Vercingétorix

Yeah its all about prioritizing, just knowing what is the important stuff and what to let go. And thanks for telling me this and sharing! I wasn't aware of the tag system I'll look into it. This is the first forum I'm actually appart of so I'm learning how to participate, Cheers!

This is neat! Haha, ok ok roleplay time: As I remove my coat, clean my boots and walk up to the chair beckoning my attention across the lounge, a few gaze comes my way. Onlookers wondering not so internally what the hell happened to this guy. Goblin ambush? Werewolf? A swollen ankle, crooked wrist and a blue neck are some of the visible wounds available to entertain the question, along with a limp. If they ask, I'll say highwayman ambush. My first time here, but it feels like I have been here before. The effect of a log fire lit room I suppose. As soon as my lumpy behind feels the warmth of a leather chair, a bartender welcomes my new face. In a weirdly and unnecessarily defiant tone to the quiet characters in the room, I belch my need for the largest pint of ale he can muster. There was no need, as the barkeep already had his hands on the tap. Time to digest what the &%#! happened back there. What a year! Cheers all!

Hi All, For the last two challenges, they all highlighted my need to structure and organise my life through a calendar/notebook. Helps with looking to the future with objectives, hopes and dream. Not fall into the drudgery of day to day life so much, but to get closer the hero we all know we can be. That being said, I'm struggling as I'm putting too much stuff on my plate, life is brutal and I'm injured. Just want to feel more on top of things and that I'm attacking problems and not reacting to them. So a little 3 week of resetting to the last saved checkpoint (October ish) is perfect to line up the new year. The challenge: 1) Go to a physio while we have relaxation of our covid guidelines. Get the treatment plan, and implement. Relax on the physical activities and focus on decent nutrition instead. Having a baseball for an ankle and a useless wrist is no way to live. 2) Use a calendar to sketch the following day, organise and keep on top. Work, then play. 3) Wake up before 7h30, keep tabs with post-it notes, attack the day. That is it. I have a big character decision to make as well going to 2021. A character class change so to speak. To stay in the ranger guild for squash as a warrior/Scout, or change to the monk guild as a Ranger/Monk for a potential boxing match? Will decide over the free time these holidays provide. I hope that everyone can have some sense of holiday during this time, stay safe everyone.

Final Update: talk about a rollercoaster month of November! Plenty of ups and downs, and just general life being a pain. Funny how my challenge was majorly about taking control of my life, only to be made more acutely aware that we don't control much, if anything at all. Specially true during covid, as any plan I make, from sport tournament to fundraisers to vacations just got fucked. Not that I'm unique in this situation, just a bit depressed by it all. This challenge was tough, not because putting stuff in a calendar or waking up is hard, but because it brought to the forefront some of the mental health issues and bad habits I have in my life. I have adult ADHD, so this is the stuff I have to do to deal with it. That being said, when I look back at the challenge, plenty of positives. I was more present in my day to day stuff, accomplished a lot, and generally realised how being on top of my stuff while accepting that I'm not Captain America (yet!) makes me feel soooooo much better. I had moments where I was actually relaxed. Talk about a win compared to my usual neurotic. I'd say my adherence rate overall was a C+. So for the next little holiday challenge. I'm not going to change anything. If anything, I will take the downtime to plan events for 2021, and have some thing to look forward at into the longer term future. Cheers everyone!

So far so good! Took your tip, and I take 5-10 minutes in the evening to both revisit the day and adjust the next using calendars. Darn efficient. I switched to booking 1 hour periods instead of 30 minutes, just more realistic. Focusing now on keeping the habit, but I like how it pushes you to always look to the future. However, it can also highlight the slight drudgery of day to day stuff. If anything I want a vacation to put different things in the planner. Thanks for checking in!

