Jarric

Tuesday - week 2 day 2 Yesterday was a good day. I went for another 2 mile run, and my knee felt fine again (though not great). When I stopped my knee was hurting quite a bit, so whilst I did my session of Literal Immortality I took it pretty easy and tried not to aggravate the knee. There was a crawling exercise which was a bugger to do in my tiny room, but otherwise it was all good. Work was fairly busy, and I'm gradually getting through quite a complex report that I want to finish by tomorrow. I also interviewed one of my colleagues for my next essay, so that's a tick for the Expert goal. I've got another interview lined up on Friday too. After work I dished out the chicken, beans, and veg that had been in the slow cooker for 10 hours with some vaguely taco-appropriate spices. We had it with plan tortillas; it was lush. Pathfinder was cancelled, so we spent the evening in front of the TV watching bake-off. I was inspired to draw again, and started on a picture of Spike from Buffy. I tell you this, because I don't think there's any hope that you'll recognise him otherwise. Here's where I've got to so far: Next step will be shading him, which I'm always a bit nervous to do because there's a good chance I'll ruin it in the process. Still, might be fun. 5/5 goals for the day. Calories were a tiny bit low, to start counteracting Monday's dinner, Literal Immortality was my physical maintenance goal, and everything else was done as and when.

That's one of my hobbies too! Until now it seems anyway. I'll preface this by saying that Literal Immortality was a limited time thing, so I'm not sure if you can still get it. The idea is that it trains the kind of stuff that is correlated with longevity - stuff like grip strength, balance, mobility. Exercises so far have included standing up from the floor in various ways, picking up a ball from the floor behind you, dropping and catching a weight plate, and break falls. There's also been some more traditional (for GMB) things like pushups with a hand release, sideways jumps, and single-leg deadlifts. The thing that attracted me to it is that it's not a load of locomotion exercises - my postage stamp of a living room isn't suited to bear crawls and monkey walks so Elements would be no good for me. There's been a couple of things that I've struggled to do in my space, but generally it's been ok (though I think the jury's still out on that). So... Doctor Who season 25 watch party?

It is! So I hear! I'm on episode 27 I think; I hear that things really start to kick off from 28. I really need to get on with catching up! Thank you ?. If you ever need a mobile game to invest some time in, it's fantastic. The sequel, released after PopCap games were bought out by EA, follows EA's freemium model and suffers as a result. Basically anything made by PopCap before they got bought out is excellent to be honest.

Monday - week 2 day 1 Yesterday was a good day. Crossfit first thing was squats, and though my knee didn't feel great walking around, it actually felt fine doing the squats themselves. Worked at 80kg (176#) for 3x5 - I think it's going to be a long time before I'm back in triple digits with the way this felt! Afterwards we messed around with some lunges and some weighted chinups. Work was busy but ok - I was bloody knackered by the end of the day to the point where I got home and just laid on the kitchen floor with the cat for a bit. WW cooked a halloumi and beetroot filo pie for dinner, which was bloody lovely but also about 1,200 calories with all the pastry and olive oil. 3/5 goals for the day. Calories were over and I failed to plan for the pastry (though I should still be in a deficit for the day even if I wasn't on target). I had no energy or inclination to do any essay writing. Languages, stretching, and teeth were done. Bonus: thanks to a nudge from @Harriet I did some drawing! Just copied a couple of zombies from the original Plants vs Zombies game, so not my original work, but it was fun to do: (If you look carefully you can see something I drew previously on the reverse of the page)

Welcome back to the challenges - looking forward to seeing your progress!

I would have to re-watch it to comment - I genuinely don't remember one second of the plot.

I feel like I've experienced something like this. During lockdown last year I had really bad anxiety - crippling paranoia, racing heart, tight chest. And then one evening while I was sat on the sofa I realised that the chest tightness felt a bit like a hayfever symptom. So I went and took a bunch of antihistamines, and 20 minutes later felt significantly better. And all of the racing thoughts that I was having still existed, but without the physical symptoms I was able to cope with them and put them to one side. It definitely seems like the problem for me is physical first, and psychological issues are a result. Although it's hard to convince myself sometimes, it also helps me when I'm feeling anxious to remind myself that I am experiencing real, physical symptoms, but they don't have to dictate my thoughts.

I skipped over this before, but I love that this was a goal for you when it's something I 100% take for granted. I think I probably see a squirrel every day.

It's the perfect plan! We should go into business together.

