wondering_piper

Funny enough, life had the opposite effect for me, lol! Before I moved cities, I was easily getting my movement in without much effort because everything was walking or biking distance. Now I have to make the conscious effort to fit this into my day - and having an additional 1hr commute cutting into precious home-time doesn't help!! I have been having success with the Darebee program I am working through during this challenge, and I just added in a second cardio program. I am bundling these with the reward of Netflix - only binge-watch if I'm sweating my butt off too!!

Cutting back on liquid calories is what turned me into a black coffee lover, but it has to be good strong coffee, not that brown water stuff most places sell. Are you someone who enjoys espresso? Are you drinking these high-sugar drinks because you are thirsty or because you crave the taste? Sugar addiction is such a shitty thing, and it is EVERYWHERE!! The sweetener I have turned to is the Stevia-based ones, because they taste less "chemically". Rooting for ya!!

How are things going? If I ate a Mediterranean diet, I would eat nothing but olives!!! lol I have boxes that I need to deal with too - have you emptied one yet?

So how was your day?

I have always been curious about sunlamps and if they work. If you get one, fill us in on your thoughts.

Tl;dr: I am going to lose 40lbs. Over the last few years, since I first found NF, I have been able to seriously change my eating habits. As Steve repeatedly points out, diet is the biggest part of the battle. In the last five years, I've cut out pop, juice and sugar in my coffee/tea; I avoid processed/fast food as much as possible; and am now an "almost" vegetarian, eating meat maybe once every two weeks. So I know my diet is good. Where I am lacking is in movement. I moved across the country in the spring, from a town where I walked to work everyday to a city that has a 30min commute. I used to have an awesome gym membership and went 2-3 times a week, and now I can't find a decent gym that won't break the bank. Between no exercise and some shitty eating during the stressful spring, instead of losing 20lbs, I gained 20lbs. I stopped the weight gain, but now have to grind through the weight loss. In order for me to defeat the Montage Monster, I need to start this slow grind. So far, since changing my mindset on how to approach this, I have been successful. I started a Darebee 30 Day Challenge. I love Darebee, but never seemd to break past Day 4 on any of the challenges. Right now, I am on Day 9, as I keep reminding myself about the Montage Monster Boss Battle, reminding myself that I will see progression slowly as long as I stick with it. Now, I need to figure out how to get more movement into my days.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help. You are grieving a sudden loss, and everything you are describing here is part of it - being tired, things seeming harder, people not seeming to understand... I see people in grief every day with my job. Sometimes folks need to hear the permission that it is okay not being okay. For the next several weeks, you will be living in a fog - it is going to take time to start feeling solid again. That is okay. You need to be a little selfish right now. Do everything you can to take care of yourself, just like you would if you had the flu. Take care of yourself and you will start to feel in control again. You cannot heal your mother, she needs to heal herself, so don't carry the weight of her grief on your shoulders too, it will only hurt you more. If you haven’t done so, talk to your professors, see if you can get some relief from school pressures. Ask for help. Give yourself permission to seek out a grief counsellor, I would think your school should have some sort of program available to you. And from the sounds of things, from all you have posted, your are doing a great job at handling the chaos! You are still completing homework, you are still exercising, you are still getting things done! I know everyone in this forum is rooting for you!!

Rocky, Mulan, Team America, Dirty Dancing, Cool Runnings..... What do all these (and countless other) movies have in common? A F*cking Montage Monster!! What is a Montage Monster? It is an evil creature that steals your motivation and determination and your soul!! No, but seriously, have you ever noticed that in all these zero-to-hero movies the part of the story when the character has to go through all that hard work, spending days and weeks and months struggling and toiling... it is all glossed over in a 30 second montage set to some peppy music? That is the Montage Monster. The life lesson that it tells is that struggle and hard work are not an important part of the main story. In fact, they are almost treated like a fracking addendum - some sort of “oh hey by the way we need an excuse as to why our hero suddenly has muscles and can do backflips while crocheting a turtleneck for an elephant and speak fluent Klingon.” Montage Monsters tell us that hard work and struggle are boring. They tell us success should and can be accomplished in a 30 second soundbite of Eye of the Tiger. They tell us that the exciting story has to be paused while we make these life altering changes to ourselves, and only once these changes have been accomplished can the exciting story continue. The Montage Monster is a fiend, and I have decided to challenge it in an epic Boss Battle. How? By completely immersing myself in a real-time montage - become the montage. During the last 5 Week Challenge, I realized I set myself up for failure. The reason: I had no purpose behind my goals. I was expecting instantaneous change in my habits. I knew with my thinking head that I wouldn’t lose 40lbs in five weeks, but my emotional head was craving a montage. Now I have a purpose: an Epic Boss Battle. I am going to give my emotional head the montage it wants, with some help from my thinking head: this montage will cover the span of one year; I am going to embrace the boring toil; the struggle is going to BE the exciting story. By the end of the upbeat tune, I WILL have the changes I want.

