BlackRose

So I completely fell of the map for 2 weeks there. Sorry 'bout that. When I'm overwhelmed and tired, I tend to drop everything and only do the things that matter most for my health. As I mentioned in one of my earlier updates I was extremely tired in week 2 and I had to make some major changes to my routine to get back on the path to health and longevity. My initial food plan was too low in fat/protein for me to sustain for a longer period of time and this in combination with a daily body weight work out was just too exhausting for my body. During week 3 and week 4 I have been focused on getting my strength and energy back. I did and do the bodyweight routine every other day or every 3 days depending on whether I have energy or not, I incorporate 2 servings of homemade bone broth daily and I have completely cut out all forms of sugary foods (including dark chocolate) to give my teeth a fighting chance. I did mess up this last Sunday when we went to an all you can eat diner (whoops!).. and I pigged out on several small desserts. It wasn't that much in absolute terms, but because I'm not used to this anymore, my stomach hurt pretty bad. To 'fix' this, I had a glass of wine. I have done very little Spanish language learning, but planning on picking this up again seriously this evening. Yesterday I went to another (Scandinavian) dentist for a checkup of my teeth including Xrays. I was so nervous. 2 weeks ago I went to a Spanish dentist and he told me I had 6 cavities that needed drilling + fixing (he didn't take any xrays though). I didn't tell this new dentist about this and let her check my teeth and make Xrays of all my teeth. And she told me I had great teeth and only had 2 cavities below old fillings that could only be seen on the Xrays. Those have to be fixed and refilled, but that I don't really mind. So what the.. did I fix all those 6 cavities or did my previous dentist greatly exaggerate? I'd like to believe its a little bit of both. I have been experiencing a lot less anxiety and stress since I've changed my diet and I stopped feeling hungry all the time, so I'm definitely continuing on this path. And who knows, maybe I can even fix those last 2 cavities! I do still need to get high quality cod liver oil, but its very hard to come by here, so I'm still looking around for it. So even though I didn't follow my original challenge for these past weeks, it has been an eye-opening experience altogether and it has helped me get on the right path. At least for now

So I still haven't been posting a lot Maybe I should make it my Life-Quest next challenge around. This week has been brutal for me emotionally. Monday I started out extremely tired. Tuesday I was so fed up with all the negativity coming my way that I could hardly sleep. Yesterday I went to the dentist (previous visit was 18 months before) to find out I have quite some cavities and a lot of microcaries. I don't want to name an exact number here because I feel so ashamed I did such a crappy job of taking care of my mouth. I sometimes am too lazy to brush at night when I come home late and just roll into bed without brushing my teeth. Big no-no, but I always justified it by "well, I eat properly so its not such a big deal. My mouth can take care of itself". Well, turned out it is a big deal. I was so upset yesterday that I almost started crying at the dentist office. I perceive it as a major failure to myself. My first impulse was "Whats the use in living healthy if this is the result? F*ck it, I'm gonna drown out this failure by drinking and smoking". But then I thought of my goals and how good I was doing and how I would have to tell all you guys "I failed" and how I would let myself down, and I was like "No, I won't do that, I'm stronger than that". And I turned out I was and I am and its a great feeling. I decided to at this moment in time not have my cavities fixed and to have a second opinion in Dec when I'm back in Holland. If they're there, I just have to face the music. And as icing on the cake, I got my period tonight. Oh, the joys of obsessing over your teeth at night while having menstrual pain. My monthly pains aren't by far the worse pains a woman can have, but it does makes sleeping difficult. I did do the goals I set out for myself every day, but I did not practice Spanish yesterday. Or maybe I can count all my anxious questions to the Spanish dentist as practice? For my Spanish goals, I finished my 8hrs TV a couple of days back and so far read 3 books. I also spend every day (except) yesterday studying for at least an hour (although this isn't part of my LifeQuest I still make an effort to actively study new words, verbs etc. every day). The good news is, is that I'm still on track for completing all my quests perfectly. So how to deal with this teeth issue? I researched it yesterday evening and found out research shows that it IS possible to reverse cavities with the right diet and the right dental health care regime. Luckily my diet isn't horrible, so I can make small modifications to make it "teeth building". I need to add bone broth + pastured butter, and remove brown rice becomes it supposedly drains teeth from their minerals if you don't cook it properly. Both preparing and eating bone broth daily and going rice-free has been on my list for quite some time now for other reasons, so I was pleasantly surprised and immediately accepting of these modifications. I'm also going to start "oil pulling" daily. It cleans your mouth using high quality oil. Bought myself some coconut + tea tree oil for this. And I'm taking cod liver oil + vit D3 daily for stronger teeth. Basically, I'm taking out all the big guns to win this battle! To be honest, I'm excited to see how much of the damage can be fixed, kinda like a scientific experiment. Even if I don't win and need to take 2 trips to the dentist to get all cavities fixed, this will NEVER happen to me again. So fixing my teeth is an additional quest this month, and although there's the risk of spreading myself too thin, it is not an option to not do it. My modified healthy diet will be something like this: eat 3-4 veggie based meals: early morning snack before workout: 1 piece of fruit + large glass of warm water breakfast: bone broth + veggies (+ optional egg/meat depending on needs)lunch: veggies + egg/meat/fish + butterdinner: 50/50 veggies + meat/fishsnack during the day: additional serving of bone brothI still have to see how I feel after every meal so its still open for minor changes. I also have to make the bone broth. Getting a chicken from the local butcher to prepare for dinner and will use the bones to make a broth tomorrow. Until that time I'm swapping brown rice for white rice. Oh, almost forgot. I had to check my blood pressure because there are indications that taking Vit D3 can lower blood pressure. I did it with some kind of special machine that also happens to measure your height, weight, BMI and resting heart rate. My blood pressure isn't perfect (139/73), my resting heart rate is meh (77/minute) and my BMI is 25.2. I can definitely lose about 10 kg. I never measure my weight (I just go with how I look + how my pants fit, because I tend to get obsessive when tracking my weight and end up making unhealthy choices) so this was a surprise to me. Oh, the joys of this week. It's just a gift that keeps on giving. So that's about it. I get so talkative when I'm tired, sorry for the rant , just had to get it out of my system. I'll be taking some major downtime today, watching Arrow and Limitless, secretly fantasizing of perfect teeth, perfect weight and perfect fitness levels.

