Search the Community

This challenge is (mostly) a continuation of the previous challenge where I was doing Daily Quests. Because I figured that if I did Daily Quests in Final Fantasy XIV without a problem, then surely I could do the same in Real Life too, right? For those of you who have read any of my previous challenges, feel free to start laughing. The previous challenge daily goals were: - Sun salutations every morning, followed by a 1 min plank. The Sun Salutations have happened probably 4 times, and so have the planks. The problem here consisted of "morning". - 4 min Tabata workout on the Assault Bike every morning. See above. This daily goal was also made more difficult due to the drama surrounding the use of the Assault Bike. - Sweep the main floor every evening (because the wind from the Assault Bike sends cat and dog hair flying EVERYWHERE and I don't want to have to sweep in the mornings). Bed time arrived and I was like "nah". - Intermittent fasting (easy, because making food is annoying and this means I'll have to do it less). This was probably the only goal I stuck with from March 5 until Today (ongoing). Less effort, more win! - Go to bed at a reasonable hour (easier because if I'm sober I get tired around 9 PM because apparently I am Old™ now). And also this. - Daily bodyweight workout (the details aren't 100% figured out, so this goal may be left out, or implemented mid-challenge). The details are still not 100% figured out but I've done something each day and that will have to do. Okay, so there were at least three Dailies that survived the last challenge (and by "last challenge" I really mean the last 2 weeks of the last challenge because that's about when I started crawling out of the depression shit pit). I would like to establish some kind of a morning routine, though, which is difficult due to the aforementioned problem of mornings. And then an idea hit me in the face: why don't I do my FFXIV Dailies in the mornings? This would both a) be something I actually look forward to doing, and b) have a higher likelihood of getting me out of bed without pressing the snooze button 4 to 12 times. All I would need to do is clear space on the desk that is conveniently located at the foot of my bed and put the gaming laptop on said desk. It's not an ideal desk since it doesn't have much space for a mouse, but it's not like I need to be super precise to do daily quests on FFXIV. Week 0 goals: - UNCLUTTER THE DESK. Because if the desk is cluttered then I can't put the laptop on it and therefore can't do FFXIV dailies in the morning. - Find a spot for the alarm clock. Ongoing goals: - Stick with the Slow Carb Diet until April 21. - Do some physical exercise daily. - Attempt to get >7 hours of sleep. - Keep alcohol consumption to a minimum. Right. All of this until April 21 because I'll be traveling during the last week of April, so this will be a 4-week challenge. Or maybe 5 week anyway since I'm still doing these goals during week zero. So, uhh...7ish week challenge in total since I've been doing these goals since March 5?

Aside from appointments here and there, I no longer have any evening commitments. It finally feels like I can breathe, especially since a few important things in my life have recently been dealt with. This much free time can be bad for my waistline if I spend all of it playing video games, though, so this challenge will be about re-establishing some healthy habits. If I treat them like the Daily Quests I do on FFXIV, surely this will work...right? Daily Quests: - Sun salutations every morning, followed by a 1 min plank. - 4 min Tabata workout on the Assault Bike every morning. - Sweep the main floor every evening (because the wind from the Assault Bike sends cat and dog hair flying EVERYWHERE and I don't want to have to sweep in the mornings). - Intermittent fasting (easy, because making food is annoying and this means I'll have to do it less). - Go to bed at a reasonable hour (easier because if I'm sober I get tired around 9 PM because apparently I am Old™ now). - Daily bodyweight workout (the details aren't 100% figured out, so this goal may be left out, or implemented mid-challenge). I'll probably adjust things before Week 1. (I suspect more thought dumping will also be happening in this post because there are a lot of thoughts and feelings and emotions going on on the back of my mind re. this challenge and life and everything, but I can't quite put them all into words right now.)

