PointyEnd

HAHAHA, yes. Rocky out those eggs. Drink them like a man badass!Oh yeah, baby. YESTERDAY: Easter! I went for a good 2-mile hike up a steep hill to make up for my walk delinquency Saturday. Also I ate a lot of grain stuff and no eggs, because it was Easter family dinner, and sitting in a room all day with fifty hard-boiled eggs marinating in vinegar dye is not a good way to psych oneself up to eat eggs. Thus, TODAY: Egg Tax: 3 (all for yesterday). I did it again. Here is the plan. Pain-Free Rocky Eggs Of Total Domination: -3 raw eggs -1 banana (frozen or otherwise) -half a glass of OJ Blend in blender. Drink up. Feel virtuous. Walk: ACHIEVED. I'm doing all right here, apart from falling behind in the Balance department. This week: more swords, more yoga, more everything.

Nice, thanks for the drill, Hugh! I have a wooden beater, and I should definitely be swinging it around in the yard more often. TODAY: Walk: FAIL again. *eyeroll* I could go on a big Easter hike to make up for it. I feel bad sticking my better half with the childcare while I go wandering around the neighborhood. Spring break can't be over soon enough. Balance: 1/2 hour of yoga at home. Fair enough. Egg tax: 3. One for a bowl of oatmeal this morning, one for some risotto at dinner, and one for a glass of wine. Whoa, man. I totally went Rocky Balboa on this one and just gave them a schwiz with some OJ. Took all of ten seconds to drink. Verdict: Not gross. I can live like this. (And, yes, I do trust my egg producer -- her eggs are all different colors, they come in a reused carton from the Price Chopper, and the address of her backyard farm is stuck on the side of the egg carton on one of those cheesy address stickers you get free in the mail from charities. It does not get more local than that.)

Posting any more walk pic?HAR I am not too lazy to do the walk, but apparently I am too lazy to download things from my phone. I was not expecting this! (Photos soon. I have a bunch.) Today: Walk FAIL. Although I did walk to the grocery store twice, which adds up to about the same distance, and also includes a bunch of groceries that were apparently made of lead or some shit. Perhaps it can count. Burpee/pull-up/jumprope workout ACHIEVED. I am still doing negative pull-ups. Soon I'll be back to proper ones, or at least one per set. Egg tax: 0. Although I ate an egg anyway. And I deviled it, because YOLO. (Who devils one egg? ME. THAT IS WHO.) I have left all the "balance" stuff for the end of the week, which is absolutely characteristic. And there is no sword practice this week, because Easter. Looks like I have a lot of yoga in my future.

Nice, way to follow through on the 'punishment' you set for yourself. It has to be that way if it's gonna mean anything and be helpful to you. Also, nice workout! Good to see some PRs in there.Thanks, Kishi! I hope to rack up some more. Those are not really proper PRs, just "new to Fitocracy" PRs -- but I think I'll be breaking actual new ground fairly soon. YESTERDAY: Mile walk: Achieved! Egg tax: 2. (Again, had a friend over to the house last night, and again with the eating and drinking. One for the ravioli, one for the wine.) TODAY: Mile walk: Achieved! Egg tax: 0. Not gonna lie. I had a really rough day. I've been fighting off intense bouts of work anxiety all week. And the first few days of the shift in diet away from lots of carby stuff always take a toll, even though I'm not going cold turkey. I almost caved on a bowl of cereal, but then I made a giant bowl of mashed sweet potatoes with coconut milk and ginger, and a huge mess of pan-fried fish, and that hit the spot. I am not going to live on Rice Krispies and boiled eggs, people, it's too depressing.

I'm doing a daily mile-ish walk as part of my challenge. Haven't missed one yet! I know, it's only Thursday.

