Vella

Glad to be back. I've been so slack; it's good to get the motivation up again with community and nerdery. Yes, there can be pictures. I'll have to remember to take them, but there can be pictures.

Sub'd and following for the awesome (and totally not for more pics of Balen ) Best of luck - I fully intend to use this thread to make me jealous of your salads so I get my butt into gear and start making more of them myself.

Loving all of the gifs :D You may be better at them than you think - I hadn't done a cartwheel since I was in primary school when we tried them at parkour, and I found that if I have momentum, I just glide through them ... it's being brave enough to get momentum that's the difficulty, I think! Anyway, Sub'd and hoping not to pike out part way through this challenge

Sub'd and hopefully here for the whole stretch this time, with a challenge of my own to keep up with

Social dysphoria is most definitely a thing. I'd never heard of mental, either, but actually, yeah, that makes a lot of sense... (Queer All the Things challenge is up in the Assassins forum, if people want to see what I eventually went for)

But he shall not win round 2!! Isn't that what always happens? The villain kicks the hero's spandex-clad posterior a few times, and then the hero gets his act together and wins in the end? Well, whatever the case, we're back for the challenge, and things have changed. I have a job, which pays rent and not much else. I have a second job, which makes sure I eat. And I just need to hold out for a few months until my lucrative tax job takes me back (hopefully this time with New! and Improved! hours because I'll be a qualified tax consultant by then. I don't have any major holiday commitments looming on the horizon. And I've still got a couple of kilos' holiday/Honours/stress backslide to deal with. So here we go. Health Goals Not only will I remember to turn off the oven, I will use it to cook delicious things! Of which I know exactly how many calories there are. I've actually got to start tracking again - especially since a friend and I are trying Intermittent Fasting (two days a week, 24 hour period) together. I want to be sure that I'm not either eating waaay too little, or completely running off the rails. Unfortunately, I have this habit of batch cooking and not actually measuring what goes in. It needs to stop. I'm going to combat this two ways. First, stop being so lazy. Second, have a go at planning meals instead of just buying things and combining them. Since I've already grocery shopped this week, I will use this week to plan for next week, and start then. Now, the calorie counting can't be an exact science, for the simple reason that I have two to three social commitments a week where I'm either not cooking, or cooking for a group which includes a picky eater and a chronic snack buyer. I'm just going to be tracking otherwise, and leaving calorie space for those meals. Metric! 1 point per three days in a row logged. If I managed to string together three weeks, I get a two point bonus, the whole challenge, a four point bonus. I have this perfectly good bike sitting in my house and taking up space. I will do two things with it. First, I will reinflate the tyres because they are currently next to useless, and it's kind of important to do that before anything else. Then, I will ride it. I will ride it instead of driving. I cannot ride very far, as I have proven to myself, so I will start by riding the bike to the shops a few blocks from my house if I need to go shopping, and see how I go. Metric! 1 point per bike trip taken/car trip avoided. Bonus five points if I make it to the fresh markets - it's a 10 minute car drive and I'm highly likely to die, but maybe with some practice, by the end of the 6 weeks... the incentive is there. Yes, this is actually a health goal. There was going to be a pic of swinging and stuff, but then I found this and well it's kind of perfect. Saving money is currently a thing for me. Like, paying $10 for my parkour class may well mean I have to adjust my food budget kind of a thing. So, I'm going to try not to pay for parkour lessons. The parkour people fairly frequently just post things like "I'm going to practice. Who wants to go with me?" and people will show up. I will go to these instead. They are free, and involve new places to practice in. Metric! 1 point per free session attended. Two points if the session is the second one in the week. Life Goal I realised the other day I was using my work to procrastinate from my work, while I should have been doing my other work. So here we go: I'm not making a points system for this because that would be a hilarious defeat of the point. One hour, every day. Not messing around on the Internet, not having a "pause" from whatever the work is. I will chill. Sanctioned activities include: Video games Reading Watching a movie or some episodes of a TV series without having work open on my laptop while I do it. Getting back to my Irish translations, or learning kanji Going for a walk or a run or a bike ride. I am very bad at relaxing, and that's very bad for me, so I'm going to start working it into my daily schedule. Life's too short, and all that. But hey, look at all these points I'll have. I should do something with them, so they're not just abstract numbers in a metric. Well, as per a split-second decison half-joke discussion in another thread, these points will be used to Queer ALL the things!!! Diversity good and all that sort of thing. Well, in order to queer the world, one must first queer oneself (or something to that effect). SO. For every five points I get, I will make one themed project, either for me to wear, or for me to give to a friend, or to decorate my house with. It is appropriate to use my chillin' time for this. I don't know what these are yet, and I don't know how I will make them. Suggestions welcome. Baking is super likely to happen. I might be able to make some thread do what I want. But that's OK; I have time to gain points to think about it. Challenge first day in Australia, so I'll post an update this evening. Happy challenging, friends, and I look forward to following threads and getting involved again

When I get home from work, I'm posting up my challenge. Let's get in on this.

