Mike Wazowski

32 minutes ago, Mad Hatter said:

That's one way of looking at it. Another way is that I've been binge watching so much How I Met Your Mother I'm now taking advice from fictional characters.

 

You could do worse than Neil Patrick Harris for life advice (even if it is NPH playing a raging tool).

32 minutes ago, Mad Hatter said:

I do like the transparency, but it's also a bit of effort to type up, so we'll see if I'll keep it.  

Faaaair point. Pretty soon "type up yesterday's plan" becomes its own checkbox, and that's not a fun place to be.

12 hours ago, Harriet said:

Here to nod approvingly at your recovery.

Welcome aboard! Hopefully there will be many occasions for nodding.

19 minutes ago, raptron said:

Fingers crossed recovery ramps up for ya. 

Yes please! I am definitely noticing things get better, but in a non-linear, noisy fashion so it's hard to tell (also, hard to quantify pain OR the ratio of blood to mucus that comes out when you rinse your sinuses OR the volume of said yuckiness in a given rinse).

19 minutes ago, raptron said:

I sent a complaint/feature request to my activity tracker about being able to hide the horribly off kcal estimates (mine thinks I only burn 1400 calories on a lifting day. 😂 😂 😂), but if you start with the flawed data, it's ok to compare against other flawed data, yeah? I get this strat! 

Hahahahaha was that the whoop? And that was its estimate for *total* calories burned (i.e. including BMR)? I remember you saying it called your lifting "active recovery," but didn't realize it was that bad. So far, my apple watch has performed ok with strength stuff (though I also never take powerlifter levels of rest mainly because I get bored), and it at least spits out directionally believable results in general (e.g. my most intense dance days are the ones it says I burned the most active calories). So good enough for me, for now.

Recovery Update:

• Less than 48 hours til post-op! The countdown on the chalkboard is giving me hope.
• I'm officially through the full prescription of pain killers - using tylenol has so far been good enough, if not perfect, for letting me get through the days.
• I'm getting faint hints of smell from strongly scented stuff - fresh ground coffee, some stuff in my bathroom, you get the idea - which is an encouraging sign that my sinus tissue has healed.
• I've been able to go on some morning walks and have built back up to my old 1.4 mile loop around the neighborhood with no ill effects. The past two days have been active cals of ~500 vs. a post-surgery ~400 and a pre-covid / surgery ~1,000. So still a long way to go to get back up to old levels of activity, but progress is being made!

No other big updates. Might get around to long-term goals planning later this week. Maybe - if not, it's NBD, I've got til the end of the challenge to have a plan for the next one.

So it took several watches to catch what it said, but I love the shirt choice! (Not that I'm super knowledgeable on the issues with USAPL, but I'm aware there are some)

1 hour ago, Mad Hatter said:

At least it's something different! And if worst comes to worst I can always go back to my old role with some lessons learned.

Sounds like we're walking into this with healthy perspective!

Also, I love your use of checkboxes for your plan.

10 hours ago, Harriet said:

*Note to self: remember to drink cold tea with no milk and without the tea leaves otherwise headaches will happen.

I want you to know that this wit did not go unappreciated!! I'd have even chuckled would it have not aggravated surgery recovery tissue junk.

4 hours ago, Scaly Freak said:

I have a sibling who reported a night-and-day difference in anxiety levels after entirely giving up coffee (=caffeine). This has me a little conflicted, since anxiety is a thing that I live with, and coffee is a thing I don't want to live without. Decaf just doesn't taste as good.

Ooof, I've been feeling the same struggles re: coffee and anxiety.

6 hours ago, Harriet said:

 

I don't know what drip pads are, and I am absolutely not going to make any jokes about tampons. Ahem.

Hahahahaha please don’t hold back!! I legit made some similar jokes to friends with off-color senses of humor, including some about being past my “heavy day” once I was no longer soaking through the gauze (a “drip pad” is just my surgeon’s name for using medical tape to put some gauze right below my nose to catch mucus / blood drips).
 

6 hours ago, Harriet said:

It sounds really rough but I'm glad you're on the mend. After covid and the HR stress, the universe owes you some joy. Good things are coming next challenge, for sure.

❤️

I sure hope you’re right, though I’ll happily wait patiently for the light at the end of tunnel.

5 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Another sane and sensible challenge? I'm so confused. Must be the post-surgery drugs.

Hahahaha. I have been too sedated to have any manic, stupid ideas.
 

5 hours ago, sylph said:

Right? This is at least twice in a row I've wondered whether I've stumbled into the wrong thread

Hahahaha y’all are toooo kind.

