Big Adam Posted June 8, 2015 Report Share Posted June 8, 2015 Hey Monks and Monk-ettes! (and any non-monk fellow rebels who grace us with their presence). I took off on my own last challenge but I’m back for some of that motivation and encouragement that only Nerd Fitness can give! During my last challenge, I learned that I tend to run into a lot of trouble when I focus on on NOT doing things - when I set hard limits on the amount of food I eat or tell myself that I will not eat this certain food. I do much better when I focus on adding healthy things rather than subtracting unhealthy things. When I’m doing the things that keep me healthy and happy, avoiding the harmful things seems to come easier So with that in mind, onto the challenge! Challenge Objective: Master my habits and remove the destructive ones. Goal #1) Relax the right way. My relationship with leisure time is not good. I tend to overdo it. Watching a half hour show tends to lead to watching a few hours of TV while absently snacking on whatever food I have lying around and making myself sick-full. This is a pretty destructive habit. I want to develop some healthy habits around my leisure time so my relaxing actually re-energizes me instead of making me feel like a lump.Eat all food while reading or doing nothing. Not in front of a screen or listening to an audiobook. Goal #2) Dealing with Emotions. As mentioned above, I tend to abuse leisure activities. I often use food, TV, and games to deal with boredom, stress, anxiety, etc. I want to learn to deal with unpleasant feelings in a healthy way.Keep an Emotional Coping Journal for 6-weeks. Track unpleasant feelings, what caused them, how I dealt with them. Try to deal with them in alternative ways (like meditation, exercise, going for a walk) as challenge progresses.Journal can be viewed here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LAydFBrXL3UBTyLi2MeTyo2EfCwsPhMBnaABYLKwzaA/edit?usp=sharing Goal #3) Energy Conservation. To ensure that I have enough energy and willpower to pursue my goals, I’ll go to bed by 10:30 on weekdays, 11:00 on weekends with 8 minutes of meditation right before bed. There will be nights where social events may keep me up later, but outside of these exceptions, I’ll get to bed on time. On nights where social events keep me up, I’ll go right to bed afterward.Side Quest) Find a New Job. I’ve been feeling “meh†about my current job for months now. Not really learning anything new or progressing. I think it’s time to start on a new venture. Quote Sky Pirate Monk 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 NF Character Battle Log Impossible is just a word people use to make themselves feel better when they quit - Vyse the Blue Rogue Link to comment
Kishi Posted June 8, 2015 Report Share Posted June 8, 2015 It's hard to eat bad things when you fill up on good things. This is a lesson that I have had to learn and re-learn, but it's been recently impressed upon me again and it's worth considering. Sounds like you have the same approach - not cutting out the bad, but bringing in the good. Good luck with everything! Quote Work like a farmer, train like an athlete, fight like a soldier. 2 Tim. 2:3-6 BATTLE! Link to comment
Devyn Posted June 8, 2015 Report Share Posted June 8, 2015 I like how your goals are directed toward the mental and emotional. I think that gives you a great base on which to build a pyramid of well being. Good luck! Quote Level 17 Half Kender Assassin XP 1700 Link to comment
Bekah Posted June 9, 2015 Report Share Posted June 9, 2015 I loooove your second goal If you need any help, dont hesitate to ask, ok? (and I mean that 100% sincerely) Quote Druid Assassin Halfling Druid Level 16, Current Quest: Bekah Returns Spoiler Fitbit Facebook Your life does not get better by chance. It gets better by change. - Jim Rohn Link to comment
Big Adam Posted June 9, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 9, 2015 Thanks Everyone! Bekah, thank you for the offer. I probably will! Quote Sky Pirate Monk 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 NF Character Battle Log Impossible is just a word people use to make themselves feel better when they quit - Vyse the Blue Rogue Link to comment
Big Adam Posted June 11, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 11, 2015 Hey All. Challenge is going well so far. I've been tracking everything. If anyone wants to check it out, here's my Emotional Eating/TV Journal. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LAydFBrXL3UBTyLi2MeTyo2EfCwsPhMBnaABYLKwzaA/edit?usp=sharing If anyone has any pointers or recommendations (or has done something like this before), I'd love to hear them! Thanks,Adam Quote Sky Pirate Monk 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 NF Character Battle Log Impossible is just a word people use to make themselves feel better when they quit - Vyse the Blue Rogue Link to comment
