Getting Fit by Building a Game - Battle Log

[Sarah Barr]

First, here's my rebel introduction!

http://rebellion.nerdfitness.com/index.php?/topic/40419-its-all-just-a-big-game-to-you-isnt-it-you-bet-it-is-and-it-will-be-amazing/
 

I started working on a plot as soon as I got off my computer and sure it needs work, but there are dragons, an evil water cult, booby-trapped tombs, mountains, stone circles and battles with Things That Should Not Have That Much Slime. It's all a bit cliched but that's exactly how I want it.

 

Before I start rambling on about tactics and things I've also come up with, though:

 

Today's food - on track. Discovered artificial sweetener in cupboard. Ignored the rendition of O Fortuna that roared out when I opened it. It was excellent with porridge. Compared to, you know, sand. Dinner will be veggie haggis. (Recipe below.)

 

Today's exercise - on track. I have no bus fare. I'm walking at least 3 miles today.

 

That's that, now for the other fluff, which will only crop up every now and again. 

 

Vegetarian Haggis: 

Preheat oven to 200^oC. Braise a box of chopped mushrooms, a chopped onion, a chopped carrot and a can of kidney beans in a saucepan with a little apple cider vinegar and a heaped tablespoon of gravy granules (check ingredients, Bisto is usually vegetarian) made up quite thick with water. loads of black pepper and some mixed herbs. You can add oil if you want but you don't really have to. When the onion is softish and the mushrooms are getting juicy, take off heat, stick in blender, pulse a few times so you get a reddish brown mush. Add back to pan, add a handful each of porridge oats, oatmeal (very cheap stuff is fine), and chopped mixed nuts. Stir in with a good few glugs of tabasco and a slug of whisky if you have any. Stick it into a casserole dish, cover in tin foil, cook in oven for half an hour. It's filling enough that you can just have this on its own, or accompany with neeps and tatties, or with peri-peri sauce and rice like I tend to do. 

 

 

Quest Ideas:
You're not going to get to know the plot until it's all polished and finished and you play the game, but here are some examples of quests I might use. I started simply translating Guild Wars monsters and quests, but now I have my own plot I can use those things instead. 

 

- Plot point, requiring you to carry an injured person up the side of a huge glacial valley. Take a heavy rucksack with you to somewhere you can see your entire city/town/village from. So, here in Edinburgh, you could climb Arthur's Seat, or hike all the way up the Royal Mile to the castle if you don't think you can quite manage climbing a mountain yet. 

- [exercise routine based around dodging booby traps in a tomb]

- Unite the towns! By the end of this week, you have to have collected one thing each from six places that are a long walk away from you (an hour one way). A pinecone, a bottle cap, a pebble, an IKEA pencil, that kind of thing. Glue them together. Huzzah.

 

 

 

Oh oops, I spent an hour on this. I should do stuff.

 

Good luck with your things today! 
 

 

 

 

 

[Sarah Barr]

I earned a gold star yesterday! Happy. I highly recommend buying some cheap gold star stickers. 

Legs are sore from 3 mile walk through town, it's reassuring but I'm looking forward to them being well-exercised enough to not hurt. 
 

Food: On track. Kind of. No milk so I'm having protein and smoothie for breakfast instead of porridge, so I need to remember to eat enough at lunch.

 

Exercise: On track. Doing a bodyweight workout today, and spent ages last night trawling through the Nerd Fitness free resources and the health and sport archives on the Art Of Manliness and now I finally know how to eventually do a real push up. If I had room I'd build that interesting PVC pipe bodyweight gym. And then probably use it to dry laundry.

 

Game: Going to aim to design a little set of cards by the weekend or end thereof, with monsters (featuring pics and descriptions and the way you defeat them) so you can pick one at random. Also going to do a rudimentary chart design - I have a board with dates and spaces for gold stars and body measurements, but a Kingdom Map with a route on it, and big green ticks you can stick on the areas you've completed would be fun!

I'm not going to get the chance to play the game for a while I think, but the healthy diet and exercise isn't a routine yet anyway so that's probably a good thing.
I've got some people in my local Sci Fi Society interested so I'm going to pick their brains about it on Thursday pub night.

 

My friend, who made a buddying-up pact with me, is having a panicky flap about a horrible report due on Thursday. Understandable that she can't face spending 20 minutes cooking and spends 2 minutes ordering takeaway instead but I'm not sure how to motivate her to earn her own gold stars (she's on the star board too) beyond "a ten minute break and going for a walk would help you de-stress!". Any advice? 

