Shukar isn't Lion

[Shukar]

Hey hey nerds, tis I Shukar, back from.... let's say the Crusades.

 

 

Life has been way too crazy for a while now, and it's starting to become apparent that some of that is my failure to impose order upon it. So I'm here to correct that and get myself back to somewhere I was a bit happier with my results, and then push past that into uncharted territory. 

 

Quick summary for those who don't know me, which may be a lot of you since I've been absent some time now. I'm a Scout, I'm super tall (though by no means the Almighty Tallest or anything), I'm a big Disney and general movies nerd, and I have an obnoxious tendency to run races on nowhere near enough training and still somehow finish feeling good if not happy with the time.

 

 

So, what goals are we looking at this challenge? Well....

 

 

Goal 1: Be Prepared

 

Be prepared, I'll be prepared... prepared for what you may ask? Well, for meals of course. Far too long I've let my work conditions be an excuse for eating like crap. No more. Within the past couple weeks my wife and I have started getting into meal prep and thus packing lunches. So the goal here is 3 meals a week packed and eaten at work. That's phrased that way because sometimes, like today, I'm at work for 2 meal times and I don't care which of the two I eat the packed lunch in specifically as long as I'm eating it and generally contributing to making good choices. So 3 a week, that's the goal. 

 

 

Goal 2: Scrounging up some Grub(s)

 

That's right, two food goals this challenge. While the previous goal was about improving my working relationship with food, this goal is about making sure that I'm not making excuses to spend money or otherwise stuff my feelings away with food. To succeed, I need to map out the dinner plans for the week ahead of time, and make dinner 80% of the nights we're gonna actually be home to eat it, as noted above sometime work gets in the way and that's not always avoidable. But failing to plan is planning to fail, and I'm not doing that anymore.

 

 

Goal 3:  Get in touch with the nerds again

 

I used to be in the habit of posting on my own threads here daily and posting regularly on other nerds threads. I have long since fallen out of that habit. Which is a pity because it only takes a few minutes a day to post on a thread updating what I did about my goals that day, and what's going on with me. So to succeed at this goal I'm gonna have to post 3 times a week, minimum, on my own thread and once a week on someone else's. 

 

 

Bonus Goal 4!: No Worries

 

I am generally a pretty relaxed kind of guy, which is probably why it's taken me so long to seriously consider a meditation practice. But with all the things going on with life recently that have been dragging me off my intended course, I'm thinking now is as good a time as any to give it a shot. So during this challenge I'm gonna test out a couple of meditation apps for my phone (I've currently got Headspace and Calm but am definitely open to suggestions) and see if I can use it as a tool to help me refocus a bit and get to a better place. The goal here is by the end of the challenge to have figured out which app I like, if any, and whether continuing with this seems like it will be productive for me or not.

 

 

So, a distinct lack of directly 'fitness' related goals in this challenge compared to others I've done, but frankly I think I need to start with the baby steps on that and I'm hoping that with proper fueling and proper mindset I can get myself to a place where the fitness stuff starts to happen because it wants to and not because I'm trying to force it. To quote Homer Simpson, All my life I've had but one dream, to achieve my many goals. I'm hopeful that working on the goals above will help me start in on a few others. 

 

There you have it folks, a challenge. See you tomorrow for an update on how things are going so far.

[The Shogun]

I have a mighty need to follow this challenge. 

 

[Shukar]

Glad to have you Shogun, hopefully I can sate your mighty need.

 

Alright so Day, 3 I think it is technically? A roundup of the day real fast and a summary of how the goals are going.

 

Early, and long, day at work today. Only expected the early sadly which didn't help matters. Took my lunch but didn't end up eating it today, take it again tomorrow and see what happens with that I suppose. Chatted up some nerds in my down time at work, chatty people those folks. Once I finally made it home, put the finishing touches on the slow cooker carnitas tacos and had some dinner. Watched a couple episodes of TV (still watching Gotham for some reason, finished up Mr Robot), did my daily squats, and now I'm off to bed once I finish this post. 

