Korranation

I do this! I always think if I used the time I spent colouring my notes in to do more studying I'd be at least 70% more clever. 

 

You're making great progress! Do you run on a treadmill? At home or at a gym?

Thanks!

color coding your notes is the best! It helps with the SQ3R study method I'm trying. Adding a splash of color helps with the quadruple strength learning: Seeing , saying , hearing, writing!!!

I've got a treadmill at home. But its in my parents room. I might start going to the rec center at my school soon. The only downside would be that there isn't anywhere to watch my anime and I'd get weird looks if I laughed for whatever reason while listening to a podcast.

Outta my way

Day 15 & 16

I'm running out of things to day about my day. They just feel so average. Other than that time I had to wrestle that owl bear yesterday. But I digress. 

Yesterday was a free day, I spent it studying. Yay. My stepmom couldn't get out of bed that day after the masseuse man-handled her the day before. She has some major bruise-age. I ran around getting lunch for my sisters only to come home and find that the place forgot an entire meal. I then spent the rest of the day laughing at how much of a derp my dog can be when he tries to jump on my bed, and how weird his snoring is. Or his silly attempt at being suave and dapper. 

Today I got the rest of my school books. Huzzah! Finally got my shit together.. that is until I found out I forgot my pencil pouch. But I came home to study. I got carried away with the new highlighter set I got. There are six different colors. My notes look like a rainbow threw up on them. 

Workout

Woke up early to workout. But the treadmill was guarded. By my parents. Since they refuse to let it out of their room. It's current occupation is a glorified coat rack. 

I felt like today was a good run. I can really zone out get in the zone to a good show and run like no ones business. The couch to 5k really kicked things into gear this week. I'm having to run for three minutes straight. My legs felt a little bit wobbly after my three minute sprint was up. idk if I'm breathing the right way. 

I'M Distance: 1.51 miles

Feeling: Pumped

Avg pace: 18:32 min per mile

Summary: 5 min warmup walk. Jog for 1.5 min, walk for 1.5 min, jog for 3 min, walk for 3 min

Time: 31 minutes

Food

calories 1,620

carbs   51%

fat        32%

protein 17%

calories 1,395

carbs   36%

fat        32%

protein 32%

Book

The only books I read were the ones for my classes. idk if that counts. But at least I know how to read 'em.

Go away cabbages!

day 13 & 14

Not an eventful day. Woke up exercised, showered, ate breakfast, studied, wrote on NF, watched youtube while I had lunch, studied more, had dinner, and finished an online quiz. And now I'm writing this lovely log. The highlight of my day was playing with my dog and loving how much of a goof he is. And the new show Star Vs. The forces of Evil was on tonight. That was so awesome! I wish I had a magic wand that could make rainbows that caught on fire and puppies with lasers.

workout

Didn't workout yesterday because of scheduling. But today I did my BBW. And I didn't use my dog as the dumbbell weight this time. I started off with 4 intense minutes on the rowing machine. There's this fish game on the monitor that reads your speed and strength in each row and moves a fish around the screen. The objective is to eat the little fishy's and avoid being eaten by the big fishy's.

• 20 body weight squats
• 10 push ups
• 20 walking lunges
• 10 dumbbell rows 
• 20 crunches on the ab roller 
• 30 Jumping Jacks

food

The calories are close to the same but proportions are completely different.

Yesterday I went to have dim sum with the family. Most of what I ate was shrimp wrapped in rice paper. For snack I ate way too many almonds which accounts for the high fat level. For dinner I ate the rest of the left overs in the fridge; parmesean chicken and pot roast. Yay for more protein.

Today I was kinda stuck at home. Everyone went off do to their own thing while I stayed at home studying. The high carb count is for the oatmeal I had for breakfast, the crackers I had with tuna fur lunch, and the sandwich and chips I had for dinner. The was little healthy stuff in the fridge, but I'm hoping to stock up on left overs as I cook dinner this week. 

calories 1,400

carb    14%

fat        51% 

protein 35%

calories 1,382

carb     49%

fat         32% 

protein  18%

book

Still haven't found time to read. But I still think what life would be like for a hufflepuff. They're just so cool. 

