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I suppose my signature says it all, doesn't it? For a TL;DR, I was losing weight and feeling great, then I wasn't, then I was hiding from the world, then I spent a lot of time with doctors, finding out that I have diabetes, MS, and at least one heart condition. FUN So I am rebooting and keeping it simple, going from a newbie's standpoint. I just want to re-establish healthy habits and get my brain back into the swing of things. Level One Challenge Eat a vegetable with one meal every day Complete the NF bodyweight workout at least 1x a week Pick up the house every morning, and do the dishes I think this is a great place to start. I'll see you in the forums.

Let's Get Down to Business To Defeat the Huns! As swift as the coursing river With all the force of a great typhoon With all the strength of a raging fire Mysterious as the dark side of the moon Previous challenge. Because we might as well get the stereotypical theme out of the way next. Last time it was cats (ze arrrees-toe-cats), this time it's Mulan. Everyone loves Mulan! Or at least Mulan. But what's not to love?! (Aside from some cultural stereotyping and some mildly cringeworthy attempts to replicate the Genie ad nauseum) A classic bildungsroman (coming of age story) with familial devotion taking precedence over all other relationships, cross-dressing, defying gender expectations, that damn song, crushing physical/mental plateaus with style, using wit, agility and dexterity to compensate for pure physical strength . . . the scenes on the mountain, the climax, the scene under the cherry tree. And the artwork is so good. Mulan is not my favourite Disney film, but it's in my top five depending on what you count as a Disney film. Mulan was my first major crush, not my first - that was either Maleficent or Pocahontas - but Mulan was a constant source of admiration for me from the moment I first saw an advert for it on . . . I want to say telly, but it might have been on a VHS. It was spoileriffic mind, I mean the advert had the "You have saved us all," speech playing over the footage, but oh the moment I saw that I had to get it. And come Christmas 1999 I was a very happy eight-year-old. Mulan means a lot to me, let's see if I can do it, and her, justice. Well, I didn't do her justice last time for reasons that are mentioned in the previous iteration of this thread, so let's try again! Albeit with a different Life Quest because that's the only thing I kicked arse on and modulating a few things here and there. Who is that girl I see, staring straight, back at me? (Reflection) When will my reflection show Who I am inside? So sometimes I suffer massive hits of gender dysphoria, body dysphoria, and really just general dysphoria, anxiety and depression. My mind says one thing, my body another; familial/social/cultural pressures/ideas say one thing, my mind says another different thing, and then my body chimes in again. I've never really 'done' labels, they confuse me actually, and I've dabbled trying to see if something 'fits', nothing really does, and I'm fine with that; SuNoYo is SuNoYo, and there will never be another. But she would just like it very much if all parts of her could be in accord for once. Not agreeance per se, but accord. An understanding based on mutual feelings underpinned with a firm knowledge that no matter how Su, No and Yo may differ SuNoYo is herself. While eighty odd minutes and a montage song did it for Mulan, that won't work for me (alas), but I can definitely strive towards feeling completely confident and comfortable in myself. To this end I will: - meditate daily for at least half an hour in one sitting and do my sleep meditation. I've been slack on that recently, and I've been feeling more discomfitted in general since letting my sleep meditation slip. If one is done and not the other that counts as a half point for the day. To be graded out of 42. - I take part in the PvS HOoRAY and LYBaYF threads, they help. I still don't like looking in the mirror very much and I sometimes struggle to find things to mention that are good about myself. Even some of my posts contain enough self-deprecation that, looking back on it, I feel like I'm slyly insulting myself. So I will look in a mirror. I will say the things I post in HOoRAY and LYBaYF to myself. I will look myself in the eyes especially when wearing my glasses, I won't skim the area, I will look in my eyes and just remember everything good and positive in my life. I will then post a reflection (hahaha) of these little sessions in this thread. To be graded out of 42. - I feel like I have no practical worth as a person, be it as an employee, a family member, and sometimes as a friend. Sometimes it's all I can do to get out of bed because I feel so useless. But I went to a good uni, am told I am useful, have skills and things that others consider useful/helpful/good. So every day I will literally do a Skill Check. This is my skill, how can I use it to be and feel better in any capacity I could be needed in. To be graded out of 42 +2 CHA, +2 WIS Self-esteem challenge: this challenge is all about the self-esteem, so I'm not going to be awarding any points unless something exceptional pops up i.e. getting a job. With all the force a great typhoon, with all the strength of a raging fire Can't really fit the lyrics here I've written them twice before~ Just know that it's a quest of Awesome To improve~ my martial arts (hoo-ah!) God, bet that didn't fit at all. Family issues last challenge meant that I didn't attend T'ai Chi for much of the last challenge period and it''s only been in the last three weeks (including today) that I've even started going T'ai Chi again and I still feel out of sorts with