UberTumbleweed

Wrap Up! Learn at least one new bodyweight move/progression per week, every week. C: Week one (crow) and two (leg swoop) went great. Week three had health issues, but I did a lot of right-legged RDLs. Week four, I didn't really try, but did a bunch of left-legged RDLs to try for balance. Weeks five and six, I tried occasionally new movements, but mostly stretches. I TRIED for the pull-up on week six, and didn't make it. My core is totally out of control once I don't have help. I swing all over the place. It's like Kipping Gone Wild out there. I can, though, make definite movement at the very bottom without swinging. With the lowest level of help on the Assisted pull-ups, I can reliably do 2+ reps on neutral grip. The biggest thing to work on here are motivation to actually learn and use the exercises. The next biggest after that is stability and core strength. 0.25 Wis, 0.75 Str Two mobility work sessions per week, every week. Eh. I fulfilled the letter of this but not the spirit. I give myself a C. The first three weeks were great. The last there were not. I kind of did whatever stretching I felt like, for very short periods. I did the mobility work, but I would have actually benefitted from doing it properly and thoughtfully a lot more. 1.5 Dex Average 81 000 steps per week. A! I don't have exact counts for my vacation weeks, but the lowest day I had was ~14 000; my highest was close to 34 000. Totally wipes away my lackluster week 3. Almost all the steps in this challenge were either barefoot or in barefoot shoes, and except for a small bit of annoying strain-pain in week six, all was good. (I fixed it by wearing my Docs the next day and flossing my ankle -- and having a half-hour foot massage!) 2 Sta, 1 Con Floss & Don't Burn B. I got one minor burn the day of my friends' wedding. I didn't think I'd burn in the late afternoon when the sun goes down so early in Toronto! I was wrong. Plus, more importantly, I didn't want to have that sunscreen-shine in the photos. This could be an A, because it was once, minor, and only on a small area, but... I did floss more frequently: this was good. But I didn't learn it as a habit. That's not so good. I skipped it a lot the last two weeks, either because I forgot or because I didn't want to bother before bed. 2.25 Con, 1.5 Cha

Educational-failures all around this challenge! I'm not entirely willing to write off either of our challenges as complete dirt. **** So clearly I dropped off the NF-map during my vacation. I had great intentions to keep at it, but those didn't pan out. I was struggling last challenge with a sudden onset of bad anxiety. I thought I'd sorted it out, but a few days into vacation, it was like my mind sighed and relaxed. THAT is what my normal-brain feels like. I hadn't realized how much of the anxiety and tension I was still holding until it dropped away. I took the most of my vacation to relax, which entailed stepping back from everything that wasn't immediate (food, friends, the ocean, a bus ride to a hiking spot, etc). Then when I felt a surge of energy to Change Stuff one day, I did some re-evaluation. First up, I think it might be time for some professional counselling. Which I have to get health insurance to afford, which I have to make phone calls to get, which I have to get counselling to deal with my phone anxiety first. A vicious cycle defined.

Did you go? I quite liked it when I was in Seattle overnight last fall. Sounds like your head's been busy with thinking while I was away! Can't wait to see where it all takes you.

I'm alive! Except for the step goals, my challenge went a little off the rails. Oh well! My vacation was fantastic and I feel (somewhat) recharged. I'm off to catch up on work/internet a bit, but wow. This place has changed! Pink link text on white. If I'm going to read NF at work, I'll sure have to crank the light in my office. My boss will be thrilled. I'll let her know to send thank you notes to Steve.

I can tell you what I do, of course! Your skin might be different though. If your skin can tan without burning, you might try a "base tan" but if you burn many times each summer, that probably won't work. I need sunscreen any time I'll be out more than 40 minutes. It has to be a physical blocker one: titanium dioxide or zinc oxide in at least a 2% concentration. (A baby or sensitive skin formula is most likely to have that.) I also look for mexoryl SX if I have the money for more expensive ones. Get waterproof if you sweat. Apply 15 minutes before sun exposure. Re-apply often enough to avoid burning; a "day in the city" takes at least 3 applications for me. Wipe skin off as well as possible to get the old stuff off between applications (I take a wet facecloth in a ziplock on hikes for that). Use a lot. A hands-face-neck-ears application should use a shot glass full! You need more sunscreen than you think if you're looking to stay the same shade. Other than that, don't be afraid to carry an umbrella for portable shade, or cover up completely in clothes and a giant hat.

