Riviera16

Wow, I can't believe how long it's been. I have completely been forgetting to post updates for at least the better part of a week. Whoops. So in a nutshell, here's whats been happening. I've been only partway making my challenge goals recently. Some can be blamed on my knee, but I've been forgetting my wrist exercises and light off-day workouts, which I'm still perfectly capable of doing. My cooking, on the other hand, has been going really well. Within the past week or two I've made another Panang curry, homemade dumplings, two improvised zucchini curries (both different combinations of Indian spices), and tonight, after being inspired by last night's ordered-in Thai food, a Thai spicy eggplant stir-fry. Along the way I wound up accidentally making the discovery that my dad has a strong dislike for the smell of fish sauce/oyster sauce... This dish had a fair bit of them in it and fish and/or oyster sauce does smell pretty strong. When I first started using them I thought they smelled pretty weird too but over time they've grown on me. I guess it's an acquired taste for some people. The knee is definitely better, but not all the way. I'm completely fine walking around the house and can go up stairs much more easily now, but going down still I have to avoid having my bad knee as the following leg. Pistol squats/etc. are out of the question, let alone parkour. But while I may have an excuse for outright missing my parkour goal it's no excuse to stop taking care of my body & working out. Tuesday I did an arm/core circuit and Thursday I did 2 2/3 supersets, again focusing on arm/core. Knee or not I'm still on track there. If nothing else, I hope this interlude will help me with another miscellaneous goal of mine: building deltoid strength/muscle mass. I think I mentioned a while back in one thread or another how I've been doing bicep, tricep, and upper back/lats exercises for ages but my deltoids were seriously neglected. I noticed the lower half of my upper arms were gaining definition but my upper-upper arms were getting nothing. At some point I decided maybe I could do something about that. Now I have even more reason to give those some long overdue attention. ...And of course, there's the other big thing right now: ComicCon online!! I've been wearing costumes/cosplays around the house the past few days and this afternoon I saw two video panels- one about the upcoming new season of Cosmos this fall and one on NASA's plans to return humans to the moon and eventually go to Mars. The latter, I realized upon reading the description while waiting for it to start, was hosted/moderated by William Shatner. I was geeking out enough about the cool technology and science making these planned space missions possible before realizing the panel would be hosted by Captain Kirk from the original Star Trek! I remember shouting to the couple family members within earshot and literally jumping up and down with excitement. It turned out to be a really neat panel too. I'd heard a bit about the plans for NASA's Artemis missions but now I know even more. I only wish our connection had been better; the audio wouldn't stop lagging & skipping. Even so, it was a load of fun and I'm looking forward to more tomorrow!

Funny, I find zucchini is actually one of easier vegetables to use because of how versatile it is. You can chop it up and put it in a stirfry or curry, turn it into zucchini noodles to use in your favorite pasta dishes, bake it in a casserole, or even just slice them, shake some seasonings on, and throw them on the grill. …That being said, aside from using zucchini for noodles I haven't seen very many recipes for zucchini in my meanderings around our cookbooks and the Internet. I think nearly everything I've done with zucchini has been the result of my own experimenting and improvising. I know there's a lot you can do with it but I'm honestly not sure where I would go if I wanted to learn more recipes/techniques. Hm. You know, I could probably start a new thread specifically for zucchini recipes and ideas. I bet I could write down approximately what I did for some of my favorite zucchini dishes even though I didn't use a recipe. That could be fun... Yeah, I'm not really sure how chlorine factors into the equation. I know surface transmission, while not zero, is much less problematic than airborne/person-to-person transmission. If small droplets from breath can spread the virus it would seem that non-chlorinated water would be as bad if not worse. If chlorine does kill the virus, great, and if not, one more reason for me to be glad I stayed home. 😅 I know right? Getting knee injuries (or injuries of any kind) is no fun. After some consideration I decided to skip my weekend workout altogether and focus on resting and gently moving my knee in the hopes of maximizing how much healing progress it will have made by Tuesday. Flat ground is completely fine and I'm rarely even thinking about it just walking around the house, but stairs and hills are still something I'm trying to avoid. Assuming it feels like it's still getting better on Tuesday I will try some gentle hills or assisted stairs just to see how it's doing. If it feels like it hasn't made any progress I'm going to have to start considering seeing a physical therapist; normally I'd be happy to go right for that but the coronavirus complicates things rather a lot. Meanwhile, sadly, I'm going to have to take a break from working on parkour. I think that's what sucks the most about this whole thing. 😣

