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Given the new movie is out and I walk through the streets in which its set every blinking day, figured it was time for a Trainspotting challenge... Plus an excuse for a lot of Ewan McGregor pictures (Kevin McKidd and Jonny Lee Miller are also acceptable). I've got just over a week until my first comp of the year and I'm currently recovering from a nasty hip flexor strain, so lots to talk about. Choose Lifting I'm training four days a week with just a couple of sessions off for the comp. I'm doing okay-ish with hitting the heavy singles but the volume is intimidating at the moment. Currently sitting on the couch with epic DOMS after sessions Tuesday and Wednesday. Anyway, the goal is two-part. 1. Don't psych myself out of lifting weights because I think they feel tough when the video shows they're moving fast. 2. Do my fucking accessories Basic training week structure is generally Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday (or similar) with the current programme looking like this: Day one - comp squat and bench plus accessories Day two - comp deadlift and bench variation plus accessories Day three - squat variation and comp bench plus accessories Day four - deadlift variation and bench variation plus accessories I often split off the accessories into a separate session if I finish late. For comp lifts, I work up to a heavy single (RPE8) then volume, variations I work up to reps at RPE8 (varying numbers) then back off sets. Choose meat and veg and eggs I'm not going paleo or any such thing but I've signed up to Avatar Nutrition so I'm trying really hard to hit my numbers. I won't do so on the day of the comp, but will try to hit my numbers. They may change each week so this week's is: 1971 calories, 213g carbs, 55g fat, 156g protein. That'll get updated next Wednesday. My goal is to get down to c.61-62kg then reverse diet so I can stop having to stress about making weight and be a bit leaner. Choose life Given I have a tendency to sink into lifting obsession, I need to do other stuff too. I took up skating again at the beginning of January so I'll aim to make it to skating once a week other than next week. Do at least one 60 minute session of yoga. I haven't done any in ages. Play Zelda on my SNES. Play some more World of Final Fantasy. Take Grant out for brunch at least once. Go and see T2 Trainspotting.

I thought it might be time that I actually started a battle log for my workouts rather than boring everyone in challenges by wandering off topic. I have a couple of competitions coming up, although I'm waiting to hear about sponsorship subsidies before putting in my entry forms (or next week, whichever comes sooner). For anyone who hasn't come across me before, I took up lifting in April 2013, started competing in February 2014 and I'm heading to my first national championship in September 2014. I don't eat clean. I stress out about the scale (it matters that I stay in my weight class). I post way too many Instagrams of my food and my ass. Don't follow me if any of those bother you. :-D (Second one is February 2013-July 2014 as I didn't have a side on picture from January 2013.)

Okay, so those of you who have been following my challenges know that I've not had the best time of things of late. Between illness and misfortune, I'm still sitting at a much lower total than I'd like and feeling kinda down because I don't really have a coach who bucks me up when things are going badly. Things might turn around after this weekend but just feeling resigned to getting there and making a total rather than setting the world on fire. Anyway, as an antidote to this, I have decided that the next challenge needs to be about having fun! I don't have a coach after the weekend, so either I'll be on my own or I'll be starting up with a new coach. Either way, I need to let loose a bit. So... Here are the goals! Eat, Drink and Be Merry NO food tracking. Weight tracking is allowable (and I'll log it as usual) but food will not be measured or judged. I need to have a bit of fun! Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Make time to go and have fun with friends. I would like to do the following this month: Go skating at an outdoor rink (and I'm dragging @TeeCam with me) Go for mulled wine at the markets Eat one of the gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches that I've been lusting after Arrange a girls lifting meet-up Attend my friend's Squats, Cake and Gin party Arrange a local Nerd-Up See Star Wars: Rogue One See Fantastic Beasts Eat mince pies Progress through World of Final Fantasy Push It I mean go harder... Nah, I want to get a bench PB so, even if I don't get it in competition, I'm going to go for an over 80kg bench at some point this month. Spin, Spin, Spin Get back to pole dancing at least once and clear out the spare room so I can get my own pole to practice. I've missed pole for ages so I really want to get back to doing that!

