[Rebel Pilot Gar]

Past couple challenges have fallen short due to various chaotic life things. Looking back on past challenges, one thing that served me well was strictly tracking and using that to decide a path forward. So rather than a list of goals, I really only have one simple one - Track.

 

Bullet journal is already set up for the next 5 weeks to track:

• Drinking Water (in Liters)
• Alcohol (# servings)
• Fruits / Veggies (# servings, broken up by Breakfast (1), Lunch (2), Dinner (2))
• Activity (to describe in writing)

 

And.... that's it?

 

Outside of challenge stuff, super excited for Critical Role Campaign 3. Also still watching The Black Dice Society and loving it. Recently discovered Vampire the Masquerade - LA by Night which is also pretty great.

Also apart from simply consuming TTRPG awesomeness, I'm looking to join a D&D 5e campaign with some coworkers. So fingers crossed that works out.

[juliebarkley]

5 hours ago, Rebel Pilot Gar said:

Outside of challenge stuff, super excited for Critical Role Campaign 3. Also still watching The Black Dice Society and loving it. Recently discovered Vampire the Masquerade - LA by Night which is also pretty great.

Also apart from simply consuming TTRPG awesomeness, I'm looking to join a D&D 5e campaign with some coworkers. So fingers crossed that works out.

That is a heckton of D&D!

[Rebel Pilot Gar]

14 hours ago, juliebarkley said:

That is a heckton of D&D!

Hahaha yeah a bit. Most of the time I'm multitasking with the show(s) on -- stationary bike, cleaning the house, knitting, commuting. But I didn't really think about how much of my brain is occupied with D&D outside of working lol

[Rebel Pilot Gar]

Tracker has been made for the upcoming challenge. For accountability of actually filling the darn thing out, I'll aim to post an update 1-2x weekly (at least once!)
 

Spoiler

 

 

[athousandwords]

Gorgeous tracker! 😍  Love the idea of getting back to basics and tracking the most important things. Also, you just reminded me I should go drink some water. 😬

[Rebel Pilot Gar]

Happy Halloween!

Week 1 Progress Update:

Meal Plan for Week 1:

Spoiler

Objective for week 2 is to track and work towards the following improvements vs week 1:

• Increase fruit/veg servings from ~ 2 / day to ~ 3+/day
• Decrease alcohol servings from ~ 3-4 / day to ~ 2-3/day

 

[athousandwords]

Congrats on a good first week! Looks like you're doing well tracking and keeping your water goal afloat! Also I really like that meal plan tracker, especially the "Not Dinner" column!  

 

On 10/31/2021 at 8:34 PM, Rebel Pilot Gar said:

Objective for week 2 is to track and work towards the following improvements vs week 1:

• Increase fruit/veg servings from ~ 2 / day to ~ 3+/day
• Decrease alcohol servings from ~ 3-4 / day to ~ 2-3/day

 

I'm sorry if this is too nosy, but have you considered going cold turkey on the alcohol or having 0 servings on particular days? I ask because I know that when I have 1 drink it tends to snowball into 2-3 or 3-4 more often than I'd like.  Lowered inhibitions and all that. To me, it's easier to just have none than to try to limit myself - everyone is different, of course. I don't know your situation so please do tell me to fuck off if this is a sensitive subject or you don't want unsolicited advice.

[Rebel Pilot Gar]

13 hours ago, athousandwords said:

Congrats on a good first week! Looks like you're doing well tracking and keeping your water goal afloat! Also I really like that meal plan tracker, especially the "Not Dinner" column!  

Thanks! The meal plan thing was an impulse purchase I found at the store. It’s like a giant post-it thing and even has a magnet to hang on the fridge. 
 

13 hours ago, athousandwords said:

I'm sorry if this is too nosy, but have you considered going cold turkey on the alcohol or having 0 servings on particular days? I ask because I know that when I have 1 drink it tends to snowball into 2-3 or 3-4 more often than I'd like.  Lowered inhibitions and all that. To me, it's easier to just have none than to try to limit myself - everyone is different, of course. I don't know your situation so please do tell me to fuck off if this is a sensitive subject or you don't want unsolicited advice.

Not a terribly sensitive subject, so please don’t worry about offending or overstepping. 
 

Looking forward, my ideal week would include alcohol only on Fri, Sat, Sun and the occasional holidays. On weeks when I work night shift I have no problem going cold turkey for that week. But yeah you’re definitely right with how easy 1 turns to ... more than that.

 

Pre-pandemic and even early pandemic I was sticking pretty well with the above but slowly started to become a daily thing again. But yeah maybe it’s just time to choose a day of the week and stick to water / herbal teas and slowly work my way back. 

[athousandwords]

On 11/2/2021 at 10:46 AM, Rebel Pilot Gar said:

Pre-pandemic and even early pandemic I was sticking pretty well with the above but slowly started to become a daily thing again. But yeah maybe it’s just time to choose a day of the week and stick to water / herbal teas and slowly work my way back. 

 

I've had the exact same thing sneak up on me. I don't think I'm reliant on alcohol or using it in a toxic way, but I don't drink soda, so beer or wine just became my default 'I want something that tastes good' drink. I'd find myself having a glass of wine or a beer or more every night and it took some hard snapping out of to force myself to choose a different beverage. Hope you find something that works for you!

