Mistr's Winter Solstice Reset

[Mistr]

Winter Solstice Reset

 

I have been working on leveling up for the last several challenges, without much progress. Instead of trying harder, I am going to take this challenge to reflect.

 

Observations from last challenge:

• Elf noted that I am more stressed than I was a year ago, and Dumbledore confirmed it.
• I have been struggling to keep up with things at work
• I have been eating comfort food
• I slept 9 hours a night over Thanksgiving weekend
• I have not been sitting zen regularly

 

Signs point to my routine needing adjustment so that I can be happy and relaxed.

 

1. Evening prep

Getting enough sleep makes a huge difference in my attitude and effectiveness. The trickiest part is actually getting to bed early. I've noticed that it takes me about half an hour to put things away, wash and get to bed. I think it only takes 15 minutes, and that is just not realistic. Getting to bed early lets me sit zen in the morning when the house is always quiet. I already do the things on this list most of the time. I just need to do them earlier and more consistently.

 

• Set out clothes for the next day
• Pack lunch, breakfast and fruit
• Pack clean gi and exercise clothes
• Foam roll legs if they are tight

 

2. Exercise

Aikido is going well as it is. I'm doing 1:1 study twice a week for 30 minutes at lunch, plus two regular classes a week. Just keep working on all the things.

I'm seeing good results from the core yoga and I miss it when I don't do it for several days. Keep that up.

I tried doing Elements again and got frustrated with the length of time required per session. Not a good fit for my schedule. I need a plan for Tuesday, Thursday and Friday that takes 30-40 minutes.

 

• Monday/Wednesday - Aikido weapons and principles practice
• Tuesday/Friday - Starting Strength and mobility
• Thursday - Yoga or PT
• Saturday/Sunday - Aikido or yoga

 

@Urgan has been encouraging me to start strength training for ages. Now seems like a good time. The weather makes me want to stay inside. I can always go for a walk on Thursday if by some miracle we get a nice day. A third of my PT is bodyweight squats. Doing weighted squats should fill the same fitness goals. Another third of the PT is airplanes and kicks. I can do those while resting between sets on lifting days. That gives me a free day to do other yoga or the NF handstand course. The core yoga sessions are only 20 minutes. Perfect for busy days.

 

3. Zen and holding still

When I'm stressed I tend to fall into a trap of thinking I have to do all the things or they won't get done. The majority of those things can wait a bit. I also can be better about communicating and sharing the work. Elf has had a stretch of good days. Hopefully that means that the new meds are working better than the old ones. We have an app for sharing household tasks. Hermes is around more and might be able to help. Dumbledore is making an effort to do his part. I can concentrate on the things that are just my responsibility. I can even take time for myself without worrying about my world falling apart. Sitting zen helps my brain reset.

 

• Zazen at least 10 minutes a day
• Knitting instead of playing games on my phone
• Reading for fun on weekends, more educational reading before bed

 

4. Randori with All The Things

Make good choices and keep moving. There will always be more things that need doing; that does not mean I need to deal with them right now. Set them aside with notes for later or other people to do them. Take time to do things that will make me and my family feel better.

 

 

 

[RES]

I struggle with your #3, following for family stories  

[Mistr]

It is Sunday evening of a 4-day weekend. I don't know how I would have managed on a normal weekend. Today I did not leave the house at all. I have barely scratched my to-do list. On the plus side, I did do some fun things. I was hoping for more reading and knitting time. Probably too much phone game time, but it was a holiday, dammit. Plus lots of sleep.

 

We now have ALL THE FOOD. There were only five people for Thanksgiving (the four of us and Hermes' girlfriend). Then Elf left on Friday to visit friends for the weekend. My contribution on Thursday was the green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, and three pies. I helped with the mashed potatos and gravy when things got busy.

 

Friday I made the turkey carcass into stock. I also roasted brussel sprouts with with bacon. Dumbledore should not be allowed in a grocery store by himself. He is  susceptible to temptation. He brought home a stem of brussel sprouts because they were on special and looked cool. Not actually a good deal, but who knew? He also got another package of stuffing mix and more mini marshmallows. Really, I saw those things on the grocery list and got them the previous day. I will have to figure out more things to do with unseasoned bread cubes.