The last couple weekends have been quite a series of misadventures. ...And it turns out this weekend is no different. First it was yellow jackets, then it was a spurting can, and now it's a (hopefully minor) knee problem. I was running down the stairs yesterday morning and partway down I felt a sharp twinge in my right knee. Not sure exactly what caused it, but my best guess is Thursday evening I was sitting in a somewhat unusual position which, while not hurting at all at the time, may have slightly overextended something that then reacted unfavorably to the strenuous activity of running haphazardly up and down staircases. I don't know exactly what part of the knee it is that's injured, only that it seems to be behaving like a sprained ankle so far, including the kind of pain and how its triggered. Casual walking around on flat ground is completely fine but it really doesn't like more stressful activity, like stairs (especially going down). I'm hoping this gets better within a week or two so I can get back to my normal workouts; in the meantime, I'm going to have to solely work on arms and core. Deltoid bootcamp, here I come!! Otherwise, I've been keeping up with my challenge goals pretty well. I've definitely done all my strength workouts, I've done at least some parkour, though possibly not as much is my initial goal stated, I've been keeping up with my wrist exercises fairly well, and while I'm not sure exactly what went into it I'm definitely feeling much better in my day-to-day life than I was at the beginning of the challenge, despite my continuing wrist problems. It's made cutting down on/eliminating snacking much easier too. 🥳 Right now I'm rarely going back for food between meals and when I do it's something pretty healthy, such as carrots with dip or a few slices of lunchmeat. Now, on a completely different subject, can I just say it drives me crazy when I hear about people doing seemingly unnecessary risky things during the pandemic? So, I love swimming. I miss swimming a ton every winter and always really look forward to the public pools reopening. Of course things are a bit different this year, and for a while it was unclear whether or not the public pools would open at all. Eventually it was decided that the pools would open but with a number of restrictions, most notably that they're doing lap swimming only, and you have to sign up in advance for a certain timeslot on a certain day so they can regulate how many people are at the pool at any given time. That seemed like a reasonable precautionary measure to me, especially since if you're lap swimming and everyone's in their own lane you're still 6 feet away from each other. BUT it turns out they're actually letting up to three people, from completely different areas/households, use the same lane. And all the timeslots are booked by the time that day arrives so you can pretty much guarantee you're going to be swimming in fairly close quarters with two complete strangers. Briefly passing someone within 6 feet while outdoors, such as might happen while hiking a trail, doesn't seem highly risky to me. But if you're passing that same person again and again for a whole hour, that's a different story altogether. I'd love to go to the pool. I really would, but unless they change the current system so people can always stay 6+ feet from each other at all times, I just don't think it's a wise idea. And yeah, maybe they're worried they won't have enough people using the pool to make it worth opening if they keep it strictly one person per lane, but if they're going to open at all I really wish they'd take the risks a little more seriously! 🤦‍♀️ Okay. Now that I've got that out of my system, I'd better start thinking about what I'm going to do with that zucchini that's been sitting in the fridge for tonight's dinner. I just made Panang curry again, so maybe I'll look into something Indian or Chinese rather than Thai. Whatever it is will be pretty darn limited by the fact that it's been over a week since we've been to the grocery store and that zucchini is pretty much the only fresh vegetable we have right now. I think we have some wonton/dumpling wrappers in the fridge so if I can find some other ingredients maybe I can do something with those. Still, it would have to be pretty heavily improvised. Luckily I tend to be pretty good at that...

Thursday July 16 Meals: breakfast: coffee, an apple, a small piece of banana bread, one leftover tuna patty (5g protein), and some carrots with balsamic dressing/dip lunch: Taco wrap (~25-30g protein) & some carrots with hummus, protein shake after workout (25g protein) dinner: Panang curry! (30 protein) With cauliflower rice. Total protein: ~85-90g Workout: Warm-up: Various light movements Superset 1 (3x): Lateral walks with moderate resistance band 15 steps in each direction Pavlov press with heavy resistance band 30 sec per side Lateral arm raises 6lbs 8x Superset 2 (3x): Bulgarian split squat 8x per leg (I used a higher chair for my back leg this time so these were noticeably harder than before) Rows with two heavy resistance bands 12x Decline plank 60 sec Superset 3 (3x): Single arm chest press 15lbs 10x per arm Jumping jack squats 20x Dead bug with 3lbs hand weights 20x Cooldown: Basic stretching routine

No, I haven't been, but I'll be sure to pay attention to that next time I'm doing them! I'm estimating I've been doing around 5 seconds, but I'll need to double check. 3 sets of 3 at 7-10 seconds each seems like a good goal to shoot for- maybe even one for my next challenge if I haven't made it before then!

Sunday July 12 Breakfast: oatmeal and coffee lunch: Wrap? Dinner: brisket, cauliflower rice, and roasted green beans Monday July 13 Breakfast: yogurt, an apple, and a cup of coffee lunch: stirfry veggie wrap and some carrots with hummus dinner: Mexican-style chicken tortilla soup with toasted corn tortilla chips Tuesday July 14 Meals: breakfast: oatmeal with a scoop of yogurt (5g protein), a few carrots with hummus, and a cup of highly caffeinated tea lunch: protein shake after workout (25g protein), leftover brisket (20g protein) with cauliflower rice and green beans, some more carrots and hummus, and a few roast beef lunchmeat slices (5g protein) dinner: Homemade tacos! Toppings included bell peppers, onions, avocado, and sour cream. I had three on a small corn tortillas. Overall about 30g protein Total protein: 85g Workout: warm-up: various leg movements Superset 1 (3x): overhead press/chest fly combo 8lbs per arm 10x Bulgarian split squat 10x per leg seated leg lifts/circles 5x per circle direction Superset 2 (3x): bodyweight rows 10x side plank 30 sec per side parkour jump/landing practice back and forth on the sidewalk, trying to land directly on the sidewalk cracks Superset 3 (3x): elevated push-ups 12x bent over reverse fly 5lbs 10x lateral arm raise 5lbs 10x Cooldown: arm focused stretching routine total time: ~50 minutes Wednesday July 15 breakfast: yogurt, an apple, and a cup of coffee lunch: chicken tortilla soup with leftover onions/bell peppers and some tortilla chips crumbled on top, carrots with hummus dinner: Tuna & zucchini patties, some more carrots with hummus, and snacks on some bits and pieces of various leftovers Also went for a short walk and did six pull up negatives today!

