Sky is the limit.

[Skigh]

I have been gaining weight steadily for sometime now and I am trying this to hold myself accountable to live healthy and change directions overall in my life.

 

I'm 29 years old this month and I have been married for 3 years. I have been floating through life quite happily but never really driven to make sure I'm taking care of myself and keep myself fit. Up until the last few years I have maintained a weight of ~180-190 lbs. After some time of not watching what I eat and not exercising as much as I should I'm now pushing 220.

 

I've always wished I was around 160 lbs. My ideal self image has been an agile guy. Its been well over a decade since I've been that weight, so I'm not sure what my build will actually be at that weight. But when I reach that goal I expect I'll be happy with however I will look.

 

I've always been into video games. At times in my life I have definitely given more time to that hobby than anyone ought to. But it could be worse. I do enjoy my time outside not in front of a screen. Mountain biking is my favorite past time. I've been known to spend time hiking, camping, playing ultimate frisbee, basketball, or football.

 

Goals to support my Main Quest: These are the things I hope to accomplish during this challenge to begin my journey towards a weight of 160 lbs.

 

Goal #1: Estabilsh an active lifestyle

If I'm going to lose weight I need to be active more often than not. I need to take time out of each day to promote active an active lifestyle and develop good habits. A walk, or exercise. Anything that gets me outside and active counts. For this challenge I'll start small and work my way up.

A: 5 days a week with physical activity

B: 4 days a week with physical activity

C: 3 days a week with physical activity

D: 2 days a week with physical activity

E: 1 days a week with physical activity

 

Goal #2: Exercise

While it may be better than nothing, going for a walk around the block every day won't take me to victory in my quest. While this will support my 1^st goal I need to make sure I'm working out and burning the fat.

A: 3 Hours of exercise per week

B: 2.5 hours of exercise per week

C: 2 Hours of exercise per week

D: 1.5 hours of exercise per week

E: 1 Hour of exercise per week

 

Goal #3: Good food

Like I said, I give in to cheap food often. Its lazy and not healthy at all. (Since it is in direct opposition to my quest I will use the term “evilâ€.) I need to pass on the fast food. If the wife insists on a fast food restaurant for dinner, I need to choose a vegetarian salad and not succumb to the dark side.

A: 0 meals of horrible food in a week.

B: 1 meal of evil food in a week

C: 2 meals of evil food in a week

D: 3 meals of evil food in a week

E: 4 meals of evil food in a week

 

Life Quest: Complete a demo reel.

A little more history on me. I've always been interested in 3D animation and visual effects. My older brother studied 3D animation (in the broad sense of the term) and I haven't found anything else that I feel I would love doing for 40+ hours a week for the rest of my life. I eventually attended an online character animation school and my dream career is in that industry. Movies, games, whatever. I finished that school in 2011 and haven't put enough personal effort into pursuing that career since. It needs to happen. And it won't until I actually have something to show.

[Life quest adjustment: 1/22/2014]

I am now going to grade myself beginning this week on how much animation I do. If I animate a minimum of 1 hour per day I will move leaps and bounds towards finishing my demo reel.

A: 6 hours of animating

B: 5 Hours of animating

C: 4 hours of animating

D: 3 hours of animating

E: 2 hours of animating

 

Side Quest: Cut back on the video games

I'm not crazy addicted to video games. But I'm not proud of how much I've been playing lately. If I'm doing everything in my quest that should naturally cut back on my time for games. But I still want to make note of this goal. 9 hours a week is more than enough time to play games. So that will be my goal to stay under for this challenge.

 

My motivation: My long lasting health and happiness. My mother's family has a bad record against cancer. Ever since she passed away in 2011 it has weighed on my mind that I need to alter my lifestyle so my body can be as prepared as it can be if that fight ever comes my way. I hope to live a long life with my family and the longer I delay living a healthy lifestyle, the harder it will be to achieve.  

[Determined]

Good luck - that video game thing can be hard to break. But use it as a reward. If you meet your fitness number for the day (walking, working out, whatever), then reward yourself with the gaming.