 

Saturday I roasted asparagus (also from Dumbledore's shopping expedition) and made the stock into turkey lentil soup. I still have roast root veggie soup from last week. That means I can have hot soup for breakfast now that we are in serious winter. Plus we have plenty of veggies to go with the carb-heavy Thanksgiving food.

 

Today I made the crust and ice cream for espresso ice cream cake for Elf's birthday. I intended to make the chocolate topping, but ran out of eggs. That will have to wait until Tuesday.

 

Our next project is to get a treadmill. Dumbledore has wanted one for a long time. Elf supports him in this and says they would also use it. We figured out a spot where it would fit in the laundry room. This will probably involve putting up some shelves so we can move stuff. That would be an improvement in any case. We already have extra shelf brackets we can use. If anyone has personal experience with a home treadmill, please tell me about it.

 

We were all happy with the low-key Thanksgiving. I think we are going a similar route for Yule. We will go to the Twin Cities to visit people the weekend of New Year's. That takes the pressure off having to do things a specific day. Instead of individual presents, we are going to buy a flat screen TV. The last TV we owned was a 9 inch black-and-white model. Getting an actual TV would let us watch movies together in comfort rather than crowded around someone's desk. I may take off a day or two from work to give myself the gift of free time. Right now having time to relax sounds better than anything else.

[Xena]

Sounds like a solidly good holiday weekend.

[Mistr]

Day 1

Having just written my goals, I put in extra prep time last night getting food ready. I packed up lunch for both Monday and Tuesday because I don't expect to have much time Monday evening. I got together my projects to take to spinning and piled all the bags by the front door.

 

In the morning I did my cat chores right away after getting dressed so that I could sit zen with fewer distractions. Nice plan. My brain came up with lots of other distractions. That's what I get for letting my practice slip.

 

My Monday morning weigh-in showed my weight is up to 158.0 lbs. Normally this would set off the panic warning system. Panic is not compatible with peace and de-stressing, so I'm taking a different approach. I know that the next four weeks will be filled with temptations of various kinds. Trying to implement the no-sugar, no-white-flour rule would be insane. Instead, I'm going with the lots of vegetables and only high quality treats plan.

- Eating in a 12-hour window, usually 7:45am -7:45pm

- No snacks between breakfast and lunch

- Tea instead of coffee or cocoa

- No commercial treats unless it is something imported and really special

- Choose between carbs and dessert. Pie or potatos, not both

- Plan ahead for holiday meals, eat less before and afterwards

- I can have eggnog only if I'm willing to go to the work to make it from scratch

- Take magnesium and vitamin D every day (part of the joint health program rather than weight control)

 

I'm curious to see how this eating plan works with starting weight training. Mark Rippetoe thinks that a novice lifter will gain weight (or else they're doing it wrong). He also seems to be talking about skinny young men. He says nothing about what happens with middle-aged women who are near their target weight.

[RES]

I like this plan! I'll stick with coffee but might have to borrow a few of these

[Kishi]

Good plans. In terms of managing dessert foods, I find that filling up on the regular stuff really helps with mitigating that - it's just physically more difficult to eat enough food to damage your goals. So, potatoes over pie. Good idea.

 

(unless you make sweet potato pie, in which case, uh).

 

Also feeling you on the getting ish done earlier thing. This is something I need to work on as well. Still.

[Mistr]

1 hour ago, Kishi said:

So, potatoes over pie. Good idea.

 

(unless you make sweet potato pie, in which case, uh).

 

Hahahahahahaha. What is really going to happen is I am going to skip the potatoes. Every time. Of course sweet potato pie counts either as a vegetable or as a dessert. I'm planning on making more pumpkin pie this weekend because I have left-over pumpkin. I can cut back the sugar for a lighter pie.

 

Day 2

Did zen. Three days in a row.

Did weight training. I'm counting this as day 1, even though I did a little last spring. I am starting at the beginning.