[Rebel Pilot Gar]

On 11/3/2021 at 1:33 PM, athousandwords said:

I've had the exact same thing sneak up on me. I don't think I'm reliant on alcohol or using it in a toxic way, but I don't drink soda, so beer or wine just became my default 'I want something that tastes good' drink. I'd find myself having a glass of wine or a beer or more every night and it took some hard snapping out of to force myself to choose a different beverage. Hope you find something that works for you!

Same! I don't drink soda so other than carbonated water, beer and wine are the "something special" indulgence. Except somewhere along the way it became a daily indulgence.

 

Planning to take the rest of the challenge with small changes here and there, but the primary focus will be on tracking. Next challenge will be when I commit towards a goal and measure success based on that.

[Rebel Pilot Gar]

Happy N7 day to any Mass Effect fans! I know I just discovered the series this year but man that story hit me hard.

 

But first - a message from Commander Jameson "Shepherd" to my favorite forum on the Citadel.

And here's the progress update from Week 2:

Bit of a ramble here - been a bit of an emotional week for no apparent reason. I'm thinking the season change is starting to hit me....

Spoiler

Week started out alright. I took a long Halloween weekend so that was nice. In the D&D campaign I'm in we nearly got TPK'd. My character crit-failed her death saves but was resurrected (with a few conditions). That was less-nice. Story-wise it should be fun, but this was closest call to re-rolling a new character since I started playing again earlier this year.

 

I also spent a good chunk of the week at my previous work site for some project meetings. The project is going alright, but this is the site I previously worked at before my current role (all same company). I didn't leave the previous role on good terms. Even though a lot of the people have turned over, just commuting to this spot was surprisingly emotionally tough. Is it possible to have ptsd-like symptoms from just driving to a place?

 

Luckily the weekend picked up. Talked to an old friend - we've both been busy and haven't had a proper chance to catch up for a number of years. It was really nice to catch up and feel like the friendship was just as close as we left it despite living very far from one another now. Caught up on some chores and even did a workout while trying to catch up on the newest CR episodes.

• Water - Not as good. Had a couple days where I worked at a different site from my usual office. Their pandemic rules are a bit different and there's nowhere for me to refill my water bottle. And I'm a stubborn person who strongly dislikes buying/using plastic bottles. Strategy for next time I need to go there -- bring multiple bottles refilled from home.
• Alcohol - Actually did pretty well on this one. Other than Halloween (we partied a bit hard and I had off the next day) and Friday (work stress caught up to me and I went into f&@#-it mode, also had an emotion breakdown on my BF so that was fun)
• Fruits/Veg - Not great. Meal stuff was all over the place - especially the days I was in the alternate office. I need to brainstorm a better strategy for lunches (aka actually bring my lunch). I also need to start eating breakfast -- especially since I've been buying bananas to eat and then promptly ignoring them. Mixing it up with oranges this week - so maybe breakfast will be better.

Bullet Journal Pic:

Spoiler

 

[athousandwords]

*hugs* on the hard week, but it sounds like you're really aware of your stressors and the obstacles that keep you from meeting your goals: water bottles, packing a lunch, that former work place. I feel like half the battle is just acknowledging that stuff so that you can make a battle plan. So well done! Hopefully your next week goes better! 🤗

[Rebel Pilot Gar]

Gotta update my tracker and grab a picture but since we're into the new week, just a quick update.

 

Water was so much better with the plan of multiple water bottles in place.

Fruit & Veggies started off strong - but tapered off during the week because we didn't have a proper "mid-week stress" plan in place and had takeout / leftover takeout 3 nights in a row. To look on the bright side, some highlights:

• Grilled potato / sweet potato wedges. Seriously these are better than french fries/chips. Thinking the weather would be cold, I bought 1 russet and 1 sweet potato with plans to bake them. The weather was actually warm so BF sliced them into wedges, par-boiled and then grilled them into perfection. (He got the russet, I got the sweet potato).
• We roasted broccoli for the first time in a while. And it was really good. BF prefers steamed broccoli to roasted or grilled but I was really happy to change it up a bit.
• Over the weekend we made homemade ramen soup. Including chicken stock completely from scratch (water + chicken wings + seasonings (garlic, ginger, soy sauce). Unfortunately could not find fresh ramen noodles or bok choy, but we made do with some kale for extra veggie-ness.

Alcohol..... I did good during the week. Saturday and Sunday were un-tracked and honestly not great. (probably 5-6 servings each day?) We were home and just hanging out, but yeah, definitely a point to focus on in the next challenge. 

Making executive decision to avoid former work site and just remote work on the project / stay at current office. There's some old drama there adding to existing stressors and because I have the flexibility to avoid it.... I'm gonna take that opportunity this week.

[juliebarkley]

On 11/15/2021 at 8:17 PM, Rebel Pilot Gar said:

Making executive decision to avoid former work site and just remote work on the project / stay at current office. There's some old drama there adding to existing stressors and because I have the flexibility to avoid it.... I'm gonna take that opportunity this week.

Sounds like wisdom and self-care to me.