Weekly progress

goal 1: Running

ran 3/3 days

VERDICT: A

goal 2: Lifting

workout 2/3 days

VERDICT: B

goal 3: Fooding

stayed in calorie limit 6/7

VERDICT: B

But Toph faces things head on. She's strong and tough and independent (to a fault even). So I could see having a lot off goals that make me more like my favorite Blind Bandit. 

 

You could say she's... solid as a rock. 

Don't say you didn't see that one coming. 

WEEK 1: stayed up to date with my S.M.A.R.T goals. check. 

WEEK 2: idk about the cleaning part. All of my room is clean... except for the closet. I promised myself that I'd clean it this week, but I've been so busy that I never got around to it. not check         

I feel ya on those bread sticks. I don't eat paleo, but I do try to stick to only good carbs, but every now and then, a bread stick or a hamburger bun is suddenly in my hand, and there's Emily Blunt in the back of my mind: 

 

And I always manage to knock my earbuds out, flailing or not. The last few weeks at the gym I've gone without them just because of that. 

I have to tell you, following your quest has made me do a lot of thinking about changing my long term goal to Becoming Toph. I'm putting together some idea of what that would entail. It occurs to me it could involve learning Southern Praying Mantis style Kung Fu. Which sounds crazy to me, that I might take on a martial art. And also interests me, because what if I could not only lose weight but also learn an entire new way to train my body? 

What about you? Do you think martial arts will eventually play into your quest? 

The struggle is real with the varbs and the earbuds. Whenever I start a run I always think of those commercials for the new wireless or smart ear buds.

By all means, go be Toph. That would be an awesome goal. I would definitely stalk follow that challenge. If you are interested in a new way to train your body then go learn kung fu. 

I haven't really thought about the types of martial arts I'd like to dedicate for each style of bending I want to learn. The style of Hung Gar in earthbending looks challenging, but I may learn that later after I level up a bit. The only reason I didn't add it in the challenge was that I wanted to focus on the basics of exercising before moving onward and I'm enjoying exercising at home. Plus some of the styles are more for combat/defense and I'm more of a avoid-any-physical-confrontation type of person. 

earth:  Hung Gar (Southern Praying Mantis style of Kung Fu Toph)

water: T'ai chi ch'uan

fire:  Northern Shaolin Kung Fu

air:  Ba Gua and Hsing Yi.

Although I do love the different styles of martial arts each element has, I'd rather represent it in my own way. 

Airbending will be my next challenge. I'm still going to do running since I'm enjoying it. but my main focus will be meditation and yoga. 

Waterbending will be interesting. I will do t'ai chi, but other than that and drinking water I don't know what other goals do for that challenge.

Firebending is a little more tricky. Their style is more agressive type of unarmed combat. I still want to throw kicks and punches, but not at or in front of other people. I've tried zumba in the past, but other than the upbeat music it feels like your just flailing your limbs around. I'd focus on tae bo or kickboxing.

Also, I don't think you should base your philosophy of happiness and how you treasure people off the feelings you have right now. You are in a time of extreme flex and you are in the process of having your heart trampled on, you need a firm foundation for what you think and how you feel about you before you can decide what you feel and how you think about others.

Ah, my dear. Are you sure you don't want to join the druids for a round or three? (I meant challenges, but writing that could mean drinks, and of course we could do that, too.)

I agree with having a strong foundation of self before building a foundation (of feelings and thoughts) of others. 

And if that means joining the druids for a while, then please do. The druids may be more knowledgeable in regard to feelings and emotions, and ways to better understand them.

I have to agree with everyone here, that was simply amazing!!!

Today was one of those days that I didn't want to do anything. I had planned to sleep in, but my body was like ahahahaha no. 

 

Weekends can be like that...

First off, Welcome to the Rebellion!

You will definitely find the help you need here. And you can make your proper introductions here. 

The respawn point is a great place to start for those that have fallen off the tracks. And its the first step in continuing your journey. 

Looks like you have some fairly reasonable goals you want to achieve. Its difficult finding a good workout plan. But here are a few different workout routines you may want to look at. Don't be afraid to ask about any questions on a routine, or bodyweight training and weightlifting. 

My advice: start a challenge. Its never to late to start. Here are the instructions for the challenge.  Its a lot to read, but basically all you need is a main quest and three goals to help you get to the quest. 

