Veritasria

Hey girls So a quick rundown of my challenge - I'm losing weight and strength training and still have around 10kg to lose for my life quest ATM. I'm focussing on eating the right amount of calories, working out 3x a week, and eating enough protein. Side quests/ work on getting into bed better with a routine and go for walks twice a week on rest days from the gym. Had a bit of a rough start to the challenge, I struggle a lot with comfort eating and bingeing and after the last challenge I went away on a holiday (that wasn't really a holiday) that kind of unbalanced me and I slid back into some old habits. But I feel like towards the end of this week I'm starting to peel away from those and get back on track. I'm really trying to practice body acceptance and love at the moment - which is hard, when you're working your ass off to change your body, to try and love and accept how it is right now... Work in progress. I hope everyone's challenges are going okay and yell out if anyone needs support or an encouraging word

Thanks Teros... I'm still working on being gentle/nice with myself. So I'll dish out my stat points for each goal here - Goal 1: Eat 1750 cal per day // +2 CON +1 WIS Goal 2: SL workout 3x per week, increasing weights every second/third workout // +2 STR +1 STA Goal 3: Eat 130g protein per day // +3 CON Life Side Quest: Focus on getting into bed earlier (10.30pm) with a better wind-down routine // +2 WIS Fitness Side Quest: Walk 2x week on off days from gym // +1 STA So far, I've had a pretty down/flat week about the challenge, my weight, and exercise. Struggling a lot around body acceptance and this is feeding into a whole bunch of insecurities about my relationship and eating habits and it makes it difficult to make healthy choices for my body. I've also been struggling a lot this week with comfort eating and haven't yet got back into my normal eating routine. But I feel like today I've woken up and got over the mental hurdle of being able to eat how I want to eat (less + quality). I seem to go through this every time I lose consistency with my eating - it takes me a while to move from the comfort/binge eating back to a consistent, less food-focussed day, where I can just go about my things without obsessing over what I'm going to be eating and struggling against really strong urges to just eat all the bad food in the house. This is really encouraging as I can feel myself losing the need to comfort eat as much. What I'm realising is that this isn't a permanent thing but it comes and goes, and the more consistent I can stay with myself - exercise and diet - the fewer of these bumps I have to get over. So I'm now +2kg from the last challenge, but I know I can knock that off and a bit more in the rest of this challenge. I'm feeling positive about it and I've refocussed myself on health, not appearance, which is also helping with the eating. That funny thing where the more you try to grasp it, the further away it gets, but once you let it go, it just seems to come on its own. At the end of this week I think I'm going to be up around 3000 cals on what my weekly goal would be, but I'm going to practice self-forgiveness and acceptance here, and be happy that it will still be slightly under my TDEE for the week, so even if I haven't lost a lot I won't have gained anything. I've been doing okay with my protein intake, but I plan to tackle that this week by prepping my meals and making sure I have more protein powder when I need it, and cutting my carbs back a bit - as I really don't need to eat them! On the plus side, in all the food I have been eating there have been a massive amount of vegetables and salads in there... Just can't get enough at the moment. My workouts have been on track, and I just need to go walking tomorrow. Sleep routine is getting better and I'm putting a lot of focus into it as I find it enables me to be a lot more balanced throughout the day. All of this exercise and eating and sleeping stuff is so closely tied with my emotional state that I can't really separate it out and need to take a holistic approach instead of an iron rod approach.

Well my brother took time off from the gym and when he came back his last set was the same weight as mine, so I was pretty chuffed. Eating their words in the way that they can't really give me any crap about my form or lifting as I've made pretty big progress with my lifts and lost a lot of weight in the process

Professional flute player HOLLA! My flute teacher is the best core PT around!

I was critiqued on my form I think about 2 months back, doing squats. I was doing about 50kg and trying to work on buttwink and finding what I was doing was doing whacky things to my form. The guy next to me came over and told me to keep my chest up and drop my weight, because 'women don't lift that much' (when I think 50 is quite light anyway...) I had to hold back the tears and I think I ran over to the water bubbler to get a drink because I was so embarrassed. A few things: Who are they to critique your form, are they your personal trainer? No. If someone tries something like that again I'll be a bit more self confident in thanking them for their advice and then telling them to leave me alone. Keep reading about how to do form, and post form checks. At least you know that the people here do know what they are talking about, and there's enough people commenting on the form checks to get a general consensus which is better than *insert random guy at the gym* coming up and telling you what to do. And lastly, how do they know you aren't working on something in particular already? All empathy to you, because I know when it happened to me I drove home crying in my car and swore I'd never pick the barbell up again and I'd stick to the elliptical and the bikes. But I'm still lifting and loving it - and, I see that guy around all the time, and I'm lifting heavier now, with better form. So forks to him! Keep doing what you're doing, we all start somewhere, barbell lifting requires dedication and time and practice to get really good form. Don't expect to have perfect form within a few months of doing it - it's always a work in progress. The Elite FTS videos are great too. Just do your research, post your form checks, and tell anyone that tries to correct you to kindly piss off You've got this!

