Jarric

Tuesday - week 0 day 2 Yesterday was a good day. Went for a short little 2 mile run first thing, then did some knee exercises and some yoga. Work continues to be busy and I really feel like I'm falling behind. I did get in an hour of study though, which is good, and I didn't work too late. In the evening I made gammon, pea and spinach pasta with cheese sauce; it was lovely and surprisingly didn't blow my calorie budget. The rest of the evening was spent playing out Pathfinder Greek campaign, where everyone was tired to the point of being delerious and we failed to progress the plot in any meaningful way. We did cure 2 characters of rabies though, so that's something! Managed to get some French and Dutch in, and teeth were done before bed - another good day for goals.

Very excited to see you going back down the rabbit hole I'll be lurking.

Monday - week 0 day 1 Yesterday was a good day. Crossfit was a 10 minute EMOM of 2 x banded deadlifts, and then setting sprint times for 100m, 200m and 300m row. It was actually quite a chilled session, with only 4 of us in and lots of time to rest. Came home early and did some stretching. Work was pretty crazy. Mondays are always a bit tough as it's the day the whole team is in the office, so there's a lot of meetings and catching up and now a great deal of time to do work. We got through it. I also stayed an extra 15 minutes to work on my essay. Unfortunately I had 5 chocolate mini rolls in our pre-lunch training session, before calculating my calorie target for this week and realising it was far lower than I expected. I took most of my lunch home with me as a result, and still ended up a couple of hundred calories high at 2,290. I still get the mark for the day; this is about mindful pursuit of the calorie target rather than perfection, and really it just means I need to drink 1 less beer later in the week. In the evening WW cooked lemon baked basa woth spinach mornay - it was bloody lovely. I then spent most of the evening wrapping up last challenge and posting this one, having spent my lunch hour calculating calories. Didn't have much time for languages, but I did a quick lesson of each before bed. Teeth were also done - so all good for day 1.

not sure if I should be flattered or offended. Good to have you.

Hey Shaar! Recovery is important - to unbreakable-ness! I want to respond in a gif, but I can't beat that one - well played! Monster of the Week looks great - it's a hack of Apocalypse World, so pretty rules light and narrative based. Perfect for treating each session as an episode with a resolution.

Challenging is more important than themeing (is that a word?). Glad you're around, theme or no. Or, to put it another way, iagreewithtank™

A wood elf strolls into the bar, and takes up residence at his favourite bar stool. Pint of the black stuff, barkeep, he says, accepting the drink that appears almost too quickly in front of him. Turning to the gathered throng he raises the glass, and speaks to no-one in particular. 11 weeks left of the year folks, near enough. Plenty of time to so some good. The elf looks round the room, apparently pleased with his proclamation, and then heads out in search of the climbing wall.

Monster of the Week Last challenge went a bit like this: So this challenge, as you might have noticed, encompasses Halloween. I needed a suitable theme for that, and as soon as I realised I needed a theme I knew what it should be. Monster of the Week is an excellent-looking tabletop RPG that I have yet to have the chance to run or play. It's very heavily based on Buffy and Supernatural, and other shows with a monster of the week style, episodic format. Each character is an archetype from those type of shows, and that's where my goals come in. The Chosen - +3 CON A once-ordinary person who discovered they have a special destiny, and who has been given the power to accomplish it. Also, you can't be the Chosen without looking great on screen. For me this challenge will be about cutting weight. The plan each week is to lose 0.75% of my body weight. I'm currently 12 stone 7, which means in week 0 I need to lose 1.31lbs. To do this I will set a calorie target each week, and then continuously update the calorie target based on how much weight I lose and how much I need to lose. The calorie target for week 0 will be 16,486, or an average of 2,355 per day. I'll actually be aiming for 2,060 per day, to allow me to have 2,060kcal of beer spread throughout the week. Points will be awarded for tracking calories every day and making a genuine effort towards hitting the weekly calorie goal. The Wronged - +2 STR Revenge-driven, and really tough. The Wronged is all about killing a specific breed of monster and protecting others as you do it. To fight monsters I need to take care of myself. This goal is about physical maintenance. Between crossfit and running and climbing I do a lot, and I need to make sure I don't break myself. Every day I want to be doing something for recovery, be that stretching, yoga, or physio exercises. The Expert - +3 INT The hunter who knows all about monsters and magic. The Expert knows a lot of hidden secrets and how to find out more, and also has a well-supplied base to work from. I am currently studying for a professional qualification, and I have 4, 3,500 word essays left to write, one of which I'm halfway through. I have to get at least 2 of these finished and submitted by the end of this challenge. Last challenge I targeted 4 hours of work per week, and massively failed to hit that. The plan this time is to do some work on the essays every day. I get a couple of hours during my working week set aside for this. On other days even if I only do 15 minutes that's absolutely fine; it'll keep it fresh in my mind and give me time to edit them when I'm not doing large chunks, and hopefully I'll then be more productive for the larger chunks of time. The Monstrous - +2 SAN A monster fighting for the good guys. Amazing when you can sum up an archetype in 7 words, isn't it? Monsters often have terrific (horrifying) teeth, This is a challenge I have to attempted, unsuccessfully, far too often - brush my teeth twice per day. I'm making a rule with myself now, which I will keep to myself but may help me to achieve it this time. The Spell-slinger - +2 INT A trained wizard, wielding powerful magic in their crusade against evil. I guess any wizard speaks a few languages. I have to study both Dutch and French every day. This will probably mostly be Duolingo, though I might go back through some of Language Transfer for French too as I find it fascinating. Admin I'll be starting this in week zero, given that the last challenge fizzled pretty badly. Also as it gives me 6 weeks on my calorie cut, which feels more useful than only 5 weeks (given that I'll be bulking from the start of next challenge). The challenge start today, Monday 17th (all challenges start on Mondays - change my mind!)