Squat: 15 x bodyweight; 3 x 5 x 45#

I need the bodyweight warmup set to get my knees moving through the full range of motion. More stretching first would be smart.

OHP: 3 x 5 x 30#

Deadlift: 3 x 5 x 55#

 

I am planning on increasing at 5# per session until that feels like a bad idea. The squats did not feel heavy so much as uncertain in my full range of movement. Plus there is a lot of stretch in my shoulders to get in the low-bar position. Those things may slow down my progression a bit. I tried doing overhead press with 20# per hand and it felt too heavy and shaky. Deadlifts with 55# were easy. I am going to review the points for form on both squat and deadlift. I'll make an appointment with the trainer to review my form in a week or two.

 

I was good about doing prep when I got home from work last night. Elf asked me to go pick up prescriptions. That was just the boost I needed to get me off the couch and back in the car to go to spinning. Getting to the pharmacy was fine. Getting from the pharmacy to spinning was a comedy of errors. I could not turn onto the correct street. Six different times. I have no excuse, I've been there several times and it is in a familiar part of town.

 

In the end, I got there and was glad to see people. I want to continue these social connections. I did a little bit of knitting and a lot of darning. I found an old favorite pair of socks that I made for myself in my mending pile. Another hour or so of darning and I can wear them again. Darning is boring - just the thing for sitting around and talking.

[RES]

3 hours ago, Mistr said:

Hahahahahahaha. What is really going to happen is I am going to skip the potatoes. Every time. Of course sweet potato pie counts either as a vegetable or as a dessert. I'm planning on making more pumpkin pie this weekend because I have left-over pumpkin. I can cut back the sugar for a lighter pie.

http://www.primallyinspired.com/paleo-pumpkin-pie/ is amazing 

[Xena]

On 11/26/2018 at 1:40 PM, Mistr said:

He also seems to be talking about skinny young men. He says nothing about what happens with middle-aged women who are near their target weight.

 

Yeah, that kind of thing happens a lot. Although empirical testing is the best way to find out ;-)

 

ETA: do you have access to a scale that tracks body fat? I know they may not be accurate, but I think that if you measure at the same time and under same conditions, the relative readings are decent. That would help make sense of any trends in weight vs. lifting.

[Mistr]

On 11/27/2018 at 9:16 PM, Xena said:

ETA: do you have access to a scale that tracks body fat? I know they may not be accurate, but I think that if you measure at the same time and under same conditions, the relative readings are decent. That would help make sense of any trends in weight vs. lifting.

 

Not that I know of. The gym does have one of those hand-held body fat measuring devices. My home scale is only a couple years old and fairly accurate. I will have to rely on measurements and photos for regular tracking.

 

Days 2 & 3

 

Tuesday night I did a couple errands on the way home from work. It was surprisingly satisfying to return a big sheet of plastic to the hardware store. That got it out of my space and was enough of a refund to make a difference. The second stop was at the grocery to get eggs and a few other things.

 

My main project was to make the chocolate topping for Elf's birthday cake. That was going fine until I forgot to cover it in the oven. Big whoops. It was nearly burnt and the texture was off when I pulled it out. I put most of it on the cake anyway because I was out of time. I also ate the overdone evidence. Elf said it would be fine, but that was before they saw it. I have not had a chance to talk with them since. I don't know if they served the cake at their party.

 

I took a break while the topping was in the oven, then washed dishes. The house was in pretty good shape by the time Elf and their friends got home. The party started at 10pm and went until sometime after 3. I went to bed before midnight, but my earplugs were not working well enough for me to sleep. Sometime after 3, I got them in properly and suddenly everything was quiet. I had arranged to start an hour later than usual, which was the right call.

 

I wanted to take Wednesday morning off, but we had critical training on new software at work and I had to be there. Between coffee, B vitamins and eating anything I wanted, I had a surprisingly effective day on very little sleep. Work brought in food for the training. Completely off plan of course. I made an effort to have some salad with my pizza and called it good.

