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Hey fellow rebels. I've been super mega busy lately, things should calm down Wednesday but for now I'm just going to get this challenge up. So last challenge was a rousing success for me. Things were totally freaking unbelievably insane from travelling nonstop for work and some other things. INSANE I TELL YOU. But I used my training program to stay focused and grounded during stressful times. I also think I actually really started my health journey last challenge, even though I've been trying (and moderately succeeding) to do these challenges for over 6 months now. I learned I had to be doing this from a place of self love, and that I have to always remember how good I feel when I treat myself right. I've just got to do it. And making myself do it during the flurry of travel really kept me sane and destressed me. It also helped pull me out of the depression I was kind of sinking into. All in all, I feel great. And I want to keep this momentum going. I'm going to seroiusly switch up something huge in my life for this challenge. Two things in fact, both food related. I'm going to officially stop counting calories. Completley and totally stop. This is crazy for me. I've never not counted calories. I'm kind of really freaking out about it.... Previously I've counted them but set a ridiculously high limit for myself, just to make sure I'm not completely out of control, but when I have it down to a number based system I end up hurting myself. I'm like "oh this pizza only has 1200 calories in it. If that's all I eat all day it's fine" Nope... not OK. I'd rather just judge my food on what it is. And that brings me to the other thing I'm switching up. I'm going to grade myself for my food intake based purely on whether it was "healthy" or not. I know when I'm being healthy, and I know when I'm not. I can spot a healthy meal from a mile away, I can feel it in my stomach almost instantly, I can usually smell it. I know gluten and dairy are no nos for my tummy, and I know I'm trying to avoid soy. I know when I'm BSing myself, and can now be honest with myself and admit it. I don't need to micrcomanage my diet any more (or at least I hope so!) and am just going to try to eat the healthiest I can possibly eat this challenge. No stressing about calories, and no micromanaging every single meal. I'm also going to be listening to my body more when it comes to exercising. I'm cutting my strength training down to 2 days a week, and replacing the third with a wild card. Every week I'll see how I'm feeling and pick whatever exercise I want to do that weekend. It could be another strength session, but it could also be pilates. Or hiking. Or even a meditation session if I feel so inclined. So here's the spreadsheet: Quick explanations: Move pretty self explanatory Strength 2x/week Yoga 2x/week Zombies, Run! 2x/week Random! 1x/week Stay Moving I sit at my desk all day, and do watch a fair amount of TV. I want to stop sitting so much basically. So I've set an alarm on my phone to remind me to walk around and do little desk exercises throughout the day, I'm in the office an average of 3.5 days a week, so I'll try to complete all my deskercise goals that many days a week. I've also purchased a mini elliptical stepper thingy that I will be using 100% of the time during TV commercials and if I'm watching Netflix I'll set a timer to make sure I'm doing it for 5 minutes every 15 minutes (which is the average commercial set up I think). . I watch TV probably most days so I put I need to do this 5 days a week. I might adjust this when I have more time to think about how to actually grade this... maybe deduct points for whenever I watch TV and don't do it? We'll see... I'm going to grade this like I grade eating out. Start at 100% and dock points when I don't do what I plan on doing. Take Care I need to take better care of myself externally. And have more me-time. Nightly Routine: Wash my face, floss, brush my teeth and moisturize every weeknight Weekly Routine: Relax, take a bath, light a candle. Face mask. Monthly Routine: Add a hair mask, a foot mask and a bath bomb to one weekly routine a month. Live it up. Eat Healthy Self explanatory, eat healthy every day. Also stop eating out so much. Eating healthy is positive points I earn, eating out are negative points I dock from a starting 100% when I do it. Keep Clean Staying in line with my listen to my body/intuition goals, I'm going to clean every day... but I'm going to pick what I'm going to do the day of depending on the state of my apartment. Grading Based completely on level of effort, numbers based solely on excel's rounding to the nearest 0.25 calculation (using the MROUND() function if anyone was interested): >87% = A >62% = B >37% = C >12% = D <12%= F Possible points and point types are in the spreadsheet. Sorry this is so all over the place and not at all organized. I swear it makes sense in my head. I'm so excited to be a normal person again on Wednesday and be able to hang out with you nerds via the interwebs again. I also am going to get back to keeping my battle log up to date, because I mega slacked on that last challenge and it makes me sad. So that's that. *Edited to fix spreadsheet errors, update TV stepper grading info and to add grading percentage numbers to letters info (and more gifage because that was seriously lackingand not up to my usual standards)*