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My goal in this challenge is to get through January with ninja-like honor. Wait... ninjas were rogue spies and assassins without honor whatsoever, weren't they? They were cool though, and kicked butt. Can't argue that. The Cloak of the Chameleon The most important thing I can do to stay healthy is eat right. To that end, I'm going to maintain my food log (which has a mysterious gap from Christmas Eve to yesterday...let's not think about it) and continue to keep my saturated fat and carbs to within reasonable daily limits: 20g and 200g, respectively. Despite my plans, I have not yet gotten my cholesterol tested since my disastrous Egg Diet results (let's not think about it). That must change, but first I need to get back to healthy eating. The Blind Sword My next priority is to maintain my running ability. I've got to average 10K/week to meet my goal. I did run 5K today after a Christmas break so I'm off to a decent start. I may have done myself a disservice though by running an (unofficial) half marathon on Christmas Eve followed by a 10K four days later. I'm sure it's no surprise to anyone but me that my legs are still feeling it. The half marathon started as a simple stroll with my family which flowed into what I thought was a solo 5K but felt good and just went on and on and on. I never really tested how far I could run, so I suppose I was curious. Well, now I know why people train for such things. So my goal for January is to just get some simple miles in despite the cold weather and get back to basic running fitness. The Sleeping Phoenix Next up is arm strength. I'm gonna do 32 push ups in a row every day, starting today. This is WAY more push ups than I did in previous challenges. Why 32? Because I only work in powers of two, baby. The Ear That Sees Finally, I'm adding a stretch goal of stretching (see what I did there?) for 10 minutes following any run. I need to do something to regain some kind of flexibility, and I don't just mean not complaining when the kids want to eat at a dang Subway for the 10,000th time when I really want a plate of ninja-worthy hibachi. I used to train in karate and I miss the flexibility I once had. I doubt I could get it all back even if I did yoga full time, what with that being 20 years ago, but something is better than nothing and a little effort could go a long way So this will involve 10 minutes of my old karate stretches focusing on hamstrings, quads, and lower back. Bonus points of some kind for doing my lower back strengthening exercises. That is all.

I tried to beat the sad pandas last challenge, but I didn't realize I was PLAYING INTO THEIR HANDS. See, you might not know this, but sad pandas are pedantic, points driven, and very metric based. They want you to try things that don't always make you feel better. they are not totally interested in letting you be a happy panda. so I ended up feeling more sadder, because playing the game by Sad Panda rules meant you are always going to be a sad panda. I don't want to be sad panda! I want to be a sparkly assassin! No more mopefests for me! (bonus halloween photo!) So I need to structure this challenge for LOGGING SUCCESS. my MAIN QUEST is to be a FLASHING NEON ARROW pointing to HOW AWESOME I'm DOING. like this: MY SUCCESS BECOMETHEARROW. First, let's talk about grades. I hate grades. So I'm going to use NOT SO HOT / GOOD / BETTER / BEST to rate myself. GOAL 1: MAKE A LIST / CHECK IT TWICE Every Monday I'll have a workout schedule and every week I'll check off my points. There. Simple. Things that go on the workout schedule may and will likely include: going to physical therapy. arm day at the gym. tae kwon do. extra bonus points (i.e., boost my non-grades up a scale) will be given for massive groups of sit-ups in one day, or similar bulk exercises. tl:dr - write up a weekly exercise calender, track it here, and check off the boxes. bonus bump! do a bunch of extra exercises in a day, like, 100 sit-ups or something torturous. GOAL 2: PLAY WITH ALL MY TOYS So far I've accumulated a bunch of toys. SWORDS. A SPARKLY HULA HOOP. NUNCHUCKS. I have to make time to play with them! I'm not 100% sure yet how this will work. but it'll go on the schedule, and be rated as a separate goal. I'm thinking 5 minutes a day for x days with the hoop or chucks. I don't know enough yet about swords, so that will involve going to weapons class to practice. tl:dr - make a special point to schedule in toy time and hit that goal. GOAL 3: USE MY OWN DATA TOOLS / TAKE THAT UGLY SAD PANDAS I have been doing really really well with tracking all my calories. even when I'm not doing great, I've been tracking for over a year. I know it's a huge part of my success. HOWEVER. better than that success is actually staying under my calories goal. When I look back over the last challenge, I didn't do that. so every week, that's what I'm going to do. (I'm giving myself one exception, for [American] thanksgiving week. I am in a blended family and I think I have to have 2 thanksgiving dinners. I do pretty good with these meals but I like to taste everything and that adds up. Last year running a 10k on thanksgiving saved my bacon, but I can't count on that this year with my wonky knee so I get a pass. tl:dr - Continue to track calories every day AND ALSO stay under my calories goal for the week.. bonus bump! for tracking caffeine too, using the jawbone coffee app. LIFE QUEST: NO REALLY BECOME THE NEON SIGN. I know, it's nuts to want to be stealth assassiny creature yet be a neon sign. but who wants to be a sparkly assassin anyway? ME, that's who. but it's hard to crow on your successes, and I need a little more of an explicit boost. I'm feeling a little slumpy. I had my first nerdiversary during the last quest and while I'm doing super good, and seeing good, long-term results, they're slow, and I'm bored and a sad cupcake, and I don't want to be a sad panda because their panda games are boring and their rules suck and everyone is totally emo and boring (did I say boring?). for my life quest I'm going to really focus on the best most awesome things I'm achieving. and I'm going to report them back. Some of them will be fitness related, some will be body size related, some will be skill related. Some might be totally random and related to things that I've finally completed in my regular life. This is where I'll be giving myself all the presents. I need them right now, yo. tl:dr - look forward to me posting lots of crowing posts. I need to highlight my accomplishments a little more and remind myself how awesome I'm doing. FIRST! | WK 1 | WK 2 | WK 3 | WK 4 | WK 5 | WK 6