Jarric

Monday - week 1 day 1 Yesterday was a good day. It was a bank holiday here, so a day off work to start the challenge. I still got up reasonably early, because I saw a 30 day yoga challenge and wanted to try the first session before Crossfit. Crossfit was squats - 85kg (187#) x 3 x 5. Then a workout of 5 rounds for time of 10 thrusters, 10 lunges, and 10 pullups. I worked at 30kg (66#), and hit the 10 minute time cap after 3 rounds and 27 reps (and was knackered after that). The rest of the day was errands - we took down the Christmas decorations, I sort of bodged a new wing mirror onto WW's car, cleaned the kitchen a bit, and WW hoovered. In the evening I spent a bit of time essay writing, and cooked a root veg and chicken tray bake for dinner. Calories were pretty spot on, though I had to stuff down some snacks to eat enough. Study, teeth, and languages done, so 4/4 for dailies. Housework and physical care hit for the minimum 1/week.

Thanks mate, good to have you! I learned from the best Aww, thank you. Always good to have you here ❤️

Let's say zero week (so w/c 6th February), that feels like a sensible time.

Sounds like a pretty good plan, I'm up for that! And no worries, it's only day 1 Yes! Week 5 of this challenge? Or next week zero?

Yesterday was a good day. As is tradition for us on New Year's Day, we bought a bunch of party food and just kept putting it on trays in the oven throughout the day. We had hash brown bites, pigs in blankets, mozzarella sticks, cheese and onion pastries, pakora, bhajis, samosas and tempura king prawns, and we've still got some stuff left. The day was mostly spent playing various Mario games on the SNES, and then watching World's Strongest Man and some New Year specials of things on TV in the evening. It was a very lovely day, with no responsibilities or pressure to be productive. Today is the start of the challenge (because Monday is the correct day to start the week on), and I'm ready to get going! I gained 6lbs last week, which seems mad so I suspect some of that's a bit of an anomaly. I did also eat a shitload of food last week, and drank a ton of alcohol, so maybe I really did put that much on. Calorie goal for this week is 20,944kcal. That works out at 2,992 per day. I'll be aiming for 2,618 per day, with that much again to spend as a floating budget throughout the week. I suspect my weight will drop back at little from this morning's weigh-in, in which case I'll be edging this target up a bit for week 2.

New Year's day roast dinner sounds lovely, though most of the time I'd be far too lazy to cook it

Love this attitude. Gentle, deliberate consistency is the way. A river cuts through rock, not because of its power, but because of its persistence*. *According to a motivational quote I found on Google

Yeah, if I only kept pages that were perfect, there wouldn't be any pages left in mine . And thanks, this is the most effort I've put into a tracker in a while. Thank you! Me too, I'm hoping drawing nice patterns will motivate me!

Got my challenge tracker ready for the start of the challenge tomorrow, inspired by @Sovalis' beautiful bujo tracker. (Hopefully this will look half as good once I start filling in the squares.) I forgot about protein tracking. Then I remembered and shoved it in the corners, but for some reason I wrote 'kcal' rather than protein ?‍♂️. Nevermind, I know what I mean.

That is a very pretty spreadsheet! Love it mate

Lovely work on that challenge title! Following along.

Hey Deffy! ❤️ Well, I'm finding it really interesting, so...

Hope your symptoms are mild and pass quickly mate.

Your challenge trackers look so pretty! I need to up my game on mine now... Those little trees are so cool too!

Hi . I don't know why, but it seemed like a great idea at the time

Yes! Good to see you back here and back lifting dude!

No worries dude - I'll go and look those up now! Good to have you mate. Dank je wel!

Following along! Tamagotchi care is a surprisingly apt analogy for goal setting; I like it.

It's zero week and I have no goals, so not much to report here. Let's do a workout log of the week so far. Monday - Squatmas 50 squats at 50% bodyweight attempt: 40kg (53%) x 1 x 50 More squats: 60kg x 10, 70kg x 8, 80kg (176#) x 5 Superset bench cuff and delt flys Superset tricep extensions and bicep curls Tuesday - Deadliftmas 50 deadlifts at 100% bodyweight attempt: 77.5kg (103%) x 1x17, 2x12, 1x9 Running: Couch to 5k week 7 day 3 (25 minutes running) Bouldering for a couple of hours Wednesday - back to work In 45 seconds: 100ft farmers' walk, max distance ski. Score: 106m ski after 154kg (339#) carry Circuit Romanian deadlifts and gorilla rows Thursday - mid-week Running: couch to 5k week 8 day 1 (28 minutes running) Friday - nearly the weekend Squats: 95kg (209#) x 3, 85kg x 5, 77.5kg x 7 Cleans - in 15 minutes build to a heavy single: built to 72.5kg (160#) x 1 Other than that, I've been tracking all of the food, and indeed eating all of the food! Otherwise it's been a lot of chilling out and writing this challenge in the evenings, and trying to clear a load of work before the new year during the day.