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Good luck with the recovery, Mike. I know it'll be worth it for you in the long run, but the interim sounds a bit hellish.

Yes, I’ve had to focus on the long run a LOT the past couple days (weeks, really, if we count COVID recovery crap).
 

5 hours ago, Scaly Freak said:

Excellent choice of priorities. First we heal, then we do the fun stuff.

 yes, though this healing could do with some speeding up!
 

5 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Following with no promises of frequency of posting.

Completely understand, given that you follow an insane number of threads.
 

3 hours ago, Epsilonte said:

Wise words.  

 it was a good spur of the moment realization during a reflective patch this afternoon.
 

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And hey, at least sleeping enough is something, you could (and should ) do while you are still recovering.  

Oh yes - something I should do, though some combo of pain and pain meds and not being allowed to sleep lying flat (I’ve been told to sleep pretty propped up) has made my sleep heavily troubled. Last night was a “good” night - there was a whole 4 hour stretch that I think was undisturbed. I’m hoping that this trend of progressively better sleep continues, and fast.

12 minutes ago, Scaly Freak said:

So... no pitchforks...?

 

Blame a competent and friendly HR rep and a good department VP. I still have a teeny tiny axe to grind with the perp, but that's a good topic for upcoming meditation time!

11 minutes ago, Mad Hatter said:

😂 Too bad recovery is slower than you'd like, but I'm hopeful it will all be worth it sooooon!

 

Wow, life's thrown some really nasty curve balls your way lately. Your optimistic attitude despite everything is quite remarkable. 🙂

❤️ thanks - I really appreciate the kind words!

I was on a reflection and planning roll, so new challenge is posted, y'all (it looks, unsurprisingly, an awful lot like this challenge did - hopefully, I will not have multiple setbacks crop up in consecutive weeks like the past 5 weeks have been!):

What's up, nerds!

Here's a little about me, and the rough challenge plan:

I'm a competitive ballroom dancer, my day job is as a data and business strategy nerd for an energy company. I also teach college kids how to dance, and love spending time with my wonderful friends and/or BF in between all that stuff. I'm also a raging personal finance and econ nerd, so feel free to ask me a question and enjoy the rant that follows. 

It's been a rough past month or so since the new year started - a lot of excrement has hit the fan at work in terms of projects, and I got to file my first HR complaint (which has since been resolved, mostly to my satisfaction). I'm also recovering from a sinus surgery since last Thursday - have my post-operation appointment this Friday. I also caught COVID shortly before the surgery (don't worry, I was fully recovered and put no one at risk by getting the surgery). Recovery's been slower going than expected, but I already was planning on a fairly slow ramp back up to normal activity levels for this whole challenge as part of a larger physical conditioning plan (which I will post here, eventually). The gist is that this challenge is all about getting back to my pre-surgery, pre-covid, pre-winter holidays levels of dance activity. This won't really be tracked, per se, but I'll report on it via my daily active calories, as measured by my smart watch (do smart watches have documented measurement errors when they estimate calories? Yes. Am I assuming that the same watch is going to err similarly when the same person chooses from a similar menu of activities on consecutive days, and therefore I can still use it to inform my tracking? Also yes).

Other areas of focus will be, daily:

• Making time for sleep (7+ hours made available)
• Meditation (at least 5 minutes just calming down with my thoughts)
• Mobility (10+ minutes every day, both as part of an evening wind down ritual and as a periexercise activity)
• Planning out my time (in the morning, at the start of the day, and also on Monday morning or Sunday evening at the start of the week)
• Taking a walk outside (my mental health is way better when I leave my apartment and go outside every day)

Once the daily ones are back and ticking along:

• 3x a week, ankle prehab and a basic pilates routine for some work on the two highest leverage areas for me as a dancer
• Start experimenting with ways to take some of the biggest distractions that keep me from working deeply (aka "getting in the zone") during the work day and give them a set time and place in my day so that I'm not doing them willy nilly (e.g. refreshing email, social media, etc. - the usual offenders that let us do paradoxically both a lot and nothing at all during an 8 hour work day) (edit 02/11 - this was ambitious for this challenge, lol)

I'm hopeful that this won't be an especially ambitious challenge, and I'm also not holding myself to account on any goals until I feel more recovered from surgery - it's been slow going and while I *hope* I'll be fine by the end of zero week, the body will heal on its schedule, not one I try to impose on it.

