Teros

I had my second beginner dumbbell workout yesterday. Hooooooooo boy. I at least finished through a set of all of the exercises. It was less painful and thus, I felt less defeated. My goal is to master this week by doing it again and again and again. Once I'm able to comfortable do the entire week's program, I'll move on to the next one. It's supposed to be a 12-week workout but this, honestly, might take me a solid year to master. And I can always bump up the weight and run through it again. I feel better about this program. It's all figured out for me so all I need to do is bust my ass 3x a week. Today was my cardio day so I hit the elliptical and then had my turkey bacon and 2 eggs and oj for breakfast. I plan on studying today, which I mentioned before how I keep procrastinating on. In other news not really related to the challenge, I uh....contacted some people. I went to a fetish flea market over a week ago and I decided to contact the people who run it and say what I felt it was missing as a newcomer. I also *might* have volunteered to help with the program for next year, since they are about bringing in newcomers and as a newcomer; I might have a different perspective from them. We'll see how that goes. I also contacted a local fetish coalition with some questions. This is a huge deal for me, ok? Growing up in a Catholic school where any sort of physical contact was shamed. My mom always hated men and thought they 'thought with their dicks'. Add in a 12 year toxic enmeshed relationship where there was NO sex life. Then all the disasters through a dating website where women were forceful with me, made me feel uncomfortable, and the machismo of society telling dudes to just be a walking hard-on all combine to make me have a very, very, VERY repressed and shameful feeling towards my sexuality. The kink event and emailing multiple people over the past week is a massive step for me to get over the stigma that has been ingrained in me for literally decades. I'm scared but...hopeful...I think. Even talking about here and opening up about it is kind of a big deal for me. But if I'm ever going to be ok with *me*, then I need do this.

Do you know how much that game fucked with me when I saw there was a TEROS that was a BULL? Wtf are the odds of that? I spent years doing random searches for my name and nothing ever came up and then there's a videogame where my avatar exists!? The jazz-hand from the James Bond character comes out from me, at the bare minumum 😛 Oh I end up eating everything in one sitting that I put on my plate. It could just be a matter of what you are eating. I know that throwing in some sweet potatoes or butternut squash seemed to fill me up. How much are you eating? Like...what do you think is 'too much' or 'too little'? Your body basically tells you. ----------------------------------- Ok, I did a really hard thing. I sent an email to a kink instructor from last week and I spilled my guts out. I said that I was scared and confused and didn't know what to do with this poly realization. I sent a frigging wall of text so I'll see what happens, if anything. In other news, a ladyfriend's mom had a seizure and so she's traveling this week. I'm house-sitting. Which is basically cat-sitting a couple fur-babies. One of them is nervous and skittish around me but all the others like me and flop onto my feet or stay perched within arm's reach. I'll check on them every other day so they have enough water and some wet food. Other pet news: Frank, my runt of a black pug, had to finally get some teeth pulled. He has had bad teeth for years. His face was all puffy. https://imgur.com/a/hINcDqz pictured: Frank (I'm testing using imgur so let me know if the link above works, please) That leads into an update here: This finally happened. My sister came over with Frank and I asked if I could talk to her for a couple of minutes. I explained that I'm not going on her side of the house anymore. She said she could have hidden stuff and I said that didn't matter. I end up eating bars of baking chocolate or mini marshmallows when I'm desperate. She pause for a sec and agreed. The same shit has happened to her and she understood where I was coming from. I suggested a game night so we can play a random board game or cards and she was up for it. I don't have a date set in stone because the person with the most restrictive schedule hasn't told me what days work. I can structure a hang-out schedule soon.

Def a good sign. This is exactly what happens when I do w30. You hear so much info about diet like IF or 5 smaller meals or whatever else; but if you focus on the quality of the food; your body makes the right call for how much/when. Congrats.

Craahhhnston for me.

I had my mom's death anniversary Jan 22. It's tough but I know you'll get through it. My relationship with her was strained and my therapist said it was 'complex grief' and what he said made a lot of sense. You mention being estranged towards the end and gaslighting: I know that my mom wasn't what I wanted her to be and my therapist said that you essentially mourn the loss of the parent and also mourn the fact that the relationship never got better. No matter what happens - this is the card/person you are dealt. *hugs and kisses and happy smiles and jolly handshakes all around*

