Hymnusal

Things are still going mostly good here. We did put an offer on the house and it has been accepted! Need to sort that all out, but also traveling to British Columbia and Alberta tomorrow. AH! Whose idea was it to buy a house while we were going on vacation! Hopefully I can still do yoga on the go. Sorry I haven't been on to support anyone else, things have just been NUTS.

Yoga has been done 3 days so far this week. I've taken a yoga mat to work and do it there at the end of my lunch hour. It seems to be working out really well. 4 meals have been 1/2 veggies or more so far this week. Sweets are hard. The first day I fought the urges all day at work and didn't give in. Today I gave in and got a Blueberry cream cheese tart. Uggggg. I'm taking a bag of nuts to work tomorrow, as that has worked in the past. No tidying yet, but I may be putting an offer on a house in the next few days. Then I will need to clean. Yay!

Hello Druids! I'm Hymnusal! Coming in from the Rebels to join you. Focusing on the Breath with Fanzagale (my WoW Monk toon) A least 10 minutes of yoga 5 days a week. Continue the BBWW at least 2 times a week ~ 75% in both categories needed for a Pass A rainbow of vegetation with Aquaineil (my WoW Druid toon) Make 1/2 of lunch and supper vegetables for 10 meals a week. 75% needed to pass. Obliterate Sugar with Zoeshen (my WoW Demon Hunter toon) Return goal: This one is very hard and is going to hurt. One treat permitted a week. Otherwise: no sweetened chocolate, no cookies, no cake, no pie, no ice cream, etc. Use peppermint tea and ginger peach tea as blockers if it is just craving. Keep chewing gum on hand if it is for fidgeting. Use green tea and black teas for caffeine needs. Other suggestions of craving busters welcome! This is extra important to continue exploring the possibility of a processed chocolate allergy. 75% of weeks needed to pass. Tidy spaces with Bellabarque (my WoW Mage toon) Return goal: I get overwhelmed by all of my stuff sometimes and it is worse when it is everywhere. I need to devote time at least once a week to cleaning up the spaces around me to help keep my head clear. 75% of weeks needed to pass. Bonus: Mind and Soul with Clawdiya (my WoW Priest toon) Return goal: Meditation and Bible reading every day. No grading here, just keeping it on my hud.

Strength and Stretching with Fanzagale (my Monk toon) Return goal. Continue the BBWW 3 times a week, do one longer yoga session a week. - 75% in both categories needed for a Pass A rainbow of vegetation with Aquaineil (my Druid toon) Return goal. Follow the "Foodist Plate" suggestion with 1/2 of lunch and supper being vegetables 5 days a week. Photograph all food eaten and post on NF challenge thread. Obliterate Sugar with Zoeshen (my Demon Hunter toon) This one is going to hurt. One treat permitted a week. Otherwise: no sweetened chocolate, no cookies, no cake, no pie, no ice cream, etc. Use peppermint tea and ginger peach tea as blockers if it is just craving. Keep chewing gum on hand if it is for fidgeting. Use green tea and black teas for caffeine needs. Other suggestions of craving busters welcome! 75% streak needed to pass. Tidy spaces with Bellabarque (my Mage toon) I get overwhelmed by all of my stuff sometimes and it is worse when it is everywhere. I need to devote time at least once a week to cleaning up the spaces around me to help keep my head clear. 75% needed to pass. Bonus: Mind and Soul with Clawdiya (my Priest toon) Return goal. Meditation and Bible reading every day. No grading here, just keeping it on my hud. Recap: I did this as a 5 week challenge. Strength and Stretching with Fanzagale (my Monk toon) In weeks 1 & 2 I followed this, then in weeks 3 & 5 I just did yoga 5 days a week. I think I need to blend these next challenge, while I really liked both formats the yoga seemed like less of a chore. I broke the criteria, but I will call it a pass regardless because I learned something. A rainbow of vegetation with Aquaineil (my Druid toon) Weeks 1-3 I did photograph and shared my food most days (the end of week 3 is missing...) Week 4 was survival mode and eat what you are given mode. Week 5 I just didn't do. 3/5 = 60% (since my pass is 75% this is a fail. I think I will repeat this, but change the format. The food posting was time consuming.) Obliterate Sugar with Zoeshen (my Demon Hunter toon) I didn't realize until well into the challenge that the pass criteria here was very badly designed. After weeks 4 & 5 I would have failed anyway, but I actually failed week 3. Streak criteria can result in failures far too easily (and once you've failed, why bother), I need to repeat this one but with better criteria for pass/fail in place. Tidy spaces with Bellabarque (my Mage toon) With the exception of week 4 (where I suppose I cleaned up after 11 kids all week... so maybe that counts?) I did this every week. Pass. Bonus: Mind and Soul with Clawdiya (my Priest toon) This did get better, but could still stand to improve more. So 2 points means I won't quite make level 4, but that's okay. I've learned things and it's time to move forward again. The success I had in doing yoga this challenge, and the mental shift from my week of GISHWHES has led me to believe that it is time to specialize for a while. I'll be moving into the Druid forums for the next challenge.

