lucky fire dragon

Week 4 Days 5 - 7 As mentioned above I dropped the fasting because it wasn't really working in the same way with all the interruptions from cough and throat medicine. Plus we were invited for a barbecue with the wonderful group of people who had traveled South Africa with us last year and I decided that was time to feast Made a delicious batch of tiramisu to bring and because there was so much yummy food there from everyone, we even have some tiramisu left now... might extend my feasting That aside, I am very happy with my fasting process over the past weeks and will definitely give it a place again in my next challenge. Weight loss is welcome, a boost in energy levels and rejuvenating effects on my body even more so. ------- Water intake was hard on many days and seems like I still need a bit more overall. I told my plant nanny let's see how I do in February / March on this ------ Workouts were awesome! Absolute win here We really did go for a third workout still and already on Friday because we had time and hubby wanted to. It's so cool, he is really into training now, enjoying it much more than he used to and I love how we get to do this together. His weights are actually quite a bit more than mine, except the triceps kickdown, where I should have taken 10kg and accidentally ended up with 2.5 more because he had left those on. Overall we both lifted a bit too heavy accidentally on Friday because we weren't fully awake or so ... I wondered why the lateral arm lifts were so very hard until I realized I had grabbed the 5kg dumbbells instead of 4kg and hubby had the same when he picked 10kg ones instead of 7.5kg On the squats I upped by 1.25kg each side on purpose and can probably go even 1kg more. The bench press I upped to 10kg each side (instead of 8.75kg) and that feels right now. So again some wins here Headstand was tough but I took @Mad Hatter's approach of training the skill instead of expecting the best outcome compared to all previous attempts, so now that is a win as well My goal for next challenge will be to work on more control in and out of the headstand. See, goal is "working on" not necessarily achieving - I am learning ------ Suck it up and free myself: oh gosh I was so sluggish at home these past days! Maybe from the cold and cough, maybe from all the workouts, maybe from breaking the fasting,... idk but any chore felt like a huge thing. I sucked up for housework, kept up with emails and even caught up on some recording editing AND put up 2 new meditation videos on my poor tiny YouTube channel so I feel I lived up to that goal. Will do some more editing and uploading today still. Fun things were going out for a nice breakfast with hubby after our workout, feasting with our friends last night and walking barefoot through the fresh snow this morning No so deep this time just enough to look and feel real pretty and cozy on a Sunday with nowhere to go

True I nearly took them for human! Thanks It's so cool to have at least one fun trick to train. And even see progress It's astounding how many people I am now coming across who do intermittent fasting and they all seem really happy and healthy with it. I completely fell off the wagon now, but mainly due to that stubborn cough that is still haunting me. Am taking cough sirup now and that disrupts the fasting mode of course, so do all the cough drops to suck on, but they help and I really want to be free of this cough now. It's been way too long. Once that is okay again, I'll see what rhythm to experiment on for the next challenge. It's a bit frustrating because now all the cravings are back, plus fatigue (might be due to the cold and a busy week too of course) and I am back up at 70kg... oh well. Mustn't put too much into that and rather take the encouragement the past weeks gave me and focus forward. I'm so happy about this! There were no more sign ups for the retreats since, but a bunch of people signing up for the next meditation course and even booking the higher priced version that gives access to an online area where I place the recordings of previous courses for them to download and re-listen at their own timing. Plus I got so much positive feedback, am a little overwhelmed and very grateful. There are times when I ponder just getting a part time job somewhere in a shopping center or an office or sorting mail or whatever and feel, who am I kidding trying to make money from teaching people how to feel better and get healthier by paying kinder attention to themselves. And then there are times when it all falls into place again and I am more determined than ever to keep going. This is now again

HELP!! They're teaming up against me on Kashyyk. I've done 3 work outs at the gym this week and put up nice numbers (in my personal range), but not enough against two of them. Especially not with White Ghost (even though he is still going easy on me for now) Anyone who can help me? @Mr.Six any chance?

Happy Birthday!!! Hope you have a beautiful day and wishing you a new of life with lots of health and love and joy You are rocking this challenge whoooohooo

Have a magical trip

So much awesome!!!!