Was sorting through my 500000000 bookmarks and I have some semblance of structure, with a dating, nf, sw, learning, music, food, shopping, creative, fitness, unsorted(still) groups of folders in my bookmark tabs. I ended up listening to a bunch of songs bookmarked and this one kept popping up. It's so fucking catchy and well done for a music video. Enjoy. I was waiting until I finished the first week of the beginner dumbbell workouts to give an overall progress report so here it is... Workouts: So....I'm terrible at this. It's a beginner video and there is a big emphasis on form and correct posture and my posture is basically garbage. Many times I was struggling to do the warm-ups, nevermind get a single set of these exercises done. Still, I forced myself to do plank-twists, seated rows, box steps, bent-over rows, farmer squats, and all the other ones I'm forgetting. The program is 12 weeks so next week is supposed to be 'intermediate'. ...intermediate.... ha. Seeing as how I was lucky to get a set or more done (when I'm supposed to do 3 sets of each) means that I think I'm sticking with week 1 for many, many, many weeks. Things I realized while doing this program: 1) I have a curve in my back from hunching over so much. Laying flat legit hurts me. 2) My right knee is significantly weaker and in pain compared to my left. 3) My feet and rolling ankles basically make me a walking Jenga tower. Three strikes, but I'm not out. If I had perfect posture and perfect form and was able to do the sets that I'm supposed to do; then I would totally go onto next week. But as it stands, I really need to take care of the above shit problems FIRST before I get out of the beginner phase. I keep telling myself, "This is the worst you can possibly do" and that's helped a bit. I know that as demoralizing and shitty this week of workouts was, it can't possibly get worse unless I push myself too hard and get an injury on top of those current issues. It's the safe and responsible thing to keep doing week 1 until I 'complete' it. As in, I'm able to use my dumbbells and complete all warms-ups and full sets. Once I can do that, then I will move onto the next week. In the meantime, I still hit the elliptical at the gym like I intended. An unforseen situation though: a ladyfriend wants to do these workouts with me and join the YMCA. I work better alone but with support. Having a workout 'buddy' ..idk...I'm very hesitant about it. Every other time a person has glomed onto me while I'm trying to better myself they end up pulling me down. I remember my mom trying to go and then slacking and bitching about going, making it a miserable and un-immersive experience. Similar with my sister trying. Similar to my ex trying. Similar to dude-bro friends wanting to get into mma. However, the difference with this one is she was in the military and has a lot of physical fitness knowledge so I'm going to give it a try so someone can at least spot me so I can be more mindful of how I'm screwing up. Look, I want to be an Adonis. It's going to take literal years to get to that point but I don't care. I know I've had this need for so long that I know it's not going away. I wanna be one of those 40+ year old jacked dudes that look like they're 25. So if it takes me 5 years, I'll still end up looking 10 years younger than currently 😛 Sleep: I ended up staying up late twice this week and the other days I went to bed within 30 minutes of when I wanted to. This is something I need to be mindful about literally every fucking day. Also I noticed that if I play a game at like 8:30 or so; I end up wired and can't fall asleep right after. So although I have a new gamer friend that wants to play, I think I need to relegate that to certain days or something. Study: I downloaded the book. I haven't read any of it yet but I know what I want to do. I'm thinking that this challenge is more about making sure I've hit all these targets and established these habits before it's over; rather than hitting an A+ every week. Eat: Ok this one is almost an A. I have officially stopped going over JJ's place, thus avoiding all that junk. I also haven't been to my sister's side of the house in a couple days. I have some orange juice and prunes as possible sugar backups, but I'm refusing to break a whole 30 after this week is over. I'm aiming for an A+ on this next week. I made Indian food this week: aloo gobi and chicken korma which both turned out awesome. I also made some balsamic chicken with mushroom, onions, and spinach. I feel better. And I think that once this is a solid A+, the mental foggyness and slacking will start to fade (because it ALWAYS has once I stay strict on whole30) so that means 'Study' will be getting better shortly. Socialize: This was a 2-parter. As I said in the 'eating' info, I stopped going over JJ's place which has helped a lot for me. I'm still waiting for my sister to come over here and say that she hasn't seen me in a while so I can tell her that I'm not going over there anymore and then figure out a weeknight to hang out and play board games or something. Once that happens, I can then fill in the timeslots with everyone else and my socializing will be pretty solid. Then there's being on here. I'm posting on here yet again, which is an improvement from the past...like....4 or so challenges. But I still want to check on people's thread. The plan today is to make a couple phone calls that I've been putting off, go food shopping, start some cooking, and have JJ come over. Saturday is probably going to be *********Attempting******** to study and also checking on threads to see how the first week went for a few people. One last thing that I think I need to talk about a little bit is what happened last weekend. There's no easy way to talk about it so I'm blurting it out: I think I'm polyamorous. There was a kink convention this past weekend and there was a speaker who talked about her husband and her boyfriend, as well as the roles she has in the kink community. She was a sexual Switch, that had sadistic tendencies. She loved giving service but she realized she was much more dynamic than the traditional roles in BDSM. And after she started talking about all of it....something clicked in me. I've uh...been struggling mentally this week with this sort of realization. I'm sure at some point I'll go into more detail and blurt out a huge rant but for right now; let's just say that I'm extremely contemplative.

