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Or maybe a Spartan king? I figured I’d continue with the pattern of animated movies about felines. I’m going to be travelling to Paris during Week 1, from 7/16 – 7/24. So, I’m going to treat this week (Week 0) as my Week 1 and Week 1 as my Week 0. (A Cat in Paris also tempted me as a theme topic. And Aristocats is set in Paris too. There are so many animated Paris movies.) My goals are pretty much the same as they have been the past two challenges. Goal 1: Maintain Fitness 3 workouts/week (usually 1 bootcamp and 2 at home bodyweight workouts) Run 1x/week + ankle alphabets before and after. I’m working on 3.7 miles right now, and trying to get up as close to 5 miles as I can before the Spartan next month. Walk 16 miles/week (64 over course of challenge) Goal 2: Movement Focus (Spartan Prep) I’m done with sets of burpees. The moment I was able to achieve 30 in a row, I lost interest in doing these. So, I’m switching to a grease the groove approach. I’ll do the remaining 350 burpees I owe from the past two challenges over the course of this one. Climb stuff – I dropped this completely last challenge, but I should at least try to practice climbing stuff in preparation for my fear of heights. Mainly the jungle gym at the park. I’ve thought about trying bouldering at a rock gym, but that might be pushing it. That’s the sort of thing I’d love to try, but I’d rather have a friend along for. While I’m at the park, I might as well use the monkey bars. Goal 3: Food Part A: Maintain What Works (23 points/week) Don’t eat after 8pm (or within 3 hours of bedtime) (-1 point for failure). Exceptions on Thursdays where workouts and Aikido coincide. Don’t eat more than 1 bad food/meal in a day. Desserts are counted separately from meals in most cases. (-1 point for failure) Eat primalish most of the time (19 meals / week allows for 2 variance meals) (-1 point per failure, +1 point for extra primal meal) Aim for primal snacks on 4 days/week and then non-primal snacks ok 3 days per week (out of 4 points/week) Aim for at least 1 primal meal and 1 50% meal per day when travelling or hosting (-1 point per failure, +1 per success) Plan/prep meals over the weekend and prep/freeze meals for weeks when this doesn’t happen (+1 point when done successfully) Write down bad reactions to food choices in an ongoing spreadsheet to dissuade myself from making that choice a second time. Not connected to any points. Doing this is slowly starting to help me make better choices. Slowly. Part B: Conscious Eating Think about what I’m about to do before eating something. Ideally, pause and take a few deep breaths. If I eat something unhealthy, recognize and acknowledge that I’m about to sell out my future self. (4 points per day – 3 meals and snacks) Part C: Cholesterol Management SomethingSomething The nature of this goal will depend on what the doctor says about the bloodwork I’m getting done on the 13th. I probably won’t be able to hear the results from her until I’m back from Paris. So for Week 0 (my Week 1) I’ll just keep aiming for 25g of fiber per day. Then I’ll evaluate and decide on this goal after I get back and hear what the doctor says. Goal 4: Be a Mighty King (life goal sort of) This is where I try to stretch things to somehow fit my theme. Kings need to see things from a variety from perspectives, so I’m going to do the same. I want to spend 4 hours/week standing when I would not have otherwise and 2 hours/week sitting on the ground instead of on furniture. There's a communal standing desk at work, so I should be able to get the standing done easily during the 3 days I'm in the office if I do about 1.5 hours each day. 2 hours of sitting on the ground will probably happen at home while reading or watching TV. I'll probably break this down into 30 minutes 4 days a week. I chose this goal because I have a lot of posture issues and muscle imbalances related to sitting, but I never had the same issues when I used to always sit on the floor because on the floor you naturally fidget a lot more. It's more natural. And the standing has some obvious benefits as well. Bonus Goals: These earn me extra points, but they cannot take priority over my main goals. Meditate daily (7 per week) Yoga 4 times per week, of any length Clean the sink before bed 4 times per week NEW Sleepy Sundays – try to get things done (grocery shopping, workouts, etc.) before Sunday, so I can spend Sunday resting instead of running around stressed. Be in bed by 10pm so I start the week off with enough rest. I really liked sleepy Sundays last challenge, so I’d like to try to make it a habit. Travel Protocols: While I’m in Paris, I’ll be anxious enough already with worrying about not speaking the language and whether the French people all hate me. So there's no need to worry about trying to eat a certain way, or I’d go crazy. So, my goals are simple. I'm not scoring them since it's my Week 0, but I would like to at least maintain the workout/meditation streaks I have going currently. 3 workouts. They can be short, but do something even if it’s just a 15 minute BBWW in the hotel room Meditate daily (hopefully I can maintain my headspace streak while using the WiFi at the hotel) MAYBE 1 run if there’s a treadmill at the hotel and I feel comfortable enough to use it. Try to stretch every morning/evening or maybe squeeze in a yoga video once or twice. I always forget to stretch on trips and then turn into Frankenstein, and I would like to avoid that this time.

