I’m definitely here for this! Do you get ALL the prizes for a grade A?  

Look who ran out the challenge again...  oops.  On to the next!

111 days until the next court date. 12 months until I turn in the Ph.D.   Sounds like a story arc. Last year the focus was on Constitution, with good effect. Since January, I’ve made significant strides to my Stamina. I’d like to keep those gains and also focus on physical Dexterity for a bit: yoga, walking-on-purpose types of things.   The goal is to stay nimble and participate in the dance. There is nothing that needs adding to or scrambling after, at least for now, and that’s the place I’m proceeding from. The Universe loves me and wants me to be happy.  

It has a faint vaguely white chocolatey smell, and rock hard even at moderately warm temperatures. It absolutely has to be mixed with an oil to be used in its raw form. (There are some places that sell it as a pure stick, but it's very hard to warm it up enough via body heat to get the surface melted for use.) It's similar to shea, they're often sold together and blended together.   Coconut softens pretty easily and some people like it on the skin. I think some break out pretty easily from it, though.     I say real chocolate, but it's very "creamy hot chocolate with toasted marshmallow", not so much "dark chocolate bar" or "cocoa".

Does plain cocoa butter have any smell? Is it really hard in cold weather? I'm guessing it's a bit like shea, tallow, or petroleum--a thick, occlusive sort of product. I should probably finish my orange and vanilla tallow off before I buy a similar replacement. It smells like tasty orange shortbread biscuits. Too thick and greasy for day time use, though, and too heavy for the face.    SOLD! Thank you 😀

