Reindeer

There's an Hawaiian meditation thing that helps me. I think it's called Ho-ohnopolopolo or something like that? I probably butchered that but whatever. It's very simple. It consists of four phrases: I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I love you. Thank you. My own adaptation of this is, think about your eating disorder while saying or thinking this prayer. Because we have so much to forgive ourselves for - an eating disorder is like a multi-layered mess of self hatred. I needed to forgive myself for stressing myself out to the point where I first developed it. For all the self-hate I did BECAUSE I had it. And the self-hate for not managing to defeat it, and the self-hate because I knew I was self-hating on something I shouldn't self-hate for, and it was just a downward spiral. I've found it helpful to adress each of those layers. And just consciously forgiving, apologizing, and re-affirming some self-love to try and unravel the emotional mess.

I saw a box of eggs today. The header said "Eggs from freerange outdoors chickens!" Except, well, if you turned the package a little and looked at the SMALLER text, it said "EGgs from chickens with some access to the outdoors." Like how the crap is that even remotely the same thing.

I've realized that rest days are like potato chips. It takes a seious amount of discipline to take only one - a discipline that I have yet to display. I'm back for yet another attempt at fitness, and this time, I'm going to eliminate my age-old nemesis, my Achilles heel, my eternal lure towards the darkness. I want to do a routine with zero rest days. I don't really care what it is. I just want to go to the gym every day and do SOMETHING while I'm there. Prepping for gardening class in March is the goal, so aiming for flexibility and functional strength would be nice, but honestly I just need to build the habit at this point. I'll do this for a month and then I can start affording myself rest days. However... I have no idea what a daily exercise schedule would look like. At least one that won't be counter-productive. Anyone got routines to share? Books, blogs, whatever? I could sure use them.

Okay, so fans of Onepunch Man knows of Saitamas incredible, secret superhero training regime... do 100 pushups a day! Do 100 situps a day! Do 100 squats a day! Run 10 km every day! Every! Single! Day! (Eat three meals a day, but only a banana for breakfast. Also don't use the AC, to strengthen your mental resistance.) Lets just play with the thought that you were aiming to complete this regime on a long term basis... how would you train for it?

Why not? As long as you're dry before you step outside, I don't see why it would have any detrimental effects to take cold showers in winter? Hey, welcome aboard! I'm still weak... >.> cold water is torture that I have yet to push through...

OPEN PVP! Winter is coming. Soon, the ocean shall freeze over and trap the fishing ships still struggling to reach the harbor. The land, covered with white death and the air filled with bone-chilling, skin-cracking cold... Winter brings slumber to the land, and death to the unprepared and the foolish. It roots out the weak of the animals, force the plants to show their resilience in the circle of yearly death and re-birth, and men to prove their cunning and constitution. Even those who dwell within their cozy homes, in their safe cities, must venture outside - - into the freezing cold, into the domain of the reigning of the ice giants.. What? Welcome to the Cold Ass Viking Challenge! What is this challenge, you might ask..? We will prepare for the cold of the winter, build up our own tolerance to the temperatures, by taking ice cold showers daily! > Let the weak and feeble-minded be on his or her way out, for this thread shall be the abode of the brave warriors who challenge themselves to go beyond what they thought possible. For thirty days, we will train our bodies and our willpower, by stepping into the cold and accepting its challenge. The ultimate goal? Stay in the shower for three minutes... will you succumb to the overwhelming obstacle..? Or wo/man up to CLAIM your title as a Cold Ass Viking and pry it from the very fingers of your doubt?! RAAAAAAAAAARH! Why the hell would you do something that stupid?! Because cold showers offer a great many health benefits! It improves blood circulation and fat burning, and those who have gone before us and taken the challenge report increased mental clarity, alertness, and better tolerance to unpleasant temperatures, whether hot or cold. But the greatest reward of the challenge is the cultivation of your own willpower. Think about it.. do you want to take an ice cold shower? I'm willing to bet you don't. It's unpleasant, even painful, and it's so easy to simply turn that little knob in your shower to increase the temperature to something more comfortable.. maybe, this challenge is just to hard for you... maybe, you should just leave it to the crazier people... .. does that sound like the You you want to be? To me, it sure as hell doesn't. An assassin cannot chicken out just because a little bit of unpleasant cold stands in his or her way. The employers aren't going to give a shit if you were afraid to get your socks wet - the target is the target, and our goal is to GET THERE THROUGH WHATEVER, end of discussion and end of payment! When you have taken enough daily cold water challenges to force your body to adapt, you will have overcome a great mental obstacle - and you will be able to use that renewed willpower, and push into whatever endeavor your life throws at you. Are any of you brave enough to take up this obstacle, and CRUSH IT!!!!!!!? RULES: The challenge lasts for 30 days, and your goal will be to take a cold ass shower every single day, or as often as you can.No chickening out with 'kinda' cold - the challenge is to set your shower to the coldest you possibly can. Don't finish with a warm shower afterwards - to your circulation system, this will be like removing half the challenge!! If you want to take a warm shower, do it before the cold one. I suggest aiming for a 3 minute shower by the end of the 30 days. If you want to start small/short and work your way up, this means that you will increase your record time by one minute for every ten days. You are, of course, free to start this challenge whenever you want to, but the Cold Ass Viking Challenge will officially start at September 6. Good luck, brave warriors! Make your ancestors proud, and become the You you know you can be!