Wednesday July 8 Breakfast: Oatmeal, coffee, a few pieces of leftover veggies & pepperoni Lunch: Leftover roast veggies & grilled eggplant/zucchini, a few carrots and crackers with hummus & pepperoni/lunchmeat Dinner: Improvised stirfry including zucchini, onions, garlic scapes, and shrimp with cauliflower rice Thursday July 9 Workout: Warm-up: various light movements Superset 1 (3x): face pulls 10x lateral arm raises 6lbs 8x bentover reverse fly 5lbs 8x Superset 2 (3x): dead bug with 4lb hand weights20x single leg Romanian deadlift 6lbs 8x per leg (emphasis on stretch at bottom of range of movement) Bulgarian split squat 10x per leg Superset 3 (3x): chest press 15lbs per arm 10x stair jumps 10x jackknife 10x Cooldown: basic stretching routine Notes: increased the weight on the arm raises, reverse flys, and RDLs by 1lb. Definitely making progress on the first two without any drawbacks but I'm still watching for my tight-hamstring problem. Even if I keep increasing the weight I'm using by only 1lb increments I know somewhere between 5 pounds (which was fine) and 10 pounds (which caused cramping/tightness despite being super easy) I'm going to start noticing day-after super tightness showing up again. With any luck the onset of that tightness will be gradual enough that I can start working on that in a more effective manner. Meals: Breakfast: protein shake after workout (25g protein), two fried eggs with a toasted wrap (~17g protein), a few pieces of leftover roast veggies, and a little bit of lunchmeat (5g protein) Lunch: toasted wrap with a veggie burger (18g protein), yogurt (15g protein), and salad Dinner: swedish meatballs (25g protein) with zucchini noodles, a few carrots with hummus Total protein: ~105g Friday July 10 Breakfast: Oatmeal, coffee, a couple apple slices, and a few carrot sticks with hummus Lunch: Wrap with turkey lunchmeat, lettuce, and avocado ranch dressing, some carrots & crackers with hummus Dinner: Leftover stir-fry with cauliflower rice, baked fish with a little coconut milk Saturday July 11 Meals: Breakfast: ? Lunch: Protein shake (25g protein), ? dinner: Stirfried cabbage & veggies (inspired by mu shu vegetables but as I wasn't following a recipe it came out a bit different than the actual dish I've been thinking of) Workout: Did a group workout class via Zoom in the morning and followed up with some basic strength exercises during the afternoon including rows, elevated push-ups, tricep extensions, chest flys, and a few pistol squats

Well, I'm currently in three active games. Two of them are run by someone else, one of which is highly roleplay/story-focused using 5E and the other is more standard dungeon crawl style in 3.5E. The one I'm helping run is also 3.5E but is very story driven and the world/storyline/characters/etc. are entirely homebrew. The sheer amount of worldbuilding and NPC personality/backstory detailing that's gone into it so far would fill at least a trilogy at if we tried to write it down. 😅 It's kind of interesting how it started, too. Some while ago my mom decided to run a small scale D&D campaign just for the family. It was a lot of fun, but my mom was really busy and low on energy and at some point it kind of stalled. We have yet to pick it up again; as much as we all might like to it just hasn't been practical. But with the lockdown in place we found ourselves with more free time on our hands than before. Unfortunately, my mom was still busy & tired enough that she didn't feel up to immediately picking up her campaign again, and in the meantime my sister and I were finding ourselves getting pretty bored. So at some point the two of us had the idea of running our own family campaign, since we had loads of time to work on stuff and everyone loved the idea of getting to play again. The first couple sessions were pretty simple and straightforward; we were still figuring out the details of what we wanted the overall storyline to be and getting the hang of how running the game was going to work. But then somewhere along the way we hit a tipping point and the detail & complexity of the world and the plot just skyrocketed. It basically went from, "find a way to stop a powerful evil army from invading" to "slowly unearth a multidimensional conspiracy that has roots going back thousands of years while navigating inter-kingdom politics, powerful/ancient beings hunting you, NPCs who hide their true allegiances and make you think they're on your side all while using you for their own purposes, a really weird tavern keeper who seems to know more than they let on, and a looming threat to civilization as we know it". 🤯 So yeah. Evidently this is what happens when you take several creative people and lock them in the house together with nothing else to do for prolonged periods of time. I'm not sure I even want to know how long it would take to play through all of the content we've created, assuming we ever get that far. 😜 Tacos were great! I couldn't decide whether I wanted to do beef or beans as the primary protein so I eventually decided to make both. The cooking was all pretty easy. I fried up a bunch of sliced bell peppers and onions until the bell peppers had started to blacken nicely, put them aside and fried up package of ground beef, added my homemade taco seasoning blend, then mixed in a little extra bouillon and water since I wanted a bit more sauce. For the beans I just opened a can of pre-seasoned beans, decided their pathetic excuse for seasoning was a slight to anyone who cares about the way their food tastes, and added a variety of Cajun type spices that I thought would complement the existing flavor, such that it was, and the rest of the taco ingredients. Then it was just a matter of slicing some avocado and getting out the tortillas, sour cream, & salsa. Maybe not a complicated meal, but it was delicious nonetheless and we even had leftovers! 😋 As far as the pull-ups, I'm still in the slow-but-clear-progress department. I did, however, manage six pull-up negatives earlier today, which is a new record! And I noticed that I wasn't having the same twinges/soreness while performing the exercise that I'd had the first few times I did them. I think that's the largest sign of progress so far; I may not be adding additional reps very frequently but my body seems to be adjusting to the reps I am doing. And, so far my wrists hasn't given me any trouble, grip strength or otherwise! 😁🎉

Ugh, I feel you on that one. I have the exact same problem… It's so frustrating when you're making progress but mostly in the areas you don't need it. Evidently the belly issue runs in my family but as far as I'm aware I'm the only one right now who cares about it. 😅

Yesss!!! I watched Hamilton just a week or two ago and it was amazing! I've still got the songs stuck in my head! 😆 Its an incredible, one-of-a-kind show, and I'm so glad it's on streaming now so it's available to more people.

