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My hype meter has been at an all time low, and it's time to fix that. I also have been trapped in that cycle where I'm sitting at a computer too much, mindlessly eating and drinking like an asshole while there, and moving a whole lot less (in part from minor but recurring injuries). As a result, I've put on 10 lbs (and not the good kind ) over the last year. I've also been in a huge Harry Potter groove, since the family just returned from a trip to Harry Potter land in Orlando (which was awesome!!!), and we're currently introducing the kids to D&D with a Hogwarts setting. So, it's time to add more discipline and structure to my life by returning to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. 1. Transfiguration: I will learn spells to transform my unhealthy meals and snacks into healthy ones. I generally need to eat more veggies, more salad, more eggs, and more homemade stews. For tracking/goal purposes, I will limit myself to one small sugary snack per day, and I will eat at least one substantial serving of veggies with each meal. 2. Potions: I will drink only 3 calorie bearing drinks per week..... which means I will need to drink a lot more water. The goal for this is to find ways to make water more appealing. I will experiment at least once every week with making infused water. I will also try at least 4 new tea flavors, to see what might be appealing. 3. Defense Against the Dark Arts: I've been getting too wrapped up with regular life to set aside time to workout each day. That needs to change. So, I'm going to defend against the dark art of laziness with some constant vigilance. Every day, I need to do at least 30 minutes of exercise. It could just be yoga or even putting on the weight vest and walking laps inside my house. 4. Charms: Cast "Wingardium Leviosa" by lifting myself up in the air. I need something new and shiny in my workout routine. Right after my parkour class, I had been doing open gym, which largely has turned into teaching and directing traffic for all of the kids doing open gym. Instead, there's an adult aerial silks class happening at the same time. So, I'm going to re-take the silks intro (since I've already forgotten everything), and then start taking silks classes. The most convenient time to do the intro will be January 20, since there's already an instructor event at the parkour gym. The goal is to do that intro, and then after that, take silks rather than doing parkour open gym. 5. Stick to the Schedule: A large part of the problem is that I've been getting too wrapped up with life things to set aside time for working out, cooking, and all of the other things I need to be healthy. This will likely be even worse over the next few months, since my husband and I are studying for the OSCP exam. My goal is to set a fairly rigid schedule, just to make sure everything gets done. And that's it. Hopefully, I can get back on track and regain my hype.

So, I've been having a tough time getting back in the saddle. It's not that I haven't been active. I'm still doing parkour class at least once/week, and I've been walking a lot. But, I've had a ton of adulting to handle in the last many months, and I've really found it difficult to set aside any time for real workouts. The plan for this challenge is to do a few small things every day, just to get back into having good habits. I've also been stuck in that unfortunate place where I've hit a huge plateau in parkour and don't feel like I'm improving, so my motivation is low. But the low motivation is causing me to work out much less, which is in turn really counterproductive for breaking through that plateau. 1. Put on workout clothes every day.... and then do something. Yeah, it sounds like a dumb goal, but one of my problems is that I often feel like workout clothes = need to do a full workout when I just don't have time. But then I feel like I can't do a quick yoga session or hand balancing, or whatever in my "normal clothes." So, I end up just taking a walk and not doing anything else. 2. Make a to-do list every day. It just helps me stay much more organized and productive. 3. At least spend a tiny amount of time researching how to teach piano lessons and vacation stuff every day. I've played since I was 7, but I know nothing about teaching. Lessons out here cost like $40 per half hour, so I'd rather try to teach my own kids than pay for lessons. Also, I'm the person in charge of planning our vacation in late July, so I have to get cracking on that. 4. Tea + reading every evening. No alcohol in the evening. No screen time after 10. My sleep has been exceptionally shitty lately. Before I see a doctor about this or try drugging myself, I really need to fix these horrible evening habits. 5. Post something somewhere on NF at least every day. I need the motivation boost from being here, so I really need to stick around this challenge!

