Jarric

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 Stuck almost exactly to my calorie goal last week (which required a very low calorie day on Sunday, unfortunately), so happy with the result. Probably not likely that I'm going to lose 6.2lbs in the remaining 4 weeks of this challenge to hit my goal, but whatever, I've now lost over a stone (14lbs) since 1st January so really happy overall.

Don't know if this helps, but it's not by much! 0.7% of your total body weight increase is tiny. Or, to put it another way, you would put on that much if you downed 2 pints of water. Well that's a win regardless of the scale.

Sorry to hear about the pre-diabetes mate, but good thing you caught it while it's still reversible at least. Hope it doesn't take too longer for your body to adapt to the lower sugar diet.

Adding to the no meed to apologise crew - life happens, and you won't always have time and energy to be here, and that's ok.

Hey, I didn't know you'd resurrected the battle log! Good to see you still posting. ❤️

Thank you guys, great to have you all! Week 1 is going well so far. I've spent a lot of time working on yhe next D&D campaign I'll be running, as we've got session zero on Sunday. (Well, I spent a lot of Tuesday practising accents and looking up puns, but I spent a lot of yesterday prepping stuff at least.) I'm really looking forward to this one, but slightly daunted by the world I need to get set up over the next couple of weeks so the players can explore it. Art was a quick snail sketch on Monday - shared in the gastropods art group - a sketch of a corpselight on Tuesday that tried to kill our Pathfinder party, and I started on a portrait of my latest Pathfinder character, Hummingbird, yesterday. Hummingbird is a gnoll bard, and I'm going to build in a sort of witchy aspect to her, as well as giving her a herbalist dedication so that she can craft potions and poltices. Gnolls are hard to draw (anything with a muzzle/snout I find really tricky), but if I ever finish her I'll share her here. She's also got a prosthetic leg, which is it's own challenge to design and draw to be in keeping with the available technology and lore. Kneehab has been done. Ran one lap of the park and did a dedicated workout on Tuesday, and then the normal add-ons Monday, yesterday, and this morning. I also did shuttle runs at Crossfit on Monday, and 3 x 400m runs (3 x 0.25 miles) this morning, both of which were pain free! Still not sure that I'm going to be fit to run 25 miles by July, so I need to make a decision on whether I cancel that race soon Cardio has been limited - I'm counting 30 minutes from Monday's crossfit and the 5.5 minutes of running on Tuesday, but I didn't get round to cycling. Teeth are on track, 5 points every day so far this week!

That's a lot of umlauts - I hope you feel better soon. This sounds like fun - I do like a chimera. Will have to add this to my list of drawing options.

To be fair, yerba mate is great (ceramic mug optional). Sounds logical to me - high volumes of low-intensity movement are what a lot of tehab programmes are built on. Hope you can now focus on work a bit left, to allow you space for other stuff.

Hope you have a great challenge, and you avoid a soggy bottom!

Yeah, I definitely hope so. I'm just pleased to be told I can do something to help it, as opposed to being told to do less

Taking a copy of this list for my own use. Love this, I think Night Watch is my favourite Pratchett book. Also stalking this idea, or something like it - anything that takes away the decision barrier before drawing.

The pedant in me (which is just me tbh) thoroughly appreciates that you described this as a grotesque and not a gargoyle. Congratulations on the new house! It looks great, fingers crossed everything goes smoothly with the survey. Are you planning to rent out the basement floor, or living in the whole thing?

I've been fairly lucky with shoulders (*touch wood*), and I do a bunch of stuff to try and keep them healthy, but they're just the most complex joint so they'll always hold some mystery. Thank you, I appreciate the sentiment and the harassment.