 

Have a good day and good luck!

[Sarah Barr]

Today has been awesome!

I've been unemployed for a year and a half and I got a JOB TODAY! I start on Monday and I'm really excited! I've been doing work experience in the office I've got a JOB in for the past week so I already kind of know what I'm doing! It's VAT returns so far so my eyes hate MS Excel already but EEEEEEE!

(And I earned my gold star yesterday. Yay!)

Food: On track. Even with a celebratory candy cane. Actually I'm only on 1228kcal so I need to eat another 272kcal before bed or I don't get a gold star.

 

Exercise: On track. About to do a bodyweight workout. Thighs getting less sore.

 

Game: My boss arrived an hour later than we arranged to meet at work for my JOB today so when my laptop's duff battery ran out as I worked in the hallway I had half an hour to list all the things I want to make for game. I want the world map to have tiny magnets dotted along it so you don't have to pin/stick your little character onto it to show where you are, but if I go down that route then you get into things like "oh but then the board should be an actual board and not just a bit of paper" and that way leads to actually having to charge people and it WILL be free. 

 

I'm going to go spend my last couple of hundred calories on RUM because I GOT A JOOOOOOB! Yay!

 

Have a lovely whatever the time of day is where you are!
 

Everything's going so well!

[Sarah Barr]

HONK

 

Ah, that fun moment where you casually get told that the work that you know is going to take you at least a couple more days and never got given a deadline for is for TOMORROW MORNING. 

So no game planning for me today.

But also no comfort eating, I'm proud. Could really go for a big block of chocolate and a bottle of wine today. But I bought soup instead.

 

Food: On track. Just. Was heavy-handed with some oil but will hang my measuring spoons off the oil bottle.

 

Exercise: Ha, I was supposed to make the brief walk to the society meeting I can't make tonight because I haven't time. It would be a rest day today but it saves bus money to walk. I feel no guilt in taking a gold star anyway because I have a flat inspection tomorrow and spent this morning before work cleaning like my life depended on it.

 

Tomorrow is the opening day of the Edinburgh Christmas Market on Princes Street and there are shiny lights. I'm excited. It's a tradition of mine every year to get kaesespaetzle and a mug of mulled mead at the market with friends so I have to be very strict on myself at lunch and breakfast so I don't go over my calorie limit. So worth it though, that stuff is wonderful. Here is a video of a human child telling you how to make it.

 

Aaaagh I must work! Farewell!

 

(Haveagoodday)

[Sarah Barr]

Finally finished working at midnight last night. Today got a bit derailed by exhaustion and work and celebrating finally coming off benefits by having a takeaway (Vegetable korma. Was delicious.) but my boyfriend and I split the set meal for "one" to make it less awful. Still feel like I might explode at any moment. No gold star today, am sad.

 

Food and Exercise: Not on track. 

I will however make up for this tomorrow, which was scheduled as a rest day but will now be rescheduled as a "make the friend who said she would buddy you through this do exercise with you!" day. She's going to love me. And Jillian Michaels. It's going to be a surprise.

 

Game: Well now I actually have time to do this. \o/

 

Blorp.

 

I just tried to wish you a good day and accidentally typed food. 

 

I think that entirely sums up my day.

[Sarah Barr]

Hi! 

Game is slowly getting there! Trying to create new creatures is hard - my default setting is to just stick tentacles on regular animals. The main villains in the game are a group of water cultists, so mutating the local fauna to make it slimy and whatnot seems like a good way to go. 

Completely underestimated the amount of free time I'd have this past week, hence the lack of those printables I promised. Sorreh.

 

(Eugh, I just found a bug on my computer. Not a computer bug - an actual, crushed, dead invertebrate. Think it was a staphylinus beetle.)

 

Meant to be going walking tomorrow, I should remind my friend - who, incidentally, convinced me to buy a Christmas biscuit selection so diet failed today, as did exercise as my cold's getting worse and I can't face doing anything. 

I think when I feel properly better I might do a bit of a kickstart - switch to protein shakes as meal replacements for a couple of days to try and reboot the system.

 

Anyway, back to drawing! it's all a bit Jim Henson in my sketchbook at the moment. In a Labyrinth way, not so much a Muppets way.

