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Last month was a month of doing stuff. This month is the same. Some of the goals have changed, but the overall goal remains - to do all of the things in true Ranger style. Should I exceed any of my goals each week, I will be putting £5 into a savings jar per goal exceeded. At the end of the month, I'll use the money to treat myself to something on my Amazon Wish List. Join with me as I sail the 4 Cs with regular stops along the Exercise Islands. Goals: 1. Crochet. Last month my goal was to crochet 3 squares OR sew one row onto the blanket I'm making my son per week. This goal has not changed. By the end of this challenge I should have at least 1.5 rows worth of squares crocheted and 1 row sewed onto the blanket. I will be grading this goal by keeping track of how many squares/rows I get done throughout the week. Squares: 0/3 2. Cook. This is a new goal, but one that I believe I mentioned either on my challenge or someone else's challenge last month. My goal is to clean out the food shelves, fridge, and freezer by cooking one meal each day that I'm home. I will only buy food that is needed to use the food that we already have. For example, if I have a BBQ pulled pork spice pack, then I can buy some pork. The reason I'm doing this is because we have loads of frozen food, sauce packs, tinned food, etc that's been sitting on various shelves for well over a year and they need to be eaten before they go off. My version of the NFA eating plan is going to take a hit this month, but that's ok. Once all of this food is gone, I can start the second part of my plan and start stocking up on stuff that does fit with my eating plan. I'll be tracking this goal by sharing photos of what I cook over on my FB page and will link to the photos here (though you're welcome to add me or follow me over there, if you like). 3. Clean. Because I spend most of my time during the day job hunting, taking my Android Basics course, and taking care of my son's needs, T is meant to do the majority of the housework. However, he has a bad habit of not seeing when something needs to be done (example, he left the dishes piling up for nearly 3 days because we still had clean dishes, so he didn't notice the dirty ones in the sink). So to help him out, I'm going to clean one room from top to bottom each week. Week 0: Living Room Week 1: Kitchen Week 2: Paul's room Week 3: The Master Bedroom Week 4: My Bedroom 4. Class. My Android Basics programming course is nearly done, but that doesn't mean I can slack off. My goal is to get through the rest of my course by the end of this challenge month. (Weekly goals may be changed depending on how well I did the week before) Week 0: Complete at least half of Lesson 3B Week 1: Complete Lesson 3B Week 2: Design final project Week 3: Final project finished and posted in class forums Week 4: Fix any problems noticed by other students and mentors 5. Exercise. Welcome to exercise isles! Each week, we'll have a different goal to complete. Week 0: Go Geocaching. Last week I tried Geocaching for the first time. It was so much fun that I decided to make it a part of this month's challenge. My goal is to find 5 caches this week. To get to their location, I'll either walk or cycle. Week 1: Go on a Virtual Walk. I will choose one race from yes.fit and walk the entire thing this week. Week 2: Go on a Virtual Cycle. Same as above, except instead of walking, I will cycle the entire distance. Week 3: Do NFA Bodyweight workouts 4A, 4B, and 4C at least once (each) this week. Week 4: Battle NFA Bodyweight Level 4 Boss. Counts as exceeded goal if boss is defeated.

Last month I did a workout challenge where I did one fitness thing per day. Even though I was ill for most of the month, I still managed to do it all. Yay! This month though, I'm going to take it fairly easy. Right now we don't have much room due to the kitchen being remodelled, which means there's pretty much no space for me to do any workouts. I can't even roll out my yoga mat completely, it's that bad. Goal 1: Try to keep with my version of the NFA eating plan. Drink only water or herbal tea from noon to 6pm every day. Eat zero foods with added sugar (exceptions: pudding after supper and Mondays) Eat two meals per day (700-800 calories per meal), each meal containing at least 2 fruits/veggies and a protein. No snacking between meals and no eating after 10pm. Consume no more than 4 servings of carbs per day. Carbs will consist of whole grain products, brown rice, and sweet potatoes whenever possible. Goal 2: Continue to crochet. I really want to get this blanket finished, so I will continue to crochet 3 granny squares per week until it's done. Goal 3: Work on my new programming course. Last month I won a first tier scholarship for a nano degree course taster on Udacity. This scholarship gives me access to the first three lessons in their Android Development for Beginners course with instructor and mentor support and access to private forums and slack channel. At the end of the course (April) the top 10% of students on this course will get offered the next tier of the scholarship which is for the full nanodegree course. Needless to say I really want to be part of that 10%, so this goal is all about putting in the work. For this goal, I will do at least 2 hours per day (10 hours a week) of studying. Studying includes doing the course lessons and projects as well as participating in the forums and the Slack channel. Goal 4: Stay active. The beginning of the month always flavours what the rest of my month is going to be like. If I don't start the month being active, then I'm not going to be active for the rest of the month. This is bad and leads down a slippery slope of laziness. So for this month, the goal is to just do something active every day. This can be walking, stretching, going to a fitness class, whatever, as long as it gets me away from my desk for at least 15 minutes each day.

January is typically seen as a month of new beginnings. For me, it's going to be a month of going back to the basics and easing back into "regular" life after a month of feasting and eating all of the things. Over the course of December, I gained ~3 kgs, 2" around my waist, and 1" around my chest. This extra weight must be lost. This month I'm doing another fitness challenge. This one is only going to last the month though. While the Push Up and Pull Up challenges had some great results, 10 weeks was a bit too long for my tastes. The New Year Fitness Challenge starts off slow with a simple timed fitness test and slowly ramps up in difficulty as the month progresses. It touches on a wide variety of exercises (cardio, yoga, body weight, etc) instead of just one. In addition to the fitness challenge, I'm also going to work on getting back to my personalised NF diet, as follows. Week 1: I will drink only water between noon and 6pm every day. I can drink caffeinated drinks (tea, coffee, diet soda) before noon and between 6pm-8pm, but only one drink per hour. I will drink no alcohol during the week and will only have 1 bottle/can/glass per day on Fridays and Saturdays. Week 2: I will eat zero foods with added sugar. Snacking between meals is allowed, but only healthy snacks (i.e. fresh fruit and veggies, crackers and cheese, etc). I will allow one exception to this which is our nightly pudding, but I will not allow myself to go overboard with it (small servings is the key here). Week 3: I will eat only my two main meals per day with no snacking between meals except in one circumstance, which is if my blood sugar level drops too much and I need to eat something to keep myself from shaking or passing out. Each meal will contain at least 2 veggies and 1 serving of protein. Week 4: My carbs intake will be reduced to no more than 4 servings per day. I will not eat any foods made from white wheat flour. While whole grain is acceptable, most of my carbs should come from other flour sources (rice, nuts, pulses), rice (preferably not white rice), and potatoes (sweet potatoes are preferable). As always, I am allowing one variance day per week where the above rules are relaxed. This will usually be Mondays (games nights). There are also two non fitness related tasks that I'm setting for myself during January. These are to apply for at least one job per week and to crochet 3 granny squares for the blanket I'm making Paul each week OR sew 8 squares together into a row.