Jackass Penguins [emoji38] figure that. The name comes from the sound they make which does sound like a donkey. I doesn't let me quote for some reason... [mention=5333]annyshay[/mention] yes please PHOTOS [emoji4] We'll try to be patient [emoji6] So happy for you on the no more pager and being off for the final set up now, squeeeeeeeee It's tomorrow, is it?! Where are you flying to and how is your route taking you? Will you have internet? Will we know you're still alive [emoji3] Sooooooooo excited for you!!!!

That's exactly that colony It's boulder beach near Simonstown and so charming. We take our groups there and last year the penguins came so close to us on the beach we could have touched them. Apparently in summer they become a "problem" in the neighborhood when they walk up the hill and take a dip in people's private swimming pools Yes, counting on Annyshay presenting us with lots of pics of the whole amazing thing. Annyshay you do know we have to live this through you right

Here are some South African friends for your to hopefully bring some warmth Those temperatures are insane how do you even breathe in that?! Good thing you are Hof-prepped that could help a tiny bit, but in all amazement, how do you cope???

Awww thank you, Elize *blush* Don't worry, this must be one of my longest threads ever and you have enough to do as is without having to plow through all this Your encouragement means a lot to me as is, thank you so much! By the way I love your quote. We sang a song with choir with this psalm as the lyrics and it is such a beautiful one, it's one of my absolute favorites. The orchestra accompanied us for it and they have a brilliant boy on the flute (well recorder as it's the plain wooden flute, but from him is sounds like magic) who played the tune up front, then a single violin would pick it up and then us sopranos would do our best to take over as gracefully as those two. Bit by bit the whole choir and orchestra joined in until it felt like a warm, wonderful blanket of sound hugging people all around. Oh wow, looking for a sample of the song on youtube I see it was performed at the royal wedding anniversary a few years back... anyway I love playing it as the last song before bedtime during my retreats and now I have it stuck in my head again happy "earworm" as we call a tune that is stuck in the head in German

Me too

The image of your boys at the conveyer belt made me laugh. Sounds like crestive fun lessons that will teach them very valuable skills. Good job for Stampy I will send our cats to train with him : D Congrats on the birth cert having arrived so soon. Rather that way round than having to wait forever. Hope you get better sleep soon. Hugs

To be honest I might actually down scale on the fasting rather than up it. Or do a 36h once a week only or so with the idea to remind my body from time to time to really lower the insulin levels again. Because if I eat relatively healthy and don't snack too often in between it should not drive it up that much anymore. So the once weekly longer fast might be enough to keep in check while strength training might be enough to burn off what I do eat... I don't know maybe I am overly optimistic here but if in doubt I can always up it again. Right now having strength is higher on my priority list than weight loss. The 4kg I lost since beginning of Dec made a big difference and I feel much better in my body as is

YEEEEEEEEES

Week 4 Day 3 Cleaning didn't happen much anymore on Tuesday, only clearing the kitchen and then I had to take youngest to PT and was too tired afterwards. But on Wednesday I had two lovely client sessions, cleaned the ground floor before the first and the rest of the house (including thorough bathroom shrubs) after the second That's my liberating action for that day Fun thing was choir rehearsal. I was tempted to skip once more because of my cough still bugging me, but went in the end and it went well enough. Cough is still annoying but singing went well enough and is always a mood booster for me, so yay on that. Meditation went well Fasting got toppled for the day as mentioned above but I had a fabulous water intake Week 4 Day 4 Got my second workout in for the week and am pondering a third one for Saturday to make up for the missing one last week, but must see what DOMS will do as my arms were really tired after today's session. It's a good kind of tired I realized I described one exercise wrong, what I thought of as a lat pulley, he had noted as tricep kick downs and I remember he said it was the counterpart to the bicep curls, so that makes sense. The only thing that annoyed me about the new training plan was the long breaks between sets. 90 - 120 sec is a long time if you are bored So I started using that time for neck circles and other stretches, which was perfect, because this way I was finished about the same time as hubby and he didn't have to wait so long for me He's not so big on stretching, but has started to blackroll now after the workout, so with him stretching a little more and me stretching a little less, it works out beautifully for both of us. Headstand was a complete fail today though because my arms and core deserted me Maybe the weights the coach picked are really well chosen... For my fun thing I did play with some crow though. Despite tired arms. A little bit is always doable

Aaaaaaaaand I got interrupted writing this by a phone call with a third person signing up for my retreat, yay!!!