Haha, it was a good meet up! Emily asked me after the meeting where on earth I found these crazy awesome people and when I said "through a nerd fitness site" she was somehow not surprised

Thanks for poking in on me. There was no way I was going to have been able to pop on here while I was away. I was fighting for bandwidth on a highspeed light connection with 8 other girls who wanted to see what was going on on Instagram/Youtube/Twitter/Snapchat/etc. I was lucky to send my husband emails and check maps for the next day's travel. I also had 5% cell phone signal on the trip. In towns I found a few places with signal, but the rest of the time nothing. It became super obvious once the trip started that 4 things needed to happen for the trip to be a success. 1. I could be a little picky about portions, but I had to eat everything our hosts offered or the kids wouldn't touch it. The exception was chocolate, since I now know for certain that it causes hormonal imbalances that create incredibly painful period cramps I could plead "allergy" on that one. Besides, convincing kids to eat chocolate isn't hard. 2. Constant vigilance/sleep is for the weak. One of the youth was very high maintenance and ended up deciding to get her mother to come get her mid week. While she was there I struggled to sleep because I needed to be alert in case she did something to herself. After she left, sleep was much easier. 3. Exercise can be found in helping. Weeding gardens, carrying food, cleaning and cooking were my main exercises. But I also swam with the kids and played on the beach with them and goofed off at camp during our free days. 4. Move day by day. The hired help was not helpful, and that one high maintenance youth was very draining. I accepted a Day by Day policy for myself and it helped me to remain calm, I barely thought about the next day's schedule until the night before when I would fight for wifi to look up maps. So what did we do? We helped in a nursing home on the Nova Scotia south shore. While there we organized a craft for the residents. We helped them do some baking, ice cream making, and pizza preparations. We sang with them and helped to run their church service. We operated the pin setup and ball recovery for a bowling day. We weeded their gardens and we helped those who lacked hand control or memory to still participate in bingo. We preformed dances for them, and helped the residents host a teddy bear picnic for children (including scavenger hunts, snacks, more dances, face painting - I painted one kid as Rarity from My Little Pony, and games). Outside of the home we did a roadside cleanup, we cleared out a log that had fallen behind someone's house to become firewood, and we participated in a food drive. All of the different groups that participated in the food drive collected over 25000 Lbs of food for the Nova Scotia south shore and Halifax/Dartmouth areas. There was drama (these are middle and high schoolers after all), but there was also some good bonding and growth from the youth. The hired help became mostly just a nuisance, but my kids impressed me over and over again. I know they made that week at the nursing home a bright memory for the residents and I believe they learned a great deal about how to love others who are at a point in their lives where they need special care. We had fun free times too with time at a beach, a lake, a camp, and nightly rallies. We did silly things (like tie popcicle sticks in our hair, or decide that we were all characters in Moana (not sure why I was the boat, but okay). Overall, I'm exhausted. I survived, I handled the struggles as they came, and I did all I could to make sure that the kids were still having fun in spite of the drama. I call that a win, no matter how hard I threw the NF challenge out of the window for it I won buy surviving it and even coming out the other side sane (thank the Lord for that). I'm going to resume the challenge today, but I think I'm a winner no matter whether I meet the goals or not. Also GISHWHES is coming! Got to meet @J3NN and some of the other team members last night, pretty excited! Time to let the madness ensue! ^ Me at a rally with popcicle sticks tied into my hair