Wow, 4 liters is quite a lot. I've never tracked my water intake, I have a general idea of what I drink and I notice pretty soon when I don't drink enough. And another wow, you just got out of the military? Did you go through some intense training to get in? I'm sure in time and with enough patience in making connections with other people we'll both indeed be ok

It was freakin awesome! I did a race with hubby to see who could complete the course first and I won totally exhausted afterwards, but we redid some parts to challenge ourselves some more. They also had monkey bars, but I couldn't cross them. I feel a new goal coming up... I was tired but so relaxed when we came home. Might go again somewhere this week. I finally watched a youtube video on negatives and now I see what they actually entail. I'm still working my way down my stairs so I'm not sure when/if I'll be needing them but I will keep them in mind, thanks for reminding me

Welcome to the party! It has definitely taken me a lot of falling down and getting up again before I started understanding the shades of gray. When I'm tired it's harder for me to be balanced, because that voice inside my head keeps telling me I'm not good enough and need to do more, even though I'm exhausted. Today is one of those days. I'm doing the absolute minimum quest wise and I feel guilty about it. I refuse to give into that feeling because i want to have the same wonderfull week as last one. It'll pass though. Anyhow NF has been great so far, it's great to know I'm not alone in this battle to be healthy. When I think about all those other nerds out there fighting the good fight, it really makes me feel less alone. I'm sorry to hear you've been having a hard time making friends. I still haven't figured out the magic formula for making true friends and I also seem to fail every time I try. I'm now more focused on being my own best friend, although I'm definitely still open to making other ones Oh and I read your challenge and wanted to share something that has really helped me with drinking more water. I carry a large beer mug with me all day that I fill a couple of times. I usually drink warm water or green tea (green tea helps with fat loss) because my body doesn't like cold water too much.

I can so relate to this. I HATE doing the dishes. I've often wondered why, maybe its because my parents were always fighting around "doing the dishes" time. Anyhow, I now just do them when I'm making breakfast (cooking brown rice takes like forever) or when I do them in the afternoon I consider it like a semi-warm up from sitting on my ass all day. Good luck with your dishes! GO BEAST MODE

Thanks! Yea, I really want to be more active here & support others with their goals, but I also want to not stress about posting, still trying to find the perfect balance. I'm also planning to post some recipes (saw there was a special board for that), but also trying to find time for that. Probably will be some vegan recipes as most things I make on a daily basis are plant-based.

