mediaguy99

I brought a bunch of lettuce just shoved into a tupperware with a bunch of baby carrots mixed in for lunch today (pre-ride). I have a turkey sandwich for after. Does that count as a salad (the tupperware, not the sandwich)? Are you moving your neck well again? Keep doing the thing!

We leave at the end of the month...

Mmmmm sounds amazing

So awesome! I used to LOVE making hibiscus tea, cut it with mint. Would like to know more about your cold brew (assuming coffee, yes?). I've tried to make it and it didn't come out very good.

Super healthy meals, amazing work in the weight room. Impressive.

Yoga class often makes many things feel better. At least for me .

Holy cow, how do you have time to do that??? I cancelled Netflix, and the deadline is looming (7/18) for us to finish just watching the rest of ST and Jessica Jones... I fear we won't finish and I'll have to re-up my subscription again. Wait a minute, I'm going to have to when GLOW comes out again anyway. Sigh. Yes, eat more veggies is on my challenge for the month too. It's hard! But it seems like you're doing a pretty good job at it?

Hey Assassins: I closed out my last challenge, and here I am to try again. And no, I'm not actually swimming. I don't mind the water, heck I'm a SCUBA diver so I kind of love it, but swimming for exercise is kinda godawful for my brain. Too repetitive. I'm a runner, through and through. Also maybe a biker, and probably could be more so as my joints age. But I digress. My last challenge was focused on combatting sugar and eating more veggies. I did OK on the sugar front, but failed miserably on the veggies. So here I go again, starting smaller with a hope that I will be able to succeed this time. 1. Eat TWO servings of vegetables per day; THREE if breakfast consists of a spinach (+ whatever) smoothie. 2. Log food on MFP four days/week or more, stay below calorie recommendation. 3. Come up with three solid "next phase" career paths, and write down the pros/cons/expenses of all of them. 4. Keep running before work, 3x/week 5. Archery practice 1x/week, until we go to Colombia Rewards: For every seven days with 2-3 servings of vegetables, I get to buy myself P. I don't know what P is yet, but I've got to reward that behavior with something other than good feels since I'm clearly highly opposed to it. Might be date night at the movies with Mrs. MG, or filet mignon. For every seven days of logging on MFP, I get to buy myself Q. I don't know what Q is either, but see above for some ideas. I don't need more stuff, so that's out. It's limited to experiences and good food Archery practice, career paths, and running are their own reward. Theme: I exercise a bunch, and I know my deficiencies are in stretching and weight lifting/bodyweight workouts, but I feel like there's enough on the list already. I mean, there's the whole "pick up the apprentice on a bike" now that we've moved not further from his school but WAAAAY higher--like a 400-500' climb higher. It's a serious proposition to pick him up on the tandem and ride home with him chillaxing in the stoker position. (for those not in the know, he's only 8 and even when he's pedaling hard, which only lasts for 30-60 seconds at a go, it's a minimal effect). Anyway, I have been the same weight (somewhere between 170-175) for like a year now, and I'd like to get down below that. Clearly my fork is winning since, as mentioned, I exercise a bunch. Well that's enough out of me for today. Any support from the Assassins' Guild would be appreciated.

Hey there, glad to see you posting a goal and whatnot. I'll stick around and follow for the "usta'do" circus'y situation. I too am inordinately proud of you for eating salad for lunch twice this week. I have a hard time these days eating salad at all. At one point, if I didn't work out, salad was what I got for lunch. Extra healthy too, since I don't like dressing. These days I almost have to snigger at the thought of eating "just a salad". So good for you. Score one for Sylph!