[Skigh]

Day 1!

Not all that spectacular but the journey started. I did okay on food. I had a buffalo chicken wrap with a side of fries for lunch, but didn't finish the fries. Some tortilla soup from Costco for dinner. All night after work I kept telling myself to do some simple exercises at home but it wasn't happening. Around 9:00 p.m. my wife told me she wanted some ice cream. I took the opportunity to tell her we can go only if we walk. So I did get a brisk nightly walk to the store and back. (5 city blocks 1 way.) That's more than I would have done if I wasn't planning on writing this summary of my day, so I guess that's a win. 

 

Tomorrow is my birthday and I've got a brother taking me out to eat for lunch and my dad taking me out for dinner. Dear future Skigh: Make good choices!

 

Considering doing the picture thing tomorrow. I have high hopes for what those pictures will look like on my birthday in 2015. 

 

@Determined: Thanks for the well wishes. And gaming is a great reward. It will definitely be used as a reward. Just need to keep it as that instead of the over fed hobby. 

 

[Edit]: I started a new topic in Daily Battle Logs. I plan to keep daily notes there and give weekly grades here. Maybe post the milestone or two.

Also, starting weight: 227 lbs. 

[Determined]

Happy early birthday! That saying about birthday calories not counting? Turns out, total lie.

[Skigh]

End of Week 1 results:

 

Physical Activity - B - 4 days of physical activity this week

Exercise - C - A little over 2 hours of dedicated workout with basketball and my BBWW from Saturday.

Good Food - C - 2 meals in the fast food category.

 

Life Quest: I spent no time working on any animation. I'm kicking myself a little that I have to write this, so I'm counting on that getting me to do some this week. (Seeing Frozen was some great career motivation though).

Side Quest: I estimate I'm right around 9 hours for the week. Happy to say I don't think I killed an unnecessary amount of time on video games all at once. It was spread out. 

[Skigh]

Week 2 results:

 

Active lifestyle - A - 5 days of doing something active.

Exercise - B - This is giving 30 min credit to each time I did a BBWW (twice this week) and my 90 min of basketball. Had I done my BBWW on Wednesday I would have an A so I need to make sure I rock it out this week!

Good Food - C - Still had 2 meals from fast food places. 

 

Life Quest: No change....Lame. Must work on demo reel. No excuses. Onward and upward!

Side Quest: I didn't keep track of my gameplay this week but I'm pretty sure it was over 9 hours. If I would've put them away more I might've gotten something done! 

 

As far as the stats awarded after a challenge, can someone lay that out for me? I read the article but maybe I need to read it again. Is that something that will start after my second challenge? Or should I put weight for stats on my goals now and then divvy our what I earn after this challenge? Let me know what the tradition is with that if anyone has the time. 

[Skigh]

I'm editing the original post but I am now going to start grading myself on my life quest. I'm committing to doing 6 hours of animation per week. My logic is 1 hour per day with 1 day break. Though if I actually animate every day it will most likely be well over 6 hours. Once I get going I rarely stop myself after an hour. 2.5 weeks in and I haven't touched the life quest. So it's gotta be this way!

[Skigh]

Week 3 Results

 

Active lifestyle - B - 4 days of physical activity

Exercise - A - Slightly less than 3 hours by my calculation but this is the closest I've been to it this week. I'm giving extra credit to getting out and running tonight to make sure I fulfilled my daily quest!

Good Food - C - 2 meals this week I feel I should have made better choices on. 

Life Quest - E - 1 hour but I set this goal in the middle of this week and getting that first hour in was a great victory!

Side Quest - More than 9 hours for sure. I am determined to cut back this week and make some headway on my walk cycle.

 

Half way through challenge 1! These have been a very influential 3 weeks on my life. Looking forward to seeing myself down the road!

[Skywalker]

Just dropping in to say well done in the challenge so far. It's a great way to add accountability into your life to achieve the things that you really want to do but put yourself in the way.