Day 4.1: 14 224 steps. Many were due to an emergency trip to Target after my backup bra literally disintegrated: 10 minutes after the stores that sell my actual size closed! Target is the only other store that sells small enough bands with big enough cups for me to fake it. And since Tuesday was the start of my vacation! I'm doing burpees this week. They really are harder than they look, if you're doing them well. I didn't floss but I did mouthwash. Day 4.2: I took 13 324 steps, more or less. Got all my errands done and packed and caught my plane. Sleep? No sleep. I knit through the red eye to Toronto. I did a few half-ass burpees. My great success was at assisted pull ups. I did a full range, palms-facing pull up on 28-lbs of assist. There's only one level left! I remembered to floss as I ran out the door to the airport.

If only I could go back in time and tell my genetic ancestors this. My sweet spot is only about 20 minutes and only before 8am. Otherwise, sun only does nasty painful things to my skin. As to the OP: Don't scratch or pick at the burn. Keeping it moisturized will help. Studies have shown that aloe vera does NOT help with sunburn more than a placebo (here's one abstract) although it does help with other burns. So if you don't like aloe, you're not stuck with it! Personally, I use an oatmeal moisturizing cream that I kind of glop on because smoothing it on usually hurts too much.

Week Three Wrap-Up I spent a lot of this week really babying my sore back/hip. So I didn't do quite as well as I would have liked, but I did very well in Not Giving Up. Goal 1: Single Leg RDL — D I did what I could! When I couldn't easily bend at the left hip, I did a lot of these on my right. I actually have decent form on them! I did a few over the weekend on my left, where my form and balance is a lot less good. I basically gave myself a D because I at least made an effort. Once I realized my picking-things-up motion resembled an actual move, I worked on getting that move down properly. I felt some sense of accomplishment, even if it wasn't what I wanted most for this week. Goal 2: Mobility — A What a breakthrough this week! Mobility work made a huge difference in the level of pain I was experiencing. I believe in my heart now in mobility work as maintenance, instead of just grudgingly doing it and feeling like there's minimal results. Especially flossing! I thought flossing was a total crock, but it's actually just as amazing as it claims. I did mobility work as assigned by my RMT (back in December, that I have been mostly ignoring till now) and three MWODs around the hips and knees. Now if I can just find a lacrosse ball... I really don't want to order online. It's our other national sport! Goal 3: Stepping — B 70 951. Eh, no shame here. I did a lot more walking in later days, and I took good care of my owies. Goal 4: Teeth & Skin — B Yikes, I can only miss flossing/mouthwash once more this challenge to end with an A! I think my teeth might look a bit nicer after three weeks, though. Or maybe I'm just kidding myself. Still no sunburn! Go me!

Day 3.4: LOTS of hip mobility work. I tried some "flossing" with bike tyre tubes; the relief was amazing and came quickly. Love. I flossed my teeth and took 12 831 steps. Day 3.5: I went to the gym this morning. I did 20 minutes on the elliptical, lots of dynamic stretching and foam rolling, and then I lifted a little. I did some light deadlifts, lat pull downs, waiter carries, and air squats. I didn't count any of it. I did what felt right, and stuck with movements I was really familiar with. Then more foam rolling and stretching after. Felt GREAT. My hip feels like a human hip again and my back is a back. 11 285 steps and (tooth) flossing completed! Day 3.6: Run, run, knit! I did a two hour treadmill run, 16.8 km. Well onto my 21k pace, which is good, because it's coming up very very very quickly. Lots of foam rolling before and after the run. Again, as long as I was moving, no pain. I did stiffen up a little in the later afternoon, but getting myself moving again helped. I took 14 075 steps and flossed! Day 3.7: I took 15 099 steps, mostly because I walked to Canadian Tire to pick up a second bike tube. I made a set of two narrower flossing bands for my knee. Okay, I'm converted, flossing is a great idea. I saw Star Trek into Darkness with my family. (Why would you title a movie something that abbreviates to STD?) I felt like recasting the roll of the man suffering for his genes as a white man took away a lot of what I loved about the Khan story when I was a kid. JJ Abrams can wake me up when George and Gracie arrive, provided he doesn't recast them as goldfish.