 

Aikido turned out to be a 1:1 class with one of the newer students. She offered to just cancel. I said that we were already dressed, we might as well move some first. It was fun to be more relaxed and talk as we practiced. I told her a little about the non-harmonious history of aikido organizations and senior instructors in the midwest.  

 

I was on track to get things done on time in the evening when Dumbledore asked me to give a ride to one of the people from his gaming group. I'm giving myself a pass for that extra 20 minutes. I came home and sat zen for 10 minutes to meet my challenge goal.

[Xena]

8 hours ago, Mistr said:

Aikido turned out to be a 1:1 class with one of the newer students. She offered to just cancel. I said that we were already dressed, we might as well move some first. It was fun to be more relaxed and talk as we practiced. I told her a little about the non-harmonious history of aikido organizations and senior instructors in the midwest.  

 

I bet she really appreciated that class.

[Mistr]

Week one days 4-7

 

Short form - the end of last week was tough, but things are better this week.

 

Zen - missed Thursday and Saturday. Much better focus than usual at class on Sunday. Class really isn't the right word for it, although we did get yelled at for not bowing in unison and got instruction on chanting. I did not feel sleepy at all. My right knee was uncomfortable but not actually painful. Happily, my left foot fell asleep quietly. Sometimes the pain helps to keep me awake. I doubt that I'm going to achieve a zen state when my focus is on the sensation in my legs, but I could be wrong about that. Having a good day on Sunday gave me much better motivation to sit this week.

 

Evening prep - Okay on clothes, not so great on packing food ahead of time. I stayed up too late Wednesday and Thursday, which led to me scrambling to keep up at work on Thursday and Friday.

 

Exercise - Good.

      Thursday - NF Yoga Fire B and a short walk

      Friday - Weight training day 2. So far so good. I like the mix of strength training with mobility work between sets.

      Saturday - Aikido advanced class. Weird day.

      Sunday - core yoga, aikido ukemi class

 

Randori with All The Things - mixed

I got a lot done, but I'm not sure the balance of work and fun was right. Rather too much work and not enough fun. That said, I'll take credit for what I did:

• Made roast cauliflower
• Made oven-roasted pulled pork
• Grocery shopping (regular and co-op)
• Laundry
• Taped holes the cats made in the window plastic. Twice.
• Made turkey tetrazini
• Bought anti-chew spray
• Repotted aloe plants.
• Sprayed all the plants with anti-chew spray
• Fertilized all the plants
• Dropped off toner cartridges at Office Max to recycle.
• Costco shopping

Of all the things, getting rid of the toner cartridges and repotting the plants were the most satisfying. The toner was in the back of my car for over a month, and in Dumbledore's trunk for months before that. Turns out it is really easy to do, I just need to go to that side of town. My poor aloe plants had been mostly uprooted by the cats. I cleaned them up and repotted them. And I put rocks on top of the dirt to make them harder to uproot. Not enough rocks apparently. I found one of the pieces uprooted yesterday. I can grab more rocks from the patio tonight.

 

On the fun side, I had good conversations with Dumbledore. We are both feeling overextended. We committed to supporting each other and being gentle about things. When I got back from running errands on Sunday, I found Dumbledore vacuuming the whole house. He got two cats worth of fur off the carpets. I also persuaded him to pack food into lunches. Earlier in the weekend we talked about Dumbledore's attitudes about food. He has a bunch of weird stuff in his head that he is trying to get sorted out. It helps him when we have a variety of healthy food in the fridge and when he knows that there are plenty of lunches ready to go. If he gets the idea we are short on food, he will leave it for the rest of us. I don't know what it will take to get him to actually bring food from home and stop buying junk food. He is going to talk with a therapist about that. I feel like the two of us are doing better than we have in a long time.  

 

 

[Mistr]

Last week I started weight training. Over the weekend I went back to Starting Strength and reviewed some of the pointers on correct form. I found some things to fix and came out with a renewed appreciation for good editing (which was sorely needed for this book).

