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nightlight is just here for the (G)a(I)nz(Fs) I've had many ups and downs lately. Not gonna try and dwell on it, or rehash too much of it, because living in the past is something old nightlight did. Though, relevant bits here: I competed in a Weightlifting meet in early June and went 6/6. No lifts were PRs, but they felt solid, and I even got smiles and claps out of my coach. I've been SLOOOOOOOWLY losing weight, but I think I'm hitting a little plateau I haven't worked out in 2 weeks (ish) because my back has been bothering me. Because my back has been bothering me, my anxiety has been at an all time high. Almost to a level where I've never seen it before. This challenge is going to be a challenge where I'm being kind to myself, and trying to make small progress towards bigger goals. Goal 1: Take care of my back by doing more movement throughout the day. My plan is on weekdays to do some movement breaks every few hours. I have alarms set to go off at 8a/10a/12p/2p to move. Doesn't have to be long or involved. Even less than 5 min. I just have to DO SOMETHING GOOD for my back. I will log this here. Weekends are up in the air, but I will have at least 3 movement breaks per day. Goal 2: Track food, hit calorie goals. This one is simple. Track my food intake. Try to stay at or under my calorie goals for the WEEK. I can go a little over on workout days, or a little under on non workout days. I'll track here: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/profile/needanightlight Goal 3: Get a hold of my anxiety Do a sleep meditation 5 nights per week before bed. I've been doing these the past few nights and they've helped knock me out. Do "real" meditation for 5 minutes 4x per week. Any more is bonus.

I completely forgot about my January challenge and now I'm a little early for the February Challenge. I'll dispense with the long back story and try and keep it short. I got injured a few years ago and got really depressed. I've now moved to a smaller city, got a dog, and got a coach. I'm not coaching anymore, which is a little sad, but I'm ok with that right now. I'll be on vacation/cruise from the 17th - 26th so this thread might be boring then when I'm not updating much. GOAL 1: SLOW PROGRESS I've got 3 herniated discs in my back. I've been in pain most every day for the better part of the past 3 years. I don't want to re-aggrivate them. Though, a lot of times I feel like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. Now that I've got a coach, the priority is not moving a lot of weight. It's efficiency of movement, technique, and not getting anywhere near getting injured. While my programming may call for this: Snatch 80/1 6 (Movement %/reps sets), I won't be following the percentages. Our goal is to add a little bit each week to each movement as I feel necessary. I will complete this goal by tracking my workouts here, and noting how I feel, so I can determine if there are any patterns that develop. GOAL 2: BODY MAINTENANCE I had an AMAZING physical therapist in NYC. He helped me get out of the constant pain cycle. I need to be better about taking care of myself as I get older. I want to stay out of pain, and increase my range of motion. I want to create a body maintenance routine to do on my off-training days. I train 3 days a week, and have 4 off days. This goal will be to start feeling out a routine 3 days per week for 10 minutes. I can accumulate the minutes throughout a given day. I'll log that here. GOAL 3: EAT TO SUPPORT TRAINING I gained a lot of weight when I was injured. I've lost some. Now that I'm training again, I can't eat like an asshole if I want to make sure I get fitter. I'm not eating out every night, but it's too easy to buy a bag of cookies (or whatever) at the grocery store and devour them. It's too easy to get fast food. I will track my food at least 5 days per week in MFP, and stick to my 1500 allotted calories on non-training days. One day per week, I can eat whatever I want - BUT IT MUST BE TRACKED. Even if it's 5k calories of Five Guys hamburgers and fries. GOAL 4: SPEND QUALITY TIME WITH SADIE Since I'm training 3 nights per week, I'm away from Sadie more than I'd like. Even though I work from home, I don't get to play with her as much as I'd like. We've been doing obedience classes and agility classes together. Because of my training and the cruise, a lot of the time available for classes is much lower. I will spend at least 10 minutes (can be accumulated) 5x per week working on obedience/tricks. I will take Sadie to 2 classes in the month of February. I will take Sadie to the big dog park at least 2x in February.