Hi All, love it when it is new challenge time. My last challenge was about waking up, and while there was great improvement in that area, it also highlighted my lack of preparation/organization. I want to wake up on time to challenge the day, but if I don't really know what I'm going that day, what exactly am I challenging? I'm just stressing myself. I end up letting the day make the decisions on what I should do at work and in life. It is a big factor into my mental health, so lets challenge it! For this challenge: 1) Calendar usage. I have a two calendars (personal/work) that are set up, sync between each other, but that I barely use. I will have every event in my life on the calendar, and will split up my time at work using timeslots (30 minutes ish). The goal is simply to use the calendar and attribute a timeslot to my task/events. It's a habit that I want. Following-it to the letter like a robot is not the objective, just to mindfully organize my days. I will measure this a success as long the next day in the calendar is filled up. if I can look back on my calendar and see everyday filled up, success. 2) Organization/Preparation: General cleanliness. Every time I get overwhelmed, my stuff is mess. Files on my computer are disorganized. Kitchen is messy, office is messy, etc. I'm sure ya'll can relate. So I will plan time in my day to simply clean and organize my stuff. When you wake up and you have your water bottle right next to your alarm, and your bathroom is clean with stuff tidy, you save time. I just noticed that the time I don't spend organizing my space is wasted anyway when I need use said space. Taking the time to prep also reduces the ''resistance'' or ''friction'' of doing task. So I will have timeslot for cleaning/organizing in the calendar. Minimum 1 a day. The goal is not to have everything perfect, just allocate time to it. 3) Have to keep at it in the morning! wake up before 7h30 everyday except Sunday is the goal. To switch it up a bit, I will consider it a pass if I'm out of bed before 8am, but I will attach loot to post it notes for 7h30. 80% adhesion rate is the goalpost. That is it for this challenges. My nutrition and fitness is decent, but I really need to work on the mindset to get to the next level. Will keep up with you guys as well! Cheers, Vercingetorix

Thanks Everyone, and sorry for the late update. Can't seem to find the 20 minutes needed for it this last weekend, but I have a great excuse. For the good news, I passed my mini challenge! The only caveat was last Wednesday. Might be oversharing here but I get Night Terrors/Sleep Paralysis (hypnopompic) at times. Its rare but usually an episode every other month. The one I had on Wednesday was pretty bad, but still out of bed at 7h40, so I'm very happy about that. Decided to get some new court shoes for sports as our COVID situation goes back to yellow and stuff opens up. Attached a pic, great shoes for ball hockey and squash, inexpensive too. Made a huge difference for my game last Sunday. Lastly, I also had my first organized 10km run last Saturday. It was a commitment me and some friends made, and I crushed it. Since the gym and everything was closed, had all the time needed to train for it as part of the runergizer charging. Ran the 10km in 46 minutes, super happy with that. Anyway, will make a post soon about the new challenge. Thanks for the support everyone!

End of Challenge update time. Had quite the tumultuous 5 weeks. From a sprained wrist (still can't put pressure on an open hand) to our gym closing as we are getting hit by a covid second waive... Lost of random things adding up. And as much as I hate to admit it, I still haven't done a solid on my challenge. It was a lot better than my last attempt, but still short. I forget the post-it notes, or simply pretend I'm awake while listening to the radio in bed. Mornings really are my boss fights. I was able to do my morning jog challenge. It was painful and slow, but I did it. Also, overall, I was a lot better on my mornings. The loot sticky note things work, but the flip side is that I'm reminded a bit harshly that I missed a day when I wake up late or sleep through my alarm. Maybe gun shots over my head in the morning would work hahaha. Have to work in prep going to sleep. Just 5 minutes of prep for the next morning makes it so much easier (layout of clothes, sticky notes beside my water bottle, etc) So I'm doing a mini challenge in between the challenges. Next week, I am out of bed before 7:30, Monday to Friday. Simple, I do that, and I get myself some new running shoes. Thanks everyone for checking in! Will keep the forum updated on the next challenge, and will look into sharing and participating a bit more. Keeps the challenge in front of your mind a bit more.

Thanks! Got my X-Ray, and turns out I have an extra bone in my wrist that does nothing. It got dislodged and jammed in a ligament. Long story short, nothing is broken, just an intense wrist sprain getting things back in place. Starting to get better already! Finally got a good night of sleep last night, and back on track for my challenge. I won't be able to push a barbell for a week or two that's for sure. but probably going to just do 3 leg workout a week and keep jogging. Focus on sleep and nutrition.

Update time, last week was a huge improvement. I actually woke up last Wednesday morning and ran 10k. Maybe ran is a strong word, more like stumbled for 10k. But it got done! Need to switch my deadlift routine and tweak volume. Little changes... Or so I thought. Had a bad fall playing ball hockey yesterday and severely strained my wrist during ball hockey match. Got tripped and fell on my wrist. It wasn't too bad at the time and finished my game, but during the night the pain really picked up. Did'nt sleep a lot and had to take the morning off. Waiting from feedback from my doctor to know if I need to go for x-rays or not. Anyway can't really lift weights for the foreseeable future. Need to figure how to work out without a hand! Hahaha so I'm going to take some time today to figure out what to do with this unexpected injury. Shit happens and you gotta deal with it. Will Keep the forum posted, clears my head. Hope everyone is having better luck.