Oh no I am scared of that too, which is why I stay close to the wall always. But I like it in terms of shoulder engagement. I never managed any headstand before pole and holding the base of the pole helped somehow a lot, so now even off pole the elbow version is my automatic go-to How do you bail out of tripod? Once I felt as if I was tipping sideways and that scared me completely! I am a bit of a coward though and battled many existential fears in each pole class as well Thanks My fasting has gotten a bit uncoordinated and currently is totally thrown. I know what you mean, but I am very sure it was other reasons here. It's just my same old fear around finances that had a thorough grip on me again and caused a big black hole of blahs. Am over it now and much better again. Oh and a few hours after I pulled myself out of the mental muck, I got my first sign up for the retreat in There is a second person seriously interested, so maybe I can do it after all I gave myself until Monday to decide, because if I leave it a week later, my cancellation fees will be a lot higher than now. If I have 3 people signed up by then, I can do it without any losses and will, because chances are more people will join until the actual event in April still. But I have made my peace with either version now and will just see what happens. On the fasting: Tuesday night I started getting hungry and not the habitual "oh, I haven't eaten in so long, it's time now" but real "I need fuel" hunger and ate with gusto accordingly. I think it was due to the Monday workout still and I am happy to feed my body well after a strength workout. Then I tried to plan how to continue from here for this week still and got very unsure about schedules in general. Like, when people go for 24 hours fasting twice a week, apparently they eat normally the other 5 days, but I had automatically continued the 16/8 version for the other days, except for the day after my 36h unit. And the 16/8 felt good. But I got unsure as well now, am I overdoing it? So many questions... Then I chatted with a girl who goes to choir with me and she said she used to go alternating fasting and eating days, which is basically a 36h fast 3x / week. She was absolutely fine with it and felt wonderful. A student of hubby does the same and seems to thrive on it as well. That is a lot of fasting, so I don't think I was overdoing it in any way yet, just a bit too insecure on things maybe. On the other hand I don't know how much they exercise... I don't mind training during my fasts, on the contrary it feels really good. But I also want to give my body enough nourishment in between to build up the new muscles. IDM, the organisation of Dr. Fung and his colleague Megan Ramos, recommend the longer fasts for people who want to slim down and shorter fasts for people who are aiming for cellular health etc but don't want to lose any muscles, such as athletes. Now I don't consider myself an athlete, really, but if I want to strength train twice a week, then I should probably aim for not too long the fasts.... on the other hand, the 36h made an immediate tangible difference, that felt real good. I don't know what to aim for now :/ Fun fact: During fasting I now feel more energized and focused than on days where I do eat "normal", it's very interesting to observe. Yesterday I threw all my previous rules overboard with the effect of having more cravings later in the day and today as well. I gave in to some but not too all and will give myself the rest of this week off to ponder.

So after reducing the camera load on my phone from over 4000 to less than 300 pics and videos (crazy I know and I blame that fantastic holiday in South Africa last year) I can work my videos easier again Here is the headstand from yesterday and my headstand lift up attempts from this morning: I think, I don't walk the feet in far enough on the elbow stand headstand and/or don't shift my bum enough back, because I am aiming for the same feel as with tripod and that obviously doesn't work with the elbow hold. In tripod I had a much smoother descent yesterday, but today I wasn't warmed up or anything, so maybe that was why I struggled.

Nope, no deadlifts, meh. I guess the bent over rows are preparation for that. Yes, I know, 12 reps is a lot and too many to go for bigger weights, but endurance won't harm me either and I'm still new to the gym, so asking the coach to create a plan for me and then not going by it feels rude to me. Sooo, I'll trust him and give it a go for a while.

