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Last challenge was all about the self-love, self-care and recovering from stressing myself out. That, combined with the fantastic week-long vacation in the Rocky Mountains that I just returned from was seriously successful in getting me into a good headspace and ready to tackle this whole health and fitness thing with renewed vigour. This round is going to be pretty straightforward and back to the basics - Eat well, exercise and sleep. Winning formula. Also I'm doing a 5 week challenge; eff this week zero nonsense. Goal One: Eat clean. Which means Vegetables, Meat, Fruit, Nuts, Seeds, Healthy Fats, and limited non-gluten grains, dairy, legumes and condiments. I'm not going to define what "limited" means at this time, but I'll be reporting all food stuffs here so I'm keeping an eye on it. Anything with gluten counts as a variance. Also any significant amounts of sugar, condiments not withstanding. Also any other nonsense that I can't exactly think of at the moment. Chips, I guess. Ugh. Including tortilla chips. Damn, I love those things. Sub-goal of weekly meal planning and attendant grocery shopping. : 3 pts per day for eating like a reasonable person. 5 pts per week for meal planning. Target 25 pts per week (that means one allowable variance for those of you keeping track). A : 125pts B : 100 pts C : 75pts D: 50pts F: <50pts Goal Two: Quit the booze. It's time for a break. 1 pt per day but this is pass/fail. A: 35pts F: <35pts Goal Three: Bike 25 km per week. This equals about 3 bike commutes per week, but it's okay if it's not through biking to work. Rollerblading also counts towards this. A : 125kms B : 100 kms C : 75 kms D: 50 kms F: <50 kms Goal Four: Workout 3x per week. Like yoga or kettlebells or some video or whatever. Just do a thing. A : 15pts B : 12pts C : 9pts D: 6pts F: <6pts Goal Five: Go to sleep. And then get up. Applicable to workdays. I did this one a couple challenges ago, and it was super helpful, but I've gotten out of the habit. The deal is: in bed by 10PM. Lights out by 10:30PM. Up by 6AM. 3 pts per day, 5x per week. A : 75pts B : 60pts C : 45pts D: 30pts F: <30pts And to add some incentive to all of the above - each "A" earned every week scores me $2. At the end of the challenge, I will use whatever I've earned to buy some new athletic gear!

This challenge is going to be a bit weird. I have a parkour rank testing in a week, so I'll be a little bit deload-y the first week. I'm on vacation the last week. And I still kind of have whiplash from doing so many short challenges back to back. I also tend to have a full schedule with all of the parkour, climbing, and yoga, so any specific exercises have to be kind of opportunistic rather than scheduled for me. Thanks to all of this, I'm going to embrace and love the pirate code this challenge: Main Quest: Parkour all of the things!!! Climb all of the things!!! Balance in mind-bending ways! Play with weapons! Look like someone who could compete on ANW. 2016 goals Goal 1 - Raise the Black Flag Last challenge, I played around with Human Flag progressions, and now I'm hooked. I can do the first progression, which is a quasi one-armed lever, pretty well I'm okay-ish with the second one, which is an armpit tucked flag lever. I have started working through the third, which is dragon flags. Goal: Take advantage of any reasonable opportunities to work through these progressions. Goal 2: Hang on the rigging - I've neglected my dead hang pull ups, and I haven't really made progress in the last many months. Goal: take advantage of any reasonable opportunities to focus on the pull ups. For both goals 1 and 2, if I'm not completely sore and destroyed after parkour class or a climbing session, I need to do these progressions. If I'm already pretty spent, I can skip. If I have something major the next day and don't want to risk DOMS, I need to just do a minor GTG approach. I'm just grading these on vague, mushy feelings of whether I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. Goal 3 - Get rid of the rum. (diet) I'm going on vacation in 3 weeks to a resort with free booze. So, in the meantime, I'm giving my liver a bit of a rest and reset period. I've played around with going dry in the past, but I generally have ended up just cutting back because I enjoy booze and don't truly care enough about being dry. The difference this time is that my husband is going dry with me, rather than taunting me with tasty drinks. Goal - Dry until vacation. On vacation, don't overdo it too much (which I won't, since the kids will be there too) Goal 4: Swab the deck (domestic Rangering) Domestic Rangering went okay last time. This time, I'm going to keep up with daily chores as well as doing a Flylady (or substitute) cleaning mission every day. Goal 5 - Learn the Language of the Land (Duolingo spanish) I don't want to be an asshole American tourist, so the goal is to amass 1000 xp in Duolingo Spanish before my vacation. On vacation, the goal is to at least make some attempt to read or speak spanish. Bonus goals: Bonus 1: Swim like a pirate captain Before vacation, brush up on swimming and get the kids ready to swim a lot. On vacation, swim a ton. We are planning on swimming in a cenote, and there's the beach, hotel pools, and some other great swimming sites. Bonus 2: Stop culling the herd (videos and media) Yeah, I totally need a goal to encourage myself to post more media... Really, though, the goal is to post pictures or videos that are technically sound, even if I think I look flabby, my hair is messy, or I'm otherwise nitpicking the way I look. And after I post those pictures or videos, I'm not allowed to say anything negative about my appearance. I also have kind of promised piano video for ages, but I tend to overly nitpick any recordings and then just don't post them. So, the goal is to post something, even if it sounds (to me) like a steaming pile of cat vomit. Bonus 3 - make my own adventure guide (travel) I need more excitement and adventure in my life. And now that springtime is approaching, it's the perfect time to look into day trips and long weekend trips. My goal is to research all of the best attractions in all of the major cities, the national parks, and the climbing sites in about a 6 hour driving radius (which is A LOT), and then come up with a bunch of 1-day, weekend, and 3-5 day trip options. The goal is to add 6 little trips to my list (which currently sits at 2). So. um.. yeah. This is a lot of stuff for a kind of burned out challenge. But I have no doubt I can prevail, because of this: And this:

[Explicit] I have been a long time away from NF, and a long time putting fitness on the back burner. It's time that I stop letting my excuses pile up and hold me down. It's time to stop letting the greedy little piggy whisper in my ear. I am the wolf, so let the games begin. Rule 1) Run 3x A Week [sTA +5] Rule 2) No Booze. [CON +5] Rule 3) Update 3x A Week. [WIS +2] Rule 4) Create A Routine. [WIS +3] These chains are heavy, if I'm going get them off it's going to happen one link at a time.