Scalyfreak finds a new home

[Scaly Freak]

Challenges update (sort of):

 

So between being scared that something very bad had happened to my knee, stressed about thoughts of all the squat workouts I'd be missing out on, and in general feeling very sorry for myself,  copious amounts of sugar were consumed. In the form of fruit juices, cookies, ice cream, and candy, and there may or may not have been some single malts in the mix as well. (Only three!) Basically the only thing I managed to stick with was avoiding soda. Yay me... somewhat.

 

Tomorrow is weekend and reboot time. New morning, new goals, and new workout routine while the leg heals. The rehab exercises take 30-40 minutes in the evening and are a serious workout - they weren't kidding when they said the purpose of the rehab is to build leg muscles. Lots of pilates-inspired leg lifts on my back and on my stomach, modified wall sits, and lots of stabilization exercises with resistance bands. It is also a bit painful - rehab hurts!

 

I am now going to go wrap an ice pack around the knee and placate Self-Indugence reward myself for completing the rehab exercises by playing Tyrrany for the rest of the evening.  

[Mike Wazowski]

Injuries are soooo rough, but good for you on being able to adjust goals and focus on your rebuilding process.

 

I always need to talk with Ben and Jerry post-injury before I get my head back on straight, so no judgment there.

[Scaly Freak]

After flitting back and forth in various people's threads, it occurred to me that I have neglected my own thread. So here we go... challenge updates!  

 

1. Maintain good habits from previous challenges. Back on track! Daily walks continue (though I am behind on updating my Mordor walk challenge), and after skipping only one evening due to knee injury I am back to regular gym visits again, and I am still avoiding soda.

 

2. Stronglifts goal modified to upper body lifting and knee rehab. Thanks to my good friend Google I located a lifting routine with only upper body exercises, and I do all the strengthening rehab exercises at the gym before I start lifting. Barbells as incentive and reward for the boooooring rehab.

 

3. Cut out liquid calories. Also back on track with this. Liquid calories are no longer being purchase, and the wine fridge has remained untouched since date night dinner on the weekend. The plan is for things to remain this way.

 

4. Sleeping beauty. And our streak of success comes to a grinding halt. I am consistently having more fails per week than successes with this goal, but I am determined to keep trying. I've spent nearly 40 years sleeping too little and irregularly, it's unreasonable to expect that to change in just a month.

 

5. Unfuck Dragon Mountain. The kitchen and the laundry room are much nicer now than they used to me. My walk-in closet too. Next up: Dragon cave!

[Bean Sidhe]

I am glad the knee wasn't too bad. Hopefully the rehab and exercises help. Good luck.

I am glad to hear your challenge is going okay. Yeah the sleep one could be a problem, but it may just mean making that a goal for 2 challenges instead of one. then you can make sure your going to rock it on the second one.

[Arcelas the n00b]

Keep at it, scalyfreak! You can do it!

[Grumble]

You are NOT allowed to die. You have Demons to battle. I've got my drop-in  ready to assist.

[Khuja, Dwarf Tank]

You can do it!! Ooh-rah!!!

[Scaly Freak]

I keep meaning to go here and update my challenge progress, and stuff keep happening that I need to deal with.

 

Progress is slowing down on all challenges except the daily walking and the avoidance of soda. Other liquid calories, like coffee drinks and good wine, have happened more than they should, and just two days ago, Self-Indulgence made me buy ice cream I became temporarily stupid and listened to Self-Indulgence when she wanted ice cream. It is my addictive kryptonite against avoiding sugar. On the plus side, I am now completely out of ice cream again, so I just have to stop myself from buying more.

 

Knee rehab has progressed to body weight squats (Yay!) which is great. I'm cautiously optimistic that I won't lose too much progress on Stronglifts when I eventually can get back to it. I've continued working on the bench press, OHP and the barbell row, but without logging progress in the app, and have started working on an inverted row, mainly to see what the deal is with pullups.

 

Life, personal aspects as well as work, is conspiring to take up all my time and energy, and pushing myself to do extra challenging things on top of that, takes more energy than I have to spare. So I am using this as a learning experience and trying to figure out exactly what the difference is between giving in to Procrastination or Self-Indulgence, and simply giving myself a break. I'm positive there is one, so I will find it. While I keep an eye on the smoldering embers in that large garbage container over there, and remind Self-Indulgence that I'm not done yet...