Thank you, on all counts! Thank you, steal away! In 2021 I did a normal battle log, and I looked back at the end of the year and was genuinely surprised by some of the goals I'd written. This way I re-read my yearly goals every 6 weeks, which works better for me. Thank you! Lovely to have you.

Following! Looks like you've got a great structure for the year.

Following along, though I sincerely don't that I will achieve your level of consistency whilst doing so.

Hang on, teens in Celsius or Fahrenheit? Because is C, teens is downright summery.

2023 road map Last year I decided that, rather than post my road map for the year in a battle log and then forget about it, that I would put it at the top of my first challenge for the year, and then repeat it in every subsequent challenge. That worked fairly well, so I'm sticking with it. I also decided last year to divide the things that are important to me into 5 pillars, and map each of those pillars onto a D&D stat. For how that went you can see my 2022 wrap up here, but the final result was as follows: Level 17 Wood Elf Ranger STR: 12 - CON: 10 - CHA: 3 - SAN: 7 - INT: 11 This year I'll be following a very similar format, trying to earn points to increase those stats as much as possible. I'll also be including some specific benchmarks within some of the pillars - not necessarily goals to hit (though I might well have challenge goals working towards them), but to see what I can tick off by the end of the year. Exercise (Strength) This pillar is all about the physical activities I do, be that OCR, climbing, crossfit, running, swimming, whatever. It also encompasses activity that enables those things, like yoga, physio, foam rolling etc. I don't separate between STR and DEX, because I don't really think that makes sense for the kind of things I do. Specific benchmarks I'd like to hit: Complete Strong Viking in June Complete Man vs Mountain in September Climb a font 7A Climb a font 6A outside Get reliable ring muscle ups Get reliable bar muscle ups Handwalk 12ft Learn to kip up Squatmas: 50 reps at 75% bodyweight, unbroken Deadliftmas: 50 reps at 100% bodyweight unbroken I also need to plan out a few more OCRs, maybe a triathlon or aquathlon. I'd like to do a novice strongman competition too. Nutrition (Constitution) This is about putting the right things in my body (hey, if a joke ain't broke, don't fix it). That includes food, obviously, but also alcohol and caffeine, not smoking, basically whatever I consume. Currently I'm trying to bulk up a bit, and at the moment I anticipate cycling cutting and bulking for the year. Creativity (Charisma) This is a stat I didn't hit much all year, so I'm really keen to boost this stat in 2023. I think being creative is really good for me, and it's something I want to do more of. In order to enable this I'll probably also need to redress my work/life balance, to give me some more creative energy. This includes drawing/art, music, and D&D stuff. Specific benchmarks: Publish some of my own D&D content online Be prepared (enough) for every session of my D&D campaign Complete Inktober this year If I reduce my working days, use the extra day creatively Self-care (Sanity) 2022 was a trying year, and 2023 is definitely going to have its challenges (though fewer of them would be nice). With that in mind I need to keep on with the little things that keep my mind in check - brushing my teeth, keeping in touch with friends, tidying my house, getting out of work on time. I got most of my points in this last year from brushing my teeth, a habit I hope I may have finally cracked (at the age of 33!). This year I want to get more points in this stat, and get them from more different activities. Specific benchmarks: Sort out the outhouse, and run power down there Get a price for the porch Paint my office Go away with friends Learning (Intelligence) I like learning stuff for pleasure, and I need to do it for work. This encompasses my professional qualifications, language learning (currently learning Dutch and French), and anything else I want to study. Specific benchmarks: Complete professional qualification Achieve extra qualification status Converse in French with a francophone Converse in Dutch in The Netherlands * * * Under the hood Each challenge goal will have stats assigned to it, which I earn on successful completion, and over the course of the year I want to get all of my stats as high as possible. My character level is determined by XP (and has been for possibly all of my years on NF) - each stat point is worth 5XP and I level up every 100XP. There's no requirement to hit all of the stats every month, I can mix and match depending on what I need at the time. Each month I will budget £250 as a bet against my goals. On pay day I will split that money. For the percentage of success I've had on my goals since the previous pay day I get to keep the money in my savings or spend it on something nice. For the percentages of goals I fail I have to transfer that money as an extra payment off my mortgage. The idea is that if I'm