Rowan's Quest: It's Only Too Late If You Don't Start Now

[Rowan Caldecott]

Introduction: Hello, I'm Rowan Caldecott, a demon hunter in training. After slaying a particularly ferocious demon (graduate school) last year with little training and many handicaps, I have been languishing idly for the last four months while berating myself for laziness. It's time to get out of my head and start training so future demon slaying will be easier and take less recovery time.

 

Main Quest: Right now, my main quest is just to stop whining and start moving.

 

Quest 1: Walk 6 days per week, starting with 10 minutes and increasing by 1 minute each week.

A = 35 days, 15 minutes in week 6 (+3 STA)

B = 25 days, 13 minutes in week 6 (+2 STA)

C = 19 days, 10 minutes in week 6 (No stats)

 

Quest 2: Do Core Performance 3 times per week, starting at level 1B and increasing to level 1C.

A = 3x/week for 5 weeks, increase to level 1C (+3 STR)

B = 3x/week for 4 weeks, increase to level 1C (+2 STR)

C= 3x/week for 3 weeks, no increase in level (No stats)

 

Quest 3: Practice yoga 6 days per week, including GaiamTV's 21 day Commit to You Challenge.

A = Yoga 6x/week for 5 weeks, 90% of the Commit to You Challenge (+3 DEX, +2 WIS)

B = Yoga 5x/week for 4 weeks, 80% of the Commit to You Challenge (+2 DEX, +2 WIS)

C = Yoga 4x/week for 3 weeks (No stats)

 

Quest 4: Eat breakfast with enough protein and a "brown" within 1 hour of waking, 7 days per week.

A = Breakfast 6x/week, 5 weeks (+2 CON, +1 CHA)

B = Breakfast 5x/week, 4 weeks (+1 CON, +1 CHA)

C = Breakfast 4x/week, 3 weeks (No stats)

 

Life Quest: Develop a spending plan for my money

Pass/Fail, (+1 WIS)

 

Motivation: I want to have fun! I want to travel, I want to cosplay, I want to be able to move easily through the world, buy clothes I love, and do every active thing that appeals to me.

[Terah]

Good luck! 

Love your goals

[Rowan Caldecott]

Thanks, Terah! I love your name.

[SpecialSundae]

More Rowans! 

 

Hello! Great goals!

 

Yoga is amazing and walking is awesome.

[Rowan Caldecott]

Thanks, SpecialSundae.

[SpecialSundae]

(To make me sound less insane, my real name is Rowan...)

[Jakkals]

So far all the Rowan's I've seen on here are pretty awesome.

[justtrish]

Hi Rowan!  Great goals!  Be kind to yourself.  Someone who can slay a graduate school demon is NOT LAZY! (heck, most people don't even go to graduate school!).  It's just physics, you know?  It's Newton's First Law of Motion at work. (Which was actually Galileo's and Aristotle added to it). It is not laziness, it's inertia. Inertia is a REAL force and if one is at rest, one will remain at rest, unless and until force is applied. So, keep on constantly making yourself move forward and you will find that it will require less effort to keep that motion going!

 

We should just strike laziness from our vocabulary.  The REAL laziness here is not making the effort to understand why someone (even if it's you) is disinterested or unwilling to do something.  Usually, the answer lies in a person's beliefs (whether conscious or subconscious) or in their physiology (not getting into that here, but nutritional deficiencies, like D vitamin which obese people are often low on, can cause low energy).  You can't fix "laziness" without fixing those beliefs and/or addressing your body's needs. It's not always about will power.

[Erick the Red]

Daily walking a is a great habit for your body as well as a time to clear your mind.  (Your other goals are good too, I just really liked that one.)

[Rowan Caldecott]

Thanks, Justtrish. I don't actually believe in laziness; my philosophy is that there's always a reason, as you were saying about inertia and finding out what's underneath it. That doesn't stop me from beating myself up by calling myself lazy, though.

 

Erick the Red, I agree. I used to love walking, but haven't done it consistently in a long time. My goal is to get to 45 minutes daily, and then I'm getting a dog to go with me.

[Granny Nogg]

Sounds like you have your sights clear on what you want, Rowan.  Your goals are very specific and measurable, you have the honesty to accept that you won't do it perfectly so you've given yourself a grading system, and you've agreed that you aren't willing to give in to inertia.  All in all it sounds like an excellent start!

[Rowan Caldecott]

Thanks, Granny Nogg!

[Jezaraen]

Love the goals!!! Especially the yoga. I do Bikram myself and absolutely love it. Good luck on your journey!!

[Rowan Caldecott]

Thanks, Jezaraen. Good luck to you, too.

[Rowan Caldecott]

I'm doing a daily report in my Battle Log, but I wanted to check in here weekly, too, to report on how things are going. This week I successfully accomplished all my goals:

 

Quest 1: Walked for 10 minutes on 6 days

Quest 2: Did level 1B of the Core Performance workout on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday

Quest 3: Did all 7 days of the Commit to You yoga challenge for this week

Quest 4: Ate breakfast with all parts completed (enough protein, on time, with a "brown")

Life Quest: Started calculating averages of my expenses based on the last 3 months, and noting when each is due, to help formulate a spending plan

 

I get an A for week one! It feels good. I already feel myself getting stronger, able to do more in my yoga practice, walking a bit further in the same amount of time. It also feels like I'm already forming habits; exercising is starting to feel like just a thing I do, rather than wasting energy whining about it, avoiding it, or feeling guilty about it. I'm excited to see what comes in week 2!

[Blaidd]

good start to the challenge.