I stand by my statement but disagree with your interpretation of it. The statistics I've seen on gain-back from weight loss seems to support the idea that most people find losing weight and maintaining the fat loss to be extremely difficult -- otherwise, they'd quit failing at such monumental rates. When you've been fat forever, you have an entire lifetime of fat habits, fat mentality, fat skills, and an entire social network that expects you to be and stay fat, and you have to overcome it all. They are more likely to have fat parents who never even implied exercise or healthy foods to them as children. They are more likely to be poor and have limited access to outside, reliable sources of health info, or even know where to get that. That's a far greater burden than having been fat for just some of adulthood. These people are, generally, the most likely to fail out of a group that is already almost completely likely to fail. It is absolutely within their capacity; you're right about that. But just being possible doesn't preclude being "nearly impossible". I personally feel there's a lot we could do socially to boost their chances, because like you I believe the biggest hurdles are NOT physical. But there isn't help over the biggest hurdles in an accessible way where I live (which is a big city with lots of health resources; it's worse in rural areas around me; but perhaps your locale is different).

For some bodies, it's distressingly easy, especially with how our society treats eating. People are not encouraged to think positive thoughts about their bodies. A lot of the negative thoughts we pick up from society are false; it's not so easy to pick out the one true negative we might be getting. Plus, if you're fat from a young age, it's nearly impossible for most people to lose that weight. Society is supremely unhelpful with weight loss. And you didn't choose to be fat when you've been fat since before you could take real, independent responsibility for your health. I was happy this week because my size 10 jeans were getting big on me. Last year, the size 12 — from the same store in the same style in the same fabric — were too small. Today, my 10s were dirty, so I put on the 12s. Guess what? They're still too small. In one year, the sizes changed so that the 10 was bigger than the 12. I'm a smart person with a ton of privileged and advantage for health knowledge and I had literally no idea that I was just as fat now as I was a year ago. I truly thought I'd lost fat. And here's a photo of me with a BMI of 40 and an estimated body fat percentage of between 45 and 50%. I'm not so huge that you'd see me on the street and think OMGZ TEH DEATHFAT!!!! but I was morbidly obese. And I didn't know it till after I started losing weight. (PS: nearly 70lbs lighter, that shirt still fits me.)

Thanks, Wolverine! Day 3.1: I wake up with serious pain in my lower left back. No idea where it came from. I ended up having to leave work early because I couldn't cope. I did walk 13 022 steps, as walking was the least painful thing I could do. I did some very gentle hip and back stretches, trying to ease some mobility into me. (Thanks for the tips, oh great and might RMT of mine!) After about four minutes of work on the left leg, I heard a big POP and felt an instant relief. Not fixed, but measurably better. That was my first mobility workout of the week, and let me walk part of the way home from work. Day 3.2: The hurt continues. I move from place to place, but when I find a position that's comfortable to be in, I just stay there as long as possible. 6527 steps. I forgot to floss. Day 3.3: The hurt continues, again. I walk for 12 187 steps. I forget to floss and grump at everyone in my path. I've self-diagnosed the pain as an old hip injury flare up, combined with hip and pelvic swelling from menstruation. I was doing some MWOD hip stuff yesterday, and provided even half of what KStarr says about the body is true, I've got a seriously jacked up hip. I knew my left hip was never as good as my right after the injury (from 1996!) I got some bike tubes to serve as floss bands, and I'm going to try self-maintenance on the hip before giving in and seeing my doctor about it. Today, Thursday, the hip is much less angry at the world. My uterus is equally less angry. My move for the week was supposed to be burpees, but I couldn't burpee a belch right now.

Can my move for the week be right-leg RDLs? Cause I'm getting awesome at those. I've done something to my back that makes it agony to bend from the left hip. Since most my belongings live on or near the floor, I've been doing a lot single-leg RDLs to reach things. As long as I keep my back and left leg in alignment, no pain. I'm feeling pretty down on myself for being hurt. (No, there is no logic in this. I know.) So I've taken a comically large pill full of codeine and am rolling myself into bed for the night. I don't even know what I DID to myself! I just woke up Monday in awful pain.

