Jarric

I don't have anything clever to add, but I, too, am here to follow the train of your introspection.

Yesterday was a good day. First thing I got up and went bouldering. I had a really good session, unlike the last couple of weeks where I felt like I'd totally forgotten how to climb anything, this time it felt like I knew what I was doing again. I'm still not as good as I was a few months ago, but it doesn't feel so far away now. In the afternoon I ran my D&D session, a little one-shot as we were short on players. I massively overran on time, and we still didn't finish the session, but I think everyone still had fun. All of the players brought amazing, interesting characters, so that was a treat to see. After D&D I went out for a short 4 mile run. When I got back I was suddenly incredibly tired, and ended up eating a lot of food to try and stop myself from feeling light-headed and knackered. That wasn't ideal, because I didn't realise how soon dinner was going to be, and once I'd had that (roast chicken with cabbage, broccoli, roast carrot, roast potatoes, yorkshire puddings and gravy) I was absolutely stuffed. I felt a bit overfull for the rest of the evening, and just lounged on the sofa before going to bed just after 10pm.

Ok, I've done a bit of pre-challenge prep for a change! Starting weight: 12 stone 4 (172#, or about 78kg). It's the heaviest I've been in years, but probably also the strongest so I'm not too worried. Still, I wouldn't mind losing a bit of the gut, as shown in the starting photos: Also, I've written out my challenge tracker: There's plenty of blank space there, but I'm sure I'll end up filling it with doodles and stuff. I might even count some of that for my drawing goal. * * * Yesterday was a good day. I got up a bit late, having stayed up too late on Friday working on my Pathfinder 2e character. I still got out for my run. It was pissing it down for half the morning, so I decided to wear a waterproof coat to avoid getting too cold. By the time I'd got out the rain was just stopping however, so I just ended up boiling hot a few minutes in. I cut it short to about 6.7 miles for the sake of time, and because my hip was a bit iffy, and because I was a bit full of hayfever. In the afternoon I played D&D with @Mr_Willes and @WhiteGhost, DM'd by @jonfirestar. I'd worked out that the new sidekick rules for D&D allow you to play a blink dog mage (sidekick spellcasters have to speak a language, but thankfully blink dogs speak blink dog). I had a helm of comprehend languages so I could understand the party, but I couldn't speak to them except in barks and mage hand sign language. As all of the other characters were very stupid half-orcs this ended up being particularly funny and chaotic In the evening WW cooked a pancetta and red lentil soup, and we chilled in front of the TV.

Ah, that makes more sense! I initially thought that you didn't realise that WW referred to a person at all, and I was wondering how you got through my posts without picking that much up from the context . Oo, I like that, that's a good way of framing it. I'll give that a go.

Aww, thanks ?. That was a really fun game, I hope I get to rejoin the half-orc half-brothers again soon.

Oh I used yo get that too when I drank tons of fizzy drinks! Hopefully it's nothing major then. Yeah, that's true, even just the act of tracking and being mindful of what you're eating changes what you eat. Still, as long as you're roughly maintaining/only slightly losing weight, and tracking everything, you should get a nice accurate number for maintenance calories.

Do you mean you had no idea that WW referred to my partner, or just no idea she was a lady? And yeah, I liked it! Which is good, because I had it for breakfast and lunch yesterday and I've got another tub of it for lunch on Tuesday. Well, she is also actual Wonder Woman, as well as being my other half. She's got you there Deffy Heya! That's a good shout, I need something like that. The thing is I don't often totally forget, more usually I think "I really should brush my teeth" but don't get round to doing it. I need something that gets me past the initial inertia needed to turn that thought into action. Putting the toothbrush physically in my way somehow might help with that. As you say, forcing me to actively make a choice.

Yesterday was a good day. Crossfit in the morning was push press - I worked up to 65kg (~143#) for 3 reps, then 60kg x 5 and 55kg x 7. That was followed by a really grindy workout - 50 dumbbell lunges, 50 dumbbell box steps and 50 dumbbell clean and press for time (straight through in that order). I used two 17.5kg (~38.5#) dumbbells. The first thing to go was my grip strength, weirdly, but by the end my legs were aching, my shoulders were aching, and the arch of one of my feet was seizing up. It was really fun! My arse is sore today though. Work continues to be more than I have time to do. I've gone over the edge of stress now though, and having accepted that it's impossible to keep up I feel a lot better. I got a bit of a chance to do some prep for D&D on Sunday - we're a couple of players short so I'm running a one-shot instead of our normal campaign. In the evening I made a curry for dinner with paneer, onion, courgette, aubergine, and kale. Or, for the americans, paneer, onion, zucchini, eggplant, and kale. I thought it was really good, but unfortunately WW didn't like it at all. I say unfortunately; I did get to have her leftovers for breakfast this morning. About 9pm I decided to go and make a Pathfinder 2e character for a game I'm playing on Tuesday, whilst drinking beer and watching Twitch. At half past midnight I had to accept the fact that I wasn't going to finish in one go, and go to bed - man there's a lot of choices in creating a 5th level character in this game! Anyway, I've waffled on for far too long, and I should really get out for my run.

