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Into every generation a slayer is born: one girl in all the world, a chosen one. She alone will wield the strength and skill to fight the vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness; to stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their number. She is the Slayer. I am starting this battle log after reading an article that is really hitting home for me right now. It’s called The After Myth and as I approach my goal weight, I now fully understand… there is no after. There is… No after. None. At 146 pounds I am still unhappy with my body most days. I don’t like what I see. The days I do like myself are starting to grow, which is good… but I had this idea in my head 30 pounds ago that a number would spontaneously make me start loving myself again. Nope. There is still so much more to work on. A number is just a thing. It isn’t value or self-acceptance. It isn’t going to get me a job or make me win or lose friends. It isn’t going to tell anyone any more about me than a fleeting glance would. What I need to work on now is ME. I am cookie dough, hear me roar. With the tools I have gained in the last year, it’s time to work on becoming cookies.

Rise of the Blerch Background: I used to be your normal, everyday kender. I was happy, carefree and I ended up with a large number of possessions in my pockets and I’m still not quite sure how they ended up there. Life was good. One day while I was exploring Krynn (my home world) I met a man named Steve who gave me a spelljammer spaceship and told me about new worlds to explore and how I could use my awesome to become more awesomer. I took the spelljammer and came across a wonderful lady robot who took me under her wing in the guild of Assassins. There, I learned the tricks and trade of being an assassin and I went on many adventures with my fellow guild members. I learned a lot and I will always be grateful for the support they have given me while I was learning. But I am a kender and wanderlust struck again. I went out adventuring on my own and that’s where trouble started. Without the protection of the guild, I was vulnerable to Belladonna’s minions. Belladonna is an afflicted kender whose fear has motivated her to take over Hylo and build up an army. She wanted me to be her general and to train her troops so eventually she could take over Northern Ergoth and join up with the Knights of Solomnia thereby earning respect for kender that we always deserved. Now, I’m all for respecting kender, but bitch be crey. Belladonna chased me all over the galaxy until I got into a fight with a zombie and lost. I was dead for sometime and though that was neat, it taught me a lot of things. One of them was that being dead was not fun. Eventually I turned myself back into a living, breathing kender but I was not the kender I used to be. My body was broken and weak and my spirit took quite a beating too. Belladonna found me and took care of me. She attempted to nurse me back to health and get me back to my old kender assassin self. Belladonna and I became fast friends. That is, until the Blerch. The Blerch: If you’re not familiar with the Blerch, I suggest you read this NSFW (swearing) comic in The Oatmeal that is simultaneously depressing and motivating. TL;DR The Blerch is a fat, blobby, gross thing that flies around your psyche trying to get you to sit on the sofa all day watching the entire series of Battlestar Galactica (new and old) while stuffing your face with week-old doughnuts. The Blerch doesn’t want you to be healthy. He is the one who tells you stop running at the 22nd mile. He’s the one who tells you that you’ll never do that pull up. He’s the one who tells you that pizza for breakfast for the fourth day in a row is just fine. He is not a nice guy. The Challenge Over the next four weeks, I will try my best to shake this Blerch guy. I will tell you the story of how he and I became best friends and how he led me to betray Belladonna, Hylo and myself. All the while, I will do little bits here and there to dig myself out of this hole I have found myself in. Hopefully this will get me ready to kick ass for the first official challenge of the year. I’m posting this here because this challenge does not run in the same timeline as the official challenge. This challenge will go slowly and it will go like this: Week 1: No desserts, light fun exercise that I enjoy and won’t put me off because it’s too hard. Week 2: No added sugar at all. Light, fun exercise with a little bit of weight training added in. Christmas is the exception because Christmas. But ONLY Christmas. Not Christmas Eve or Boxing Day. Week 3: No grains or added sugar. Light, fun exercise with weight training and running. Week 4: Complete primal diet. Light, fun exercise with weight training, running and a few body weight exercises added in. By the end of 28 days I should be used to the cold waters of the 6 week challenge and so it won’t be a shock when I begin I will most likely stick with it. I will have to update a little every day if just to keep myself accountable. If you would like to join me in this challenge, let me know. We can do this as a team. You can add your own little challenge items and we can support each other. Meanwhile, I will tell you the tale of the Rise of the Blerch...