I'll get this part out of the way first: I am not killing myself, so no need to report me to a crisis unit or anything. HOWEVER, I will be killing myself (ever so slowly) if I keep drinking two bottles of wine daily and getting less than 6 hours of sleep every night, so that absolutely has to change. And hey, both lack of sleep and excessive drinking contribute to weight gain. Fix my life and get thinner and more ripped? Sign me up! The plan: 1. Don't drink alcohol. 2. Go to bed before 10:30 on weekdays/get 7 to 9 hours of sleep. 3. Exercise 4x/week (they're short workouts). 4. Journal every now and then (this will be done in this thread). I'll elaborate more on these goals later. (Elaborating is in progress.) 1. Don't drink alcohol: Right. Some time during the last challenge, I mentioned that I was experiencing abdominal discomfort. This started after a pickle-flavored vodka bender between the holidays, so I figured it was just a part of the hangover and would go away in a few hours. But it didn't. It's not painful or anything (only a 1 or a 2 on the pain scale) but the thought that something isn't right has been plaguing me since that day. Then I was a dumbass and googled "where does liver cancer hurt" and, uh oh, it's the exact same spot. Panic mode engaged! An appointment with my doctor was booked when the discomfort was still present a week later, and then fretting about every possible bad outcome ensued. What if it's cancer? What if the health care system doesn't get me in before it's at stage 4 and there is no hope? I (and probably everyone reading my posts) realize that I don't quite enjoy life to the fullest, but the thought of it possibly being over in less than 6 months just terrified me. It feels like I haven't even lived yet. I haven't even lived yet. Practically everything I do is for other people and I usually end up putting myself last. The thought of the Grim Reaper showing up all like "lol sup, time to go" without me having even attempted to live life on my terms and focus on my own goals is just...depressing. More depressing than any of my current problems. The previous 2 challenges were an attempt to escape The Grind and go into a field I'd truly have a passion for, so an attempt was made, but what if it's too little and too late? (I've found that I can manage The Grind and the side hustle at the same time, so that was a winning realization at least.) Anyway. The doctor appointment was yesterday and nothing too terribly wrong seems to be going on with my liver, but a blood test and an ultrasound will be booked in the near future just to be sure. I did open up to him about drinking way too fucking much and how it's likely self-medicating and has been going on for probably 10 years now due to being easily depressed by this, that, and the other thing, and also all the things all at the same time. So that's going to be getting addressed this year, but before we get to the next step I need to stop drinking stupidly large amounts of alcohol because apparently starting antidepressants immediately after quitting booze cold turkey is dangerous. So now I'm (temporarily) on some pills that will help cut cravings until the next appointment...which just happens to be before the end of this challenge. I was trying to avoid the medication route, but I've just about hit "Fuck It" point. May as well try if it's on a temporary basis. I've stopped drinking for 30-60 stretches before but never addressed the underlying problems that made me want to drink in the first place so the unhealthy drinking habits always came back. If a tiny pill can give me advantage on the WIS save for the first 30 or so days, then I'll take it. (I'm still not 100% sure about the antidepressants, but would be willing to try them on a temporary basis at the same time as counseling or therapy. Hopefully my mood improves on its own after not drinking until mid-March, though.) 2. Go to bed before 10:30 on weekdays OR get 7 to 9 hours of sleep: Alcohol allows me to ignore my body's GO THE FUCK TO SLEEP signals and also causes poor quality sleep, so it only makes sense to focus on sleep. Mainly because it will make getting more sleep easier and I like it when things are as easy as possible. One of the functions of sleeping is to get rid of molecular/cellular garbage in one's brain, meaning that my brain is probably 98% garbage after....16 or so years of chronic sleep deprivation. Hopefully with enough consecutive days of quality rest, my thoughts will also become less garbage. If my thoughts become less garbage, I will in turn be less likely to reach for a bottle of wine the moment shit hits the fan IRL. Goals 1 and 2 totally synergize one another. I don't have a set strategy for how I'll manage to get to bed on time on a regular basis, but I'll come up with one before the end of week zero. I have a feeling it will involve the planner I bought in November and still haven't used. 3. Exercise 4x/week: Self-explanatory. I have a coach who designs a training program for me and knows how stupid my schedule can get, so the workout plan includes really short workouts. I just have to, y'know, do them. The nice and unused planner may be useful here too, actually. 4. Journal every now and then: Also self-explanatory. I'll be using this thread as a journal and ranting board as per usual 😆 I find that I have to re-arrange my sentences so often if I write in a physical notebook that it ends up full of crossed out words or sentences, or eraser dust, and then I look at the page and it looks like a toddler took a marker to the page, and then I feel super self-conscious because I used to be great at writing when I was a teenager and now I practically can't do it anymore. At least writing on the Internet allows me to use backspace and to copy/paste so I can have a final post of a somewhat decent quality. Also, I don't use the name Ahyar Dreamspark anywhere else on the Internet so I am afforded complete privacy by writing here. (Okay, mostly complete, because some people on the FB group probably know who I am on here, and it's probably not too hard to find out if one REALLY wants to know, but any of the people I would be complaining about here are unlikely to ever know.)

Ooooooop. So I completely dropped out of the last challenge. There are a few posts I'll go back to reply to, but for the most part life got overwhelmingly busy to the point where I wasn't able to keep up with my thread, much less do art. And then DragonCon happened. It turns out that all I needed to feel like my pre-depression self again was DragonCon. The psychic damage caused by the last 2.5 years of COVID bullshit has been healed in less than a week of cosplaying, meeting old and new friends, partying, and shenanigans. My soul feels whole again. I even went to the gym twice during the con, which is 2 more times than I've gone during all the previous DragonCons I've gone to. But alas, even with attendance capped at 60k people and masks being required unless eating/drinking, the save to evade COVID had a high DC and I have not rolled successfully 🤧 So the first thing that will need to happen this challenge is a CON save vs. COVID, which will be at advantage because I got my 2nd booster like 2 weeks before the con. (In all seriousness, I was expecting the COVID symptoms to be much worse, so medical science and vaccines are a real MVP. I'm currently feeling sick, but it's more like a bad cold and not quite a flu, which is bearable but annoying. I have had way, WAY worse con crud than this before, so I'm optimistic I'll be over it in a few more days. I'm mostly worried about my mother, who I live with, and who will also likely get the corona. She had her 2nd booster recently too, though, so she'll probably be okay but WHAT IF THE WORST POSSIBLE CASE HAPPENED? Because that is how my brain operates.) I'll probably update this challenge title later, and also update goals.

