Casbin - heading out for the first challenge

[Casbin]

Hi everybody.

 

I'm Casbin, a 28 year old guy from germany.

I'm about 185 cm tall and weigh in around 60 kg.

Though that isn't really telling you much about myself it might be a got starting point why I am working on a couple of things.

I already attended the last two weeks of the previous challenge but accidentally ended up posting it in the previous challenge subforum.

 

My first milestones will be:

  - to gain 20 kg

  - finish a 10km in <1h

  - get my english to a conversational level

 

As a motivation I picked the decision to only restart dancing after I achieved above goals and came to realise that it is working pretty well so far.

 

But enough of the introduction and onward to my goals for this challenge:

 

    Nutrition:

  - get at least 3 meals per day and track them in MyFitnessPal

  - additionally add 4 Snacks per week

 

   Fitness:

  - attend fitnessclass twice & do one BBWW per week

 

  Language:

  - do three Duolingo-Units per day (my english is still a bit rough so feel free to correct me if you'd like to)

 

And that is pretty much all I wanted to say.

 

I wish you a pleasant night,

Casbin

[m rips]

Hi Casbin! I must say your English thus far is pretty good! I worked with 2 Russian girls (21 years old) a few years ago who had come to America for work. Although they had taken English classes their entire life, their English was just ok. In just a matter of weeks of working with me, their English improved considerably. It can be done, and the best way to do it is to practice speaking to an English speaking person.

 

I think your goals sound just easy enough that they are a challenge, yet not so easy that you will give up. I think Steve did an article a while back about those who are looking to gain weight.

 

I wish you good luck!

[Luciana Valerosa Culming]

My English improved significantly, when I started skyping in English. Perhaps you can find somebody to talk to, too.

 

Best wishes for your challenge and welcome to the rebellion. You can make it happen

 

 

[Casbin]

Hi there!

 

Thanks for coming in here.

The both of you are absolutely right, actually speaking it is definitely a great way to advance quickly. Just using it to write here is already a great start.

 

About the goals, I wanted to start with actual routine-implementation and picked something I thought I couldn't fail. But came to realise that it isn't just that easy.

I'm pretty happy with this set so far and it's good to hear that it's not just from my point of view.

Ohhh and thanks for the tip with the blog mmead0105, I saw your respond on mail and already searched for it at my lunchbreak. There got me a great deal further then the last couple of years...

 

Then, on to the last two days.

I already had made my set of goals with the summary of the last one and just forgot to post about the process yesterday.

 

It was a great start!

I managed to get all three meals in and logged including a bar of chocolate for a snack.

Also the Duolingo-units where kind of annihilated as I entertained my self with it while having a hour of waitingtime before an appointment.

And I managed to hit the fitnessclass after a week off thanks to a cold felt great again and playing around sure is fun.

 

For today, it went just as smoothly.

Three logged meals + a combined snack by four cookies and a cereal bar.

Had some time to actually lean back after a decent walk with my roommate and the dogs.

And just finished with the englishtraining prior to posting this.

 

Tomorrow will be a bit busy but I will be trying to check in here after fitness.

 

Bye then

Casbin

[Princessstabity]

Your English seems great so far! On top of Duolingo I personally find translating songs from the language you're learning helps with vocabulary and grammar, a bit. I find it fun at least so just a suggestion! Good luck with your goals! 

[m rips]

It sounds like you are off to a great start. Keep it going

[Dreamspin]

Great job Casbin, your English is very good!

[maegs]

I'd say that if you speak English as well as you write it, you're at a conversational level. But I know that writing and speaking a language can be two very different things - I find that the hardest thing with French is understanding it when native speakers speak it, followed by speaking it myself, and then reading/writing it are way easier! I agree that if you can find someone to speak to, or even start watching TV in English it'll likely help a lot as you get used to the sound of the language.

[Koaladle]

^YES. 

 

I started watching French TV and shows when I started my lessons and it helped a TON. Also, here's a link to the group where people find speaking buddies:

 

How has your challenge been going?

[Casbin]

Hi everybody,

 

first things first:

Wow, this is a lot of feetback thank you very much!

Reading and watching series in english is pretty much exactly how I got here, as I really sucked in class.