You know, after the yellowjacket incident last week, I really expected this weekend would be fairly low-key. ...Ha. First of all we finally got an appointment with the exterminators to deal with the the yellowjacket nest in our shed. We'd scheduled earlier in the week but they'd run really late and eventually cancelled. When they did show up on the rescheduled day it was several hours later than their original timeslot, but at least its dealt with now. On Saturday morning I tried an online group workout class via Zoom which was loads of fun, despite some technical difficulties. However, I didn't feel like it worked my muscles as hard as I usually like to. So after an online meetup with some friends after lunch I did an extra couple sets of exercises for good measure. Then I realized I was running low on time if I wanted to cook dinner before the evening D&D game. As I was assembling the ingredients for a cabbage and vegetable stirfry I discovered, in the back of the pantry, a can of water chestnuts. I thought, "Wow, I bet these would be great with the dish I'm planning to make!" I checked the date on the can, since they were at the back of the pantry, and found that while it was past it's date it was only by a few months. I know canned food doesn't spoil that quickly and I have often used cans that were slightly past their date and found they were fine so I figured I'd open it and see whether or not it still tasted good enough to be worth using. Well. I never did find out whether or not it still tasted good, because as I started to open the can it spurted a bunch of liquid all over the counter. I know fully well that cans spurting liquid = pressure buildup inside of can = probably the result of bacterial growth of some sort, worst case botulism. 😓 So that can went right in the trash. Unfortunately, the liquid had sprayed on some of the food that I got out... Not my stirfry ingredients, thank goodness, but I had an open bag of carrots and container of hummus sitting out directly in the line of fire. Those aren't things that are possible to clean properly and while botulism is very rare we decided not to take any chances and wound up throwing them out. Both of them were nearly full. That really sucked. It was one of my favorite kinds of hummus too. 😣 My stirfry came out well though, and the D&D game was fun if a bit slow at times. Sunday turned out to be pretty quiet. That was a nice change of pace after all the ups and downs of the previous day. In the evening I GMed another D&D game which ran much later than intended but included an epic bar fight with some particularly rude guards. I did not, however, when setting up this encounter, expect that the druid would summon a hippogriff in the middle of the tavern. That turned into quite a mess, but a fun mess, and everyone had a great time! So all in all, it was a fine weekend, just definitely not the weekend I was expecting. 😅 At least I'm still keeping up my workouts despite the craziness on Saturday and be numerous late nights in a row due to D&D and other things. Planning on cooking something involving bell peppers later this week, though I haven't decided what yet. Maybe tacos. I keep thinking about those but still haven't made them in ages. Speaking of which, it is Tuesday... Perhaps the time has come... 🌮

Yeah. At first we were seriously hoping there was a way to deal with it on our own but after a little bit of research it became pretty clear it's much better to get a professional for these kinds of things. As I said, we're lucky no one got stung and frankly I'd like to keep it that way. It's been kind of interesting watching them fly in or out through the gap at the bottom of of our shed door, from a safe distance of course. We can't tell exactly how many are in there but given there's a nest it's probably a larger number than it looks like from the outside. If it really was just a few we could probably manage but a whole colony is waaay out of our league. 😬 I know, right? Over the past couple months my family has had one false alarm like this after another. Someone gets a sore throat or a runny nose or a cough(!) and everyone's like, "Okay, this might be it. Let's get out our emergency pantry stash so we don't risk infecting people at the store, make sure we're ready in case things get really bad, etc." Then a day or two later everyone's fine again. Still, better safe than sorry.

I remember practicing A and D chords when I was first trying to learn guitar... It took me a while to get the hang of it but it definitely paid off. Still, I never got very good at guitar, at least not beyond a few fairly simple chords. Once I discovered the magic that is using a capo I just transposed any song I wanted to play into one of the two keys I knew the chords for and then put my capo on the appropriate fret so it would still be in my singing range. To be fair, that was several years ago, and I've only occasionally picked up my guitar between then and now. I'd love to get back into playing more but sadly my wrist tendinitis won't cooperate. 😢

