Sarah Barr

Still not remembering to update regularly enough, but here's the update since Thursday: - Re-downloaded MFP onto new phone to track calories - Climbed Calton Hill this morning to scout out locations for our group, but it was HARD, so I'm climbing it three lunchtimes a week till Beltane, because sod not being able to breathe. - Signed up for a new gym membership in a gym that one of my co-GOs can make it to - I think this'll be good, it's not in a basement like the last gym, and the view might help break the monotony that put me off going back to lifting these past couple of months - Doc put me on an antidepressant that also works as a sedative. Side effects so far are that I get a little dizzy, but I've been sleeping much better. The antidepressant part won't kick in for another couple of weeks, but the sleeping-better is helping with the mood. Hopefully the exercise will also help. - Speaking of exercise, everything hurts in a good way from jumping about like a mad eejit at the GO weekend. (A big chunk of it was bonding games. I have now mimed making blueberry pancakes at double speed using my feet instead of my hands. It was good and strange.) - Small regular meals going well - Calories not so well over the weekend, though, and not only did I not have time to food prep, but boyfriend ate one of my prepped meals. This week's food prep may be just a massive vat of lentil curry and rice. - I've added "no pastries until after Beltane" to the veto list along with pizza, which has so far been successful. - I think I'm used to checking the google calendar now, hurrah. - Getting excited to meet the people who might become part of our Beltane group at the open meeting on Sunday. (SHAMELESS PLUG: If you want to be involved in the Beltane Fire Festival, come along to La Belle Angele in Edinburgh at 12:30pm on Sunday the 26th. There are all kinds of performing, non-performing, high-commitment and low-commitment groups you can join.) Back to work!

HELLO FRIEND! Thank you! Good to meet you, have a good challenge! Thanks! Update: Buuuuusy. Head's still all over the place but I'm staying roughly on track with the small regular meals and the calorie limits. Completely forgot about strength training, though. And I forgot to update my thread yesterday so that's at least £3 in the Idiot Jar. It would probably be sensible to call this week a practice week, and start counting towards a forfeit after I've talked to the doctor instead of punishing myself. Calendar is helping. Got woken up by a washing machine at arse o'clock this morning. Want cry. Make coffee happen. Cry into coffee.

Thanks for the tip! I've started using my Google calendar instead of a paper calendar so I'm not relying on having access to the one place it's hung up in. Did have to set a daily email reminder to check my calendar but I'm sure it'll become a habit soon enough. [Ramble about tiredness that's mostly for the benefit of helping me process it]

Hehe! I went for Elliott because he's slightly awful but has wonderful hair. Should really have gone with Leah. How about you?

Hey Def! Ooh, I'm liking the questions, it's fun reading the answers and getting to know people better. I'm currently binge-playing Stardew Valley, a gentle and gorgeous farming simulator pretty much like Harvest Moon was.

Food prrrrrrrepped! Lots of food! I forgot I had a lot of stuff already in my cupboards so I deviated from the proposed menu: - Vegetable and fake chicken jalfrezi with brown rice - Mixed bean chilli - Really tasty baked potatoes I found Hawai'ian black sea salt in a shop and I'd always wanted to try it - I think it made my baked potatoes even tastier than baked potatoes usually are, but it might just be that I used, er, restaurant-levels of salt instead of the kind of salt itself. Also have a better idea of my schedule, now, which is good. Although it's fuller than I anticipated... Taking a break to chug an energy drink before I get back to sanding some bits of poorly-planed plywood in a frantic fashion. I now know I have only about three days of full work available in which to finish the first stage of the project. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. It will be fine. It's not that far off being finished. I only have a couple more bits to cut out and sand and then it's all assembly. Ok, energy drink done, regret in chugging energy drink felt, time for Korpiklaani and avoiding splinters!!

Planning update: - Veggies bought - going to try and do prep this weekend among all the woodworking - I now have room to do a workout in the morning, and am gradually trying to accustom myself to waking up in time to actually do a workout. - Slowly getting an accurate schedule together! About it, really, but at least it's Friday so I have time to do more soon.

Hello friends!! It's good to see you guys too! Every time I disappear for a challenge or so, I come back and you've all become tougher. It's awesome!

Story of my life. HI DOC! Following!

