Sterre continues to work on it

[sterre]

Hi! If you haven't already seen me around, I'm Sterre! I'm a 30 31 year old Canadian living in Japan with my partner. I've done two challenges so far and have decided that since there's a long break between the last challenge and the next one, I could use a Battle Log.

 

My primary goal has been to lose the pudge I gained while finishing my PhD thesis and in the post-thesis months I spent living with my parents in the suburbs before moving here as well as a bit more so I can actually purchase clothing in Japan. I've basically succeeded in the first part: I'm back to about where I was before thesis stress and a brief period of suburban living got to me, but I want to keep this progress going, even between challenges. 

 

I also think that I'm going to end up doing exercises that aren't going to be part of my challenge goals for the next round, so this is probably a good place to keep track of them... and I'll try to do a food and sleeping diary here so I can figure out where I need to improve there as well.

 

Size Goals

• Get back to my thinnest waistline (~71 cm waist)
• Be able to buy regular clothes in Japan (68 cm waist)

Mid- to Short-term Running Goals

• Run 5 km in less than 30 minutes
• Run 5 km in less than 28 minutes
• Run 10 km in under 1 hour
• Try running in an actual race
• Run 15 km without stopping
• Run 1.5 km in under 8 minutes

Mid to Short-term other Fitness Goals

• Do a forward fold without bending my knees at all
• Do a back bridge
• Figure out how much sleep I need, obtain this amount of sleep. 7 hours seems about right.

Life Goals

• Get better at keeping in touch
• Do NaNoWriMo (did I get the camel casing right?)
• Have conversational Japanese
• Start a webcomic
• Get a job that actually uses my skills and education
• Finish my reading New Years Resolution

I think that's about all for now. I'll probably add to this as I go.

 

Measurements

 

Height : 173 cm

Weight : ??? (I don't own a scale)

Bust / Waist / Hips : 91.0 cm / 72.9 cm / 94.0 cm

Ribcage / Navel : 79.5 cm / 83.5 cm

Thigh right / left : 53.2 cm / 53.2 cm

[sterre]

Inter-challenge Day 2 Update (so far)

 

Daily Exercise

 

Today, I ran 5 km in 29 minutes 34.83 seconds. Or at least that's what my watch says. I sort of blanked and didn't take my watch out of my pocket as soon as I stopped running so it might be -2 seconds or so on that.

 

After my run, I did some yoga, which incorporated a bit of core work (planks). Then I did some leg raises (10), bicycle crunches (30),  one legged deadlifts (6 on each side) and side planks with hip raise (5 on each side).

 

Sleep

 

I think I slept about 8 hours last night. I'm uncertain if this is how much I actually need or if I'm still in sleep debt from last week.

 

Food

• ~2 cups of leftover curry (red lentils, onion, carrot, sweet potato, curry package, spices, lemon juice) without rice
• 1 glass mikan juice
• ~0.25 cup of pistachios
• 1 slice zucchini bread
• 7 glass water
• 1/2 of a 3-egg tamagoyaki (so 1.5 eggs + some soy sauce)
• 3 pieces of a 6 piece cheese (51 g of cheese)
• 350 mL of beer
• 1.5 bowls of spaghetti and sauce (tinned tomato, tofu, carrot, onion, garlic, lemon juice, spices)
• 500 mL happoshu

 

Learning Japanese

• Studied kanji and vocabulary flash cards

Other stuff

• Spent half an hour brainstorming and typing up novel setting and plot
• Made NaNoWriMo account!

[sterre]

Interchallenge Day 3

• Slept 8.5 hours.
• Ate a lot of junk food.
• Exercise involved walking to the store (30 minutes).

 

Interchallenge Day 4

• Slept 7 hours.
• Ran 5.0 km in 29 minutes 37.34 seconds and forgot to stretch after (oops).
• Studied flashcards until Anki broke
• Sorted out some characters for my novel

Food

• Coffee
• Egg and cheese sandwich
• 2 slices of raisin bread
• Tea
• Mushroom vegetable pizza
• Salad
• Pickled celery
• Tater-tot like things
• Tomato and bocconcini cheese
• Beer
• Wine
• 7 glasses of water
• 1 maple cream cookie

[sterre]

October 31st (Interchallenge day 5)

 

Sleep

 

Slept 9.5 hours

 

Exercise

 

Walked 40 minutes.