I'm going to be a little easy on myself this time around and not set hugely challenging goals, but just ones that need to be worked on! I've got the Four Nations championships on 3 December so I want to be physically and mentally ready. Get my head in the game. My mind is a large part of what's holding me back so I'm going to work through some sports psychology books and exercises to try to change my mindset. I still really struggle to see myself as a good lifter so I need to give myself a firm talking to and start to see myself as others do. Look after myself. Get to bed before midnight during the week. Have an Epsom salt bath at least once a week. Find a meditation app which works for me (kinda part of the one above too). Found one I like so far so meditate once a day. Eat to perform. Keep on tracking and assessing to try to get my weight on track. Plan meals for Monday to Friday on Sunday and make sure that they're doable with minimal effort after training. Chat. Try to get out and about on people's threads and not beat myself up when other people have a more popular thread than mine. I had a powerlifter from Canada visiting over the weekend (not someone I'd met before but she found me on Instagram and we trained together) and it was really interesting to see how others see me. I have a very low opinion of myself a lot of the time (too ready to listen to negatives and ignoring positives) so to hear that she'd had a load of messages from people after we both posted a pic of the two of us together after training was really heartening. I need to stop relying on the opinions of others for my self-esteem, but at the same time I need to remember that not everyone hates me. I'm not still the kid in class who is bullied. I'm not still the girl being laughed at for getting it wrong. Maybe I never was!

So it's my first day back to the grind after a proper week of rest following the British Classic. It's not exactly the Camp NF Powerlifting Championships, but I still managed to take fourth in the 63s for the third year in a row. I couldn't have done better in terms of positioning but my second squat was so easy that I'm frustrated about the screw-up with my third. Still sitting around 382 Wilks, which is frustrating. I'd like that easy 400. That nice, round, shiny number. So on with the quest! I'm waiting to have it confirmed, but it's very likely that I'll have another competition on Saturday, 3 December in Cardiff (along with @TeeCam and, hopefully, our coach) so the goal is to get that 400 Wilks there. I'm also probably somewhat over my weight class at the moment (not stepping back on the scales until I've given my body a week to settle after last week's cheese and beer binge) so getting back to a controlled diet is key! In the midst of all this, I have the Edinburgh NF Meet-Up next weekend! Anyway, here are the general goals: Do my gorram accessories. We all know I'm bad at it, so the goal is to give myself a point for every time I successfully complete an accessory session and reward myself with some form of ice-cream-based indulgence if I do. This may involve Boozy Cow. Track everything and edge my weight lower. This isn't a tough one, but it's just generally necessary! I need to get my weight back down to a walkaround weight of closer to 63kg than 65kg so I don't have to even think about it in the run-up to a comp! Explore the dark side. I don't know if it will go anywhere, but I want to do some more work on sumo deadlifts. Last time I tried, I was pushed to go too heavy too fast so never really had much of a chance to get better at them. I just want to do some technique work and see if it goes anywhere. This may be pulled if Marc says I shouldn't do it. Organise stuff for the meet-up. I still haven't emailed @Steve to remind him about the meet-up for the NF blog emails or got in touch with anyone to ask if we can make up event-specific T-shirts again. I still need to get precise numbers for lifting so I can arrange appropriate numbers of instructors too! Basically, lots to do!

Tale as old as time, true as it can be... Okay... so it's just under five weeks until British Classic so figured that fitted rather well with this challenge cycle. Get a waist like Belle I'm running WAAAAY over my weight class at the moment. I'm confident that I can make it back but track calories consistently and honestly to make sure I can get my weight back to within 1-1.5kg of 63kg by the beginning of comp week so I only need to do a light water cut. SW: 66.2kg (16 August). I'll post my weight and calories every day along with a basic macro breakdown. For anyone who wants to follow me on MFP, my username is the same there. Be strong like Beast (or, let's face it... Gaston) This one is pretty self-explanatory. I've got five weeks to go so my training cycle has really ramped up. I'm doing 120-70-125 for sets of five today then upwards for threes and twos in the following weeks. Only one really heavy session per week with three lighter ones. The goal here is to try to minimise stress-outs and to post regular updates AND VIDEOS in my battle log and copying over here. I've been lazy about updating recently and very shy about videos. I'm not looking for feedback on the videos but it does help with my own tracking. I just got put off after people were critiquing my form on Instagram (and have had issues here in the past). Be a Beauty as well as a Beast Firstly, I've been getting into a bad habit of wearing yoga pants to work too often... So that has to stop. Aiming for 4/5 days per week wearing proper work clothes with an allowance for yoga pants on Friday. Secondly, bothering to do my hair and make-up to the point that I feel presentable every day. With an accompanying selfie. I've been too much of a hoodrat of late and it needs to stop! I won't wear make-up every day if I've been getting enough sleep, but need to feel confident putting up an unfiltered selfie! Read like Beauty I'm trying to get back to the habit of reading less embarrassing books (after a swathe of werewolf 18+ romances of late). Open to suggestions for Kindle books to read with a goal of feeding back on at least two books through the challenge. Overall I don't really do overall scoring very well or rewards, but the reward will really be doing well at Nationals!