This sounds like a lot of fun, thanks for setting it up! I've never had sarsaparilla, but having googled it I now want to give it a try if I can find it here for a not-stupid amoint of money. I was more thinking this though:

I'm increasingly finding that more food is not more satisfying - having a really nice, small chocolate bar is great, and having 4 of them isn't any better because most of the impact comes from the initial taste and I stop tasting it after a few mouthfuls. I feel like the same might be true of fries. Anyone else told they always had to leave a clean plate as a kid? ✋

Well it's been far too long since I've dropped in here, so in the spirit of keeping things going, here's a little mechanical pencil sketch for you:

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 0.4lbs down isn't loads, but given that I had at least a couple of days over 4,000 calories it's not a bad result. That's an estimate too - I stopped tracking for 2 days of my work trip when it just became too complicated to keep it up. 5 weeks until the end of this challenge, and after that I'm going into maintenance regardless of what weight I am, which is actually really motivating me to tighten up my eating for the remainder of the time. Also, in the 6 weeks to last week I lost 3.5lbs, and had been averaging about 19,500kcal per week. That strongly implies that if I can hit my goal of 18,000kcal per week I can comfortably see a 1lb per week weight loss.

Yeah, looking forward to doing stuff! I don't know who this shadow fellow is, but I wish he'd tell me!

Yeah, that's a very good point - I guess if the muscles it's using are working, why try to use different ones? Thanks for the perspective.

A wood elf wanders into the bar, looking slightly dazed, and settles in his customary chair. Pint of the black stuff, barkeep he says absentmindedly, apparently oblivious to the fact that the beer materialised shortly before he took the seat. After a few more seconds of pensively staring at the walls, he asks, Has the tavern floor always been at this angle? I quite like this option from Steve's e-mail: Draw a stick figure in your journal. So I'll be filling a page with stick figures, one for every goal completed, every day. Hopefully I'll have an absolute scrum of them by the time we get to the end of the challenge. Knowing the bartender's ...unusual powers, you may regret that phrasing. Now that would be awesome, to see how we all do collectively. I'm glad you're ok, that sounds really scary! I have had the sensation of my throat closing up unexpectedly before (pretty sure it was pollen food syndrome in my case, which I get very rarely), and it's not a lot of fun. What if the only way to fail is to give up, and as long as you keep getting up and trying again you are succeeding?

Your drawings are gorgeous! I'm glad you've decided to pick it up again, in a lower-pressure and stress-relieving way.

2024 roadmap: Last challenge wrap-up: Witty challenge title I don't really have a theme this time round, my goals are pretty similar to last time, and so I don't really have a title. Oh well, let's just do this, shall we? The cartographer Goal: Draw every day [+3 CHA] This is almost a direct copy and paste from last challenge. I've still not cracked a regular drawing habit, although I managed over 60% on this goal last challenge which is better than nothing. Still not sure how to translate that to daily drawing. Ultimately I just want to get a pen or pencil in my hand for a few minutes every day. Things I could draw (just so that I don't get stuck on the thinking about what to do stage, this gives me an easy list of options): High Rollers fan art My current Pathfinder party My players' D&D characters (either the campaign that's just ended, or the next one when it starts) The adventuring party I use for these challenges Animal drawing exercises from the drawing book I have, or from the new drawing book WW's just given me Calligraphy practice from the calligraphy book WW bought me Draw along with the Sketching Hour on CNE Games Twitch. Stuff in the Quentin Blake drawing book I've only just remembered I have Whatever else takes my fancy The muscle Goal: do kneehab™ exercises every day, split as 3 full knee strength workouts and 4 quick add-ons. The plan may change once I see the physio in week 3, in which case the goal will change to match [+2 STR] I buggered up my knee at the end of January whilst out on a run, and it's pretty much no better now than it was then. I've been really good at sticking to the physio exercises, by doing them as part of my morning workouts and making them a priority. Last week I got the results back from an MRI on the knee, and I have a full-thickness focal fissure in the chondral cartilage at the weight-bearing aspect of the lateral tibial condyle. That's not a major problem, and is usually asymptomatic, so it's not clear if that's actually what's causing my pain or if it's just unrelated wear and tear. I also feel the pain in the medial side of the knee, so it's a bit puzzling that the damage is on the lateral side - it could be pain referring across or it could be unrelated. The good news is that there's nothing in the MRI to indicate that I can't push harder with strengthening exercises to support the knee. The phone physio has given me a bunch of ideas for exercises, which largely consist of jumping or hopping up and down, forwards and backwards, and side to side, as well as some heavier calf raises and more challenging squat variations. The aim is to do a proper workout involving these moves 3 times per week (Tuesday, Saturday, Sunday most likely), and then continue my previous kneehab exercises as part of my Crossfit sessions. As an aside, my Crossfit gym may be closing at the end of June. We're hoping that they'll find a way to stay open, but if not it will be very, very sad to lose that community. The skirmisher Goal: track how much cardio I do each week [+1 STR] So this is a new one - for the longest time I haven't thought about cardio, because I was running a shitload and I wasn't really missing runs. But now that I can't run much, I want to try and keep a decent cardio base for when I get back to it. I can cycle, but I'm just a bit less excited by it. I'm not setting a particular goal to hit each week at this stage, as I want to keep the challenge pretty easy going, but what gets measured gets managed. The face Goal: get 4 tooth brushing points per day [+1 SAN] Extra credit: 5+ points per day [+1 SAN] I'd realised that maybe the old way of doing things wasn't working for me, and that the routine I had previously maybe no longer suits me, so I've decided to mix it up. Brushing with a manual brush is worth 1 point, as is using an interdental brush. Brushing with the electric brush is worth 2 points. To hit this goal I can use all 3 brushes once per day, and I can substitute the manual for the electric or use the interdental twice to get the extra credit. Well, I think that's enough; shall we crack on?