Hallo!! <4 NEW CHALLENGE

Shut down a bit after I dropped out in December. Didn't come back in January because I've been pretty chronically tired, and am finally off to the doctor next week to see if there's anything behind that beyond the usual combination of stress and work (I have my suspicions). Still tired, of course, but I miss you guys, so I am back! I have a great big project on the horizon that got approved last night! I am very excited and terrified about it. I am not expecting to get much rest in the next... 10 weeks unless I practice some dedicated self-management, so this challenge's goals are focused around that. (You'll get to hear about what it actually is after the official announcement gets made.) Goal 1: To make sure that my food intake optimises my actually-experienced energy levels. NHS advice for this is to have a few smaller meals instead of a couple of large ones, and like most health advice, "stop being so fat" is on there too, so the calorie target is for gradual weight loss. This would look roughly like: 08:00: 2 boiled eggs, bit of fruit, cup of tea (~200kcal) 11:00: Nuts (~200kcal) (11:00:03: Stop giggling at the word “nuts”.) 12:30: Whatever takes your fancy (~300kcal) 15:00: Something else worth about 300kcal that must contain one vegetable or fruit 18:00: Dinner (chilli and rice, roast chicken and couscous, or root veg soup and bread, all weighed out on prep day to amounts totalling about 500kcal) 21:00: Something else around 200kcal (e.g. a Nakd bar, or a pint of Guinness if it's after rehearsals) (Total calories: about 1700/day) Goal 2: To make sure that my weekly food prep takes as little time as possible without resorting to ready meals or a life of pasta. I need to be able to get it all done in the space of about an hour. So one oven batch, Two hob batches, of the bung-it-in-a-pot-and-forget-about-it variety. Sounds like chilli-not-really-carne, lemon-roast fake chicken with onion and peppers, and root veg soup to me. - So I'd prep my three meals, all of which mean I just need to fry off one big batch of onions and divide between them Then while they're cooking I'll portion out some microwave rice (because sod it) for the chilli and chicken, and some bread to go with the soup. The bread then goes in the freezer so I don't absent mindedly munch on it. Then I'll weigh out my nuts for the week's morning snacks. Never really liked being the kind of person who weighs her nuts, but I'm also the kind of person who giggles furtively at the phrase “weigh out my nuts”, so I'm sure I'll get over it. Goal 3: To focus on bodyweight exercises, stamina in relation to weight, and flexibility I'm saving up for moving house in the summer, so as well as giving up take-away coffee I've had to give up my gym membership, so no lifting or warrior-ing for a while, sadly. But I need to make sure I'm generally physically capable, so I'm picking up the slack by focusing on bodyweight workouts. This will take the form of our old favourite, the Nerd Fitness BBWW, with my usual yoga poses and splits practice. I have too little room and too many bits of plate glass in my bedroom to warrant handstands practice, but I'll live. It'll also involve some extra stamina-based strength work like planks and wall-sits. Three mornings a week, at home. Life Goal: Don't get eaten up by project plans. Using a strict time management schedule to do this, because I am going to need my rest, and a strict routine gives me peace of mind. I'll get out the A2 paper and the pens to write out a proper schedule, with tasks for the morning, during the day, and night-time, when I know exactly what's what. Tracking: UPDATE YOUR THREAD UPDATE YOUR THREAD UPDATE YOUR THREAD. In addition, I'll have to put £1 in the Idiot Jar for every time I miss a goal that day. This includes paying a £1 fine for not updating my thread for two days in a row. *Insert various taking-off noises here.*

I HAVE BEEN AWAKENED (New challenge coming soon!) (Thanks, Shello! <3)

My uncle died on Thursday. I've not really been keeping track of anything the last few days but I'm giving myself a break for that period regarding the Idiot Jar. Hoping to be on track again today. Cooked some vegetable curry for this week's meals, so I have something healthy and easy to reheat.

Haha, they normally are, but for some reason this one was kind of cold and the cheese hadn't melted, and then for some reason I ate it anyway.

*hug* That sounds pretty miserable, Snarky. Hope it gets better soon and that you get a chance for plenty of rest and peppermint tea. <3

Ugh, sagging ankles on tights are evil. The only thing I've found that stops tights-legs sagging is chopping off the tops, clipping the legs to a suspender belt, and adjusting the tension lengthwise that way. But then I have to suffer the inner-thigh chub rub, which is the main reason I wear tights in the first place. I just go for footless tights, socks and boots these days.