 

Food

• Coffee
• Toast, two eggs sunny-side up
• Mattar paneer, naan, garlic rice, samosa, salad, lassi
• 8 glasses of water
• 1 maple cream cookie

Other

• Outlined characters for novel
• Set up LaTeX documents for novel
• Wrote ~200 words after midnight

[sterre]

Blargle, I've been a bit sick and therefore neglectful. No more runs while I've been ill, but I have been walking a fair bit (though not really more than usual).

 

Anyway, here's how today (November 6th) went.

 

Sleep

 

Slept approx 8 hours

 

Exercise

 

Walked 50 minutes to and from train stations

 

Food

• One bowl of soup (lentils, carrot, onion, potato, leafy green of some kind, garlic, fresh cilantro, lemon juice, tomato paste, spices)
• 8 crackers
• Lemon tea (definitely had sugar)
• Tomato bagel with cream cheese (first bagel in almost a year!)
• Moar soup (chickpeas, potato, carrot, onion, sweet potato, pasta, garlic, leafy green, lemon juice, tomato paste, spices) with a bit of cheese on top
• Approx 0.5 L of orange juice
• At least 8 cough drops
• 4 glasses of water
• 6 ginko nuts
• 1 glass of tamagozake

Other

• Wrote some of my novel.
• Anki flashcards

[sterre]

Here's the 7th... I'm still sick and have definitely moved from the sore throat stage to the coughing, sneezing, runny nose stage so I think I'm on the road to recovery.

 

Sleep

 

Slept approx 6 hours, then took a four hour nap after work.

 

Exercise

 

Walked 50 minutes to and from train stations

 

Food

 

Since I've been sick, I haven't really had a lot of an appetite and have been craving comfort foods. Yesterday and the day before, I made some healthy soups, but today I definitely slacked off and was tired so I didn't.

• One bowl of soup (leftover from yesterday)
• Honey tea
• 1 egg salad sandwich
• 1 L orange juice
• dried pineapple
• wakame onigiri
• shoyu flavoured ramen
• water
• chips
• 10 cough drops

Other

 

Instead of writing my novel, I took a nap after work. That was probably the better choice.

• Anki flashcards

[sterre]

Still sick. I was sort of feeling better yesterday until I decided to push it by going out. Today was nice and restful though and the sickness fog that has existed for a while seems to be lifting, especially after my nap.

 

Sleep

 

Slept 9 hours, then slept an additional 4 hours in an early evening nap.

 

Exercise

 

Walked about 20 minutes to the store.

 

Food

• Ramen with an egg dropped into it.
• Grilled cheese sandwich
• Pickle
• 0.5 L orange juice
• 1 cup coffee
• 6 glasses of water
• 1 cough drop

Other

• Wrote more than 2200 words.

[sterre]

November 10th - Challenge Day 1

 

Sleep

 

Slept 4 hours. After the nap I took yesterday, I didn't have to sleep until late and then I got up early for work. On the up side, I wasn't actually tired because I effectively slept a full night's sleep, there was just a break of several hours when I was not sleeping in between.

 

Exercise

 

Did a body weight workout. It has been a while, so I only did two sets.

Here are the details (1st / 2nd set)

Squats: 20 / 20

Lunges: 20 / 20

Planks: 30s / 30s

Push ups: 10 / 7 (3)

Side planks: 30s / 30s (each side)

Leg raises: 10 / 10

Bridges: 10 / 10

 

I also walked about 50 minutes.

 

Food

• Breakfast and morning
  • Ramen with egg, sesame oil, vinegar
  • Coffee (1/2 mug)
  • Warm tea (275 mL)
  • 3 cough drops
  • Hot lemon tea (345 mL)
• Lunch
  • Egg salad sandwich
  • Giant salad with no oil dressing
  • 3 cough drops
• Dinner
  • Hummus and cheese sandwich
• All day
  • 1.5 L water

Other

• Wrote 1824 words.
• Anki flashcards.

[sterre]

Sleep
 
Slept 9 hours and woke up naturally.
 
Exercise

 

Ran 5.0 km in a bit of a Fartlek. My stopwatch got shut off at some point so I don't know how long it took me, but it felt really good to run again.

Then I came home and did some yoga.

 

Food

 

Brunch

• Orange juice (1 cup)
• Coffee
• Toast
• Scrambled egg (1)
• Hummus

Snack

• Orange juice (1 cup)
• Milk duds (4)
• 6 cheese slices
• 500 mL happoshu
• Hummus, crackers
• 1+L of water

Dinner

• Stewed daikon with mustard
• Konnyaku
• Natto veggie rice
• Pickles
• Beer
• Sake

 

Other

• Wrote 1902 words for my novel!

