Laurenji

Hahaha. Hi Sol! You found me! I'd been meaning to post the link to my challenge thread in our group thread, but I hadn't gotten around to posting it yet. As far as my goals go so far, I've taken a walk outside every day so far, and meditated, but I haven't done my 10 minutes of exercises yet. I keep forgetting. I think I'm going to set an alarm.

Hi everyone! Biggest goal of the year: reconnect with my spiritual side. Second biggest: learn how to be mindful of everything I am doing, try to do less things "on autopilot". Hopefully learning to do this will help me stop myself when I realize I'm procrastinating, recognize when I'm doing something to avoid thinking about / doing something else, and be more in tune with what my body's telling me. First challenge: - Meditate 10 min daily - take a walk outside when I'm on my lunch break - do 10 minutes of exercises from the Somatics book (by Thomas Hanna), so that I can learn/remember how & where all my muscles are.

Uh, I hadn't thought about rewards. I'll have to see if I can think of some that might actually motivate me and not be . . . expensive or anything. I thought I had followed this topic, but apparently this forum doesn't automatically follow topics that you post, which I find to be . . . odd . . . but okay. Anyways, thanks for the welcome! I think I'll look around and go introduce myself and stuff.

Ooops, double-posted.

Heeheehee, thanks for the compliments everyone. I only dyed it a couple months ago, so I'm still reveling in its awesomeness myself. Since I have medium brownish hair normally, I did a DIY ombre/balayage bleach job on the lower parts of it, then dyed it with Special FX Deep Purple, which is Super Intense. I even diluted it with conditioner, 2 parts conditioner to 1 part dye, and it still turned my hair almost black for the first week or so! That picture is after a couple weeks of dye. Right now it's sort of a lighter pinkish-purple . . . thinking it's about time to do it again. Anyways, I think I would like to be the team Healer / Paladin, basically as per your description, Sol. Although sometimes I have a hard time doing it for myself, I'm really good at being encouraging and making soothing, sympathetic noises and telling people it's all going to be okay. I will gladly fight all of the demons on behalf of other people, do battle with your anxieties, and do what it takes to get you back up on your feet. As such, my weapon is is a sword and a shield, kind of like Stevonnie from Stephen Universe.

Oo, ooo, purple please! It can match my hair!

So, I tried to post this yesterday, but the internet ate my post. While I think that I will eventually end up an Assassin or something close thereunto, I would like to start out my first challenge of the new year with more body- and self-awareness. To that end, my goals are as follows: - Meditate for 10 minutes daily - Every day when I am at work, (so, M-F), walk around outside at lunch. No specific time limit; as long as I get out the door and take a few steps, it counts. Especially since it's bloody cold outside right now. - Become more aware of my body and muscles by doing the stretching / exercise routine from the book Somatics, by Thomas Hanna. I'll set my benchmark for 10 minutes a day. Anyways, I'm looking forward to hanging out with you all over the next 4 weeks!

Hey! Just saw the update. I think staying here for now would be fine. As you say, it's nice and bookmarked. I'm also intrigued by the "super powers" thing . . . Well, onwards and upwards, everyone!

Thanks, jrosto! I do think that a circuit workout will probably be better for me in the long run, and I don't know that I'll do a long stretching routine afterwards next time, since I really don't have 1.5-2 hours 3 times a week. I've also been considering some version of the Angry Birds workout so that I can do parts of it at work.

Hi Solunaria! I definitely want to still be on your team in January, if you'll have me. I agree with you that the name "assassin" sounds super violent, and also that while I agree with all of the goals of the assassin guild (bodyweight strength, fluidity and dexterity of movement, climbing All The Things, etc) the murder connotations never really floated my boat. So what are we then? Acrobats? Faeries? ("Parkour faerie" sounds kind of cool, I think). I don't know. But I'd love to help come up with more ideas!

Cute snorlax! I . . . lost another week. Monday I was an emotional wreck, Wednesday I played a D&D game, and on Thursday I finally got the sheet music for a piano piece I'm supposed to play tomorrow, so I've spent every night since then practicing it. It's not like I haven't been active; I've walked around quite a bit, and I ran up and down the stairs at work several times this week. I think I need to either give up on / potentially rethink my goal of being strong in specific ways, since that sort of exercise seems to eat up so much of my time, time that I am often unwilling to spend. I don't know. This challenge has certainly been . . . enlightening . . . for me.

