The New Habit Challenge

~ Day 9 / 30 ~
NoSugar Rules for Today (Wednesday, 29 June 2016)

GOAL ~ Today, I promise to not eat any lollies, cakes, ice creams or chocolate, or drink any soft drink.
Below is a series of If > Then plans for how I will implement this goal today.
If I experience an urge to give up and eat sugary foods or drink sugary drink....
Then I WILL NOT ACT ON THIS URGE. IT TOO SHALL PASS.
​

 

2/21- Wake up at 6:00am - Got out bed by placing phone far away. (Success)
14/21- 15mins of meditation
6/21 - Neck exercises
2/21- Affirmation
2/21- Read for 15:00mins (coaching or self-improvement or something positive)
0/21- Exercise - Gym
1/21- Morning Journal

14/21- Cold Showers
1/21- Revise reasonable amount
14/21- NoFap

 

5/21 Learning Greek

• Yesterday & Today did revision of all the previous exercises I learnt since I started.

3/21 Yoga and exercises especially concentrating on belly
3/21 Read 20 pages of a book
2/21 Go for a walk
3/21 Write in my journal
2/21 Go to bed before midnight (haven't reached it today yet)
2/21 Job search

Full house yesterday and today (apart from going to bed on midnight today because I haven't reached that yet.)

Yep @StraightEdge the journal writing is a good one, but its not my NoFap journal though, its a general one I've keeping for a while now, find it easier to get my emotions out in a concise way by writing it down.

 

~ Day 10 / 30 ~
NoSugar Rules for Today (Thursday, 30 June 2016)

GOAL ~ Today, I promise to not eat any lollies, cakes, ice creams or chocolate, or drink any soft drink.
Below is a series of If > Then plans for how I will implement this goal today.
If I experience an urge to eat sugary foods or drink sugary drinks,...
Then I WILL NOT ACT ON THIS URGE!
​

 

How strange: Even if i'm not convinced that i should go on, I can't drop the "Water + fresh lemon juice Challenge"...
I'm going for 30 days with the "no carbohydrate for diner". I have to say I rewarded myself yesterday with a restaurant. But it was just a pause. I definitly want to skip this kind of food for diner (except for restaurants and/or friend's invitations).

9/21 Neck practices
8/21 No facebook
4/21 15' meditation
0/21 No screen after 10:00 pm
2/21 15' to write in my journal
2/21 Avoiding bathroom scale

9/30 Gratitude attitude Challenge
24/30 No Carbohydrate for diner (including bread, rice, potatoes, pastas, etc...)

32/40 Water + fresh lemon juice
31/60 Cold shower
33/60 Morning walk at 6:00
33/60 No alcohol

 

How are you learning Greek?

 

From a really good beginners book I found, with CD that gives you recordings of pronunciation. Also skype a lot with my Greek girlfriend who I'm away from. I guess I also have an advantage of living in the country on & off for 4 years, which makes me very familiar with the language especially how it sounds.

 

~ Day 11 / 30 ~
NoSugar Rules for Today (Friday, 1 July 2016)

GOAL ~ Today, I promise to not eat any lollies, cakes, ice creams or chocolate, or drink any soft drink.
Below is a series of If > Then plans for how I will implement this goal today.
If I experience an urge to buy/eat sugary foods or buy/drink sugary drinks...
Then I WILL NOT ACT ON IT!
​

 

10/21 Neck practices
9/21 No facebook
5/21 15' meditation
3/21 15' to write in my journal
3/21 Avoiding bathroom scale
1/21 No screen after 10:00 pm

10/30 Gratitude attitude Challenge
24/30 No Carbohydrate for diner (including bread, rice, potatoes, pastas, etc...)

33/40 Water + fresh lemon juice
32/60 Cold shower
34/60 Morning walk at 6:00
34/60 No alcohol

 

At 29 days, I managed to get through the full Duolingo Spanish tree while keeping strength bars at full each day. June was a good month for me. Word count is at 2425 right now. Keep up the good work everyone!

 

I was too busy in the real world to check in yesterday - that's a good thing.

I've had to reset my walking counter. I missed getting out for two walks a couple of days ago. I went once and just forgot about the other. I was going to carry on with a .5 on my numbers but I'll reset. I decided that leaving the house twice was a good challenge, a good push against my anxiety, and so two it must be. On some days I've surpassed other goals - going to a yoga class which includes a meditation and meditating again at home. So, on balance, things continue to go well, and my abstinence is much easier while I do these things.