Job One: Build Good Habits This one is related to my last challenge. I will continue to log my food. This has been helpful as my last challenge was pretty successful (and really, if I'm honest, I half assed it.) I've also got a calendar in my bathroom where I'm tracking some habits that I want to make sure I do every day. I'm not making myself feel bad if I don't do them, but I want to track them to see if I notice a difference in my back pain/mental attitude. Here they are: Exercise (this one I'm not putting a huge emphasis on this challenge, because I have Job Two...) CARs - Controlled Articular Rotations. I've been trying to build a habit to do these every day for over a year... i'm not so good at habits. Back Exercises - I have a few things that I want to do daily to make my back feel better (continually) Flossing - Because I suck at it! But the past month I think I only missed one day. I'm a GREAT brusher. Shitty flosser. Supplements/Meds - I have asthma because I was premature (born at 27 weeks) and I suffer from depression. Sometimes get ornery about taking my meds because I feel like I shouldn't have to deal with these things. However, I know in my heart that I need to be my best me and give myself the best chance at success. So, Every day I have to take my Symbicort and Zoloft. I also have crazy allergies, so I do a Zyrtec every day and that helps. Other supplements for shits and giggles: Vitamin D, Tumeric/Curcumin, Fish Oil, Ashwagandha, and ZMA. Most of these are for their anti-inflammatory benefits, and the others are mood/sleep support. Job Two: Keep This Thing Alive This is Sadie. She's my first dog. She's 3 years old and very smart. I brought her home on Sunday and I am still petrified that I will do things wrong and maybe she won't love me and I will have to bring her back. But she's been wonderful. My goal for this challenge is to get into a good routine with her. Seems like it's going to be something like this: 7a - go out side for a potty break and walk ~20-30min 7:30ish - in for her breakfast while I make coffee and start working 11-12pm ish - out for a quick 15 min walk 5-6pmish - out for our long walk. 20-45min depending on how we feel 6:30 - Dinner for Sadie 9pm - out for potty and then into crate for bed.

Same goals for May. Updates bolded. Hi my name is nightlight and I have glute amnesia. I'm going to dispense with most of the back story here. I've got 3 herniated discs in my lumbar spine, a recovering alcoholic dad, a (thankfully) now cancer-free mom, a day job, a night job, and a very messy apartment. I've also got an extra 20ish lbs hanging around my mid-section. I've been really hard on myself about gaining back most of my lost weight since my most recent injury. I have also been really bad with allowing myself to cheat. I know it's bad, but I do it anyway. But I'm 36. I'm an adult. I need to get my shit together. I lament about how I don't have a girlfriend because I'm a good catch, but I might not be a good catch right now. I really only feel that way because of the state of my apartment and my weight. (yes, I know, crazy pants.) In this challenge I want to start making some good habits. I've had luck in the past week with planning in a "cheat" item each day. This way I look forward to it and don't binge. I've also been able to get to the gym, and I want to make sure I get back to regular workouts because I feel better. Goal 1: Rehab, Gym, Ruck One of the BIG things that I've discovered seeing my PT guy (we just discovered this on Monday) is that my left glute complex is essentially dead. I was explaining some pain I was having and so he wanted to test my glutes. First we did manual testing and then moved into the electro-acupuncture type testing. The way it works is you two needles stuck in you and an electrical current is run from one to the other and your muscle is supposed to contract. (because muscles work on electrical impulses anyway) well, my left glutes don't. he kept raising the current higher and higher until i couldn't stand it and my muscles just did NOTHING. Then we tested the right side and with the lowest amount of current my muscles would jump. So my goal is to start on a rehab protocol to address my bad left glute. I should get this from my PT guy next week. I also need to consistently work out, because I signed up for a challenge in July. How? 2x per week - GYM 3 was being a little advantageous, I want 3, but I also want to succeed. 1x per week - long ruck. weight and distance will increase over time. 1x per week - extra glute stuff (as determined by my PT guy) Goal 2: Dani Two-Bricks *stolen from a previous challenge* This time last year, I weighed in at 147. (on a scale at a rock climbing gym i was at with the nerds) I want that back. I want my dead hang pullups back. I need to get my diet under control. This also will involve a lot of mental work. I don't think I will make it back under 150 this challenge, but I want to make some progress there. Two bricks should be achieved by July 29th. How? Say no to gluten as much as possible. beer = ok, as long as it fits macros. bread, not so much. Track all food on MFP. (Feel free to follow me and keep me accountable) Set macros and stick to them. Once I weigh in on Monday, I'll set my macros. Goal 3: Get Your Mind Right In the GORUCK community, this is a thing. My mind is not right at this point. My depression and has gotten worse. I've been not so good on taking my meds. I'm not on a lot. just zoloft, and a small dose. but i DO need it. I also need to work on taking vitamins and just general self care. Self care also includes apartment care. How? Take and track meds and supplements in this thread. Apartment must be (what I think) is clean by end of the challenge. Track one cleaning step each day here. Even if it is "take out a bag of garbage." DGAF - don't give a fuck what other people think. just be awesome. concentrate on ME. Dedicate more time to playing guitar Starting Stats tbd Macros/Cals tbd Meds/Supps to be taken/when: Morning/Day: Vit D, Symbicort, Tumeric Evening: Zoloft, Zyrtec, Fish Oil, ZMA or Natural Calm as needed.

