Aaarrrggghhh

Hello! Thank you for checking in! And you're very welcome for the slogan. I have had a slightly difficult few days. Last week's workouts went as planned but I overate on Saturday which is quite dispiriting. I am back on track food- wise, but working extra hours this week and not sure where I will fit my gym sessions in. One of my workouts last week was on a Saturday- luckily there's an entrance through the carpark so I don't have to actually enter my workplace on my one precious day off, because I can easily see that becoming one of those essentially meaningless but ever- expanding Things. The first obstacle on the self- perpetuating obstacle course... Anyway- so my plan is to work out on Saturday again, to walk to work on Friday, and I guess to go to the gym after work tomorrow with a takeaway dinner in my bag for afterwards. Not ideal but I do really want to stick to the plan as much as possible.

I was going to 'like' this because I identify with it so much, but then I thought, 'liking' a post about really difficult thought patterns is... not sufficient somehow. But I really identify with everything you just said. I don't know if I have any sage advice, and I'm hoping someone else will turn up with some soon...but I'm with you on this.

Well, I got to bed at a decent time last night, slept gorgeously, sprang out of bed like a coiled spring (30% lie) and made it to the gym- where I actually found today's workout really challenging. I had to split my 30 second planks into 15 second-ers because I kept collapsing into a slightly blubbery heap. But I did them, and I think I know why it was tough today- forgot a bit of protein at breakfast. This will not happen again. I feel really happy today. I've been very active over the last week- as well as the three elements of my challenge I've also been out dancing and I walk to work on Sunday mornings. I don't know if I've ever been this active, and I know I've never had such a healthy food intake for this length of time. Everything just feels... okay. That might not sound like a big deal, but it is; I'm the anxious depressive type, and to be moving through the world feeling so At One is big for me. I wish that when I was a kid someone had been able to articulate the (to me, YMMV) really important stuff about activity- not just the stuff about competition and having a societally acceptable body shape, but the fact that it makes you mellow and determined and accepting of stuff. Sometimes I feel sad that it took me until 40 to work this out! Never mind. Onwards and upwards.

I stopped eating red meat almost entirely when I moved into a Buddhist community two years ago, having tried to eat less meat for probably about three years before that. Buddhism was definitely a huge motivator for me- I couldn't square the idea of trying to develop compassion for humans while eating meat from cows and pigs who had probably had vile lives and brutal deaths. In my 20s I was a very vocal carnivore (the kind that really gets on my t**s now- what goes around comes around!); then I had a boyfriend who ate meat at every meal and didn't really see a meal as complete without a hunk of red protein, and I realised that I found the idea of that much meat kind of revolting. It also became clear that a lot of the time I'd been eating meat just because it was what was served to me without enjoying it that much, that I'd always preferred lean meat to fat because, eurgh, fat is pretty disgusting really... I guess I just started finding meat a bit grim, so it was easier to start working it out of my diet. At the same time my attitudes to food are pretty disordered, and while I was trying to give up meat I was also having to negotiate being in recovery from a binge- eating disorder, where I had to be really careful not to cut things out too quickly. Several times after a retreat where I would have been eating delicious vegan food for a week, I would try to go REALLY VEGAN REALLY QUICKLY: I always ended up bingeing, and there'd usually be some meat in there somewhere. I've worked out that it's best for me not to put too many labels on how I eat, or think about any food as 'forbidden'- that's a really sure way of setting myself up for a blip or a relapse or whatever. So yeah, strictly speaking I'm a pescetarian who very rarely eats fish; on a practical day- to- day basis I'm vegetarian some days and vegan occasionally. I don't talk about being veggie at all really. I have a little running joke on Twitter about my passionate love of tofu (it's the best! It's a flavour sponge!) and how tedious I find what I call the 'But Baaaaaaacon' Brigade who seemingly pop up at the merest mention of vegetarianism to talk about, well, bacon. But I don't want to be a boring vegetarian. I don't care what other people eat, I don't think it's remotely my place to tell people what they should eat and I deeply believe that if people are going to be make decisions about the ethics of their food they will make them on the basis of their own research, in their own time.

SO! My week has not begun as I would have liked it to- I overslept yesterday and today, and haven't worked out since Wednesday. But I did walk to work today, at quite a pace, with a fairly heavy rucksack on, and by the time I got to the top of Cardiac Hill I had sweat dripping off my eyelashes. So I'm feeling okay about missing my gym sessions- but am committing hardcore to making it tomorrow morning before work and on Friday. Ask me how I did tomorrow afternoon! Oh- and- I've decided to add a side- y life- y quest-y thing: I let my sleep patterns get really out of whack at the weekend. Too much tomfoolin' on t'internet. This week I am committing to being ready for bed by eleven and switching the tablet off by half eleven. There's a phone call I should be making at half seven every morning which hasn't been made since Thursday, and it's really hard to push myself out of the door to get to the gym if I'm still un- breakfasted at 9.30 a.m. This week I perform obeisance to the Gods of Sleep!