Kishi Posted June 12, 2015 Report Share Posted June 12, 2015 It looks like a great strategy. Anything that helps you become more aware of yourself is going to help you in the long term. I notice that you have a lot of possible coping strategies that you could apply. This is good. But you don't want to try to apply too many at once. Otherwise, you'll use up your willpower like whoa, and all the strategies fail, and that leaves you back where you started. If you don't mind a little advice, I'd say to keep up the journaling for a while. See if any coping strategies emerge as solutions to a lot of different emotional eating sessions. Then, when you feel it's right, try that strategy. I would recommend against trying to do this too soon. Don't pressure yourself. Just observe and ponder. If you spent the rest of this challenge just gathering data, even if it drove you a little nuts, it'd be worth it. That's just my two cents, though, and obviously as circumstances change you'll have to adjust. Quote Work like a farmer, train like an athlete, fight like a soldier. 2 Tim. 2:3-6 BATTLE! Link to comment
Bekah Posted June 14, 2015 Report Share Posted June 14, 2015 It looks like a great strategy. Anything that helps you become more aware of yourself is going to help you in the long term. I notice that you have a lot of possible coping strategies that you could apply. This is good. But you don't want to try to apply too many at once. Otherwise, you'll use up your willpower like whoa, and all the strategies fail, and that leaves you back where you started. If you don't mind a little advice, I'd say to keep up the journaling for a while. See if any coping strategies emerge as solutions to a lot of different emotional eating sessions. Then, when you feel it's right, try that strategy. I would recommend against trying to do this too soon. Don't pressure yourself. Just observe and ponder. If you spent the rest of this challenge just gathering data, even if it drove you a little nuts, it'd be worth it. That's just my two cents, though, and obviously as circumstances change you'll have to adjust.^^^^ all this Kishi is a very wise man. 1 Quote Druid Assassin Halfling Druid Level 16, Current Quest: Bekah Returns Spoiler Fitbit Facebook Your life does not get better by chance. It gets better by change. - Jim Rohn Link to comment
Big Adam Posted June 14, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 14, 2015 It looks like a great strategy. Anything that helps you become more aware of yourself is going to help you in the long term. I notice that you have a lot of possible coping strategies that you could apply. This is good. But you don't want to try to apply too many at once. Otherwise, you'll use up your willpower like whoa, and all the strategies fail, and that leaves you back where you started. If you don't mind a little advice, I'd say to keep up the journaling for a while. See if any coping strategies emerge as solutions to a lot of different emotional eating sessions. Then, when you feel it's right, try that strategy. I would recommend against trying to do this too soon. Don't pressure yourself. Just observe and ponder. If you spent the rest of this challenge just gathering data, even if it drove you a little nuts, it'd be worth it. That's just my two cents, though, and obviously as circumstances change you'll have to adjust.Thanks Kishi. I appreciate the advice and it seems like good advice to me. Slow and steady tries my patience, but it usually is the best way to go. 1 Quote Sky Pirate Monk 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 NF Character Battle Log Impossible is just a word people use to make themselves feel better when they quit - Vyse the Blue Rogue Link to comment
Big Adam Posted June 15, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 15, 2015 Time for a Week 1 Update! Mission 1: Separating meals and food6/7 days. This has gone well. Instead of eating while watching TV or playing video games, I've been doing some reading as I eat. Right now I'm reading "The Slight Edge" by Jeff Olson. It's a good book. Really matches the philosophy here at Nerd Fitness of making fitness a habit. I may make this a "temptation bundle" like the NF post a few weeks ago talked about. If I read a good self-development book whenever I eat, I'm going to absorb a lot of good information. Mission 2: Emotional Eating Journal7/7 days: I've tracked every time I eat outside of my normal mealtimes and it's been very enlightening. Sometimes I don't know why I eat. Many times there is an emotion associated with it but other times I just eat because I've gone into autopilot. For now I'm just monitoring. So