Jarric

When I saw you mention this thread in the general chat (thank you for the tag by the way) I had all of 7 minutes left of my lunch break and my pocket sketch book. So here's my hand (literally, I held the sketchbook down with my left hand whilst I drew it). It's not good, but it was a good way to spend 7 minutes.

WW went through the audiobook versions read by Andy Serkis recently - the bits of them I caught sounded really good. I know what you mean about reading them - I got through them all once as a teenager, but despite how much I loved them I could never make it past the Council of Elrond on a re-read.

My favourite type of decluttering is the type where people give me more stuff This sounds excellent - fruit is underrated. That's an amazing amount to do in 6 months - awesome stuff! I think you'll get the hang of it, it seems ok to me (though I know nothing about playing accordion). The worst bit for me is that they've put the repeat line halfway through a bar!

I don't know what this is, but it sounds incredible.

Can you workout in the morning? I don't know how early it gets ridiculously hot, but that would mean you can eat dinner, relax and digest, and go to bed fairly early, then get up earlier for the workout. Another option might be to make your workouts shorter, if that means you can do them daily? Not a complete fix, but it'll still get you to bed a bit earlier. Alternatively, you might just have to accept that strength training is something that happens on the weekends for a little while? Not ideal doing 2 back-to-back workouts per week, but you'll probably still see some progress doing that.

You 100% figures correctly! Thanks for tagging me, that'll be going on my payday shopping list.

That's an entirely fair point. Maybe it's worth just trying it to see - if you feel more hungry or tired, or less strong, then maybe you need to increase protein. If not, maybe you don't right now. 12.7lbs (about 5.75kg), which is about a 7.3% reduction in total body weight. I'd have liked a bit more, but I wasn't particularly overweight to begin with. Yeah, that's a good point. I'll definitely get into tracking a good month before I start bulking, if not earlier, so that I know my maintenance number going into that. This is true - it's not an all or nothing thing, as much as I usually feel like it is.

I've hit the end of my 6-month cut, and now I'm going into maintenance until October, which I'm very glad about as I'm a bit burned out on cutting (and on life to be honest, which is probably more the problem - when life isn't stressful I quite like calorie counting). I stopped counting calories just over a week ago, and I'm tempted to keep that going for a bit and see if I can find maintenance without it. I'm weighing in every day, so I'll soon know if I slip out of the maintenance band that I've set for myself (161lbs +/- 2lbs). Can't quite decide if this is a good idea right now, or if I'll suddenly see my weight spike as a result ?‍♂️

It probably depends on what your goals are. If you're looking to get stronger through resistance training, or if you're looking to lose weight whilst maintaining muscle, then low protein probably isn't great (by which I mean sub-optimal, not harmful). But if you're just looking to be healthy and maintain weight, your protein needs are probably quite a lot lower. For example, the NHS recommends 0.8-1g of protein per kg of body weight for a normal healthy lifestyle, whereas a lot of bodybuilding/strength training guides will recommend 1g per pound of body weight, so 2.2 times as much. Bearing in mind that your protein intake will also increase purely because you've increased your calories to maintenance, how low protein are we talking? Personally I use a vegan protein blend and that seems to do the trick, if you're looking for non-dairy shakes. The company are Protein Works, though I don't know if they ship outside the UK.

18/03 - 164.9lbs 25/03 -163.9lbs 01/04 - 163.1lbs 08/04 - 163.5lbs 15/04 - 162.2lbs 22/04 - 162.2lbs 29/04 - 161.2lbs 06/05 - 160.8lbs 13/05 - 160.1lbs 20/05 - 160.8lbs 27/05 - 161.5lbs 03/06 - 161.0lbs 11/06 - 161.7lbs I'm cheating a bit here, I weighed in yesterday and for some reason the scale gave me 163.4, despite having said between 159.2 and 160.7 all week. So I weighted a day, and I'm going to finish with that Tuesday weigh in. Overall I've only lost 3.2lbs this challenge, which isn't great, but I've also lost 1.25" off my waist, so that's something. As I'm going into maintenance for the next few months, I'm also going to look at my numbers since 1st January for comparison: 01/01 - 174.4lbs - 37.75" 18/03 - 164.9lbs - 35.75" 11/06 - 161.7lbs - 34.5" Clearly a lot of the big wins were in the first 3 months, but that's ok; it's always easier to lose when you have more to lose and when you're fresh and excited to do it. Now my goal is to stay at 161lbs +/- 2lbs until the end of September.

