SkindianaBones

Greek yogurt remains a staple ingredient. I often use plain greek yogurt in place of sour cream when I make things like Chicken Fajitas. It is an awesome substitute with excellent macros.

This week, now that I am beginning to settle into my surroundings, I am getting more consistent on most of my goals. Made it a point to really spend my R&R time before I start my new role reading, and getting into a routine of early morning scripture, prayer, and meditation. I am also really close to leveling up to level 2 on strength and wisdom (I just need one or two skill points in those categories to reach the next level)! I hit some really awesome strength milestones this week, breaking through on Squats to hit 3x5 @ 185 lbs and on Deadlifts as well, hitting 3x5 @ 225 lbs. Hoping to continue to work my way back up on the bench in the next few weeks. Week 1 Stats Strength: 8 Endurance: 1 Conditioning: 2 Agility: 6 Wisdom: 9

End of week 1! Challenge going really well so far, now that I am starting to settle into my new surroundings. Still figuring out furniture but I at least am starting to feel more at home now, and less running around looking for things, now that I have some cleaning things around the apartment. Debrief 05/15 Workouts Much needed rest day. Glad to have some time to rest and relax this weekend with good weather. Enjoyed reading by the pool, and my hit a local coffee shop today. Nutrition and Recovery Might be going a bit too high on my calories and could probably use to cut back. Will see how my weight looks on Monday morning. 3,559 calories, 195g of protein (+1 strength). I also made it a point to hit both of my mobility routines first thing in the morning (+2 agility). Mindset As I alluded to I spent some R&R time reading by the pool yesterday. They just ran the John Galt Line for the first time in Atlas. Also among the first things completed in the day was my time in scripture, prayer, and meditation. (+3 wisdom) Stats Strength: 8 Endurance: 1 Conditioning: 2 Agility: 6 Wisdom: 9 (close to leveling up 🤠)

Debrief 05/14 While a portion of yesterday was spent waiting on moisturizer to come in for my exceedingly dry face, every other faucet went quite well. Consistency is beginning to build momentum, which is excellent. Workouts Solid workout! Same weights as Monday, as prescribed. Squats felt really light, which has me excited for what I could be able to ORM if I continue resting and recovering properly along with proper training. 3x5 Squat @ 185 lbs 3x5 Bench @ 125 lbs 15 treadmill sprints (15 seconds on/45 off) (+1 conditioning) BW 145.5 lbs (+1 strength) Nutrition and Recovery Killer nutrition day. Lots of vegetables and a solid calorie and protein intake at 3,454 and 215g, respectively (+1 strength) Mindset This was my best day in recent memory with Mindset goals as I spent 5 minutes in meditation early on in my day, killed a chapter in Atlas and spent time in scripture and prayer. All of these have already given me momentum into today as I have completed 2/3 mindset goals for today already. Looking forward to sitting down and spending some time reading this afternoon or late this morning.

Debrief 05/13 Two days in a row?!?!? Yeah, that's right! We being consistent. Yesterday was also a good day for continuing on my wisdom goals, which is awesome. Without further ado. Workouts: Rest day! Nutrition and Recovery: We did ok here. It wasn't my best nutrition day, but I did hit my numbers (3,283 calories, 194g protein), so +1 strength for me! I also hit my lower mobility routine, but missed on my shoulder routine so agility is a wash. Mindset Here is where we did the best yesterday. Hit all three goals by spending time in Scripture and Prayer, specifically in Luke, finishing up some Atlas, and hitting my daily meditation goal. You can definitely tell the difference in my life when these 3 are a priority for sure. (+3 wisdom) Stats Strength: 5 Endurance: 1 Conditioning: 1 Agility: 4 Wisdom: 3