far there haven't been any binge-eating sessions, just little extra snacks here and there. Maybe cutting out the TV-Food combo has curtailed that. Or maybe this was just a good week. Time will tell. Mission 3: Energy Conservation4/7 days (Assuming I go to bed on time tonight): Got off to a rough start on Monday and Tuesday. Work stuff kept me up late. I can usually leave my work at the office, but I had a big project going out this week and needed to log on in the evening. Both nights I forgot about it until late and kept myself up until 12:15 and 10:45, respectively. After that, got back on track until Saturday night. Went to a friend's party last night. It was a typical college-style party. Beer Pong, Loud Top-40 music, lots of alcohol. I didn't enjoy myself but I stayed until late because I felt like I had to. Got home late, felt kind of crappy so I unwound with some tv and food before going to bed.One plus from Saturday night is that I decided I'm done with those kind of parties. I've always felt uncomfortable at them and never gotten the appeal (probably because I don't like to get drunk). I always went to them to please my friends or in the hope that I'd eventually learn to enjoy them. Steve's "Do Less" post resonated with me today - especially the "Hell Yes or no" part. Life's too short to waste on stuff I don't enjoy. Now if only I could find some friends who would rather play board games or hike a trail than play beer pong or drunk-dance Side Quest: Updated my resume and put it up on Monster. Planning to send some out this week. 1 Quote Sky Pirate Monk 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 NF Character Battle Log Impossible is just a word people use to make themselves feel better when they quit - Vyse the Blue Rogue Link to comment
Kishi Posted June 15, 2015 Report Share Posted June 15, 2015 Meetup.com, man. That's where it all starts. Also, I'm sure you can find gaming stores with board gamers a-plenty. Anyway, it sounds like it's been a good week. You're collecting good data and you're absorbing lots of good information. This works for you this challenge. Absorbing and observing and understanding, and then acting out of that place. It's good. I have no comment on the energy conservation front - my days and nights are all mixed and your latenesses don't sound bad to me. So I'm the wrong one to ask. But everything else sounds great! Quote Work like a farmer, train like an athlete, fight like a soldier. 2 Tim. 2:3-6 BATTLE! Link to comment
Big Adam Posted June 19, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 19, 2015 Yeah I like meetup. I've gone to two events on it but I need to get more active on it. Maybe that'll be my next challenge - making sure to go to at least one meetup a week. Quote Sky Pirate Monk 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 NF Character Battle Log Impossible is just a word people use to make themselves feel better when they quit - Vyse the Blue Rogue Link to comment
professorpajamas Posted June 19, 2015 Report Share Posted June 19, 2015 Hi Adam! I found your challenge via the CNF page, and I wanted to drop by and say Hello! I completely relate to all of this. I have a terrible habit of going overboard on leisure activities and anything can distract me from my general discomfort with whatever is going on my life. Sometimes, I rebound and do so much to such an extreme, and then crashing or beating myself up for it. I've had a lot of luck with journaling, particularly with recognizing patterns of negative thought, so hopefully this is working for you! Good luck on the job hunt, and keep up to good work! Quote “The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.†- Eckhart Tolle My current challenge - My Fitness Pal - Fitbit Link to comment
Big Adam Posted June 19, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 19, 2015 Hey Lora! Love the username. Thanks for dropping by! This challenge has been pretty eye-opening so far. It's amazing to see how often (and how much!) I eat because I'm tired or bored or anxious, rather than just hungry. I think dealing with this is going to be key for any future fitness endeavors. Thankfully, it seems to be a fairly common thing that other people have dealt with. Just gotta change one habit at a time. 1 Quote Sky Pirate Monk 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 NF Character Battle Log Impossible is just a word people use to make themselves feel better when they quit - Vyse the Blue Rogue Link to comment
professorpajamas Posted June 20, 2015 Report Share Posted June 20, 2015 One at a time Keep it up! Quote “The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.†- Eckhart Tolle My current challenge - My Fitness Pal - Fitbit Link to comment