If you can find a certified massage therapist who does Thai massage, that might help with the nervousness. You wear clothes for Thai massage! My massage therapist has all the same Western training as other RMTs, but also a massive amount of traditional Thai training. She uses pieces of both on me, while I'm clothed, to provide the best full body massage ever. I find it a lot nicer to have my inner thighs, psoas, and glutes worked on when I'm in yoga pants than when I'm wearing a sheet! I sometimes see a traditional therapist for work on my back (she's cheaper), but nothing works on my leg muscles like the feet of my Thai RMT!

Those are fantastic. Even I would plant flowers in them, and I hate taking care of plants I don't plan to eat.

There's a difference between negative fat-talk and talking about our bodies. The negative fat-talk doesn't have solutions; it's all problems. "I'm too short and fat. I shouldn't have eaten that brownie. I can't wear those, my thighs are too fat. Urg, I'll have to run for HOURS to work this dinner off." Compare to: "My shorter legs make this lift a little difficult; what modifications can I do? I want that brownie; how does it fit my macros this week? With all the muscle I've gained lately, these pants are a bit uncomfortable on my thighs. I'm going for a two hour run for my training and I'm excited to see how my body reacts." If you're putting yourself down just to keep a conversation moving, you probably do have some pretty serious self-esteem issues. If you're talking about your body because you're working towards bodily improvement and feel great about discussing it, then it's not fat talk. Your comment makes me feel that you do the former, but would like to do the latter. It's tough work to change the paradigm and shift how you talk about yourself, but it can be done! I'm a recovered fat talker. My physical and mental health is a lot better since I stopped fat-talking myself down.

WEEK TWO WRAP-UP: Leg Thread: A I worked really hard on getting this leg thread to happen properly. I never should have included the swoop this week, too. The first movement and the progression was too much. Lesson learned! Where I really failed was two-fold: 1) I didn't pay enough attention to form at the start and got into some bad habits. That meant I spent most of the week fighting the basic movement instead of progressing. Fix: do the movement, not what you think the movement should be. Pay some attention! 2) I don't have the explosive strength to jump-lift my leg during the swoop, and the balance to have all my weight momentarily forward/hand-area is iffy. Fix: Pick a plyo / explosive movement to do in week 3 to address the deficiency. Continue working on stability (both exercises so far have needed it!) I'm giving myself an A, because I mastered the basic movement with great form, and didn't shy away from trying the progressions. I even did them in public, at the gym, where the trainers might see me topple over! I also spent a lot of time thinking about what prevented me from progressing further, and on how to fix those lacks. In a crow-pose update, the bruise on my left tricep from my pointy knee still hasn't healed. Mobility: C I continued doing some of the wrist exercises from last week. I sat on a baseball for some glute massage (lacrosse might be the other national sport, but do you think I can find a lacrosse ball anywhere? No, I cannot). I occasionally stretched my hips some. I tried the Pain Cave episode of MWOD again on Sunday night. My right leg went into the pain cave after just 30 seconds, so I bailed. I made the whole four minutes on the left leg. Steps: A 83 811. I planned to make this happen, and after my lackluster Wednesday, I wasn't sure it would. But I didn't give up and pushed hard Sunday night to get 'er done. Skin & Teeth: A I did really well with balancing my need for Vitamin D with my need not to be a burned lobster this week. I flossed 5 days out of 7. This is okay. But I need to be a bit more careful here! To get full flossing points, I can only miss another 5 days over the four weeks, and I missed four days in the first two. Time to step it up!

It was pretty fantastic, I've got to say! Thanks! By the end of the week, I'd gotten the leg thread down, but boy howdy, the swoop? No way. That stuff's hard! Ha! Thanks for checking up on me! I did indeed floss that night, and on Sunday (but not Saturday). Day 2.6: 13 620 steps, no flossing, but very good sunscreen use. Today my knitting group knit on the light rail train for four hours, to celebrate World Knit in Public Day. So I got in my walking by planning! I skipped my first bus downtown and walked to the transit station instead. Then I got off a few stops early, and walked to and through the farmer's market before walking back to board the train. I did way better with my steps than I anticipated, so I was very happy with myself. Day 2.7: More sitting today, but a quick run (20 min) outside and a lot of walking before and after saved my steps. 13 509. I did more leg threading. My right leg has caught up to the left on the swoop movement, but that's still only half the "quarter movement".