Attached: One exciting picture of deer poop. (Seriously: There was so much of it. It is not entirely clear from this picture, but that piece of land is obviously Deer Central.) Today: LIFTING. I've been keeping track of all my workouts over at Fitocracy. Much easier to copy whole workouts than type them into a WYSIWYG. Here they are. tl;dr: I'm up to a 75 lb bench and a 115 squat, 5x5, and I feel pretty good about sticking with those weights and working on form for a little while. Bench is hard! Squat is not as hard, but I can feel that I have some form and steadiness work to do before I start loading more on the bar. I currently weigh about 140 pounds -- I'd love to get up to squatting a bar full of my own weight by the end of the challenge, hopefully with movement from both ends of that gap. The weather is unbearably shitty but I am going to try to take that walk anyway. IN THE DARK, MOFOS. Egg tax: 0 so far. I have been eating so well! Chicken and cauliflower and tomatoes and cottage cheese and bananas. But I have a chef friend coming in from out of town, and I have a feeling some wine is in my future. Off to boil some eggs now. ETA: Walk achieved; tax = 2 eggs. (One for the rum, one for the cheese and crackers.) Verdict: Success.

Enjoying all this stuff, but especially the writey stuff. Very exciting! Walking is also good for figuring out writey things.

You are so awesome and so hilarious; that is all. *huge fistbump*

Good stuff here, good stuff. (Apart from the food poisoning. Bleh.) And be patient with your body, eh? Curious about the hip flexibility program, too. I will be watching to see how it works out for you.

You had me at "Stick them with the Pointy End." And then again at "secret of obtaining permission for antisocial behavior." And then I died at the Egg Tax. This is awsome. You are awesome, and also your FACE. STUFF I DID TODAY: -Walk to the land. It was a fine walk. While out, I heard peepers peeping for the first time this season, which had the effect of instantly validating my choice of daily challenge activity, and also making me feel preposterously smug about how spending time outdoors was making me more in tune with the great cycles of nature. I swear to God, I hear a frog, and suddenly I'm John freakin Burroughs. I took a picture, too. It is a picture of a magnificent pile of deer poop. Perhaps I will share it with you all when I get it off my phone. I did promise these would be way exciting pictures. -Egg tax: 0 Wow. You go, Day One. I may do some burpees later, if I can digest enough of my chicken dinner first.

Ah, German Longsword. A man after my own heart. (I learned foil, épée and sabre when I was a kid but sport fencing never really held my interest)Well, a something after your own heart, anyway. *grin* Fechtschule in NY? I'd love to attend but not unless some kind soul buys me a transatlantic plane ticket I'm in Ireland and it's tough enough getting the cash to travel 100 miles, let alone 3000!Aw! Well, perhaps we shall meet on the field of battle one day.

Do you like eggs? Just wondering.I do! I like eggs. (I really like deviled eggs.) But something about eggs in any large quantity gives me the heebie-jeebies. If I stray too far into the Land of Toast and Lager, I am going to end up making that Paul Newman face. AHAHAHAHAHAHAIt is good to see you again. *huge grin* It is good to be back, Kishi-san. *bows* Eggs good. Swords good.Burpees... I might come back to you on the challenge idea (I hate burpees).What kind of sword classes / fencing do you do? I'm a HEMAist myself.Eggs good, swords better! (Burpees? Burpees suck. In the BEST way.) I am just starting out in HEMA! Studying German longsword. Are you going to Fechtschule this year? It's right in my backyard -- I'm studying with Mike Edelson. I was a foilist in college, lo these many years ago, and got back into it again a few years ago. Foil's my home, and sport fencing is very different from sword-based martial arts, but I'm digging HEMA too.

