Rhovaniel goes back to basics

[Rhovaniel]

 

 

So… After the last challenge I took the plunge and joined Nerd Fitness Academy, and my Benchmark came out at… Level 1. No surprise there. My goals are therefore mostly Academy related. Oh, one important note is that, because it works easier for me with uni and work, my challenge will begin on Monday this time around, not Sunday. Therefore, Week 0 for me begins on Monday 19^th.

 

Exercise: Prepare for Battle with Eowyn

 

 

Eowyn, Shield Maiden of Rohan, has looked fear in the eye and cut down her enemies, even as she expected death in return. But before that battle, she was a King’s niece, training in her own way, learning from those around her but not receiving formal training.

 

1.     Workout on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays.

2.     Continue to go to Karate on Friday for two hours.

3.     Walk on all other days for a minimum of half an hour at a brisk pace. I almost made this a Walk to Mordor challenge but decided I want to save that for when I actually have nice places to walk to and in, like the Lakes, not just around town.

 

Diet: Curb the Hobbit’s over-eating habits with Aragorn

   

Aragorn may be a seasoned Ranger, but his travelling companions on the journey from Bree to Rivendell were not. Apt to eat more than they needed, it was up to Aragorn to guide them away from dangerous habits and show them how to survive in the wild

 

 

1.     No more sugary drinks. I can survive without Diet Coke and even Fanta Lemon. I just got lazy. On the bright side, this gives me more opportunity to drink more tea.

2.     No more mindless snacking. By which I mean work snacking because I’m bored, or eating in front of the TV because I feel like it, or because the adverts came on and I wander to the kitchen on reflex. I’ll try no snacks for a couple days and if necessary, add in scheduled snacks, like a small amount of nuts or fruit.

 

Life: Study the past with Gandalf

 

 

Gandalf is different things to different people, but always is at hand with advice and wisdom aplenty. Usually on the road, it is Gandalf that tells his companions the history of the place they are in, or of events that unfolded many many years before. To gain this wisdom, he reads widely, listens to old tales, and is never late. He arrives precisely when he means to.  

 

1.     All class prep to be done at least the night before its due. Make it a daily priority. No uni work = no gaming. 

 I’m working on the system of writing everything that needs to be done in my week-to-view diary and will work on at least one of them for at least an hour every day Mon-Fri. No slacking off and cramming at the end. And hopefully no more reading 30 page articles in the corridor outside a room before class begins, hoping to cram it all in my head.

 

-       Keep up with driving lessons. Driving = Independence. I won’t have to ask my bf for lifts everywhere, no more taking 2 hours on trains back to London for family, more if the trains are delayed as usual, etc. So, not letting these fall by the wayside is important for me.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Following.

[iatetheyeti]

I like this look of this (and can identify heavily with last-year-of-undergrad pressures).

 

Following along!

[Muir]

You will find that the more water you drink, the less other stuff you drink. In the last monthly challenge, I eased into drinking water by starting with half a litre in week 0 and increasing it each week until I was up to 3 litres by the final week. As a result, I now only drink one or two cups of tea or coffee per day and only one pint of Pepsi Max (at most) per day. Alcohol is one or two 330ml bottles per week tops.

 

Like you, I don't want to give up things like pasta permanently. But I do realise that there are healthier options. So I've decided to go through the NFA nutrition levels just long enough to be able to tick off each one. Then I'll start substituting healthier options such as whole grain pasta instead of regular pasta made from white flour.

 

Good luck with your challenges and welcome to the Academy! If there's anything I can do to help, please ask!

[Wild Wolf]

1 hour ago, Rhovaniel said:

Drinking more diet cokes, more chocolate, more junk on work days, etc. Sugar will be the hardest to give up, so I’m not going to push it at the moment

 

I'm finishing up the last day in a half for the last challenge of skipping sugary snacks and sweets and it's been tough. I believe you can do this and make these changes  Going back to basics is always a good thing and I'll be here to root you on!

 

W0lf

[Maggie-Miau]

Following enthusiastically, mellon nin, you've got this! Congratulations on making the leap to joining the Academy, by the way! May it be a fruitful journey!

[bker1370]

Following along.

[Dusk]

Heyyy! Your goals look good. Congrats on almost being done with your undergrad!! How exciting!  Following, of course.

[Rhovaniel]

Thanks for the support everyone. Yesterday was really good. I passed my grading and am now an orange belt!

 

Now for today's challenge: log all food, drink water and try not to hate my job too much. The 12 hour shifts kill my motivation... Week Zero begins today!

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Well done on that yellow belt.

[Rhovaniel]

4 minutes ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Well done on that yellow belt.

