h3r0

So kvass is a very powerful probiotic. If you make some go easy on it...

Training 2 rounds of 1,2,3,4 Ladders Double KB Press 16 kg Double KB Squat 16 kg Sphinx Pose Child pose Pigeon pose Good workout. I was feeling tired and sore but got into it by the middle of the workout.

100%. I am always on time, have a strong work ethic, good at planning, and super helpful. 😛

Physical activity definitely helps. Tends to dampen the highs down. I have been active for a while now and I'd hate to see what it would be like without it. The news fast has starved my anxiety of anything to fixate on and spiral out but I know that it is not a long term solution. Life happens and eventually something will happen at work or a awkward social situation or something will come up and I will be triggered. I'll fixate, make it something that it's not, and lay in bed thinking about it and taking it to the most extreme worst case scenario of a situation that doesn't even exist. Knowing the entire time that none of it is real but feeling nothing but panic about it anyways and can't stop thinking about it no matter how much I try to or distract myself. I have found that ashwagandha helps. Things will happen and I tense up knowing that I am about to be triggered and I feel it almost wind up but then just not. Like a mild pharmaceutical which I probably should be on. I am against doing so, not for any philosophical reason, I am just stubborn and don't want to admit that I probably need to. Ironically the thought of calling a doctor, making a appointment, and talking about my anxiety is in itself anxiety producing. The honest truth is that other than this forum I have never told anyone about my anxiety or discussed it. Only once with one close work friend and only because they saw me completely freaking out about a problem at work that I instantly believed myself fired and a much bigger issue than of course it really was. Most people just assume that I am cold and distant because I don't say much while the real reason is because I am scared of saying the wrong thing and will spend the next month obsessing about it. And I am praised and promoted at work because mistakes don't happen under me and I always achieve the objectives because they assume that I am a perfectionist but the real reason is because I have taken steps to insure none of my crazy never going to happen scenarios do not occur and of course cover the real ones as well and my anxiety is never going to let me fail or not complete a project because I would spiral out. Don't get me wrong, I don't actually spiral out all the time and when I do it has degrees of how bad and how long it lasts but I am starting to realize that I spend a lot of my time and energy on avoiding the spiral outs and it is exhausting.

Training Halos Shin Box with hip extensions 5x5 Bench Press 115# 12x4 KB Swings 24 kg Sphinx Pose Child pose Pigeon pose Good workout. Felt strong. The 24 kg is starting to feel light. Bench Press is not in the program I am following but just wanted to do them. I am so glad I found the Sphinx Pose. I think it is the only thing keeping my low back in the game. I can just feel it unclinch and decompress after a workout. I don't know if I am bulking or not. I have gained a few pounds but don't look any bigger. I have about another two weeks of the first phase and two more phases after this so we will see. I am enjoying the workouts and I am getting stronger so you can't ask for much more than that. Anxiety is doing better. No major flare ups but still have the low level background hum of it like it is waiting. Other than the fast I haven't spent much time working on this goal. I will give it some thought. Kvass Update: I let it ferment for 3 days. It is beyond dark red, a lot of CO2 generated, smells like beets, and no signs of mold. A little bit of yeast on top but supposed to be normal and scooped it off. Taste test and I added too much salt. Cut it with water and it is fine. I expected it to taste like beets and I guess it does a little bit. Definitely earthy. I guess I will find out if I just gave myself food poisoning later today but I don't think so. Poured it into a bottle for storage and set up a new batch using the same beets. Only one tablespoon of salt this time. If I get no stomach irritation today then I will take a morning shot of it every day.

Training Halos 2 x Getups 16 kg 6x3 Double KB Press 16 kg 6x3 Double KB Front Squat 16 kg Sphinx Pose Child pose Pigeon pose Decent workout I'm late to the party with home fermentation but trying out making some beet Kvass. I made up a batch last night and now it is sitting and hopefully it will ferment correctly and I will not give myself food poisoning.

Training Shin Box with hip extensions 9x6 KB Swings 24 kg Sphinx Pose Child pose Pigeon pose Decent workout considering that I was a little lite on sleep last night. I weighed myself yesterday and I have gained 3 pounds so the eating is working so far. Obviously not all muscle but hoping some of it is. Staying on course.