Where do I begin? It feels so awkward posting on here but I need to do it. I've said for like 3+ fucking years that I need to get back on here, but I'm not doing shit that would have me build a support network that I need. When I was part of the NF family, I lost 120 pounds, ended my 12 year long toxic enmeshed relationship, burned all my things in a funeral pyre, beat a Spartan race, and started doing mma. When school hit 4ish years ago, all the emotional/mental work that I did regressed back to square one. My health declined. Sleep lost. Anxiety spiked through the roof. Depression made my brain and body halt to a crawl. Re-gained back all of the weight that I fought so hard to lose. I lost the woman I wanted to spend my life with first from cancer and then again because of her emotional issues. My mom died. Four family pets died. Dozens of unsatisfying shitty relationships ping-ponged around with an unhealthy dose of abrupt abandonment and lots of binge eating. Loss of friends and important people in my life, leading me to feeling hollow and empty - like I've lost my heart and soul. Let's just say... it's been a really fucking rough time. NF isn't something I can abandon because the difference between having support from all you lovelies and being isolated and stressed and unable to be here is like night and day. I have another challenge on the side where I am working piece-by-piece on the relationship emotional ruins that I feel; but I think it's time I jump into being here like I used to do. With that, my challenge: ------------------------------------------- Workouts - 4x week. I've been going to the gym and using the elliptical 3 or 4 times a week for the past couple of weeks but it's not doing anything if I keep eating garbage and only am doing a little bit. I want to try this challenge to do some dumbbell workouts so I might do 2 weights/2 cardio but it's really more about feeling it out and doing what I want. I used to say on here all the time that the best workout is the one that you stick with so I would rather not be pigeon-holed into doing a specific *thing* but rather go with what works for me. Sleep - Christ, I have had such awful sleep for so long that last week when I slept for 7.5 hours I was shocked and almost manic the first part of the day. I thought about it and I literally don't remember the past few YEARS ever getting more than 6 hours of broken sleep *at best*. I need to make this a priority, obviously; and that means putting my foot down with bedtimes and having a night routine. No matter what - Sunday through Thursday I'm going to bed at 9pm. I have an alarm set on my phone. Friday and Saturday I would like to also go to bed then, but I'm not going to be penalized if i stay up until 10 or so on those days. Study - I have to pass my LCSW exam and because of the anxiety I have, I postpone it. I use getting in better physical and emotional health as excuses to not work on this; but then I continue to not do things to better my physical and emotional health....so I'm at the point that I am self-sabotaging. I need to say, 'Fuck you, BRAIN, just do all of it right at the same time and stop bitching with excuses'. I'm not sure what is doable for this, but I know I have about 450 pages of a study guide so I'm going to break that down into manageable chunks and read a few pages at a time. If I tell myself to read, say, 20 pages then my brain will shut off at around page 3. So instead, I need to do 5-page bursts and then maybe play a game in-between as a brain palate cleanser. I don't have certain days picked out yet, but if I can maybe do this study-game-study-game a couple times a week, I should be able to get this book done before the challenge is over. Then next challenge, I can sign up for the practice exam and study that the following challenge and finally take the test and be DONE with this bullshit. Eat - Like I said in the workouts part; I eat garbage and because of that, it creates a cascading effect. Sugar is toxic. There's no one that can convince me otherwise. My depression and anxiety are ramped up when I eat sugar. My sleep is garbage when I eat sugar. My weight obviously suffers when I eat sugar. It's an addiction, and one that I can't give excuses for. 'Oh it's just 5 hershey kisses'. No it's not - it's like 30 when I feel this binge feeling happen and I don't feel in control of my body as I shovel down candy like a fat jackass. I need to have a zero tolerance rule. Most likely a whole30 because that's literally the only way I can detox from this shit. I'll also be batch cooking 1 or 2 times a week. I'll see what works better. Socialize - This is a two-parter. I need to 1) Socialize with certain people less. 2) Be on here more. 1)My sister is a depression sinkhole. Our mom has been dead for over a year and my sister doesn't work: she just sits at home and plays some stupid bejeweled shit on her phone and whines. Me interacting with her does more bad than good. Also, she has the storehouse of all the candy and junk. As difficult as it is, I need to avoid my own sister who lives next door to me for my own mental health. It's obvious she needs help but she would rather sulk and feel shitty and ask, 'What's the point!?' like my mom did before she died... Another person I need to socialize less with is a ladyfriend by the name of JJ. I've known her for a while but she is an enabler, can't make decisions on her own, and ends up dragging me down with her. Yet another sad, fat, ambitionless loser in my life. And again, as much as I would like to help her; I need to avoid her for my own mental health. Although I care about both of these people, I think I need to set aside days/times/places to interact with them so that way *I* am in control. For instance, I'm not going next door to see my sister because I'm not dealing with the temptation of candy: she can come over here. I'm not going to JJ's place to hang out so she can come over here. 2)As I stated above, being on here is what empowered me enough to believe in myself and get shit done so I need to be on here more. I don't know if I should post on a certain number of threads, post here a certain number of times per week, or both. Maybe I should just consider 5x week NF to count. So if I check a few threads then that counts as 1, if I update my thread it's 1. I'll also count socializing with NF if I play a game with any of you so if you want to play, then you can add me on Steam: terosx I need more positivity in my life so I'll take it wherever I can get it; especially if I'm cutting out two huge portions of my socializing (Sister/JJ).