Balsquith: Out in the wilderness I am in the wilderness at the moment, not literally, but in a state of discontent where I don’t really know where I am at the moment or where I am going – a.k.a. the wilderness. Clearly I got into this wilderness somehow and I can find my way through it somehow too. Whilst the way out isn’t clear to me at the moment, it is clear to me that I am not going to find my way out by stopping moving and wallowing in my discontent – I need to keep myself moving forward Goal 1: Limit sugar There is no sugar in the wilderness (except for maybe some fruit and honey if you are lucky). My main vices in this department are: Biscuits and sweets when there are some of them in the department (this happens almost every evening) Occasional burst of hunger at work (and no suitable healthier snack to hand) leading to a trip to the bakery (this happens 1-2 times a week) I will aim for 5 days out of 7 where I stay away from sugar. Goal 2: Everyday fitness Out in the wilderness you can’t afford to make excuses about not being able to exercise; you need to be fit enough to tackle whatever comes at you. In the past I have been full of excuses about why I can’t exercise: I can’t exercise in the evening as my girlfriend is watching tv and it is strange and demotivating to be working out in the area next to the couch at the same time. I can’t exercise in the kitchen in the morning before my girlfriend gets up as there is not enough space and the floor is slippery.There is some truth in both of these statements, but neither of them is really a reason why I shouldn’t do any exercise at all. I will aim to exercise daily in the morning in the kitchen, this will be either: · 7 minute burpee test (I managed 52 last Saturday as a challenge baseline) · Plank workout. Goal 3: Meeting new people / improving relationships The wilderness is a lonely place; strength in numbers and companionship are the best ways to survive. I am quite bad a keeping in touch with friends and family. I am also quite bad at getting myself out in the world and meeting new people. I don't mind being on my own, but I also greatly enjoy being around my friends. Unfortunately most of my friends seem to have left so I am a little bit back to square one. This goal is about keeping in touch better with friends and family and possibly cultivating some new friendships. I have 4 main tasks I want to put into action: 1. Make/send a birthday card to my Dad 2. Send a get well soon card to my friend who had a skiing accident 3. Send 'Happy Easter' cards to those friends (who I haven't contacted for a while) who find the day significant 4. Join/attend a drawing class Goal 4: Learn the language of the wilderness. Lots of people in the wilderness speak my language - but it isn't their language. Maybe learning this language will help me to feel more that I belong and can do simple things - it might even open up routes which I haven't seen before that lead me out of the wilderness. I live in Austria but I speak English all day. I am not a very confident person when it comes to languages so when my broken German comes out it is usually answered by English. In principle there is nothing wrong here, communication was accomplished, but it doesn't feel right to me. I live here and I should speak the language, I am not a tourist so it leaves me feeling like I don't really belong here. I want to use this goal to push my German study forward but also to challenge myself to show so courage and actually get out there and try to use the language even if it is met by an answer in English. 30 minutes focused study = 1 point Using German (courage) = 3 points Pass mark for the week = 10 points

I'm starting this challenge with some very basic goals that will be challenging yet attainable. Nutrition Quest: Oh no, not aGrain! Transition to paleo plus dairy and legumes. (I'm keeping the dairy for health reasons and the legumes because I love them and can't really see any harm in continuing to enjoy them.) Reasoning: I've been working on making the transition to a mostly paleo diet, but I haven't set a concrete expectation for myself as of yet. So far I have noticed that I am less tempted to buy grain products while shopping when I've crossed them off my list of options. Instead of fighting 20 different temptations as I shop, I can go in making one overarching decision at the start. I also feel much less deprived than during any of my many diets through the years, so the effort to make this change will be well worth it. At this point I have eliminated foods with added sugar, and I don't drink anything caloric aside from plain almond milk. My next step is to phase out grains, replacing them with better alternatives. Goal: Weeks 1 and 2: Replace grains with vegetables at one meal per day. Weeks 3 and 4: Replace grains with vegetables at two meals per day. Weeks 4 and 5: Eliminate remaining grains and replace with paleo approved options. A= Meeting my goal an average of at least 5 days per week. B= Meeting my goal at least 4 days per week. C= Meeting my goal 3 days per week. Fitness Quest:Revival of the Fitness: Work toward planned physical activity daily. Reasoning: I enjoy exercise when I do it, but would like to make it more of a priority. Over the 6 week challenge I am hoping that I will be able to make a habit of regular physical activity. Goal: I will walk, bike, row, do yoga, tai chi, or stretch. I will also attempt the recruit workout at least 8 times over these 6 weeks. A= Doing one of these activities for at least 10 minutes per day, missing 1 or no days per week. B= Doing one of these activities for at least 15 minutes per day, missing 1 or no days per week. C= Doing these activities 3 to 5 days per week, for at least 5 minutes. Life Quest: Xena's Warrior Cry: training my dog to come when called. Reasoning: I love my pup. She is incredibly intelligent, so much so that she has learned not to come when I call her because I have unintentionally taught her that this is an antecedent to me leaving the house. I would like to help her unlearn this behavior, shaping a new behavior through positive reinforcement. Goal: Train Xena in 15 minute sessions with an average of 5 sessions per week. A= Training Xena for 15 or more minutes each session, 5 or more times per week. B= Training Xena for less than 15 minutes in most sessions, or for fewer than 5 times per week. C= Training Xena for short sessions, only a few days per week. I will update at least 3 days per week. I'm really looking forward to being a part of a group of great people helping to support each other.