Thanks for the kind words, everyone! After I missed the week of Thanksgiving, I am back on track again with my workouts and stretches. I'm not doing as well on the recipes - I need to make 2 more to catch up to where I should be. I'm happy because I can also tell that I'm making progress in my strength. I'm doing diamond pushups, can do horizontal rows now, and I've started doing negative pullups.

Congratulations! That's really exciting.

So, I haven't worked out or done my stretching for about a week. Tonight was my first workout since last Friday. I'm glad I'm part of this challenge though, since it's encouraging me to keep going and not get too far off track, even though I hit a rough patch.

Yay! Glad to see you're still around. I was doing really good for the first couple weeks, but I completely skipped my workout on Friday and I may or may not get around to the one today. Also it's Thanksgiving this week and we'll be over at the in-laws on Wednesday, so I don't know if I'll be exercising then either. I'm still committed to trying to finish out the challenge, though, and it's definitely thanks to everybody here.

Yay! I generally HATE running, but I definitely know the feeling of wanting to break out into a jog. That's really exciting and I'm glad you're seeing progress. I love seeing the little bits of progress that I'm seeing in myself so far.

Got another workout done! Bulgarian Split Squats (I'm working towards one legged squats): 7,6,6 L-sits: 17s,21s,17s Diamond pushups: 8,8,9 Horizontal Rows: 8,7,7 Also, I tried making that sweet potato soup recipe. It's not bad, but it is a little bland, and I would rather eat it with something as opposed to it being a meal by itself. Part of the problem could be that I accidentally dumped the whole can of coconut milk in instead of only 1 cup. After eating a bowl of it my stomach felt pretty rumbly, which I'm blaming in the extra coconut milk. (Did you know that coconut milk is a laxative? I found out the hard way once when I drank half a can of it that was left over from some curry we made... I haven't had had pains that bad in years. Be careful with your coconut milk, kids.)

Got in my workout and stretching routines today! And I actually have the numbers this time! Weighted step ups: 8,8,6 L-sits: 20s,15s,18s Diamond pushups: 8,8,6 Horizontal Rows: 8,7,6

Also Epsom salt in your bath - that stuff is amazing.

Oh, Shorty, that's awful. I'm so sorry for your BF's grandfather. I would be super angry too! For the soreness: take a rolling pin and roll the sore muscles. Roll really hard. It will hurt like the blazes, but you week be magically less sore afterwards! If it's a muscle that's awkward to get with a rolling pin, you can take a small, hard ball like a tennis ball or a lacrosse ball, lay on the floor, and roll it around between your body and the floor. Once again, hurts like hell, but should make you feel better.

Oh, breebles, I'm sorry. I am TERRIBLE at trying to measure calories, and I feel hungry a lot (which means I get cranky and headachey) if I try to eat too little. Steroids are the worst. My husband was on those for a while and he was hungry always, which is saying something because he usually eats less than I do. Once when he was on steroids, he ate a whole pizza in one sitting! So that can't help at all. I do think I want to try and lose fat eventually, but for right now I am just trying to make slightly healthier food choices - eat eggs for breakfast instead of cereal, eat dried fruit for a snack instead of candy - and I'm going that if I ease myself in that way, maybe it week come easier to me later.

So, I did work out and do my stretching routine yesterday, although once again I am updating this at work, having left my notebook at home, so I don't have my numbers. In other news, I think I've settled on a recipe that I'd like to try this week: Slow Cooker Sweet Potato Soup. (can you tell I"m on a sweet potato kick?) I was laughing a little bit this morning, because my 2yo son saw me getting a sweet potato out of the fridge to eat for lunch at work today and he said "Sweet potato? Sweet potato pancakes?". So I guess they were a hit with him, even if they weren't perfectly executed.

Wow, sounds hectic. Good job for making as much progress as you did! Considering I almost considered not doing my workout last night because my headphones were on the fritz, I think a kitchen emergency is a perfectly acceptable reason to postpone.

Ugh. I feel so demotivated today. I did a slightly abbreviated version of my workout today. However, I did feel better after I finished it, especially after I finished stretching.

That's a cute little Umbreon!