 

o/

[Sarah Barr]

Argh!

I've only lost two pounds! 

I'm doing something fundamentally wrong here. Two pounds is still two whole pounds but I was hoping it'd be a little more.
 

To be fair, I've only been going on my gold star chart for a week, but I'm still frustrated.

 

Identified some problems:

 

1) I don't shop until after I've run out of healthy food, usually meaning I end up eating a mound of pesto pasta before I get round to going to the shops.

 

2) If you're like me, the buddy system does not work if your buddy keeps making excuses, because then you also make excuses like "she's eating junk and we're doing this together and I can't convince her to not eat junk so let's buy ready meals and christmassy biscuits and have a nice time" which doesn't get you anywhere. I either need a new buddy, no buddy or the ability to turn into an Army drill sergeant at my current buddy (might ask about that in the forums somewhere).

 

3) Even if I have a set calorie min/max and a big piece of paper on your wall with what you're meant to eat today on it, I should still keep a food log, so I'll feel guilty about the prospect of writing down "massive slab of lasagne and a Christmas tree shaped cupcake" and buy some healthy food instead.

 

4) I need to find a way to exercise without freezing my face off (so I actually do it) - walking home from work leaves me with sore ears from the cold despite my ridiculous, flappy, furry hat and it is so cold in my flat that I can see my breath when I drink tea. There are health clubs in the same building complexes as two cinemas near me, I might join them when I can spare £40 a month but I lived practically next to a gym last year and rarely went because it was up 4 flights of stairs and a hill (and because it was a packed student gym... and because I'm lazy). Maybe I should just try and heat my flat.

 

Did some walking today, and bought decent food for dinner (it will be pretend dead cow with rice, bell pepper, mushrooms and peri-peri sauce) so everything's on track again! I did have Christmas biscuits instead of porridge for breakfast though. 

 

Main things I've learned for my future reference: Shop regularly, write stuff down, put on fan heater, pretend you have no buddy until you get buddy system sorted.

 

Game: Going to spend afternoon working on ideas for side quests so as not to get bogged down by trying to create original monsters. The monsters can come after they have quests to be part of. 

 

Have a good day! 

[Sarah Barr]

Right, food and exercise diary: entry one!

 

Food

Five christmassy biscuits because I still haven't hidden or given away the biscuits - 5 * 69kcal = 345kcal

Pumpkin and cheddar soup = 295kcal

Milk, in various cups of tea = 200kcal

50g serving of Nando's medium spice marinade = 96kcal/2 = 48kcal

1 Quorn peppered steak = 123kcal

1/2 pack mexican style microwave rice = 146kcal

4 large open cup mushrooms = 4 x 5kcal = 20kcal

1/2 can chopped tomatoes = 22kcal *2 = 44kcal

1/4 yellow bell pepper = 50kcal/4 = 12.5kcal

10 scoots Fry Light spray oil = 10kcal

 

 = 1243.5kcal

 

 

Exercise:

Walk to supermarket and back - 1 mile

1 set of beginner bodyweight workout (I'm still ill)

 

 

Hey, I can have another biscuit!

 

I should probably log protein grams. When I can get hold of some heavy things to lift that aren't my glass homebrewing demijohns I plan on lifting them lots and I want to build muscle mass, so if I get into the habit of doing it now it'll be easier when I start lifting. 

 

I should stop procrastinating and get back to working on the game's training level now!

 

o/

[Kaylya]

Was that 2 pounds in a week? Most sources suggest that it's best to lose no more than 2lbs per week (as a long term trend at least, it probably will happen that you'll have some weeks where you lose a lot more), so 2lbs is great

 

What's the difference between porridge oats and oatmeal? Is one of them rolled oats and one of them steel cut (that needs like 20+ minutes to cook?)

[Sarah Barr]

Hi! 

 

It was since the 5th of November, which is why I'm a bit grumpy about it, but I know I shouldn't be. Hoping to get it to a steady 2lbs a week soon! 

 

By porridge oats I mean just regular, cheap rolled oats, with oatmeal being the ground up stuff with about the same particle size as quinoa. For the haggis recipe, you can always use rolled oats in place of two kinds of oats, it'll just come out a little coarser!

[Sarah Barr]

Hyarrgh!

 

(mighty arm posing, etc.)

 

It felt very good putting another gold star on my board after two days of failing to earn one and I am determined to earn one today.