Where is this gym, so I can set up a smoothies, coffee and milkshakes bar next door and enact evil schemes to become rich?

Paleo versions of calorie-dense non-paleo things are basically always calorie-dense, too. Eating them instead won't help your weight loss any. If, however, you want to make treats, but your body is made unhappy by veering away from Paleo foods, then they're awesome. Provided they're still treats, nothing wrong with that.

I learned most of my cooking skills by first learning how to stir-fry and then putting different ingredients in to see how it goes. Bonus points: Try out new spices and see what works and what doesn't (discovery of the century was that cumin always improves scrambled eggs) Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food cookbook was a great resource for me when I got it, mainly because it doesn't gloss over basics like a lot of cookbooks do - it has an entire section on basic stew bases and then mentions some variations, and encourages you to invent some. It also has some sections on building salads, and goes through how to boil eggs for the desired interior consistency. All the recipes are really easy to follow, too. It's basically fulfilling its intended purpose of teaching people how to cook who have never cooked much before. Hmm, what else....? It's really just a matter of finding recipes you think are in your cooking range, and try them out, then vary the recipe and see what happens.

*takes notes on all the awesome advice here* I guess the next step is to get off my butt and start actually following it

Hi again! The Powerlifting thing sounds amazing! I wish you all the best at it And I'm sure we all totally understand about chasing dreams. Hell, I'm an aspiring author - Follow your Dreams is basically my second language. I hope whatever it is, it goes well and is successful.

Greetings/welcome to all the new folks while I was away! Twilight - is that a challenge? Because I think we can accept this challenge. I'm not sure if we can incorporate it into an NF challenge, but by golly we can try.

Tkal - that's an awesome letter! So awesome that you got it So ... I had an appointment today where I got a GP referral to a psych, who is, I hope, going to try and help me tell people that they should change my name on important documents and maybe even do the whole make-anatomy-fit-better thing! And also help manage other [redacted] issues as well, because I need to get back on top of that. Baby steps, but important baby steps.

Oh goodness, can I join the drinking weekend in spirit from across the world? Nice work on the goals - as a famous (and therefore always correct) man said, two out of three ain't bad. You've still got a few weeks to get on top of the last one And hope the thesis is going well! Congrats on your surgery date!

Clean house and kids is a worthy goal in and of itself Just make sure you're still getting enough you time.

I approve of that to-do list. That to-do list is good. and you can do it! Sucks that your mother brings things up at inopportune moments We're here for you if an argument does go down...

Good that your daughter is feeling better. Family sickness and being subsequently worn out is a perfectly good reason to not work out. And as others have said, portion control is totally a loyal subject under your rule now. Woo for starting the new week!

Sugar is one of those things that's it's difficult to give up because it's in so many things ... and so many things that are just plain delicious If giving it all up doesn't work, you could set conditions on when you're allowed to have sugary treats? But figure out what works best for you and go with that.

That sounds like an amazing trip so far. I hope you have so much fun!

That sounds like a pretty good balance of things overall! I'd say aim for the 1800 calories - but perhaps aim just shy of them (to hit just under rather than go over). The two days won't put you off that much, unless you really went overboard, and you're better off finding your routine again than constantly trying to compensate for things that may not have happened.

Thanks for all the answers, folks! It's definitely interesting to look at how other people are going about it, and get some tips.

Honestly, I just went straight into parkour. But then, I started with a group that runs classes, so I knew I was in good hands, with people who knew their stuff, and knew how they could reduce the difficulty of exercises to meet strength/training levels. I'm currently planning to supplement with barbell lifting, simply because I'm lacking the upper body strength I need to get to advanced techniques. When I thought I'd have to learn on my own, the first thing I did was practice rolls, though. Rolls are your bail move, so it's important to have them near automatic. But yeah, just start off with parkour, and start off slow and use training moves as your body conditioning. The best way to exercise the muscles needed for a particular move is to do that move.

Thanks! I understand this entire conversation better now ... *goes off to Google more info*

Start with people you feel comfortable trusting, so that when you come around to coming out to people you're less sure about, you have (hopefully!) a secure support network. I was much braver coming out to my very Christian grandparents because my parents were super supportive, and because all of my friends were very supportive, too. Even if knowing you can run to random people on the Internet (hi!) helps, start with that. The more you know people who will be supportive, the less other people rejecting you will affect your life.