Hi Guys, a day late but here for my second challenge of 2020. My last challenge wen't well in every aspect of my life except for the main point, waking up in the morning. I really struggle with mornings, and I don't like it. I hate waking up already rushed to the days responsibilities. Its a mental health thing, of tackling the day instead of reacting to it. Like Thor said, hero's tackle their problems head on, so I'm doing that for the next 5 week. The is the main objective of my challenge. I'm also switching from my 6 day PLPPLP training to a 4 day Push/pull with a de-load week at the end of the challenge in 5 weeks. Already did the spreadsheet for it. I switched to a four day to give me Wednesday to run. Signed up for a 10k at the end of October to support 2 of my friends who want to get in better shape. I need to jog twice a week to get in my 10k form. Wednesday and Saturday are jog days. Just my training block for this challenge. The challenges: -#1, the big one. Waking up before 7h30. Not the end of the world if it's 7h33... When its 8h30 and you have a zoom call at 9, that sucks. No more of that. I'm going to track it the same way as before, with post it notes and a jar. Since I noticed it makes it feel like a punishment at times, I'm pre-writting the notes with small loot. For example: you're up before 7h30, enjoy a coffee and chill. Start the day winning. I'm also gonna put a few books I like in my bed to go to sleep earlier. -#2 Tracking, keep tracking food, sleep and training. Really helps a lot. Easy part of the challenge here. -#3 85% adhesion rate. Don't let one or two mistakes derail, just keep going forward. -Extra bonus challenge: do one morning run on a Wednesday during the challenge. 5 attempts possible. Loot at the end, I was going to go for the squash racket I missed out on last challenge, but I haven't been playing enough squash to justify the purchase. Still want it thought. Loot options this time - fresh pair of running shoes - new hockey visor - New headphones Good luck everyone, Fortify!

End of Challenge update: It was overall a tougher challenge than expected. Long story short, I failed. Had to work from home for 2 weeks due to reno's at the office, and I slipped on the waking up part. Really highlighted the need for me to work on my sleep schedule. It really affects my day when I start on the wrong foot. Positive: Finished my 5 week programm, squat went from 245 to 295, Bodyweight still at 190. The team I play for in the dek hockey league I play won the league finals, and I got rookie of the year. Negative: tough mornings, slight hamstring tear on last day of the challenge. Can't get the new sweet loot. Still not stretching enough for the level of activity that I do. Got to figure this out. My next challenge will be a continuation of this one. Just working the details. Fortify! Since I still had a good 5 week, I will switch my loo to pay for a year of Nerd Fitness Prime. Helps to keep my health/fitness a priority in my life. Fortify!

So far so good, still struggling on the sleep side but have not missed a workout and stretching regularly. Thanks for checking in!

Thanks! And I Live in Atlantic Canada Good luck! Doing the benchmark tomorrow.

Haven't done a challenge since last year. I teared my groin playing soccer and was injured the whole quarantine. Managed to maintain fitness somewhat and now that I'm back to normal (whatever that is), back to challenges! Gyms have re-opened where I live, so I have the following objective for the next five weeks. 1. Made a great workout plan. First time in a while that I have one. 6 days a week but not hardcore. Nothing I haven't done before. Simple 45 min workouts ish. Enjoy the gym while it's still open. 2. Wake up before 7h30 during the weekdays, stat! Will keep track with post-it notes. 3. Deep stretch 5 times a week, keep the physio going to become injury proof. Do it during TV time or whatever. Optional: program the pull-up challenge from prime into some workouts. Benchmark pull-ups before and after challenge. That is it, nothing too crazy like my last vegetarian challenge I got sick doing. Success will be a 85% adhesion rate, and my loot will be a Tecnifibre Carboflex 130 X-Speed upon successful completion. Lets do this, plus ultra!