I'd love to say I'm a yellow belt, but for now I'm happy with orange. Yellow next time!

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

7 minutes ago, Rhovaniel said:

I'd love to say I'm a yellow belt, but for now I'm happy with orange. Yellow next time!

Sorry, I'm going to claim some sort of literary form of colorblindness.

[Dusk]

Congrats Rhovaniel! Sounds like a good plan for today. Happy Zero Week!

[Rhovaniel]

As much as I am excited about this challenge and starting to use the academy.... today has not been a success, and I still have three hours of work left. I can't seem to break my ridiculous snacking habit at work. One of the reasons is that I get so bored that whenever I get someone in with me for a few hours, I find myself walking to the shop for something to do. And of course I end up buying something. And that really has to stop because its the habit that I think has contributed most to my expanded waistline. 

 I even bring a few healthy snacks with me but I still end up going out and buying junk. There's nowhere really to take a walk around here either, unless I want weird looks from people as I circle round the few streets of houses... 

[Sylvaa]

5 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Sorry, I'm going to claim some sort of literary form of colorblindness.

 

Ironically, I did this exact same thing (color and all). 

 

I'm going to follow along as I have the Academy, but I don't use it like I should. Maybe you will inspire me to put more effort into it! Can't wait to see how well you do this time around!

[SkyGirl]

Wow!! Nice, moderate goals for your first Academy challenge! Good for you (and I'm following, of course)!!

 

Snacking at work is sometimes challenging for me, too, especially on the long-shift days ... there are a couple of things I do to work with this. Firstly, snacking for me is mostly a boredom issue, so I try, when I can, to use some other form of sensory stimulation to help me through the boring periods - my favorite hacks are loud music, fidgeting/jiggling, taking a break to sketch or check a news website, or talking with a coworker.

 

Sometimes, though, waking up my brain isn't enough to distract me - and depending on your job, none of my hacks may work for you. So sometimes, I just accept the fact that I will need a snack, and make sure to incorporate that into my meal plan for the day. I don't know if you can get exactly these in the UK, but I really like Popped Wheat Thins because I can eat 25 of them for only 130 calories, so I fill up a bit and feel like I've had a proper snack. Plain rice cakes are kind of the same thing. But when I plan ahead and work those into my plan, then I can eat a bit less at dinner or lunch and balance them out.

 

Maybe that helps a bit?  :-)  Either way, I know you've got this!! I'm rooting for you!  *fistbump*

[Xena]

7 hours ago, Rhovaniel said:

As much as I am excited about this challenge and starting to use the academy.... today has not been a success, and I still have three hours of work left. I can't seem to break my ridiculous snacking habit at work. One of the reasons is that I get so bored that whenever I get someone in with me for a few hours, I find myself walking to the shop for something to do. And of course I end up buying something. And that really has to stop because its the habit that I think has contributed most to my expanded waistline. 

 I even bring a few healthy snacks with me but I still end up going out and buying junk. There's nowhere really to take a walk around here either, unless I want weird looks from people as I circle round the few streets of houses... 

 

I can sometimes trick myself out of snacking by having gum. I can also sometimes bribe myself with stupid rewards..."once I make it to 3 pm, I can have two Jolly Ranchers"

 

Another idea is to try to think of a non-food reward. Sometimes hard, but worth it if you can figure out something that motivates you.

[Muir]

13 hours ago, Rhovaniel said:

I can't seem to break my ridiculous snacking habit at work

 

Drinking water helps with me. Instead of sugary snacks, buy a bottle of water and slurp it down. It'll take care of your habit of buying something and will insure that you don't spend your money on unhealthy stuff.

[Rhovaniel]

6 hours ago, SkyGirl said:

my favorite hacks are loud music, fidgeting/jiggling, taking a break to sketch or check a news website, or talking with a coworker.

 

Thanks for these. Unfortunately, I work in a customer-facing job, so loud music isn't really feasible. I have managed to get the TV behind the counter to work, but ironically its usually when I have a second person working with me and am able to take a break that the snacking happens. I usually buy a big 2 litre bottle of water as I go in of a morning and another in the afternoon because it can get very hot and stuffy. But I may have to force my brain to accept non-food boredom option. 

6 hours ago, Xena said:

 

I can sometimes trick myself out of snacking by having gum. I can also sometimes bribe myself with stupid rewards..."once I make it to 3 pm, I can have two Jolly Ranchers"

Gum. I could try that.... and packs are pretty inexpensive to pick up so I could go out and stretch my legs to get some. Thanks!

 

44 minutes ago, Muir said:

 

Drinking water helps with me. Instead of sugary snacks, buy a bottle of water and slurp it down. It'll take care of your habit of buying something and will insure that you don't spend your money on unhealthy stuff.