[sterre]

November 12th - Challenge Day 3

 

Sleep
 
Slept 7.5 hours. I overslept a bit, actually.
 
Exercise
 

Rest day so I just walked about an hour.
 
Food

• Breakfast and morning
  • Ume onigiri
  • Konbu onigiri
  • Coffee (1 cup)
• Lunch
  • Egg salad sandwich
  • Large salad with no oil dressing
  • Caramel banana milk (500 mL)
• Dinner
  • Pizza (0.5 large)
  • Beer (350 mL can)
• All day/snacks
  • 1.5 L water
  • Mixed nuts

Other

• Wrote 1876 words.
• Anki flashcards.

[sterre]

Challenge Day 4 - November 13th

 

Sleep

• ~7 hours

Exercise

 

More walking because I got locked out after work and didn't have time to do additional exercise.

 

Food

 

Breakfast

• 2 eggs over easy
• 1 piece toast
• coffee

Lunch

• egg salad sandwich
• large salad
• veggies and miso dip

Dinner

• veggie puffs
• 2 bowls of spaghetti with tomato sauce (tomato, carrot, onion, garlic, spices, oil) and parmesan cheese
• beer (600 mL)
• water

Post-dinner

• happoshu (500 mL)
• beer (350 mL)
• water
• egg salad sandwich
• fruit and veggie juice (270 mL)

Over the course of the day

• +1 L of water

Other

• Anki flash cards
• Wrote 1941 words

 

Challenge Day 5 - November 14th

 

Sleep

• 8 hours

Exercise

• Ran 10 km
• Did 20 minutes of yoga for strength

Food

 

Breakfast

• Veggie puffs
• Coffee
• Egg in a basket with 2 tbs of spicy salsa
• 1 cup tomato juice with salt and pepper
• 3 olives

Post-Run snack/mini-dinner

• Ramen with sesame oil, vinegar and pepper
• 1 cup soy milk

Dinner

• Small bowl of macaroni and cheese with salsa

Post-dinner

• Sweet beans
• Seasoned edamame
• Tamagoyaki
• Pickles (cabbage, carrot, cucumber)
• Beer (250 mL)
• Sake (x2)
• Sparkling sangria

Over the course of the day

• approx 1.75 L water

Other

 

I totally slacked here. I just got a bit of laundry and cleaning done.

[sterre]

Challenge Day 6 - November 15th

 

Sleep

 

8 hours

 

Food

 

10:00

• 2 chocolate pancakes with filling
• coffee

2:00

• egg in a basket with salsa

7:00

• Doritos

9:00

• 2 bowls kabocha and adzuki bean soup

11:00

• beer

All day

• 1.5 L water

Challenge Day 7 - November 16th

 

Sleep

 

7 hours sleep

 

Food

 

11:00

• coffee
• egg in a basket with salsa
• orange juice

2:00

• veggie chip things

3:00-6:00

• Tea (2 cups)

6:00

• Happoshu

8:00

• Broccoli and vegetable soup (2 bowls)
• Umeshu (3 glass)
• Random Vietnamese candies

1:00

• Macaroni and cheese with broccoli, tomato, onion

4:00

• 6 piece cheese

Over the course of the day

• 2 L water

[sterre]

Challenge Day 8 - November 17th

 

Sleep

 

9 hours

 

Food

 

2:00

• Coffee with soy milk
• Egg in a basket with salsa
• Orange juice

6:00

• Ramen
• 2 packages of crackers

12:00

• 2 bowls lentil and vegetable soup
• 1 package of crackers

1:30

• 4 random Vietnamese candies

Over the day

• 1.5 L water

[sterre]

Challenge Day 9 - November 18th

 

Sleep

 

8 hours

 

Exercise

• Good morning yoga
• 5 km run in 28 m 57.06 s!

 

Food

 

10:30

• coffee
• egg in a basket with salsa

1 L water

 

2:30

• 1 bowl veggie and lentil soup
• 1 pkg crackers

3:00

• beer (350 mL)

4:00

• a few small candies

8:00

• veggie curry with rice and lentils (2 bowls)

1L water

 

9:00

• beer
• sake (x2)
• cheese and crackers
• edamame
• chrysanthemum
• soup
• water

12:00

• "Choco bouchee"
• water

Other

• Wrote more than 2x minimum words for NaNoWriMo