Cosmic Hitter

[Muir]

 

The idea of this challenge has been percolating in the back of my mind for the last month. Whilst I've been a member of the Academy for going on 3 months now, I've only been active here in the forums for just under a month. Having jumped in about a week after the challenges started, it felt weird to me to jump into them as I wouldn't have been able to do the full 4-5 weeks. So now that a new challenge month has arrived, here I am.

 

As with most things in my life, I chose the theme for this month's challenge randomly. I mean that quite literally, as I used a random word generator to come up with "Cosmic" and then Googled "Cosmic motivation" and picked the first nerdy/geeky motivational image that I came across that I liked. Randomness holds my attention for some reason and it always ends up steering me in interesting directions.

 

Over the next 5 weeks, I will be challenging myself to do an assortment of things. 5 weeks = 5 challenges in 5 different areas of my life. These areas will be Nutrition, Mental Health, Fitness, Family, and Fun. Said challenges will be taken from my Epic Quest list, the 12 week missions, and past monthly challenges.

 

Challenge 1:

Nutrition:  Nutrition is more than just eating healthy foods. A big part of nutrition is changing habits. Drinking - of all kinds - has always been a problem with me. I don't drink enough pure water, preferring to get most of my hydration from diet soda, coffee, milk, and tea. Even though I don't have an alcohol problem, I do tend to want to have a drink when I'm stressed, and on the rare occasions when I buy a bottle of spirits, I find it really difficult to leave the bottle alone. I may only have one or two drinks per night, but until that bottle is empty, I have a drink every night instead of once or twice a week like I do with cans or bottles of ale and cider.

 

Last month I challenged myself to have zero alcohol for the entire month. A challenge which I met with success. This month, I'm going to work on upping my pure water intake. The Academy H2O quests are to drink 3 litres of water for 5 days in a week and to drink water when eating out. Since I only drink about 3 pints of water per day right now, I'm going to work my way up.

 

• Week 0: Drink half a litre of water every day.
• Week 1: Drink 1 litre of water every day.
• Week 2: Drink 2 litres of water every day.
• Week 3: Drink 2.5 litres of water 5 days out of 7.
• Week 4: Drink 3 litres of water 5 days out of 7.

 

Challenge 2:

Mental Health: Mental health can be maintained in a variety of ways. Whether it's taking time out for a hobby, organising physical aspects of your life, or just taking a long bath, if you don't take care of your mental side, every other facet of your life will suffer.

 

This month I'm going to concentrate on getting my Bat Cave fixed up.

 

Quote

• Choose 3 different changes you can make to your daily environment (home, car, work) that will remove steps to build a new healthy habit you’ve selected.
• Then, choose 3 different barriers you can ADD into your life to keep you from falling back on a old unhealthy habit you are replacing or limiting.

 

6 changes in 5 weeks. Totally doable.

 

Challenge 3:

Fitness: Steve says that weight loss is 80% nutrition. However, for a lot of us, physical activity is 100% necessary in order to lose weight in addition to eating healthy. It used to be that I would compare my physical prowess against others to see if I "measured up". Doing this however is setting yourself up for failure because no two people are in the same place when it comes to fitness. Therefore, I've learned to only compare myself against myself. By trying to one up myself instead of others, I set myself up to succeed.

 

To help me continue to succeed this month, this challenge has two components. Part One will force me to slow down and prepare myself; part two will provide me with a challenge where I can beat my personal best in something. Another reason for part two is because there is a bar hang challenge at Leeds Beach Fair this year - hang for 2 minutes and win £50. If I manage to beat this time before the fair has finished, I will go there and try to win the prize. If I do so after the fair has finished, then I will reward myself £25 out of my own pocket. Either way, I will use the money to treat myself to something to help me with future NF quests.

 

• Part One: Do either one NF warm up or cool down each week. For example, Week 0 I can do warm up number one, Week 1 I can do cool down number 1, and so on.
• Part Two: Go to the park at least 3 times each week and do a bar hang for as long as I can. Try to beat the previous time by at least 5 seconds. OR Go to the nearby outdoor steps bannister poles and do as many inclined pull ups as I can in one set. Try to beat the previous number of reps by at least one.

 

In addition to the above, I'm going to take a page out of the very first NF monthly challenge, and post links to before and after photos. (I'll post the before links tomorrow in the proper Week 0 space and the after links in the Week 4 space)

 

Challenge 4:

Family: The most important thing in a person's life is their family. Love them or hate them, you wouldn't be who you are today without them.