Its should look something like this:

Main Quest - be healthier

Goal 1 - workout 3-5 times a week

Goal 2 - sleep 8 hours a day

Goal 3 - eat healthy/ count calories

After you start your quest post a daily log in your challenge thread to keep track of everything and be more accountable. 

Best of luck!

DubiousChi, there are two kinds of depression. Many of us have an internal kind, where we occasionally switch into a depressed state and struggle to do anything. The triggers are often unclear and we simply have our peaks and troughs and do what we can when we can. What you're describing is an external depression - it's damned obvious to you what's making you miserable, and it's not a fault in your brain chemistry or some such.

 

In my opinion, the best thing you can do here is get out. The rent may be cheap, but you're paying for it with a lot of extra work - and your sanity, which is too high a price. Get out of there, find your own place. How you do that and how you pay for it, I don't know. But make it a priority. You are NOT responsible for your family members - your father and sister can make their own choices, and they must. You cannot make their decisions for them. Who knows? Perhaps you leaving will be a spur to them making a change to their own lives.

 

As for college - why are you at college? What are you looking to do? If you don't have a field in mind, you aren't studying for a particular career. You are spending your time and money on a college course that you don't seem to actually want to be doing. Are you attending for the right reasons?

I've been planning to move out for a while. Its just a matter of securing a job or room&board loan/scholarship. I'll hoping to finish up the semester and get things in order over the summer for the move. 

At first I just went to college in hopes that the first major I picked would be the best one. Even though I knew that wouldn't be the case. I am getting my degree in accounting. That is for sure. I've enjoyed those classes more than the others that I've taken. My grandpa, aunt, and uncle all have accounting degrees and pursue completely different careers. I've talked with a lot of professors and career counselors and they have all said the same thing, the sky is the limit and you'd never be without a job. If I stay on track with my classes I will have my degree by summer 2016. I have done a lot of networking and can find a job/internship while I work to get my CPA. The hiccup I mentioned about my classes was because of my grandmother. She was in the hospital after a fall and I wanted to spend time with her. She passed away last month. I know I didn't have my priorities straight at the time, but I don't regret my decision. I enjoyed spending the time I could with her. 

Someone told me I was really cool/ awesome for my outfit. I'm wearing a totro shirt and a spiderman hoodie. 

My life feels like its going nowhere and yet there's so much shit going on.

I've been in college for four years now and have no sign of having a degree anytime soon. I use to be in engineering and I thought that if I just stuck it out with the terrible classes I would finish. But I hated every second of it. So I switched to accounting. But the college of business is even more strict. My gpa wasn't doing great and I had a slight hiccup in a class. Afterward, my adviser told me I had a chance of being exited and that I could petition to stay in accounting but if they didn't accept the petition I had little to no chance of getting any degree. So I ran to multidisciplinary studies to focus on business course and raising my gpa, but last semester my adviser there messed up my classes and I got stuck with random sociology courses I never care to take, which further screwed up my gpa. I'm trying to get things in order. I figured that if I took full time this semester and got all A's that I would have the grades to get back into the college of business and finish my degree by next summer. 

Now the only problem is my family. I still live with my parents since its cheaper and they live less than ten minutes from campus. But somehow I got stuck doing all the work. I take out the trash and recycling, do all the cooking and cleaning, and run most of the errands. And still get treated like shit. There are only two reasons why I stay: my dad and my sister. They mean the world to me. And for some reason I would feel bad leaving them there with my stepmom and stepsister. My stepmom does nothing around the house. All she does is complain about everything. And my stepsister is no better. I'm convinced she  is a narcissist. She lies, manipulates everyone, and cries to get what she wants. She thinks she is better than everyone else. She says so to me everyday. She is extremely selfish and will break into my room and steal what she wants. Although she has been caught multiple times doing so she is never punished for it and I somehow get the blame. 

Two years ago I was in a car accident and was in a wheel chair for three months. During that time I would hide in my room and barricade the door when she got home because the first thing she would do was steal my wheel chair and walker as a joke and I would be stuck wherever I was at the time until someone else got home. She still thinks its funny and reminds me about it constantly. 

I don't know what to do anymore. 