IT'S BAAA-AAAAAAACK. Hey Monks! Harris here...now flying under the callsign PointyEnd. To remind me to keep things simple. First lesson: STICK 'EM WITH THE POINTY END. DUH. Sometimes the simplest lessons are the hardest to follow. It's been awhile, Monks. After making quite a bit of progress with help from y'all at NF last year, I've been largely a slug for a great while. Doing some swordfighting and fencing, sure, but not with any kind of sustained diet and exercise plan behind it. And it shows. So, back to basics. GOAL: Make the body engine run better. Here's the four-point battle plan. 1. STRENGTH Twice a week, do an exercise routine from the following: -Gym: 5x5 bench and squat, pull-ups, box jumps, military presses -Home: 3x5 pull-ups, 3x5min jumprope, 55 burpees (10+9+8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1) That's it. Simple. But it can and will kick my ass, as I have discovered in the last couple of weeks of getting back to lifting/conditioning. I may add deadlifts, if I can figure out how to do them properly. I don't have a trainer, and I'm nervous of doing them wrong. 2. BALANCE Twice a week, do one of the following things: -Sword class -Fencing practice -Yoga class -1/2 hour mobility work at home That's it. If I go to both fencing and swords every week, I'll meet this goal. *rolls eyes at delinquent self* 3. MOTION I moved from a rural outpost into the middle of town last fall, and immediately dropped my mile-a-day walking routine. Probably because every time I walk down my street, I have to talk to people. Hah! That's no excuse. I have discovered the secret of obtaining permission for antisocial behavior, O my brothers, and it is HEADPHONES. Also. It so happens that there's a little family piece of land right outside of town. Which I should be checking in on, because I am responsible for it and stuff. And the walk there is about a mile, round trip. So: Mile walk. To the land. Every day. With yon headphones on to fend off chatty neighbors. And every day I will snap a picture there and share it with y'all. It will be a very exciting picture for awhile, full of exciting sticks and mud and things not growing. Whee. 4. FUEL (A.K.A. THE EGG TAX PLAN) I need to eat more protein. I need to eat fewer starchy grainy things and less booze. I've run into some trouble doing the no-grain and/or no-booze diet thing. I tend to do it well for awhile then fall off the wagon spectacularly. So I'm trying something new: The Egg Tax. The Egg Tax is simple. I will boil a big pot of hard-boiled eggs once or twice a week. Every time I eat something on the grain-booze continuum, I have to eat an egg. Beer? Eat an egg. Piece of pizza? Eat an egg. Bottle of wine? Eat a bunch of damn eggs. I'm either going to quit my bad cornflakes habit in a hurry, or I'm going to eat a huge pile of eggs. Either way I win. NF seems to have dropped the stat points thing since I was around here last. But other folks seem to be using it. Maybe I'll award stat points if I pass this challenge. Gonna worry about passing before I worry about how much STR or CON or WIS or whatever is in all those eggs. EXCELSIOR. P.S. I am down for burpee side challenges if other Monks are. I love those goddamn things. Ask Kishi.

Welcome to the club. The How The Hell Am I Getting Heavier In The Same Damn Pants club. AW YEAH, MOAR MUSCLES.

Right you are, Kishi-san -- as usual! And yet. It's tough. I've always been prone to cycles of success and failure, and it's always hard to see the mountains from the valleys. Grateful for the encouragement; working on keeping despair at bay when things don't work out. I've been fighting tooth and nail to be faster, stronger, a better fencer and a more agile mover, for about a year and a half now, after a long period of neglecting my body. And I'm in a much better place than I was when I started, physically and mentally. I can see that. This week, I've been taking it easy on account of some pain in my left ankle that I don't quite know how to diagnose. It's either the result of a.) squats, b.) box jumps, or c.) a couple of very perfunctory (and unsuccessful) attempts at pistol squats. I didn't notice hurting it in any way, just woke up with it. Pain was pretty much gone today, so I got back into the lifting program. Added some weight today, which was exciting. It was sort of an abbreviated workout because I didn't have much time, so I focused on the big stuff. Bench, 80lb: 5x5 Squat, 95: 5x5 Military dumbbell press: 1x5 (25), 1x5 (20) Bicep curls: 1x5 (20) Negative pullups: 2x5 Jumprope: 3:00

Rest day today. Sore as hell after yesterday's lifting. The scale continues to go up. I'm just a few weeks into the weightlifting program, and I'm hoping it's just muscles taking on water. I will begin worrying when the pants quit fitting. So far, so good in the pants department. I am making some solid progress on fitness, I can tell. I feel stronger and better. At the same time, I'm hitting a wall in the general life/work department -- and I can't help but feel like it's all a bit of a zero-sum game. Eurrgh.