 

 

Food Today:

 

- Porridge oats and milk - 460kcal

- Sugarfree energy drink - 9kcal (this one's sweetened with sucralose and not aspartame and whatnot so I feel better having that)

- Vegetarian sushi - 250kcal

- Christmassy biscuit (just the one, for once) - 69kcal

- 1/2 jar Dolmio low fat bolognese sauce - 45kcal

- 1/4 pack frozen Quorn mince - 79kcal

- 30g extra mature cheddar cheese - 117kcal

- 75g fusilli pasta - 264kcal

 

= 1193kcal

 

Which is too low so I will throw in the fruit smoothie and protein powder I forgot to take to work with me, which will be 123kcal+ 111kcal coming to a total of...

 

= 1427kcal

 

Which will do. I may eat another biscuit.

 

 

Exercise Today:

 

I crawled straight into bed after work because it is so cold in here, but when I work up the courage to turn the fan heater on and it gets warmish I'll do as much of the bodyweight workout as I can - I've never been able to do three sets but I wasn't completely dead after two last time, so I might get as far as the third plank.

 

 

Game:

 

Today I bought a new A3 sketchpad and will be trying to sketch out some drafts of a world map. Worked on the ideas behind the training level yesterday - it'll be about figuring out your level of fitness, working out what your fitness goals are - which will determine what path in the game you take (weight loss, weight gain, building endurance, building strength, etc.) - and hopefully becoming emotionally attached to your new NPC family enough to make you want to do squats... 

 

I also thought about the cards that show quests and side quests for each path. I really want to get hold of some experts on specific subjects like some form of martial art, particularly the people who teach medieval swordfighting near me, but I have a feeling that way leads to liabilities and accidents. I do want to get hold of a qualified fitness instructor and a dietitian to help me make sure everything is safe and clear. I can't really pay them in money because I have about £50 to last me till... Jaaanuary, so that might be tricky. 

 

Anyway, back to work!

 

o/

[Sarah Barr]

Hello!

 

The Kasespaetzle stand in the Christmas market isn't THERE this year! I'm horrified! My spare tyre isn't.

 

Food Today:

Cheese and onion pastry because I am an idiot who forgot breakfast: 400kcal

Vegetarian Sushi: 250kcal

Fruit salad: 90kcal

Energy drink: 9kcal

Fruit smoothie: 120kcal

30g Protein Powder, in smoothie: 111kcal

Vegetarian Scampi: 216kcal

Half bag instant wholegrain rice: 164kcal

Sweet chilli sauce: 20kcal

Half an avocado: 160kcal (110 more than I thought it'd be, yeep.)

1/4 Bell Pepper: 12.5kcal

2 Christmassy biscuits (they're nearly gone, honest): 69*2 = 138kcal

 

=1690.5 kcal

 

I thought "ah crap" just then but then I referred to my rebel (re)introduction (which I linked there so I remember to refer to it more) and oh, my upper limit is 1800kcal. I have a chart on my wall which says my limits are 1200-1600kcal. That's too low, but I think 1500-1700 is good for me, personally. 1800 might be a bit high for my basal metabolic rate. 

So yay!

 

 

Exercise Today:

So that I can afford to go to work, the last thing my Jobseeker's Advisor did before she signed me off as having a JERB she gave me a voucher for a month long unlimited use bus pass. Therefore it's difficult motivating myself to walk home from work, esp. when it's cold and miserable. My friend is sick, and she's a fair walk but not that far from my work, so I walked to hers and decided to get the bus home for the last 2 miles. But then I walked home from hers too, so woot. The trick was to say "wait until you get to the next area of town then see how you feel" and it was fine. Knowing I could grab the bus at any time made it easier. 

God that was boring, sorry! 

 

Game Today:

I worked on mini quests during downtime at work. I tried to redesign dragons last night. I took a spinosaur skull, bulked out the jawbone horizontally, then tried to reconcile that with a seal skull, with very mammalian dentition including carnassials, and a smaller brain case. Very large muscle anchor points around the neck and jaw. Great big masseters. Sunken in eye sockets, slit-pupilled, catlike eyes and sealable nostrils. I kind of just made a longer snouted leopard seal, but sometimes when I look at the picture I drew it scares the bejeebus out of me so I did something right. I scare easily, especially since I just watched Blackfish (which broke my heart and freaked me RIGHT OUT in equal, very large measures).