so last challenge didn't go as planned. but it wasn't horrible. I'm going to stick with my goals from last challenge, as I never really did complete them. I am just going to go about it in a different way. A lot of tracking and even having goals is sometimes too much pressure. But I bet I only say that because I just feel like I have no willpower, hence no good warm fuzzy self worth feelings, which are probably the root of most of the issues here. Everything makes me feel like this: So, this challenge, my goals will be wishful goals, but I don't get to add another piece on, until i've really done a good job at the last little bit. I think I'm going to go into this in two week chunks. The hitch in this, is I'll be on a cruise from the 17th - 24th. We are getting dunk tanked for body fat on Saturday. I will probably not share this info. but it's happening. Goal 1: Rehab + Upper Body Strength i miss this so much. I'm starting with two basic programs that i'll be pulling from. Foundation training, physical therapy exercises and this back rehab protocol. For the upper body strength stuff, I'll be doing push ups, pull ups, bench press, and OHP. How? Weeks 1-2 Just show up, and do stuff, 3x per week. Stuff should be done thoughtfully, to which a progression can be built upon. Weeks 3-4 Post workouts here for all to see, before doing them. (this will need some thought, as week 3 will be on a cruise ship.) Weeks 5-6 TBD Goal 2: Dani Two-Bricks This time last year, I weighed in at 147. (on a scale at a rock climbing gym i was at with the nerds) I want that back. I want my dead hang pullups back. I need to get my diet under control. This also will involve a lot of mental work. I don't think I will make it back under 150 this challenge, but I want to make some progress there. I'll weigh in officially Monday morning. I'd like to lose 10lbs during this challenge. How? Week 1 don't eat like an asshole. Week 2-5 participate in my gym's paleo challenge. this will be modified paleo for me. i do eat butter. i do eat yogurt. but i'm going to try to keep the yogurt to a minimum. also, while i'm on the cruise, all of this goes out the window. however, i need to figure out a way to eat mindfully and not go all over the place while i'm on the cruise. i'll post up a plan for that week when it gets closer. Week 6 one cheat day after the paleo challenge is officially over. then don't eat like an asshole. Goal 3: Get Your Mind Right In the GORUCK community, this is a thing. My mind is not right at this point. I need to work on taking care of myself now that mom is out of the woods. The one thing that went well last challenge is i did well with my supplements and meds. How? Week 1-2 Just do one thing. Instead of freaking out about all of the things i need to do, just do one per day. Week 3-4 Just do two things. Week 5-6 Just do three things. Starting Stats

hi nerds. so this challenge is really going to be about getting me better, mentally and physically for one of the most challenging things i will have to go through in my life to date. my mom is having a double mastectomy and reconstruction surgery in late september. i will fall apart. so i need to prepare to fall apart as little as possible. especially if she ends up having to go through chemo after. i also have two GORUCK events coming up. i’m doing the 9/11 challenge here in NYC and Trek in D.C. on 10/2. i’m broken right now. my back has gotten bad again. i am seeing a physical therapist, which after one session is helping immensely. but i need to do some serious rehab to try and ensure this doesn’t happen again. or, really, it is inevitable that it will happen again, but lessen the effects when it does. this is kinda sucky from another perspective, because i’m in the competitor’s training group at the box, and it’s mentally hard to not do the wods with them. i’ve also gained weight even though my eating habits haven’t changed too much. but i guess enough to add on weight. so i want to reverse this. dani two bricks needs to come back. it’s unacceptable to have gained weight back like this. i know a lot of it is stress, but it’s just not good. so. the plan: 1) fix the food: after going through some docs and challenge stuff, when weight was coming off, i was loosely following the eat to perform thing. so i’m going to go back to that. i’m going to be tracking my foodstuffs here: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/diary/needanightlight i will be drinking as little alcohol as possible. also trying to stay low-ish carb. 2) fix the back: this will probably have multiple parts. right now, i’m still dealing with the acute issues. i think really, this goal should be, for now, spend at least 10 minutes every day doing some sort of rehab. rolling out, whatever. but it has to be directly related to lower back/core/pchain etc. 3) fix the mind: this is the hard part. i think part of this is really relying on my community and friends to help prop me up if needed. and be ok with that. so i think i need to check in here, at least 5x per week, reporting on how i’m doing. so, i guess, welcome back to nl’s stream of consciousness TMI rambling. also, i was in a bad place when i was not on my happy pills. doc and i have decided that i need to be on them. so i am now taking them regularly, and like my asthma meds, i just realize that i need it. as much as i don't want to be on anything, they are a necessity. stats, under a spoiler, because i'm kind of embarrassed by the weight i gained, and when i say kind of, i mean really.