So this challenge I'm focusing on two elements I relate strongly to: earth and water. It's kind of unintentionally gone Avatar-style as well because Korra and Toph are my inspirations for getting back to what I was once capable of. I miss my old beast!mode self, even though I appreciate the softer, kinder side of my personality that's gotten the entirely of my attention lately. Water - Observe and Heal I need to sit back, chill, and observe and reflect on myself if I'm going to learn anything. I'm keeping a daily journal that includes bullet-point notes on what I've eaten, how I feel physically and mentally, and if I've done anything noteworthy. I have memory issues sometimes so writing things down allows me to remember and analyze patterns. My legs and feet have been suffering lately so I'm going to work stretching and using a tennis ball on the bottom of my feet into my daily routine to get them back into shape. Earth - Go HARD I've created an excel document where I'm tracking my daily exercises. Every single day I must do at LEAST one push-up (any kind), one squat, and jumping jacks. High numbers would be great but this is an exercise in discipline and habit-building. I also want to walk between 5k-7k steps per day, as work has been making that more difficult again. Extras As my own personal mini-quest I'd like to finish four books between now and the end of the challenge. I can read a book a day so I have no excuses for this one. My friends and I are participating in our own personal "30 Characters in June" challenge, even though we started late. My goal is to have 30 new character designs created by July 1st! I'll try to update here more frequently than in other challenges and share successes that aren't part of the main quest as well.

My last challenge was a mixed bag and a learning experience. I started strongly in all areas and then lost track. For my exercise goal - life got in the way a bit. For my habit goal – I didn’t get to it being a habit and then lost it altogether For my Food goal – I started brightly, but due to the way I had step-up the challenge I changed direction after 2 weeks and lost touch with the goal. For my inertia goal – inertia got the better of me for the most part but I managed to take a couple of baby steps. My challenge this time around is basically the same as the last challenge – if the goals were important enough last time they should still be important now. I am still trying to work out how to make them work more effectively this time – I haven’t quite figured this out yet, but the challenge must start regardless of whether I have this finalised or not. Goal 1: Exercise every day, including: 3x week Parallettes, 2x week getting moving and having fun. In the last challenge I set myself the goal of 3x week parallettes and 2x week moving and having fun. I did fairly well with both, averaging about 60% on my parallettes goal and 75% on my getting moving goal. Even though I wasn’t entirely successful with this goal I want to step it up a bit by aiming for some exercise every day, just so that I am maintaining the minimum and not letting myself go completely. I will set the minimum as 25 air-squats or 2x 1minute plank. I will aim to reach my main goals by planning my week ahead. Planned activities: 3x parallettes Leg workout 1x Frisbee session Yoga Just a warmup 25 air squats 2x 1 minute planks Hiking Goal 2: Maintain habits - Sleep 8 hours a night and get up to my alarm everyday in the morning. (Edit: It occured to me that the getting up is the part I want to prioritise. I get about 8 hours sleep a night but I don't want to mark myself down if for whatever reason I cannot get 8 hours sleep but do get up to my alarm) The maintain habits title of this goal is a little deceptive as it is really a ‘keep trying to build a habit’ goal as I have never quite got this part of my challenges up to something which I would describe as a habit. Last challenge I started well but dropped to an overall average of 1 day out of 3 by the end. Much better than 0 day out of 3 but something which I aim to be the foundation on which I aim to build the other aspects of my challenge. Habit formation: Can I incorporate some sort of reward to make this stick? Practice: Doing the same thing over and over again leads to the creation of a habit. At the moment I have practised not getting up to my alarm many times and therefore it is my fall-back option. Clearly getting up in the morning to my alarm would be great practise towards forming this habit, but this goes against my current programming, which is why I have this goal to try and change it. Therefore this challenge I will practise in the evening my getting up routine. This a bit bizarre and will feel weird, but if I can get the feeling of getting up ingrained into me then it will make the whole thing easier in the morning – at least in principle. Goal 3: Food – Drink a protein shake every morning. My food goal in the last challenge was planned to be specific at first and then undergo a re-evaluation. What resulted