Day 310 Record Keeping
Day 279 Fixed Meditation
Day 225 Bodyweight Exercise (4 Tabata cycles - squats/mountain climbers/jump lunges)
Day 152 Writing (100 words and several writing exercises)
Day 325 Eating = 65
Day 82 Work = 54
Great sleep, great wakeup.

Tabatas
I wanted to include more of a cardio element for the regimentation of my bodyweight exercise habit. Though the burpees I put in the mix are great, it does put a lot of emphasis on my arms. An emphasis that I already have what with my pushup progression, gripping a pole for dragon flags, and lifting up my body for bridges.

It’s time to start introducing more lower body exercises.

I figured I’d start by Tabatas. Tabatas are a form of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) where you cycle from short bursts of activity with very short intervals of rest. The cycles vary, but for most it’s 20 seconds of activity followed by 10 seconds of rest repeated 8 times.

Today I used a free app - “Workout Stopwatch Timer” which seemed to work pretty well.

It is pretty basic, but I like basic. I alternated between lower body exercises - stairclimbers, air squats, and jumping lunges. It completely wore me out after only 4 cycles. I’ll definitely have to work up to the full 8!

It’s a good intro to lower body exercise. When I was in Spain my quads got noticeably bigger and toned because I was taking the stairs 2 at a time anytime I needed to get up to my third story apartment. Since leaving my strength has normalized, so I’ll need to start doing a squat progression soon.

Write Great Fiction Series
Plateauing is a big problem in self improvement. And though I am progressing solidly in my writing habit, I do want to improve not only the amount I write, but the quality.

I’ve had a lot of conversations with people who have writing aspirations. I always say that the key is to not just think of it as an artistic creative free spirited channeling of yourself on paper - it’s also a highly technical skill.

This is fantastic for me - it allows you to rest on something that can be improved rather than “working” on a skill that’s completely vague. In that vein, I’ve realized that I don’t really workout my skill of writing, and I want that to change - I want it to be a part of my routine.

So I’ve started working on Writer’s Digest Write Great Fiction Series. It came highly recommended because it describes specific aspects of writing to work on with exercises - exactly what I need. I’ve begun working on the first book in the series that I got my hands on - Plot and Structure. My thoughts are to do this at least once a week.