 

This month, I'm going to concentrate on my son. Paul is 14 years old and in many ways is a typical teenage boy. He likes listening to music, watching Youtube, playing video games, and typically locks himself in his room for most of the day. What makes him non-typical is that he is severely autistic and emotionally, mentally, and socially is more like a 5 year old than a 14 year old. He gets frustrated very easily and does not have the ability to process his emotions like you or I do. As such, he can be quite a handful. Saying that, he's also one of the sweetest kids that I've ever known. He's helpful, kind, loving, and on a good day is absolutely no trouble. I don't have to worry about him staying out late with his mates or argue with him about tidying his room.

 

This challenge isn't really a challenge, because it isn't a difficult thing to do. Rather, it's more time consuming than challenging.

 

Once a week, for the next 5 weeks, I'm going to have a "yes day" with my son. For those of you who are wondering, a "yes day" is a day where you say yes to everything a person wants to do. Obviously, there must be rules, such as spending and distance limits. For this month, the spending limit will be £50 each week and the distance limit will be 2 hours from home.

 

Challenge 5:

Fun: Fun is the spice of life, or something like that. Scary cosmic hitters have to have some down time in between fighting the evil beings in the galaxy after all.

 

For this next month, the goal is simple: read one Xanth novel per week. Easily done, and loads of fun. Plus reading the books will give me ample puns to use as arsenal.

 

Mini Challenge:

• Strength Feat:  (personal challenge related) beat PR in bar hangs/Inclined Table Rows from the week before
• Combat Feat:  Do one exercise per day of a NF Bodyweight Workout.
• Distance Feat:  Meet or exceed steps goal 3 days out of 7.
• Recovery Feat:  Meditate 3 days out of 7.

[Muir]

Week 0 Updates

 

Nutrition:

Monday: passed

Tuesday: passed

Wednesday: passed

Thursday: passed

Friday: passed

Saturday: passed

 

Mental Health: (completed 15/08/16)

 

First Bat Cave improvement! I've already done this one for this week. I love to cook, but don't have much confidence in doing so. For my birthday, my boyfriends enrolled me on an 8 week cooking course which will not only help to increase my confidence, but will also give me an arsenal of healthy, well balanced meals to cook.

 

The course takes place in Leeds Market every Wednesday afternoon.

 

2nd Bat Cave improvement! Bought a Fitbit Surge to help keep track of steps and distance walked each day, in addition to logging my exercises, sleep patterns, and helping me to wake up on time in the morning.

 

Fitness:

Part 1: Did Steve's Warm up workout (option 1) on 18/08

Part 2: bar hang - 35 seconds (Tuesday)

 

Family: Had yes day with Paul on 18/08. Took him to the Leeds Beach Fair and the Leeds City Museum.

 

Fun:  Reading Zombie Lover by Piers Anthony (book 22 in the Xanth series)

 

Before photos

[Muir]

Week 1 Updates

 

Nutrition: (one litre water per day)

Monday: passed

Tuesday: passed

Wednesday: passed

Thursday: passed

Friday: passed

Saturday: passed

Sunday: passed

 

Mental Health: (Bat Cave)

3rd Bat Cave improvement: Bought some Meal Prep three compartment food trays and Meal Prep measuring storage boxes. (Fridge/freezer/microwave safe) These will allow me to cook meals in bulk and store them to eat throughout the week.

 

Fitness: (Do one warm up or cool down during the week and do either a bar hang or inclined pull ups 3x during the week)

Part 1: Staci's Cool Down 1

Part 2:

• Inclined Table Rows (New PR of 5)
• Bar Hang 35 seconds (equal to Week 0 PR)
• Inclined Table Rows (New PR of 7)

 

Family: (Yes Day with son) Went to Leeds Beach Fair, Leeds City Museum, Leeds Art Gallery, and rode up and down on ~8 different elevators.

 

Fun:  (Read one Xanth novel)

Reading Xone of Contention by Piers Anthony (book 23 in the Xanth series) - finished

 

• Distance Feat:  Meet or exceed steps goal 3 days out of 7. (Day 1 - 23/08; Day 2 - 24/08; Day 3 - 25/08)

[Muir]

Week 2 Updates

 

Nutrition: (2 litres/4 pints water)

Monday: passed

Tuesday: passed

Wednesday: passed

Thursday: passed

Friday: passed

Saturday: passed

Sunday: passed

 

Mental Health:

4th Bat Cave Improvement: Bought some 2 compartment storage trays for the kitchen. These will further help me with storing food in bulk as these ones actually fit in my microwave! I'm going to use the three compartment trays I bought last week to store food that can be eaten cold and/or raw.

 

 

Fitness:

Part 1: (warm up 2)

Due to getting a tattoo, wasn't able to do NF warm up 2 completely, but I did a modified version which didn't aggravate my tattooed leg. 