Well. It has been way too long since I posted an update here. So, here's more-or-less what's been happening this past week-and-a-half: First, the basic challenge-update overview. The last week has seen its share of ups and downs. I've been diligent with my wrist exercises and light exercise including hamstring stretching on my off days but have been slacking on the parkour practice. Really need to actually start doing that regularly even if the grass is itchy and wet and there's nowhere to practice vaults. On the other hand, I think I'm finally starting to see a little progress with my hamstring stretches. It's kind of hard to tell but there was at least one day when after a comparatively long stretching session I noticed I could bend a few inches farther forward than normal. Given my long history of fighting my hamstrings without any luck that was a nice discovery. I've also been working on pull-up negatives every couple days and I think they are getting a little bit easier. I still haven't managed to do more than five on a given day, but five is more than four, so that's progress! -=|<x>|=- In other news the biggest recent event to note is what happened on the 4th of July, or rather, what didn't happen. I had pretty much the entire day planned out: workout in the morning, dig out and look over our old model rocketry stuff, go out to a nearby park and grill hamburgers for lunch (since by dinner the place will probably be packed despite Covid-19/social distancing), find an open field to actually launch some model rockets in the afternoon, and chillax at home in the evening. Then, I woke up in the morning feeling weirdly lightheaded. Like, lightheaded even while I was still lying down in bed. My first thought was, "Okay, this has never happened to me before... I know Covid-19 affects the respiratory system and can reduce the amount of oxygen that your body can get into the bloodstream which could totally explain feeling lightheaded… Even if it seems unlikely, I wonder if that could possibly be what's going on?" Well, in a nutshell, that wasn't what was going on. It gradually got better over the course of the day; by the afternoon I felt fine going about my daily life and the next day I was back to normal. However that didn't change the fact that I'd spent the morning lying on the couch feeling mildly unwell instead of doing any of the other stuff I'd wanted to do. And even once I was back up & functioning again all my plans had been derailed. So that sucked. Luckily, the next day we were able to go out and grill those hamburgers for a post-workout brunch despite having to buy new charcoal due to the yellowjackets in our front shed. ...Oh, yeah. Sunday morning we discovered a bunch of yellowjackets in our front shed. Evidently they'd built a nest there at some point and since we hadn't opened our shed for a while goodness knows how long they've been there by now. No one got stung upon making this discovery but since our bag of charcoal was all the way in the shed nobody wanted to take the risk of retrieving it. So we wound up stopping at store to grab a new bag of charcoal on the way to the grill site. That was quite the unexpected plot twist! After some consideration we decided to call exterminators rather than trying to handle it ourselves. Hopefully the yellowjacket extermination goes smoothly and nothing else unexpected happens…

Friday July 3 -- Saturday July 4 – (Forgot to track during those last two days, but nothing out of the ordinary happened so I suppose it's not a big deal.) Sunday July 5 Meals: Breakfast: Protein shake after workout (25g protein), and some other stuff but once again I have forgotten Lunch: Grilled-on-an-actual-grill hamburger with a wrap & barbecue sauce (30g protein), grilled onions, and corn Dinner: Panang curry (new batch!)(25g protein) & cauliflower rice Total protein: At least 80g Workout: Warm-up: light movements and a small jog Superset 1 (3x): Bulgarian split-squats 10x per leg Lateral arm raises 5lbs 10x Bicycle crunches 24x Superset 2: elevated push-ups 12x jumping squats 10x face-pulls 10x Superset 3: side-bend core exercise 25lbs 10x per side Bodyweight rows 10x jumping lunges 16x Cooldown: basic stretching routine Monday July 6 Breakfast: Oatmeal, coffee Lunch: Grilled zucchini & eggplant with miso-sauce, wrap with roast beef and pesto, several slices of lunchmeat Dinner: Leftover curry and cauliflower rice Tuesday July 7 Meals: breakfast: yogurt (15g protein), protein shake (25g protein), most of an apple, and the last little bit of leftover curry with a wrap (10g protein) lunch: wrap with turkey lunchmeat (15g protein) + lettuce, onions, and pesto dinner: mixed roasted veggies and a few carrots with hummus & slices of lunchmeat (5g protein) total protein: ~70g (a bit lower than I'd like for a workout day, but oh well.) Workout: Warm up: walk around the neighborhood and some light movements Superset 1 (3x): bodyweight rows 10x elevated push-ups 10x pistol squats 8x per leg Superset 2 (3x): overhead press/chest fly combo 8lbs per arm 10x Bulgarian split squat 10x per leg seated leg lifts/circles 5x per circle direction Superset 3 (3x): lateral arm raises 5lbs per arm 10x jackknife 10x bicycle crunches 20x Cooldown: basic stretching routine