Hey Elleme. On the topic of meditation, I may have a bit to say. I've had quite a bit to do with mindfulness in my personal life recently, and one of the things that has been discussed is the difference between the two. Basically meditation is a sort of very formal mindfulness practice but both of them have the same idea - to focus very intensely, for a period of time, on one thing. The state of 'not thinking' that Buddhist monks practice and is often toted as meditation is purely focussing very intensely on the present. Do not go into meditation expecting this to happen straight away. And try not to 'not think' as this is surely one of the best ways to drive yourself insane. Just acknowledge the thoughts and sensations as they drift past or float into your head, then let them go again. Perhaps some basic mindfulness practice techniques would be a good way to get into meditation. Mindfulness or meditation can be anything you want it to be - it's very diverse. It can be a half hour study of the palm of your hand, or five minutes of concentrating on the feeling of your breath going in and out of your nose. As for falling asleep when you do it - that's great, it means you are quieting your mind and body! It's common for beginners that they fall asleep when they start doing this, as often we are not acquainted with such a peaceful state of being in our busy lives. The more you do it and the more familiar you become with that feeling of peacefulness but awareness, the less likely you will go to sleep. That being said, I do mindful breathing/awareness practice at night to calm my mind enough to sleep, so you can use it for both. A really excellent resource to get you started with everyday mindfulness and incorporating it more into your life is Thich Nhat Hanh's The Miracle of Mindfulness (here) which you can pick up quite cheaply. Mindfulness has been a core and major component of me getting my life back, and helping control my urges around bingeing and food. It helps you become more aware of your body, mind, self, emotions, surroundings, and it can help leave you with some of that acceptance and peace that one naturally finds when very still, calm, quiet and aware (of self and surroundings and situations). Hope some of this helps you

+1 WIS for the miniquest - I'm part of the cowgirl's accountabilibuddies group now

Going to quickly assign myself some attribute points - Since I consider the challenge a success I'm going to give myself the 14 points for level 1 as follows: SL workouts: STR +3 STA +2 calories: CON +3 stretching: DEX +3 mindful flute playing: WIS +3

I'm a bit late to start this challenge, but I'd like to pop in here for some support this time - it's my second one! It's night time here in Aus so I have to go beddy-byes but I will read over the thread and introduce myself properly when I get a chance tomorrow looking forward to chatting with you ladies!

Main Quest: Weight in at 75kg Goal 1: Eat 1750 cal per day Goal 2: SL workout 3x per week, increasing weights every second/third workout Goal 3: Eat 130g protein per day Life Side Quest: Focus on getting into bed earlier (10.30pm) with a better wind-down routine Fitness Side Quest: Walk 2x week on off days from gym >> starting weight: 84.8kg I'm starting a bit late to this challenge. Last challenge I saw a lot of results, I lost about 5kg of pretty much all fat and saw a big change in my body. I had to go away for my boyfriend's mum's wedding and gained back 1.5kg. Since then I'm struggling getting back in the swing of eating properly and I'm struggling with motivation for not impulse eating and chowing down on chocolate and carbs (Easter doesn't help). I wasn't sure whether I was going to post this challenge or not, but I thought that even a little structure will help me. So here's hoping to a good five weeks!

End of challenge summary: The first three weeks I smashed it out. Things were a bit wobbly going back to uni, but generally my head was in a good place and I was able to keep on track with my goals. I worked out, ate really well, and stretched. I learnt a lot about my eating habits and what does and doesn't work for me. Then I hit a bit of a bump. Eating went all over the place, from not being able to eat anything at all, to eating too much of the wrong foods. I still worked out when I could - meaning being in the right place mentally - and was able to keep eating habits to more limited damage than I would have in the past. All up, even though I felt that the last three weeks weren't as solid exercise and eating wise, I've had fantastic results. I can't see so much of a difference in my body, but my weight and measurements have changed a lot, so this is something to be recognised and congratulate myself on. The only thing I'm concerned with is that some of the drop in the scale is water weight due to only strength training once a week for the past 3 weeks. However, having seen my results after six weeks has spurred me on to keep exercising and hitting the right amount and types of foods so I can keep seeing progress. Right now my mind and emotions are taking me on a pretty rough ride and this is more the struggle for me than the simple act of doing it. Getting my head there is 9/10 of the battle. Measurements: Hips: 112cm --> 109cm ~3cm Waist: 103.5cm --> 86cm ~17.5cm (this I think may be contributed to the original measurement being taken when I was bloated, but still the biggest improvement has been off my waist) Chest: 104cm --> 102cm ~2cm Thigh: 70cm --> 66.5cm ~3.5cm Upper arm: 32.5cm - same Weight: 88.9kg --> 83.3kg ~5.6kg I didn't take specific before and after photos for this challenge, but my photos from the beginning of February to the beginning of April show a massive difference, and this encompasses the six week challenge. I think I give myself a B for this challenge. I'm not going to go into all the details and marks and scores as this triggers a lot of achievement related anxiety and shame, but I did the best with what I could at the time and got good results, so maybe some of this is an effort component, but that's okay. Now to figure out what to do for my next challenge. Here's to me for getting through the first one, and everyone else that finished theirs too! Congratulations