EDIT: Adding in my yearly planning stuff from last challenge, plus some challenge plans (spoilered for length)

Here's what I laid out in late 2020 / early 2021 as the rough list of things I wanted to build this year - it starts with foundational habits, then builds to other life habits, and also some projects to tackle. Anything in blue is currently in progress and a focus, anything in green is a solid habit, anything struck through has either been completed (if it's also green) or deprioritized to "not this year" status.

And here's some challenge plans for this one and future challenges:

Wooooo! Glad you're starting to get settled in the new house, and that it already feels like a proper home! As for movement that you can do in non-workout clothes, nothings coming to mind, but hopefully maybe I'll think of something.

Oh my, we're prepping for no caffeine? Godspeed to you, you brave soul!!

Oh, and no sugar on top of it. You basically just outlined the plan for how someone could assassinate me.

On 2/8/2021 at 4:35 AM, Harriet said:

Ooh, recover well from the surgery! Then you will be shiny and new with perfect sinuses.

10 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

How's recovery going? 🙂data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAPABAP///wAAACH5BAEKAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw==

Thanks for checking in, you lovely nerds! Recovery has been, unfortunately, quite slow going. I'm counting down the hours til my post-op appointment when the splint tubes that are currently inside my nose come out (and hoping that some of my headaches will go away once there aren't hard plastic tubes jammed up my sinuses). Headache pain is slowly dulling, which is good, since I'm at the end of the prescription for pain meds and have ramped down to over-the-counter ones. I'm back to working, though I don't have the energy for much in the evenings (but work's a nice distraction from headaches and stuff, so I mostly don't mind but also lightly resent the US employment system). I'm still washing a lot of blood and mucus out every time I rinse my nose with saline (twice a day, at the doctor's orders) and I can tell my face is a little swollen still, but I think those things are both slowly improving (my BF either actually saw me looking much better in a selfie I sent him yesterday evening vs. when he saw me on Saturday, or he was kind enough to lie to me - I'd take either at this point). My nose is still a little runny and bloody, but just bad enough to wear a drip pad, no longer am I soaking through them like in the early post surgery days. I'm back to solid foods and starting to get some sense of smell back, and I've been able to take short outside walks the past couple days (even got over a mile today, with a stop at the local coffee shop for the obvious). I'm still going to pawn off my dance teaching to my co-teachers this week because my energy levels come and go, but I'm optimistic things will improve soon. Oh! And I have a countdown on my chalkboard for how many hours until my post-op procedure, because I'm really looking forward to the relief that'll hopefully come from it.

Quick challenge wrap-up: honestly, this one got derailed by a hellish couple of weeks getting COVID, recovering, dealing with some of the fallout of that, filing an HR complaint, dealing with some stressful and time sensitive work projects, and then having surgery towards the end of last week. I'm not gonna call things a failure, but the goals (sleep, mobility, meditation, planning) will all need a bit of a restart as I get into full recovery mode from surgery. The biggest win might be that I made a plan that covered most of the year for physically taxing goals - I'll want to do something similar for non-physically-taxing goals during this coming zero week (and maybe also week 1, since surgery recovery's been rough). I'll post a link with a new challenge, soon-ish.

Awesome challenge results - glad you had so much success in doing things the past couple weeks (and, by all accounts, it was the culmination of months of experimenting and learning).

Ooh, love the plan - especially that we're avoding the Mike Wazowski trap of trying to change too much, all at once!

Oh! Forgot one other, semi-random thing: I ordered a couple things to support workout goals:

• A dip bar I can mount to my wall with lag bolts (I like working weighted dips when my strength is high, in addition to gymnastics rings ones)
• A replacement set of running shoes for the ones I've worn near daily since the fall that are starting to get some holes in them
• A pair of quarter zips in an activewear material and a beanie so that I can take runs in colder weather (or walks, since realistically I won't start running until it's warm in TX)

Theoretically, these'll be some of the only splurges for the foreseeable future, other than replacing things as they quit working. And I will hold myself to that theoretically, because I've got travels and other financial goals worth saving for!

On 2/1/2021 at 7:09 PM, miss_marissa said:

I think this all makes sense! 

 

I also feel you on being able to run a 5k lol Just being able to continuously run the whole time for a 5k would be cool!

Ya, it was really useful to put it all on paper when I did it - because for a while I was just sort of going with "does this have any benefit?" when evaluating whether or not to do a fitness thing. And obviously, that's a great way to end up scattered over too many things.

On 2/2/2021 at 9:31 AM, Cheetah said:

Sounds good!

 

Haha, thanks. Fortunately, I've got a while before I even have to start mustering any willpower, since we're 6 weeks out from starting up running (or something like that).