it. Today I was barely able to attend class for half an hour and I have absolutely no idea why. It seems I have hit a plateau or two. Thus: - I honestly can't do the pull ups or chin ups in the ABBW because if I did the table would actually tip over - I tried. But I'm going to do three full circuits of the ABBW by the end of this challenge. And four times a week. To be graded out of 24. - Work on my Form, Dance and stances. Four times a week, including class. Call it general pattern and balance practice. To be graded out of 24. - Strength training. Once a week minimum. Why does this go here? Aside from fitting the montage song it ties in with something below . . . To be graded out of 6. - Yoga, I've missed it and it will help with my balance and such. Follow the DYWM Beginner's Course again. To be graded out of 18. +2 STR, +2 DEX, + 1STA Self-esteem challenges: - PISTOL SQUATS. Last challenge I could do nine single-leg squats per leg. By mid-challenge I was doing one pistol squat per leg, though barely above parallel. I want to get below parallel on my pistol squats with good form, and work up to doing . . . five per leg per set. I'll still be nicking some of the Assassin's six week skill work from the previous challenge for this. - I can has splits? Diet (I don't really have a Mulan reference that isn't mildly insulting when it comes to food) Food, glorious food Wonderful food Marvellous food Glorious food! I alluded to some problems above? So I'm probably a good twenty-five pounds overweight and that makes some exercises difficult. I recognise this has to do with core and balancing muscles as well, but that'll get mentioned too. The belly fat compresses and because of the position it also puts pressure-pain on my boobs. Also it puts me off balance meaning I compromise on other things. - Cut out all but two snacks a week unless said snacks happen to be nuts or fruit, in which case, only five snacks a week. Hopefully to be reduced to three a week by the end of the challenge. Say goodbye to your shop-bought smoothies and occasional chocolate milk (they were half price!) girl. - Go as gluten-free as possible when you're not the one buying the groceries. This will mean buying certain staples gluten-free and just not eating gluten-y things if they're not part of a main meal. MAIN MEAL meaning dinner. - One new recipe a week. I want to try lemon pepper chicken karaage. It sounds delicious. Maybe with caulirice. Extra points if it's a gluten-free or Paeleo recipe, but not obligatory. To be graded out of six. Self-esteem challenges: - make a little box or area of goodies, ingredients and cookery related things just for me. - cook a Sunday roast. - cook for more than just me. +2 CON, +1 WIS Life Quest: Crossdress! Maybe later. Life Quest: Creativity in Perseverance I love reading. I love writing. But I also like research. I don't need things to be one hundred percent accurate, but I like drawing from the real world to flesh out my work or make it more realistic. To quote TVTropes, I like to Show My Work. But the thing about getting sidetracked when reading about Guanshiyin is that the sidetrack is so interesting I eventually go off track and I stop work on my stories and things. Or when I'm trying to work out how a certain disability would affect someone's perception of things I can get distracted by varying forms of handling it etcetera, etcetera It's a kind of academic 'oooh shiny!' thing. This means I excel at creating little 'what if?' synopses and plot bunnies, I can write really interesting little shorts, but the longer things get bogged down. So when Mulan hit her wall she persevered and eventually her intellect and creativity allowed her to overcome her wall. What I'm going to do is a little different: I'm not going to stop my research. I'm not going to say I have to write x words a day/total. I am going to build a world - My research will help me build a world, because I know I'm going to research, so I might as well create a mostly cohesive backstory for my world. - I will write something creative every day set in my little world, but it doesn't need to be a coherent story. It can be fragments of history - sometimes from several viewpoints with the actual version of what happened written down if I ever need to pull unreliable narrator on an entire people/country/whatever. It can be language and culture quirks. It can be character vignettes and backstory as if I'm rolling up a character for a campaign. - I will do a little research every day for the express purpose of creating my little world. If I end up reading about non-binary genders throughout history then I must write a little note about what my little world thinks about it. - My little world doesn't need to be completely coherent or fully thought out, but I want a structure. More than that, I want little sketches, glimpses and entire scenes/whatever laid out, based entirely within that world/person/country's viewpoint with accompanying Author Notes in another document. In me creativity engenders research, therefore I also need to show myself that research, in turn, engenders creativity. Research is the world's foundation, but without a story research is nothing more than a series of 'did you know . . . ?'s So bring out the medieval literature, history and culture; bring out my language and linguistic skills; bring out my Google Fu; bring out my esoterica and vague annoyance with other people's work. I know stories, I love history and words, let's make a world. And post something about it. Ideally it'd be daily, but let's try twice a week instead. It can be maps, weather patterns, history, characters, politics, economy, whatever. But it has to prove that the world is being built alongside a story. Pass/fail +2 WIS, +1 CHA.