Behavioral Modifications: Week Two

 It has not been a great week in some respects. I accomplished all of my daily goals, but there have been some phone-it-in level efforts. I have a stupid cold that has made exercising much less pleasant. I accept that I am going to huff and puff when I walk for a certain amount of time, but the added sinus congestion just makes the whole thing unpleasant. On the plus side, I have not let the cold symptoms including some nasty digestive distress stop me. I am pretty proud of that. 

Last week I logged 7 hours, 21 minutes, and 9 seconds worth of exercise. I burned 8755 calories. I rode and walked a combined 69.73 miles all from the relative comfort of my office. I really had wanted to get out and put some actual miles on my shoe leather, but I have been pretty fair weather this year. I haven't wanted to walk in the cold. I haven't even wanted to ride my motorcycle in the cold. 

I have done pretty well on my diet given that I knew I would give myself a little room to cheat for Thanksgiving. Everything I ate was in bounds except the sausage stuffing and the helping of banana pudding. I blame my sore throat and hurting stomach that I had a plain biscuit with breakfast on Saturday morning. Sometimes you want something to soothe. Not the end of the world. 

My artwork has been fairly uninspired this week. I have done the work and drawn something every day including one original drawing. None of it felt particularly joyful when I produced it except doing a few pieces inspired by screenshots from Castle Crashers. Teagan and I both enjoyed coloring copies of my burly knight. 

I added 8 chapters to the outline of the novel I am working on. It is garbage, but it is better to produce some sort of garbage I can clean up than to not write creatively at all. I also turned some time spent analyzing two new Commander decks into blog posts. Writing is writing and time spent getting words on the page adds to writing practice. There is no shame in my writing game at the moment. 

I hit an interesting wall getting the outline put onto the page from memory. By Chapter 8 I had essentially told the entire story that I had originally set out to tell. I decided to forge ahead rather than scrap the idea. Is it possible to be doing a rough draft of an outline? Outlining a few chapters later I realized my original climax for the story actually works better as a peak of the first act which, in its current form, feels a bit disjointed like a series of short stories about the same characters strung together. That climax which ultimately was going to start the book resolving now is a better plot device to introduce some of the origin story of the main character. 

I had been struggling with how I wanted to talk about the formative years of this early middle aged character without descending into an overly violent and sad story that happened to them as a teenager. It works as flashbacks relevant to the current story and allows me to leave some blanks in the characters history that will hopefully make them more intriguing for the reader. I can tell you it doesn't work that way in outline form when I read it, but that is absolutely my intention. 

I am really struggling with something that happens to me when I start making progress with a story. I got another inspiration that I really want to work on. So far, I have held my discipline and have not started anything for this new idea. I know that if I do much more than jot down the basic concept then I will start developing it rather than my current work. My computer's hard drive is full of years worth of those type of story inspirations that I started and then abandoned when I got excited about something else. I can do the work to pick up the threads of each story, but I have learned the lesson that inspiration is really a dangerous distraction. The more I write the more this will happen. I should probably keep a stack of note cards handy and use them to exorcise the inspiration demons to be revisited later when the work is done on this project. 

I have turned other distractions into motivation to exercise so that idea should work. I enjoy pedaling the exercise bike significantly more because I use the time to play Castle Crashers. For variety I also downloaded Sky Force Anniversary Edition. A bit of mindless button mashing while I sweat through the miles actually feels pretty great. Today I should finish up the Orange Knight's run through Normal Mode. I have plans to unlock all the animals, weapons, and characters on PC as I have on the PS3, PS4, and Nintendo Switch before. It is a testament to Castle Crashers' replay value that it can hold my interest for this many return plays. Still, some variety helps. I had considered downloading Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 to burn some time with the campaign mode. I can easily burn an hour or two on each story and I might just pedal faster running from the infected. 

To make the office a little more comfortable I bought a TV to put in here. My original intention was to use it as a second monitor for my personal laptop with the occasional break to stream a show or play a game on the Switch. I find myself more and more losing interest in the Switch preferring instead to game on my laptop. Even when I have a choice to get a game on the PC or the Switch I have found that I enjoy the PC version significantly more. Ironically, it is much easier to play something with a controller while walking or pedaling. 