Tuesday June 30 Meals: Breakfast: protein shake after workout (25g protein), a couple slices of ham and a bunch of pieces of pepperoni (~10g protein), yogurt (15g protein), and then a veggie burger with half a wrap and some hummus (15g protein) midmorning because even after all my earlier breakfast I still felt like I could eat a cow. Evidently I had a hard workout or something… Lunch: fried tilapia filet (20g protein) with pesto and cauliflower rice Dinner: curried lentils (10g protein) & cauliflower rice, a bit more yogurt (10g protein), and, since we finally got more groceries, carrots and hummus Total protein: ~105g Workout: Warm-up: jog around the neighborhood. On the way back I did two more reps of lowering myself from the top of a pull-up position. I could tell my arms were still tired from yesterday. Superset 1 (3x): overhead press/chest fly combo 8lbs 10x Bulgarian split squat 10x jackknife 10x Superset 2 (3x): lateral arm raises 5lbs 10x bicep curls 8lbs 8x first & second times, 4x third time jumping squats 10x I did a little bit of roll practice between this superset and the next, still trying to work on keeping the proper leg in front when I come out of the roll. It's definitely throwing me off a little bit; over the last few years every time I've practiced I was doing it slightly wrong without realizing and now I have to unlearn what I spent all that time learning. Superset 3 (2x): elevated push-ups 10x bodyweight rows 10x pistol squats 5x per leg Cooldown: extra long stretching routine with emphasis on arm/shoulder stretches. Notes: I had started the day slightly sore from the reverse pull-ups I did the day before and then did an arm intensive workout. If the four reps I did yesterday made me a little sore this morning I can only imagine how my arms will be tomorrow… I think Thursday is going to have to be a leg day. Wednesday July 1 Breakfast: yogurt, an apple, a small bowl of cereal, and a little bit of carrots and hummus Lunch: veggie burger & roasted bell pepper wrap, small kale salad on the side, and a few crackers Dinner: leftover veggie stirfry & cauliflower rice, a little bit of corn and bell peppers, and some more carrots with hummus Thursday July 2 Meals: Breakfast: cream of wheat, a small bowl of granola, and some crackers with pepperoni (5g protein) and hummus, and a protein shake after my workout (25g protein) Lunch: yogurt and granola (15 g protein) shortly before noon to tide me over while I finished making my main lunch, homemade Panang curry (30g protein) + cauliflower rice! Let's just say, even if it took two hours it was so totally worth the effort. This was beyond delicious. Dinner: Workout: warm up: short jog and various light movements Superset 1 (3x) pistol squats 8x per leg lateral arm raises 5lbs 10x bicycle crunches 24x Superset 2 (2x): side-bend core exercise 25lbs 10x Bulgarian split-squat 10x per leg jackknife 12x single-leg Romanian deadlifts 5lbs 10x per leg (focusing on hamstring stretch at bottom of movement) Superset 3 (3x): stair jumps 12x decline plank ~30 sec with 10x shoulder push-up side lunge 8x per leg Cooldown: basic stretching routine Notes: I'm experimenting with adding a little bit of light weight to the Romanian deadlifts to see whether or not it causes my hamstrings to cramp the day after the workout. I'm hoping not since this is still absurdly easy, but my track record suggests otherwise.

Friday June 26 Breakfast: oatmeal with a scoop of yogurt, an apple, coffee, some crackers with pepperoni and pesto, and a fig bite because they're tasty. Lunch: leftover salmon, cauliflower rice, and roasted veggies, corn chips with pesto & Parmesan, and another fig bite Dinner: Curry rice, half a wrap with butter & garlic (because I didn’t have naan :P),small bowl of cereal, and a little icecream Saturday June 27 Meals: Breakfast: yogurt (15g protein), crackers & cream cheese, baked ham (20g protein), granola, coffee, and a protein shake after workout (25g protein) Dinner: pesto shrimp stir-fry (20g protein), cauliflower rice, roasted kohlrabi, Workout: Warmup: various light movements Superset 1 (3x): single leg RDLs (for hamstring flexibility) overhead press/chest fly combo 8lbs per arm 10x deadbug with 3lb hand weights Bulgarian split squats 10x per leg Superset 2 (3x): bodyweight rows 10x elevated pushups 10x side step/lunge 16lbs 8x per leg Superset 3: (2x): lateral arm raises 5lbs 10x jumping squats 10x Plus parkour jump/landing and roll practice! Cooldown: basic stretching routine total time: ~50 mins Sunday June 28 breakfast: oatmeal with granola mixed in, coffee, and crackers with hummus lunch: leftover pesto shrimp & cauliflower rice dinner: ordered in the sushi for a home D&D session Went for a walk today, nothing huge, but I definitely got outside to move around and stretch my legs, which felt really good. Monday June 29 Breakfast: oatmeal with granola mixed in and coffee Lunch: kale salad with pepperoni and a couple lunchmeat slices Dinner: mixed veggie stir-fry with cauliflower rice Went for a 15 minute jog. I think I probably did at least a mile given my speed and how tired I was at the end. Along the way I stopped at the playground that I usually pass on these jogs and, since they have a pull-up bar, decided to try lowering myself from the top of a pull-up position just to see how hard it was. I did three overhand grip at one underhand grip and then my arms felt pretty tired out so I decided not to push it. I'd love to try to add these into my workouts more regularly; despite worries about my wrists/grip strength I was able to do a few reps and since it's noticeably harder it will build strength more quickly.

Wednesday June 24 Breakfast: oatmeal with banana slices and the scoop of yogurt, a few grapes and pieces of the roasted veggies from last night Lunch: leftover hamburger in a wrap with lettuce, carrots with hummus, and a few more grapes & roasted veggies Dinner: grilled zucchini with homemade pesto, part of a veggie burger, roasted carrots, and some yogurt & fig/coconut energy bites Thursday June 25 Meals: Breakfast: coffee protein shake (25g protein), yogurt (10g protein), part of a hamburger and a bunch of slices of pepperoni (5g protein), an apple, some grapes and crackers & hummus, plus a couple fig/coconut bites Lunch: kale salad, half a wrap with roast beef & pesto (10g protein), grapes, Dinner: salmon with pesto (20g protein), cauliflower rice, roasted brussel sprouts/peas/carrots, yogurt (15g protein), and a few more fig bites Total protein: 85g Workout: warm-up: various light movements/exercises Superset 1 (3x): bodyweight rows 10x elevated push-ups 10x bodyweight Romanian deadlifts 8x per leg (emphasis on stretch at bottom of movement) Superset 2 (2x): overhead press/chest fly combo 8lb x10 side-bend core exercise 25lbs 10x per side side lunge 10x per side Also finally got to work on parkour rolls! The grass was damp, but only from dew, not rain, so it wasn't muddy, and at this point I was determined enough that I decided to "roll with it" anyway. Bad puns aside, I thought I was able to get back my basic knowledge pretty quickly. Muscle memory is an amazing thing. Still, definitely get good to keep working on those in the weeks to come. Cooldown: basic stretching routine Total time: ~30 mins Notes: This is basically half a workout, which is intentional given I had an outdoor personal training session scheduled for later today. So… Bonus: PT session! Did mostly lighter exercises, including ball ground slams & tosses, deadlift form practice, light weight farmer's carries, and some bodyweight rows and face pulls. Even if it was an easier workout than I'd expected it was nice to get to work with a personal trainer again, if only for a little bit, and it was good to find out that even though I haven't had a mirror to check myself for the last few months my form is still doing quite well.