I definitely think that a real lack of flexibility has a lot to do with it- it does get better with repeated yoga sessions but I've not been good at keeping that up in the past. It is worth a look and I will give all of it a go at the gym on Wednesday! Thank you.

Okay that's it, I'm going caving goddamnit.

As the great sage Johnny Rotten once said, Anger Is An Energy. I'm really impressed by how you've turned that depression and aggravation into ACTION. That's alchemy! You're an alchemist.

Yeah, the generator says I'm a satyr (is there such a thing as a cis- female satyr? Is even that a thing?) or an orc. I... don't want to be an orc. No offence to orcs! that's just not ever going to be how I self- identify.

Okay, yeah, so I will start with a non- wriggly male child (he'll need to stay still for his own Health and Safety) and move onto a jockey. GOALS. The Yawp is a Whitman refererence.. .by way of Dead Poets Society. I have a little catchphrase I use to myself when I go for long walks when on retreat- Yompin' and yawpin'. I was in silence for three days once and snuck off for a long walk round a peat bog... when I was far enough away from the retreat centre to get away with it I stood in the middle of a bleak ploughed field and let go a mighty yawp. That's yompin' and yawpin'. I don't (I'm assuming this post was for me)- do you have any recommendations? second workout today... I'm aching more this time. But it's all an ache rather than a shout, which is good. I'm so afraid of injuring myself! I did three lots of plank, each of which was 30 seconds...ish. 24 seconds for the last one before I had to Child's Pose out of it. It'll be better next time, I said to myself.

This sounds AMAZING. You have sparked a real interest in caving in me now. I live near a fairly enormous network of caves- I used to go there for guided tours as a child and remember finding it so fascinating. I may find myself deep underground very soon and it's all your fault!

Yes! This is me! I will join this gang. This looks like a good gang. I feel like this gang may be made up of My People. My Challenge

Well, I'm back. Which is a start! That's right! We're fashionable! I'm not chronically tardy, I'm just very, very fashionable! 'What kind of guys are my type? Well, very compact ones, at least to start with...' So I went to the gym last night after work- which was a bit of a thing in itself, because it meant that I had to have my dinner ridic early- I have two part- time jobs and while I officially start the second at 17.15, I sort of have to be logged in around five past. So eating my dinner at quarter to five felt really weird and I didn't have time to eat all of it and, skip to the end- that's not going to work. So I'll be working out in the morning, which is less convenient. We'll see how that goes. But the workout was good! I don't really hurt much today? I'm aware that my muscles did something yesterday, but I'm not aching. Shouldn't I be aching? I'm going to speak to the gym- dude about reiterating form because without someone to watch over me I'm kind of without a clue as to if I'm doing everything okay. AAAAND I have loads of weird stuff going on with my hips and thighs and knees- lots of tightness and weakness and all round blech. Which a) is half the reason I'm doing this, and half the reason I haven't done it before. Like, blame it on the knees! I can't work out because of The Knees! Always The Knees! Tired of blaming the knees. It's not their fault. They're just doing their thing, ineffectively but with the best of intentions- much like the rest of me.

...isn't yawp a fabulous word? Hello, my name is Alice, aka Aaarrrggghhh (my username has a built- in power pose.) Can I join in? Am I too late? I'm always late! I am a 40 year old woman. I would very much like to be stronger. Over the last ten years I have stopped drinking, stopped smoking, upped my exercise, gone (almost) veggie... but I still can't lift a man over my head. I'd really, really, like to be able to lift a man over my head. That's my end goal, really. And I feel like, at 40, I'm running out of time to make this goal happen. (I'm maybe sort of joking but also sort of not) Things you should probably know about me: After a fairly grodey relapse I'm back in recovery from an eating disorder- I haven't binged for nearly 4 months now. While I will always list a food/ diet quest, it will never be any more detailed than 'Continuing to abstain from compulsive over- eating'. I won't talk in any detail about food or weight: my food plan is on track and I won't be making any changes to what I eat or how much in these 5 weeks. SO! Main quest: to get stronger. measurably stronger. Probably won't be able to lift a man over my head on this go- round. I'm thinking I would like to try to increase the amount of time I can hold plank for- but I have no idea what my starting level is because I've never timed myself. I will do that tonight! QUEST 1: To continue to abstain from compulsive overeating, one day at a time. QUEST 2: To follow my fitness plan and to work out twice a week, Monday and Wednesday evenings, at the gym after work. (I went to the gym at work the other day and the very nice man gave me a fitness plan which involves lifting some very pretty, very little pink weights. Tiny- teeny wee things! He and I will at some point have to have words, I think). QUEST 3: To walk to work once a week, all the way, no buses. That's a forty minute walk with a doozy of a hill at the end, colloquially known as 'Cardiac Hill' by locals. I see people running up it sometimes and of late I have thought, I'd like to do that... So, maybe one day soon I will. maybe by this time next year? Anyway. THAT'S ME.