This is actively painful to read. Why would you note a crochet at '2'? It's either 1 beat, or it's 1/4 of a bar! Why would a quaver be the standard note length?! If you're going to do that, why not call the time signature 8/8? And yet weirdly I want to learn this notation now

Thank you! The mini is amazing. The sculpting is as great as it is impractical - it's designed to stand on one leg in a cool walking position, and the foot is anatomically accurate so most of the arch doesn't touch the ground. Most of the basing is just me trying to stop it falling over It is, I really like it. And thank you! Thank you! So far so good ?

I realise that I've been conspicuous in my absence, and to be honest I haven't really be tracking my goals, but here's something like an update. Kneehab I saw the physio on Wednesday of week 3, and he put together a running plan for me. It's very simple, two runs per week, and each run is 30 minutes split into 6 x 5-minute blocks. In week one each block was run for 30 seconds, walk for 4 minutes 30. Last week was a 1 minute/4 minute split, this week is 1:30/3:30, and so on. He also has me increasing my running cadence, which was historically about 160spm. I'm up to 172spm, and I might be here for a while as it's hard to keep up with and I'm running much faster than my usual easy run pace. The goal is to head towards 180, but I think that might take a while. In addition I'm doing one more cardio session per week. So far that's been hiking, and I've made the decision that I'm going to hike Man vs Coast at the start of July (a 25-mile trail that I'd originally signed up to run). It's going to be tough, but I managed 10 miles pain free the weekend so I'm hopeful. I'm also doing one knee strength workout per week after my Tuesday run, and I've incorporated pistol squats into my bouldering warm-up. None of this quite fits with my initial challenge goal, which is part of the reason I haven't been tracking, but stuff is being done. Art This pretty much hasn't happened for a couple of weeks- I've just not felt in the place to pick up a pencil. I did however sign up to a subscription that sends me 3 fantasy minis every month, so I guess I'll be doing a bit of mini painting at least. Not really what I had in mind for my art goal, but it ticks some of the boxes. I finished the first one last night: Cardio I haven't been tracking this, though I have been sticking to the kneehab plan. Teeth This has been pretty hit and miss, but thanks to the scoring system I put in place for this challenge I think it's been more hit than miss. I haven't been writing down the scores, which is unfortunate, but there we are. Calories Not a goal for this challenge, but I was counting calories for the weight loss PvP. I seem to have burned out on that a bit, so I've stopped, and am just trying to be sensible before my final weigh-in on Monday. I will then probably go back to tracking, but I'll also be increasing my calorie budget to find a maintenance figure. Think that's about it. Work's really busy, but life is otherwise generally good. We've had a couple of weeks off from D&D, but we've just levelled up in the Pathfinder game and D&D should be back this weekend. I also have my first ever Crossfit competition this weekend, so that should be fun!

Well done on this week man, you're doing great during a tough time. Praying for a straightforward surgery and a speedy recovery ❤️

18/03 - 164.9lbs 25/03 -163.9lbs 01/04 - 163.1lbs 08/04 - 163.5lbs 15/04 - 162.2lbs 22/04 - 162.2lbs 29/04 - 161.2lbs 06/05 - 160.8lbs 13/05 - 160.1lbs 20/05 - 160.8lbs 27/05 - 161.5lbs 03/06 - 161.0lbs It's been a few weeks since I last updated - the numbers in bold are the ones I haven't posted here before. Week leading up to the 160.8lbs I was bang on target for calories, so no idea why I saw a 0.7lb increase. The following week was very boozy and I was well, well over, so I was surprised at how small the increase was (probably aided heavily by the prior week). Last week I'm fairly sure was over budget as well, but I gave up on counting calories mid-week. For this week I'm just going to try and be sensible and not go overboard, but calorie counting feels like a bit much right now. I'd love to go sub-160 for next week's weigh in, but that seems unlikely without tracking. Regardless, I'm looking forward to going into maintenance mode and having a bit of a mental break from this. Good to see other people doing well - keep it up everyone!

Week 2 scores The cartographer: 2/7 - very much dropped off of drawing this week; keen to get back to it. I've been busy doing fun stuff though, as well as being pretty absorbed in D&D prep, so it's not all bad. The muscle: 6/7 - did full knee workouts on Tuesday and Saturday, and attempted a run on Sunday. The run hurt - possibly because of the 3 x 400m intervals at Crossfit on Friday, or the squats and lunges at Crossfit on Friday, or the knee stability workouts and lap round the park on Saturday - regardless I made it to a mile before I gave up. Also did some little bits of work Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, but couldn't fit it in the the already heavy Crossfit session on Friday. The skirmisher: 91 minutes of cardio this week. This feels like a really low number - I've got a physio appointment this week and will try and talk about fitting physio in around kneehab. The face: scores of 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 0, 4 for the week, so pretty good on the teeth brushing other than a glitch on Saturday. The weekend was a good one. Friday night I went for a couple of beers after work to discuss a dreadful decision that might be coming our way from senior management. Then chilled out at home with a bonus beer. Also watched an episode of La Bonne Auberge, which is a French D&D stream, and was pleased to find that I could actually follow what was going on. On Saturday I went climbing, then spent a bunch of time setting my computer up and messing with cable management. It looks really good now . Also did a bit if D&D prep, went to the supermarket, and checked out a new taproom that's opened up on the local industrial estate. Sunday was D&D day - I might come back and do a recap later but suffice to say it was a lot of fun starting to run a new Planescape campaign for ghe group. Then we went back to the taproom to sign up for a pub quiz and have a swift beer, and spent the evening watching Critical Role and playing board games.