Well… I just realized that even though I've been recording what I'm doing I have once again neglected to update this thread for a huge period of time. So I'm just gonna catch up on that now. I'll break it up into smaller posts rather than doing a single absurdly long one to make it easier for myself to see what happened when. Sunday June 21 Went for a nice long walk/hike today, around 50-60 minutes. Breakfast: Yogurt and some other stuff I seem to have forgotten... Lunch: Leftover Indian food Dinner: Waited too long before writing this down and I seem to have forgotten this one. Oops... Monday June 22 Breakfast: Half an apple, coffee, yogurt with strawberries, blueberries, banana slices, and granola, later midmorning half a wrap with roast beef Lunch: Leftover Indian food (still good 3rd day!) Dinner: Salad, last little bit Indian leftovers, and some carrots with hummus Tuesday June 23 Workout: Warm-up: jog around the neighborhood Superset 1 (3x): elevated push-ups 12x pistol squats 8x per leg bentover reverse fly 4lbs 10x Superset 2 (3x): seated leg lifts/circles 5x per circle direction bodyweight rows 10x face-pulls 10x Superset 3 (3x): jumping lunges 20x bicycle crunches 20x lateral arm raises 4lbs 10x Cooldown: basic stretching routine Total time: ~50 mins Meals: Breakfast: Coffee protein shake with a scoop of cocoa powder to make it chocolatey (25g protein), fresh strawberries, and some pieces of lunchmeat and roast beef (10g protein) with crackers and a little hummus Lunch: Grilled onion-hamburgers (25g protein), kale salad with balsamic vinaigrette, roasted bell peppers, & sun-dried tomatoes, and a bit of pepperoni (5g protein) Dinner: Zucchini noodles with hamburger & sauce and sour cream (20g protein), oven roasted carrots and beets, and a bunch of grapes Total protein: 85g

I just hit another major milestone for this challenge– though one of a different flavor than usual, so to speak. 😉 I mentioned in my initial challenge post wanting to make some authentic Indian dishes. I haven't done that exactly, but today I decided to take a shot at another dish I been wanting to make for ages: Thai Panang curry! It's arguably my favorite Thai dish and I have been trying to replicate our local Thai restaurant's recipe for a while though haven't had much luck… Until today, that is! It took much longer than I anticipated and I didn't actually get to eat until 2 o'clock, but despite that I still had a lot of fun making it. The big difference between my past experiments (which were tasty but not quite what I was aiming for) and this success was that I started with a recipe rather than trying to reverse-engineer the flavors. Of course, the recipe called for certain uncommon ingredients that I didn't have on hand. So the first thing I did was spend some time googling substitutions so despite lacking numerous components I could keep things as close to the original recipe as possible. The first step was making the curry paste, which wound up taking over an hour by itself as I went about trying to find, measure, and occasionally look up additional last-minute substitutions for all the various ingredients. Still, for all of the things I didn't have, I did have fish sauce and fresh Thai basil, both of which are not overly common and are harder to find really good substitutions for. At the end of the process I realized I had enough curry paste for more than one batch, which made me extremely happy; the next time I do this it won't have to take such an outrageously long time. After that things were comparatively straightforward. I didn't have fresh and bell peppers or broccoli but I had roasted bell peppers in a jar which I was able to cut up, dry off, and fry a little ahead of time. Cooking the chicken was easy as I've done that zillion times before. I used less liquid than the recipe suggested; I went for light coconut milk in place of the regular and omitted the additional water. Once everything was essentially cooked and mixed together I added the Thai basil, fresh picked from the garden, and gave it a taste. All I can say is… Wow. This may not be a 100% match to the Panang curry I wanted to copy but it was clearly an actual Panang curry, not a cheap approximation, and a truly excellent one at that! I'm definitely going to make this again. Here's the finished product, with extra Thai basil garnish 'cause it's pretty and a side of cauliflower rice. I'm really proud of how this came out! 😋 My next step from here is probably going to be looking into where I can get the ingredients that our usual grocery store doesn't carry. I know where at least one international grocery store is but it's kind of far away and I'm going to have a hard time justifying unnecessary outings given the quarantine situation. If I can find something online that's not too expensive that would open up a lot of doors for my kitchen adventures. In the meantime I'll keep exploring what I can do with what I have on hand. @PaulG recently made a delicious looking bean recipe and we have rather a lot of beans right now. Ours are canned beans, not dried, but there's still plenty you can do with those. Perhaps Taco Tuesday is in my future... Hm. Are Thai tacos a thing? Is that a weird idea? Spiced meat on a tortilla/wrap with creamy coconut sauce does sound good... 🤔