I know how you feel when that time of the month comes rolling around again. Just go for your puppy instead of the cake. That way your still getting chocolate and sweetness minus all the calories. That's what I do with my dog. Chocolate puppies are the best. 

I wonder if target is still selling their space kitten leggings

Day 11 & 12

Strictly avatar speaking: I'm in enemy territory. And its hard to get things done. Flying around on appa is getting difficult since there's so many fire nation people, but at least I'm getting that done. Earthbending is even more difficult because of being sore from riding around with appa and having other responsibilities to take care of. Sometimes Azula is just chasing after me. I can't just jump ship and fly across the ocean in hopes of avoiding her. I'm the avatar. I have responsibilities. I have the world to save. I think. 

Translation: Too much is happening at once and its too stressful. One of the few things that is keeping my sanity is writing these entries. It gives more structure when I feel that I have none. I'm glad I didn't pick a study quota for a goal of else I would have pulled my hair out on day one. At least I'd look more like Aang if I did. 

With the school schedule I'm almost running late to class since the treadmill is in my parents room and I have to wait until everyone is done and gone before I can have a go. I'm gonna switch running to Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays when I don't have class so I don't have to worry about that in the future. I'm also increasing the incline so my knees don't hurt. It will be a more challenging run but less stressful on the joints. 

Schools another problem all on its own. I've got professors that I haven't met yet, books to worry about and pick up later, and online classes that no one seems to want to post on leaving me in the dark. The chapter notes and problems the professors have provided are stressful to look at. And now I have this fear that everything I'm studying isn't sticking. I don't know if it is or not since I haven't gotten to the practice quizzes in any class.

food

The phrase "you can't outrun your fork" keeps going through my head after thinking about yesterday. I went waaaaay over my calorie limit. There was a surprise trip to olive garden, home of the bread sticks, land of the carbs. I tried to be good and just have the soup and salad but somewhere along the way I found myself eating bread sticks. I'd just look, and there in my hand was a bread stick. Idk how many I ate. And being my cousin's birthday didn't help, since there were cupcakes too. Special red velvet cupcakes with a rich homemade chocolate frosting. I was hurting after I left the restaurant.

But today was good. I had a high protein brunch, almonds and greek yogurt for a late snack. I saved my calories for the day for dinner. Eating out again with the fam. Restaurant of choice: Chinese. 

calories 1,610

carbs   35%

fat        41%

protein 24%

workout

So yesterday I couldn't practice earthbending on account of being so sore. I just woke up and my knees hurt. So I gave them a rest. And a lot of hydration. 

I'm running out of movies to watch during my runs. So I decided to switch to anime! I was doing enough fangirl arm flailing, so I thought... why not do it more? So I picked ouran highschool host club. What could possibly go wrong? I didn't fall off the treadmill, but I kept knocking my earbuds out with my excessive arm movements. 

I'M Distance: 1.50 miles

Feeling: Winded

Avg pace: 20:40 min per mile

Summary: Brisk 5 min warmup walk. Alternate 1 1/2 min of jogging and 2 min of walking

Time: 31 minutes

book

It's a slow crawl reading. I'm only getting a few pages each day. I mostly read before bed to unwind, but I'm too tired to get far. Right now I'm at the point where Harry Is at some mid point with the Weasleys, where they're going to camp for the night before heading the the quidditch world cup. I feel bad for the muggle having to rent the tent out and having to deal with the excess of wizards freaking him out and excess of 'obliviate' spells being cast at him. 

Some days you just need a good laugh

Day 10

Today was awesome. I got to spice things up with some good food, met my quirky professors today, and hang out with my awesome friends. I still need to get my studies in order, and thankfully I am free Tuesdays and Thursdays so I can devote that day to catching up on my readings and maybe getting ahead of the curve. Plus tomorrow gives me a chance to bring my own lunch and snacks, so more protein for me. 

workout

I finished watching The Cat Returns during my run today. I forgot how short that movie is. I had to take a pause at the 20 minute mark to catch my breath. If I get too caught up in the movie I'm watching I forget to do proper breathing and pacing while running. 

