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My Main Quest: In October I had a minor surgery. Unfortunately, I have to have a second very soon, likely in within this next 6 weeks. The recovery period from the first surgery did two things: 1) It inhibited my ability to work out for months. 2) It brought on about a week of intense anxiety attacks and about a month of not being able to fully control my stress levels. Going into this a second time my main quest is to make sure my body and my mind are as prepared as possible for the second recovery process. I want to be as capable of healing as I can be. My 3 Goals: 1) Record everything that I eat. The idea here is to make small improvements in my diet every day and foster a habit of healthy eating. Recording it allows me to easily see what improvements I am making and keeps me honest about what I am putting in my body. (If I know that I am going to have to write down that I ate an entire box of Little Debbie christmas tree shaped snack cakes, I am less inclined to do it.) I've had a lot of successes and failures in the last year with my diet. The biggest hurdle was overcoming a nasty bout of candida. Most of the struggle was from suddenly being put on such a strict diet. There are lot of ups and downs when making drastic dietary changes. The crashes feel terrible, physically and mentally, and the changes rarely stick around. I want to make small steady changes that lead to long-term habits. A consistently healthy diet is going to allow me to heal more quickly. 2) Small daily workouts. I can say with certainty this second surgery is going to prevent me from working out for a while, but there is no reason to not work out every day until that happens. In fact, the more fit my body is, the faster my recovery time is likely to be. I am doing a small warm up every morning to keep myself loose. I also started the PLPS workout (ask me what this is if you are interested) again on 12/31 and plan to continue to do it daily. In addition to this I am going to be attending weekly parkour classes again starting next week. Once the surgery happens I can move to meditation. This second recovery period is only going to be a minor pit stop on my overall path to fitness. 3) Clearly define my life goals. This may not be directly related to fitness, but when I was having anxiety attacks the issues that bubbled to the surface were a lot of worry about not having a clear path for myself. Now that I've turned 30 the question is burning even brighter for me: What's next? Do I travel, go back to college, WWOOF around the country, start a business, go back to Detroit, head out west, stay put, what? I don't know if I will have all of the answers in the next six weeks, but I am going to have a damn good understanding of my options. I'm going to get clear on what it is I'd like to be doing and the direction I'd like to be heading in. Side Quest: Learn geography. I want to travel and I want a better understanding of the world. Knowing where everything is will be the best starting point for me. I found a wonderful flashcard app that is has already allowed me to quickly learn country locations and major currencies. It will eventually get me through capital and flags as well. Guild: Although my heart lies with the assassins I'm going to be siding with the adventurers for this since this is my first challenge and my goals are a bit more general. I'm proud to be among them. I'm excited for this 6 week quest!