Just so you guys don't panic, I'm going out of standard internet zone for 8 days to chaperone a group of kids on a mission trip. I'll return, hopefully victorious - but alive is acceptable too. I'll try to keep things up fitness wise too, but I may not be able to fit it into the packed schedule they have for us - as such I'll be going easy the whole *beating myself up about the challenge* thing while away. I have enough stress being in charge of this madness without adding guilt. Bye!

Don't worry, you didn't. I only caught up with myself last night... oops. I feel like it's harder when you're an adult, like when you aren't forced to interact with people on a daily basis outside of your normal circles. :-|

She's in and signed up! MADNESS BUDDY ON THE EAST COAST! In hindsight, saying a "75% streak" was always going to guarantee failure if I broke it in the middle. But you're right, I am learning. And after some quick googling I think Chocolate was giving me those terrible period cramps that I have struggled with for years and (worse) binged on chocolate during to keep me distracted. Yay for learning! Chocolate is now officially only for treats, not worth the pain. Also brought my yoga mat to work today based on comments you made earlier in my challenge. If this works out over the rest of the challenge I think I'll buy a yoga mat just to leave at work. Change is happening. It's kind of exciting!

I hope you have a wonderful and inspiring vacation! I'm on vacation next week but I'm chaperoning kids around Nova Scotia. I'd rather be hiking (envy). Do you know what kind of blog you are going to have yet? I'm not sure if I read that anywhere or not...

For science you say? I know that I appreciate being able to look at the cause and effect of what I put in my body. Glad you were able to journal it and hope you can continue the experiment in the future.

Have you ever seen "Failure to Launch"? Kit re: mockingbirds:

I sort of suspected that, one of the local studios promotes itself as a great community and I really wondered how they could make yoga social. The answer probably is that the "instructors are friendly" is about as far as the community gets. With that in mind it's really easy to do the not socializing in most classes. I used to do Zumba (left because of creepy old man who tried to get touchy feely with some of the girls), but I didn't really socialize with anyone there either. I guess that would be the other flip of this, finding friends that I trust. I have a subset that like to hang out and socialize, but I always feel super tense and judged around them. Things I need to work through I guess. I appreciate this, but I would like to get back to it too. This is the first time I've had a period with no cramps. If the sugar was the root cause, lets root it out till I just treat myself once or twice a month. I could probably have found something else to eat at DQ... she just suggested that we go for "ice cream" is all. Not good at breaking those kind of mental barriers. Also why is 1/2 a handful of fries 3 dollars? One potato does not cost 3 dollars DQ, and the time the staff took to prepare it does not cost 3 dollars either. Fast food is getting way too pricey. The only other issue is that by breaking the streak mid challenge I literally cannot succeed with the original success parameters I gave myself. I may need to revisit those since nothing makes you want to give up quite like knowing that you've already lost..