 

Anyway, I have a date. It's with my boyfriend, the attire is pyjamas with blobs of cough syrup on them and we are going to watch Father Ted while he dozes and I cough like I'm trying to expel swamp demons from my lungs. So it's not really a date as much as it is being ill in bed and watching TV. But we made a plan!

 

o/

[Sarah Barr]

Meep.

 

I got given a big box full of receipts to sort through and only about 1/7th are in English, so my brain has kind of melted today. "Recepit" no longer appears to be a real word and my brain keeps telling me the name of today is spelled Woadenfiddle. Despite this, I'm beginning to feel less knackered after work! 

 

Food Today:

Cheese and onion rolls because DANGIT I fell asleep after my alarm again and had to buy breakfast: 400kcal

Veggie sushi: 250kcal

Smoothie and protein pdr.: 231kcal

Fruit salad: 85kcal

Energy drink: 9kcal

Cheese: 60kcal

Vegetable soup: 108kcal

Wholemeal roll: 150kcal

Quorn burger: 164kcal

Cranberry sauce: 20kcal

= 

Ooh, it's tense, I bought a beer and my chance of drinking it today depends entirely on this figure...

= 1477kcal!

 

And a bottle of Hobgoblin is 160kcal, making that...

= 1637kcal! Huzzah!

 

BUT I cannot drink it yet. It will be my reward for doing the bodyweight workout today for my daily dose of exercise.

 

I haven't had the chance to do any game work today, but I intend to come up with my personal rewards list. I've got 11 gold stars not including today, so I can spend £11 on a fun thing. I'm going to keep banking it though, I'm saving up for weights.

 

Realised why this 16-serving protein powder tub was lasting so long. I've only been using one scoop per drink. Eh, it staves off the munchies and I can't afford to buy a whole tub every two weeks anyway unless I started using them as meal replacements. I'm going to work out my protein grams for today to get an estimate of how much more I'd want once I have heavyish weights...

...So not bothering with the fruit salad or soup or stuff that is clearly not protein rich, I'm on 36.7g today. That's much lower than I thought, and 15g of that is protein powder, so maybe I should up it a bit when I start strength training.

 

 

Okay, going to put heater on and exercise then drink my BEEEER.

 

o/

[Sarah Barr]

Recepit. Receipt!

 

...

 

Crebit.

 

...

 

Dedit?

 

*cough*

[Sarah Barr]

Hoolloo,

 

Food Today:

Porridge: 360kcal

Milk in tea and porridge: 50kcal

Energy drink: 9kcal

Goats' cheese paninininini: 413kcal (healthy vegetarian lunches in coffee shops are hard unless you can put up with just fruit salad)

Innocent chilli veg pot: 324kcal

30g extra mature cheddar: 117kcal

Smoothie with protein powder: 231kcal

Quorn burger: 164kcal

Bread roll: 120kcal

 

= 1788kcal

 

A bit over, but then I am still counting my half-serving of protein powder as a full serving so it's only about 1720kcal, really.

 

 

Was supposed to walk to the sci-fi society thing tonight, but then I would be waiting for other people to show up for two hours so I'm going to try some isometric exercises today!

 

Working out art style and ideas for icons for game today. Maybe I should make a to-do list so I don't just wander about aimlessly.

 

o/

[Sarah Barr]

No gold star yesterday. Suffice to say there was a party and I had a bottle of rose wine and there were also vegetable pakora and over 2000kcal. And no exercise. 

My head. Oh god.

 

Mercifully today is marked "rest" so I don't have to exercise today, but if I'm alive by this evening I will do a workout. A friend I haven't seen in ages is here so I might walk home from the train station when she goes home. 

 

Hmm, I should get out of bed.

 

Must get star today. MUST.

[Sarah Barr]

Got gold star on the 30th!

Must have caught a cold, because I had one over the TOP of the horrible cough I've now had for 5 weeks and was subsequently bedridden on the 1st and 2nd. I put hearts on my char on very sick days, denoting an understanding that exercise is not feasible (considering consciousness is only just about around) and that cooking anything more difficult than a pot noodle is horrible. 

Today I got back on track though!

Kinda.