Good luck with the last week of the challenge, better late than never and any progress is good progress

So I haven't updated for 2 weeks... and we have 1 week left of the challenge. Regarding my goals: Flute has been achieved in both weeks. However, the exercise, eating, and stretching haven't been as regular as I have had pretty massive upheaval in my personal life. Regarding my calories - I have hit target each week for calories, being slightly under. However, my protein intake has only been hit for about half of these days. So this gets a 1.5/2. SL I've only done once each week, as I've been away from my gym and haven't had access - something I'm addressing tomorrow, so even if I am away I can continue to workout. Stretching at the moment has been post workout and once away from that. So 1/3 and 1/2 for SL and stretching. One week left and I've lost 4kg during this challenge already, I'm going to nail the last week on the head and go out with a bang. Have my meals and protein all prepped for this week so I can smash it out and finish strong.

Thankyou <3 It's a process learning to be gentle with oneself.

I've had a challenging week. Transitioning back into uni is bringing up a lot of old triggers from last year. Combined with the amount of travel I'm doing to get to and from, and with all the work I have to do for it, emotions have been running high and I've been bordering on binge eating. I've made up for it in the last day or two by basically not eating anything. This is not the road I want to go back down. I can see the triggers for the bingeing coming up and even though my calories are close to where I want them to be for the week, this is an unsustainable and unhealthy way of approaching it. I also don't feel as comfortable in my own skin when I eat like this. My workouts suffer and so does my confidence about my body. I've been doing it under the name of 'intermittent fasting' which can work quite well sometimes when I've gone over on my calories, but I really think this can easily be used as a self-destructive behaviour under the guise of another name for me. Sometimes it will be fasting, other times it will be starving myself as punishment. So I think this is something I need to steer away from. Having had a look at what's come up for me about my body this week, there are a few things I've realised. 1. my calorie deficit is too severe 2. I'm not getting my macros right 3. in a rush to try and get to what I think I should look like I'm compromising myself 4. I'm extremely impatient and a lot of my motivation for eating this week has been self-loathing So. I'm going to stick with a 20% deficit. I'm going to work harder on hitting my protein goals. I'm going to stick to my guns about not eating food that makes me feel uncomfortable or doesn't fit my macros when I'm around other people. I'm going to do meal prep tomorrow so I can do that this week. And I'm going to practice acceptance and self-love of what my body is now, and not try to push it to be something it isn't. I can do this in a healthy, functional way that doesn't impair my health, energy levels, workouts or self-esteem. And going moderately instead of trying to cut madly to get it over with is the way to go on this and gives me an opportunity to practice acceptance. New nutrition goals: Calories: 1835 (20% deficit) Protein: 160g Fat: 70g Carbs: 138g If I want to eat a little bit under for one of the days that's fine, as long as I have hit my protein and fat intake and the deficit comes out of carbs. No compromising on this; the last thing I want to do is lose muscle along with fat because I'm desperately trying to lose weight (out of the idea that I'm 'disgusting' or 'too fat'). I've completed all my SL workouts for this week, done all my stretching, and played my flute. So A++ for all of these ones. My struggle is around food, and figuring out what works and doesn't for me. I think this is a really positive step and something I've been able to reflect on this week. I think the other important thing is giving myself a break and not pushing; not trying to figure out WHEN I'll have lost enough weight, WHEN I'll be able to start bulking, WHEN I'll be skinny and be able to fit into the clothes I want. For what purpose? Who I am isn't changed. I need to do this for me, not so I think other people will love me/like me more and I'm worth more as a person. I want to be fit and look good, for myself, but I want to accept the body I have now. And change takes time. This week: more self-love, less judgement. More acknowledgement that I have other things going on in my life right now, and less self-bashing. I have done so much work this week, personally, emotionally, interpersonally, with uni - and if I don't give myself that acknowledgement and work with it and give myself what I need, that pressure builds and manifests in other places. I don't want that for my body or my mind. This is my chance to do things differently and I'm taking it with both hands