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Update: I loved the idea of making a spreadsheet to track goals: here's mine. Main Quest: Beat agoraphobia & depression. Q1: 20 good form push-ups. (+1 STR) I used to be able to do 46. Now I can barely do 1. Despite having been in the military, I was never an athlete or a tough chick, but repetition helped get me from the arm strength of a flea... I couldn't do a single push-up on my knees, to almost 50 real push-ups on a graded exercise test with a 2-minute time limit. Since my injury and my depression, and now that I'm doing a regular desk job where being in shape isn't a requirement, I haven't made an effort to work out in six months. I did my first push-up in months this morning. It was rough. My middle sagged, I almost couldn't get back to the start position. I don't have a gym membership or free weights, but I plan on practicing push-ups, arm circles and some planks -- anything plyometric basically. Maybe I'll even start getting back my four-pack of yore. Update: I think I psyched myself out during that first bad push-up yesterday. Maybe I just forgot what it feels like to use my muscles. Today (July 22, still 5 days before challenge start) I did a set of 5 not-terrible push-ups. I'm not going to update my goal to make it harder, because I don't want to discourage myself with unreasonable difficulty. However, I'm going to put a longer term counter in my signature to keep track of how close I am to getting back to 50 push-ups. A = > 20. (I was always told that As are not for meeting the expectation, they're for going beyond it!) B = 20 C = 13 Fail: anything less Q2: No alcohol (+1 CON) I'm prone to a lot of anxiety and depression and I've never had any luck with the many anti-depressant, anti-anxiety, anti-have-any-feelings drugs prescribed to me. Individual therapy, group therapy, hospitalization also did basically nothing for me. Now I'm living alone for the first time in my life, in a city where I don't know anyone. And I self-medicate. Out of all the modern miracles of pharmacology, alcohol works better than anything at making me feel less awful about life. With my severe agoraphobia, I don't even like leaving my apartment. Going to the store to buy alcohol actually provides one of the few motivating reasons I step out the front door. Unfortunately, alcohol also upsets my sleep cycle, makes time disappear unproductively, and robs me from actually working on meaningful goals. It has a ton of calories and is one of the factors that my weight crept from a pants size 6 to not-fitting-into-an-8. And more than that: it shouldn't be the only reason I can find to leave the house. A lot of my other nutritional goals hinge on this one. If I pour empty calories down my throat every evening, why bother eating healthy during the day? I use that to rationalize buying sweets, salt-filled freezer meals, and so forth at the grocery store. Sure, I'll also pick up carrots and fruit and salad greens... and then never eat them. I have a feeling that cutting out alcohol is the linchpin to the rest of my nutritional goals, and some other life goals. A = totally dry. B = slipped once or twice. C = slipped three or four times. Fail: anything more Q3: Banish videogames, movies and TV. (+1 WIS)You can argue that this isn't a nutrition or fitness goal, but I have to strongly disagree. Gaming and TV-watching eats up the time that I would otherwise use to be more mentally and physically active. It is an opiate to me. I also tend to eat unhealthy snacks while gaming more than any other time. I have difficulty taking breaks and will ignore the physical world as long as possible as long as I have a game to play. To begin, I cancelled my Netflix subscription. Now, it's not really enough for me to say, "Don't play games" as my goal. I also need to strongly dissuade myself from purchasing them to begin with, and uninstall the ones I have. It's harder to get back into a game if all my save files are deleted and the game isn't on my computer at all. I will uninstall the Origin and Steam platforms, and all games associated with them. I suspect this will have more tangible positive results during the 6-week challenge than if I just plugged in another numerical goal, like, "Oh, do 100 sit-ups" or something. Freeing up large blocks of time that I spend on gaming is objectively the best way to get myself re-involved in the real world. I will not be getting rid of audio books and educational podcasts. If I see a movie in theaters, I will make an exception to the "no movies." I'm just targeting the vast library of shows I have at my disposal with iTunes, Amazon, Netflix and Hulu. Out of all of my quests, this one will be the most difficult, and honestly I'm not quite sure what to expect as the result. Who am I without games and shows? What will I fill my time with? Will my depression worsen or will I become super-productive? A = absolutely no gaming, no movies, no TV. B = slipped once or twice. C = slipped three or four times. Fail: anything more Life (Side) Quest: Go outside every day. (+1 STA) If I'm ever going to be comfortable enough to drive again and minimize my anxiety at leaving home, the first step is just to get out my front door every day. Because I work from home, I can easily go for 2 - 3 day stretches where I don't leave the house. Eventually I'll have to take care of basic things... take out the trash, get the mail, go to the store, go to the laundry room. But the more I stay inside, the worse my agoraphobia gets. It doesn't even feel like a "fear," usually it just feels like... a sort of grey miasma that closes me into my little cell. I say there's nothing to do outside, nowhere to go, no one to meet. I pull down the blinds. I'm not very relaxed when I do go out, sometimes just walking down the street is stressful. Grocery shopping is stressful. In the past few weeks I have pushed myself to do things like take long walks, ride the bus, get a library card, explore a couple new restaurants, even go sailing. However, these events are isolated. The vast majority of the time, I'm locked in my apartment. This is punctuated with short spurts of excursion where I'll strategically take care of several errands at once so that I can go home again. It makes it SEEM like I'm very active when I say I found a great new taco place, scouted out a cool bookstore and a bead shop and walked around the park, went to the post office, etc. But chances are I did all those things back-to-back and won't leave home again for days. Of course it's not enough just to stand on my porch and turn around and go back in every day. That's not healthy progress. But if all I do is walk around the block or go sit in a cafe for a half hour with my laptop, that's a good start. I considered having a more detailed plan about Where To Go every day, but I would like to expand my ability to follow spontaneous decisions rather than fulfill a predetermined task list. The goal is to feel more relaxed, not more regimented. A = 100%, established new walking routines and reasons to get out. B = Got out 6 days a week. C = Got out 5 days a week. Fail: anything less. Motivation: I've never lived alone before, and I think subconsciously I knew I needed to be alone to bring out the worst parts of my agoraphobia and depression, to meet them head on and handle them myself, without depending on the people I love most as my crutches. A lot of days feel brutal and lonely. But I also can't help but feel this could be the best opportunity I've given myself: finding out who I am, really, at the bottom of everything. And who I am right now isn't pretty. It turns out I'm terrified, weak, unhealthy and sad. But there it is. I am finally seeing myself as I am. Edit: I took some "Before" pics although I feel shy about sharing them right now. None of my quests are specifically weight-related during this challenge, but I have a feeling that I will start losing a few pounds here and there with a different lifestyle. Right now I'm about 148 lbs., and my happy weight is in the 113 - 125 pounds range. Intended Starting Stats if all is going well at week 3: STR: 1 DEX: 1 STA: 1 CON: 2 WIS: 3 CHA: 2