Right, so how did I do? Meh, not bad all things considered. I feel like this particular challenge was like a "warm up", getting me into the swing of things, getting me into the habit of thinking about setting goals and fulfilling them. The biggest success I had was not part of the challenge, but as a result of working though this challenge: the Big Why. I realized part way through this challenge that I really needed to reconsider why I want to "work out", "eat right", etc., besides I should . I am already looking forward to my next challenge, and have taken quite a bit of time to ponder the WHY.

That, Jean, is the kicker, right there. I had that a-ha moment yesterday. I have been part of the NerdFitness community for about five years, and only realized yesterday that I really have no purpose behind my goals. I keep working under the “motivation” of: I “should” lose weight, or I “should” be a better rounded individual. But why? To what end? That’s why I am going to spend some time before the next challenge to figure some shit out. Really look deep into the “why”. Thank you for your words; you seem like a very kind individual And you are right, the forums do help!

It has been a couple weeks since I last posted and I need to do a follow-up. Tl;dr - successes - better sleep created better life organization which created healthier eating & better household organization - struggles - getting my ass to do anything else My successes: - I have succeeded in re-booting my sleep schedule. By sleeping to a more natural wake-up time (for me) instead of fighting it and trying to force myself to wake up earlier, I have found my mornings to be waaaayyy better. I wake up just before or with my alarm feeling decent, instead of a foggy grump. I also have been falling asleep way easier at night too. - because I have less time in the morning to get myself going, I have had to become more organized, which is an off-shoot success. I have my lunch and breakfast prepped the night before, and have started doing batch prepping. My meals are planned out over the weekend, and I buy what I need for the week, which has cut down on costs and cut down on morning stress. I also have all my work clothes picked out and laid out for the week, so I don’t have to spend a chaotic morning finding clean underwear and wrinkled skirts. - both the meal prepping and clothes prepping has lead to more positive change. Because I pre-plan my meals, I am buying way healthier food, mostly veg and fruit, and cut out shit food (foods that are only calories and nothing but calories). Because I am prepping my clothes, laundry is being kept up with, along with putting it away, making my home less cluttered. My struggles: - I still can’t get myself to move. I have my yoga mat out and ready and videos picked out, but no drive to do it (even though I used to love it). I have my workout clothes ready and waiting, the body weight regime favourited, but I don’t do it. I bought fun things to play with as an excuse to get out into the backyard and move, and instead I sit inside and fuck around on useless internet time-sinks. - I don’t do the things I want to do, like learn japanese, write, garden, etc. I just come home and sit. I don’t know how to get myself moving. I’ve read the various websites, I’ve implemented strategies like getting equipment prepped, I just can’t get off my ass. I am going to spend the rest of this 5 Week Challenge staying on course with the rest of things, and really having a heart to heart as to why I am sabotaging myself in areas of my life I want to succeed in.

Yay for me, down 4lbs!! There had been some serious stress in my life earlier this year and it was soooo easy to suddenly pack on 20lbs. Not good. I had lost a bunch of weight a few years back, and promised myself never to be that heavy again. I created a system that if I ever reached a certain weight again, the Big Warning Light comes on and I need to start taking immediate action to control my CICO. This 5 Week Challenge has been the reboot I needed. Not only have I been doing waaay more Calorie Out by focusing on a scheduled routine, I have also been keeping track of Calorie In as a mini side quest. Can't wait to see where I will be at the end of Week 5!!

The new wake-up schedule is going well - I have far more energy in the morning and wake up just before or with my alarm. Not fighting my own natural circadian rhythm is soo nice. One problem I still have is a major energy drain in the evening. That was what prompted me to try the ol' "wake-up really early and get stuff done" regime to begin with. At about 8-8:30pm I hit a wall and am essentially passing out on the couch. While I have been able to get my 1hr of daily yoga in this past week, I have no mental energy to focus on studying japanese, and zero physical stamina to do a proper workout. So, I'm gonna roll with the new "listen to my body" system that I started with sleep and change up my evening habits. Instead of trying to nap when I get home, I'm going to do my physical workouts at that time, before dinner. I should still have momentum coming off of the work day to get it done. If I then eat and have my 30min nap around 8-ish, I may be refreshed enough mentally to do the studying. Then yoga before bed. I really hate being so freaking tired in the evenings. I want to be able to do other things with my life beside work and sleep!!!!!

Haha, no! At this point keeping it around the waist is still a "challenge". It has been a loooooong time!!

I went out and bought some toys!! As an adult with no kids, it was so much fun to browse the toy section again, especially since these toys are for ME!! I got hula hoops, bubble wands, a slingshot, a jumprope!! I also got some whiffle balls and am going to teach myself to juggle! I forgot how much fun simple carefree playing can be!! And it's fucking fun exercise!!!! I am setting up a make-shift frisbee golf course, and may build a silly obstacle course. So on the days when I am not doing the beginner bodyweight routine, I have a tonne of other stuff to play with. I am going to enjoy my summer backyard while it lasts, maybe another 2-3months before the snow!