Big Adam Posted June 24, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 24, 2015 Week 2 Update! Bit of a rough week but I suppose those are the ones with the most lessons to learn. Mission 1: Separating meals and food4/7 days: Mission 2: Emotional Eating Journal7/7 days. Got some really good information this week. Due to lack of sleep (see below), I had several big emotional eating sessions. I also tracked my calories this week and recorded how many calories I ate in each emotional eating session. I think it's now safe to say that this is the main issue that's sabotaging my fitness goals. I've been stalled in my body-fat loss goals for a while and I think this is the main reason. 500 calories here, 1000 calories there - all of which I'm eating for reasons other than hunger - can derail my progress. I'm going to keep on just tracking for one more week and try to be really consistent with the other two goals. Next week I plan to start a mindfulness habit. My plan is to meditate for a few minutes whenever I want to eat outside of meals, then consider whether I really want food or if there's something else I'm really craving. After that, if I still decide I want food, then I'll go ahead. Mission 3: Energy Conservation1/7 days. Wooooeee. This was a bit of a rough week. The reason I included this goal is that my sleep schedule gets thrown off very easily if I don't stick to it. And whenever I get to bed, I still need to wake up at 6:30 on weekday mornings. I took a long nap on Monday which really threw off my sleep schedule and made it tough to get back on track. I learned a lot though. Nearly all of the times I ate food in front of the TV and most of my emotional eating sessions were during late nights when I was frustrated that I couldn't sleep. So I know that's one of my big triggers and that my decision-making ability is much worse after 11:00 PM. Side Quest: Sent my resume to a few people and had them take a look at it to give some advice. Quote Sky Pirate Monk 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 NF Character Battle Log Impossible is just a word people use to make themselves feel better when they quit - Vyse the Blue Rogue Link to comment
Kishi Posted June 25, 2015 Report Share Posted June 25, 2015 Good! You learned a lot. You can devise some strategies for yourself based on what you've learned, and you know that they'll be tailored specifically for you. Nice week! Quote Work like a farmer, train like an athlete, fight like a soldier. 2 Tim. 2:3-6 BATTLE! Link to comment
Big Adam Posted June 30, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 30, 2015 Mission 1: Separating meals and food6/7 days. This went well. I only missed this goal on Saturday night. After getting back from a friend's party, I had a long session of playing Fallout New Vegas (which is a super-fun game, but dangerously addictive for me) and got the munchies as I was playing. The rest of the week was good though! Mission 2: Emotional Eating Journal7/7 days. I've kept on logging this week without doing anything different. I notice that I've had fewer emotional eating sessions this week. I suspect that it's due to simply getting enough sleep. I think keeping a consistent sleep schedule will be one of the keys to my success going forward. Starting this week, I'm going to try using meditation to curb the impromptu emotional snacking. When I want to snack outside of meals, I'll take a quick 5-minute meditation and then decide if I really want food or something else. If the answer is still food, then I'll go ahead and eat with no guilt. If it's something else, I'll do something else. Mission 3: Energy Conservation6/7 days. Pretty solid week. I tried going to bed at 11 each night instead of trying for 10:30. I'm not getting the full 8 hours because I wake up at 6:30 for work, but I find I can get to sleep more quickly and consistently if I turn in at 11. It gives me some time to read before bed too. Side Quest: Yeah, I slept on this one over the past week. I want to make this a special point over this week. It's easy to stay with what's comfortable, but I really do want to find a new job. Quote Sky Pirate Monk 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 NF Character Battle Log Impossible is just a word people use to make themselves feel better when they quit - Vyse the Blue Rogue Link to comment
Kishi Posted June 30, 2015 Report Share Posted June 30, 2015 Nice! Sounds like sleep was a killer app for you - it helped you to regulate your emotions and keep your eating under control. Good stuff all around. Also, I hear you on wanting a new job. Not sure how to go about that either. ;; Quote Work like a farmer, train like an athlete, fight like a soldier. 2 Tim. 2:3-6 BATTLE! Link to comment