I sent them a message because I wasn't sure either. Despite the fact that the video keeps running all the way through, you are supposed to rest between rounds on the superset. So it's exercise A, exercise B, rest, A, B, rest etc. Is assume that you rest between rounds on the circuit, but I didn't actually ask that. Sunday - week 1 day 7 Yesterday was a good day. I went for a little 2 mile run first thing, and my knee felt ...not bad. Then I went for a session of Literal Immortality. It was good, except for one more which was prone crawls - I do not have the space to crawl anywhere so that's not gonna work. I was hoping this programme wouldn't have much in the way of locomotion exercises (which I know GMB tend to favour) given the tiny space I have to work with. D&D was cancelled, so the rest of the day was mostly spent chilling out. I did do some mortgage maths and get in touch with the mortgage broker - this process feels unnecessarily laborious, but maybe it's just that I can't be arsed with it. I also spent over an hour working on my next essay, and I now feel like I have at least a vague idea of how I'm going to structure it. In the evening I roasted some chicken thighs and veg, we watched the Strictly results, and then started catching up on Critical Role. We're 13 episodes behind, so it'll take a while! Week 1 results The Chosen: 7/7. Plan for the week was 16,486 calories, and I hit 16,326 - I'd say that's a damn good effort! As a reward, I'm exactly the same weight I was before the week . In 2 weeks I've lost 2 lbs though, which isn't far off right, so I'm putting this down to a fluctuation and sticking with the same calorie target for one more week before I change anything. The wronged: 6/7. Missed Saturday as I couldn't be fucked to do anything at all, but otherwise physio exercises and stretching happened regularly. The expert: 4/7. Not perfect, but I submitted one of my essays so that's a massive win. The monstrous: 7/7. Boom! Teeth continue to be done. The spell-slinger: 7/7. These foreign languages are no match for me! (That sounds unnecessarily xenophobic, but you know what I mean.)

I'll see what I can do. I also thoroughly appreciate that you distinguished between poisonous and venomous ❤️ ...this sounds like a very good line of business to go into.

I saw this in the cinema and all I remember is that it was awful and that I loved it.

I did say that, but I haven't been very good at doing any drawing lately! The plan was to do Inktober, and I got all the way to day 3 before I dropped out. The only thing I still do is draw when playing Pathfinder - my character is an artist, so I do a lot of my notes as sketches. I should draw something this week. Any suggestions for what I should draw? Well so far I've done two sessions and I haven't died, so I can only assume it's working.

You can cook eggs in a steamer? What is this witchcraft? (By which I mean, what's the technique for this?) Your cabbage and egg noodles sound delicious. Hope your back behaves itself.

Your farewell dinner/night out sounds great. Even better when it's compay-funded

I also read this article, it's definitely an interesting concept. I love your challenge rewards; the latter ones make me think of metal club nights in my late teens. Are we doing black magic songs?

- tripped over in the kitchen and landed on a potato peeler - died changing the bedsheets, now cursed to haunt the earth wearing a sheet - walked under a ladder

I thoroughly appreciate this commitment. ?

Nice one on advocating on yourself at work, that's really important and I'm glad you're getting your job sorted as a result. And well done on the hike! That sounds like a fun event; was there much good fancy dress? Depends on how much you want to push yourself/if you're happy with one goal propping up another I guess. I'd be inclined to treat anything over 100% as 100%, and then take an average of that. Which would still give you about 88% for week 1.

100% It shouldn't be too bad I think. It seems to be a big opportunity for us to take on a load of new business, so I'm mostly worried about the added workload from that. Hopefully we'll be able to recruit the staff to cope with it; although that comes with its own challenges it's definitely the better option. And thanks! Why not have all the protein - much better than running out!

I'm so sorry for your loss. She was absolutely beautiful. Yeah, you'll get there. Give it time.

I wear shirts to work, I just don't bother ironing them

Saturday - week 1 day 6 Yesterday was a good day. Went climbing with Hopalong first thing, which was nice. Nothing spectacular, but I climbed a few nice things and attempted a good few others. For the rest of the day I had bugger all energy, so I spent the day doing bugger all. WW wanted to go to a new waffle place that opened up around the corner for lunch, so we did. I had a waffle with bacon and cheese, and honestly, I'm not sure that I liked the sweet/savory combination there. More importantly, it was a shitload of calories and not very filling. Not wanting to go over my calories I avoided eating anything else before dinner, and ended up making myself feel sick by the time it was ready. I think there's a lesson to learn there about not pushing too hard in pursuit of calorie goals. For dinner I made neeps and tatties with altogether not enough tatties, and sausages. I actually had enough calories left for a mince pie after dinner, so should definitely have planned better. In the evening we watched Jodie Whittaker's final Doctor Who episode, which was ok, and went to bed at a reasonable time. 3/5 goals for the day; couldn't be arsed to do stretching or essay writing, but at least I got the languages and teeth done.

I wonder if Lindt is different here and there, because you can get Hershey's here in specialist shops or sometimes in the import foods section of the supermarket, and I wouldn't say they were remotely similar.

Friday - week 1 day 5 Yesterday was a good day. Crossfit was squats, and my knee felt absolutely fine! I kept it pretty light, not wanting to push my luck, and capped out at 80kg (176#) x 3 x 5. Then we had some other leg stuff - pistol squats, Nordic curls, and natural leg extensions. I skipped the leg extensions, as that's what I'd been doing when I got injured, and I did the pistols to a box to avoid overly flexing the knee, but it's all good work. Work was busy, just trying to keep my head above water and not go mad with stress. I worked late to finish of one job, and then really didn't feel like studying, so that didn't happen. In the evening WW cooked butternut squash and sweet potato soup, and we chilled in front of the TV. 4/5 goals complete, due to the lack of studying.