PshawRaven

The last time I was on here, it was August of 2016. Dang. At that time I had some goals that I have since managed to not only meet, but slam right out of the park. I lost all the weight I was aiming to, and more, and in fact lost enough weight that my doctor started bitching at me to not lose any more. I have made movement and exercise a routine part of my life. My diet is significantly cleaned up, and I stopped drinking. I even got back into working on my comics and doing that almost every day, though that was helped by getting a digital drawing tablet. I don't miss having to scan pages and edit them with GIMP. So why am I respawning, you ask? To say this year has been weird is an understatement. And it's had me looking at my life and my habits in greater detail and thinking much more deeply about what I do, why, and what my goals are. I'm using this as an opportunity to re-write things, make sure I am on the right path towards those goals, and in some ways, just kind of talk to myself out loud. One goal is to gain weight and strength. I started thinking I wanted to do this about a year ago, but every time I'd see the scale number go up I'd start to freak out. Recently I managed to break my daily weighing habit, and I've gained well beyond what my previous "freak out weight" was, and I am not freaking out. I'm lifting three days a week - not anything spectacular since I'm a lifting n00b but I have a set of workouts that I can follow to get progressively stronger. It really hit me that I need to not goof off on this when I was reading a thread on Reddit. A couple of dieticians chimed in on some topic talking about their elderly female clients ... who barely had a BMI of 18, sick and weak with osteoporosis and heart disease. And it made me think of the older women in my family - my grandmother lived to be in her 90s, but she was tiny and frail, like a brittle little bird or something. One of my aunts is so bent over with osteoporosis and back troubles that her husband has to lead her around because she can't physically lift her head to look in front of her. And I don't want to be that. I'm redefining my goals in order to live the healthiest and most active life I can for as long as I can. I know that no amount of healthy food, exercise, and happy thoughts will make me live forever, but I intend to give myself the best fighting chance I possibly can. If I do get to be a gray-haired old lady I'd like to be one that can do headstands and Pigeon Pose.

Following. ;D I'm in a bit of the same predicament with the Batcave. I stopped keeping a lot of the junk foods that tempt me, set my running clothes out the night before, and moved my yoga stuff into the living room. I even got a couple of water bottles that I keep filled and sitting around the house, including one for the truck so I'm never out of water. I was stuck for ideas but now I'm thinking weekly meal prep is probably my next step. I hadn't bothered since I don't work outside the home but it's probably a smart idea.

Sunday - all goals met Monday - all goals met Tuesday and Wednesday - all goals met except the art one. I spent some time prepping for the tropical system headed our way, but it's disorganized and moving slowly, so there's been no rain yet. It feels anticlimactic and I'm feeling pretty low on energy at the moment. I'm hoping I'll get a little nudge after dinner and put some time in. I hate it when things are just on hold like this. The outer bands of the storm may not even make it here until midnight, so I'm left wondering if I'll get to walk tomorrow. But I promised once a new page was up I'd link to the infamous comic. 33 pages so far, and it'll finish up at 40. https://tapastic.com/series/The-Dream-Speaker

Wednesday - goals met Thursday - goals met Friday - scheduled rest day from walking, missed meditation because I forgot. Saturday - set meditation reminder , I don't think art will get done today because it's been unusually busy, but I put some extra time in yesterday and will do so again tomorrow to "catch up." We had to go into town this morning and then I spent the afternoon researching ham radios. Husband's uncle left behind a ton of radios, computers, and electronic stuff some of which is still new in the box, so I'm helping his family out by listing them on eBay. Unfortunately I know diddly-squat about amateur radio so I had to do some homework before writing the listings. Hopefully no one asks me a question, because I'd hate to have to send them a picture of me shrugging with a dumb look on my face.

Sunday - day one of the challenge - went well, all goals met. Monday - family stuff came up and I missed doing yoga. (Husband had a death in the family and needed to go to the funeral, and stay for a couple of nights to help clean up the man's house. It wasn't a family member he was all that close to or knew well, but it still isn't good. He'll be home Thursday.) All other goals met though. Did some warm-up sketches and got a page roughed out and awkward bits penciled in detail. Tuesday - All goals met! Page is now outlined in ink and ready for shading. (I'm doing this one in grayscale because I'm a glutton for punishment.) Today is my normal grocery shopping day and I'm trekking out of my normal way to go to a little Asian grocery that always has lots of great fresh veggies. Stir fry is on my mind, and they almost always have baby bok choy.

Thanks! There will be links upcoming as I load pages to Tapastic. I'm trying to engage in mindfulness both in picking out what to eat and actually eating. Thinking carefully about both calorie and nutrition but also, "how will this make me feel later?" Today I decided I'm picking up a small pizza - nothing fancy. And while I know that's not the greatest food choice ever, I also know I'll portion out a certain amount and add a green salad where I would before have had an extra slice. While I'm eating it, I'll be mindful of doing so, and normally I'll find I don't actually want as much as I thought I did because I'm now aware that I'm full. So far it's working pretty well!