 

Yesterday I did my third lifting session. I did not have my act together at lunch time. Unlike all the other times I said "I'll go after work", I actually did it. That says a lot about how I feel about lifting so far. I am only doing it twice a week. I could potentially switch Friday for Saturday. Tuesday needs to happen as scheduled. I felt tired from the start, but that stayed the same as I worked out. Probably mostly mental fatigue from a busy day.

 

I noticed several things:

• I can get down into an ass-to-grass squat just fine when I'm stretching. I can't easily get into that position when I am doing bodyweight squats. Getting out of that position with my hands on my shoulders takes a lot of effort.
• Doing 10-15 bodyweight squats makes a big difference for my knees. The first ones look like crap and then they get better as my knees warm up.
• Squats with just the bar felt pretty good. I can get down to parallel. Below parallel wasn't happening.
• Adding 10 pounds made the squats feel shaky. I was trying to get down as far as I could. There were stutter spots in the movement path both on the way down and on the way up. Plan for next time is two sets of 5 with just the bar and one set at 55#. Progression may be slow on squats.
• In a pleasant contrast, dead lifts felt good at 65# (5 x 3). I think my form is okay.
• OHP is okay at 30#. A little shakier than I would like. Increase sets before increasing weight.

I am using the time between sets to do mobility and PT exercises. Knowing that I should wait at least a minute between sets gives me a good reason to hold the stretches longer.

[Mistr]

Putting more emphasis on prep time has made my mornings go smoother. It has also helped me get more sleep. Now I just need to turn that into productivity.

 

Another thing that is making a difference is the 5 minutes of warm-up on the elliptical before lifting. The first day I was winded by the time I was done. The second time my breathing capacity was better. One of the other instructors at the dojo has us run laps around the room at the beginning of warm-ups. Not very fast most days, because some people in class are slow. I could do it, but that got me winded too. Last night he taught and we jogged, and I was fine. I may extend my lifting warm-ups to 10 minutes with HIIT.

 

I was looking at the weekend with apprehension, then realized that I could talk with my family about getting things done. Our chore management rotation fell apart. We need to figure out the next steps on that. However, we all use chat regularly. I put out a call for meal plans and cooks. I will be at the dojo both Saturday and Sunday for kyu tests and yudansha class. Saturday night is my work holiday party. Sunday I have zen after aikido. That does not leave me much time for cooking and chores. I did all the cooking last week - someone else can do it this week. I have other things I need to get done and fun stuff I haven't touched in ages.

[RES]

On 12/6/2018 at 2:05 PM, Mistr said:

I did all the cooking last week - someone else can do it this week

Not sure why I chuckled at this but I did..."you tell em" may or may not have been said  

[Mistr]

2 hours ago, RES said:

Not sure why I chuckled at this but I did..."you tell em" may or may not have been said  

 

If only I had faith that they would cook in a timely fashion. Elf did volunteer to make something with pork loin, and Dumbledore wants to do a roast or ham. We have all of those in the freezer. No one mentioned anything about vegetables. There is also a distressing lack of dessert, aside from Elf's birthday ice cream cake (which is off limits to me).

 

My plan for this evening is to go home and cook and knit. I bought some leeks to make a dish that @Xena posted recently. There is also some aging broccoli that could become broccoli cheese soup. And a bag of cranberries that can go into another cranberry tart. Plus lots of eggs and chocolate to make more chocolate idiot cake. The remaining Thanksgiving leftovers are passing their use-by dates and need to be composted.

 

Week 2 Days 1-4

 

Good on zen, exercise and prep. Not so sure on the randori. I got close to 8 hours sleep every night and still had trouble getting stuff done at work.

 

Monday

• I went back to the dealership so that they could convince my car that it had service last week. It took the guy less than a minute and he was apologetic about me having to come back.
• Called my mom on her birthday
• More laundry
• Watched the silk reeling video all the way through and worked on form.

Tuesday - got home late because I exercised after work.

• Made granola
• Put black duct tape on the chairs the cats are using as scratching pads
• Felt down about all virtue and no fun.