 

Part 2: (bar hang and/or table rows x3)

Did "table" rows once (beat PR) and did 7 sets bar hangs 1x 35 secs, 6 x 15 secs over the course of one day.

 

Family: (yes day with Paul) Took Paul to Red5, Burger King, and the Dark Arches

 

Fun:  Reading The Dastard by Piers Anthony (book 24 in the Xanth series) - finished 31/08

 

Mini Challenge: Strength Feat:  (personal challenge related) beat PR in bar hangs/table rows from the week before

Beat last week's PR (7). New PR = 8

 

[Muir]

Week 3 Updates

 

Nutrition: (2.5 litres/5 pints water, 5/7 days)

Monday:

Tuesday:

Wednesday:

Thursday:

Friday:

Saturday:

Sunday:

 

Mental Health:

5th Bat Cave Improvement: Bought a pair of high quality, highly supportive shoes.

 

Fitness:

Part 1: (cool down 2) Did Steve's cool down on 09/09

 

Part 2: (bar hang and/or table rows x3) 9 table rows on 08/09 (new PR), 10 table rows on 09/09 (new PR), 35 seconds bar hang on 10/09.

 

 

Family: (yes day with Paul) Did this on the 6th. We had ice cream, went to the Dark Arches, and to the Royal Armouries.

 

Fun:  Reading Swell Foop by Piers Anthony (book 25 in the Xanth series) Finished on 09/09

 

Mini Challenge: Combat Feat: Do one NF exercise from bodyweight 3 per day. (worked through both 3A and 3B)

[Muir]

Week 4 Updates

 

Nutrition: (3 litres/6 pints water, 5/7 days)

Monday:

Tuesday:

Wednesday:

Thursday:

Friday:

Saturday:

Sunday:

 

Mental Health:

6th Bat Cave Improvement: Bought a pull up bar which fits on a door frame.

 

Fitness:

Part 1: Tailor the NF Warm Ups and Cool Downs to suit my likes, needs, and abilities. Posted them in this comment here.

 

Part 2: (bar hang and/or table rows x3) 13/09 - Bar Hangs 4 x 10 seconds, 14/09 - Bar Hangs 4 x 10 seconds (testing out the new bar)

 

Family: (yes day with Paul) Paul and I went to Holbeck Moor Park, had fried chicken and chips from a local takeaway for lunch, then went to the fair at the park and rode on several of the rides there.

 

Fun:   Listening to Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone audio book, read by Stephen Fry. (Finished on 15/09)

 

Mini Challenge: (Recovery Feat) Mediate at least 10 minutes a day.

Monday: 

Tuesday: 

Wednesday:

Thursday:

Friday:

Saturday:

Sunday:

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Welcome to the Ranger Corps! This looks like a great challenge, I'll be following along.

[Muir]

Welcome, @Tanktimus the Encourager! Feel free to follow, comment, encourage, and participate in whichever ways you like.

 

[Muir]

The week has begun splendidly. 

 

I accomplished my nutrition (water drinking) goal for today and am still going strong. I cheated a little bit with the Mental Health (Bat Cave) challenge, but I figure since it's an 8 week course that it isn't too much of a cheat code. I literally just grabbed the next Xanth novel off my bookshelf (Zombie Lover) and will start reading it right after I've posted this.

 

[Wild Wolf]

6 hours ago, Muir said:

Once a week, for the next 5 weeks, I'm going to have a "yes day" with my son. For those of you who are wondering, a "yes day" is a day where you say yes to everything a person wants to do. Obviously, there must be rules, such as spending and distance limits. For this month, the spending limit will be £50 each week and the distance limit will be 2 hours from home.

 

Wonderful! I like this part of the challenge! I should add more stuff like this with my boys.

 

6 hours ago, Muir said:

For this next month, the goal is simple: read one Xanth novel per week. Easily done, and loads of fun. Plus reading the books will give me ample puns to use as arsenal.

 

Ample puns at your disposal? Sounds like a win to me, Muir! Welcome aboard the Rangers, brother.

 

W0lf

[shaar]

I love your challenge with Paul.  How thoughtful and fun!!! ^___________^

[Muir]

@Wild Wolf & @shaarawy - This will be the first official "yes day" that I've done with him where anything goes. In the past, I've done mini yes sessions where we went to one place and while we were there, everything got a yes. They went well, so I figured it's high time for a proper one.

 

And I love puns! Which is good, because the Xanth series is full of them from page one all the way to the end of the Author's notes!

[Shello]

Welcome to the Rangers.  You're challenge is so well thought out.  That cooking course sounds great and doesn't seem like a cheat at all.  

[Muir]

I say it's a "cheat" as the course started before the challenges. It's such a Good Thing^tm to do to start good habits and keep me from dropping back into old bad habits, though, that I had to count it.