not improving future Jarric by hitting my goals I'll improve things for him by reducing his debt instead. This runs payday to payday, rather than with the challenge cycle, because it ensures that I actually have the money to pay the bet when it's due. * * * Here's a recap of last challenge, if you're interested: * * * Bringing the party together For my first challenge of the year, I have lots of things I want to do. Too many, objectively speaking. I'm going to give them all a go and see what comes of it, but in order to try and make it manageable I'm going to do a little bit of a lot of things. Some goals are natural daily habits, and they will stay as daily goals. For the other goals I will only try to hit them once per week, even if they're things that that I'd like to complete 3, 4, or 5 times per week. This gives me a list of weekly challenges and a list of daily challenges. Each of the challenges is themed on a role you might find in a D&D party, because of course they are. Daily: The muscle The documancer The face The translator The chronologist Weekly: The cartographer The camp maker The field medic The second storey specialist The muscle [+2 CON] It's bulking time! The aim is to increase my body weight by 0.25% each week (about 0.4lbs at the moment). In order to do that I will set my target calories for the week, and divide by 8 to give myself a daily target plus a floating 8th day for beer/snacks/whatever. I will also track protein daily, with a loose goal to eat at least 150g each day. I don't have a way of weighing myself that precisely, so the plan is that if I lose weight in a given week I'll up my calorie target, and if I don't gain at least 1lb for 3 consecutive weigh-ins I'll also increase my calorie target. I'll set my calorie goal on day one of this challenge, when I've weighed in. The documancer [+2 INT] I have two more 3,500-word essays to write in order to complete my current professional qualification, get new letters after my name, and earn some time off studying! Last challenge I did naff all, so I want to get back on this before I get close to the deadlines for these. I also find that working on this daily, even if it's only 10 minutes of editing stuff, it's much easier to pick it up and remember what I'm writing about. The face [+1 SAN] Brush my teeth, twice daily, use electric brush and interdental brushes in the evening. Simple. This has been going dangerously well for the last couple of challenges, so here's hoping it continues. The translator [+1 INT] Practice both French and Dutch daily. This can be in any form, though I suspect that Dutch will largely be on Duolingo, and French will be a mixture of Language Transfer, Duolingo, and the Duolingo podcast. If anyone has other suggestions for resources though, I'm all ears! The chronologist [+1 SAN] This is a new goal, about work/life balance. I've been working late a lot, and then feeling knackered and stressed, and then I don't want to go to work in the morning and I get in late. It's a horrible, stressful cycle. There's a lot of things that are stressful about my job right now, but this is the one thing I have real control over if I choose to exercise it. Arrive at work by 08:35 every day. Have logged off from work by 17:30 every day. Weekends and days off don't count, obviously. The cartographer [+1 CHA] I haven't done a lot of drawing in the last few months, and I miss it. Also, I really need a CHA goal! I'd love to do this almost every day, but the goal right now is to spend time drawing something once per week. My pathfinder games (where I play an elf artist, who actually is the party's cartographer, and take a lot of my notes in sketches) don't count towards this goal. Other than that I can draw anything. One thing I'd like to do at some point is to draw the characters who represent my goals. Anything counts though, even just a few minutes of doodling. The camp maker [+1 SAN] It is just possible that I should occasionally clean my house. Something about hygiene, dust mite allergy, clutter stress, embarrassment when people come over, I don't know. Anyway, I want to spend a few minutes cleaning the house every week. Normal maintenance things I do, like washing clothes and dishes, don't count. Maybe I should hoover something? The field medic [+1 STR] In order to not get injured, I need to take care of myself. The goal is to do some intentional physio, stretching, foam rolling, or something like that at least once per week. Again, I'd like to do this 4-5 times per week, but once is the goal for now. The second storey specialist [+1 STR] When I was wrapping up 2022, I identified that bouldering was something I had really improved at, and would like to keep improving at. I can only climb once per week right now, but I get a lot of useful cross-training at my gym. The one thing I'm really not getting though is crimp grip strength, so this goal is to hangboard once per week. Ok, this post is quite long enough. Lets go!

Hope your escape from the bunker goes smoothly mate - sounds like it's been productive so far.