Wednesday - aikido and prep. No time for randori

 

Thursday 

There should not have been any randori because it was date night. We had plans to go to dinner and a play. What really happened was that Dumbledore was swamped with work. We went out for dinner, then he went back to work. I went home and had no motivation to do anything, fun or otherwise. I managed to put away the last load of laundry and unload the dishwasher.

 

Today I had several chocolate-covered espresso beans mid-morning in hopes of finding more energy. It helped my attitude a lot, if not my choices in what to do. Hopefully I can carry that energy into the weekend.

 

 

 

[RES]

On 12/7/2018 at 6:21 PM, Mistr said:

Put black duct tape on the chairs the cats are using as scratching pads

I found some clear, double sided tape

http://a.co/d/aeobSBg and this http://a.co/d/efqmtk8 that seems to be doing the trick with teaching the kittens that they have enough scratching posts and my furniture is not part of that!

 

 

 

 

[Mistr]

On 12/10/2018 at 2:24 PM, RES said:

I found some clear, double sided tape

http://a.co/d/aeobSBg and this http://a.co/d/efqmtk8 that seems to be doing the trick with teaching the kittens that they have enough scratching posts and my furniture is not part of that!

 

That would be a good idea if it was for part of the chairs we don't touch all the time. Amber has decided that the tops of the chairs are both great for perching and for scratching. I may try the double-stick tape on the window plastic. They are just shredding that out of spite. It's not like they can get any closer to the squirrels with their noses to the glass.

 

Weekend report

 

Friday I did lifting again. So far so good.

In the evening I addressed the dessert shortage by making cranberry tart and chocolate idiot cake. This time I remembered to cover the cake when I put it in the oven and it came out the way it should. More like fudge than cake, but an excellent chocolate delivery system.

 

Saturday was a complete break from any healthy eating plan. I went out for lunch with aikido people after tests, then went to my work holiday party in the evening. I was in bed early on Friday, so sleeping in on Saturday still had me up before 7am. I got a lot done before aikido and took a nap in the afternoon. That made for a fun evening.

 

Sunday I felt sick, so I bailed on aikido and zen. I have to wonder if my subconscious took note of how I was doing and manufactured symptoms. My headache and drippy nose got much better by mid-afternoon. I got the grocery shopping done in the morning and gave myself a break in the afternoon. I worked on my embroidery project for the first time in months. I also plotted out my next knitting project. By late afternoon I felt enough better to cook red cabbage and kielbasa. I put bones in to boil for stock, but did not have the energy to actually make soup. I even did some of the household accounting in the evening. Remarkably good for a sick day.

 

Elf's sleep schedule is still messed up, but they cooked pork loin on Sunday and roast potatos and sweet potatos last night. Hermes is sick and Dumbledore has been busy with work. Dumbledore did pack lunches for us on Sunday night. I cleaned out dubious food from the fridge before I went shopping on Sunday. I always feel bad when I have to throw out food because we did not get around to cooking or eating it. With that in mind, I am going to do more cooking tonight. We need more vegetables.

[RES]

1 hour ago, Mistr said:

I always feel bad when I have to throw out food because we did not get around to cooking or eating it

I have the same issue, sometimes it's hard to do with only the two of us

[Mistr]

Yesterday evening was pretty much a fail. I did not work out, I did not cook anything, I got in the minimum 10 minutes of sitting zen, but not until after my 10:00pm curfew.

 

What I did was play games on my phone until the block kicked in at 9:00. Then I felt guilty and did stuff. I got my food and clothes prepped, folded and put away my clean gis and put away the clean dishes.

 

My weapons partner got delayed today, so I did some solo practice actually using the mirrors in the aerobics studio. Aside from seeing where my form is and isn't, I noticed that I still have dark circles under my eyes. This is after a week of mostly getting enough sleep. Between the dark circles, the desire to goof off, and the comfort food eating, I think I need to take a hard look at my life. I want to argue that I don't have much to be stressed about. The evidence says otherwise.

 

Mostly work is going better. Our newest person is done with training. That makes four new people this year. I would hope for a respite, but one of the team has serious health problems and may not be able to continue working until those are resolved. That won't be decided for a couple months. I also just learned that my fellow manager will not be doing back-up support next year. He will be busy with other projects. That will mean more work for me on a regular basis.