 

Food today:

Soup: 300kcal

Pastry: 400kcal

Energy drink: 9kcal

Three small tortillas: 94*3 = 282kcal

Quorn pieces: 89kcal

Oil: 50kcal

seasoning: 30kcal

Mushrooms and peppers: 25kcal

Pistachios: 159kcal

Olives: 230kcal

Oil in olives: 119kcal

Naked cocoa delight bar: 135kcal

 

= 1828kcal

 

Eh, not great but only a bit over and I didn't get home till 7 tonight so I was about ready to chew someone's arm off, hence all the olives and nuts. 

Actually there were a good six caramel digestives too, now I think about it...

 

Make that.... 81*6 = 486, +1828 = 2314...

Bugger.

I bought the biscuits while sick. I blame that.

I ate them while almost well so I blame me for that.

They're gone now, anyway.

 

Must find way to not get to arm chewing stage. I love graze boxes but they're pretty expensive and I can't afford a daily one. 

What I should do is remember to take a protein shake with me every day, and something to nibble on. I bought olives, pistachios and mixed fruit and nuts today with a mind to portion them up and pick at them in the afternoons. The olives are, er, nearly, er, gone. The pistachios are just roasted and not also salted so I managed to leave them more alone. 

Oh look, I signed up for graze boxes. One a week is fine, right?

(BTW, if you're in the UK and know what a graze box is, then here is a code: FNZJ7X1TP. It gets the first four people who use it money off or something, and if you're actually reading my daily battle log then hey, you count as a friend in my book. Also my meatspace friends already get them or have tried them so you should make use of it! Doesn't work if you're the 5th person or later, sorry.)

 

I don;t mean to do product placement, I just find them handy. If I could buy the ingredients to make them and ration them out myself without spending a fortune and also eating a 500g bag of pistachios in one sitting, I would just make them myself. 

 

Maybe I could buy those very tiny tubs my flatmate has, make the boxes up and keep them in storage or something...

 

Oh!

Exercise today:

- Walked halfway home (it started raining and my laptop was in my bag so I bussed)

- Tried out isometric exercises while I was waiting for hair dye to work (was impeded by hair dye threatening to go everywhere but I feel it in my quads!)

 

I don't think I can honestly give myself a gold star today because of all the biscuits. Don't want to devalue my system!

 

Been too sick to think about game and had no time tonight, hoping to get a chance soon because I have a big Master Checklist now and I want to be able to tick things off!

 

I'm going to sleep now. Goodnight! 

[Sarah Barr]

Yesterday was not great, because I need to get into the habit of getting up earlier and making my own breakfast and lunch instead of spending too much every day on pastry based shenanigans in Sainsbury's. And I got convinced to go to the pub and my boyfriend kindly bought me drinks.

I will turn into a pasty one day if this goes on.

 

Food yesterday:

Quorn pasty... for breakfast... 410kcal

Moroccan couscous... also for breakfast... 195kcal

Pannini: 413kcal

Tortilla chips: Approx. 300kcal

Sour cream: 60kcal

Guacamole: 50kcal

Salsa: 25kcal

Cheese: 200kcal

Bean chilli: 360kcal

2 glasses orange juice: 224kcal

6 shots vodka: 56*6 = 336 kcal

 

= 2573kcal

 

So I've basically reverted to my pre-attempt diet. Great. 

I did exercise yesterday, I walked from work to the pub. It was about half a mile. 

 

Today I throw down the gauntlet and say I am not allowed more than 1500kcal today, even though there is a party on tonight at my flat.

 

I have currently had:

 

A quorn pasty again: 410kcal

Half a pot of olives: 75kcal

 

which comes to 485kcal and gives me 1115 to play with. 

Let's plan this mother.

Lunch: I was planning on going to the christmas market outside and getting crepes and cheese. No. No we will not, precious. We will have:

A fruit smoothie: 123kcal

The rest of the olives: 75kcal

and when we get arm gnawingly hungry in the afternoon, we have pistachios in our bag, precious, yes.

And they are 161kcal, precious.

And a delicious chocolate and fruit bar at 135kcal. 

 

*cough*

 

That'll leave me with 621kcal left.

 

Then I can have:

 

Fish-free scampi at 216kcal

Half a pack of rice at 146kcal

Some sweet chilli sauce at 103kcal

 

Which leaves me with 156kcal.

I can spend that on one beer at the party and two litres of diet Irn Bru which I will at least pretend has vodka in it.

 

Planning is good.

I can do dis, sarge.

I like Detritus. 

 

Anyway. I should be working. Bye!

[Sarah Barr]

I nearly stuck to it!