Week 4 Day 1 was a bit slow apart from my workout as mentioned and I realize I often have an energy low after several productive days, so maybe it just intensified due to the high expectations etc. Also I mustn't forget that the fasting is probably taking some energy for adjustments as well and the different sleep pattern, too. Getting up early is still tough, but once up I don't feel that tired really. Took a short nap this morning, but more from an emotional low rather than actual fatigue and was awake shortly before my 4 am alarm! Back to yesterday though: Fasting - 17 h Workout - yes Liberating action - some work stuff on my website Adventurous action - crow attempts after my workout Day 2 Fasting - currently at 18h and pondering of doing a 36h one as normally I would have had the 24h today, but supper was late yesterday (I ate twice in the evening and plenty from lunch on as well as I was really hungry) and today I was out on errands during lunch, so the 24h would be until tonight and then I might as well go on for tomorrow morning. Not sure yet, will decide depending on hunger levels Workout - rest day, but I trained a bit of headstand and crow at home and that was my adventurous thing again, because totally is adventurous to me Liberating action - taking holiday pics from my phone onto the computer for sorting and keeping as they are clogging up the card so much it always takes forever to get to my headstand training videos and that's so annoying Also I am determined to clean house today as far as possible instead of spreading it out over the week, because it will be so nice to have it clean again all over and have the other days for other tasks. So far, I have tidied up most of it, now I just have to sort the laundry, tidy up the kitchen still and then I can vacuum and wash the floors and hopefully get to the bathrooms as well. Wish me strength Oh I actually had another break-the-routine-adventurous-thing today: I can't find my earplugs anymore and when I wanted to borrow hubby's for my meditation at 4am they had vanished as well! So I decided to simply sit in the same place as always, do the same meditation that I usually do, but without the guided recording and music, because - at 4am I did not want to put music on in the house as is It was actually something I have been meaning to go for and never did. Well, I had planned to have music playing at least at that helps me relax and open my heart so much, but it was fine without the music as well. Focus is as expected slightly easier, because I can't rely on the voice guiding me, but have to do it myself and the "where was I?" was accordingly less, but I was still a bit disappointed because the meditations of the past few days were much more distracted and less empowering than during the first two weeks of the challenge. I know, I mustn't weigh it too heavily, because every day is different. It just rather reflects my mood at the moment and I am having a hard time to call up good feelings around our future in terms of work and money and if I can't even envision any that I believe in, then where should the energy come from that would make it happen? I enjoy including some positive future visions into my meditations and they have given me beautiful boosts in the past and also came true some of them. I feel, I am more perceptive on the possibilities that life offers, when I am in a good flow here and that's why it bugs me now to not be able to get into that flow. Of course, the more I want it, the less it works because of tension Oh well, maybe housecleaning will help vent it all out

I'm thrown off but to slow to respond to these kind of things, so I'll just try to work extra strong and shift some images YES, can't wait for you to get your work gym!! Working out at work, how cool will that be?! Hey who knows? We're both newbies at this, so we might have noob gains coming quickly Let's just play and get strong, I'd suggest

Similar here as my pole is in our basement and it takes forever to warm up as well. No idea on format yet, nope. I did like the add on game from last time that was pretty cool. We could maybe mix it up (and make it easier) by only repeating the last move the other one did and then adding a new one? Or we do build a little flow up in bits and just include enough floor work... what's easiest on your elbow? And on my knees I've lost all the hold muscles... You really do! And it's such fun to watch you explore them. Very inspiring

Don't worry about it, recovery is way more important. Please take good care of yourself, your body will thank you longterm Am still amazed at the battle the two of you had last week awesome job you did on that!!! So far it is eerily quiet on the planets ... not sure what to make of it

Bigger than Africa? It's such fun to watch you travel all over and I am super excited for you on this. Hope weather plays along, but then it should because as the saying goes "When angels travel..." Oh YAY how perfect! Congratulations

Cool Considering I have not been on the pole since... well since our last pvp I think and have never had any grip worth mentioning to start with, I am very okay with that condition Excellent! Very smart approach! It seems to lead to much more satisfaction AND possibly even more progress along with it on the long run