I may be a "fellow american", but honestly that sounds awesome!! I absolutely love Thai food and that sounds like a wonderful special-occasion menu. I doubt I can pull anything quite like that off given the food we have in the house right now, but I'm going to have to think about potential possibilities given what's available in case I want to try something similar. 😋

Yeah, that makes sense. These days I regularly do stuff that would have made my arms really sore when I was first starting. Gives me the feeling I could have been pushing myself a bit harder these last several months since I haven't had noticeable muscle soreness in ages. Well, it's certainly my first time in a considerable while... Back when I was still going to the gym the assisted pull-ups machine was one of my favorite pieces of equipment; I could be using the same muscles as I would for a full pull-up at a difficulty that matched my current strength level. But, as I said, it's been a pretty long time since I was able to do that, and even if bodyweight rows are similar they're not actually be same thing. #imissthegym ...but at least I'm still making clear progress! 💪 Thanks! 😁 I'm really looking forward to hitting that milestone. It's been a long road. I remember when I was first dabbling in parkour years ago, as part of this one class, trying to do an exercise where you started sitting at the top of a slanted wall, rotated so you were facing the wall holding yourself up on your arms, and then were supposed to slowly bend your arms and lower yourself against the wall to the floor. I could hold myself up when my arms were straight but as soon as I started to bend them I had next to no control and just basically slid down the wall according to the force of gravity. I didn't feel like I was in danger of hurting myself but I was really embarrassed since everyone else looked like they could slow/control their descent more effectively. Even if it's not a full pull-up yet, finding myself able to do that same motion in a controlled manner without a wall to support myself against feels like a huge victory! 🥳

Tuesday June 30 Meals: Breakfast: protein shake after workout (25g protein), a couple slices of ham and a bunch of pieces of pepperoni (~10g protein), yogurt (15g protein), and then a veggie burger with half a wrap and some hummus (15g protein) midmorning because even after all my earlier breakfast I still felt like I could eat a cow. Evidently I had a hard workout or something… Lunch: fried tilapia filet (20g protein) with pesto and cauliflower rice Dinner: curried lentils (10g protein) & cauliflower rice, a bit more yogurt (10g protein), and, since we finally got more groceries, carrots and hummus Total protein: ~105g Workout: Warm-up: jog around the neighborhood. On the way back I did two more reps of lowering myself from the top of a pull-up position. I could tell my arms were still tired from yesterday. Superset 1 (3x): overhead press/chest fly combo 8lbs 10x Bulgarian split squat 10x jackknife 10x Superset 2 (3x): lateral arm raises 5lbs 10x bicep curls 8lbs 8x first & second times, 4x third time jumping squats 10x I did a little bit of roll practice between this superset and the next, still trying to work on keeping the proper leg in front when I come out of the roll. It's definitely throwing me off a little bit; over the last few years every time I've practiced I was doing it slightly wrong without realizing and now I have to unlearn what I spent all that time learning. Superset 3 (2x): elevated push-ups 10x bodyweight rows 10x pistol squats 5x per leg Cooldown: extra long stretching routine with emphasis on arm/shoulder stretches. Notes: I had started the day slightly sore from the reverse pull-ups I did the day before and then proceeded to do an arm-intensive workout. If the four reps I did the previous day made me a little sore this morning I can only imagine how my arms will be after this… I think Thursday is going to have to be a leg day.

Well, I think I kind of killed my arms today… Yesterday I finally got to take a shot at lowering myself from the top of a pull-up position to see how hard it was and how many I could do. Turns out, I could do four– three overhand grip and one underhand grip. My arms felt tired after that and I didn't want to push it so I decided that was enough for one day. What I didn't expect was that even those four reps would make my arms noticeably sore this morning. I managed two more overhand grip reps today before my main workout, which turned out to have a lot of arm work itself. By the end of it my arms felt like overcooked zucchini noodles. I specify zucchini noodles because unlike standard noodles, which just get really limp and floppy when overcooked, overcooked zucchini noodles get limp and floppy and then fall apart into mush. That's what my arms felt like. Gonna take it easy on upper body work and focus on lower body/core next workout. Still, as tired as I am and as sore as I will be, it feels really good to know that I'm going to be building a good bit of strength with this. Step by step I'm getting closer to that goal of full bodyweight pull-ups!

Sunday June 28 breakfast: oatmeal with granola mixed in, coffee, and crackers with hummus lunch: leftover pesto shrimp & cauliflower rice dinner: ordered in the sushi for a home D&D session Went for a walk today, nothing huge, but I definitely got outside to move around and stretch my legs, which felt really good. Monday June 29 Breakfast: oatmeal with granola mixed in and coffee Lunch: kale salad with pepperoni and a couple lunchmeat slices Dinner: mixed veggie stir-fry with cauliflower rice Went for a 15 minute jog. I think I probably did at least a mile given my speed and how tired I was at the end. Along the way I stopped at the playground that I usually pass on these jogs and, since they have a pull-up bar, decided to try lowering myself from the top of a pull-up position just to see how hard it was. I did three overhand grip at one underhand grip and then my arms felt pretty tired out so I decided not to push it. I'd love to try to add these into my workouts more regularly; despite worries about my wrists/grip strength I was able to do a few reps and since it's noticeably harder it will build strength more quickly.