Like they say: Chop wood, carry water. Nothing like a task that used to give you the fantods suddenly becoming easy to let you know how far you've come. (I had a moment like that with my gazillion-pound vacuum cleaner last year.)

Whoa. Cob, I love your schedule so much.

Three cheers to you for cooking ahead! So much easier to eat right when you get your ducks in a row ahead of time.

That is a damn fact. *rueful grin* Saturday workout: Bench press, 75: 5x5 Squat, 95: 4x5 Negative pull ups: 5x5 Dip bar leg raises: 3x20 Overhead dumbbell press: 2x5 (25) Box jumps: 3x20 Dumbbell rows: 1x10 (25, each side)

Googolplex! So nice to see you around these parts. And good luck with the kid program! I'm gonna try to do daily 'gym' with my four-year-old for the next few weeks (i.e., the yawning day-care-less abyss between pre-K and summer camp, oy vey.)

As a lady type person still working on my yellow belt -- 11 pushups in a set right now, up from zero last year -- if you make different lists for men and women, I'm still gonna feel like I ought to be striving for the dude belts. Just my $0.02.

Well! That did not go exactly as planned! Urgh. Ended up placing 33 out of 45 at the P d T -- not exactly in the top half, and in fact slightly worse than my showing at the same event last year (the first competition I'd entered since, um, 1998). On the bright side, I learned something. It's absolutely crystal clear what I need to work on for competition: Conditioning. And it's a bitch, but it's also within my power to do something concrete about it. This has always been the case for me. I run out of gas much faster in competition setting than in practice (duh, right? I know!) and I always end up in a situation where by the time I get to my toughest bouts, I'm not really acting, just reacting. I felt like I could've advanced if I hadn't been shaky and gulping air by the time I got to direct eliminations. More burpees for me. (And jumprope, and suicides, and box jumps, and footwork conditioning...) Sunday: Rest day. (Lots of walking though.) Today: Some lifting. Bench press: 5x5, 75 lbs Negative pullups: 5x5 Dumbbell rows: 2x8, 25 lbs Overhead dumbbell press: 1x8 (20 lbs each), 2x5 (25 lbs each) Box jumps: 2x20 Jumprope: 1x100 Dip bar leg raises: 2x20 double 1x8 single leg, each side

Today: Rest day. Some walking. (I went to do a set of pushups and flunked out at 6. Usually I'm getting 10-12 out of a set these days, so I'm guessing rest is the thing on the menu today.) Tomorrow: BURPEES. Also some lifting, at the same weights as last time. Don't want to up weight right before a competition. Friday: Rest day. Walking. Saturday: Pomme de Terre! (Writing things down ahead of time, so as to have more incentive to follow the program.)

Y'all are excellent. Glad to be back. Today: 3 hours of fencing. Did not embarrass myself! Got a couple of touches I'm proud of, and got some air in a way I felt good about. Working on that thing where you leap straight up in the air and still have time to think, as you're hurtling toward your opponent, about what you ought to do about the three feet of steel he's waving at you, and where you ought to stick him for maximum un-parryability. (It's not the leaping that's the problem. It's the slowing down of time so you can think in the air. That takes a bit of work.) Also, for the record: Ow. *grin* Competing on Saturday at Brandeis. Against mostly a bunch of 20something women. Seeing as the people I've been fencing all year are larger, older dudes, things are going to be a bit different. I'm hoping that constantly dealing with people who have a lot more reach than I do will give me an edge with people my own size, but I'm also concerned that I'm getting complacent about speed. I'm used to being smaller and faster than most of the guys I fence with. I won't be able to take that for granted this weekend.