I was tired and grumpy because paperwork is horrible and I had an extra cheese sandwich yesterday. I swapped the beer for a crumpet with nutella. So with 117 for cheese and 250 for bread I got 1867kcal. Not perfect, but much better.

 

Today so far:

 

two crumpets (196kcal) 

with cheese (117kcal)

and some weird lime doritos left over from party (149kcal)

and 40kcal for tea milk comes to: 502kcal.

 

I have the time to cook today. The vegetables I bought for chilli a while ago are pretty past it. I should go shopping! 

 

I am particularly excited about the free time I have this merry Saturday for game making! I've been sketching levels, starting with your village. It's a little hill fort. 

Going to work on the nearest town next. It's giving me more of a feel for things that could happen in them. I'm considering starting a thread somewhere to give the plot and discuss ideas for quests, but I also like keeping it secret. Hm.

 

Time to go do things! o/

[Sarah Barr]

AAARGH I just deleted tonnes of text I just typed. Pressed backspace and didn't realise I wasn't in the text window any more.

Grumble.

So I forgot to have lunch which means that despite a trip to Starbucks I've come in at 1516kcal today! Yay! There will be additional calories in the form of some sugarfree red bull at about 8.5kcal a can but eh. I did Christmas shopping today instead of food shopping because I'm an idiot, but that means I have walked lots today so I have done exercise and I get a gold star! Wooo!

Noticed when I was typing out my full food diary for today and reading over my battle log that MAN, I eat too many bread products. Naught wrong with bread in moderate doses but it should not pair up with cheese to form the two main things I eat. Bad. Need protein and veg.

I spend far too much on pastry products and fizz when I am buying lunch at work. So, I might as well spend far too much (which actually works out at about 50p less than the pastry and fizz) on an innocent veg pot a day. 

 

So here is a new plan: 

 

B/fast: I never wake up in time to porridge, but putting some protein powder in a shaker with some smoothie and shoogling it about takes 20 seconds so that is doable and I should do it.

 

Lunch: Fruit smoothie, nuts, olives, cereal bar. Doesn't need to cost much if I'm clever with portioning and use jars of olives instead of refrigerated packs. I am going to stop taking my purse to work, then I can't go buy crap.

 

Dinner: innocent veg pot; soup; or quorn with a little sauce (marinade or curry paste rather than half a jar of korma) and rice. 

 

Revelation! You can put protein powder into hot things! I thought it'd all denature! But yay! I can put it in soup and get many plenty protein.

 

But now I am a fancy lady with a job I can afford to do this. And I have enough hemp protein to last me for ages so I should make good use of it.

 

I went to starbucks for the express reason of plonking myself down and game-writing, and now I have another sketch map and there ended up being a dam on it, and the potential for a weird storyline involving resurrecting a terrifying lake monster by breaking the dam and flooding an old lake-bed or something.

Lots of glaciated landscapes in this game.

 

I'm meant to weigh myself in five days, and I'm nervous because it hasn't gone well for me recently. Going to be very, very strict with myself for a while.

 

Wish me luck! Good luck doing whatever you're doing today!

[Sarah Barr]

AW YISS! Am down to 16 stone on the dot! Huzzah! 

 

First day of kicking things up a notch. 

 

Not sure how I'm going to ramp up the exercise. I think it would be best to just actually DO the exercise. Today is Sunday. I am scheduled to walk round the park with my friend, who is not here. It is also cold. Think I'll find some isometric workout routine and do that. Ha, found one. Have not seen more than the first second, hope it's good. Then I am tempted to look up some form of dance.  

 

Bye!

[Sarah Barr]

Hallo!

 

Food for yesterday:

- Agh! I can't remember! Foolish child!

- Er...

- I did lots of cooking...

- Ah, yes:

 

- Fruit smoothie and protein pdr: 231kcal

- homemade vegetable chilli - 200kcal

- half pack rice - 164kcal

- Vegetable and barley stew - 500kcal

- weird lime tortilla chips - 300kcal

- a slice of margherita pizza - 285kcal

- olives - 75kcal

- pistachios - 161kcal

 

Total: 1916kcal

Grumble.

The barley stew is a total overestimate since it includes 100-200kcal of veggie sausages which I did not get in my portion. Also grumble.

So it's maybe 1800kcal, which is actually fine.