 

You might notice that someone has added tags onto your thread.  This is not to pigeonhole you into a specific guild, but rather to attract the attention of the guild ambassadors because of your lifestyle or a grouping of goals, so that they might be able to motivate, encourage and advise you of anything during your challenge with us.  You don't even need to wait for them, you're welcome to pop into the Adventurers to say hi and introduce yourself and to see what they're about. Also you are more than welcome to drop me a line at any time if you need anything.

 

Good luck

AB xx

[Rowan Caldecott]

Thanks, Blaidd. I will check it out.

[Chris-Tien Jinn]

/wave

 

How's it going??? 

[Rowan Caldecott]

Thanks for checking in with me, Christ-Tien Jinn. Things are going well. Here's my week 2 report:

 

Quest 1: Walked for 6 days, started with 11 minutes and increased to 13 by the end of the week (also walked a mile at the park on my "day off")

Quest 2: Did level 1C of the Core Performance workout on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (I wasn't planning to go up until week 4, but 1B was feeling easy, so I tried 1C and it was fine)

Quest 3: Did all 7 days of the Commit to You yoga challenge for this week

Quest 4: Had my breakfast all 7 days, but one day it was late

 

Life Quest: I only spent a few minutes on my spending averages. I need to put more time into that this next week.

 

Overall, an A for week 2. I feel myself getting stronger, I'm not as tired after getting everything done as I was the first week, and I'm making changes in my food because I can feel more how crappy food makes me feel and interferes with my workouts. I like the way I feel working out. I also worked through some challenges this week that have derailed me many times in the past. I had a bunch of hormone stuff going on due to a health issue I'm dealing with and I also had a FM flare-up. I moved a little slower on a couple of days because of that, but I kept moving. I feel proud of myself. Looking forward to week 3 and leveling up at the end of it!

[Chris-Tien Jinn]

Fabulous!!!!  You're really doing well, especially since you're working against some major health issues.

 

I've always found that I can get into a virtuous cycle when I am working out.  I just don't want the junky stuff as much.  Last night, I turned down beer in favor of just plain water because I'd just done a good run and didn't want to 'ruin' my hard work.  

 

Hopefully, this will eventually impact (positively) the health issues!! 

[pjc]

Hey thought I would check out your challenge thread after I remembered you had posted in the over 50 thread.  Sounds like the first couple of weeks went well, hope you've been able to keep it up!  You mentioned you have had some hormone stuff going on, I hope it straightens out.  Hormone fluxes can be really tough to deal with sometimes. 

[Rowan Caldecott]

My check-in for week 3:

 

Quest 1: Walked 6 days, up to 15 minutes per day, which was my 6 week goal time

Quest 2: Did Core Performance workout, level 1C, Monday, Thursday, and Saturday

Quest 3: Did yoga on 6 days, including finishing up the 21 day Commit to You yoga challenge

Quest 4: Had breakfast with all parts completed 7 days

Life Quest: Had some small conversations with my husband about our spending plan

 

Another A for week 3. Since I have gone up to level 1, I ordered myself some new armor in the form of a pair of shoes. Getting new armor or equipment when I level up is fun and I look forward to it.

 

I had a few days of feeling under the weather this past week; I actually thought I might be fighting off some kind of bug. I eased back on my yoga a bit, interspersed my days off so that I wasn't doing so much each day, and slept a lot. It passed and I felt stronger at the end of it. In the past, I would have pushed on, gotten very sick and spent 6 weeks trying to recover. I've also struggled the past couple of days, feeling extremely depressed and lethargic, which I think is probably related to the hormones I've been taking. I still got my workouts done and my breakfast in. When feeling really bad, I try to focus on just staying even with my progress, so I don't slide backward and have to catch back up when I'm feeling better. In the long run, I know this will pay off with better health and more resilience. Right now, it's hard to even feel like celebrating that I'm halfway through my first challenge, but I know I will in a few more days when I'm feeling better. And soon I will have new shoes to enjoy.

[Rowan Caldecott]

I have forgotten to say that I've finished the mini challenges for the first 3 weeks, so I get +2 WIS and +1 CON for those.

[Chris-Tien Jinn]

YEA!!!!  Sticking with it - and managing through illness and low energy/depression - is a HUGE win!!

[Rowan Caldecott]

Week 4 check-in:

 

Quest 1: Walked 6 days, up to 16 minutes a day now

Quest 2: Did Core Performance level 1D on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday

Quest 3: Did yoga on 6 days, started a new 21 day challenge on GaiamTV called "A More Balanced You" which I'm doing on non-Core days

Quest 4: Had breakfast with all parts on 7 days

Life Quest: Finalized a working spending plan with my husband. We even put together an easy, visual way to track spending daily in problem categories

 

Mini Quest: Did 100 donkey kicks, 20 on 5 different days

 

I get an A for week 4 and I feel pretty darn good about it. This week I battled some very sore Achilles tendons for unknown reasons, so there was some slow walking on a couple of days. Also, apparently I have muscles in my backside, because my glutes were talking to me after 4 days of donkey kicks.

 

I rewarded myself for reaching level 1 with a new piece of armor, a sports bra which I expect to need in my second challenge. It's fun to get new armor.

 

I have found that my 1 day off per week is super important. I learned that I needed it a long time ago, because it keeps my inner 2 year old from throwing temper tantrums at having to do something every day. But now I appreciate it on whole new levels. I think it's important to my goal of becoming anti-fragile, by giving me an extra rest day when my immune system or joints and muscles are struggling. It also means I can get that rest without feeling like a failure and going to that "I might as well just give up" place. I try to intersperse my days off so I still do something each day, but if I had to take them all off on the same day, that would be okay, too.