What I noticed the last couple of days with people around me, is that pretty much everyone has their own insecurities. Its that we are all so focused on our own that we tend to overlook that others have similar feelings. You know, when I used to be actually able to really talk to people and have them understand me, I used to get so excited when I found another nerd in real life. The skill and dedication most nerds have, wow, that always impressed me and I couldn't wait to pick their brains and learn something from them / talk geek. So I'm guess the point I'm trying to get across, is that we'd probably have pretty awesome conversations and that I think we should embrace our inner weirdness and try to connect with like-minded peeps. Those normal people don't know what they're missing out on Oh and if I don't sound totally coherent, I'm totally exhausted from hopping around on a big bouncy obstacle course on the sea (similar to a wipe out course). And lol, we'll see where the push up quest will take me. I'm expecting my muscles to cooperate and progress linearly but based on what I heard from others the full push up skill is pretty hard to obtain.

Thanks for your positive feedback Approaching my goals in a non black/white fashion has been pretty hard for me as I'm a perfectionist. It's something I have to remind myself of every day, every decision I make. If I push myself too far beyond my limits, I tend to get burned out really fast. This past week has been wonderful though, I've worked hard without being hard on myself and made sensible decisions for my health. Yesterday I was making breakfast and I was thinking to myself: "what will I do today" and everything that I had to take care of was actually done. Such a weird but good feeling, haven't felt like that in a while. I also realized today that doing 15 push ups at the end of the challenge might be setting the bar a bit too high, but I'll try to get there

Hi add1sun, Following your progress because we have somewhat similar goals and situation (I moved abroad too and after 2.5 years living in Spain, my spanish also isn't what it should be). Duolingo has been a great help for me too, but I also started using Anki, which is a great tool for spaced repetition. And I can definitely recommend training language by talking with locals! And I'm also doing the "a veggie each meal"-thing this challenge Good luck with your challenge and hope to see you around!

Also posted my mini-challenge in my Quest thread, but posting it here too, because.. well.. I'm unsure where it belongs, to be honest Is your overall quest achievable (over a short or long period of time)? Is it reasonable? My overall quest is to create healthy habits to build/maintain strength, endurance and longevity. Next to this quest I have monthly side-quests that will probably all be related to learning languages as I want to become a polyglot. These are hard quests, but the goals are so important to me, that I WILL fight to achieve them. Do your 3 quests all build towards your main quest in little ways, or are you taking on too much? Do your quests have sub-quests or is it just one thing to focus on? They do build towards my main quest in little ways. Strength goal: be able to do 15 real push ups Endurance: do NF basic bodyweight routine every morning Longevity: eat 3-4 veggie based meals Stop drinking alcohol and cigarettes, at fatty meals replace wine with strong green tea Side quest: Level up in Castellano Read 8 Spanish books (can be children's books) Watch 8 hours of Spanish TV, movies Listen 8 hours to Spanish podcasts/radio I have been dealing with/working towards these quests before, sometimes in more succesful ways than other times. Spanish language learning is kickin' my butt though (I might have to reduce the time I spend daily on it, right now it might be 2-3 hours). I also notice I have a hard time adjusting to doing the same workout every day. Some days I might have to break it up in smaller parts and do them spread out over the day. No biggie. Are your main goals realistic? Can you scale them to smaller steps to fit your life better, even if it will make it take a little longer to achieve them? My goals are already scaled down. Are your goals able to be measured and tracked? What will you use to track them? I just need to do my quests daily. Nothing really to track there. I have a log for the hours I spend watching spanish movies, listening to podcasts and to log the books I've read. How are you grading your goals? Are they pass/fail (“every dayâ€, “not even once over the six weeksâ€)? Is there a reward for the effort, or are you only grading yourself on whether or not you “lose the weight†or “run the distanceâ€? My goals are pass/fail goals, but I'm taking a non black-white approach to them. Maybe I've eaten a lil less perfect on a specific day, or maybe I broke up my BBWW in small parts. That's ok too, although it isn't what I want to achieve on a daily basis. I'll probably have a good reason for doing things differently, life doesnt fit in a perfect lil' box and neither should I. What is your plan for continuing/altering/grading those goals if you become ill or injured? If I become ill or injured, I'll scale back my workout to either just walking daily or doing it in little small pieces, depending on the injury. Eating great is a must to restore injuries so that shouldn't change. Did you take into consideration any special occasions (Labour Day, Independence Day, birthdays, anniversaries, etc) that may occur during the challenge? What modifications do you need to build into your goals for those? I didn't consider special occassions, because I truly want to enjoy every day of my life. I do not place special importance on “special occassions†or feel the need to overlook my goals on those days. I do however consider my wedding anniversary special, but I just had one so its not to come for another year. I however should modify my working out plan when that special time of month comes around. Exercising hard + menstruating = great losses of energy. I probably will break down my BBWW in parts or replace it altogether by gentle walking on a daily basis. Do any of your main goals conflict with each other? Will one goal make it hard to do another? I should be more efficient with my goals so they don't eat away at each others time and more important eat away too much at my energy levels. In essence they don't compete with each other, but they do compete for time and energy. And if I practice Spanish too late at night, I sleep very lightly and dream about Spanish words which is not always that fun. I'll limit my Spanish learning to max. 2 hrs a day and will not do it too late at night. Do you already have the time in your schedule to actually complete the goals you’ve set? If not, what are you planning to do to make time for them? Yes I have. I do my BBWW first thing in the morning and I have carved out time to make 2 homemade meals a day, if not 3, depending on my hunger levels. I also do my groceries once a week: I buy all the fruits, veggies, rice and other products I need to make the meals I need to fuel my health. I usually also make a big pot of vegetable soup in the weekends that lasts 3-4 days. Sometimes I also make a big batch of homemade chickpeas to use during the week. I use smart language training tools such as Anki flash cards to memorize verbs/words, talk to locals in Spanish on a daily/semi-daily basis and have access to a library for books and lots of Spanish dubbed movies. There's no reason to fail any of my goals, however, I should be aware that I spend my time efficiently. Are you trying to build multiple habits, or is all your energy focused on your main quest? Multiple habits.