 

Meanwhile, I will work through this challenge until it ends, and make decisions about which challenges I will carry over into the next one. It's a long game... and patience is a virtue, right?  

[Khuja, Dwarf Tank]

I keep meaning to go here and update my challenge progress, and stuff keep happening that I need to deal with.
 
Progress is slowing down on all challenges except the daily walking and the avoidance of soda. Other liquid calories, like coffee drinks and good wine, have happened more than they should, and just two days ago, Self-Indulgence made me buy ice cream I became temporarily stupid and listened to Self-Indulgence when she wanted ice cream. It is my addictive kryptonite against avoiding sugar. On the plus side, I am now completely out of ice cream again, so I just have to stop myself from buying more.
 
Knee rehab has progressed to body weight squats (Yay!) which is great. I'm cautiously optimistic that I won't lose too much progress on Stronglifts when I eventually can get back to it. I've continued working on the bench press, OHP and the barbell row, but without logging progress in the app, and have started working on an inverted row, mainly to see what the deal is with pullups.
 
Life, personal aspects as well as work, is conspiring to take up all my time and energy, and pushing myself to do extra challenging things on top of that, takes more energy than I have to spare. So I am using this as a learning experience and trying to figure out exactly what the difference is between giving in to Procrastination or Self-Indulgence, and simply giving myself a break. I'm positive there is one, so I will find it. While I keep an eye on the smoldering embers in that large garbage container over there, and remind Self-Indulgence that I'm not done yet...
 
Meanwhile, I will work through this challenge until it ends, and make decisions about which challenges I will carry over into the next one. It's a long game... and patience is a virtue, right? [emoji4] 

That it is. Maybe listening to yourself when you do something that could be giving into them and see if you're actually giving in, or are noticing any of the usual cues -Hungry/Angry/Lonely/Tired, etc? Usually, HALT covers my reasons. And gives me a cue to stop myself.

[Scaly Freak]

20 minutes ago, Khuja said:

That it is. Maybe listening to yourself when you do something that could be giving into them and see if you're actually giving in, or are noticing any of the usual cues -Hungry/Angry/Lonely/Tired, etc? Usually, HALT covers my reasons. And gives me a cue to stop myself.

 

That's an excellent point. Analyze if there is a valid reason for eating, or skipping gym day, of if I'm just doing it because I want to.... I can probably do that. I just need to get a baseline and learn to read the cues. Like when learning to tell the difference between actually hungry and just bored.

[Khuja, Dwarf Tank]

 
That's an excellent point. Analyze if there is a valid reason for eating, or skipping gym day, of if I'm just dong it because I want to.... I can probably do that. I just need to get a baseline and learn to read the cues. Like when learning to tell the difference between actually hungry and just bored.

That's the hard part, but you're working towards that by trying tp figure it out to begin with!

[Grumble]

12 hours ago, scalyfreak said:

Meanwhile, I will work through this challenge until it ends, and make decisions about which challenges I will carry over into the next one. It's a long game... and patience is a virtue, right?  

 

Patience is an asshole. But I get the point. 

 

DId you ever give RDL's a try?

[Scaly Freak]

3 hours ago, Grumble said:

 

Patience is an asshole. But I get the point. 

 

DId you ever give RDL's a try?

 

Not yet. One of the rehab exercises is a modification of Reverse Cobra, so my glutes are getting plenty of work. I've been hesitant to do leg lifts with anything more than body weight while the knee heals, but I am still planning to try out RDLs at some point.

[farflight]

18 hours ago, scalyfreak said:

nd remind Self-Indulgence that I'm not done yet...

Whenever self-indulgence makes a suggestion, I try to picture this...

 

Tends to make self-indulgence and procrastination run...they don't like the Samuel (took me awhile to find a "clean" version of this pic)

[Scaly Freak]

I have figured out what is going on.

 

In the past, whenever I have attempted to do battle against the disgusting demon twins, it goes very well for a while. Then, after about a month and a half something happens  in the world around me that interrupts my momentum, and all good habits temporarily go out the window. I get back up, dust myself off, and keep going. Then something happens in the world around me a second time. I get back up, slower this time, dust myself up, and keep going but with less energy.

 

Then something happens a third time. And this time it is too much effort to get back up and I say "screw this" to myself and stop trying.

 

This week marks the third time reality has interfered in a massively sabotaging way, since I joined NF. 

