Artemis becomes Mandalorian

[Artemis]

Right.  Here we go.  My last complete challenge was roughly a year ago (oops) and quite a bit has happened since then.  Unfortunately, I managed to undo all of my progress and have even gained some additional weight.  It's dissapointing, but it is what it is.  Time to start over and make permanent changes.  For now, I'm going to set a 6 month goal (not 100% sure what it is yet) since it corresponds to the end of the year and should give me enough time to really see some level of transformation.   

 

The theme this time around is Star Wars in general though it will probably center around Mandalorians.  

 

1. Prepare for Battle - Foundational Fitness

 

For the duration of this challenge, I will be working my way through the Darebee Age of Pandora fitness quest.

     Challenge Goal: Complete Age of Pandora

Bonus:  Sign up for the local gym and visit at least 2x a week to work out.  The summer heatwave is coming and a gym membership will help my fitness quest since it's air conditioned.  

 

2. Fit into the Smugglers Compartment - Become more Flexible

I am ridiculously inflexible and it's kind of sad.  Flexibility is great for all kinds of things, including fitting into smuggling compartments and infiltrating enemy strongholds through air ducts.  

Challenge Goal:  Stretch for 5 minutes daily

 

3. Eat Like a Warrior

This time around I'm not going to be strictly Paleo, but I expect to be fairly close by the end of the challenge.  I'm also aiming to track my food intake in a journal and possibly start experimenting with a food scale.

Challenge Goals -
                           1. Track food intake in my food journal without fail.  Hold myself accountable for my eating habits.

                           2. Cut caffeine by the end of Week 3.  Diet soda is not healthy.  It needs to go.

 

4. Maintain the Starship - Life Goal (broken into Mini Goals)

Challenge Mini-Goals:

• Clean the Crew Quarters - Finish organizing my room and make sure it stays clean. 
• Find Mercenary Work - Apply for a minimum of 40 jobs.  Just graduated from University and it's time to find a job.

 

Ultimate Goal - Fit in the Armor

Same as last time.  Lose 8 pounds throughout this challenge in order to "fit" in the armor.  

Challenge Goal - Lose 8 Pounds

          Bonus: Lose 10 Pounds - Prize TBA

 

Side Quests

 Engage in Skirmishes - Participate in the Assassin Mini-challenge

Join a Squad - Follow some other challenges and chat with members of NF

[Grandkai_NL]

Nice goals, following! 

[WhiteGhost]

Following for the Star Wars!

[Teancum]

Welcome back! Looks like we're working on some similar things! 

[Rebel Pilot Gar]

Welcome back! I'm always glad to find more fellow Star Wars fans. Looks like you have some solid goals - and a fantastic theme - I'll be following along for sure!

[Artemis]

Thanks everyone!  I'm excited to be back and I promise to to entertain you all with plenty of Star Wars.  

 

I've been getting a slow start to this challenge and intend to jump in fully this weekend.  Food tracking is going well and I've even been going for a daily walk since I'm currently housesitting two large dogs. 

[Luciana Valerosa Culming]

Cool you're back. Did you finish your armor? I saw you visiting my profile a few months ago but couldn't find a challenge. Nice to see you being back for real now.

[Artemis]

Progress report:  Officially "started" tonight with all aspects of the challenge.  Cranked out my first workout and did five minutes of stretching.  

Food tracking has been going well since I first posted and I'm slowly making improvements to my diet.  It's a lot harder to lie to myself when all my bad decisions are staring me in the face.  Breakfasts are probably the most successful part of the day since it's relatively easy to make that meal healthy.  Lunch/dinner is a bit harder since I don't control all of the food in the house.  I have managed to move to homemade/fridge food instead of takeout, so... progress.  I'm hoping I'll slowly be able to transition to Paleoish over the next couple of weeks as we rotate new foods into the fridge and I can ask for different grocery items.

 

On 7/2/2017 at 11:33 PM, Luciana Valerosa Culming said:

Cool you're back. Did you finish your armor? I saw you visiting my profile a few months ago but couldn't find a challenge. Nice to see you being back for real now.

  Hi!  I wish I could say I finished the armor, but it's still a work in progress.  Senior year of college was far busier than I expected plus finances have been tight and I wasn't able to buy the last couple of things I need (fabrics, paints, etc).  Basically, things were put on hold.  I intend to finish the project up once I have a steady job and a little bit of spare cash.  I'm aiming to finish by December (only something like a year and a half behind schedule...).  Are you still practicing rapier?  Finding a local HEMA group is on my list of things to try once I have a job lined up.

[Luciana Valerosa Culming]

Ah, that's on hold until I finish my studys. I want to join a proper school, but at the moment it just doesn't fit.

[Luciana Valerosa Culming]

So how did your challenge go? Any updates, you want to share with us?

[Artemis]

 

On 7/11/2017 at 11:04 AM, Luciana Valerosa Culming said:

Ah, that's on hold until I finish my studys. I want to join a proper school, but at the moment it just doesn't fit.

I hope you can get back to it soon, but I totally understand.  Sometimes there just isn't room.

 

Ok.  Quick recap of the last few weeks since I didn't post anything.  Life was crazy as I was job hunting and engaging in other mayhem.  I acquired a 3d printer (which is a complete time-suck, but it is so much fun) and spent too many afternoons fine-tuning the thing.  I should probably have prioritized better.  I also went on vacation with the family for a week and backslid on most of my dietary progress as a result.  The big wins for this challenge was successfully cutting back on diet coke, making some positive meal choices, and acquiring a job (yay!).  I am going to redo this challenge and strive to do better (also, I am going to post daily updates.  It will happen).

 

 

1. Prepare for Battle - Foundational Fitness

Failed hard at this one, mainly because I didn't set aside time and truly make it a priority. Rebooting next challenge.  

 

     

2. Fit into the Smugglers Compartment - Become more Flexible

Challenge Goal:  Stretch for 5 minutes daily - Complete fail.  I hate stretching, however it is something I really need to work on.  Rebooting next challenge.

 

3. Eat Like a Warrior

Challenge Goals -
                           1. Track food intake in my food journal without fail.  Hold myself accountable for my eating habits. - I'm giving myself 50% on this goal since I was doing really well for a while, but kind of 

                           2. Cut caffeine by the end of Week 3.  Diet soda is not healthy.  It needs to go. - 75%.  I have succeeded in reducing/nearly eliminating my caffeine dependancy, however as I have been cutting back on sugar/carbs in other areas I have been using about 1 can of Diet Coke daily as a sort of stop-gap to minimize the headaches I'm getting from my dietary changes.  I need to suceed in completely eliminating it from my diet entirely.

 

4. Maintain the Starship - Life Goal (broken into Mini Goals) - Sucess!!

Challenge Mini-Goals:

• Clean the Crew Quarters - Organization completed.
• Find Mercenary Work - Succeeded in finding a job.  Just started work Tuesday.

 

Ultimate Goal - Fit in the Armor

While I did not succeed in losing any weight this challenge, I did manage to stabilise my weight and I consider that a fairly solid win.  Next step - sustained weight loss.

 

[WhiteGhost]

Congratulations on getting the job.  Hope it is one you enjoy (or at least don't hate)