Maybe you could restrict your game play to be after the animation activity or alternate days of each?

In terms of assigning points you can think about it now in anticipation of the end of the challenge. Just think about what your current skills/body makeup is. It makes it easier to see what you might want to work on in the future. Say you are not very dexterous, then it might be a starting point for a dexterity goal in the future.

[Skigh]

Thanks for the encouragement and advice Storm.

 

Week 4 results

 

 Active lifestyle - A - I hit 5 days of doing some kind of physical activity this week.

Exercise - A - Thanks to my extra runs this week I feel great about how much exercise I did this week! 

Good Food - B -  1 meal that I feel I could/should have made a better decision on. Here's to an A for week 5!

Life Quest - E - I did get 2 hours in. I got an hour and a half in early in the week and during my sleepless night I got another half hour in. Happy with what I've done. Must do better!

Side Quest - Achieved this goal this week. I maybe played 2 hours during the week and played a few more hours Saturday. Much less than the week before.

[Skigh]

Week 5 Results

 

Most of this week is not recorded in my daily log. It was a venture into the dark side. Going to have to keep an eye on week 5 in challenge 2. I just got worn down for a few days. The important thing is that I did not give up. I am back and on track to finish week 6 strong and progress into challenge #2!

 

Active Lifestyle - E - Monday was my only day of exercise. Basketball on Thursday ended up not happening.

Exercise - E - See above

Good Food - E - I don't remember the things I ate last week. But I remember how they made me feel in contrast to the previous 4 weeks. May it never happen again.

Life Quest - E - Shazbot!¹

 

 

1 - This is in reference to a card in the chocolate expansion deck of Killer Bunnies and the quest for the Magical Carrot card game. The card is given to an opponent who has to give up a carrot card every time he swears. When playing last week I gave him the Shazbot card and proceeded to make him wish he could swear at me. It was grand!

[Skigh]

Week 6 Final Results of Challenge #1

 

Active Lifestyle - B - 4 days physical activity

Exercise - C - 2 hours exercise. 1 hr basketball, 2 BBWW.

Good Food - B - I didn't have any fast foot but the snacking I did probably adds up to a meal that I'm not pleased with. 

Life Quest - N - SMH

Side Quest - Y - Right around 9. 

 

Here are my results for Challenge 1. The final score is based on a score of 24 possible. A=4 B=3 C=2 D=1 E=0.

                Week 1   Week 2   Week 3   Week 4   Week 5   Week 6  

Goal 1         b              a              b           a              e            b            71.00%

Goal 2         c              b              a           a              e            c            63.00%

Goal 3         c              c              c           b              e            b            50.00% 

Life Quest   n              n              n           n              n            n             0.00%

Side Quest  y              n             n           y               n             y           50.00%

 

For my final 4 attribute points to end challenge #1, I feel Goal #1 is the only one that merits an attribute point which I will put into constitution. Going to have to work hard for next challenge so I don't lose out on so many attribute points. And there are more to lose from here on out too. 

 

Good news! There's room for improvement! I have a lot that I can improve on. And with time I'll be able to power through the bad times. My goal was to establish good habits. And while they are not engraved into my brain and second nature, I am on my way there. I need to continue to focus on kicking the bad habits out and filling my time with good habits. This challenge started a day before my birthday. I keep thinking of my next birthday (which will be 30) and how I hope I'm in the best shape of my life by then. Long road. But with the rebellion all things are possible!

[Thom Stépan]

Well done Skigh. I was wondering how you got on. Have you thought about what guild you are planning on joining for the next challenge?

Woden uses ravens for messages, I use a Samsung S4.

[Skigh]

Hey Thom. Yes I will be an assassin. I've always wanted a flexible, agile body structure. I've always thought it would be rad to be able to pull myself up on a ledge, do a back flip. Things like that. If I ever muster the courage I may even look into learning parkour when I'm a little lighter.

[Thom Stépan]

Sweet mate.

Woden uses ravens for messages, I use a Samsung S4.