 

Today is Bootcamp fitness day, so drinking half a litre of water is going to be a cinch. The guy who runs it loves to push everyone to their own personal limits (and he has a canny ability to know just what those limits are for each person), so the sweat will be pouring off me by the end of the class!

[Wild Wolf]

How did the "Yes Day" go? Or is that today? Sweat Session (TM) in the AM is a good way to start your morning for sure! 

 

W0lf

[Muir]

@Wild Wolf, I've decided to have the "yes days" be Thursdays, as they're a totally free day in which I don't have anything else going on. That way I can concentrate fully on him and not any of the classes that I have.

 

The Fitness Bootcamp this morning was a huge success. We did a mixture of body weight exercises, running, and boxing. All outdoors in a huge field underneath the sun and blue skies.

 

My water intake goal was met during the Bootcamp session, as I thought it would be. I've gone over my goal as well, which is good. Speaking of... *refills water glass*

 

Finally, I managed to hang on the bar at the park for 35 seconds before my grip gave out. Next time I'll try to last 40 seconds.

 

[Muir]

Morning everyone!

 

Got my cooking course today (we're making seasonal soup with Irish soda bread this week), so I'll be walking into Leeds to get some exercising in (4 miles there plus whatever walking I do in town). Promised Paul I'd take him to the park when I get back home, if it isn't raining, and I also have Thai boxing class tonight.

 

Wednesday = fit day.

 

Good luck on all of your challenges. Go out and be awesome!

[Muir]

Cooking course went really well today. I brought home 3 servings of tasty spinach and lentil soup to have tonight and tomorrow.

 

I've updated Week 0 info above. I bought a Fitbit Surge a few days ago and got it in the post yesterday. Used it today to track my walking and heart rate. Should be interesting to see what my heart rate gets up to during boxing class! Water goal has been exceeded again for today and I've also finally remembered to put a link to the before photo for this week.

 

[Muir]

Things to do today:

• warm up session
• Yes day
• drink lots of water

Doing the first and third...now!

[shaar]

Yeah water!!  Sometimes I have a hard time remembering to hydrate enough if I don't keep a giant water glass at my desk... I just need to, you know, remember the glass... ^^;;

 

Yay yes day!!

[Muir]

4 hours ago, shaarawy said:

Yeah water!!  Sometimes I have a hard time remembering to hydrate enough if I don't keep a giant water glass at my desk... I just need to, you know, remember the glass... ^^;;

 

Yay yes day!!

 

I hit my goal at least, though I'm going to have to drink quite a bit more between now and bed time to stay hydrated. 5 hours spent outside in the sun tends to dehydrate a person (Who knew?! )

 

The yes day went really well. Paul needs language simplified so that he can more easily process it, so I explained it to him by saying "Today we can do whatever you want, as long as it doesn't break any of your normal rules". His normal rules are there for his own safety, so they're non-negotiable. I showed him the money we had to spend and said "We can spend this money on anything that you want, but when it's gone, the day is finished."

 

He asked to go to the Leeds Beach Fair, which is free to get in. We spent £20 on ride/game tokens, and nearly another £20 on food and drinks. Once all the tokens were gone and he bought one last snack, he asked if we could go into the city museum, which is right next to the square where the beach fair is. We spent about half an hour in there, walking through the exhibits. Once he had his fill of history and culture, he said "home time" and we came home.

 

It was the least stressful day I've ever spent with him out in public and I am definitely looking forward to next week's yes day.

 

[Shello]

That yes day sounds like it worked out really well, quality time with less stress! 

[Muir]

1 hour ago, LadyShello said:

That yes day sounds like it worked out really well, quality time with less stress! 

 

After today, I would definitely recommend it to any parent/carer.

[Muir]

We're off on a weekend holiday first thing tomorrow morning, so I won't be able to post any updates until we get back.

 

The warm up week went rather well, I think. I'll have Zombie Lover finished by the end of today (only have ~50 pages left) and will probably have most of the next book (Xone of Contention) read by Monday as well due to the 4-5 hour journey each way.

 

The only challenge that I didn't complete 100% was to do 3 bar hangs during the week. I did it once, but due to it raining on the other days I had planned on going to the park, that was all I could do. However, I did find some step railings nearer to home where I can do inclined pull ups (did 4 sets of 3 this morning before it started raining), so I think I might edit the original challenge to do a mixture of bar hangs and inclined pull ups 3x a week. That way when I go near the park, I can do the bar hangs, but if I can't get to the park for whatever reason or if the playground is crowded, I can do the pull ups instead.

 

[Muir]

Have decided to try the Ranger's Mini Challenge; added it to the bottom of the OP. No idea what I should do for the Combat Feat though. Any ideas? The simpler the better.