Darwin's Demon, Curl Brogo, Vincent Van Bro, and Chris Tarly walk into a gym...

[Stronkey Kong]

 

Since it's the 10th anniversary on the forums and we're being all retrospective, I thought I'd go back through all my various stages of development (and name changes) and make a goal based on each.

 

 

No. Not that.

 

This.

 

=================================================================

 

 

Darwin's Demon: This is where I started as a Nerd Fitness Neophyte. It was 2013. I was in the middle of a PhD program trying to get through a dissertation project in Evolutionary Genetics and Genomics (hence, naming myself after the Darwinian Demon concept). I joined NF to combat my bad eating habits and lack of activity as I started gaining weight from too much desk time and convenient, cheap Chinese food and beer. I started with bodyweight workouts and moved onto barbells. I lost about 20 lbs. in the first few months, and made significant (NOOB) progress with the weights.

 

Darwin's Demon was an ambitious, focused, and hardworking NOOB. Which is where I am currently with my yoga practice.

 

=============================================================

 

 

Curl Brogo: After about a year as DD, I fell into the deepest part of my depression phase. My dissertation was progressing poorly, my weight kept yo-yo-ing. I felt like shit about life and kinda threw myself at the gym to feel some sense of progress and victory somewhere in my life. Eventually I pulled a big three (Squat, Bench, and Deadlift) total of 1000 lbs. and morphed into Curl Brogo. Unfortunately, Curl Brogo was fat while that was the strongest I ever was, most of the journey since has been about weight loss.

 

Curl Brogo was an attempt to re-imagine myself as stronger than I really was to survive a difficult time. Right now though, I need to lose the weight that Curl Brogo put on and work on cardio. I want to do a C25K-esque running program in the spring. So for this challenge I'll start with the basic cardio conditioning using kettlebells.

 

 

====================================================================

 

Vincent Van Bro: Remember when I was trying to be an artist? Now I'm all trying to be a writer. Anywho. I've always got to have something creative going on, and since I'm sitting on like 40k words, I need to get back to it.

 

================================================================

 

 

Chris Tarly: Whatever it is I'm doing now. We won't really know what "Chris Tarly" is all about until this phase is over. But for now I know that one of the things that helps with keeping my diet on track most is making my own lunch and bringing it to work, bulk cooking, and planning.

 

===========================================================

 

Okay. Hold on. The retrospective thing is great, but I've decided not to shoehorn my goals into a theme. I have to stick with what's been working.

 

Last challenge, the first of the year, I rebooted with the NF Academy.

 

Old stuff (I'm keeping and continuing from last challenge)

Mindfulness: Do zazen (or yoga) daily

Workout: break a sweat, breath harder, make muscles burn and twitch 3x / week -- kettlebells, NFA bodyweight workouts, barbells... etc.

Stretch: daily, >=10 min

Yoga: counts as mindfulness, a workout, and stretching

Lunch Prep: Bring a healthy lunch, M-F

 

New Stuff:

Writing: Increase the word count daily... that's it. one word counts. At least if I sit down, remember where I am in the plot, and write a single to word to keep bringing my attention back to the novel I started then great.

 

Nerd Fitness Academy Audits: Check my progress on goals at beginning, middle (2-3 weeks in), and end of challenge. Update battle log accordingly.
 

Pre-Spring Cleaning ToDo List:

Clean Bedroom: Clean floor/organize under bed storage, Organize the piles of books, clear out storage bins

Clean Bathroom: The whole thing

Clean office: Organize art supplies in emptied out storage bins, organize more books, increase visible floor space

Clean kitchen: Yes, even behind the stove

Clean Living Room: Tidy Once, Tidy Twice, Tidy up storage shelf

Grading: I'm going to continue to use the "Never skip two in a row" rule, and the three strike system. So for all my goals, I have to do them at the prescribed frequencies. I can skip a day, but if I don't get right back on it the next day/opportunity, I get a strike -- except the NF Academy stuff, I just threw that on here as a reminder. Any undone cleaning ToDo List items will count as strikes at the end of the challenge. I have five weeks and plenty of time on the weekends to do all 11 of these things.

 

Three strikes, and I fail. Simple.

However, If I get a strike, I can also change/alter the goal that gave me the strike. So if I can think of a good reason it might not be working, I can alter the frequency or even change the goal and make this adaptable.

[WolfDreamer]

Oooh, I love this joke...

 

Darwin enters and heads straight for the barbells. He notices the cute blonde girl next to him and says, "Hey beautiful, we should exchange genetic information."

The blonde is not impressed.

 

Curl Brogo runs into the gym as fast as he can. Panting, he rushes to the free weights and does a few ridiculously fast and strong deadlifts as quickly as he can.