Update for last couple of days: Calories: £1 in Idiot Jar (The burrito was not worth it.) Rested as planned on Tuesday, gymmed as planned on Monday. Freggies: 6 on Monday, 5 on Tuesday Water: About 1 litre both days. Gym today looked like: - The usual handstand and split practice - DB Rows, (1 x 16kg) x 8 x 3 each side (About 1 hour 15 minutes total.) I'm trying to find some good exercises to warm up my back for handstand practice - I think I'm finding it particularly hard on my back because of the weight of my stomach and chest. Doing my best to make sure my abs are thoroughly engaged, so the back isn't doing all the work, but I'm struggling to find ways to warm up the muscles. (Today's DB rows were done as part of that, which was why I didn't lift as much as I know I can.) I'm doing side bends, forward folds, trunk rotations, and locust pose, but I'm not sure if they're really doing the trick. Marine Thing: Bummer about the amazing shark photo circulating on Twitter at the moment as Nat Geo's photo of the year: It's fake. BUT if you want wonderful wildlife photographs that are either real or at least good enough to fool the Natural History Museum in London, here are some wonderful images by the winners and finalists of Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2016.

[insert Dad joke about my username here]

This was in the Scottish Poetry Library's retweets: All it made me consider deeply is the need for a Hygge-themed Candy Crush clone. With gingerbread biscuits and pine cones and fair-isle socks. Woot to MOT booking! Hope your day is gentle on you and you can catch up on sleep tonight. <3

Goat's cheese and caramelised onion had some heavy involvement, I will admit.

Update for weekend: - I lost my calorie slips again but did not eat like a tool. Buying a tiny notebook I can keep in my pocket at all times today. - Parents were here, so did not gym but did go for a walk. - Slipped up on water - Freggies were sufficient, though. I even ate spinach. Willingly. Gym today looked like: - Being 1 inch away from the splits! (I'm still not sure what exactly qualifies as "the splits" at a small scale, so I'm aiming for "being able to balance relatively comfortably on my thighs at 180 degrees without hand support". Still got an inch to go before the top of my backward-facing thigh is entirely on the mat, but getting there.) - Wall-stand for 20 seconds, and shoulder stand. Latter was a bit wobbly but I managed to do it at all so that was good. - Came very, very close to doing tree pose without touching the wall for support. Just need to take it slow and be conscious of my balance at each step. - Plank was 35 seconds today. - Usual stretching routine. Happy that I'm getting gradually better at the gymnastics, but it does take up all of my morning gym time. Maybe I should separate my routine into gymnastics on Day A and lifting on Day B. Hmm. Researching back warm ups though, because today was a bit rough on my back. Marine Thing: This Nat Geo blog post from 2013 talks about the bioluminescent bacteria that live in Bobtail squid (and help it to disguise itself as starlight to hide from predators below it). The bacteria have been found to help control the squid's body clock.

Thanks, Tank! It feels good writing out the affirmation in the mornings. My life-affirming text for the day was from Dear Coquette because I forgot to dig out a book to take with me today.

<3 Following you!

" So I started to talk to each person I passed. I smiled as I hurled cringe-worthy enthusiasm their way. “GO, GIRL!” “You GOT this, man!” “We’re almost there!” My only goal was to yell louder than the voices in their heads. And you know what? People smiled back. Some started running again. " That was a really lovely part to read, thanks for sharing that, Snarky! <3

Update for Thursday: - Calories: I lost the slip of paper I'm using instead of MFP which isn't working on my phone. I can't remember the total but I'm idiot-jarring this because I know there were too many chocolate frogs and too much wine*. Total: £1.00 - Freggies: At least one - Water: 2 litres - Gymmed as planned. Didn't sleep last night. One of those mornings where I try to unlock my coat with my house keys, so decided maybe attempting to be upside down or underneath a barbell wasn't a good idea. I'm looking forward to gym tomorrow, though, since I've got lots of time to do everything. Got to be careful today - going to the Christmas market on my lunch break. Kind of grateful that I can't eat most of the food there (meat), and I can't drink mulled wine with work later. Pretty sure the garlic mushrooms are about 50% butter though. It still counts as a portion of freggies. *There's a group of my friends who get together every fortnight and learn about a composer and listen to their work. It was Tchaikovsky this time, which made me very happy. Might be a plan to find a lower calorie substitute for the wine though. Marine Thing: New research indicates that almost three quarters of the food that manta rays eat may come from the deep sea.