Week 2 update: The bloatiness and soreness is gone now that i stopped eating so much soy product. I'm back to moving and sweating as I normally do. My nutrition is good. Sleep is getting much better and I'm up a little after 7h30, so next week my main focus is just getting up at 7h30 no ifs and buts. I have no super late hockey game so that should help. Using a calendar is actually super useful, like your own accountability buddy. I'm Injury free and back to being myself. Since I'm not too happy about having to quit my main challenge of eating plant base due to the fact that I physically can't do it, I added an extra challenge. I'm raising funds this year for the Movember foundation and pretend I can grow a mustache. This year my hockey team also joined and is fundraising as well. To add to the challenge, I signed up for the Movember 60K. Basically, you run 60km during the month of November for the 60 men we lose to suicide every 60 minutes across the world. I would be happy to share my page for people who want to donate to the movember foundation and support men's health, but I'm unsure if this platform is the right place for it. That is it for now, and I hope everyone is attacking their respective challenge head on. Cheers, Vercingetorix

Alright mid-week update: Unfortunately, I need to reintroduce meat to my diet and break the challenge. I just puked my guts out last night due to a burrito that had black beans. Mixed with the bloatiness soy protein causes, I'm calling it in. For no lack of effort, A full plant base diet does not work for me. The personal price is too high. That being said, I still consider this challenge a success for the following reasons: - I tried a bunch of new recipes! A lot of them are healthy, based on whole foods, and I can adapt them to me. I was lacking meal variety and now I have tons of ideas. - Eating whole, quality food really is as good as they say. I'm avoiding processed food from now on. Healthy grains of all kind as a source of energy is key. Put in healthy sources of protein and tons of vegetable and I'm sure I have a winning formula. - I'm adopting oat milk instead of dairy, love that stuff. - I'm adopting a whole food, high carbs and high protein with low fat style of nutrition from now on. Seems to really give me energy. I think the key takeaway here is that everyone is different, and I'm just navigating what works for me food wise. For the rest of this challenge, I'm switching it to one vegetarian meal a day. Also, I'm really going to focus on having 90%+ of my meals be whole foods, stuff I make. Cheers, Vercingétorix

1 week update now that I have 10 minutes: I learned one thing last week at my own expense. I'm allergic to chick peas. I have a strong peanut allergy (anaphylactic). Apparently legumes like beans and chick peas are in the same family as peanuts and have a similar protein profile. Anyway I took a chickpea protein shake and had an allergic reaction, not the crazy anaphylactic one, just the runny nose, itchy throat, fever and wheezy lungs. It seems to be only in the concentrated from, since I ate regular chickpeas and I was somewhat fine. Also I get food poisoning from red kidney beans, and a few other things. I get indigestion from a lot of nuts like almond and coconuts, so I'm running out of ideas to make my cookbook work. The problem is that these legumes are were you get your amino acid profile for protein on a plant base diet. For now I'm sticking with whey protein isolate shakes to make sure I get some protein, and I eat tofu, lentils and other stuff. I still feel the effect of less protein intake, I'm more sore than usual. I'm going to make more meals this week, and just eat more whole foods. Everything else is quite positive. Calendar and sleep is going well, and I'm trying a lot of different foods and its fun. Eating a lot of carbs so I have lots of energy. I just need to find a way to eat more protein without just downing protein shakes, any ideas? Cheers, Vercingétorix

I keep a block of post-it notes, a pen and a jar besides my bedroom clock. When I get out of bed, I write the date and time on a post-it and put it in the jar. That's all.

Hi there, For my second challenge, I'm simply building on the last one. My opponent for my squash match is injured, and me also, so we postponed our battle for later. Still have to get healthy, so for this challenge: - Out of bed before 7h30 every weekday. This was my weak point last challenge with an adherence rate bellow 30%. Same post it method to keep track. Really want to have one full week! - New one is my Calendar. I notice that I don't use it to its full potential and that I'm too nice with my time. I need to use it to block up my time slots and give purpose to my time. Not only will I place all my workouts and appointments, but also my daily task and give them a time value. The idea is to have a full calendar when I look at it. I will have 5 weeks of calendar booked. - The biggest one: I'm going plant based nutrition for 5 weeks. Already did my grocery and got a cookbook. No animal based foods (no milk, butter, eggs, etc) and minimally processed foods as much as possible. Will keep track with my food log app Cronometer. That is it for now. Also, my reward for completing this challenge/quest at 80%+ will be selected at a later date. Probably a new hockey visor but I'm not decided yet. Lets go! Vercingétorix