GOALS NOW ADDED (original post below) I have confidence in me Say something nice about yourself every day and share with the class. Push It Eat 2600 calories a day (or an average of 18200 a week) and evaluate based on how my weight fluctuates. I like to move it, move it Do yoga once a week. Go to pilates once a week. Have a massage once during the challenge. Sing Sing. Don't care when or how or if I post video, but just to spend a little bit of time once a week singing either at the piano or along to musicals. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Okay, so I'm hitting the post-comp low. I'm feeling like I only won because I was lucky and everyone else is improving faster than I am. I hit comp PBs across the board and still I feel like I'm rubbish! I really need to sort my mindset! I'm going to keep this challenge simple. Lift things. Make friends. Try not to whine as much. Meh... I'll try to work out the challenge in full later. Ideas welcome!

Something has changed within me, something is not the same. I'm through with playing by the rules of someone else's game. Too late for second guessing, too late to go back to sleep, It's time to trust my instincts, close my eyes... and leap! Okay... I'll stop with the lyrics! I realised that it's crazy that I've gone so long without a musicals themed challenge! I'm through accepting limits 'cause someone says they're so. Some things I cannot change, but 'til I try I'll never know. I care too much about what people think... I'm not going to make that my challenge, but it's something that I'm aware of. This is more about the run-up to my next competition, which is the day after the challenge finishes. I'm fluctuating between absolutely terrified and just utterly resigned. I'm training in such a different way that I think things are going really well but I don't often push myself. I suspect that I can make some progress in this comp but it's not going to be show-stoppingly awesome. Powerlifting is all about defying gravity, as it's your real competitor. I'd like to beat it a little better than last time, kthxbai. Anyway, the goal here is to just keep training, to try to stay calm, not to tell myself that there are limits but just to shut up and lift! The other part is to do my MFing accessory work. Seriously, @Jaymul, can you nag me? Perhaps, just perhaps, I'll be unlimited... As someone told me lately, "Everyone deserves a chance to fly." And if I'm flying solo, at least I'm flying free I'm finally getting my lifting classes off the starting line. The challenge here is to get them started. Assess after each session (I'll share my thoughts on here) and gain confidence. This is ALL me and I'm terrified. I also need to register as self-employed, set up my online accountancy stuff and remember to invoice the gym for each session! Not really going to treat them as goals, but they're things I need to do at some point. Nobody in all of Oz, no wizard that there is or was, is ever going to bring me down! Two parts here... Both about being happy and doing things that make me happy. One, get back to singing. I suck now, but I spent years training as a singer and then let nasty comments bring me down. I stopped singing altogether when I got together with Grant because he basically hides when I sing. The goal here is to make time once a week to get to my piano and sing and share a short video with you guys. I'm really, really self-conscious about singing now, so I need to build some confidence back up. The second part is to make time for Grant and to spend one night a week playing games with him or going on a proper date. When it comes down to it, he's my best friend. This isn't officially part of the singing challenge, but this is a song that made me think of you guys. (Yes, I know it's not good... but it's unrehearsed and I'm ill today. )

Deadlifts have always been my sticking point in competition. I'll go to pull the second or third lift and it'll feel tough and I'll just give up! Third attempt deadlift (135kg) - 2 December 2016 - Commonwealth Powerlifting Championships Yesterday I did my first competition for six months. My coach took charge of my attempts. I opened at 130kg (I've done it in training whilst feeling like death, so no fear on that) and then put 140kg in for my second attempt. I was terrified. It was tough. It went up but, as many of you will be aware, there are times when you go to pull a deadlift and a little bit of wee will leak out. It was just a tiny bit at 140kg but I locked out! My coach then put in my final attempt. He didn't tell me what it was. He just told me to cling on for dear life and not to stop pulling with no sense of self-preservation. Whatever happened, don't stop pulling until you succeed or the lift would fail to be legal (i.e. hitching or foot movement). So I did. I grabbed onto that bar, I pulled through my sticking point, I tried to lock it out. I tried so hard that I wet myself and the platform but I didn't let go. I didn't give up on myself! I didn't give up on myself! I may not have locked out that deadlift but I beat my deadlift demons down and I'm walking away thinking that there's a lot more there rather than hating myself for giving up when I could have got it!

