to tea. Fortunately I like taste of English Breakfast and Earl Grey unsweetened so it has been working out so far.

Welcome Sahaja. I am only on my second challenge so there are a few other new people around here. One of my goals this time around is also around yoga, but mine is just following a beginner course. For starting out, you can create your Nerd Fitness character if you want to and have not done that yet. https://www.nerdfitness.com/level-up/my-character/

Wow...this really sounds like an Epic Quest! Traveling to train under a grandmaster?! I will definitely be following along.

Thanks for the reply. I think the first challenge helped to identify some of the things that keep knocking me off of progress that I have made mostly around weekends and letting things get out of control. But, SMART goals are good so I changed my other diet goal to be more specific and measurable.

Greetings again fellow Druids. The challenge from February was my first one here at Nerd Fitness. I enjoyed it and feel that I learned a few things that I can use to further my epic quest. My first challenge had a few specific goals on changes I wanted to make but also was for gathering data. As an example, one of my quests was to log everything I ate for the duration of the challenge. Looking back at the past month's worth of data shows me some of the trends that have been preventing my progress. If you want to see my thoughts at the end of the last challenge, that can be found at http://rebellion.nerdfitness.com/index.php?/topic/77866-mahnshooths-journey-begins/ That being said, it was a successful challenge so now I am on to Level 2! I plan on continuing the same activities from my first challenge and building on those. So still 10 minutes of meditation daily, logging my food, and not drinking soda at work. Diet No two bad meals in a row. If I go out for lunch at work I have to cook dinner and eat healthy for that meal. This is to try to stop the snowball effect that tends to going completely off track.0-1 days a week with alcohol. I drink too often on the weekend so limiting this to a single day a week. Fitness Follow a 30 day Beginner's Yoga series. Level Up Your Life Create and stick with a weekend morning routine. I have been good with the weekday mornings when I have to get up and get things done. On the weekend I tend to be lazy in the morning and not do anything which leads to a completely non-productive day. I will start by carrying over my weekday routine to the weekend. So, here we go toward reaching Level 3. I have added these quests to my Character page. https://www.nerdfitness.com/character/74815

Finished up the first challenge. I was definitely losing steam this last week so I am glad to be starting toward the new challenge next week. How did I do working toward my goals for this first challenge: Diet Replace diet soda at work with unsweetened tea - This was almost 100% successful. I had a diet soda at work last week...just 1 throughout the entire challenge. I feel really great about that.Log everything that I eat and drink daily - This took some effort but in the end I think it worked really well. There were a few times I decided to eat less or eat something healthier due to seeing the data. Looking over the last month, I can see that 3 of the 4 weeks I went over the daily calorie limit 4 of the 7 days of the week. That other week was 3 days of the week over. Almost all of these were weekend days. Fitness 10 minutes of walking or Yoga daily - I kept this up almost all the way through. A few days were missed due to going into work super early or replaced with extra stretching when I was not feeling well. Not bad overall though. Level Up Your Life 10 minutes meditation daily - During the week, this one was great. Weekends not as much. And the annoying part is that I have more time on weekends so it should not be an issue. I think the problem here is that I have a very specific routine on weekday mornings that I do not carry over to my weekends. So, where to go from here. Looking at what hurt my progress during this first challenge shows me what is derailing my progress - taking time off from my goals on weekends. It has been a long time habit to start the weekend with a pizza or some beer and then do nothing productive or positive again till Monday. Start working hard on Monday again but quit again on Friday evening. I am going to tailor my goals for the next challenge toward keeping myself on track during the weekend which I think will help build the discipline needed to get to higher levels. So, overall I view this first challenge as a success. The goals were achievable and helped to show me what I need to work on to keep improving.

Starting week 3 of the challenge. Overall things have been moderately successful I think. Of my 4 quests, logging food every day and no soda at work have been 100% successful...although I have had some soda on weekends or after work...but it is still a step. Meditation and walking have been 85% successful I think. I have missed a couple of weekend days and the 2 days I had to be at work at 5am yesterday and 1 day last week. But those have still been going strong for the most part. This morning for example...I really did not feel like getting up and walking but wanted to hit snooze and get another 15 minutes of sleep. However, I knew I would be mad at myself later so I got up and walked instead of laying in bed. I would have only been more tired anyway. Since this challenge is about halfway through, I am starting to look toward the next one and think about what I want to do. Instead of just logging my food, maybe holding myself accountable for going over the calorie budget..only 2 days a week or something like that. I may also either extend my walking or meditation time...or wake up 15 minutes earlier.

I have been liking it. One of the things that has been useful for me is splitting up my to do lists. I use EverNote to track things I need to do at work and the HabitRPG To Do List for things to do at home. I tried combining them together but I find that I do not want to look at all the work waiting for me when I am at home. This way i have been able to get little tasks taken care of and seeing an XP bar grow helps with the motivation to get those things done. For the daily habits, it is based around my 4 quests for the 4 week challenge, but there are a few others as well. Daily journal writing and recording my One Second A Day (Fun little app that gives you something to look back over and see 1 second of every day when time seems to fly by too fast).

Thanks for the welcome. I think finding some physical activity I actually enjoy is a must. Eventually if I keep trying different things I should find something. Maybe either Yoga or a Martial Art.

Well, the weekend had mixed success. While I did go over on what I wanted to eat over the weekend, I did keep up with logging all of it in my app. And man, does it really paint a picture of what has been going on. Most weeks I would start off strong and then go back to old habits on the weekend. So, I would be eating under my daily calories for several days and not track anything on the weekend. This time around, I kept up with tracking everything and it turns out I offset all of the days I ate well with way too much over the weekend. So, while it sucks that the progress made last week was lost, seeing that data in front of me is a visualization of what I have been doing to myself. Being aware of what is really going on should be helpful to keep me on track moving forward. I think making logging everything one of my Level 1 goals was a good idea that should help make it easier to see when I am going off track. Starting off this week strong so far. Walked for about 12 minutes and meditated for 15 minutes before work.

Been a good week so far. I have been able to keep up with my 4 goals pretty well so far. One day this week i was able to meditate for 15 minutes instead of 10. This morning however, I only got 5 minutes so I am going to do another 10 later this evening to make sure I keep up with that one. I have been using the Lose It app on my phone. Their database is pretty extensive although I am not completely sure how accurate their calorie counts are. I will take a look at MyPaleoPal and see what that one is like. Logging my food has been really helpful this week. There were 2 days I would probably have eaten too much but I noticed that I had eaten a lot of calories for the day already so I resisted the urge. Just having awareness seems to be a helpful first step. Since it is Friday, this is when my efforts usually fall apart. The habit to stop for a pizza or some beer on the way home is one that must be broken. Then for the rest of the weekend I need to make sure to keep track with my goals. Just because it is the weekend does not mean I get to be lazy and not work on leveling up. Not once in Lord of the Rings did Frodo tell Sam "It's Saturday, so we will wait till Monday to continue on to Mordor."