I find I have annoying habit of buying both... but I guess I'm just going to have to be stricter with myself. 

 

Thanks for the wonderful suggestions everyone. I'm not in work now until Saturday, so I have a few days to sort out my game plan. On the bright side, I did log everything. Every single snack and sugar bomb (Ribena). Today will definitely be better. I may try adding up how much I spend on a typical days snacking as well, and see if looking at how much I waste making my body unhealthy will do the trick and keep me away from them.

 

In terms of diet, I think it's almost too easy to start with. Just tracking? It's why I've added the variance goal from my last challenge to remind myself that just because all I'm doing right now is tracking, I do not want to use it as an excuse not to keep a close eye on my food. Calories may also have to be added in sooner, too. I would hope that I wouldn't be eating all the junk I did yesterday if I was keeping a running total of calories. The problem for me is that I don't get on well with apps, especially MFP which is so damn judgmental with its colour coding and making you have "calorie goals". ugh. But I also know I need a baseline, so I know how much I eat on a typical day (which a full week of tracking will hopefully give me)  and therefore how much I need to cut back. I guess I'll stick to pen and paper and do a lot of googling for specific calories. Does anyone know how to calculate calories in homemade food? Do you list every ingredient individually?

[Ranger Five]

58 minutes ago, Rhovaniel said:

Does anyone know how to calculate calories in homemade food? Do you list every ingredient individually?

That's how I did it. Let me know if the maths is inconvenient; I can write a script so the computer does it. Example output with dummy numbers:

Please input first ingredient:
> Spaghetti
How many calories per 100 grams does Spaghetti have?
> 100
How many grams of Spaghetti will go into the dish?
> 200
Would you like to input another ingredient? (Y/N)
> Y
Please input next ingredient:
> Mince
How many calories per 100 grams does Mince have?
> 200
How many grams of Mince will go into the dish?
> 400
Would you like to print another ingredient? (Y/N)
> N
Your dish will contain 167 calories per 100 grams.

All lines that start with > is the stuff that the user puts into the program.

I wrote it for myself once, but I can't seem to find it. Should be pretty easy to rewrite it though.

[Rhovaniel]

I really need to learn basic computing.... that programme sounds perfect. Are you sure it's not too much hassle to re-do?

[Ranger Five]

31 minutes ago, Rhovaniel said:

I really need to learn basic computing.... that programme sounds perfect. Are you sure it's not too much hassle to re-do?

Not at all; just rewrote it. Funny story; while opening it to test it, I found the old one. My code looks so much better these days; it was quite interesting to see how far I've come over the last couple of years. I have you to credit for the ego boost  

Directions:

1. Download Python 2.7.7
2. Download the program. (Anyone else, you can feel free to download and use it too if you like)
3. Open Python.
4. Open the program.
5. Press F5 to run it. Accept the popup. The program should prompt you from there.

To use the program after the first time, just do steps 3-5. If you run into any bugs, just let me know and I'll fix it. I only did a couple of test runs.

Yeah, programming is fantastic. There are plenty of resources out there you can Google for, but I highly recommend Python (2 or 3, doesn't matter) as a first language. It's just so, so much easier than any other language I've tried, and it's plenty good enough for anything you or I might want to write. And now you've already taken the first step, since you have Python installed!

[Xena]

A helpful goal might be just to try counting calories 1 or 2 days per week. That way you can start getting an idea how many calories are in different foods. I use a little notebook and look up the calorie counts on the browser on my phone. At the front of the notebook I write a list of calorie counts in things I eat often. I total it up each day using the calculator on my phone.

 

One thing that was key for me is a kitchen scale. I weigh lots of foods, and that helps me learn more about portion size.

 

For "complicated" homemade foods, the best thing is indeed to add up all the ingredients. It can take a little while...and that's where batch cooking REALLY helps. If I make something that's 4 servings, I divide it up right away and calculate the calorie count. You only have to calculate it once :-)

[Maigs]

4 hours ago, Rhovaniel said:

Does anyone know how to calculate calories in homemade food? Do you list every ingredient individually?

I track my calories in My Fitness Pal and they have a section where you can record recipes. You put in the ingredient list, it does it's best to match them up with foods in their data base, you make adjustments as needed, you tell it how many servings it makes, and it tells you how many calories per serving. And the recipe is saved so you only have to add it once even if it's something you eat regularly

[bker1370]

I just pretty much ignore any "judgements" MFP gives me and use it as a log only... especially as I am more interested in putting on muscle than actually losing weight.  It does have the option to set it to gain weight but it doesn't seem to really like that idea.  So, I just pretty much ignore its "advice" and take advantage of their large database.