Placeholder at the moment, but there will be housework-related goals, some focus on positivity after a few months of being peeved at feeling fat and useless, loads of pictures of me jaunting around Thailand and preparation for doing so. SpecialSundae sparkles with positivity Look for something in every day that is positive and share it. Bounce with happiness when I can. Try to ignore the demons but share them to allow other people to help when it's bad. Say something positive about every workout. Do your accessory work (maximum two sessions compressed into one, which means two sessions a week at minimum, aim to do it after each actual training session but we all know that won't happen) and aim for progression. SpecialSundae sparkles with innovation Find a way to get the letter of authenticity for REPS registration. Plan out the first four weeks of the barbell training course Plan out social media engagement and announcements Plan out booking scheme SpecialSundae makes her house sparkle too Clean the kitchen and bathroom every weekend until I go away Hoover the living room and bedroom once a week Change the sheets once a week Do at least two loads of laundry a week Put away all laundry at the weekend SpecialSundae spreads some sparkle to her spouse Spend quality time with Grant Spend at least one night a week playing Marvel Superheroes with Grant until we go away Leave the phones in our room (or at least switched off) for at least one evening meal out of two whilst in Thailand Spend time with Grant planning a few excursions and pre-book as needed - thinking of doing a cycle tour in Bangkok and a visit to a Thai boxing match in Ao Nang In the meantime, here's my thought for the day from yesterday... Any time you feel strong, squat with someone who lifts triple what you do. You'll suddenly feel very weak and insignificant!

A bit of a new spin this challenge... Actually challenging myself! Main challenge - I am not a tidy person. My house is, quite frankly, an embarrassment and that's going to take more than one challenge to turn that around. Grant and I are going to clear out the house, probably get rid of c. 25-50% of the things in it, and get it clean and tidy again. We've already taken down some really grotty old blinds and started putting away the piles of laundry, but a non-exhaustive list of things we need to do is below: Get rid of all the excess toiletries in the bathroom Clear out the boxes of kitchen stuff still in my roomClear out excess clothes which don't fitGet rid of lots of shoesPut up book shelves for all our booksGet the living room cleared out enough that we can get someone in to paint itGet someone in to paint the bathroom once the house is tidy enough to let people inClear out the hallways and take stuff to the charity shopNegotiate with family to get rid of huge rug that we don't needSell old espresso machine and juicer on eBayMow the lawnWeed the front garden and clear the stepsGet a gardener in to deal with the back gardenWhen the house is clear enough, find a cleaner and get them in once a weekYes, it's humiliating writing all that down, but I needed to do that. I want to be able to have people to visit or to stay and that couldn't happen at the moment. We're never home and it's stressful to be here when we are. I think having a cleaner in once or twice a week would really help, but you can't do that when the house is a tip (seriously, it's like an episode of Hoarders). So that's the big challenge. The rest is almost business as usual, but to do that I need to focus on the big issues. I'm going to start small, by selecting something from the list each week to complete before the end of the week. That's it. I'm also going to require that I do essential tasks consistently: Clean the bathroom once a weekEmpty the recycling once a weekPut away the washing when it's done rather than letting it pile up.Do washing at least twice a week (probably Wednesday and Saturday)Take out the food waste every other day The only other extra task to add that is that I'm going to aim to wash my lunch box at least three days a week (seems like a little thing but it reduces the evening's tasks, which is a big thing when I have an hour after getting home from the gym to make and eat dinner and get to bed). 1 point for every weekday that I wash my lunchbox, 5 points for completing all the essential tasks each week and 10 points for every weekly task completed. Meanwhile, I'm going to keep up training. The other cleaning... Consistently do weightlifting drills at least twice a week and don't attempt full lifts unless I've done a full set of drills first. Just keep plugging Not really part of the challenge, but do physio exercises at least four days a week, go to yoga class once a week and try to get a place for Barre on a Monday. I'll obviously keep you posted on my "impressive" lifting prowess, but lifting isn't really a challenge these days!