“Why are you lifting so fast?” asks a nearby fitness instructor.

“You’d lift fast too, if you had what I have,” says the man.

“Why, what do you have?” asks the instructor.

Curl looks at his watch. “About twelve seconds.”

 

Vincent Van Bro enters the gym, walks up to the girl behind the counter, and asks, “Hey! What are all these lines for?"
The girl replies, “Oh, these are the lines to the different activities. That’s the kick line, that’s the weightlifting line, that’s the squat line, that’s the---“ The girl pauses, looking worried.
Vincent asks, “What’s wrong?”
The girl slowly looks at him and says, “We forgot the punchline!”

 

Chris Tarly enters the gym, takes a deep breath, and smiles. He walks to the cardio room next to the front counter and starts to do some warmup stretches. As starts with some arm circles, he hears a high-pitched voice say, "That shirt looks great on you!”
Chris looks around, doesn’t see anything, and returns to his stretches thinking nothing more of it. But then, a moment later, the voice returns, this time offering, “You seem like a really cool guy!”
Again, Chris looks around, sees nothing, and returns to his warmup, wondering if he should get checked out by a professional. Finally, when he is feeling ready to begin his workout (and he believes the voice is gone), he hears, “I bet your parents are really proud of you!”
He stomps over to the front counter and looks around wildly. Frustrated and finding no possible source of the voice, he calls over the girl behind the counter. He says, “Hey! What’s that voice I keep hearing?”
“Oh, those are the peanuts,” the girl replies, pointing to a glass bowl on the counter. “They’re complimentary.”

 

I'll see myself out... 

 

 

 

For real, though, I haven't been a member here as long as you, but I have known you for a few years now, and I can say that it has been inspiring to see you work through some of the issues you have faced. You have grown and changed during (and sometimes because of) your ups and downs. I'm pretty damn proud of you. 

 

And this right here:

13 hours ago, Chris Tarly said:

I've decided not to shoehorn my goals into a theme. I have to stick with what's been working.

 

just shows how much you have taken ownership of caring for yourself because you know what is working and what is not working. Well done, my friend.

 

As always, I am here for support. Let me know if I can help in any way.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Following along, no matter what your name is or who you are.

[Stronkey Kong]

Daily Scorecard for _______

 

Today I _______

Mindfulness:   days missed. Strikes: 0

Stretching:      days missed. Strikes: 0

Workouts:     /3 for this week. Strikes: 0

Writing:          days missed. Strikes: 0

Lunch Prep:  days missed. Strikes: 0

 

I have...

Clean Bedroom: Clean floor/organize under bed storage, Organize the piles of books, clear out storage bins

Clean Bathroom: The whole thing

Clean office: Organize art supplies in emptied out storage bins, organize more books, increase visible floor space

Clean kitchen: Yes, even behind the stove

Clean Living Room: Tidy Once, Tidy Twice, Tidy up storage shelf1, Tidy up storage shelf2

... left to do.

 

Total strikes: 0

 

[Stronkey Kong]

10 hours ago, WolfDreamer said:

For real, though, I haven't been a member here as long as you, but I have known you for a few years now, and I can say that it has been inspiring to see you work through some of the issues you have faced. You have grown and changed during (and sometimes because of) your ups and downs. I'm pretty damn proud of you. 

 

And this right here:

 

just shows how much you have taken ownership of caring for yourself because you know what is working and what is not working. Well done, my friend.

 

As always, I am here for support. Let me know if I can help in any way.

 

I appreciate this a great deal. Thinking back on things I remember a lot of tough times with regrets and it's good to be reminded of the progress I've made and am making despite those setbacks.

 

6 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Following along, no matter what your name is or who you are.

 

Thanks Tank!

 

Admittedly, upon first reading this, I took it as a challenge. What would I have to do? ...

[nianjufe]

Following along on the progression. How's the level 3 going for NFA?

 

[Harriet]

On 2/11/2020 at 2:02 AM, Chris Tarly said:

Curl Brogo was an attempt to re-imagine myself as stronger than I really was to survive a difficult time.

 

This seems like a legit tactic. Pretty sure it's what keeps me going.

 

On 2/11/2020 at 2:02 AM, Chris Tarly said:

Vincent Van Bro: Remember when I was trying to be an artist? Now I'm all trying to be a writer. Anywho. I've always got to have something creative going on, and since I'm sitting on like 40k words, I need to get back to it.

 

I didn't know you were an artist! I knew that you tried the tablet, because I bought one on your advice, but I don't think you've shown us any pictures. Anyway, good luck with the writing. It's good to have something creative.

[Stronkey Kong]

2 hours ago, nianjufe said:

Following along on the progression. How's the level 3 going for NFA?