Challenge wrap-up The cartographer Score: 24/35 = 68.6% = +2 CHA I'm not too disappointed with that result; I definitely did a lot more drawing than I would have done without this challenge. It's still not the regular habit I'd like, and I'm still not sure how to make it one, but as long as I'm doing a bit and I'm enjoying it that's all good. This will stay in next challenge. Score: 32/35 = 91.4% = +2 STR I got very good at sticking to this, and got some good ideas for other things to try as well. I've now had the results of my MRI, which I'll talk about next challenge but are basically fairly minor. Next challenge the goal will stay, but will include an element of pushing harder with some dedicated workouts. So, about the other stuff: I started the challenge at 163.9lbs, and as of Monday of this zero week I'm 161.2lbs - not a huge weight loss in 5 weeks, but it's in the right direction. Duolingo streak hit 600 days today. I entirely forgot about Lingopie. I really need to re-do my personal budget, because I seem to be haemorrhaging money somewhere. The gym and climbing continue to go strong, subject to a few real life things interfering with the odd session. Cycling went less well, so it may form part of my kneehab goal next time round. Well we got the boiler services and new internet installed, but cleaning was still minimal. Electrical works and possibly a new carpet next challenge will make me do a touch more tidying. Overall I'm reasonably happy with how the challenge went. It was just the kind of low-key challenge I needed, and I did an ok job of updating here (though it got worse as the weeks wore on), so I don't think I'll be putting much more pressure on myself for the next one.

Sorry I've taken so long to reply to this - I've been thinking about the response quite a lot but it's not been a great week or so to actually log onto the forums. Anyway, the hip issue is something I've had since I was a teenager - I hit puberty, my hips grew, and I had IT band issues. (It's much more common in teenage girls. but apparently my body didn't see my sex as a reason not to give me child-bearing hips.) The issue then went away for several years, and it was only when I started exercising in my mid-20s that I realised that the problem hadn't actually gone away, I'd just stopped doing any exercise. The hip thing is definitely exercise-induced, and only happens when I do certain exercises (running and squats really) without my glutes being properly engaged. I'm not generally a fan of using negative words, like lazy, to describe things my body does. I would generally say that it's not a very helpful thing to do, so I appreciate you calling me out on it. With that said, the muscle isn't activating, and as a result other, smaller muscles are having to do the work of the glute in addition to their own work. So it's definitely not more efficient, it's less work for the glute itself but the body as a whole is working harder trying to do big jobs with small muscles. You are of course right that it's not the muscle at fault, but rather my ability to activate it, and knowing that it's activation that's the problem made it fairly easy to solve over time. In a similar way I'm now trying to learn to activate my pecs on bench press, rather than doing the entire lift with my traps

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 Although things aren't moving as quickly as I'd like, this week's been good with 1lb of weight loss, and the trend continues to go in the right direction. I was 666 kcal over target last week, which is faintly pleasing. This week I'm travelling for work. Food will probably be a bit all over the place, but I'll just try to make good choices where I can.