But I will start doing that more in the last couple of weeks, I just got access to netflix (which is one big reason why I completely missed out on the updates here).

I will definitely have a look at that topic and look for some songs to give it a try.

 

And Maegs, I totally see what you mean, especially when you hear people from different regions.

 

Regarding those last weeks things weren't going too well.

I believe I missed about five meals and came short on my lessons on three days.

 

Basically I was just run down and didn't feel that great.

Even though I believed the goals should have been a breather I've been overshooting.

I believed I could just go and take three days of sports back into my schedule but I'm not jet there.

 

And that's the main reason why I wasn't showing up...

I pretty ok with it this time around but it's still tough to put it into words.

 

I've been cutting back to 1 Fitnessclass per week and allready feel way better.

Additionally I will be going back down to two english-units per day to get some room on the mental workload.

 

Whish you a good night

Casbin

[maegs]

Everybody seems to be sick this week! Don't feel too bad about your goals this week, especially with being run down. It takes some time to learn to set goals that aren't too easy or too hard. Just adjust them as needed and keep moving forward. Remember...

 

 

[Koaladle]

Writing up these challenges can be difficult at first, because you have to balance what you want to do with what it realistic right now. Another thing to consider is that you goals often reflect the progress you hope will be habit by the END of the month. Sometimes people want to work towards a goal, and sometimes it's about building a consistent schedule. Think about what works best for you, and in the meantime feel free to tweak your goals to suit both your aspirations and your ability.

 

OH MY GOSH NETFLIX. I don't blame you for going AFK. Netflix keeps me company while I do all my housespouse chores, and I don't even want to know how many hours of TV I've watched. The cool thing about it is that you can get exposed to most of the accents in the US by watching a variety of shows. :-)

 

Keep up your progress! You're doing a great job!

 

[Casbin]

Woah, ok!

 

The week just flew by and I am feeling pretty ok.

 

Besides keeping all my goals I managed to get my papers in order, got my head into GTD and went out for a walk with the dogs on every day except for my workoutday.

I got a lot of stuff out of the way that I've been postponing for month, cleaned out my workbench and desk at work, actually started to put up a LinkedIn profile (only registered but hey, it's a start) and got a rather clear image what needs to be done next week.

Regarding that I wasn't really motivated and had to do a lot of troubleshooting that is pretty cool as well as I wasn't going overdrive this time around xD

 

Tomorrow will be another packed day so I'm not too sure if I will be able to check in here again but hope to manage.

Will be checking on the scale as well, I'm rather curious if the upward tendency will stay with me.

 

Well it's a lot of raw thoughts but I hope it's kind of readable.

 

Wish you a pleasant weekend

Casbin

[Casbin]

Oh, damn I forgot...

 

Those pictures are great!!!!

Had to save the progress one.

 

I'm looking forward to the next weeks.

While a bit on edge I'm feeling great and better from day to day which is another highlight.

And thanks a lot for picking me up, it helped alot!

[Koaladle]

Have a great week, and come back to tell us about it! <3

[maegs]

How did your challenge go?

[Casbin]

And here I am again.

 

Sorry for staying away this long.

It's been real busy times...

My roommate nearly drove me insane with her time management and planning a 30 People barbecue in our Garden without actually thinking wen to get things done, family issues and some others stuff ging on I've just been happy when i could relax for a while.

 

I've basically lost Track of my goals and missed a couple of meals and lessons but kept to my fitnessclass.

 

Considering it all things went surprisingly good, I missed maybe a mal per week and maybe 8 lessons total.

Considering that I didn't even think about it that is just fine with me as it is showing that the habits start to kick in.

 

I'verschiedenen allready been thinking ahead to the next challenge.

 

The goals will be staying as they are but I started laying out habitica to keep a closer eye on sticking with my plans and I definitely need to find a good rythm to Check back in here to report how things went...

 

This should keep me busy without upping the (selfmade) pressure too far.

 

Wish you a pleasant, sunny weekend (actually Posting from my mobile while enjoying the sun)

Casbin

 

[Casbin]

 one franatic failuresearch later...

Thankfully I did not accidentally post it in another thread but my mobile saved instead of Posting it.

 

The formen Post was from yesterday.