New challenge is up  

For this challenge, I’m very much feeling a fighter/warrior vibe. First of all, because my main method of fitness will be lifting and dumbbell workouts at home, so if the guild sub-forums were still a thing*, you’d be finding this thread in the Warriors part of the forums. Second, because I’m sticking to the simple, boring basics; much like in most RPGs you get spellcasters with their flashy magic and rogues with their fancy flips while the fighter just swings their weapon level in and level out, just with increasing bonuses to attack and damage. Even more so if you factor in my love for OSR games (or dislike for Marvel/anime style modern RPG aesthetics. I’m a grognard about this, sue me). The point is, I’m not doing anything impressive, I’m just doing the basics, but I want to do them well and consistently. * I’ll always think about these things a certain way because that’s how I initially experienced NF and it’s been hardwired into my brain   Nutrition This interval fasting thing has been working pretty well for me during my break last challenge. Despite the lack of challenge goals and 2 weeks of decadence during my fiance’s visit, I still ended up losing almost 3,5kg within a month, so I must be doing something right, plus it’s still flexible enough to fit my current phase in life. Thus, in order to keep up with this I shall: - Weigh in every morning, preferably after a toilet visit. Track my weight. No harm done if it doesn’t happen for a day or two, it’s a soft goal but I still want to keep up the habit. Also, for tracking purposes, my benchmark weight at the start of this challenge is 96,3kg. - Maintain a 16:8 hour fasting schedule daily. This is flexible if circumstances demand a change, but the fat burning phase is supposed to start after 12 hours of fasting, thus my bare minimum is 12 hours of fasting. I’m also allowing myself to push past the 16 hours if possible. - My food tracking app helps with all these goals so far, as it includes a fasting timer and a weight tracker. It also allows me to track my eating (even if it’s a guesstimation), water consumption and steps (thanks to it being connected to GoogleFit). Therefore, I have one point of reference for all my nutrition goals, which I’ll try to stay consistent with and report my results here.   Workouts Here’s the dumbbell workout schedule I’ve been doing before taking a break for these last couple of weeks. Minus the Lunges, because the floor here won't allow for them. Alternating between the two for two times, which gives me 4 workouts a week (A on day 1, then B the next time, another go at A for the third time and finally B again) and 3 rest days. No need to tie those down to specific days, as long as I end the week having put the work in. Allowing myself some flexibility to account for days when I'm not feeling well or something comes up and doesn't allow me to train. Arrangement A Arrangement B Sets x Reps Exercise Sets x Reps Exercise 3x8-15 Bench Press 3x8-15 Overhead Press 3x8-15 Pull Overs 3x8-15 Dumbbell Rows 3x8-15 Overhead Press 3x8-15 Decline Pushup 3x12-20 Biceps Curls 3x12-20 Hammer Curls 3x15-20 Skull Crushers 3x15-20 Triceps Kickbacks 3x15-20 Rear Delt Flyes 3x15-20 Rear Delt Flyes 3x15-20 Lat Raises 3x15-20 Lat Raises 3x8-15 Front Squat 3x12-15 Lunges per leg 3x8-15 Romanian Deadlift 3x8-15 Front Squats 3x15-25 Calf Raises 3x15-25 Calf Raises The idea of rep ranges means I start from the bottom end of low reps, then without sacrificing proper form and technique, do more reps next workout (or next week's workout, if it already felt hard to pull off). Once I'm able to do the workout on the high end of the range, it's time to increase dumbbell weight and start again from the low end of the rep range. This is meant to achieve progressive overload, ensuring I don't get comfortable (or bored) where I'm at but always doing a little more, a little better each time.   Sleep I need a minimum 6 hours of sleep every night in order to be functional. Usually I have no problem going to bed in time (adjusted for late night video calls with deffy) and falling asleep immediately, but lately I've been noticing this isn't the case. I tend to stay up late, either due to stress or because I'm scrolling on my phone, then I've underslept and the deficit piles up over the work week. Gonna try to be mindful and reverse this trend before it becomes a bigger problem. Given the heat, I expect to come home from work late in the evening, have dinner, chill and digest for a couple of hours, then workout, shower and that should set me up good for bed. Wildcard here is my social life, so let's see how I juggle everything.   Other things (not tracked) - Music: Still doing my Music in Time project. I'd like to keep that up. - Videogames: Still knocking games off my backlog. Cautious about the free ones I get from Epic Games Store, instead of blindly grabbing whatever's on offer, I do pause to think if I'd even be interested to trying it out. Have avoided some clutter this way. On the other hand, having some money on the side, I've grabbed a game or two. Also got me a game controller and moved the sofa around for a more console type setup. - Reading: Feels like kind of a luxury, given my work hours and workout/sleep goals, but I still want to do it. In a focused way, not struggling to read a few pages in bed before I fall asleep. Don't get me wrong, it's just that my work involves a lot of reading and writing so as much as I love books, sometimes I just need to do something different, which makes it harder to tackle literature. Then there's my Reading Challenge of GoodReads, I'm in 5 books out of 9 I've set a goal for and it's the middle of the year. Think I'll go for the Blackhearts Omnibus, which is a Warhammer Fantasy collection of stories/novels about a bunch of criminals sentenced to death and sent on a suicide mission instead of facing the noose. Scratches my grimdark itch and aligns with my warrior vibes this challenge. Speaking of Warhammer Fantasy, I recently purchased a hardcopy of the game's 4e core rulebook and an adventures book. I've read them both as pdfs, but I'd also like to read the actual things, cover to cover. - Language learning: I've been revising my German and learning Spanish on Duolingo, but yet again it feels like it can't get me past a certain level. Or that I'm trained to beat the logic of its puzzles, not actually learn the language. Then there's the pressure of keeping up the streak (a meme unto itself), even if it means doing a single lesson just to shut the owl up. Deffy told me of Clozemaster which seems marginally better. Either way, I'd like to use either or both to at least keep in touch with the languages somehow, lest I forget stuff and undo my progress so far.

We have a ton of cocoa butter skincare products in the US; it's tremendously popular with the African American market. But that's not quite chocolate, and the artificial smell doesn't thrill me compared to real cocoa butter. (Subtle difference, but not my fave smell.)   For real chocolate, this is the best I can do. That is pretty delightful. It absolutely made my winter. (I believe a few people here picked it up, too.) It's a concentrated perfume oil, so it can be worn as perfume or added to unscented products.

A very acceptable substitute. And more poetic, for a river. Running is so.... pedestrian. Something even tap water can do.     Look, if you know where the chocolate smelling skincare or oils are, spill the beans. 

Welcome! That is great that you are able to do some of the things and manage your disease.