Mazarine

Alright, day 1 of my chart done. Plank was hard. Things (hips?) popped a bunch while doing leg raises. No pain, but disconcerting sound all the same, especially since it was an inside pop and not an outside crack, if that makes sense. Good thing for this challenge: I have discovered the joys of sweet potato toast. Bad thing for this challenge: Swedish chocolate company has recently re-released my favorite chocolate, for a limited time.

Hammers! How's it going with that?

Love the pictures, and you seem so positive and on track! Keep it up!

How's that wagon ride? Staying on it? Hopping back on when you're jostled loose?

Heyo! How's everything going? Eating well?

I've been discussing with some friends of mine a lot lately that there should be an adult scouting program created! I wish I could've been a boy scout. I was a girl scout for a few months, but all we did was plant geraniums and make camping pillows for the boy scouts =/

I still need to watch SoA! And yay for the library! What did you get?

You should look up Jessie Graff! She's a badass ANW and stuntwoman and general wonder woman, and SlothGirl might really like her!

Guys! Life is so busy. I took the time to really mess with my challenge goals today and finally get them figured out. I know I'm a few days late, but shit happens. I posted a chart of what I'm gonna try to do over on my challenge thread. We'll see how it goes. As a bonus goal, I'm going to try to fit in some YouTube workouts here and there if/when I can. There are some BuzzFeed gals that have posted some workouts that I'm gonna try out, plus I just saw a link for a Wonder Woman workout! My list of bonus workouts to try so far: Candace Lowry from BuzzFeed's Workout "Anyone" Can Do Michelle Khare from BuzzFeed Does a Celebrity Ab Workout - my sister challenge (I do fitness challenges with my sisters and sisters-in-law) is focusing on abs in June so I figured this might be a cool supplementary thing to do. Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman Workout! This one requires a gym but WONDER WOMAN.

Ugh you guys are the best I can't even take it!

You're right. I've been thinking about it a lot and for one thing, my squats over the course of May DID bring a lot of benefits, and I consider those to be the reward/motivation. Besides a general sense of feeling a bit stronger, some things have changed. The way I pick stuff up off the ground, the way I stand up from a chair or my bed, etc. I say in my initial post of this thread that the gains were minimal, but I'm not sure if that's accurate anymore.

Ok, goals drastically modified. Here's a chart for what I plan on doing this month: For crunches, hip raises, leg raises, squats, and counter pushups the number indicates how many I will do. For planks, the number indicates the seconds. For shovelglove, the number indicates the circuits or scenarios. For back, the number indicates how many different moves to try out. I will be going by this video for starters. I will probably do 10-20, or maybe I'll go by seconds? I don't know, it'll be experimental.

Nah it's not Thor. He was safe at home while I was a general in my city's nerd parade! The stormtrooper is just a friend who was also in the parade. I walked about 12k steps yesterday, about 8 km. When I looked at my pedometer I was a little surprised because it didn't feel like that much and I feel like I didn't exert myself as much as I did on my recent short hike. The night before the parade my back hurt so much I was having trouble falling asleep but during the parade itself there was no discomfort at all, let alone pain! My back is a mystery to me.

This was my day, y'all!

Yep, that's me! And yeah, maybe I'll change my goals up entirely... sigh.

I'm really struggling to find a balance. I want to do something that gives me some kind of measurable result in a relatively short amount of time, even though I know changing habits/losing weight/gaining muscle takes time. I just worry that my motivation will die if I don't do something that I can SEE makes changes.

I think if there's no sugar added to the whole thing then it should be fine! Let's just hope it's filling!

I fiddled with my challenge goals today. I'm worried the c25k program, even with the extra week adjustments, will be impossible. I just don't see myself being able to run for 30 seconds. I'm really torn about the gym thing. I really want to do barbell lifting and be able to see my progress through how much weight I can put on it over time, but I think the time and anxiety factors that I talk about over in my challenge thread are going to be real, real obstacles. I actually wanted to try going to the gym today and even put on gym clothes, but Thor's schedule this week is 2nd shift and he didn't want to go, so gym plans died. The eating thing should be ok as long as I keep stuff in the house that isn't garbage. I want to start tracking again, but that's super hard for me when I do batch cooking for two people and eat lunches from the cafeteria at school during the week. How do I know how much I'm putting on my plate? I'm shit at eyeballing it and I can't carry around a scale. The food there is fairly healthy, and there's an entire table of vegetables that I can have as much as I want of. How do so many people have a handle on all this right off the bat?

Both my sisters and myself have been diagnosed with PCOS, but I am the only one who hasn't been treated for it at all. It is probably because I am overweight and the response is always "lose weight and come back" while my two thin sisters immediately got a treatment plan. I was even told once to only eat salads after 7 pm (even after I said I'm an early dinner eater and never really eat anything after 5:30 or 6). I live in a different country with a better healthcare system now, though, so I've been meaning to go talk to a doctor about all this stuff, but, anxiety!

Following, because getting ready for healthy TTC times, getting through a pregnancy, and then entering parenthood is my epic ultimate quest!

I don't even know what to say to this, ahahaha! Whoa! Like no little websites or pamphlets about nature trails or tourist walks or anything? My only experiences are in countries/states that love the shit out of hiking, so I'm super ignorant.

The gym is less than a five minute walk away from my place. If I opened my front door and yelled, you could hear me if you were standing outside the gym. I already do squats, occasionally do pushups on the counter, and some hip rises/bridges and supermans and some other stretchy glute things at home. The homemade versions sound like a nice project to work on! I will need to find some jugs (they don't have milk jugs or anything with handles here like in the U.S.). I think weights here cost about the same, but I don't want to spend a lot of money on stuff I'm not sure I'll use. I'd really like to use the barbell... My gym clothes probably aren't intensely fashionable but they're all black (pretty much everything I wear is black, I am the casual-est of goths) so I'm fine in that area, although I would LOVE to one day find a real sports bra that does what a sports bra is supposed to do. I'm trying to work on a written down plan! I have a notebook that I carry around with me everywhere so hopefully my plan will be hashed out soon and I'll share it here. And I think you're right about the habit thing. I just, I love the idea of me doing barbell stuff, but I hate the idea of doing it as a lumpy space princess in the middle of a bunch of tall, blonde, perfectly shaped, beautiful Swedes (I'm not bitter at all...). It's nerve wracking.

It's still happening, don't worry! I usually do it while making dinner or use it as an excuse to not fold the laundry for another few minutes

I think about you nearly every day because of the salad It's the Toph salad in my house! That's crazy great about your brownie realization. I'm very proud!