UPDATED THE FIRST POST with goals for the actual challenge. Anything in blue is updated. My goals this challenge are: 1. Do the physio exercises for my shoulder. That is it. As we have seen, more than one goal is not recommended. I had three goals last time and that was a spectacular failure. HOWEVER, I will add in some side goals, which are things I'll try my best to do but won't beat myself up over if they happen to not get done. I fucking swear, I was about to join the Also Doesn't Wanna theme. Okay, I still might. Anyway. The side goals are: a) Track the amount of alcohol I drink, and the amount of $$ I spend on alcohol (use a Google sheet or w/e). b) Track my bed time (leave a notebook next to my bed to make this low-effort to the point where I can't NOT do it). c) Continue the Window Quest that will likely not be completed during Week Zero (see the text in black). Not drinking for the whole challenge would ideally be a goal, but telling myself "you CANNOT have this substance!" just makes me want it more, and then not having it depletes willpower and then there's no willpower left for other, more important things. Same for bed time: "you MUST be in bed by this time!" just makes my brain go "NO!" and then blow past my self-assigned bed time. (Are there actually people out there who aren't constantly at war with themselves? What's it like?") Ideally I'll stop wanting to drink because tracking drinks is additional effort and many moments of "ugh, I could have wine but then I'd have to write it down" will likely happen. Then my alcohol tolerance will go down and drinking to excess will feel like shit and I'll want to do it even less. ALSO, in the event that I end up going through the whole 5 weeks with no alcohol (Canada Day being the only exception), I'll buy myself something worth $400 to $500 at the end of the challenge. Why this amount? Because I got my credit card bill yesterday and decided to add up all money spent at the liquor store and it was $457 😐 Awakening didn't work too well last time, so let's continue going in the opposite direction. What is the opposite of awakening? FUCKING SLEEPING. Week zero will consist of NOTHING except un-fucking my sleeping situation, because I keep getting told that everything else somehow falls into place if one gets enough sleep? Seems fake, but what have I got to lose. I especially need to deal with the blinds and curtains situation. There were some extensive renovations made to my room in 2016. Windows were replaced, walls got new insulation, the electrical was re-done, and a hardwood floor was put in. It was quite nice to be able to not fucking freeze to death in the winter time and also to have more than one electrical outlet available. Fancy $300 blackout blinds were ordered and brought home and...are still not installed. In 2022. Curtains? Lol, forget about it. So, since then, I've just been jamming the end of some towels in the top of the windows to make blinds. The towels need to be fairly thick to keep the light out, but apparently this messes up the top of the windows and they won't close, or something. This was never a problem before, but as of one week ago mom insists that it is, and she has replaced the towels that actually kept the light out with a thin sheet of fabric (pale, see-through) in one window, and a darker piece of fabric (short, leaves a gap close to where my face is) in the other window. The result is that I now wake up at 5:30 in the fucking AM every day. Every time I suggest that HEY, WE SHOULD INSTALL THOSE BLINDS THAT WE PAID $300 FOR YEAH? I am met with "No, not now!" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Combine that with a late bedtime and trouble falling and staying asleep, I've only had between 3 and 4 hours of sleep every night this week, even less on the weekend, and I am going absolutely fucking crazy and I'm constantly exhausted and OMFG this needs to fucking end. Step 1. Remove the mold from the bottom of the window frames. Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention: there's mold on the bottom of the window frames because the windows were left open during a thunderstorm less than a month after the renovations were completed. Step 2. Put painter's tape around the window frame areas. I also forgot to mention: the window frames were not painted. Step 2.5. Do we even have paint? If yes, great, skip this step. If no, go buy paint. It's going to be white paint, so there should (in theory) not be any arguments about what paint color to get. Step 3. Paint window frames. Step 4. INSTALL THE FUCKING BLINDS. Mom is going out of town this coming weekend, so I'll be able to do this both a) without having to ask for permission, and b) without being micro-managed the whole time. Step 5. Buy curtain rods and curtains and install those too if I'm feeling extra motivated. Ugh, I forgot step 0.5 where I'll need to un-clutter the spaces below the windows, and now I'm looking at this whole list of steps and am realizing that I will probably not be able to do all of this within one week. I'll try, but I'm also not expecting miracles. Or very much sleep 😕 The other part of the Week Zero challenge: don't have any booze during Week Zero. This doesn't require that I actually do anything, so hooray for what should be an easy win and huge pre-challenge momentum boost. Boy oh boy did that not happen 😅 But this will be addressed during the challenge. Will come up with challenge goals later.