Mizbrek Studies with the Order of the Broken Temple

[Mizbrek]

As the light of the portal faded in the night, Mizbrek the Brewmaster found himself on the Wandering Isle. He had heard briefly that his order had relocated since the Legion attack on the Peak of Serenity, but he hadn’t had a chance to get back yet.

 

The portal had deposited him near the entrance to the main temple, but with a perfect view out towards the side of the island. As he watched, a massive flipper lifted ponderously up, and came crashing back to the ocean with a distant thunder.

 

The monks had never really had a name for themselves. They had always just been “the monks of Pandaria.” But now, as he stepped into the temple complex, he saw the banners, a simple pictograph of a temple, with a jagged, diagonal edge severed through it.

 

He had spent too long adventuring, too long away. Time to get back to it.

 

 

 

I had a whole other challenge planned for myself initially, and it was largely more of the same. Reading goals and calorie goals and the like. It was fine, but nothing exciting. I had set myself a mini-challenge for this week - just a personal little goal to try and cut down my calories and get back on track. And I’ve been excited about it for the last few days and thought, well, you know what, why don’t I spin it out into a proper challenge and see how it goes? I feel like generally if you’re excited about something, it’s good to chase after it.

 

I had been calling this a Kickstart week, as the idea here was to kinda kickstart my weight loss again with a more restrictive diet than I would normally go for, but I’m excited enough about it that I’m going to try and keep it going.

 

I’ll be checking in ideally on a daily basis, but won’t be necessarily doing a run down of each goal, just kind of a general quick “hey going well” or “hey I screwed up.” I’ll also be allowing myself 10 Free Passes (FPs). I can use these throughout the challenge to lift one of the restrictions for the day. But just one - it doesn’t clear out the whole day. So I’ll track my usage of those.

 

So, without further adieu, the restrictions! Oh and unless otherwise specified these are only weekday goals. Weekends are gonna be a bit looser.

 

Eat only meal-prepped breakfast and lunches. My breakfasts are pretty solid generally as are my lunches, but the idea here is to take some time, really think about, and pre-portion these things out. This scratches my cooking itch in regards to the lunches (as I’ll make these myself) and helps me control my lunches a bit better, as I’ve been often just taking unmeasured portions of whatever we had for dinner the night before, and as much as that’s generally healthy, I take too large portions usually.

Have one glass of wine or scotch per night. Pretty basic, I’ve been drinking too much. Putting a restriction on this and sticking to lower calorie drinks as opposed to beer.

If I have an afternoon snack, only have a protein shake. I’ve gotten into the habit of having a protein bar after work, and as much as these aren’t too bad, they add up fast. The protein shakes are filling, tasty, and I need to think about them ahead of time (so if I forget it, oh well). They take a while to consume too which is good - the bars always feel like they’re gone too fast to me.

Take a smaller portion of dinner and only allow Halo Top for dessert (if wanted). Again, I’m often taking more dinner than I need, having my wife’s leftovers, it’s just not good. So I’ll be aiming to have about ¾ the amount I normally do, and not eating any of my wife’s leftovers.

Stay under 2500 calories on weekends. So all of the above restrictions are for weekdays only. On weekends I do tend to lose track of things a bit, and I also...these restrictions above aren’t really necessarily how I want to live my life. I want to be able to adjust as needed, and have fun. So on weekends my only real restriction is under 2500 calories. My plans for now should keep me under 2000, perhaps even down to 1700, on weekdays, so 2500 is around maintenance with my activity level. And I’m hopeful some momentum from the week will carry through anyway - for example yesterday I was excited about this and was at around 2300 yesterday, which is pretty low for me most weekends.

 

Now there are a couple exceptions to all this coming up that I’m going to allow. My wife and I go out once a week for happy hour - for that I’m allowing myself an extra drink and to share a snack from the bar. For D&D nights (alternate Thursdays) I’m mostly going to allow myself some extra drinks and some leniency on dinner (we may need to get take out those nights). I’m going to have to see how it develops but trying to stick to those restrictions on those nights will just be tough, so I’m allowing some leniency there without using a Free Pass.

 

I’m also quietly forgoing a lot of my other habits, like my news and reading habits. Not saying I won’t do those at all but they aren’t where my mental energy will be focused. I really want to get back to consistently losing, and I think that needs to be my focus right now. And it's working so far! This week I'm down a pound and a bit so far this week!

 

I also will be keeping up my daily gym habit, but I feel like I don’t even really need to put that as a goal now - I’ve been at the gym before 5:30am  pretty much every weekday since October and most weekend days too. That habit is pretty solid now, and it helps! But not one I need to list!

 

My life has gotten a bit busy but I will do my best to keep up with the other challenges! Hope everyone is having a great time and hope to see you all around!

[jonfirestar]

It's good to see you Tom! Following. 

[Terra]

I'll be following as much as I can this challenge!!!  

 

[Elastigirl]

Glad to see you back. I think focusing on your main goal is a good idea. 

[Xena]

The way you describe this, it honestly sounds perfect for you. Your challenge is in line with a major life goal, you've done a trial run, and you're excited about it. That's the trifecta in my book!

[Mizbrek]

It's good to see you Tom! Following. 

Thanks! Good to be back!

I'll be following as much as I can this challenge!!!  
 

Great to have you again Terra!

Glad to see you back. I think focusing on your main goal is a good idea. 

Thanks! It’s so easy to get caught up on the new fun interesting goals, and lose sight of the big ones!

The way you describe this, it honestly sounds perfect for you. Your challenge is in line with a major life goal, you've done a trial run, and you're excited about it. That's the trifecta in my book!

I certainly think so!

So far this is going well! I haven’t stuck 100% perfectly to my goals, but generally been pretty on task. Nothing huge - a small snack here, an extra glass of wine there. But the results have been great! I’m down 3lbs from the start of the week, from 203.26 to 199.73! Well, technically back ups to 201.94 today, but yesterday we had some folks over so I used a free pass for that day overall. I’m kinda considering this week 0 so not counting it, but it made sense.

I do feel refreshed too - back on track too. It was definitely a kickstart, and parts of it were tough, but it felt great.

Also, shout out to Halo Top - it definitely allowed me to stay under calories while not feeling deprived!



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[Mizbrek]

Monday didn't go so well, and neither did the rest of Sunday! Lost control a bit and ate too much both days. Up a bit today but confident it'll drop back down again. But I'm feeling better overall, and feel like I'm learning a lot about what the non negotiables are for me in terms of food and habits, and what I can more easily drop off. Like I used to always want a second drink, and after the restrictions last week I'm pretty comfortable with just one, I've realized. I always thought I needed a certain portion of dinner, but I've been comfortable with about 3/4 of my normal portions. So overall I'm feeling pretty good, even if I am up a bit today!

[Mizbrek]

Last week went okay for the most part - it had a fair bit of work stress popping up which lead to some overeating, followed by a few days away on vacation, which took its toll too. According to the scale I’m up to 205 today, though I’m sure a lot of that is water weight. But I’m hopeful the work stress will be done by end of day today and the rest of the week will be a bit easier. And I’m still making BETTER choices - instead of saying Hell with it today, for example, and getting a cookie or chips with my sandwich for lunch, I did just get a sandwich. So it’s little things like that that will help out.


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[Elastigirl]

Those little choices make a HUGE difference, because they add up. Hope this week is calm. Did you enjoy your vacation?

[Xena]

Hope the week is smoothing out. Yeah, sometimes with work stress you have to make some allowances just to be able to cope. Over time, I think it gets easier.

[Terra]

Where did you go?

[Xena]

Hope to see you around for the next challenge. Drop a line about this one if you get a chance!