Last challenge I really looked at where I was, where I wanted to be, and what I needed to do to get there. I was the heaviest I've ever been, and not for the good reasons. With the help of a whole30 I managed to drop back down to a more "acceptable" (to me) weight. I had a week of holidays right at the end of the challenge that sabotaged my progress, and I've had considerable life changes that have been pretty stressful. My ultimate goal is to lose weight. I would like to get back down to ~150lbs or less. Lets talk about those other challenges sprinkled in called life. Firstly, injury. It may as well be a 4-letter word! My right shoulder hurts when doing a lateral lift, but not really when my arm is close to my body. This is the first time in my life (and I've always been active-dance, cheerleading, group fitness) that I have an injury that is persistent and requires expert attention. It's killing me. I was hoping that it would get better but it hasn't. So I now have a physio appointment for Tuesday. This is my first time going to physio, but I know this guy is really good, at the same time, it's a major joint that's very complex, so while I"m hopeful he can help, I'm trying not to set my expectations too high because I know it will take time. The other big life thing that I alluded to at the end of last challenge is some big shake ups at work. I work for an electrical service company that deals primarily with big mining corporations. Right now in that sector things are tight and it trickles down to contractors like us. A few months back we laid off our marketing director. About 3 weeks ago a more senior engineer in my department was offered a new position elsewhere. Yesterday I found out that our procurement manager was laid off as well. But the biggest hit to me personally was when I found out my boss was leaving. His girlfriend who is a close friend of mine transferred within her company to Kelwona BC (beautiful place, but far from Saskatoon!) Three and a half years ago when I started at this company, the department was pretty much just me and my boss. He's like the big brother I never had. It came as a pretty big shock that they're moving, and everything's happening pretty quick. The bad news for me is that because there will be no senior engineers (things are tight and it doesn't make sense to replace anyone), the engineering department will go back to being a support group for the other departments as opposed to taking on our own projects. It blows and is a career step backwards for me. HOWEVER I'm choosing to look at this as an opportunity. It has been my plan to quit being an engineer and move to the Vancouver area to own a fitness studio for quite some time. Because I just bought a house last year, I was planning on doing it when my mortgage needs to be re-negotiated (2018). This change at work however is pushing me to look at this more seriously and taking steps to achieve this. One of those things is to become a certified personal trainer. The certification I want is likely going to require me to go back to school. SO I intend to use my bargaining power at work (I'm basically the only engineering resource we have left) to negotiate a remote work agreement to facilitate getting my certification. And then I want to spend less and less time in the office so that I can train people on the side. My goal is to work out most of my business and career changes before moving, largely because I'm doing all this on my single income (which I realize is currently more than what some duel income families take in, but when I'm not working as an engineer, things will be much less certain!) GOALS 1) Whole30 - I did a whole30 for the first time last challenge and it was great. Because my eating isn't terrible to begin with, I didn't have a lot of the side effects that other people have described. This time I'll be doing a whole 42, but plan to allow for a few slips here and there. (I know that whole30 is about being committed for the whole time, but this time around I feel like I know what my problem areas are, and if I say I'm eating "paleo" I let myself cheat too much - so this is me, finding something between whole30 and paleo that works for me) Last time I used a calendar as a hardhat challenge which worked really well for me because it's very visual, and I'll be going with this again. 2) Move more - I've read enough articles lately about the dangers of sedentary life, even if you work out and go to the gym, that now I"m going to do something about it. I intend to break up my stints of sitting by setting a timer while I'm at work to remind me to get up every 30 minutes. I'll be trying to implement this on weekends too, but it's tougher when you're not in one place. So my ranking is just for monday-friday. A - 30 days B - 25 days C - 20 days D - 15 days F - <15 days 3) Exercise - I really wanted to put handstands in this challenge, but with my shoulder that's looking like a poor idea. So this spot is going to be open for now, but likely will end up being "do your prescribed physio exercises" Life side quest Do 3 fitness business-related tasks per week and journal about them. These tasks include: Finish reading 4-hour workweekget concrete information about CPTstart making business planbudget for better money tracking/savingwrite more on my fitness blogfinish dad's estate paperwork (and get $$)Tracking: 1) Whole42 - 5.5/7 3.5/7 0/7 0/7 0/7 0/7 = 9/42 2) Move more - 5/5 4/4 0/5 0/5 0/5 0/5 = 9/19 3) Exercise - 4/5 3.5/7 0/7 4) Handstands - X X 0/7 0/7 0/7 0/7 = 0/28 Life challenge 3 Business-related tasks - 3/3 3/3 0/3 0/3 0/3 0/3 = 6/18 Expense tracking - 1/1 1/1 0/1 0/1 0/1 0/1 = 2/6 Starting weight: 157.5 lbs