Fireball, fireball, fireball! I need to learn pyromancy myself. Something I will contemplate. Good luck with the challenge. Get some sleep and show the barbell who's boss.

Are you noticing any difference in energy levels, concentration, etc by running off of ketones instead of standard glucose?

Training Shin Box with hip extensions 3 rounds of 1,2,3 Ladders Double KB Press 16 kg Double KB Squat 16 kg Sphinx Pose Child pose Pigeon pose Felt good to workout again. Stress the body in the way I want to instead of crammed into a airplane seat. Post cool down stretch felt stiff. I wasn't able to go as deep as I normally would. The black coating is coming off my cap kettlebell. Grrrrrrrr

Thanks! The hotel did have a gym that was open with a nice selection of dumbbells but unfortunately I couldn't find the time to actually use it. A lot of really early mornings and late nights. It's alright though, I probably didn't need the extra load on the body with everything else going on. Yes. First up I am trying to finish Harrow the Ninth. I read half of it and never finished it, now I am starting over. About a quarter of the way through and have about three books lined up after it. I'm back home now! I don't have to go back next week but I will be heading back out at some point soon I'm sure.

Training Halos Shin Box with hip extensions 10x5 KB Swings 24 kg Sphinx Pose Child pose Pigeon pose Good workout. I used chalk for the first time and wow does that make a difference. I can't believe I haven't tried it sooner. Better and more secure grip all around, easier to focus on what you are doing. Heading to the airport in a few hours.

Training Halos 90/90 8 Rounds: 2 x Double KB Press 16 kg 2 x Double KB Squat 16 kg Decent workout. My form started to break down on cleaning the bells up towards the end. Work Work is sending me out of state next week. I don't know if the hotel gym will be open or not. Last time they said a week and it turned into a month. We'll see. Going to mess up the program progression. Ugh

Training 8x4 KB Swings 24 kg Sphinx Pose Child pose Groggy and out of it this morning. Back is a little stiff. Calories I ate like crazy Monday but I only hit around 2,000 kcal well short of my goal and yesterday was a off and weird day and I only got 1,600 kcal. Need to step that up. The good thing is that I was way over 100g of protein both days. Sleep Ugh, so bad insomnia hit me Monday night. It wasn't anxiety, it was that weird thing that sometimes happens to me where I am tired and fall asleep for 20m and then wake up and can't go back to sleep. Ended up only getting 3 hours and I was a complete zombie all day and it was a really busy day at work which was fun. Last night I popped a melatonin and passed out. I really could have slept longer this morning and now I am all groggy and hung over feeling. Reading around online a couple of articles suggested keeping a sleep journal to look for patterns. I've never thought about it but I am going to give it a try. Throw in a workout log with it. Anxiety Hasn't been a problem the last two days. Stress was high yesterday but I was so exhausted that I didn't feel it. I have kept my news fast so far and it is weird. It has freed up a lot of time. I knew that I did it a lot but I honestly didn't realize how much I was doom scrolling multiple sites multiple times a day over and over. Not sure what to do with myself now. Apparently that was what I was doing whenever I had 5-10 minutes free.

Training 90/90 Halos 4 Rounds of 1/2 Ladders Double KB Press 16kg Double KB Front Squat 16kg Sphinx Pose Child pose Pigeon pose Good workout, been awhile since I have done squats. I downloaded a food tracker and about to cook some eggs and wash it down with a chicken leg I grilled last night. I have removed Twitter from my phone and as is my habit when I woke up I found it missing and remembered that I am news fasting. I typically scroll through 3-4 sites first thing in the morning. Suddenly going to have a lot of free time.