I got the TV installed Friday. I have been able to leave my bike across the office now instead of muscling it in place next to my desk. I typically buy smaller TVs since I don't spend a ton of time watching them. I have been really happy with the 32 inch Samsungs for years. I got a great deal on a 43 inch Fire TV from Amazon. It looks huge above my desk and the dual 19 inch monitors I mostly use for work. Still, Castle Crashers looks absolutely brilliant as I exercised Friday and Saturday. I also had to enjoy having a 4 monitor setup for a little bit yesterday. When I was working through my Commander deck redesign I was able to have Word, WotC's Magic website, Coolstuffinc's website, my photo editing software, and iTunes all open and functioning at the same time. The music coming through the TV's speakers wasn't half bad either. 

This week when rewards time came for the hard work I have put in to all my daily quests I splurged a little albeit within the bounds of my earnings. I bought myself two how to draw books. One of them is for classic Disney characters. I am pretty sure it is aimed at kids, but if it shows character line construction I will pick up techniques from it. I also picked up a book on how to draw dragons. I enjoyed sketching out a behemoth from FFIV this week in colored pencil and thought I might have fun with some fantastic, fire-breathing, flying lizards as well. 

I also bought myself an Oculus (Meta?) Quest 2. I have never had a VR headset and when I looked into fitness in VR the Quest 2 was the most highly recommended. The only downside that I could tell was a requirement to log in and link to your Facebook account. This lead me to figure out (sometimes I am slow) that Facebook bought Oculus back in 2014. Facebook already knows I am a middle aged fat bastard who listens to a fair amount of Kesha and Taylor Swift. I don't know what more they will learn about me from my VR use, but I don't really care.

My idea of how to make use of the Oculus Quest 2 is pretty simple. I want to be able to distract myself more from working out. I can certainly use any game I can play seated while pedaling. I may or may not have the coordination to manage to walk and VR. Ideally, I will find an app that allows me to virtually hike trails and the accompanying sounds and scenery will inspire me to get more miles in on the treadmill. Its also possible I will get completely distracted and crash off the back of the treadmill. I am willing to risk it. 

The Oculus Quest 2 advertises itself as a way to get fit. I have my doubts of the efficacy of a system that only engages my hands and arms, but I will absolutely give it a try and share my experiences. I am out of shape enough that getting me to regularly bend, duck, and twist probably won't hurt as exercise. Initially, I plan to separate this fitness time from my required hour of cardio (which I will probably increase soon) until I am sold on how well it works. Spending an extra 30 minutes a day flailing my arms shouldn't hurt much. 

I feel like I am making some smart moves to encourage myself to reach all of my goals. I realize that the dietary and lifestyle changes I am making aren't yielding huge gains right now, but over time they will compound into something really meaningful. A fun side effect is my youngest asking me about why I use the treadmill and the bike everyday. She is getting interested in what I am doing beyond just thinking the machines look cool and fun. If I get very lucky she will never have to fight the battle of the bulge that has plagued my adult life. 

As with most changes the things I am focusing on have had some unintended side effects. I am sleeping quite a bit better. The restful nature of my sleep has had me dreaming actively. I know that carrying around extra weight and having poor nutrition hinders brain functionality, but I didn't realize how quickly my dreams would return in force. That inspiration that hit me has featured in my dreams for two nights now along with a sprinkling of my usual nightmares. 

I am also eating quite a bit less. Some of that is being smart and not bringing in much in the way of snack foods, but even with pies and pudding leftover from Thanksgiving I just haven't made any snack type trips to the kitchen. It feels almost insulting to the work I am putting in to consider eating when I am not hungry. That will be put to the test as I get more strict on myself to eliminate bread and sugar with only a two day break at Christmas.  I have kicked bread and sugar before successfully and held it for a few years. I know I can do it even if my sore throat is begging me to go grab a little bit of vanilla ice cream. 

I think all of this is working. I am still building systems. Dropping beads in the jar feels great sometimes. Other times it feels unnecessary as I am enjoying doing the tasks themselves. Most days I only listen to music when I walk on the treadmill and nothing else is needed to keep me stepping. I still have the urge to get onto a trail. I will stay in until this head cold passes though. Coughing or sneezing in public is more awkward post Covid-19.