I'M Distance: 1.57 miles

Feeling: Awesome

Avg pace: 19:44 min per mile

Summary: Brisk 5 min warmup walk. Alternate 1 1/2 min of jogging and 2 min of walking

Time: 31 minutes

Food

Today was a foody adventure for me. It's been a while since I've had non-home prepared food and it was nice. My stepmom took me out to breakfast at Magnolia's as a thanks for cooking this past few weeks. They had just started serving mamosas there, and they used the good oj. The eggs benedict and pancakes were good too.

Campus was another story. I always try to hang out with my friends in one of the lounges. Whenever lunch time rolls around everyone gets something to-go from the food court and eats together. Usually they can't finish everything and end up giving their fries, nuggets, random panda express meat, and other tasties away. But Wednesdays are special. That's when a few organizations give away free sandwiches and pizza. While I went to get a cup of joe as a pick me up (I felt tired at that moment) a woman had come by the lounge and given the group four boxes of pizza. I managed to grab a small slice. I felt guilty about eating unhealthy, but hey, I deserved a little treat after how I've been eating this week. 

At home we decided to make sandwiches. There's nothing like a homemade sandwich with freshly sliced meat and cheese from the grocery deli, and some juicy tomato slices with lettuce to top it off. 

tbh I got a little carried away with the fudge, which might account for the high carb percentage. 

calories 1,804

carbs 47%

fat 37%

Protein 16%

book

Haven't gotten any reading done today. I did however find some HP posts on tumblr that made me stop and think for a minute. even cringe. One cringe worthy post was someones telling of rereading the books but replacing the word 'wand' for 'willy.' Although I did laugh after thinking about the situation when Ron broke his wand after the womping willow accident and trying to fix it with tape. Another post that made me think was a how the potter series would have been different if He was put into Hufflepuff. I had to look that one up and it was an off reference to some performance called A Very Potter Musical by a group called starkid. I've never seen the musical or any others of theirs but I guess I have to once I'm done with the books. 

I started a new plan for my current 6 week challenge. 

For cardio I'm doing the couch to 5k. I've been doing it on the treadmill since the weather is not so good outside. Although I'm only two weeks in I'm feeling great about it. I've gotten a faster average mile than my first week and can now run farther and longer than previously. The routine is alternating walking and running and I've been going either 2.0mph or 5.0 mph. I'm going to try for a faster run since 5.0 felt a little too slow last time. 

For strength training I'm starting off with the BBW. I've already done it for a week but feel like its not working out. It isn't challenging enough. I've been doing four minutes on the rowing machine for the warm up. I think I may switch to the hotel workout but work my way up to 20 minutes. Last time I tried the full workout I had serious DOMS for a week. (That might have also been due to no post workout stretches and lack of hyrdation)

I'm alternating between the two: cardio MWF and strength training TueThurSat. 

Is that too little/enough/too much of a workout, is there anything I may have left out of the workout, any alternatives, or recommendations?

Good job with the workout, Dub! 

And that chicken looks AMAAAAAZING. Did it taste as good as it looks?

Thanks!

The chicken way amazing. The sun-dried tomatoes really brought a lot of flavor to the chicken and tied everything together. It goes really well with angel hair pasta. Plus the leftover sauce was perfect for the pasta.

I've been counting my calories with MFP recently and even took up a challenge not to go over my daily limit. Since then I've been snacking less. But because of that I'm not meeting my daily minimum calorie requirements. I have coffee, eggs, and yogurt everyday for breakfast (I might start having oatmeal with that too), leftovers from previous dinner for lunch, and a light dinner usually with extra meat/protein and veggies. 

Now that classes have started up again, the stress of studying, homework, projects, and exams might cause me to start binging and stress eating. Are there low carb healthy snacks yall recommend?

If one door closes, you open it right back up

Day 09

Today was stressful. I ran around campus most of the afternoon trying to figure out my class schedule. Every adviser kept contradicting the other when it came to what to do, where to go, and who to go to. Thankfully, It turns out that there is no record of me being exited from the college of business. I changed my major before those papers could be filed thankfully. Although I'm stuck in multi disciplinary studies the majority of the business courses are also needed for accounting. So I'm spending this semester getting my business gpa up and re administering for accounting in the summer. There should be no reason for them not to if I get all A's (which will be difficult but doable.) If for some reason I can't I'll petition. All of my friends who have petitioned one reason or another have gotten their way in. Now that I'm enrolled all I need to do is talk to financial aid and make sure there are no problems there so I don't get any classes dropped, find the book list, buy/rent the books, read the syllabus, write down my homework schedule, talk to the professors since I missed the first day of class, and get school supplies, a simple 5 subject notebook should do since I have an over abundance of pens, pencils, and highlighters.