Thanks for poking me guys Re GISHWHES: I think I almost have another friend convinced to join... and she said that even if she didn't join she would take pictures for me if needed

I got productive, and busy, but also social. Work is very busy and I used to do these posts in the morning there before I started into real stuff, but it looks like I may not have the room for that and all of the things that need doing... I need to find a new time to visit all of you. Not enough time in the world, *sigh*. Also staring at the heap of posts that I am behind on... well, let's do this then. Day 3: (July 11th) Strength and stretching with Fanzagale: BBWW A rainbow of vegetation with Aquaineil: 2 meals done (21/23 so far) Obliterate Sugar with Zoeshen: 12 day streak Tidy spaces with Bellabarque: Nope Bonus: Mind and Soul with Clawdiya: both Day 4: (July 12th) Strength and stretching with Fanzagale: rest day A rainbow of vegetation with Aquaineil: 2 meals done (23/25 so far) Obliterate Sugar with Zoeshen: 13 day streak Tidy spaces with Bellabarque: Nope Bonus: Mind and Soul with Clawdiya: both Day 5: (July 13th) Strength and stretching with Fanzagale: BBWW - rushed but done A rainbow of vegetation with Aquaineil: 1 meals done (24/27 so far) Obliterate Sugar with Zoeshen: 14 day streak Tidy spaces with Bellabarque: Nope Bonus: Mind and Soul with Clawdiya: both Now for the part where things get better and worse... better as in I was in a surprisingly good mood, worse as in I forgot I was in a challenge or something... Day 6: (July 14th) Strength and stretching with Fanzagale: rest day A rainbow of vegetation with Aquaineil: 1 meals done (25/29 so far) Obliterate Sugar with Zoeshen: 13 day streak 0 day streak Tidy spaces with Bellabarque: Nope Bonus: Mind and Soul with Clawdiya: both Day 7: (July 15th) Strength and stretching with Fanzagale: Ermmmmmmmmm oops A rainbow of vegetation with Aquaineil: 1 meals done (26/30 so far) Obliterate Sugar with Zoeshen: 13 day streak 0 day streak Tidy spaces with Bellabarque: Yes! Bonus: Mind and Soul with Clawdiya: both Day 8: (July 16th) Strength and stretching with Fanzagale: apparently not recovering either... A rainbow of vegetation with Aquaineil: 1 meals done (27/31 so far) Obliterate Sugar with Zoeshen: 13 day streak 0 day streak Tidy spaces with Bellabarque: Nope Bonus: Mind and Soul with Clawdiya: both Day 9: (July 17th) Strength and stretching with Fanzagale: rest day A rainbow of vegetation with Aquaineil: 2 meals done (29/33 so far) Obliterate Sugar with Zoeshen: 13 day streak 0 day streak Tidy spaces with Bellabarque: Yes Bonus: Mind and Soul with Clawdiya: both So the crazy good streak I had was lost, but the thing is I wouldn't trade Ice Cream with my youth kids, my dnd party, or my good friend for anything. I think part of the equation of why my mind is so foggy is two fold. My home is cluttered and I need room to breathe, and I need the company of more than just my husband to feel sane. I'll need to ponder this more. I'm so socially awkward now, that I do not know where to go or how to make more friends irl. I've debated going to a yoga class for a long time but always chicken out and/or guilt myself out of it because it is expensive. Thinking needs doing. Also catching up on other peoples threads, but it will have to wait. I need to sleep now. PS: This thing took me an hour and a half to pull together, if you notice tally or date mistakes could you let me know so I can fix it?

I know you can get productivity helpers for Firefox and chrome, I wonder if there is an app that can be scheduled to prevent you from wasting time? I'm sure there is something out there. Maybe one of these would work? https://www.inc.com/jeremy-goldman/6-apps-to-stop-your-smartphone-addiction.html