Ha, brain weasels! OK I think I'm back after the mayhem that was renovating our new house, moving, cleaning, and then selling our old house. The best part for me was that we didn't have to do it all in one day like the last time we moved. We literally put all our stuff in a u-Haul, cleaned the old house, went to bed, woke up and sold our house at 9am, and then purchased our new house at noon, had lunch, and took all the stuff from the truck and put it in the house, and then returned the truck at 6PM. That was mayhem. This was just a lot of cleaning and construction spread out over two weeks. We're in the new house, most of the boxes (that aren't in storage--but that's another story) have been emptied, the yard has been mowed and weeded (mostly), and the patio pavers have been laid in preparation for the hot tub. Did I manage to stay away from sugar through that whole ordeal? Hells no. Was I a crazy mad sugarfiend? Not so much, but there's lots of room for improvement. I quit Omada, as I wasn't learning anything, wasn't motivated by it at all, and prefer the numbers I get when I enter my food in MFP. When I craft a new challenge, I'll have to make sure to include MFP in the daily goals. It really helps me. I've been running a bunch since we moved to the new house--there are so many paved and crushed gravel paths right by our house. I can string together probably a 10 mile run right out my front door, and not have to run on the road. It's pretty great, though none of it is what I really love, which is honest to god trail running in the forest. Forests are hard to come by when you get away from the flatirons, and now we are a good five miles from the flatirons. Which means I'm going to have to drive to get those in, as I don't really even get the chance to hit them while I'm at work anymore either. Whatever, it'll be good for my character. Anyway, I don't think the past challenge was a wash. My mindset has changed a bit, and now I'm more painfully aware of my propensity to want to overindulge on the sugary bits. Am going to try and keep that at the forefront of my mind moving forward. I didn't change my veggie eating habits though, which is unfortunate. So I'll have to see if I can figure out a different approach because "eat more vegetables" is just not doing it as a goal. Even "eat four servings of vegetables" isn't doing it. It's specific and attainable, but for some reason I'm not able to motivate towards that. Maybe I just need to start small. Two per day is attainable and even likely, so maybe I'll start there, and work my way up. Here's a pic of our new back yard. It's really quite paradise....

Thanks much—I appreciate your comments. We are VERY much looking forward to getting things cleaned up!

Yesterday went well, hit a spin-and-yoga class at the gym (it was raining otherwise I'd have gone for a ride or a run) and kept the calories in check mostly. The blood drive happened at my gym too, so I gave blood and had their snacks afterwards even though there was sugar involved. Then I managed to get super stressed out installing garage door eyes into a concrete floor. I went through five 5/32" masonry bits in the process! I think there must have been a ton of pebbles in the cement mix the builders used. Between that, and going over to the new house and trying on all the paints Mrs. MG had picked out (nothing looked good to her) and the dog taking a big poop in the middle of our new bedroom... Then I looked at the jungle in the back yard, and basically fell down a hole in my mind where nothing was ever going to work out. It really brought out the regret monster in me. "Why are we bothering to move?" "Why did we ever sell our old house 8 years ago?" Why do we even bother, everything here is So F***ing Expensive.... So many things came into my mind... and I took it out on myself by eating. Anyway the day was kind of a spiral of poor eating choices, related to negative self talk and frustration. At least we're pulling up the carpet this weekend so the hardwood guys can put in new floors. And I suggested we just paint the whole interior white and let someone with some color sense help us out... next year! Today is another day. I'm going to turn things over and let what happens happen. It's going to be a tough day--I've got my semi-annual evaluation with my boss, and then I get to have a cracked filling replaced this afternoon. But the scale was down this morning (171.2) and even though that's likely most related to giving blood yesterday, I'll take it.

OK we are back as of yesterday. Spent a week at my mom's house, kind of in charge of food. We drank a lot of spinach smoothies, made a lot homemade, relatively healthy, super-thin crust pizza, and ate a lot of Carolina barbeque. I ran four times, and hit two yoga classes. I stretched on the floor of my room a couple of times. I didn't eat enough vegetables, but I didn't go crazy either. And, I came home about a pound lighter than when I left, which is a win in my book. Especially considering birthday cake. Which was available for four days before the kids and I polished it off. Mom is healing nicely. I think she'll survive (knee surgery). Today I'm back in the game. Had two servings of spinach for breakfast, and a serving of onions and peppers at lunch. Now I just have to get a fourth and I'm good for the day. I've probably had a few too many nuts/seeds/legumes, as I've got a big bag of salted in the shell peanuts in my desk. I brought them for a meeting where I was responsible for the food, and they're leftover. I haven't devoured the whole bag at one sitting though so that's good. It is so hard to make good decisions. Every day I struggle with it. I said to myself, "I'm not going to stop and buy a bag of day-old bagels to freeze for snacks at work this week," yet when I walked from my parking spot to my office this morning, I couldn't stop myself from at least going through the bagel shop (didn't buy anything, because they at least didn't have EXACTLY what I wanted, but still....) to check out the options. I'm glad they didn't have what I wanted. Today I've avoided the sugar so far. Keeping my fingers crossed, because that's something I didn't do so great at at my mom's house.

busy week at my Mom’s house. She’s recovering from knee replacement surgery and I’m her “right hand man” for the time being. I’ll have more to write when I get back but I wanted to check in—the whole plan has flown pretty far out the window. It’s all I can do to go for a run or go to yoga every day, and to eat at least one serving of veggies per day. But I have not forgotten what I’m doing...