Workout

So proud of myself. The first thing I did the morning was workout. The I warmed up by doing four minutes on the rower machine. Then I got shit done while listening to my DDR playlist. I couldn't find a dumbbell so I used my dog instead. I've heard that its great to involve your pets in your workouts.

• 20 body weight squats
• 10 push ups
• 20 walking lunges
• 10 dumbbell rows (used my dog as the weight)
• 20 crunches on the ab roller 
• 30 Jumping Jacks

Food

Oops. I ate my feelings again. So there was some chocolate fudge lying around and well you can guess what happened next. No I did not eat the whole thing. I would be very ill if I did. I had, like, less than a third of it. No biggy right? I still had a good protein packed breakfast. Lunch was a little iffy. I got so stressed out this afternoon that I couldn't eat. I knew that if I did I would throw up. But I went home early chilled out to an episode of Bob's Burgers with my dog, then ate. And I made creamy chicken in Parmesan with sun-dried tomatoes and it was awesome. It was almost paleo except for the cheesey part. 

calories 1,288

carbs   27%

fat        37%

protein 36%

Books

I only got a few minutes of reading for HP & ST and so far the Weasly's broke the Dursleys chimney. Hopefully Ron's dad patched that up. And Fred and George used Dudley as a ginnie pig for their ton ton-tongue toffee. I laughed way too hard when his tongue swelled and his parents were freaking out and throwing shit everywhere. That would have been a weird scene in the movie. 

Aww, it's a kitty~! So cuuute~!

 

Keep being awesome!

Thanks!

Don't Forget To Be Awesome (DFTBA) yourself!

Sometimes you just gotta metal bend and get shit done

Day 08

Shit got done today. I actually woke up early. First time in a month. And I woke up before my alarm. I went to campus today and fixed my trouble with financial aid. Then I had to wait forever to see an adviser seeing as it was the first day of classes. But now I find that I got excited from the college of business and idk if I can send in an appeal or not. I wrote one anyways. I found a good example online and changed the part that didn't match my situation. It matches the probably reasons for appeal which were medical, family, emergency/death, miscommunication with staff. I'd literally been spending most of my time helping my grandmother when she was in the hospital and after she was bedridden at home. The free time I had left from that was picking up my sisters from  school and making the family dinner. In my letter I tried to be as painfully honest as I could, showed humility by taking blame for my actions (its best not to blame anyone else), was polite, and stated my plan. I'm hoping that when I turn it in I can cry a little (I know I sound like a terrible person) but I'm not the crying type but I don't know how else to show how much everyone means/meant to me and take responsibility for not balancing priorities.

Workout

I didn't get to run this morning because of... responsibilities stuff. But I ran for for a full half hour after dinner. And it felt awesome afterward. That's the longest I've ran so far. I even did some stretches afterward. I've read way to many posts about rebels cramping up or feeling sore because of not stretching. 

I'M Distance: 1.57 miles

Feeling: Awesome

Avg pace: 19:44 min per mile

Summary: Brisk 5 min warmup walk. Alternate 1 1/2 min of jogging and 2 min of walking

Time: 31 minutes

Food

I didn't have time to have a lunch today or snacks, but I had a big  (protein filled) breakfast and pot roast for dinner. I made enoug for left overs. My schedule will be less busy tomorrow so I can have more pot roast for lunch. 

At least I didn't go over my calorie limit. or exceed 30% for carbs.

calories 800

carbs   21%

fat        39%

protein 40%

Books

I haven't gotten any reading done today. But here's a Harry Potter gif anyway.

Great first week progress, I hope you managed to sort out your financial aid issues. 

Thanks. It was stressful, but I got it done today.

Good job, DubiousChi!

Sorry about the bad feelings this weekend, but I think we've all been there with eating the feelings. But good job on not going over the calorie limit.