On 2/4/2021 at 7:58 AM, Mad Hatter said:

I bet it'd only take you a few weeks tops to run a 5k! I'm sure that dancing has already given you more capacity than you think, and it's more about getting used to running and pushing through. It's a good baseline goal though, I feel it too! Especially among my fit friends who run 5-10k like it's nothing.  

On 2/4/2021 at 8:44 AM, raptron said:

Agreed! Running is mostly about accepting how much it is going to suck, repeatedly. One stride at a time. 

Hehe we'll find out. With some of the running form work I was  doing late last year - specifically, focusing on keeping a well braced and aligned spine and using the posterior chain to help cycle the legs - I actually felt a lot of joy while doing my running intervals. TBD if that holds as the intervals continue to get longer and/or I start just running continuous distances.

On 2/4/2021 at 8:44 AM, raptron said:

Glad you're feeling better.

 thank you! Though I just jumped back into feeling temporarily crummy, because surgery (though I'm excited about the long-term potential of it - maybe, in a weird way, it's like starting running ).

Couple drive-by updates to close out the challenge:

• Thankfully, engaging with HR and my department's management has mostly gone well. It's unclear if I'll ever get an apology from the person who shared my info without my consent or knowledge, but I can live with never hearing one as long as the department is set up to make it much less likely that this'll happen to someone else in the future. My HR rep was also grateful that I waited to have discussions about it until my emotions had subsided a little - apparently it makes his job easier when people don't say regrettable things while wounds are still fresh. I also have definitely grown from this experience, even if it's not something I'd actively wish upon anyone.
• Surgery yesterday went well, according to my care team (as this is my first and hopefully last sinus surgery, my opinion counts for diddly squat and I defer to the experts). My head is very clearly still recovering - lots of "fun" discharge is coming out of my nose, I've got low-to-medium grade headaches, and I'm tired a lot (although less so as I get farther out from general anesthesia - that shit apparently hits me HARD). All that kvetching aside, I'm pretty sure I can feel much more open sinus passages when they're not full of blood and mucus, so I'm really optimistic for how I'll feel once the post-surgery swelling subsides and especially once the plastic tube splints holding my septum straight can be removed. Also, I've never looked forward more to running saline through my nasal passages than I do now when it's a twice-a-day reset on the gunkiness. I had a great friend take me to and from surgery, and she also got soup for me for dinner, plus plenty of soft foods, gatorade, and gauze pads to get me through recovery. God bless friends who are basically family. Oh, and I'm off work yesterday and today so I have 4 full days to recover before Monday rolls around - by then I should be off some of the super strong pain meds and generally in a much better spot.
• Weekend is, understandably, going to be super mellow and low-key. I'll hopefully muster some energy to do some journaling / reflecting / planning, plus some laundry and a little bit of meal prep for the coming week. Maybe some cleaning of my apartment if I'm feeling really on top of the world, and some machine learning course work as well.

Oh my gosh, so many good things - homemade biscuits, killin' it at a challenge workout, and Mr. J being fully vaccinated (side effects less fun, of course).

13 hours ago, miss_marissa said:

Can definitely tell that it is the last week of the challenge because everyone's threads are "I am here." lol

Lol, it's a mood.

Yay, sounds like moving is going well!! Best of luck with the downsizing - I love a good declutter, but less so when it's on a deadline, like it sounds like yours is.

Yay, glad you had a good first outing with the PT and you got some good info on both a likely diagnosis and a path forward.

Gratuitous bread pics are always winners, IMO (especially an ogle-worthy loaf like that!).

Good luck on the coaching front!! Like you and sylph acknowledged, it's tough because you're probably on the early wave of female strength athletes excited to support a female strength coach, but without people like you the coaches you want to work with won't be able to market themselves mainly as strength coaches. Zero of value to add, but hope you find a good fit for you!!

Also, way to freaking go on deadlifts! So strong!

CONGRATS!!!!! Enjoy the well-earned respite this next week (and the virtual vacations).

On 2/1/2021 at 12:24 PM, PaulG said:

Pole: the newest Winter Olympic sport?

Fits the trend of winter olympic sports being fiendishly difficult for casual athletes to even attempt (pretty sure some comedian had a bit about that). And then there's curling (which is actually probably quite difficult, but it seems like a sport that could be played in the backyard, beverage in hand).

Woo, killin' it this past week!

Glad you were able to pop in for a bit. Never apologize for taking the time you need to - especially given the stressors you're dealing with over there. I pray that we see some light at the end of the tunnel soon.