 

Today's Food Diary:

 

- smoothie and protein - 231kcal

- large crepe - about 200kcal

- cheese, in crepe - also about 200kcal

- innocent mexican veg pot - 325kcal

- Energy drink - 9kcal

And tonight there will be - 

- homemade chilli - 200kcal

- half pack rice - 164kcal

 

Coming to 1329kcal

Which means I can pick at the graze box which may have arrived for me! 

 

I'm picking up weights tonight after work. Trying to get them on the bus will be interesting. Esp. if I can't lift them. And esp. since I have to walk a fair distance to get to the bus. 

Heh.

 

Back to WORK, filthy procrastinator!

 

o/

[Sarah Barr]

So there was... that plus...

 

Olives - 130kcal

Pistachios - 104kcal

Brownie - 110 *2/3 = 74kcal

Soy rice crackers and sweet chilli sauce - 84kcal

Cheeeeese - 117kcal

 

= 1329 + that = 1838 kcal.

 

That'll do! Not buying that crepe again. Alright, but lots of calories for something so small and uninteresting and also £4.50. Bah.

 

My hands proper hurt, the weights were given to me in a bag with rough braided handles. Ooft. Was so happy when I saw the bus that goes past my house drive past while I was waiting to collect them. Thought I was going to have to walk streets away to get the bus I thought was the only one up that way.

Going to assemble them now!

 

*klonk*

*crash*

AAAH

*clatter*

*boing*

MEOW!

*dustbin lid noises*

 

Okay, I see! I was worried for a moment because I thought you had to put all the weight discs on the handle at once but you don't. The end cappers are 1.8kg each so each dumbbell is a minimum of 3.6kg. That's not quite twice as much as the ones I've been using. The handles are fairly susbtantial on their own to be honest, so actually it's probably 4kg per dumbbell minimum. 

Nice wide handles. 

Yay, I'm so happy! They were freeee! And properly freeeee, because I have a bus pass that I didn't have to pay for! Ha!

Ow, I think I friction-burned the skin off the inside of my ring-finger knuckles with that flaming bag.

 

I should use these!

Let us see how many hammer curls I can do to failure.

None! Because I'm sitting down.

So I did OHPs instead. But was watching TV so I lost count. 

Got through an advert break though!

 

Whisperwhisper. A flying fantasy of mine is to go to Antarctica to film and study the Colossal Squid. I categorically cannot unless I am at the peak of physical fitness. I don't think I could ever actually face leaving my friends and family and living somewhere with no greenery and bitter cold for 18 months at a time but I do want to do sledge based workouts when it gets snowy. 

 

Going to do things with dumbbells more now. 

 

Have a good evening!

[Sarah Barr]

Aaaaarms, ow.

 

Heh.

 

Food today: 

 

Smoothie and protein - 231kcal

Cheese and onion rolls (i was cranky as hell yesterday without solid food, today was better) - 400kcal

Fruit salad - 85kcal

Energy drink - 9kcal (maybe should cut down on these. I could get free tea in the kitchen and I don't bother. This is lower in calories and higher in (synthetic) vitamins, so it's tricky.)

Baked potato - 223kcal

Baked beans - 239kcal

= 1187

Plus dinner which will be... 

Sausage and barley stew - 250+125kcal = 375kcal (I portioned it up too small, but not small enough to be half portions so I'm going to split 3 tubs between two people tonight)

 

= 1562kcal

 

I'm going to do the beginner bodyweight workout with something much closer to the recommended weight for the weights today! I am reasonably excited. 

Been thinking about exercise I could do with a sledge. It currently consists of just pulling my friend about and barking in the snow like an eejit for fifteen minutes. That works, right?

 

Ugh, back to filing. 

Snooze.

 

o/

[Sarah Barr]

Oh, and I know it's been ages since I posted anything about game building which must seem very misleading for everyone who clicks on this to find out about the game. Sorry. I haven't had much time to work on it, because I really only manage to work on it in coffee shops where there are no friends or internet to distract me, and I don't have time during my lunch break to faff about, and if I go after work, then it's really late when I get home so I don't work out because if I work out late at night I don't sleep. I could go home, work out, then go to a coffee shop, but they're usually closed by then. 

I cooooould go to a pub. 

And drink.

Alone.

By myself.

Hmm.

(Children of Bodom's cover of Sleeping in my Car just came on and everything seems a bit less dismal. Pub sounds like a plan!)

So I will do game updates sooooon!