What a lot of waffle! Have lovely days everyone.

Numbers as of yesterday:

Walk - 1/21
Meditate - 9/21
Exercise - 9/21
Self-improvement - 9/21

 

Does it actually help? Would you say you are fluent in Spanish?

 

4/21- Wake up at 6:00am
16/21- 15mins of meditation
8/21 - Neck exercises
2/21- Affirmation
4/21- Read for 15:00mins (coaching or self-improvement or something positive)
2/21- Exercise - Gym
3/21- Morning Journal

16/21- Cold Showers
0/21- Revise reasonable amount
16/21- NoFap

 

WTF? DAMN that's quick! It took me nearly 4-5 months!

 

~ Day 12 / 30 ~
NoSugar Rules for Today (Saturday, 2 July 2016)

GOAL ~ Today, I promise to not eat any lollies, cakes, ice creams or chocolate, or drink any soft drink.
Below is a series of If > Then plans for how I will implement this goal today.
If I experience an urge to eat sugary foods or drink sugary drinks......
Then I WILL NOT ACT ON IT. I do not eat sugary foods or drink sugary drinks.
​

 

Thanks. In the late 1990's I took 3 years in high school so it wasn't completely from scratch. Several people at my office said that I have learned far more than expected in such a short time frame. I give the bulk of the credit to Duolingo. I think it is a far better program than I had back when I initially started looking at words in school. Back then I could not speak in a recognizable fashion. I figure on it taking about two years to get to the 20,000 word vocabulary that I would like to command.

 

I am definitely not fluent in Spanish after the first month. In my mind I would need to be able to pass an official fluency exam (in my case I would choose a reading exam), which I would unceremoniously flunk at this time. It is however an amazing place to build a beginner/advanced beginner foundation in a new language. My native Chilean coworker told me that I would survive absolutely fine on the Spanish I know right now (since I can handle present and future tense passably well) if dropped in the middle of an otherwise safe Spanish speaking country.

To put it in perspective, the first week (or weekend) in Duolingo can net you about 1000-1500 new words, which I then spent the next 3-4 weeks practicing via their fun gamification based spaced repetition algorithm. One of the things I like about it is that they don't seem to care how many times you goof up but manage to reward you for mastery and for getting the right technique down irrespective of how many tries it takes. If I was a bit overgenerous with myself, I'd say I probably knew about 100-150 Spanish words going into the start of June.

After you finish the tree, you can still gain levels. Additionally, it is often suggested to learn grammar, do some immersion, start watching TV shows and kind of branch out and extend beyond the walls of Duolingo while coming back to practice enough not to forget your fundamentals. You can also do a reverse tree as a challenge where you have to learn English by acting as though you are fluent in Spanish. I figure on that being a lot harder since I will then need to be able to write it without grammar errors. It is amazing how many people in real life will help you for free when you tell them that you are going to legitimately learn a language and then you proceed to demonstrate commitment.

 

11/21 Neck practices
10/21 No facebook
6/21 15' meditation
0/21 15' to write in my journal
4/21 Avoiding bathroom scale
0/21 No screen after 10:00 pm

11/30 Gratitude attitude Challenge
24/30 No Carbohydrate for diner (including bread, rice, potatoes, pastas, etc...)

33/40 Water + fresh lemon juice (pause, because i'm invited and thet don't have lemon)
33/60 Cold shower
34/60 Morning walk at 6:00 (I went of the walk at 9:00 but i'm not at home, i'm invited... so, it was hard to do better)
35/60 No alcohol (Happy because I managed not to drink yesterday eve)

 

Reporting from yesterday then:

Walking 2/21
Exercise 10/21
Meditation 10/21
Self-improvement 10/21

Pleased to have had another good day yesterday and ticked everything off. It's the meditation that's really benefitting most from a continuous and regular practice, I think.

A good deal of my self-improvement material lately has been listening to Alan Watts. He's new to me and might be worth a look if you're interested in buddhism/eastern philosophies.

Take care everyone, hope you have good days.

 

Great, been wanting to do this for a long time ! Let's start small.

0/21 Find some time to meditate during the day for at least 10 min
0/21 Go out of bed immediately when the alarm rings