 

So how bout them goals eh? Sitting at 1/3 for the lunch so far this week, having eaten the prepared meal yesterday (even if it was for dinner rather than lunch, replaced a meal purchased at work and that's what counts). So far I'm at 1/1 with the dinner planning, which for the math inclined is above my goal of 80% so yay! Acing the posting goal so far, not counting the thread starting post this will put me at 1/3 for the week on my thread, and I'm definitely past 1 for other peoples threads this week. No progress yet on the meditation bonus goal, but the challenge is still young. 

 

As I depart tonight I leave you all with this:

 

A crisis averted until another day.

[Shukar]

Day 4!

 

Today was mostly taken up by maintenance tasks at work, and convincing someone that a different expression of an ongoing problem was in fact the same problem. Super exciting. Ate my pad thai I packed for lunch, supplemented with a protein shake from the supplements place that was right next to where my coworkers had lunch so I could avoid spending a lot of money or ingesting a lot of junk while still being social. Came home early and got some stuff done around the apartment, including most of making dinner, and after finishing up dinner we went out and watched a movie. Came home and did the usual nightly squats, plus some stretching for my neck (it's been bugging me again recently and damnit I should do something about it).

 

So goals checkin, 2/3 on lunches, 2/2 on dinners, winning at posting, haven't started meditation yet. Not bad, not bad at all.

 

[Shukar]

Day 5

 

Got an early start to the day today when I got a call telling me a site had broken something so I needed to come in early and fix it. How thoughtful of them. Got some productive work done in the morning, spent the afternoon getting little lingering things and some emails taken care of. Turned out 2 tacos, not enough tacos. So had to supplement the packed lunch with some nearby chipotle. Came home and after a little tidying up around the place made some dinner, ma po tofu and egg drop soup. Finished off the evening with a little blueberry ice cream and some squats. 

 

So what's the count? 

 

 

Well, he's a vampire, duh. 

 

But that's 3/3 lunches (Yay! full points for the week!), 3/3 on dinners, winning at posting (that's right, I posted here again and on another nerds thread or two just today), and no progress on the meditation goal yet.

 

Until tomorrow.

[mom2sjm]

I also have a forum goal!  I used to be an ambassador when I was in the assassins guild and I really liked checking in on people.  So for this challenge I'm checking in on 5 new people daily.  Its been fun, I've been visiting other guilds this week!

 

So good luck with your challenge.   all the goals look great but especially #3

[Shukar]

Well, tomorrow already. Day 6.

 

Got answers to a number of things I'd been waiting on at work today, which was nice. ended up having to buy lunch today because of insufficient planning of lunch related resources, had a personal pizza and some chips and hummus. Got some errands run after work, getting things setup to get some new tech installed. Mrs Shu had a long and rough day at work today and partly because of that we ended up scrubbing the dinner plan and going out to Portillo's instead, I got a salad and a combo and called it a day. Watched a couple episodes of Futurama, chatted with nerds, did some squats, went to bed happy.

 

So numbers. 3/4 on Lunches due to planning failures, 3/4 on dinners due to stress decisions. Still winning at posting and not doing much about meditation (Gonna put myself on notice as starting this on Sunday.)

[Shukar]

Day 8, Sunday.

 

Welp, skipped a day, but it was mostly full of family drama and football watching (plus some eating) and the shopping portion of meal prep.

 

Today was mostly cleaning up around the apartment, running errands, and meal prep. Got 4 dinners (2 each) prepped and 6 lunches (3 each), throwing in the leftovers we're already 4 days worth of lunches into the week ready to go. That's not too shabby. Also got some quality plotting of the long term budget data done today, thankfully all on track with the debt pay down so far. Did not get to the meditation today, shamefully.

 

So how're the goals looking at the end of week 1? I got 3/4 lunches, 3/4 dinners (which is 75% rather than the goal of 80 so fell short there), and I hit the posting goal for the week. Counters all reset tomorrow so let's see what happens.

 

Until tomorrow.

[Ergolad]

Hey Shukar. Always good to see you on RK. Kudos to you for starting a new challenge. It's been a long time since I've done one, or at least one where I've held myself publicly accountable.