 

 

I need audit my progress. I should have leveled up to 4 by now, maybe 5....

 

Unless you mean the workouts... I have been doing yoga exclusively for the last two weeks. And for the two weeks I was doing NF level 3, I never did do the third workout.

 

2 hours ago, Harriet said:

 

I didn't know you were an artist! I knew that you tried the tablet, because I bought one on your advice, but I don't think you've shown us any pictures. Anyway, good luck with the writing. It's good to have something creative.

 

 

Yeah. I don't think I've painted anything since last January. <sigh>

 

But here's a bit what I can do with a tablet:

Rothko's Goldfish



Mastercopy/study of Salvatore Mundi, Leonardo DaVinci



self-portrait

[nianjufe]

22 minutes ago, Chris Tarly said:

I need audit my progress. I should have leveled up to 4 by now, maybe 5....

 

Unless you mean the workouts... I have been doing yoga exclusively for the last two weeks. And for the two weeks I was doing NF level 3, I never did do the third workout.

 

Ah, gotcha...all of the above really. I was curious since I'm working on the NFA as well. I'm not ready to level up to 4 on the workouts yet, but figuring out when to has been hard to judge. 

 

Good luck on leveling up for your workout days! 

 

Also, the tablet sketches are beautiful 👍

[Stronkey Kong]

14 minutes ago, nianjufe said:

 

Ah, gotcha...all of the above really. I was curious since I'm working on the NFA as well. I'm not ready to level up to 4 on the workouts yet, but figuring out when to has been hard to judge. 

 

Good luck on leveling up for your workout days! 

 

Also, the tablet sketches are beautiful 👍

 

Thanks!

 

Just look at the next boss battle and it'll probably give you some decent clues.

[Scaly Freak]

2 hours ago, Chris Tarly said:

But here's a bit what I can do with a tablet:

 

I love the candle picture. Very peaceful. I also like the little details on the wood surface and on the candle stick.

[Harriet]

6 hours ago, Chris Tarly said:

But here's a bit what I can do with a tablet:

 

Amazing! You've got some incredible detail in terms of the light and texture on the goldfish, the wooden bench, the candle, the hair of your portrait, and the hairy spider! I'm loving the details on the candle and the fish in particular. 

[WolfDreamer]

6 hours ago, Chris Tarly said:

I don't think I've painted anything since last January. <sigh>

 

I remember some of the stuff you shared from your Instagram (I think?) when you were Curl Brogo. It was impressive stuff. That tablet work is also really good. You have a good eye for details.

[Stronkey Kong]

I probably should get back into digital art and painting again.

 

 

People need more nightmares... don't they?

[nianjufe]

Teeth for an iris.....*shudders* that's a nice touch.

[Scaly Freak]

9 hours ago, Chris Tarly said:

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

 

 

 

People need more nightmares... don't they?

 

Well, yes. Other people do.

[Snarkyfishguts]

15 hours ago, Chris Tarly said:

I probably should get back into digital art and painting again.

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

 

 

 

People need more nightmares... don't they?

I didn't open the spoiler because you said nightmares and I REALLY WANT TO SLEEP, DUDE.  But yeah, if digital painting gives you joy, you should definitely do it ,because you're awesome at it and then we can swap SECRET TECHNIQUES. LOL.  

[Harriet]

17 hours ago, Chris Tarly said:

I probably should get back into digital art and painting again.

 

People need more nightmares... don't they?

Awesome pics. And I guess my nightmares are preeetty different from yours. 

[miss_marissa]

Loving all the reminiscing going on  

[Stronkey Kong]

Got out the drawing tablet tonight.

 

 

[Harriet]

8 hours ago, Chris Tarly said:

Got out the drawing tablet tonight.

 

Neato! Are you going to join in with Figuary? @Mad Hatter and I could use another accomplice.

[Stronkey Kong]

2 hours ago, Harriet said:

 

Neato! Are you going to join in with Figuary? @Mad Hatter and I could use another accomplice.

 

It'd be good to finish it out in the next couple of weeks. Did you two set up a PvP type thread, or are you just posting on your challenges?

[Harriet]

8 hours ago, Chris Tarly said:

 

It'd be good to finish it out in the next couple of weeks. Did you two set up a PvP type thread, or are you just posting on your challenges?

Nah, we just both said we'd do it. I post pictures sometimes, and we discuss the lessons. I guess we could set up a PVP if we wanted to. I'm thinking of doing a month of self-portraits next or soon... if you wanted to do a PVP we could do... a face off... 

[Scaly Freak]

9 minutes ago, Harriet said:

we could do... a face off... 

 

 

[Mad Hatter]

Join usssss! And definitely keep posting your art, I love seeing what other people are doing!