Challenge wrap up I've been pretty rubbish at updating this challenge, but some stuff has been done! Work got busy and I got stressed about it, and really lost motivation to stare at a screen any longer and update the challenge. Next challenge I need to be realistic about what I can achieve, because work's going to get worse before it gets better. I had some fun through the challenge too. A couple of big races, including the Spartan weekend that was my goal for the year. I should probably do a race recap at some point... I also signed up to Man vs Mountain, a 22 mile run around Snowdonia, so I've got my big goal for next year sorted. Track calories: 7+7+7+7=28/28: +3 CON So this went perfectly! I've got into the swing of it really easily (it doesn't hurt that I eat a lot of the same stuff every day), and I have some quasi-useful data to take into next challenge. Physical maintenance: 6+5+7+5=23/28: +2 STR This went pretty well I think. Everything I did was just a little thing, but hopefully those little things add up to me recovering a bit better, and feeling a bit stronger. I got through my races and I'm not too beaten up, and this probably helped. Study: 1+1+2+3=7/16: +1 INT Well this was pretty poor, and I'm in a bad position with my essays as a result. I was hoping to finish at least one essay, and I still have 1,500 words to write on that one. This goal needs to happen, but I needed a better process next challenge. Languages: 7+7+6+6=26/28: +2 INT Yeah, I stuck with this really well, and hit a 50 day streak on Duolingo. I missed a couple of days of French as the podcast was a little harder to get in (though I could have done Duolingo French if it had occurred to me to do so). Teeth: 6+2+1.5+0=9.5/28: +1 SAN This was a pretty poor show really. I started well and went rapidly downhill. Like our current Prime Minister, except I started well. There's been a lot of politics this challenge, hasn't there? Anyway, I needed a better plan for next challenge.

Life (work mainly) got in the way of me coming to the forums a lot this time round, but I kept track of my goals and even achieved some of them. Next challenge I need to go in expecting work to be busy, and be realistic about what I can achieve around it. Also, need to come up with a good Halloween theme...

Thank you too! Congratulations! That's brilliant news; can't wait to hear how it goes.

Yeah, that's a fair cop. I can absolutely assure you, I am not, and will never be, glad to see Jeremy Hunt. The things that disabled people had to go through whilst he was health secretary were horrible. Sunak/Mordaunt sounds like a pleasantly ineffectual combination though. They might do relatively little damage.

I think I saw a tabloid headline about Truss being replaced by Sunak or Braverman earlier. Braverman ? It's a fair point. Boris would have loved to do the queen's eulogy though, he could have spent far too long comparing himself to Churchill's eulogy for George VI Well I'm sorry to hear that things are a mess there too then! And thank you! I should really do a challenge update at some point, but things have, by and large, been happening.

That sounds like the best way to deal with that news for me. Good luck with getting the number down (though I'm sure you won't need luck, you've done it before and you can do it again).

Looks like a perfect day - well done!

Yeah, these are unconscionable. I'm genuinely shocked and appalled that we've ended up here. I don't know - Sunak is exceptionally rich and seems to have no concept of what life is like for poorer people (or even middle-class people really). That doesn't play well with the voting public, in a country as hung up on class as ours. I think you might be right, but I really, really hope you're wrong. I think it was the straw that broke the camel's back. There were still loads of partygate allegations coming out at the same time, so I think he was on rough enough footing when that final push happened. I think arguably Truss killed the queen - she was one of the last people to see her alive after all (Alternative theory, the queen held on just long enough to see to it that Boris was out)

Glad the cats are doing well, and you now have the time to be the cheese kleptomaniac you've been aspiring to be!

To be fair, there wasn't a lot of waiting needed. And I'm pretty sure you had to wait for me a couple of times on the running sections . I had a really good time. Thanks Sal Do it! Do it! Do it!

? I feel you on this I can answer that if you want, but equally I don't want to force metagaming on you if you'd rather find out the answer in character. Let me know if you want to know.