Big Adam Posted July 15, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 15, 2015 Hey All! It's been a while since I posted. Thought I'd drop by and give an update! Weeks 4 and 5:Mission 1: Separating meals and food5/14 days: I fell off the wagon on this over the past two weeks. I still ate all my main meals at the dinner table, but when I was bored or tired, I'd eat in front of the TV. I'd rationalize it in the moment with some reason or another. You know how that is. Mission 2: Emotional Eating Journal11/14: This past weekend I went to the beach with some friends. I abandoned tracking while I was on vacation (and the day I got back) since it was so different from my normal schedule. I'm back on my tracking now. I did try out Steve's Vacation game over the weekend, though. I did pushups for alchoholic drinks and squats for unhealthy meals. It helped me mentally to control the amount of junk I ate and drank since I knew I'd owe pushups and squats for it. Plus it kept me moving without any dedicated workout time. My experiment with meditation before emotional eating wasn't very successful. I think I may need to tailor my approach to different emotions. Meditation works great for stress and anxiety - and it's always a good idea to take a breath and think before grabbing a snack - but I find it hard to do when I'm bored or lonely. Boredom is my biggest trigger for emotional eating. I'm thinking about re-configuring my weekday schedule a little bit so I don't get bored as often and so I make better progress on my non-fitness goals. I think that will be a big help. Always take willpower out of the equation when you can, right? Mission 3: Energy Conservation9/11 days: I'm not counting my vacation days here because I never planned to go to bed by any particular time over vacation and don't regret staying up late. This went well for the most part. I had a few nights where I couldn't sleep, but they didn't lead to multiple late nights in a row and when I could control it, I went to bed by 11. This one is a tough habit for me to build, though. On weekends I always feel like staying up later even if there's nothing in particular going on. Old habits die hard, I guess. Side Quest: Not much on the job front this week. I did see an interesting local meetup group centered around Career Development though. I joined up and hopefully I'll get a chance to go to one of their meetups soon. I could use some direction in my job search. Quote Sky Pirate Monk 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 NF Character Battle Log Impossible is just a word people use to make themselves feel better when they quit - Vyse the Blue Rogue Link to comment
Kishi Posted July 16, 2015 Report Share Posted July 16, 2015 Your experiment wasn't successful in the direction that you wanted it to be. Instead, it taught you a bit about a way of doing things that doesn't suit you. Hardly wasted time. And I'm glad to hear that the Vacation Game proved to be useful to you, giving you something to do to keep you moving. That's a big win. What stands out to me from here is the problem of mindless eating that you talk about. I don't have a straight answer for you on that, because I tend to eat in front of my screen too. It seems to me from out here that maybe your present approach is not constructive to your goals. It may actually be better to focus on controlling what you eat rather than whether you eat. Which would mean looking into healthy snacks like carrots or apples or celery, you know? ... I don't mean to call it food for thought but I suppose I've backed myself into a corner on that one. ;; 1 Quote Work like a farmer, train like an athlete, fight like a soldier. 2 Tim. 2:3-6 BATTLE! Link to comment
Big Adam Posted July 19, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 19, 2015 Thanks Kishi! You may be right about the mindless eating thing. I remember back when I was first starting to try to eat paleo, I had a rule for myself that I would only eat plants in front of the TV. If I wanted something else I'd eat at the dinner table. I was fairly successful with that. I forget why I stopped, but that might be a decent alternative to just trying to abstain altogether. Baby Carrots are super-cheap, so I could make sure I'm stocked up on them. And thanks for the food for thought. I'll think it over and give it some time to digest Quote Sky Pirate Monk 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 NF Character Battle Log Impossible is just a word people use to make themselves feel better when they quit - Vyse the Blue Rogue Link to comment
Kishi Posted July 20, 2015 Report Share Posted July 20, 2015 Oh you know. I just like to give people something to chew on. 1 Quote Work like a farmer, train like an athlete, fight like a soldier. 2 Tim. 2:3-6 BATTLE! Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.