10 years ago. The summer after my first college term, socially awkward, every guy I'd ever liked had either found someone way hotter or turned out to be gay. I didn't know what I was going to do with my life, I didn't know how I was going to grow up. I'd tell her she's beautiful and is allowed to have higher standards. I'd tell her it's okay to not know where you are going as long as you always look forward. I'd tell her the world is wondrous place and to enjoy herself out there (but not worry too much if she didn't listen, she'll figure it out). I'd tell her to go outside more, and get off Xbox Live before things get weird. I'd tell her not to be afraid of Physics and don't believe the High School teacher who said you couldn't succeed at University. On the other hand maybe I wouldn't tell her anything at all, yeah some things sucked, but I ended up here and here is better than I could have hoped then. Keep growing, keep loving, keep playing. Now I'm married after dating two bumms and struggling through the bad kind of attention from Xbox Live. Now I'm a Computer Scientist, not a Graphic designer (which was what I was taking 10 years ago). I have a Diploma of Fine Craft in Communication Design, and a Bachelor of Computer Science. No pets of my own still, since I married someone with allergies. No kids either, hubby may plead allergies to that too. Her travel plans to Albania flowered into a wanderlust that had me live in Germany for 5 months and have me continuing to seek adventures around the globe (Vancouver and Alberta, Canada next!) I'm still socially awkward, but I'm weird and interesting and living. I'm pretty cool. Thanks for the exercise! It's really quite a neat thing to do, looking back at how awesome you are becoming over the long haul.

I'm sorry to hear about your kitty I'm glad she has you to keep her comfortable as she passes and I'm glad you were able to share so many years together. We are here with hugs and virtual tissues if you need them, it's okay and understandable to be sad about this. It's okay to be hurt. It's hard to start from the heart of the chaos, but you are so strong! You're still pressing on, you haven't quit! That's awesome. Ditto!

As with all things in life, it depends. On your age, your level of fitness, your body structure in general, probably your gender, and so on. I'm female, 170 cm (5ft7in) tall, around 70kg (150Lbs), in okayish shape, and was about 25 when I started stretching more (using yoga poses and breathing mostly), and it took a few months before my fingers were on the ground and a few more till my palms touched. I did yoga stuff about 3 times a week for 30 minutes back then. It probably won't be the same for you, because you probably aren't exactly the same as me. It's both exciting and annoying that we aren't cookie cutter people. The diversity means trying to find the answers to the same problem for different people is a new puzzle each time. On the other hand, it means that most of these answers start with "well, it depends". The best advice I can offer is to keep at it, and never push yourself to the point of pain. Breathing also seems to help me go farther, and holding tough stretches for a few breaths eventually makes them easier.

I work in Software Development, and NOT consulting the people working in the system day to day has led only to features that no one uses or that they use and hate using. Just an observation. I'd gladly help for any cooking / trying new foods based challenges That was the only challenge I did and I really enjoyed it, but you're right only a few people participated.

It looks like Zero week was a great test run and gave you some room to clarify your goals and reflect on how you will accomplish them. Awesome start!

What was the Level 1s only guild like? I feel like none of the other Guilds would stop by and check on them and that they would be all alone with their GLs...

I comes back! I promise it does! I couldn't touch my toes before I started stretching, now I can place my hands flat on the ground It will come! I do stuff like this all the time (*cough* milk chocolate covered peanuts *cough*). Putting it here for posterity will hopefully help Yay for day two! Yay for all the walks and boxes and stretching and pull bars!

Day 2: (July 10th) Strength and stretching with Fanzagale: Rest Day A rainbow of vegetation with Aquaineil: 2 meals done (19/21 so far) Obliterate Sugar with Zoeshen: 11 day streak Tidy spaces with Bellabarque: Nope Bonus: Mind and Soul with Clawdiya: just reading

Day 1: (July 9th) Strength and stretching with Fanzagale: Was really sore after washing cars for 5 hours, going to count that as the last workout for the week since I don't want to push it and do damage (I have damaged knees already that I'm trying to help recover). A rainbow of vegetation with Aquaineil: 1~ meals done - Lunch was bigger than anticipated for hubby so he wasn't hungry later which led to weird foodness for me for he rest of the day (17/19 so far) Obliterate Sugar with Zoeshen: 10 day streak Tidy spaces with Bellabarque: Nope Bonus: Mind and Soul with Clawdiya: both