nightlight does...life. Clean slate. I haven't been able to stick with a challenge as of late because things keep happening. The things that keep happening are life. SO this may be a little bit of an un-challenge. I want to just try and get my life back together. Lose the 20lbs (seriously) I've gained since November. Goal 1: Pick Things Up and Put Them Down Liftin' and liftin' and... Follow my 4 day a week WL plan. I've created my own 6 week program based on something JDanger gave me and changed up with some stuff I learned from Ursula and some things catering to my weaknesses. THe plan could compress to 3 days if necessary, not going to sweat that part. There are also accessory movements built into the program. Goal 2: THE OPEN Do work. Complete all 5 open WODs. Goal 3: Ruck. Ruck 1 day per week. I'm not going to go full ruck-tard on this yet. This is more of a side goal, since it's open season and I'll be spending more time at the box since I'll have to judge. That said, I would love to get in one long ruck a week. Starting at 30 min, working up from there. It'll be good, and my challenge is coming up fast: April 25. Side Quest Diet/Lifestyle: Eat to Perform Track it! Part of my neurosis are definitely related to body image, weight, size, etc. The main goal is not necessarily to lose weight or inches, however I will be tracking those. The main goal is to feel good about myself. Feeling good about myself is wrapped up in these neurosis. If I feel good about what I eat, I will feel better about myself. I will achieve this goal by tracking what I put in my gluten-free pie hole. I will be following Eat to Perform for this 6 week challenge. (THIS GOAL FROM LAST THE 2 CHALLENGE STICKS!) I also need to make sure I'm getting enough protein, fish oil, ZMA, and BCAAs. I'll be following this loosely: (or not so loosely) TDEE: 1,974 calories P: 155g C: 170g F: 75g First point is to get enough protein per day. Then make sure my fats are in line, then carbs. Making sure I get proper pre-post wod nutrition also. ** tracking here: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/diary/needanightlight Side Quest/Life: UFYL Unfuck MY life! I'm thinking about something like this. 30min per day, 5 days per week, spend 5 minutes on some of the following: UFYH - cleaning the apartment putting things up for sale on eBay practice guitar reading through my feedly of health and fitness articles studying for CSCS writing blog posts Basically, I want to spend a half hour, 5 days per week, doing something that will make my life and surroundings better. Current strength footnote: Back Squat: 190 Front Squat: 175 Deadlift: 235 Clean: 130 Hang Clean: 115 Jerk: 130 C&J: 130 OHP: 90 Bench Press: 120 Snatch: 105 all in lbs