I think I've missed this. Nice to know that one of the many disastrous things on that list has gone over my head... I really, really hope you're right. My worry is that they'll put off holding an election until the last possible minute, which I think is about January 2025. My bigger worry is that in the meantime Labour will manage to do something so monumentally stupid that they still don't win. The longest a government can last is 5 years, taking us to late 2024, and then when government dissolves there's a period of campaigning before the next general election, taking us to early 2025. Parliament can vote for an earlier election, but I can't see that happening while the Tories are this far behind in the polls. Even Tory MPs who hate Liz Truss still aren't likely to vote for an election, knowing that their party would lose. ...except for Nadine Dorries, who apparently called for an election this week, presumably because she exists on an entirely different planet to the rest of us. It's as good a theory as any - Sunak was a boring choice, and part of Boris's government that caused a lot of the problems he was campaigning to solve, but I still find it hard to believe that Tory members couldn't see how obviously damaging Truss would be by comparison.

I started working out in the mornings because I couldn't find another time to fit it in, and now I get up at 6am every morning for a workout. I still don't consider myself a morning person, and I'm shocked that I'm now the kind of person who goes to bed at 10pm so that I can get up and workout. Fairly sure one of my earliest NF goals was to be in bed before midnight... Hope work gets better for you soon Deffy!

Week C so far Track calories: ????--- Physical maintenance: ????--- Study: ?--- Languages: ????--- Teeth: ? ☠️☠️☠️--- Wednesday was a good day. Yoga and some knee exercises before work, and then working from home where I actually meant to get some study time done. Work was really busy and I have shitloads to do,. so I ended up working quite late and then coming downstairs and just laying on the floor in front of the sofa for a bit. Once I could be bothered to get off the floor I did some washing up whilst WW made American-style pancakes. It's the first time I've ever had American pancakes and they were pretty good (helped along by the dark chocolate chips melting between the layers of the pancake stack). We chilled in front of the TV catching up on the dystopian nightmare that is British politics courtesy of Late Night Mash. Yesterday was a good day. Yoga and knee exercises before work, and I'm really starting to see the benefits of a bit of physical self-care in advance of destroying my body at Spartan this weekend. At work I was supposed to have 4 hours of meetings, but this variously got postponed, cancelled, and shortened down to 15 minutes which was a huge relief. Not that I've caught up with work really, but I'm less behind than I could be. In the evening I cooked pasta with leftover gammon, carrots, green peppers and tomatoes, We watched the latest episode of She Hulk (loving this show), and then a load of Moon Knight. I'm just starting to like Moon Knight, and we've only got one episode left so I guess it's about time! Teeth brushing has fallen by the wayside a bit, so I need to get back on that. Otherwise goals are going well, though I must remember to weight myself on Monday as I have the calorie data but not the weight data to go with it.

Week B round-up Track calories: 7/7 Physical maintenance: 5/7 Study: 1/4 Languages: 7/7 Teeth: 2/7 It was a good weekend, but I spent the whole time absolutely knackered. On Saturday I went climbing first thing, and we went and did a ton of grocery shopping that I really couldn't be bothered to do. After that I think I spent the whole day on the sofa. On Sunday I spent a lot of the day on the sofa. I was going to go for a bike ride with Hopalong, but at the last minute he realised he had bike problems so we played snooker instead. After that I did some more sofa sitting. I did do the first couple of inktober prompts, which was nice. I'd missed drawing, apparently. The first I had no idea what to do, and then I opened my beer subscription box and there was a picture of a gargoyle so I just copied it: The second day was a bit quicker, and done without a reference: Week C has been pretty similar to the end of Week B - I'm tired, work is stressful, and I'm not doing everything I want to. Tracking calories and studying languages are going very well, but other things not so much, and I'm a couple of days behind on Inktober. On Monday I found out that someone on our team is leaving the company (Tall, who I ran Nuts with a few weeks back). I'm very happy for him, but I'll be gutted to lose him both on a personal level and from a oh my God who's going to do his work point of view. This has not helped my stress levels. Physical maintenance is going generally ok - I'm just trying to get lots of sleep, stretching, and yoga in before the big Spartan Trifecta weekend. Yesterday I went to the dentist, who was very pleased with how my teeth were looking, so sporadic as I am with that it appears to be working. Must stick with it; I don't want to have to go back to getting teeth removed, it's just not plesant. Sorry that's all a bit rambling, but I think we can at least say I'm up to date now!

I'm glad I'm not the only one that gets annoyed by people listing a cottage pie as a shepherd's pie - the clue's in the name! I have seen a cottage pie advertised as a cowherd's pie, which I quite liked. Then again, the pub was called The Cowherd's, so I'm not surprised that's the only place I've seen it. I think I must be tired, because when I first read this I was wondering what you had put this sauce through that was so jarring for it...

Congratulations on the weight loss! That's a major milestone