Time for my second 4WC here! A lot has changed for the better since I first joined this forum. I signed up for NFA on Aug. 5 and have been sticking with the workout routines, trying to cut back on my carb intake, and I'm still doing my morning 4 mile walk at least six days a week. My weight fluctuated weirdly, but I believe I was lax on both my carbs and observing the eating window I set for myself. I'm so far successful at reducing my evening wine consumption and that will help with the weight loss, no doubt. My first challenge was probably not the rip roaring success I'd hoped for as I believe I set too many goals at one time. So I gave some more serious thought to how I was going to go about it for the next four weeks. And I think my challenge will simply be to maintain new behaviors so that they become habits. Continue with my workout plan - Six days a week, get out and walk. Every other day it's time to do bodyweight 1A or 1B through NFA. Daily yoga will continue, even if it's just ten minutes of calming poses before bed. On bodyweight "off" days, I've been practicing tai chi. So far so good. Continue making daily meditation a priority. Longer sessions are preferable, but if things get too hectic, even ten minutes is good. Continue being mindful of what I eat. My eating window is from 10 am to 6 pm - any evening snacks must be under 50 calories. Be aware of my carb intake, and if there's something carb-heavy I want, budget other meals around that so as not to go over 100 grams daily. New goal - work on comics for one hour each day. Draw, write out plot notes/script, revise panels, but do something. If I stick to this one, the first story arc will be finished by the end of the challenge, and I'll likely have "fixed" some awkward or not well drawn panels that I already posted. Once that is done, work on banner art for this story until the challenge period is over. It's still hot out there, so remember to stay hydrated, folks!

So I'm giving my first 4WC a C. I think I established too many different goals and bit off more than I could chew. I was successful in breaking my cheese snacking habit, so that's a big win.

I'm actually staying on track with things decently. Tuesday and Wednesday weren't stellar food days - they usually aren't as I get closer to grocery day. So I have to take points off for missing my veggie goal.But I've kept up with my daily walk and everything else so, yay me. I've been a member of the NF Academy for a full week now. I leveled up to around four just marking off quests that are things I already do or don't do. I already get out and walk, I stopped drinking soda a long time ago, and cook a lot of my own meals and have reduced my consumption of highly processed foods. I'm now trying to be mindful of my carb consumption, setting guidelines to reduce how much alcohol I have, and doing the body weight workouts they assigned me. (I'm on body weight one, LOL) I've been following an intermittent fasting plan, not super-strictly, I give and take thirty minutes on my eating window, and it seems to be working for me in combination with strength training and walking. Sunday is my weigh-in day, so we'll see. I also wanted to give myself a self-back-pat for setting up a Stash account. I don't exactly have a lot that is mine, from the point of view of assets. But I just invested my first five bucks in a relatively conservative portfolio, as I am a risk-averse long haul investor. I know five bucks isn't a lot right now, but I plan to look over my meager accounts and see if I can afford to shuffle a fiver over to Stash each month. The monthly fee for using the service is only a dollar, which I can easily handle. On rest days between strength workouts I'm starting to try tai chi. I found several good YouTube videos to follow but I feel clumsy and like my form is terrible. Unfortunately there aren't really any tai chi instructors nearby - the closest ones are in Gainseville or Jacksonville and I didn't even look up how much classes cost.

Monday was a bit off track. I missed both yoga and meditation. I have really got to set my days up in such a way that I prioritize these things. I'm considering starting a battle log. I have several things going on that I'd like to track and while I like the 4WC idea I think I started off with more goals than I could manage easily. Yesterday went off the rails because of a very silly reason, and it's literally just an excuse.

There was a vulpix in my yard but it ran away after three tries. But, I caught three new ones last time I was out!

Mine are normally good! I'm turning 40 soon and this year I may make beef bourguignon, get a bottle of sparkling white, and watch a movie. I share a birthday with Julia Child. Some years I go out and do fun stuff, some years I like to just chill out at home. They're not that bad! Honestly the worst ones were when I was in school. It meant classes started up again soon.

I picked up a basic book on it, and tracked down the more highly rated videos online. As I'm just starting out I don't even know if there's an instructor around here. It's a very very rural area, but there is a karate school about half an hour from here. Most of what I've found on my own is Yang style, and I already have a sword, I'm just not sure what to do with it.

Saturday I got everything done that I wanted. Yay! However, today I elected to skip my morning walk. I spent a lot of yesterday sore and exhausted. Both my knees ached, my shoulders were super tense, and for a about half the day I couldn't turn my head to the right. So I designated Sunday as a Down Day - yoga and meditation but nothing more strenuous. Having something other than cheese as a snack is no longer optional as I just went ahead and tossed out the cheese snacks I already had. I still have things like blocks of cheese but I'm very unlikely to just haul a wedge of cheddar out and start munching on it. And things like mozzarella balls or sticks are not going on the grocery list anymore.

I missed yoga and meditation the past two days, but I'm about to go do both of those now. Getting vegetarian meals in each day is getting a little easier as I'm prepping things ahead that I can warm up - this afternoon I'm simmering a pot of chili beans (sans bacon and ground beef), which I'll be able to eat on for nearly a week. I bought a weighted balance ball and started using it as a gaming chair. But then I saw a video of a guy meditating on one in full lotus - he positioned the ball between two pieces of furniture so that he could get balanced, but I thought, man that is next level. I gotta try that. Not saying I'm throwing my cushion out, but it looks like an interesting challenge.