 

What really helps me sort things out is taking a long walk. The weather has been lousy for two months. Maybe we will be lucky and have a nice day or two this weekend. The weather service says so, but that is not actually a good sign this far in advance.

 

 

[RES]

16 hours ago, Mistr said:

The weather service says so, but that is not actually a good sign this far in advance.

This sounds like Floida

[Kishi]

Well, a day off is a day off. They're necessary from time to time, and it could be worse. You could have been given one on account of an injury; taking is better than receiving in this case.

 

18 hours ago, Mistr said:

Between the dark circles, the desire to goof off, and the comfort food eating, I think I need to take a hard look at my life. I want to argue that I don't have much to be stressed about. The evidence says otherwise.

 

Okay, so I'mma be frank with you: I think you've got plenty to be stressed about. You're essentially playing mom to a bunch of grown-ass adults, at least two of which are in a position such that they should be taking responsibility for themselves. You invest a lot into yourself - and you need to, because they are divesting you in turn. You cook, you clean, you counsel, you teach. You give of yourself, over and over, and it's so rare to see these others give back to you as to be noteworthy when it actually happens.

 

And I don't mean to badmouth them or to criticize your choices. This is life. It's not speaking ill of them to acknowledge that you're a badass, and non-badass people tend to lean pretty hard on badasses. I say this as someone with experience in the matter, both as someone who's leaned, and someone who's been leaned upon.

 

I also don't want to trivialize your difficulties, because this is a hard fix. All of you are the people that you are because of a series of choices and circumstances that got y'all to where you are. You're the kind of person who's trying to level up your life, and they're the kind of people whom, well, you have to grind against. Getting them to level up and get off you in turn is going to take a lot of work, and I'm not even about to start trying to get prescriptive about this, because I don't know them except as they're presented here, and there's tons of limitations at play with anything I could possibly advise.

 

Anyway. You've got a lot to be stressed about. It's valid and it counts and it matters. You matter. I hope this hard look turns up things that can be fixed.

[Treva]

On 11/26/2018 at 1:40 PM, Mistr said:Mark Rippetoe thinks that a novice lifter will gain weight (or else they're doing it wrong). He also seems to be talking about skinny young men. He says nothing about what happens with middle-aged women who are near their target weight.

I was also warned about something similar before I started working out.  The advice also came from a skinny young man. I can't say I've lost more than ten pounds as an extremely generous estimate.

 

On 11/29/2018 at 12:27 PM, Mistr said:

. She offered to just cancel. I said that we were already dressed, we might as well move some first. It was fun to be more relaxed and talk as we practiced. I told her a little about the non-harmonious history of aikido organizations and senior instructors in the midwest.  

Sounds like a fun time!!

 

On 12/11/2018 at 5:52 PM, Mistr said:

I addressed the dessert shortage by making cranberry tart and chocolate idiot cake. This time I remembered to cover the cake when I put it in the oven and it came out the way it should. More like fudge than cake, but an excellent chocolate delivery system.

I fully support the chocolate delivery system.

 

I cannot be nearly as eloquent as @Kishi but he makes an excellent point. You are Adulting and Put Togetherness Goals and I always admire the sheer volume of things you juggle and balance. You give and you're awesome, and your feeling of stress is extremely valid; I see some of your home situation as similar to mine but in duplicate or triplicate; both more of, harder, and with additional nuances and differences I won't pretend I would even recognize, let alone comprehend. I'm not here to levy judgement or pretend that I have any idea how you are feeling the stress, just that I think it's very valid for you to feel stressed and you deserve the same balance from others that you cultivate within yourself. It also seems like from what you have posted about that the variety of mental states under one roof puts you between a rock and a hard place. That is an extremely difficult place to navigate.

 

I am happy about your conversation with Dumbledore. I think it's really nice the two of you talked and I appreciated you sharing that in particular. I am so glad you two are doing better than you were before. I personally appreciate hearing stories of work in relationships making them positive and healthy, instead of the doom and gloom the media can overwhelm me with. It made me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

[Mistr]

Thank you @Kishi and @Treva, your feedback and support mean a lot to me.