was 2 weeks of everything going well then the re-evaluation after which I did nothing. With this in mind my goal will now be a specific one: drink a protein shake every morning. This is a bit of a weak food goal for me as I am not sure if I really need to add additional protein to my diet. My gut feeling says yes, but I am probably not so far off in reality. Either way I feel that this is not detrimental and will at least be a positive on days when I have been doing parallettes or sprinting. I can also do it and record it easily, which are important criteria. I plan to use this as a first positive step towards shoring up my diet and can be a model for specific food changes in subsequent challenges. Strategy: Make the protein shake the night before. Goal 4: Life Goal (overcoming inertia) - Finish the data analysis for my project so that I can send it off for the next step. Daily small steps. I have a project I worked on for a long time that has never been finished due to overwhelming inertia that arises from it being connected to a bad period of my life, a terrible working environment surrounded by people who basically pschologically abused me. It wasn't nice and I didn't know how to deal with it. I have now escaped the environment but find myself unable to tackle the project as it is still connected to all of these feelings. On the other hand not completing the project is one of the things that keeps me up at night. I want to be a finisher and I want to complete the project for myself regardless of what comes out of it at the end. I just need to get it off my back so I can stop thinking about it. I know what I need to do, but I need to get myself back into it (it is a year since I have touched it), do some data analysis and then send it on to someone who can do the next step. It makes me sad and uncomfortable just thinking about this goal, so I really do need to get it done so that I can get back on with my life. This introduction is pasted directly from my last challenge where I didn’t manage to overcome inertia in this area. I need a better strategy for how to do this and maybe some sort of reward structure to make it fun and try to distance it from the problem at the root of it. For the benefit of my confidence and psychology I really need to make some in-roads here.

After a successful first challenge, it is time for my second challenge, which is easiest summarized as keep on moving! I'm coming back from a depression, and the inertia of my body and mind is still very strong. Moving means... 1) ...exercise every day for at least 30 minutes (+3 STA) This can be walking, biking, body weight training, kneading heavy dough or something else, as long as it gets me out of my chair and my heart rate goes up. It can be one activity for half an hour or several activities of at least 5 minutes during the day. 2) ...do the "Start bodyweight" routine 3 times a week (+3 STR) It is a workout which makes me stronger, and it progresses very naturally. Every training I'll add one rep to every exercise, and after 3x8 reps I will progress to the next level of that exercise. The progress seems relatively slow, but I think this will help me to not get injured and stronger at the same time. The reason I like this program is because it is moving forward automatically, and I don't have to worry about the progress myself. 3) ...add some dynamic postures or simple flows to my daily yoga workout (+2 DEX, +1 WIS) Last challenge I started with doing yoga every day and I really liked it. I will continue doing it for at least 10 minutes every day, and furthermore I want to improve the connection between movement and breath. This sounds very new-age-y, but with this I mean that I want to add some flows that do something on every breath in and every breath out. The simplest example is the cat-cow pose, but also the sun salutation is such a flow. I don't know any other flows like these, but I'm sure I can make something up or find something online. If you have any suggestions, please let me know . I will also add some meditation to my yoga practices to become more aware of my breath. 4) ...taking rest whenever it is needed (+3 CON) I will not exercise when my body can't handle it. On the first two days of my period I will not do any body weight training and in those weeks I may skip one workout. The week after my wisdom teeth will be pulled out, I will not do any body weight training and I will only do some other form of exercise after I don't need pain killers anymore. If I'm ill, injured, or need painkillers for any other reason, I will listen to my body and adapt my workouts appropriately. I get injured very easily, so this is necessary to keep myself healthy. side) ...reading at least 3 books (+3 WIS) I enjoy reading, mostly sf and fantasy, but it is always a big step for me to start reading a new book. I'm a member of a library that has a big collection of sf and fantasy, so I definitely have enough options. One book in two weeks is a really small amount, but I have to start with small steps .