[DarK_RaideR]

I’m quite excited about this challenge round, and I haven’t been excited about a challenge in quite some time. A large part of this comes from finally being able to live with my wonderful fiance, who will officially become my wife by the middle of this challenge. We’ve spent a full year trying to make this happen against all odds and it still feels unreal that it’s about to become true.

 

Living with deffy for the past two and a half weeks has been an absolute dream, everything is wonderful and just so easy, so natural. We’ve been a bit naughty, indulging ourselves a little too much on sweet delights and takeout food, but the start of this challenge and our recent subscription to Oddbox should be the start of turning this trend around. We’ve been mostly skipping breakfast and having a light lunch, which is way less than I used to eat on my own, so compared to my previous state, this is a more reasonable fasting/portion control setup I just walked into without any struggles.

 

The move has also been a blessing for my sleeping habits. Compared to where I came from, people here tend to stay in and go to bed early. On top of that, I no longer have to make late night video calls to deffy while 2 time zones ahead of her and staying up late because of that. So sleep is also taken care of. The rest of the fun stuff, like Duolingo or my 2024 Reading Challenge, I’m keeping up with but don’t feel like strictly tracking.

 

With everything else under control, this challenge will focus completely on a single goal, workouts. I have everything else pretty much figured out, I have the equipment, all of the free time and no excuse for failure. It doesn’t have to be fancy or complicated, just done and tracked. In other words, I’m basing my plan on three pillars:

 

Simplicity

 

Sustainability

 

and Spreadsheets!

 

Spoiler

I mean, I tried to maybe think of a D&d setup (which seems to be what all the cool kids are doing lately) but I imagined turning the Oddbox vegetables into monsters that must be vanquished within the week, then Cursed AI graced me with this wonderful bit of nightmare fuel for a persimmon-based monster:

 

[deftona]

Following! Helping! Marrying! 

 

30 minutes ago, DarK_RaideR said:

Spreadsheets

 

Do you want a pivot table to go with that

 

 

(yes I am flirting with you)

[Jarric]

 

Figured this gif was pretty much obligatory.

 

Those persimmon monsters are absolutely horrifying, thanks for that.

 

Look forward to seeing you smash these workouts.

[Snarkyfishguts]

I’m so glad you’re sleeping!! 

 

Following!!

[DarK_RaideR]

16 hours ago, deftona said:

Do you want a pivot table to go with that

Don't mind if I do!

 

14 hours ago, Jarric said:

Those persimmon monsters are absolutely horrifying, thanks for that.

Cursed AI indeed. Although it did make me think, given the horrors this can produce, it might actually be a useful tool in coming up with new sorts of Dnd monsters and depicting them  

 

12 hours ago, Snarkyfishguts said:

I’m so glad you’re sleeping!! 

It's weird because I was never too hyped up, or struggled with screens keeping me up etc, just lived in a place where it's culturally the norm to stay up till very late. Sadly, without a later start to the day as well, which just ends up reducing one's sleep.

 

 

Welcome everyone, it's Day 1 of the new challenge and as expected, I'm off to a good strong start. The real question is whether this is going to last, which is why I made Sustainability one of my three pillars. I'm intentionally taking it slow for this reason, don't want to take up too much too early and fall off quick. Furthermore, I'm a bit rusty after some time off workouts and there's also the wedding which I expect to create a mid-challenge gap, so I don't want to go hard for a couple of weeks, then do absolutely nothing for a bit, then try to pick up from where I left off for the remainder of the challenge.

 

I had a bit of inspiration last night, as I remembered a Meal Plan diary I'd found in deffy's cupboard. I pulled it out and we more or less planned the week's meals, thus ensuring we'll be eating up all the Oddbox veggies. As an added bonus, it only takes a bit of time to think and plan everything, so we don't have to get creative every evening and wonder what's left and how to cook it, we have a pre-determined roadmap to stick to. Today's meal is tomato and courgette fritters with an assortment of dips. One of them is made of beetroot, yoghurt, garlic and walnuts, so I've already boiled and peeled the beetroots after my workout, before typing this.

 

I began with Setup A and a conservative approach to load/reps. Arbitrarily assigning a weight of 10kg to the barbell and 1.25kg to each dumbbell handle, here's a mini-spreadsheet for all you kinky people:

 