Holy wow I have been very inconsistent on my logging. Guess I could add that to the consistency challenge as well. However, in order to be more consistent about it, I am going to make it one of my first activities of the day! Debrief 05/12 Yesterday was a solid day workout wise, and a decent one nutrition wise. However, throughout the moving process my mindset goals have suffered. Further analysis below. Workouts: Best part of the day. Killed yesterday's workout, and am loving my new home gym. They have real deadlift bars and are even hosting an Olympia qualifier later this year. Highlights: Deadlift 3x5 @ 225 lbs (+1 strength) Overhead Press 3x5 @ 85 lbs (+1 strength) 18 minutes of stairclimber (+1 endurance) Nutrition and Recovery: Not the best day here. Went out to lunch with a friend from my new area, so I didn't quite hit my calorie goal. Also weighed in at 145 so my weight stayed stagnant. Need to be on it the next few days with hitting my calories so I'm not losing strength gains. 3,051 calories, 192 g of protein (-1 strength) Mindset: Here is where I've been the most inconsistent. While I still did my meditation (+1 wisdom), I am having a hard time making it a priority to spend time in both the scripture and Atlas with everything going on (-4 widom). My goal for today is to change that, and I have already spent time in scripture this morning. Stats: Strength: 4 Endurance: 1 Conditioning: 1 Agility: 4 Wisdom: 0

Thank you! Still a lot going on an unfortunately have been slacking on my logging. I am going to consider the last few days a wash (accomplished some goals and nto so much on others). Plan is to once again begin my logs on the daily tomorrow morning. As for the caffeine break, the way to go is picking a weekend you don't care about and starting their. The first 24-48 hours are pretty miserable if you haven't taken a t-break in a long time. Thank you brother! Now I just need furniture and I'll feel like a real adult 😅. As for the strength, we did hit 225 for a 3x5 deadlift for the first time in a while so that was an excellent feeling this morning. Also - new home gym is incredible, and so are the people there. Looking forward to fully integrating myself into my new home.

Alright after a hiatus from my daily logs once again (disconnecting internet and moving) here is a quick backlog for Saturday and Sunday. Two solid recovery days with time spent on mental exercises, which was a good victory. Debrief 05/08 + 05/09 Workouts: Rest day!!! Nutrition and Recovery: Nutrition was a big win for Saturday, but didn't exactly track on Sunday, or Monday (yikes). Hitting the grocery store today and plan to be back on my tracking. Saturday we hit 3,267 calories and 185 g of protein. (+1 strength, but a wash after not tracking Sunday. Did hit both of my mobility routines each day as well, which was a huge win. Always nice to feel mobile and loose. (+4 agility) Mentality: Truly the biggest win of the weekend was here. Both days I spent time in study of scripture, prayer, meditation, and reading. I'm starting to get really into the thick of Atlas, and I am finding that I am enjoying not only the philosophical side of the book, but also the nature of it as a novel. It has a very interesting plot line that goes along with the themes. It is certainly an inspiring work. (+6 wisdom) Stats: While the weekend was a wash on strength, it's nice to spend some time in mobility work and mentality work. Maybe one day I'll be like a Jedi (or perhaps just a better sharpshooter).

Mission Report: Week 0 Week 0 was solid. While we topped out on the bench, we have continued to gain weight and get stronger in most of my lifts, including finally breaking through a plateau on my 3x5 Squats, hitting 175 lbs. While I hit some of my mental exercises, I need to make sure I am continuing to prioritize them, especially with everything that I currently have going on. Making them a priority will make sure I get them done. This, along with the fact that I am now taking a coffee tolerance break will be my largest struggles in the next few days. I will be trying to backlog some of this week (Saturday and Sunday - don't even ask about Monday) in my daily log momentarily. Week 0 Stats Strength: 3 Endurance: 0 Conditioning: 1 Agility: 4 Wisdom: 3

The first two are good. First episode was definitely awesome by far. And all moved in!! 🤠

Disconnecting my internet for the move and poor cellular service necessitate that mission report come in tomorrow. Until then comrades.

As a fraternal man myself I have to say we love this. No movies here... just an antiquated video game. Literally undefeated as far as FPS Campaigns go. Still waiting on LucasFilm (AKA our Disney overlords) to do anything with Sev, especially given that Deadshot in bad batch is a villainy type 😞

This especially. Despite maybe curing your sleep deficit, they do nothing to put you on a meaningful sort of regular sleep pattern other than large deficit followed by exhaustion and then finally a large sleep day to try and "catch up".

Reddit Stopgap PPL? Just curious...

Based on this it would appear that I will be of very little help to you, in that I thrive on routines and they seem to stick. It's one of those "if it works for you" type of things. However, I do intend to stick around for moral support. I am taking my monthly tolerance break from coffee in a few days and I am mentally preparing myself for how irritable I will be for the first 48 hours of it, so I feel your pain.