 

If you're still looking for meditation apps, I highly recommend you check out Insight Timer for iOS and Android. Great tool for timing, tracking your meditation progress and also dialing into a community of meditators from different disciplines all over the world. Plus, it's LOADED with tons of free guided mediations.
http://www.insighttimer.com

 

Over the last year development was taken over by a new team of practicing meditators. They are really doing great things with it.

 

The app has tons of groups dedicated to a variety of subject matter. I started a Nerd Fitness Group within the app for Nerd Fitness mediators. In the Nerd Fitness Group, you're able to dial-in to other Nerd Fitness members, easily become meditating friends, talk NF and Mediation, and be notified when a NF friend is meditating.

 

If all that sounds like way too much, know that everything in the app is customizable. So if you want to only use it as a timer, you can set it up for just that. It'll record metrics in the background. You can choose to view them or ignore them. If you want a full blown community social experience, and to receive feedback for the milestones in your practice, all that comes enabled by default, or you can turn it off.

 

Check it out. (We also have a small NF group on Strava too!)

[Shukar]

Ergo, good to be back. That sounds like a pretty interesting app, I'll have to take a look at it.

 

Day 10, Tuesday.

 

So, missed a day again but back now with more words!

 

So much weirdness at work this week with schedules just being thrown out the window. Mrs Shu had to work late yesterday so I spent a while just watching episodes of Breaking Bad (after watching Mean Girls on a lark). Hopefully the back half of the week calms down a little.

 

 

So how's stuff going? Packed lunch yesterday and ate it, didn't end up eating it today; so 1/2 so far this week on that. Prepped some dinners this week, thanks to weird work schedules, and ate one of those yesterday, didn't really eat dinner tonight so not counting that either way. Here a day so far this week so that's progress on the posting goal. 

[Shukar]

Day 11, Wednesday.

 

Started the morning with most of a session with Headspace, got interrupted by a work related call in the middle of the session but it seemed helpful enough before that happened. Free lunch through work today, but I packed a "lunch" for dinner, so that's a point on the scale for meal prep! Got home late, because above noted work, and spent some time chatting with friends before bed. Not a bad day all told.

 

2/3 on the lunches this week, 2/3 on dinners going to plan; slacking on the forum posting this week, but there's time to improve yet.

[Shukar]

Day 16, Monday.

 

So missed a few days there. Let's sum up last week's goal progress I guess. Friday's dinner was a packed meal so 3/3 on those for the week, Thursdays dinner didn't go quite to plan but it went off-plan in a way that was planned for (convoluted but such is the nature of fallback plans I guess). Did get some forum posting in, though not as much as I'd really like. 

 

So what about the weekend? I spent most of it at work, trying to not eat entirely like crap while being semi-productive in the down time I had. I got some stuff done at least, planning a trip to Chicago for a few weekends from now for one. But the long weekend of hours is behind me now, and on to the week of trying to get my work schedule back on track.

 

So how'd today go? Cleanup and administrative emails mostly as far as work went. The meal plan I threw together over the weekend, while at work (thankfully my wife was willing to do the shopping for it) seems like it should shape up nicely, and started with not 1 but 2 planned and packed meals eaten today while at work. That there is just good planning, got to keep that up. I've not done well with the meditation goal at all so far, hectic work schedule is probably to blame if blame is to be cast but I could work around that if it was a priority for me.

 

So 1/1 on both the lunch and planned dinner paths so far I think. Week off to a good start.

 

Bis Morgen!

[Shukar]

Well, another challenge at an end, and I seem to have survived it. Kind of trailed off there between the 70 hour weekend of work, and 2 4-day weekends out of town in a row. But I kept up the meal planning pretty well despite that. Also kept in better touch with nerds along the way. The only goal I didn't do at least passably well at was the meditation goal, ironic and unfortunate since some of the times during this challenge are times I'd have most benefited.

 

So probably gonna consolidate goals 1 and 2 until a new sleeker goal 1, preserve goal 3 as goal 3, keep the meditation goal as a goal 4, and fill in a new goal 2 for the new challenge.