Mini-Quest: get SMART Is your overall quest achievable (over a short or long period of time)? Is it reasonable? My overall quest is to create healthy habits to build/maintain strength, endurance and longevity. Next to this quest I have monthly side-quests that will probably all be related to learning languages as I want to become a polyglot. These are hard quests, but the goals are so important to me, that I WILL fight to achieve them. Do your 3 quests all build towards your main quest in little ways, or are you taking on too much? Do your quests have sub-quests or is it just one thing to focus on? They do build towards my main quest in little ways. Strength goal: be able to do 15 real push ups Endurance: do NF basic bodyweight routine every morning Longevity: eat 3-4 veggie based meals Stop drinking alcohol and cigarettes, at fatty meals replace wine with strong green tea Side quest: Level up in Castellano Read 8 Spanish books (can be children's books) Watch 8 hours of Spanish TV, movies Listen 8 hours to Spanish podcasts/radio I have been dealing with/working towards these quests before, sometimes in more succesful ways than other times. Spanish language learning is kickin' my butt though (I might have to reduce the time I spend daily on it, right now it might be 2-3 hours). I also notice I have a hard time adjusting to doing the same workout every day. Some days I might have to break it up in smaller parts and do them spread out over the day. No biggie. Are your main goals realistic? Can you scale them to smaller steps to fit your life better, even if it will make it take a little longer to achieve them? My goals are already scaled down. Are your goals able to be measured and tracked? What will you use to track them? I just need to do my quests daily. Nothing really to track there. I have a log for the hours I spend watching spanish movies, listening to podcasts and to log the books I've read. How are you grading your goals? Are they pass/fail (“every dayâ€, “not even once over the six weeksâ€)? Is there a reward for the effort, or are you only grading yourself on whether or not you “lose the weight†or “run the distanceâ€? My goals are pass/fail goals, but I'm taking a non black-white approach to them. Maybe I've eaten a lil less perfect on a specific day, or maybe I broke up my BBWW in small parts. That's ok too, although it isn't what I want to achieve on a daily basis. I'll probably have a good reason for doing things differently, life doesnt fit in a perfect lil' box and neither should I. What is your plan for continuing/altering/grading those goals if you become ill or injured? If I become ill or injured, I'll scale back my workout to either just walking daily or doing it in little small pieces, depending on the injury. Eating great is a must to restore injuries so that shouldn't change. Did you take into consideration any special occasions (Labour Day, Independence Day, birthdays, anniversaries, etc) that may occur during the challenge? What modifications do you need to build into your goals for those? I didn't consider special occassions, because I truly want to enjoy every day of my life. I do not place special importance on “special occassions†or feel the need to overlook my goals on those days. I do however consider my wedding anniversary special, but I just had one so its not to come for another year. I however should modify my working out plan when that special time of month comes around. Exercising hard + menstruating = great losses of energy. I probably will break down my BBWW in parts or replace it altogether by gentle walking on a daily basis. Do any of your main goals conflict with each other? Will one goal make it hard to do another? I should be more efficient with my goals so they don't eat away at each others time and more important eat away too much at my energy levels. In essence they don't compete with each other, but they do compete for time and energy. And if I practice Spanish too late at night, I sleep very lightly and dream about Spanish words which is not always that fun. I'll limit my Spanish learning to max. 2 hrs a day and will not do it too late at night. Do you already have the time in your schedule to actually complete the goals you’ve set? If not, what are you planning to do to make time for them? Yes I have. I do my BBWW first thing in the morning and I have carved out time to make 2 homemade meals a day, if not 3, depending on my hunger levels. I also do my groceries once a week: I buy all the fruits, veggies, rice and other products I need to make the meals I need to fuel my health. I usually also make a big pot of vegetable soup in the weekends that lasts 3-4 days. Sometimes I also make a big batch of homemade chickpeas to use during the week. I use smart language training tools such as Anki flash cards to memorize verbs/words, talk to locals in Spanish on a daily/semi-daily basis and have access to a library for books and lots of Spanish dubbed movies. There's no reason to fail any of my goals, however, I should be aware that I spend my time efficiently. Are you trying to build multiple habits, or is all your energy focused on your main quest? Multiple habits.