Debrief 05/06 + 05/07 Once again my mindset goals are slipping out of daily practice. No bible study on 05/06 or 05/07... but I did spend time in meditation and my novel. However, I am definitely going to have to continue my daily meditation practice, as I can see that falling out of it made me quicker to irritability - including this morning. I'm hoping that getting back into the daily habit will reduce this and make me more mindful that I and I alone are in control of my thoughts/feelings/reactions. I cannot let myself be determined by any outside factors. Workouts Here we are doing pretty awesome. Rest day on 05/06 and a great workout on 05/07. No bonus points because I hit all of these weights on Monday but I'll post them here because I'm happy about them. Deadlift 3x5 @ 215 lbs Overhead Press 2x5 @ 80 lbs - next week will be shooting to break through our plateau. Lat Pull 3x8 @ 135 lbs Bodyweight: 144.5 (+2 strength) Nutrition and Recovery Seems that 3,250 may actually be my sweet spot, so I'll work with that until it no longer works. Hit 3,234 with 189 g of protein, and 3,247 with 206 g of protein respectively. Still a bit lower than I would like, so washes out with my bodyweight gains. I did however, complete all of my mobility routines so +2 agility for me! 4 Mindset This is clearly where I have lacked the most week zero. Need to make sure that I am spending time on these, especially as I transition to my new environment. While I meditated both days, I spent time in study on neither, and only got through a singular chapter of Atlas. I must proceed with caution so that I don't get "too busy" once I start working. (-3 wisdom total) Tallies Strength: 2 Endurance: 0 Conditioning: 1 Agility: 2 Wisdom: 0 (wah wah wah!)

Learned from the best! Mission report for week 0 coming in hot tomorrow morning.

Same here. Honestly it's hard for me to even go to bed later, as my body gets itself primed to sleep at the same time every day. Definitely the way to do it.

Might I ask what sleepometer you use? Also, I know you said that you and routine have a strained relationship but I find that I get much higher quality rest when I'm on a sleep schedule, where I am going to bed and waking up at the same time +/- 15 minutes every day. It helps a ton. Also, other mentally refreshing things I have found that keep everything turning is cold showers, they are actually relaxing and energizing all at once. Awesomeness, if I do say so myself.

This here is the best piece of advice. I know that some people aren't into it but meal prep has saved me significant time and money while making it much easier to hit my calorie and macro goals. I simply pick 2-3 meals for the week to make for lunch and dinner (breakfast is more or less the same every day for me). Then I can take stock of what I have in my fridge and what I need. Then finally I check the grocery store ads for any of these things, or any non-perishable or freezable items I use on a regular basis. I also might change up my meals (like pick a different vegetable based on what is on sale). I've also simplified checking the grocery ads by shopping at Aldi. I keep stock of all of the "base" prices ($/oz) of things I use regularly, and only buy from elsewhere if it is cheaper than that. This keeps me from having to go too many places, and has been saving me a significant chunk of change.

Debrief 05/05 Yesterday was excellent. Was able to get some things done in the AM and spend some time with friends in the afternoon. Trying to spend as much time as possible with them before we all move our separate ways now that we have finished school. Workouts Yesterday morning's workout was solid. Attempted some new weights and really got after it with my conditioning. Finally broke through on the wall I was having at weights greater than 170 for my squat sets which felt excellent. Squat 3x5 @ 175 lbs (+1 strength) Bench 1x5 @ 145 lbs, 1x4 @ 145 lbs (-1 strength) - failing here was unfortunate, but given that I'm benching my body-weight I think I can drop the weight and break through this plateau. Pendlay Rows 3x8 @ 95 lbs 3 x 500m Row Sprints (+1 conditioning) Nutrition and Recovery In terms of recovery, yesterday was solid. Got a full night's sleep and hit 3,398 calories (+1 strength) with 213 grams of protein. Was also up a half pound!! (+1 strength) No mobility work because it was a working day. Mindset I haven't meditated in awhile but yesterday we finally got back to my meditation practice and I'm glad I did! Prior to that I spent some time in reading Bible passages and in prayer. And I finished up chapter 3 of Atlas Shrugged! (+3 wisdom) Tallies Strength: 2 Endurance: 0 Conditioning: 1 Wisdom: 3

There will definitely be plenty of those! I watched The Bad Batch yesterday, and it was excellent. Really excited to continue watching that.

