Jarric

01/01/2024 - 174.4lbs 08/01/2024 - 172.0lbs 15/01/2024 - 170.9lbs 22/01/2024 - 169.2lbs I broke 170lbs! Next stop will be 12 stone (168lbs) and then 75kg (165lbs). (You get a lot more milestones if you mix your measurements ). I've also gone down a belt loop, which is very pleasing. Not entirely sure how I've lost anything this week - had a massive blowout on Friday and ended the week 1,555 kcal over target. So I might see a delayed effect of that and a smaller change next week; we shall see.

The weekly average still seems to be trending down nicely though - personally I'd maybe give it a couple of weeks before adjusting your calorie count. Sounds like you've got a good plan. Go get it! FTFY

I'm feeling the same thing, but I'm acutely aware that I'm part of the problem - I want more interaction on my thread, but I don't get on here as much as I'd like and I'm bad at keeping up with other people. What terrifys me is that I don't know what my life would look like without the structure of the forum challenges. ❤️ . I've still got a picture of that risotto somewhere. When I'm stuck I like to go back a few lessons and try to get 'legendary' status on them. It costs gems, but I've got about 15,000 at this point so why not?

Thank you! I'm using Faber-Castell 'PITT artist pens'. Think for this I used an XS (0.1mm) and a F (0.5mm) for the outlines. The title was a bigger shaped pen, I think and SC (1-3mm). And please do report back, I'm definitely interested to hear!

Wednesday - week 3 day 2 The decisionist: 2/7 The muscle: 3/7 The face: 3/7 The cartographer: 3/4 The hoardsperson: 2/7 Yesterday was a good day. I went to the local commercial gym again, and by some miracle managed to get a bench straight away. Did a bro workout - bench press (70kg/154# x 4 x 5), dumbbell rows, hammer curls, tricep extensions. Was good fun. I had a plan laid out for the day as it was my day off, and it went pretty much to plan. I did a load of washing and washing up, did some French lessons, caught up here, and then took WW's car for MOT. It passed, so I get to go back to my regular Crossfit gym now that I can drive there again! The next thing on the plan was drawing, but I didn't want to stop watching Acquisitions Incorporated to watch a drawing video, so I did a bit of Acq Inc. fan art instead. The bouldering centre was unexpectedly closed, so I had extra time to finish it too, and I'm ok with how it turned out: I haven't got the rotation of his torso quite right, which means that the left arm is now in the wrong place, but other than that I don't think it's bad. Maybe I'll try to digitise it next week. In the evening I cooked a feta, spinach, and pomegranate filo pie, which was really nice but also a ton of calories (whoops!). I totally blanked on rolling my shoulders, which is annoying as I had loads of time, but teeth were done and no money was spent, so the other goals were all there.

Ah, ok then, thanks! In that case I sense more kievs in my future as I try to perfect this. The one thing I don't like about kievs is when you lose a load of filling onto the tray, so this seems like the perfect solution. So far I really like it. I've read the campaign setting book, and that's got enough in it to do a lot of fun stuff with. I'm most of the way reading through the adventure that comes with it, and that looks like a ton of fun. I really want to find a group to run it for sometime - maybe my current group but if not I might have to set up a new one just for that. It's also got at least one reference to the Placescape: Torment, which I appreciated (not that I've played nearly enough of that game). I haven;t read the bestiary that comes with it, but from the references to it in the adventure I'm looking forward to that too. One caveat I would add, it isn't actually a Placescape book. It's very much a Sigil and the Outlands book, and has very little advice on what to do if your players actually decide to go through a portal and wind up on one of the outer planes. I knew that going in, and I'm fine with it - in order to be a setting for every possible plane the book would need to be infinitely long after all. Have they actually managed to release the Deck of Many Things book? I'm not sure I'm totally sold on it, but would be interested in hearing your opinion if you do get it. Thank you! I quite enjoyed it; I might try to find other opportunities to draw people in real life (though I was a bit worried that someone would catch me surreptitiously drawing them!)

I could see it as a more mobile job, spending half the year in one hemisphere and half the year in the other.

Tuesday - week 3 day 2 The decisionist: 2/7 The muscle: 2/7 The face: 2/7 The cartographer: 2/4 The hoardsperson: 1/7 Yesterday was a good day. Ran first thing - 5.5 miles with 4 at an attempt at 9 minute miles. I say an attempt, because it wasn't that, but I pushed reasonably hard and it felt good. Got into work a little late after a disorganised morning, and just felt really tired and frazzled all day. In the afternoon I had the aforementioned talk and networking event, which was really interesting actually. I'd pre-bought a train ticket to get to Pathfinder for the evening, because the town where the talk was and the town where we play are in exact opposite directions and I'd be going straight from one to the other. And then one of the players wasn't feeling well so we had to cancel, so I ended up breaking my no-spend goal for no reason. On the train home I did some scribbling in my note book just to tick off the art habit, and I actually really enjoyed it. It started off with just some patterns which I'm loosly going to call mark marking practice, and then I ended up drawing things around me and the reflections of other passengers I could see in the train window. Some of you asked to see some of my rubbish scribbles, so here they are. Though I was disappointed not to have a game last night, it was nice to have a chilled evening. We had chicken kievs and chips, and tried @deftona's tactic of putting bread under them to soak up the garlic butter. I'm not clear on how you prevent the edges of the bread from burning, but the bit underneath the kiev was nice. I also managed to roll my shoulders and read some of the new D&D Planescape book in front of the TV, and we watched some of the Percy Jackson series on Disney+ and a bit of the new series of gladiators. All in all a good, relaxing evening.