I ate two servings of veggies last night for dinner--brussels sprouts AND grilled asparagus. It was supposed to be with sausage, but they apparently went bad in the freezer and did NOT smell right. I got food poisoning once from a bad sausage and I'm absolutely against poisoning myself ever again. Anyway, I hit my veggie goal for the day. HOWEVER, I did have a 2cm slice of pound cake last night. So I succumbed to the sugar demon. Today I'm a little behind--I have only had one serving so far today, and I'm not certain I'll be able to land three at dinner tonight. I will put forth a mighty effort though! Went for an awesome road bike ride at lunch today. It was cool-ish and cloudy and even rained a little bit and that felt great. Am heading to NC tomorrow for a week, to take care of my mom. She's 76 and just had a knee replacement. I get to help around the house, cook, clean, and goad her into doing her PT. Which sounds challenging but fun. Today is National Donut Day. Twice now I have turned down free donuts, and I have driven past two donut shops so far. I think that's a win in this desperate battle. I went over to our new house to meet an electrician and a concrete guy (hot tub related). Neither showed up. What is it with contractors?

HAHAHA Yes that would be called writing a book. I just like writing D&D adventures. But then I want to play them, not DM them, and that would spoil it because I don't have selective amnesia. Interested in learning more about the were-raccoons. I'm pretty sure there's a bunch of them in my neighborhood.

It is damned hard to eat four servings of vegetables a day. If I don't have a smoothie in the morning, that means that the majority of my meals need to be made of plants. Which is just plain hard and not what my corn-fed American ancestors had in mind for me. They wanted me eating my veggies in the form of cows and chickens, with some potatoes with cheese on them on the plate too. Oh, and maybe a little iceberg lettuce between courses to cleanse the palate. Anyway, I'm complaining because I didn't make it yesterday. I had spinach for breakfast, but I'm learning I shouldn't do that every day since I get bored of it real quick. I had carrots for lunch, and a pepper for dinner. So unless I count the tomato sauce on my slice of pizza, then I didn't get four yesterday. I'll try again today--I have had two servings at lunch (carrots and broccoli to go with my chicken). Dinner will likely involve asparagus... and... ??? I guess whatever's in the fridge Went for a nice run today. It somehow got something like hot out (for Colorado that is).

Today so far has been alright. Spinach/raspberry smoothie for breakfast, with a raisin bagel sans butter mid morning (focus group food). Went and biked for about a half hour getting to and from yoga class. My hamstrings are grateful for the day without lifting, running, or 'serious' cycling. No sugary sweets so far, though that bagel was questionable. I need to maybe not do that. I know they're a caloric bomb no matter how much "added" sugar they may have. Weight was up slightly from last week, not surprising considering the travel.

And doesn't THAT look beautiful!!!

Wow, love this thread! You are becoming a master of the extremely awesome bodyweight exercise Love the flexibility work and the amazing handstands. Thank you for sharing!