Exercise	Total Weight Moved (Sets * Reps * Weight)	Comments
Barbell Overhead Press	3 * 10 * (10+10kg) = 600 kg	Felt pretty ok, but it was also the start of the workout and I was fresh
Dumbbell Rear Delt Flyes	3 * 15 * 2 * (1.25+5kg) = 562.5 kg	Felt just about right
Dumbbell Lateral Raises	3 * 15 * 2 * (1.25+5kg) = 562.5 kg	Struggled to pull off the last few reps of the final set with good form and range of motion
Weighted Sit Ups	3 *10 * 20kg = 600 kg	Used a 20kg plate, feel like the range of motion was smaller than it should have been
Barbell Bench Press	3 * 15 * (10+10kg) = 900 kg	Surprised to notice my left side is more well developed. The lifts were easier that side and also the bar hit my chest before it hit the right pec
Hip Thrusts/Glute Bridges	3 *10 *20kg = 600 kg	Used the 20kg plate again, these did feel quite easy
Barbell Biceps Curls	3 * 15 * (10+10kg) = 900 kg	Struggled a bit to pull off the last few reps of the final set
Barbell Front Squats	3 * 8 * (10+10kg) = 480kg	Rather easy, but it's ok. Going low and maintenance on the leg exercises, I already struggle to find pants that will get past my thighs
Pull Overs	3 * 8 * 20kg = 480kg	Used the 20kg plate, focused on technique to ensure I was pulling with my chest/back rather than arms
Barbell Calf Raises	3 * 20 * (10+10kg) = 1200 kg	Much like the front squats, not emphasizing this bit much as I'm already at a good level
Dumbbell Skull Crushers	3 * 15 * 2 * (1.25+5kg) = 562.5 kg	Barely able to move my arms by the end of sets 2 and 3. I remember being better at this and with more weight/reps, so it was likely exhaustion. Might have to consider moving this exercise further up the order.
Romanian Deadlift	3 * 8 * (10+10kg) = 480kg	More of a Stiff Legged Deadlift than RDL, but I'm not sweating the details. Another leg exercise I'm going real light with.
Wrist Curls	3 *10 *(10+10kg) = 600 kg	Used the barbell, the final reps were much harder than I expected.

 

Overall it was a good start and I already started feeling a bit sore after my shower, roughly an hour after the end of the workout, likely a sign of being a bit rusty after being absent from the gym. You might have noticed I've got the exercises in an order that allows muscle groups to rest (so it's usually a leg exercise after an arms/upper body one) and it served me well, save for that note to push the triceps one higher up.

 

Last but not least, I'm expanding the Simplicity-Sustainability-Spreadsheets triptych to also include Sick playlists (bro!). Here's what I had on today on shuffle to help me pump that iron:

 

[Artemis Prime]

27 minutes ago, DarK_RaideR said:

here's a mini-spreadsheet for all you kinky people:

I don't know if I feel called out or seen.

[starpuck]

Don't mind me.   Some forum's down refugees landed in Discord, and I found myself on one of their wagons back here.

Been a while ( a year based off my old challenge time stamps ) and holy moly friend.  Can I just say...

 

I AM SO FREAKING HAPPY FOR YOU!     I AM THRILLED!   I AM GLEAMING WITH JOY ON YOUR BEHALF!

And I am so here to follow along with continued updates!

[DarK_RaideR]

On 10/21/2024 at 12:28 PM, Artemis Prime said:

I don't know if I feel called out or seen.

Yes.

 

1 hour ago, starpuck said:

Don't mind me.   Some forum's down refugees landed in Discord, and I found myself on one of their wagons back here.

Been a while ( a year based off my old challenge time stamps ) and holy moly friend.  Can I just say...

 

I AM SO FREAKING HAPPY FOR YOU!     I AM THRILLED!   I AM GLEAMING WITH JOY ON YOUR BEHALF!

And I am so here to follow along with continued updates!

OHAI FREN! Welcome back! Thank you for your comments, I'll hunt down your challenge thread after posting this update.

 

Let's see, what have I been up to while the forums were down... 😎

 

The rest of Monday was nice, after my workout, shower and forum update, I took a chair and my laptop to go sit in the room where my lovely fiancé was working. It was really nice to hang out together, even if we didn't interact much. Certainly better than being at different floors of the house and I wonder why we weren't doing this earlier. Certainly will be a thing going forward.

 

I've also mentioned how we've been naughty with takeout dinners. Well the other day I found us a Greek place and we tried it out, was real nice and also did some nice dishes I didn't expect to see on the menu, like tomato fritters. Deffy loved those, so we took it into consideration while designing our Oddbox consumption meal plan. This was our dinner:

Top left is salad with leafy greens, croutons and parmesan flakes. Right underneath is some tzatziki that deffy made. We like to joke about its originality, since it's got courgette/zucchini shavings instead of cucumber, but I can say it's the tastiest I've tried so I don't really care about the details. Next to that is some delicious pita flatbreads she made from scratch. I made the fritters, top ones are courgette/zucchini based and the bottom ones are the tomato based. Then there's a beetroot, yoghurt, garlic and walnut mix I made in the big bowl, and some taramosalata (fish roe dip) we purchased. It was all delicious, filling, we had plenty of leftovers and I bet if there was a video of us in the kitchen, it'd be a beautiful dance: we each did our own bits without ever getting in each others way and also cleaning up things as we used them. If you've ever done some cooking, or had someone else "help" you with it, you'll know how rare this is. Surely a sign we're made for each other.

 

This morning I was feeling a bit sore all over, so I questioned if my body had recovered enough to hit it with another full body workout. It was a little cold too, so I decided to do some cardio as an active rest day of sorts. I got on the elliptical, which I'd been warned is a bit creaky and needs a little tightening, to manage a mere 15'. Was aiming for more, much more even, but might as well contain my ambition at this point, take it easy and appreciate what I did instead of skipping any physical activity (not true, we do a lot of that kind of cardio on a regular basis). It was a fun experience though, I had my phone resting on the display and playing a podcast, but the creaking had it shifting to the left with every step, so I need it to bring it back into position. Kinda felt like using a typewriter

 

Onwards and upwards!

[deftona]

21 minutes ago, DarK_RaideR said:

some tzatziki that deffy made. We like to joke about its originality

 

a recipe from an Israeli chef made by an English girl, what's not authentic about that!