This is a very good point! And yeah, quite a lot of professional artists have aphantasia in fact, so I'm not yoo worried about it - I've made my peqce with the fact that drawing from a load of reference sources is how I draw. Yeah, it works for me. I do still want to keep understanding anatomy and physics better as well, to complement that. Yeah, I think I've played with that in the past, it's good. The other one I quite like for human poses specifically is https://quickposes.com/en I hope it lived up to expectations. glad you enjoyed it mate. It's very different to anything Ive run before (in some ways at least )

Well if you do draw some I'd love to see it! I don't often play anthro characters in TTRPGs, but the gnoll lore in Pathfinder really got to me and now I want to be able to draw my character . It's also bloody hard to get an AI image generator or something like Hero Forge to do a decent prosthetic leg, which means it really is up to me to draw this one. To be honest, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to draw 100% from imagination. I think I have aphantasia - the inability to voluntarily create mental images - so I can't picture things in my mind and then translate them onto paper. For me an original drawing involves a bunch of references for pose, clothing style, facial features etc. Having said that, I'm definitely getting better at understanding anatomy, which helps with understanding how clothes and shadows should fall, I just need a pose to project that understanding onto.

Interesting to hear your take on the new Doctor Who, I really enjoyed it!

Week 1 scores The cartographer: 6/7 - missed art on Saturday, I can't really remember why, suspect I was very absorbed with D&D prep The muscle: 7/7 - I did full knee workouts on Tuesday and Saturday. The plan was to do one on Sunday too, but I ran a mile (furthest I've run since January!) and after that my knee felt sore enough that I didn't want to push my luck. I did go for a longish bike ride after that as well. The remaining days were the standard single leg claf raises and squats. The skirmisher: 115 minutes of cardio last week. Better than I was expecting, thanks to 30 minuts of nasty partner workouts on Monday which I'm absolutely counting towards the total. The Face: 5, 5, 5, 5, 4, 5, 5 for the week. Moving the majority of the brushing time to the morning has definitely been a good choice so far, and the flexibility of this system is really helpful for me I think. Or it might just be new challenge determination - time will tell! Overall it was a good week. Been busy, but a lot of that is D&D prep that I'm really enjoying right now, so it's all good. And hey, maybe soon you'll get a week 2 update

Those are brilliant, thank you! I don't know how I've never come across that kind of method in drawing books/tutorials I've seen. Gives me something to practice in the next few days anyway. Yeah, ok, point taken Thank you mate.

Personally, I'd quit both - there's nothing wrong with advocating for yourself and getting someone who works for you in either case. And it doesn't even have to be that there's anything 'wrong' with the professional, it can just be that they're not a good fit for you right now.

Thank you mate! The extra weekly session in the climbing gym over the last few months really seems to have helped with that.

I've been really busy, mainly with prepping for our new D&D campaign which I'm very excited about but which needs quite a lot of initial setup. I'll do a proper update at some point. In the meantime here's a stegosaurus:

I've not come across the box on an egg guide, how does that work? Anthro tutorials are probably the answer. Together, we shall vanquish this foe! Get your mind out of the gutter A corpselight is an undead will o' wisp, that flies into and animates corpses. Thank you! Yeah, if I cancel this I'll use the credit towards a race next year. When you're booking hotels for weekends away to do races it's a bit much to book more in the same year, and also I doubt any of my friends would want to run a second long race this year just to run one with me. She's great, and so far she's survived 2 whole sessions! I hope the sketch works out well too. Puns are an extremely important part of any D&D game Ok, that was great . I can definitely see where Batman got it from Oo thanks, I'll give it a listen later. I don't know if it really made it over here to be honest. I don't think I'm much younger that you, so it's probably not an age thing. I never really listened to radio shows as a kid - my parents didn't listen to them so it just wasn't part of my childhood. Great reviews, I definitely won't add either film to my to-watch list!