Wow, you and Mr have a lot of medical stuff going on between you! I hope you manage to get some of it clear soon. What is it you're looking to track your heart rate for? Generally speaking most name brand activity trackers and running watches will be pretty good at monitoring your heart rate whilst running, and keeping track of resting heart rate. Where they're not very accurate is during a gym workout or moving about day-to-day; if you needed an accurate number whilst in the gym you'd really need a chest strap monitor instead (or as well as) a watch. I used to have a Fitbit, and that was fine for general daily tracking and being interested in the numbers. I've now got a TomTom Runner 3, which is a mid-range running watch that I mainly bought because it's almost indestructible and I knew it would take a beating on obstacle courses. I fully support this plan - get a few weeks of baseline data before you start cutting calories. I did this last year and I found that to maintain I needed to eat 3,150 calories per day, which I never would have got out of an online calculator.

Definitely, I'd like to do more of it. My gym's got the yokes, farmers handles, and sandbags, but that's about it. I'd love to have a go on some proper atlas stones.

Yeah, it sucks. The stupid thing is I could feel it going on the warmup, so I don't know if it was Monday's deadlifts or running recently or what caused it. Or maybe my hip saw squats and yoke carry on the programme and just started protesting early! Yeah, yoke carries are fun. They just about always give me hip issues unfortunately, but it's still nice to be able to throw a fuckton on weight on your back. Yeah, I know I need to do this. I'll get on it.

I really like the way you're scoring this challenge as building up a day each week, it's an interesting plan. Haven't quite managed to get my head around the idea of salt and olive oil on blueberries though, it just sounds so wrong

Wednesday was a good day. Crossfit in the morning was squats and yoke carries. I got a really niggly pain in my left hip during the warm-up and it's been dodgy ever since. It's really frustrating because I've had hip problems for the last couple of years but I thought I'd finally recovered from it. Now I've only been back in the gym a couple of weeks and it's already flaring up again. Still, I worked my squats up to 95kg (~209#) for 3 reps, 85kg for 5 and 75kg for 7, so that's pretty good. I'd like to get 3 reps at 100kg before too long. Work continues to be carnage. In the evening we watched Questing Time, and I totally failed to do any foam rolling or stretching which might help my hip. Yesterday was a good day. I ran first thing, and that felt ok. I was working, but WW had the day off and Marathon Girl came over for a couple of hours to see her, so I got to catch up with MG on my lunch break which was nice. In the evening we played Pathfinder, our Mummy's Mask game. We started by fighting a mirror/clone/thing of our warpriest, and nearly got dragged into a battle with mirror clones of half the party who wisely decided to step into the room where the first one was created. We spent the rest of the session exploring the giant floating pyramid we were in and arguing about how to land it without taking out half of a city on our way down. Then we were attacked by invisible things right as we planned to start powering down the pyramid, and we ended the session mid-combat, with no idea where our enemies are.

Thanks man, it's good to have you!

That is pretty incredible. It must be fate! I'm confused already

Guess who's back, guess who's back, guess who's back, guess who's back, guess who's back, guess who's back, guess who's back, guess who's back, na na na...

These are good goals man - keeping it simple until you work out what's going on is probably just want you need right now. Following of course.

Yeah, all black and white on my phone too.

Thanks man! Good to know. And yeah, I must get round to watching it. It's definitely on the list of films to see. (Unfortunately, that's a very long list, including a lot of classic films!)

Looks like we've got our worms for this challenge! Thank you @Starpuck @deftona @sarakingdom @DarK_RaideR @WhiteGhost and @cn3wton . I've edited my goals to include these little fellas, and now I'm really worried about letting them down!

Excellent

Nice! Does this worm have a name, or just 'Don't wormy, be happy'? I hate to admit this, but I've never seen that film... Welcome to William though! I'll be careful! Hopefully the pressure will help me with my goals! Love it! Good to see a properly dapper worm I haven't played this game, but that's a badass worm!

Hope you have a speedy recovery Terra, you've got a good plan to make it happen.

I look forward to it

Monday this week was a bank holiday in the UK, so I went into crossfit a bit later than normal. I worked up to 132.5kg (~292#) on deadlifts, and it felt pretty solid. It's only 5kg of my 5 rep PR, so I don't think it'll be long before I'm back where I left off before lockdown. WW and I used the rest of our day off to do odd jobs. We wandered down the park and put up a tent I'd bought to check it was all there, and briefly look forward to the idea of going away. Then we unpacked some boxes at a leisurely pace, and the living room is looking much better now we can see a bit more of it. In the afternoon we played some Worms WMD and then just chilled out. Yesterday I ran first thing, just an easy 4 miles (~6.4km). Had a really busy day at work, WW cooked an amazing feta, pomegranate and spinach filo pie for dinner, and I wrote this challenge late evening. Stayed up a bit late watching Crit Role and browsing through on here.