Quicky update before a busy weekend! Day 2.4: 14 876 steps. No flossing. Much book organizing at work, getting our library in order at last! Plus I surprised people (again) with how much weight I can move. Day 2.5: I'm not done stepping yet, but it looks to be somewhere just above 12 500. (ETA: 12 865) I WILL floss before bed. @ Gym: 9 min elliptical Leg threads x 10 (each side); sad attempts at the swoop Squat: 9 x 3 @ 110 lb Assisted Pull Up: 3 sets (fast negative, pull up w/ chin above bar, slow negative) @ 28 lb assist 3 negatives at 22 lb assist Some work "in the hole" on activating my lats and getting little 'bounces' upward OH Press (overhand grip): 1 x 6 @ 40 lb 1 x 9 @ 45 lb 3 x 6 @ 45 lb I normally do these underhand, because it feels more secure, but these were surprisingly solid Superset @ 25 lb rep: x 3 Curls (9 reps) OH Press (9 reps) 12 min elliptical 6 leg threads foam roller & stretching green tea & hot tub Leg Thread Progress: I reviewed the video and checked out my form. I wasn't letting my balancing leg rotate out enough. Fixing that solved the problem that I couldn't keep my kicking leg straight. Tonight, I tried it some more, and if I put my hands out farther forward, I can kick around -- kinda. I can jump my balancing leg up, but I have to bring my kicking leg in. The swoop ends up being foot-under-foot, instead of leg-under-foot. I can swoop my left leg back to starting position. My right leg isn't quite so good.

I agree that's it's all in who you share your goals with -- and what your plans are for accountability! I've announced some goals and failed miserably because I didn't seem to have the drive to follow though. Maybe it was the sense of satisfaction that I got just from talking about it that made me back off from actually doing it. After silently losing a lot of weight at work, I gave into pressure from my team to admit I was losing weight and say what my goal weight was. It got gossiped about, and soon enough, someone who was originally uninvolved left a business card for a bariatric surgeon on my desk. That took the wind out of my metaphorical wings and I stopped losing as easily. But sharing my goals here in the challenge threads has been very helpful. If my goals aren't S.M.A.R.T., I'm taken to task for it. I'm given specific encouragement and suggestions. I can ask people to hold me accountable, and they will do it firmly but kindly. NF Challenges are tools to be used to achieve your goals; if you commit to using the tool, it's nothing like just shouting into the wind.

Day 2.3: I spent almost seven hours wrapping candies up into gift bags. I did not eat any of them! Even though I was working with someone I find extremely stressful. I did eat a cake-pie, but c'mon: it is a cake with crumbled up berry pie INSIDE of it. You'd probably eat it, too. We were under a severe thunderstorm warning for most of the day, and a tornado warning for a while. It was a stressful few hours: my office building has no basement, tons of ill-fitting windows, and bathrooms with wobbly doors. Consequently, my steps are rather low. I didn't feel much like going outside. 8404 steps. I flossed before bed. This is starting to look like the ideal time for me to form the habit at.

WHEEEE for week two so far! Day 2.1: 10 964 steps, and a very last minute flossing before bed. I prefer to use floss picks, and I've found a brand that has two lines of floss instead of just one. I feel like those clean out the plaque better than the single floss ones do. Today the leg thread was easy, but by the time I got home, I really felt it in my adductor area muscles. Day 2.2: 9573 steps and flossing! It's been drizzling for a week, and I've avoided sunburn easily, but I'm not too keen on being outdoors. I ran on the treadmill for 90 minutes of intervals: some run-walk, some run-jog. I averaged my 10k pace of 7 min/km. I used 1.5% incline for the whole thing, which is the incline that makes it feel the most like running on outdoor pavement in my calves and shins. The leg thread was really a struggle today. It was like my coordination took a vacation.

You're making this TACFIT stuff sound kind of fun. I might need to look into the program for myself. May your second week be as great as your first!

I will never try that at home. I think it's completely impossible here for temperatures to even get that high. I bow down to your superior heat resistance.

I only yell stuff like that to make people embarrassed about assuming I'm pregnant. It happens a lot. The yelling reminds me that their assumptions about body shape and size are rude and intrusive. I don't think of myself that way, because I'm not very fat and my tummy doesn't prevent me from doing anything -- I just got the family "looks kinda pregnant" fat storage genes! Long story short, I bet that man will think twice before the next time he assumes a strange woman is pregnant. The leg thread is really fun! Still challenging for my hips, but fun.