 

I haven't figured things out yet, but I feel like I'm in a better place to work on it.

 

Yesterday was an interesting day. I have had a couple times in the last week or two when I couldn't sleep much. I did my best to relax, but my brain just wouldn't let go. Normally I would expect to be a zombie at work after that. It seems like a cocktail of vitamins (B+, D and magnesium) along with a little caffeine is enough to restore both brain function and motivation. I had a busy and productive day at work. I really want to keep doing that.

 

I did my weight training workout and added inverted rows, because I read Steve's post about them. I'm starting to understand why people are so keen on weight training the major lifts. The weight training I learned in college was all small dumbells and machines. Not nearly the satisfaction of lifting heavy things and making steady progress. I am really glad I'm working out in a quiet exercise room with no one else around. I'd be embarrassed to be working with just the bar around experienced lifters. I can be a happy newbie off by myself.

 

Interesting observations on my knees. They were just a little twingey during warm-ups. Bodyweight squats hurt through part of the range of movement. It feels like some of the little stabilizing muscles around both knees are tight and unhappy. Doing squats with the bar feels different. My knees make crunchy noises and don't hurt. I can get down to true parallel pretty easily. My weight is tending to move into my toes. Adding 10# is fine as far as moving the weight, but feels a bit more unstable. I think I have a lot of residual habits from prior injuries that I need to get past. I'm thinking of continuing work with just the bar and adding reps until I feel confident about my form.

 

Inverted rows were also fascinating. I did these at the end after squats, OHP and deadlifts. I tried the first set with the bar at a height just above my navel. After 5 reps I could not make the full range of motion. I moved the bar up one notch to mid-chest level. That was soooooo much easier. Two sets of 10 were no problem. I could feel the muscles in my arms were tired after the second set, so I didn't push it. I was glad that I could add another exercise without a struggle.

 

The evening was date night with Dumbledore. We had both noticed that we had barely seen each other for days and were feeling the lack of contact. Snuggling up with one's sleeping partner is lovely, but does not fill the same gap. Dumbledore was feeling depressed. I spent the whole time at dinner cheering him up. Thank goodness I had the emotional slack to do that. I smiled at him a lot, said the right things, asked the right questions and got him talking about fun projects instead of work. The combination of dark weather and being swamped with grading student papers had him down. I'm sure he skipped working out and ate fast food, which just made it worse. By the end of dinner he was feeling a little better.

 

We went out to a play. That marks a first since we moved here. A friend of mine had a major part and I wanted to see it. Turns out Dumbledore knew quite a bit about the historical events referenced in it. Whew. I didn't know much about it and was afraid it would be not be to his taste. For my part, I was happy that we actually went out and did something different. I would like to go to more live music and shows. I've dragged Dumbledore to neighborhood festivals and free concerts in the park. He used to take me to live Celtic music shows when he was in grad school. Yesterday evening was a step in the right direction. We still need several long walks, but at least we are starting from a much better place. He was pretty cheerful when we got home. Good thing, since he had to stay up late to finish grading papers.

 

Elf is still struggling. They caught Herme's cold and were up all night coughing on Wednesday. Elf said they would do some cooking on Thursday. I sent a long email with four recipes for stuff I was thinking of making. No cooking happened. No dish washing happened either. The dishes have been piling up since Sunday and are getting out of hand. I think I need to have another conversation with Elf about handing off responsibility when they are not able to follow through on their committments.

 

Thankfully I planned a couple weeks ago to take Friday afternoon off. I was planning on cooking for gaming. Gaming got cancelled because two people can't make it. I still plan to cook the food since it is waiting in the fridge. I can do that on a more relaxed schedule. I may also offer to help Dumbledore with laundry. It has been his turn for two weeks. He got as far as taking the dirty clothes to the laundry room, then got swamped by work. Having piles of laundry and grading will not make him a happier camper. Stay tuned for the next installment.