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Last challenge, my theme was “to be a cat, or to stop being a cat?” The answer was quite clearly to continue being a cat, so this seemed like a good follow-up theme. #scientificmethod Last challenge was not my best challenge. I continued my workout and meditation streaks, and learned some things, but my overall scores were kindasorta not very good. Near the end of my challenge, I found myself suddenly feeling very worn out and uneager to do anything. I suddenly felt like I was fighting with myself just to do basic things. But, y’know… I thought about cutting things out so I’d be less rangerbrainy about everything. But when I listed all of the things I’m working on, there was nothing I really felt like I could cut out. There was no one thing that was really causing me stress or exhaustion. I’m doing a bunch of different things, but I genuinely don’t think I’m doing TOO much when I put it all together. There are the 4 building blocks of physical health that I know work for me – walking, working out, yoga, and eating primalish. Those are my essentials. And then I’ve added some supplemental things more focused on mental wellbeing – meditation, dishes, and the like. None of those things are that strenuous. So, instead of trying to edit my goals, I’m going to try to edit the space around them. I’m going to start tinkering with how I spend my time when I’m not working on goal stuff, and see how that impacts my energy. I’m going to finish this fight. Goal 1: Maintain Fitness Workout 3x/week (usually 1 bootcamp class and 2 workouts on my own) 1 run per week – I’m working on increasing from 5K towards 5 miles. I also need to remember to do ankle alphabets before and after each run Walk 16 miles per week (64 over 4-week challenge) Goal 2: Spartan Prep Burpees I’m going to finish the burpee fight. Last challenge, my goal was to try to do 30 burpees in a row (with breaks as needed) every day. I only got about 12.5 days in. So, I want to get in 17.5 days over the course of this challenge to hit that nice symmetrical 30x30 number. That’s roughly every other day, so I can leave them out on days that are already packed with other physical activity. That might help them feel like less of a burden. Climbing I made great progress on the jungle gym at the park, but I did not actually conquer it. I’m going to keep working on this and try to conquer it this challenge. I won’t require a certain number of attempts. Either I make progress or I don’t, but I can do it at whatever pace that works. Goal 3: Food Food happens in 3 categories: things that work, conscious eating, and some sort of experiment or test I focus on for a month to try to learn more about my eating. Part 1: Maintain What Works (23 points / week) Don’t eat after 8pm (or within 3 hours of bedtime) (-1 point for failure). Exceptions on Thursdays where workouts and Aikido coincide. Don’t eat more than 1 bad food/meal in a day. Desserts are counted separately from meals in most cases. (-1 point for failure) Eat primalish most of the time (19 meals / week allows for 2 variance meals) (-1 point per failure, +1 point for extra primal meal) Aim for primal snacks on 4 days/week and then non-primal snacks ok 3 days per week (out of 4 points/week) Aim for at least 1 primal meal and 1 50% meal per day when travelling or hosting (-1 point per failure, +1 per success) Plan/prep meals over the weekend and prep/freeze meals for weeks when this doesn’t happen (+1 point when done successfully) Write down bad reactions to food choices in an ongoing spreadsheet to dissuade myself from making that choice a second time. Not connected to any points. Doing this is slowly starting to help me make better choices. Slowly. Part 2: Conscious Eating (28 points/week) Think about what I’m about to do before eating something. Ideally, pause and take a few deep breaths. If I eat something unhealthy, recognize and acknowledge that I’m about to sell out my future self. (4 points per day – 3 meals and snacks) Part 3: Experiment – Carbs (14 points/week) Fiber I decided to repeat the carb experiment this challenge, since I feel like there’s still more to learn from doing it. I don’t plan to count carbs permanently, but I want to continue to experiment with it for one more challenge. I hypothesize that I already instinctually know when I’m eating a good quantity of carbs – on the days that I ate well, my carbs were also good. But I want to confirm that through science. I’m aiming to stay under 100g/day. I won’t track during travel or hosting. 1 point for tracking and 1 point for hitting goal. ½ point if I don’t know the nutritional info for a thing, but I still write the thing down. In light of cholesterol issues, I'm changing this to fiber for the challenge. Aiming for 25g at least of fiber per day. Goal 4 (Life Goal): Sleep & Play Here’s where I try to manage my energy. I’ve known for a long time that I should work on my sleep habits, but I’ve also avoided doing so because the idea really intimidates me. I’ll try something small. Sleepy Sundays Get to bed at 10pm on Sundays so that I start the week off with enough sleep. This means I’ll have to wait to watch Game of Thrones until Mondays, since it airs at 9pm on Sundays. Try to clear Sundays so that I have a whole day where I can recuperate / prep meals. I should try to avoid letting workouts fall on Sundays. I should try to get groceries on Saturday so that I don’t have to worry about that on Sunday. I should try to get laundry done before Sunday. Play 1x per week physically – Roll around on the ground, try primal movements, dance, try cartwheels, splash in the pool. Whatever. Cat stuff. 1x per week mentally – doodle, color, whittle, solve a puzzle, etc. Bonus Goals These goals earn me bonus points that can balance out any other areas where I struggle, but these goals cannot happen at the expense of my main goals. Yoga 4x/week Meditate 7x/week Clean the sink before bed 4x/week