Definitely speak to your doctor first and make sure the fracture has completely healed. Another possibility is that you're simply very stiff in your neck area. Stiffness and 'short muscles' is a common cause for headaches in a lot of people. I imagine it is even more-so with people with spine and skull injuries - muscles often get stiff and require physiotherapy to return to what they once was, after the demanding and likely very much stationary healing process. Do you have a proper warm up routine in place, and do you ever focus on stretching your neck? If not, I'd see to that first.

I've decided to embark on the Convict Conditioning program and I've been at it for about two months now. I'm still on the very beginning stages, but my wrists feel a lot more solid than they used to, and as far as I'm concerned that means it's going to work just fine. I've decided to put most of my other workouts on the shelf for now and focus solely on CC and body weight for a while. However, I have a question regarding the "strength in the bank" concept. I understand the idea behind it - don't spend too much energy, keep enough fuel to stay fit and pain free through your recovery. However, when exactly should I stop the workout, according to this principle? Before I start spending any real effort at all, so that I could theoretically breeze through this beginner stuff without as much as breaking a sweat? When I've started to feel a little bit of a burn? Or when I'm nearing the end of what I can do, but well before failure? I also have a question regarding how to handle the program in relation to my active lifestyle. Coach described running the program even when working on the "farm", so it must be compatible, but I too am a farmer - I lift heavy shit, I am active throughout the day, I chase animals all over the place, and I move around a lot. I also enjoy some light, daily calisthenic works AKA Ido Portal style, not really for strength gains but just to keep my body fluid and supple, and work on flexibility. And I like swimming, too, I do a little bit of it daily as part of my morning routine. None of this is really enough to wear me out the way my old workouts used to (when I worked out until near failure), but I'm a far cry from the convict who spends his days locked in a small cell, sitting still while waiting his time out. I usually get home slightly tired, even before I start the CC work outs. If I keep this active lifestyle, should I count on having to take it easier with either the CC program or my farm work/swimming to see maximum strength gains? CC is a long-term commitment and a long-term investment, I get that, and I want to make that investment. Would it be better for me to focus solely on the program and tone down the other stuff, or would it simply not make much of a difference?

Ethical and environmental reasons. I am less hesitant to get off the animal fat than the actual meat, because I am also into Paleo and I'm a keto addict. Living in the far north means that fruits and veggies are already EXTREMELY expensive, and I will simply not be able to afford a high-fat vego diet due to the price of fatty foods like avocadoes, olives and nuts. I would have to pay almost as much for that alone as I pay for my rent.. sticking with the animal fat seems like the best compromise I can think of, and I also want to give it a try for the sake of experimenting with new diets, which I think everybody should do in order to figure out what suits them the most. *shrug* But alright. I'll keep that in mind, thanks.

Recently I have been considering going more or less vegetarian/vegan. I say more or less because I will be making an exception for animal fat - I can get that stuff for absolutely free from my local hunters, who would throw it away otherwise, so that fits with my moral reasoning. And, animal fat is the shit - slice it, fry it, toss it in a salad and bam. My one concern about going veggie however, is of course the infamous B12. I wonder, is B12 available in the fatty tissue of the animal? In enough quantities that I wouldn't have to rely on any other animal product? Or is it only available in muscle tissue? If I eat a little bit of daily animal fat, would that be enough to stop me from going B12 deficient?

I'm a bit late to the party, but I'm Swedish as well. Currently staying in Stockholm but I'm off to Skåne in a couple of months.

But creating a guild specifically for nature-related 'sports' would be different from creating a guild only for people who exercise outdoors...

But that's just the thing, this new guild would not just be about 'working out outside'! It would be specifically about things you do outside, and ONLY outside - it would be movenat, and kayaking, and mountain climbing and stalking animals and climbing trees and carrying logs across streams and swimming and snow ball wars and crossing a distance with all its obstacles and a whole range of other things that does not fit into existing guilds - all guilds can take their exercising outside, but just because you lift weights or do bodyweight exercises under the open sky doesn't mean you'd do the same thing as us outdoorsers. That's just not what we do when we exercise outside, at least that's not what I want the guild for (because those guilds already exists). None of these fit into one guild at the moment, but it DOES all fit into the lifestyle of outdoorsy people. That's the group I want a guild for. Someplace I can discuss hiking (and not just walking from place A to place B ) and where my monthly challenge can be appreciated by likeminded people who do the same thing on a regular basis. At this time, it is not as easy to find those like-minded because, really, we're spread across so many different places and I think that's too bad, because there's quite a few of us.

@Kaylya I might have to check those out. Thanks! @AlexCold Making shoes that looks respectable sounds like quite the undertaking, though. I imagine I'd need an industrial sewing machine or something in order to get the rubber soles on there, and those tend to be pretty expensive. I'll have to look at the option, but seriously now, considering the market for barefoot shoes there HAS to be SOMETHING!

No worries. You can still be partially paleo. I would, however, suggest that you don't go fully Paleo. Many people, including myself, lose the taste for most 'conventional' foods after a while - bread, pasta, sweets, all those things, they just don't taste good anymore when that happens. For me it's worth it - everything else tastes so much better. But for you, who work in the restaurant business, you will want to avoid that. As long as you keep "cheating", you shouldn't have to worry about it, tho