 

So now I have gotten back up again, as far as I could get, and I started moving forward again. The way I see it, if I can just break the pattern of giving up after this third setback, I can and will eventually get back to moving forward at a respectable pace again.

 

Plus, crawling gives me a tactical advantage for ankle biting and foot stabbing, so it totally counts as success. (Also gives me an excuse to hold on to the dessert fork.)

 

Knee rehab has progressed to body weight squats, and they didn't hurt at all! That makes me very happy.  

[Jord]

8 hours ago, scalyfreak said:

So now I have gotten back up again, as far as I could get, and I started moving forward again. The way I see it, if I can just break the pattern of giving up after this third setback, I can and will eventually get back to moving forward at a respectable pace again.

 

If this ain't the truth then I don't know what is.

 

A rephrasing of the same thing from a book I read (screen shot from the e-book I had saved for myself):

 

 

YOU GOT THIS!

 

Also, yes I totally did start following your challenge on like basically the last day... >_>

[Grumble]

10 hours ago, scalyfreak said:

Plus, crawling gives me a tactical advantage for ankle biting and foot stabbing, so it totally counts as success. (Also gives me an excuse to hold on to the dessert fork.)

 

Make it a salad fork, Longer tines. Deeper stabs.

[Scaly Freak]

25 minutes ago, Grumble said:

 

Make it a salad fork, Longer tines. Deeper stabs.

 

...and still possible to use on desserts. Good idea!

[Grumble]

2 minutes ago, scalyfreak said:

 

...and still possible to use on desserts. Good idea!

 

Damn demons...

[Scaly Freak]

The demons have nothing to do with my fondness for desserts and cookies. They do however mess with my ability to eat moderate amounts of both, and less often.

[farflight]

12 hours ago, scalyfreak said:

Plus, crawling gives me a tactical advantage for ankle biting and foot stabbing, so it totally counts as success. (Also gives me an excuse to hold on to the dessert fork.)

ankle biting sounds soo...cheap...I think more "Hamstringing" 

1 hour ago, Grumble said:

Make it a salad fork, Longer tines. Deeper stabs.

I've always thought salad forks had the shorter tines and meat forks (main fork) had the longer ones....

 

 

[Scaly Freak]

3 minutes ago, farflight said:

ankle biting sounds soo...cheap...I think more "Hamstringing"

 

Cheap? Ankles are the easiest way to take down someone bigger than me. And when they are flat on the ground I can reach to stab everything! 

[zeroh13]

1 hour ago, farflight said:

ankle biting sounds soo...cheap...I think more "Hamstringing" 

I've always thought salad forks had the shorter tines and meat forks (main fork) had the longer ones....

 

 

Pick your weapon. First come, first serve:

[Grumble]

34 minutes ago, zeroh13 said:

Pick your weapon. First come, first serve:

 

Whichever glass has the longest and thickest stem. Cause Ima stab a snitch.

[Scaly Freak]

On 1/30/2018 at 7:05 PM, Khuja said:

That it is. Maybe listening to yourself when you do something that could be giving into them and see if you're actually giving in, or are noticing any of the usual cues -Hungry/Angry/Lonely/Tired, etc? Usually, HALT covers my reasons. And gives me a cue to stop myself.

 

I went back and reread this, and attempted to learn from your Yoda like wisdom tonight as I found myself dreading visiting the gym. This is not normal for me. I LIKE the gym. It's my happy place. So why do I not want to go there tonight?

 

Hungry? No, dinner was excellent.

Angry? No. Work started out rough this morning but turned awesome when  I had to teach new hires about company product on short notice, plus there was a Super Bowl pot luck.

Lonely? Never. I have the best husband in the whole world. Lonely is not an issue.

Tired? AHA! I have slept 3-4 hours per night, almost every night this week. 

 

Facing Bahamut while physically exhausted sounds like a bad idea. I will go to bed early, and go to the gym tomorrow instead. And add Insomnia to the list of upcoming boss fights.

 

A rephrasing of the same thing from a book I read (screen shot from the e-book I had saved for myself):

 

 

Which book is that? The screenshot is absolutely spot on, so now I'm interested in the book.

 

8 hours ago, zeroh13 said:

Pick your weapon. First come, first serve:

 

I want to say the meat knife, because that will be the sharpest, but the curved tip of the fish knife is really calling to me...