It is certainly a thick read - but I have already gotten a lot to think about from it. I am finding myself annotating it much more than my previous reads this year. Might set me back a bit time wise in terms of my reading goal, so I'll likely have to follow it up with some shorter/less complex reads.

Hello, and May the 4th be with you!! If you don't know me - I am a very skinny guy who's attempted to gain weight and get stronger more than once. I participated in last month's challenge, and just created my week 0 post for this month's challenge here: I plan on using this as my daily thread to update you all on my workouts, nutrition, and other work. I am currently following the following workout plan: https://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=159678631 So far on my journey I have gone from 137 lbs to 144.5 (at my heaviest). My ORM's are as follows: Deadlift: 265 lbs Bench: 160 lbs Squat: 205 I am currently continuing to progress on my program while bulking in order to increase my strength and size. Here I will provide daily updates including workouts, nutrition, and other daily accountability info and shares. I hope that you guys find it interesting!

Did someone say week 0 on a new challenge?? And May the 4th??? If you followed my previous challenge, you saw that there were some wins and losses. I was able to blow my DL goal out of the water but failed to hit my squat or my bench goal (so close with 160, but failed on 165). I also failed on my weight goal, but did a solid job of completing my daily mindset goals. Given that I am in a huge transition stage in my life now (graduated and moving to a new job) a few things have been thrown into disarray - so I think starting a new challenge should help keep me constant. However, unlike my last challenge I plan to keep a daily log in the "Daily Battle Logs and Epic Quest" section, and keep this to weekly updates with wins/losses/weekly thoughts and updates. Time to get some goals. Workouts Despite my love for Sev - I am still an aspiring Warrior rather than an Assassin. While I hold it as a goal generally to be fit and do cardio and conditioning. My goal is to get strong as possible. So here are some smart goals and some weekly point systems for fun. One Rep Max Goals: Squat: 235 + Deadlift: 295 + Bench: 185 + In order to help me achieve these and power through tough sets I'll add the following workout point system to my routine and start tracking my character points: Successfully complete 3x5 at a new weight: +1 strength point Do a steady state cardio session: +1 endurance Do a conditioning workout: +1 conditioning New ORM PR: +5 strength New conditioning PR: +5 conditioning Fail a 3x5: -1 strength Miss a steady state: -1 endurance Miss a conditioning: -1 conditioning I'll be starting off each ability at 0 points, so we can see what level we can get to. Nutrition and Recovery You'll notice I added recovery to this, because I feel the two are so intertwined. As many of you remember I struggled with two things. Gaining weight, and doing my upper body mobility. As for weight, I have noticed that I need to hit at least 3,350 + to gain, so we can go ahead and set that as a daily calorie goal. The point system is as follows: Hit 3,350 + calories: +1 strength Each 1/2 lb gain: +1 strength Each 1/2 loss: -1 strength Complete lower or upper mobility: +1 agility Miss either mobility: -1 agility Mindset As I mentioned earlier, the last few weeks have kinda thrown me for a loop with everything going on. Graduating, moving, and getting prepared to start a new role is a lot. So this is going to be a really big one for me, especially given that I will only be in the office on a limited basis to begin with, making my mindset work even more important. I'll go ahead and institute the following point system. Meditate for 5 minutes: +1 wisdom Read 1+ chapter in a novel (currently in Atlas Shrugged) : +1 wisdom Read daily passage and spend time in prayer: +1 wisdom Miss any of the above: -2 wisdom I am making the detraction larger than the bonus for doing them simply because I think these actions are the ones that require the greatest daily practice, and I feel that missing a day can really throw me off. I think this will be a motivator as well when I am feeling lazy. So that's a lot... but I think that being detailed is SMART (shoutout to @Rurik Harrgath)! I look forward to keeping you guys updated with my progress and will be creating my daily log soon - which will contain full daily diaries with progress photos. I will link here once that has been created! Delta Squad Out - May the 4th Be With You!