Thank you guys. I actually had a nice time once I settled into it. The talk I was going to was really interesting, and the networking afterwards was actually fine.

Monday - week 3 day 1 The decisionist: 1/7 The muscle: 1/7 The face: 1/7 The cartographer: 1/4 The hoardsperson: 1/7 Is it week 3 already? How did that happen? And why am I constantly surprised by the passage of time? Yesterday was a good day. I walked to the local gym as I don't have a car, and tell you what, I don't miss commercial gyms. It was busy, there was a class playing loud music over the top of, and clashing with, the already loud music in the gym, and it took me half an hour and a mad dash to get a squat rack. Nonetheless the work was done - front squats for 82.5kg (182#) x 3, 75kg x 5, 67.5kg x 7. Also some side bends and lunges while I was waiting for the rack, and some leg raises after. In the evening I cooked a massive batch of curried pork fried rice. Calories wise it was a little high, and I definitely didn't need to polish off WW'dls leftovers too, bit at least I have a couple more servings for lunches. Managed to hit all my goals for today. Art was me literally scribbling in my notebook, and I did the bare minimum of shoulder rolling, but it all helps with the consistency. * * * Today I'm exhausted and I have no idea why. Just really fuzzy headed and not quite here. I have to people soon as well, so I hope I snap out of it soon.

Thanks guys! It was one of those stupid things that wasn't even a lot of work, but that's been hanging over me for far too long.

Week 2 scores The decisionist: 7/7, and under 18,000kcal for extra credit The muscle: 5/7 The face: 7/7, all on one leg for extra credit The cartographer: 1/4 The hoardsperson: 5/7 The weekend was good. Saturday I went for a run, went climbing, and visited my grandma. That pretty much ended my productivity for the day, and I just procrastinated until I had to pick WW up from work and go shopping. So a lot of things didn't get done - writing my assignment, art, shoulder rolling. Also had a corner case with spending - I got a bottle of diet coke to drink on my way round Tesco. I decided not to count it as spending, given that it went on the grocery bill, but it's not really in the spirit of the thing. Anyway, trying to remember that I did do some productive stuff, even though I missed some stuff too. On Sunday I went out for a run, and my legs felt like lead. Was supposed to be 12 miles, but in the end it was 10, and quite a bit of the last few miles were walked. When I got back I prepped and ran D&D for the first time in ages, and it was an absolute treat. Minor spoilers for Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, but I'll try to keep them vague. After that I finished the assignment that's well overdue, and I'm finally ready to submit it when I can get the university's software to accept it I also spent money again - the MOT on our car has run out so I can't drive to the gym. so I've bought a short-term gym membership to the local PureGym that I can walk to. It's not ideal, but I'm not prepared to not have a gym to go to so I'll have to make do. I did manage to roll my shoulders in the end at least, though I still didn't get round to any art. Calories were good for the week. 17,777 against a weekly target of 18,000 (or 2,540 per day against 2,571 target). I didn't have any alcohol last week, which made it a bit easier to hit that. This week I've got networking drinks on Tuesday and a work night out on Friday, so I'm going to have to be much stricter on the other days of the week to stand a chance of hitting that target. Both of those might also be a hit on my no spending goal, but that's life.

Thank you! I do love the climbing; I hope you get a chance to go again soon! Hi!

I finally did one! knees to elbow ?

01/01/2024 - 174.4lbs 08/01/2024 - 172.0lbs 15/01/2024 - 170.9lbs All good so far. I stayed under calories last week, and the results show. I'm also conscious that I didn't drink any alcohol last week. That's not the plan this week, so sticking to calorie targets will be that much more challenging.

Beautiful visualisations man, really love that! And good progress these past 2 weeks too. This is always the bit to remember.

I was interested, so I checked my grocery spend, and in 2023 it averaged out at £466 per month. That's USD 593 per month, and there's only 2 of us in the house, so that's very similar to your spend with 4.5 adults. Of course, market prices are totally different in different parts of the world, but I thought it was interesting. What I also thought was interesting was that there didn't seem to be much correlation between my grocery spending and my 'eating out' spending. You would think that they'd be inversely proportional, but it seems like if I'm spending more on earing out I'm still not spending less on groceries. * * * I had two bits of discretionary spending this week - £9.50 on shirts for my work's 'shit shirt friday' this week, and £15 on a short-term gym membership as I can't get to my normal gym and I'm not prepared to go without a gym for even a couple of days. I now have £10 in my joint account. No way I make it 2 weeks to pay day without using my overdraft, but I can at least focus on using as little overdraft as possible.