Let the bulking begin! So I'm back on my bull$&#* I've tried numerous times to add a significant amount of muscle to my frame and I have never been able to. Don't get me wrong, I am much more muscular than I was 2-3 years ago when I first started working out but if someone saw me on the street they would think: trim, takes care of himself, possibly athletic, but muscular is not one of the ways that I would be described. Going to give it another shot. I found a 12 week muscle building kettlebell workout program online that seems like something that I would enjoy. The only thing I don't like is that it's just three days a week. I like working out more frequently but perhaps that is part of my problem. As someone having a ectomoroh frame I probably should be doing less rather than more so I will follow the program as written. Eat like you mean it! Other than too much work and too little recovery I know that I usually fail in the kitchen. I see the bulking / muscle diets and I really just don't know how anyone can eat that much food but I'm going to try. Calories = 15 X bodyweight 30/40/30 macro split Looks like I am going to be eating a lot of chicken and multiple small meals a day. I will decide on a tracker later. My anxiety has been high lately. I go through cycles where it is low level and other times when honestly it feels out of control. Regardless of what phase it is currently in I know that it will eventually swing to the other side. Right now I am in a high phase where I feel anxious for no discernable reason whatsoever and I usually throw in some completely irrational fears and worries that I consciously know are not real but that my anxiety still loves to dwell on. I need some tools and strategies to help me when I am in these phases instead of silently suffering through them, pretending it's not happening, and waiting for the phase to pass as I usually do. Anxiety triggers for me are doom scrolling news and political sites. Lack of sleep which is a bad one since it makes me more prone to anxiety and then the anxiety causes insomnia which is a feedback loop. And too much isolation inside. Anxiety busters for me is consistent sleep, deeply feeling music, reading, certain kinds of video games surprisingly, and nature time / walks outside. So action plan is a news and Twitter fast. None during this challenge and see the difference. Daily outside time or music. Instead of doom scrolling spend that time catching up my book backlog. I have 3-4 downloaded I have been meaning to get to.

I haven't checked in for a bit. I had one of my insomnia episodes earlier this week and have been trying to catch up on some sleep ever since. It has been mixed results with one decent night of sleep followed by a four hour night. Not sure why I can't get back to my sleep schedule yet but resetting with a early morning workout tomorrow. Happy labor day weekend everyone!

I don't know anything about CFS so I probably shouldn't say anything but if it is associated with the nervous system rather than musculoskeletal system then it makes sense that strength and power workouts would help and bodybuilder workouts of high volume would just fry the already impacted nervous system. That would also mean max weight lifts should be infrequent but I think that really applies to everyone. Most power lifting programs build up over weeks before it peaks to a max lift PR. Same with a strength program like 5/3/1, it is only once a month followed by a Deload Week. It makes sense to me that low volume / high frequency strength and power programs with scheduled Deloads might work well for you. But again this is all speculation on my part. Loving the squat workout. I hope you can find the lifting style that what works best for you.

Training Shin Box with hip extensions AMAP sets of 4 in 20 minutes 11x4 KB Swings 24 kg Sphinx Pose 4 minutes Child pose Pigeon pose Nice little workout.

Training 6 singles Pullups 10 Getups 16 kg Sphinx Pose Child pose Pigeon pose Figure 4 Nice workout. I know that the challenge isn't over just yet but I have gotten what I wanted these past six weeks. My low back no longer hurts, occasionally still getting some stiffness, but not hurting just walking around anymore. I have rebuilt some strength and have gained a surprising amount of muscle on my upper back from just doing a handful of Pullups several times a week. I am continuing with the kettlebells and the big 3 exercises that I have been doing but splitting Getups and Swings to separate days and adding a squat and Press day once or twice a week. So really more of the same with a bit more variety. Plan to keep this setup through the next challenge as well.

Covid update My son hasn't had any fever in several days and seems to be feeling much better. Still has a nasty cough but otherwise seems to be recovered and his quarantine ends after this weekend. Thankfully it seems like it was a mild case. No one else in the house ever developed any symptoms and we tested negative. Might be premature but it has been a full week since he started showing symptoms so I think we are in the clear. Vaccines work everyone.

Training 6 singles Pullups 8 Getups 16 kg 3x10 KB Swings 24 kg Sphinx Pose Child pose Pigeon pose A much better session but I took a lot of time between sets.

Training 4 singles Pullups 4 Getups 16 kg 2x10 KB Swings 24 kg Just got in some movement this morning. I am really dragging

Try Scapula holds and Pulls. I had the same problem and they really helped me with Pullups and the starting position. Dead Hang from the pullup bar and pull your shoulder blades down and back lifting your body up about a inch and hold it nice and tight. Start with static holds until you can hold for 30s. Once you can do that start doing sets of dead hang to pulled and locked position. I saw these on a pullup progression video and sounded weird but really worked.

It has a deadlift station! How awesome