Poppin' in to see how your quest is going. I just wanted to say that it is ok to fail and not meet your own goal to be perfectly on track. I used to have this all or nothing mindset: I either do it perfectly or don't bother at all. Anything in between would be failure. Of course, that's not true! The fact that you have set your mind on becoming a better version of yourself and are taking steps to do so is absolutely incredible. And recently I've found this novel concept of doing what I can if I'm not able to do it all. So maybe just focus on at least getting your zzzzzs? I hope things settle down soon!

He indeed makes amazing pasta! We have our own little herb garden with fresh home-grown herbs for those pastas Wish I could send a little bit your way! You keep kicking ass too! (btw, are you currently on a Quest?)

Update So my thoughts before joining the boards were kinda like this: "Yea, I'm gonna join the boards, chat with everyone, update my thread daily, get really into it". And then real life came around and reality turned out to be a little bit different. So I'll update as much as I can on my progress, it'll probably be every 3 days or something because these Quests are kicking my butt right now So far I've been pretty much on track with my diet and my workouts. Monday afternoon I slipped up a bit, because hubby made this gorgeous home made pasta sauce with fresh tomatoes and lots of fresh herbs and because I was hungry, enjoy pasta like crazy and didn't want to say "honey, I'll make me some rice + veggies, no thanks" I ate it and enjoyed it very much. Not really a big deal, the next meal I was back on track. I'm going avoid this type of situations by making sure I'm the one who makes lunch. Tuesday I felt tired in the morning and didn't really feel like working out but pushed through it and did it anyway. In the evening we ate out and I resisted the urge to order paella for 2 and went with a fresh fish + veggies and a fish soup. Haven't craved any alcohol or cigarettes whatsoever, so thats great. Wednesday went as planned (did my workout + ate the way I should) and I went to the library to finally get those books for my Spanish reading goals. It has been a long time since I had to get books from the children section, lol. I'm pretty intimidated by those right now because they dont seem as easy as I'd expected. I spend Mo-Wed learning Spanish verbs on a daily basis, I think about 1-2 hrs daily, I haven't really been keeping track. Also made sure I got my hands on some Spanish dubbed Disney movies, so I'm probably gonna watch Aladdin this afternoon. I soooo enjoy watching Disney and childrens movies in general. They don't have a lot of negativity in them and they're also pretty cute. I also bought a Goose Game board. I'll extend the playing rules so each player has to practice a verb every turn by picking a card and answering the Spanish equivalent of the verb thats on it. Yesterday evening I suddenly felt tired, sneezy and cold. Still feel pretty tired today so I'm breaking up the BBWW and doing the individual exercises spread out over the day. It's not the same as doing it all at once, but its a compromise that's ok to me. Hoping to proceed with my normal routine tomorrow. Thats it. I'm off to do a part of the BBWW and watch Aladdin