Hey sorry it took so long to get back on the boards! I was in Washington DC for family reunion style activities for the weekend (a very long one at that) so I didn't get online very much at all. Plus, I went to high school and college there and so I had a ton of things to do, old friends to see, etc. I was able to do a pretty good job of not being on the sugar very much. I didn't have any ice cream, despite going out with three friends to this very fancy ice cream parlor where they pour liquid N into your cream-sugar-flavor concoction to make it into ice cream. That was kinda rough. My friend Peggy (kind of my other mom) who's in her 70's gave us home made cookies and half a pound cake--I was able to avoid the cookies completely and only had two tiny slices of the pound cake. I know, those days should count as a fail. I'm fine with those fails. I can't be perfect but I'm trying really hard. Her pound cake is limited in supply, impossible to make at altitude, and something I get to eat once every two years or so. I mean, when I was in college me and her son (one of my best friends) would get a pound cake in the mail and eat the whole thing in two days. I think the 1.5" of pound cake I ate over four days is MASSIVE restraint by comparison! And yesterday we had the big family meal at this very fancy French restaurant walking distance from the capitol. I am pretty sure there were at least two senators eating in the same room as us. And the dessert menu looked delicious! So, I had... a black decaf Americano. Which was just perfect. I also get three workouts in while we were there, not bad for a four day/four night vacation. Went for a bike ride on Saturday with Mrs. MG while grandma and my sister watched the kiddos (my kiddo, aka "The Apprentice", and his cousin, my sister's kiddo). Yesterday I went for a 4 mile run before anyone else got up, and then today I went and did yoga and lifted at the hotel gym. I was so psyched to see a squat rack at a hotel gym I didn't know what to think! And I had it to myself for a while too. Some dude worked in with me, which was alright. He was huge and pretty ripped so it was funny pulling weights off every time it was my turn. I tried not to be annoyed or to compare myself to his workout. Kinda succeeded. I mean, his workout is where he's at, and mine is where I'm at. We also put in I have no idea how many miles. Pedometer counted at least 12,000 steps per day. That's DC for ya. I don't have stats from lifting because I forgot my phone (where I keep track of my numbers) but that's fine, it was a "travel" workout, and any travel workout is a success I think. Hells yeah, I am SO looking forward to the hot tub. Talking to an electrician on Friday about power etc, and learning everything I can about pavers and cement trying to decide which way to go for the pad for it. I want to build a veranda off the back of the house, but that won't be for a couple of years, so pavers may be the way to go. Since if I put in a concrete pad, I'll have to jackhammer it away eventually, whereas I can re-use the pavers. As for the steel cut oats, I love them. The trick is to boil the water, dump in the oats, put a cover on the whole thing, and turn off the heat. Then in the morning they're perfect. But, that might just be perfect for me. They're way better than the instant oats I grew up on. Those taste like paste. Honestly I don't have a preference between 5-min oats and overnight steel cut. Thanks for checking in on me! I will see what you're up to! I really appreciate your feedback. I hear you--I've got mandarin oranges and carrots available for snacking at home, and baby carrots at work (why does everything have to be orange?). I also have baby spinach, which I eat when I want to eat chips. We had oyster crackers available on the plane rides, and at the hotel, which wasn't such a good idea because they're basically just empty carbs. But they're not exactly sugar (they don't taste sweet and they are so bland that they don't make me want to sit and eat them absentmindedly). But I'm happy to put them up on a high invisible shelf until the next time we have chicken soup for dinner. You're telling me! See above... I haven't wanted to get on the scale since we got home--but I weigh myself in the mornings so I can wait til tomorrow, no problem. Now to make it through the rest of the night without eating any of the pound cake...

Ooo sounds delightful. Honestly I'm sure it's very good for you but it sounds just awful!

So very late! And what is a Hamstring Slider of Doom??? I think I need some-a that.

Yesterday went well, and we decided to go for the hot tub. We spent a long time at the shop and really liked everything about the unit. The owners of the shop are really nice, they make the product themselves, and will deliver and install it when it's time to do so. Am feeling a little broke at the moment but that will pass with the coming paychecks and sale of our current home. We stayed at the shop a little long, though, and everyone was starving by the time we got out of there. Mrs. MG wanted us to go to our favorite green chile place which, when we arrived, we discovered was now out of business. Which is crazy--they used to be so delicious! The past few times we'd gone though, we'd been pretty disappointed. And what with my reflux stuff, I haven't wanted to go in a very long time. However that left us super hungry and at the mercy of Yelp for finding a good place to eat. Mrs. MG really wanted Mexican, so we found a well-reviewed hole-in-the-wall. And, while the menu wasn't exactly healthy, it certainly was delicious! And I managed "portion control" at least. 1/3 of the basket of chips, 1/2 of my chicken burrito, all the salad it came with, and none of my son's horchata. I came home and had two small squares of dark chocolate after finishing all my chores, left some steel cut oats to soak overnight, and went to bed. This morning I woke up and had the oatmeal, with 1T maple syrup and some slivered almonds, plus a scoop of whey protein powder with water. Haven't felt truly hungry til just now, so I ate a raw red pepper. Need to drink some water to stave me off through my lunch running/lift session. So excited for our new hot tub! It's a practice in long-term patience though, as it won't be ready til mid-July at the earliest Anyone reading this--thank you! I appreciate you looking in on my corner of the weight loss world.

Can you educate me? What is "WH Breathing"? Thanks!