Good job on acknowledging what you want to work on. Having goals sets up boundaries. While goals are nice, keeping an eye on the prize can be tough. Systematizing the goals is the real challenge. The book Atomic Habits by James Clear is great for that. Also, I will Teach You To be Rich by Ramit Sethis is a great personal finance book, as well as Millionaire Teacher. Just a few resources to help out. Cheers

End of challenge update now that I have 10 minutes. Wild ride, and it was quite the learning curves. For my first challenge I over did it, and also I realized my challenges were on the wrong spectrum of things. for the TL;DR, Booze and activity aren't my problem anymore, but sleep and nutrition is. Also I'm not being smart, as I injured myself twice (rolled my ankle bad last week playing soccer). My next challenge will focus on the weaknesses, and add recovery, injury prevention stuff. The point of this challenge was to get better for my upcoming squash match, and I blew it by injuring myself (nothing too serious). Positive of the challenge: - Reached my one year smoke free anniversary sober. - Absolute cardio machine right now. I can do whatever without getting tired. - Got a start to good scheduling and sleeping habits, must build on that. - Managed to keep up challenging myself while still professionally busy. Also did a lot of reading. - New outlook on alcohol and training Stuff to work on: - Sleep schedule, Starting the day right makes a world of difference. This was my hardest part of the challenge with an adherence rate of only 42%. Still I was up steadily and overall an improvement over the past. - More weightlifting, I react well to the training - Food! Get a recipe book! I'm eating to much of the same stuff and that gives me cravings for mcflurries. Also, watch the sugar. All in all I really like this challenge stuff. Hard to explain, maybe it is my competitive side or just the whole self-improvement thing, but I love doing thing to achieve the potential of Vercingétorix. I look forward to it, as well as keeping active on this forum as I prefer it to FB. I still have to figure out how to navigate it, but one step at a time. See you all in the next Challenge. Vercingétorix

Last update until the end of the challenge on this Canadian Thanksgiving. Everything is going well so far. No problem with alcohol, I'm eating decently, I have good strength and I'm playing good squash. Sleep is still my biggest issue this challenge and hoping to get that under control is my last objective. I was hoping to have more to say but really I'm starting to get the hang of it. Already thinking about what I'm going to do on the next challenge. Cheers, Vercingétorix

HI! wow someone keeping me accountable for a change, I love it! Late weekly update: Had a crazy week with not a lot of rest, to much stuff to do and too much physical activity. Still on the sober wagon and all, but sleep and nutrition was not up to par. I was up at around 7h30-8h but it was tough getting out of bed. It was all a bit of my doing since I went waaaaay to intense on physical activity. From hockey, soccer, squash and the gym (4 weights sessions + 2 classes) I averaged about 1200 calories burned a day on estimates. Plus Saturday I had a 1 day squash tournament and I managed to get to the finals somehow. One squash match is between 500-1000 cals, and I played three of them the same day. For example I ate a full baguette with cream cheese and smoked salmon after dinner on Thursday like some famished monster, and the fact that I weighted myself at 185lbs Sunday is telling me that I'm burning a lot more calories than I think I do. So Sunday I crashed a bit and took her easy, and prepped for a job interview. Overall this level of activity is too much for current me and I couldn't eat enough or sleep enough to recover. I just have to take it down 20% (too bad I never do that). Mentally I'm a little shakier than usual, lots of stuff going on and my quit smoking app told me today is my 1 year anniversary since I quit smoking. Nothing changed too much, its just a day like any other and I didn't plan anything for myself for this day. To be honest I kinda regret it, I should've planned something. Quitting smoking doesn't fix any problems in your life. Life is just better without smoking, and I should've planned something to celebrate that. I do have a soccer match today as well as a league squash match, and being able to do that the same day is one form of celebration. I could definitely not do this as a smoker, so I have to remember that I'm at a higher level that I used to be. Anyway, as I'm writing this up, I have 12 full days of this challenge left. I plan to make the most of it. I'm healthy again and I have adjusted to the kind of demand this challenge poses. Next challenge I will tone it down a little bit, but there is no real excuse not to nail the remaining 12 days. I have a calendar, and for each remaining days that I do a 100% completion on all account, I will put a red X on the calendar. I will try to ha a regular update Sunday, and good luck to all! Plus Ultra! Vercingétorix

Thanks! and I manage and adult hockey team. Our league start later in the month so I organized a pre-season game with another team to get rid of ice rust. Went well even though all of us forgot how to catch a pass!