It's always going to be tricky to make predictions like that because unless you're being measured under laboratory conditions, calorie burn is always an estimate. You can get pretty close with calories consumed (or very close, if you weight every ingredient to the nearest gram), but calorie burn is a bit harder. How are you measuring your BMR, and what is the Harris - Benedict figure (I've not come across that term before)? I agree with @Shello though; from the graphs it looks like you're already doing a good job of estimating the broad trends in your weight.

Friday - Week 2 Day 5 The decisionist: 5/7 The muscle: 4/7 The face: 5/7 The cartographer: 1/4 The hoardsperson: 4/7 Well, it had to happened eventually, I finally spent some money . I think I mentioned that next week at work we're doing a shit shirt Friday - basically we buy shirts/jumpers for each other, and then wear them all day in the office and to the pub afterwards. The colleague I got is a quite fashionable, petite, blond mum of two, so I've bought her a men's XXL hoody with a screaming Egyptian mummy mask on the front of it. It's very metal, and the image of her wearing it really makes me laugh. Crossfit yesterday was box squats - I went deep rather than heavy - and then a spicy little AMRAP of toes to bar, dumbbell cleans. and dumbbell lunges. Work was ok, plenty to do (and I ended up stuck late because I got some client instructions really late in the day), but it was good to chat to people in the office about a few things. In the evening I cooked something approaching a beef and sweet potato massaman curry. Well, the recipe was for a massaman curry, but as I didn't have massaman curry paste and used chillis and curry powder instead I can't claim it was remotely authentic. Bloody good though, I've just polished off the leftovers for lunch. Also super high calorie for one of my dinners, probably something to do with the large amount of coconut cream involved. I remembered my goals before bed, so I managed to get both art and shoulder stuff done. Really wasn't feeling the art at all, but I sketched some things to tick the box and keep the habit going at least. Teeth done and calories, though high, were tracked.

That's a pretty major change after 13 years, I hope the transition goes well for you. I'd wish you luck on whatever you do next, but you're pretty awesome so I don't think you'll need luck for that.

Diced potatoes sound good to me - I'd dice them small and fry them in with the rest of the burrito filling, so they go nice and crispy. (Never tried it, but I can see it working.)

Thursday - Week 2 Day 4 The decisionist: 4/7 The muscle: 3/7 The face: 4/7 The cartographer: 0/4 The hoardsperson: 4/7 Yesterday was a good day. Crossfit was overhead yoke carries, sled pulls, and jerks. All fun stuff. Work was ok, but tiring. One of those bitty days where everything you start gets interrupted by something else. In the evening I played Baulder's Gate online with some friends. By the time I'd finished that I was absolutely knackered, and I very much didn't feel like doing anything. I managed to compromise with myself with 2 minutes of working on my shoulders, but that was the extent of my productivity for the evening. So no art done, but calories were tracked, shoulders done, teeth done, and no money spent. Actually, it sounds better now that I write it all down.

Thanks man! Gotta love some classic bond They don't take bookings other than same day. It is not a good system.

Wednesday - Week 2 Day 3 The decisionist: 3/7 The muscle: 2/7 The face: 3/7 The cartographer: 0/4 The hoardsperson: 3/7 Yesterday was a good day. Crossfit was deadlifts, in what felt like the first time in ages, I worked up to 140kg (308#) x 5. I want to get a bit more back, but with my cold still going on that was what I had in me for the day. Then we had a grindy workout - 1,000m row, followed by 10 rounds of 10 kettlebell swings and 5 burpee pullups. It took me the best part of 20 minutes with a 20kg kettlebell, so I'm glad I didn't go any heavier. After work I tried to get a doctors appointment to see about my blocked sinuses/hearing loss in one ear. They open at 8.30am, but foolishly I didn't contact them until 8.38, but which point I just sat on hold until 8.45 and then got an automated message that no more appointments were available. Who says the NHS are under-staffed? I spent the morning, in fact a lot of the day, pottering and procrastinating. I did manage to get 1,200 words done on my assignment - it was due in last month so I really need to put the damn thing to bed. I went climbing late afternoon, which was fun, but my left wrist is killing me now. I really hope that this is ultimately a shoulder problem and that I'm going to sort it out this challenge with my shoulder exercises, otherwise this is a long wait to just book a physio appointment I could get now. In the evening I cooked enchiladas, but it was so late when I started and it took so long that we weren't eating until after half 8. By the time we'd finished I didn't feel like doing much of anything, and it took until 9.45pm to drag myself off the sofa and do my shoulder exercises, and cook some eggs for Thursday and Friday breakfasts. No arting was done again though, which means I now need to do some every day to hit my minimum goal. Calories were pretty high, mostly because the enchiladas were both big and late, and also because deadlift day. Need a lower-calorie day or two to make sure I have some in reserve for the weekend now. No money spent, and teeth were done.

Hope you get a good night's sleep, and feel much better when you wake up