Main Quest (for this challenge): "Get Myself Together" This is part 4 of my main quest. Overarching goal is Be Brave. Last challenge I lost my way a bit. I think you all can see more growth in me than I can see in myself, but my eating went out of control and I stopped working out because I was paralyzed by anxiety. I got the news this morning that Asshat will no longer be around. Neither will BoCM. My head says WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. My heart hurts and I feel a little dizzy. However, I know this is for the best. My box. My life. Mine. NOTE: this is a 5 week challenge for me. I'll be away from Feb 6-14. (on a boat.) This challenge, I'm back with the Rangers. This challenge isn't really a formal challenge for me. There's going to be no grading. No stress. I will have mini goals that I'd like to meet. But at this point, any expectations that anyone puts on me, I can't commit. Any sort of expectations (by myself or anyone else) is just too much to have right now. I need to pull myself together. Small steps, big changes. From you guys? Just some support. Sounding board, as you've always been. Some of my goals below might be a bit nebulous, but I sometimes don't meet my goals, because I'm afraid people are expecting me to. Which leads me to the thing I wrote two challenges ago that still sticks: After the last challenge kind of face-planting in a number of ways, I really have to vag up, and be brave. It's not about showing anyone else how I can be. It's about letting myself be ME. And not being afraid of that. I have two horrible paralyzing fears that I haven't talked to you all about. I don't actively think about them, but they sabotage me everywhere I go, everything I do. So, here goes. I'm really deathly afraid of success. I don't do the things I'm good at and make excuses on why I don't do them, but the real reason, is because I'm afraid of being recognized. These things are music, writing and photography, for example. The other fear revolves around weight. I've always been heavy. Pre-8yrs old, I was super skinny because I was on medication that killed my appetite. As soon as I went off, I got fat. My highest weight in high-school was 174. My all time highest was probably around the time I moved back to the city, ~185lbs. I've always used my weight as an excuse as to why no one wants to date me. It was just easier to hide behind that, than deal with my own body image and inter-personal issues. I've been told that I keep people at arms-length all the time. And I do. I'm really scared that if I inhabit the body I want, people will see that... and... I don't know how to describe it, but it's scary. It's scary to have to let someone in. Especially after I have tried so hard (Asshat) to do that, and been shut down. The attention is scary. Right now, I feel like this: I want to feel like this: Goal 1: Get back to the box. 3 WODs a week. I absolutely LOVED working on JDanger's cycle. LOVED LOVED LOVED. But because of some other stuff, I feel the best way to get myself back in the game is to get back to my roots. Which is doing the work. Being a part of my box community. I've also been thinking a lot about the Open. Even if I say I'm not going to compete, I will. So, I should prepare for it. I know I am strong enough. I need to do some skill work (see below.) But what really needs work? My motor. What's going to get that better? Doing the work. Goal 2: Skillz bro. 2 Skill days/WL days per week: I want to keep making progress with weightlifting. I'm going to take elements from JDanger's program and elements from some other things and piece together a two day a week WL program. I'll post that once I figure it out. I also need to do some skill work specifically for the open. Ring dips/C2B pull ups, specifically. Goal 3: Maintenance Keep it up, yo!: I need to get back into rehab. Reverse Hypers. Lots. Side Quest Diet/Lifestyle: Eat to Perform Track it! Part of my neurosis are definitely related to body image, weight, size, etc. The main goal is not necessarily to lose weight or inches, however I will be tracking those. The main goal is to feel good about myself. Feeling good about myself is wrapped up in these neurosis. If I feel good about what I eat, I will feel better about myself. I will achieve this goal by tracking what I put in my gluten-free pie hole. I will be following Eat to Perform for this 6 week challenge. (THIS GOAL FROM LAST CHALLENGE STICKS!) ** tracking here: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/diary/needanightlight I also need to make sure I'm getting enough protein, fish oil, ZMA, and BCAAs. Side Quest/Life: UFYH Unfuck MY habitat! 5 min per day. Apartment clean up. Current strength footnote: Back Squat: 190 Front Squat: 165 Deadlift: 235 Clean: 130 Hang Clean: 115 Jerk: 130 C&J: 130 OHP: 90 Bench Press: 120 Snatch: 98 all in lbs

My Mission is simple: LIVE AND ENJOY a HAPPY LIFE How the hell do I do that?!?!?! 1. Eat clean -when I eat right, my body is happy. My tummy isn't bloaty and if I lose a few inches: woohoo The budget has been tighter than I like and we've resorted to some less than amazing choices in order to stretch pennies. Preparation is key. It's far too easy to make bad choices when you've failed to plan. I need to make sure that I have healthy clean foods to bring with me to work and I also need to re-learn to stop eating when I'm not hungry rather than cleaning my plate and feeling stuffed. 2. Follow Training plan-keep running and getting stronger. Running releases endorphins that make me a pleasant pixie. DOMs make me happy! Use the limited weights that I have to increase strength. Spartan Beast requires full body strength- incorporate hanging skills for grip- For this mission to be successful I will have 2 life quests 3. Prepare myself and home for temporary single parent life (this means decluttering, simplifying and organizing my home) Have a "trunk sale" since I don't have a garage to have a sale in and what doesn't sell gets donated. If it isn't used, needed or loved it needs to GTFO of my apartment. Waiting on results from several disputes on my credit. (carryover from last challenge- home ownership prep) 4. Do the necessary things to maintain a peaceful spirit. Keep up with Housework Get caught up on work things Aim to write one blog post per week. Take time to be thankful for my blessings No attribute points will be assigned. No tracking document will be created-I will make notes in my daily notebook and share - these things have a tendency to stress me out & that defeats the purpose of this mission The Most Important part of this challenge is to remember to BE HAPPY Happy Pixie = Happy J and Happy Family!

Muhahaha. xoxoxo