Starpuck gets her Ranger on!

[starpuck]

 

 

 

I took like 1.5 challenges off due to business, lack of direction and vacation.   And now, during the time of year I usually find it easiest to lose weight, I find myself towing a dangerous line.    I know what to do, I know what works for me, and I've had some awesome success.  Now it's time to push toward those final levels.    The challenge, of course, is that the foes are currently harder.   Namely, there is a LOT on my plate right now.      

 

• At work, my boss (whose accounts I handle) had his hip replaced last week, so I am covering all the direct calls he normally takes until he comes back.   These are high maintenance customers who normally ONLY want to talk to him.  
• In addition to the boss being out, for the next 3 weeks, there is also a customer service rep out, meaning our team of four, is running on a team of three.
• At home, my sister had her knee replacement last Monday (same day as my boss in fact) and so I am doing a lot of extra work and running at home for the foreseeable future.
• And of course, from May - August just seems to be ridiculously busy with events that come up.

 

I just got back from a lovely vacation in Florida, and I used that trip to practice the art of flexibility and rolling with the punches.   I didn't pre-plan any of the travel days or their lodging, and played it by ear according to how far we felt like driving.   Nothing terrible happened!    I planned the day's events by ear and didn't feel like I missed out on anything due to a lack of plan.    So, good progress there.   This is not to say I will some day become a totally spontaneous person; no, I LIKE plans and organization.    But it was a good excursion to the land of flexibility and I think I will benefit from continued practice to find this middle ground.

 

Things that have slacked and had a noticeably negative affect on stuff:

• I am not cooking at friends house as much, due to crazy schedules and the feeling of having to do most of the work.

            - The way around this is to stop looking at it, as a partnership in cooking, and treat it as friends allowing me to use their kitchen for my needs.    Just get it done.  For yourself.

• Exercise has not been consistent.   This affects mood, and my sleep at night, and lots of stuff.

            - Stick to a plan of 5x a week, varying what I am doing and not worrying too much about exact types.  But definitely get the strength training back in there.

• Art.   Guys, I have not drawn a damn thing in like a full month.   Not a sketch, not on the tablet.  Nothing.   I find it relaxing, and I enjoy it, so I need to keep this hobby practice up.

 

So, since I am out of practice on these here challenges, and I haven't decided yet if I am going to BuJo this up or just use a bulleted tracking system on here, let's keep it simple.

 

Goal 1 - Cook thyself some good food, and track your calories more honestly!    Limit food out to ONCE per week.   All other food days with friends need to be home cooked.

 

Goal 2 - Exercise.   The season of sun and training is upon us, do not let it go to waste.    Bike, hike, walk, run, get outside!     Do your strength training on the cloudy, rain filled ones, for the most part.   But lets get back to five days of intentional movement of any kind.

 

Goal 3 - Art stuff.    Step 1 - realize you have to shake some rust off.  That's ok.   Step 2.  Draw.  Just... draw.      Take requests and ask for prompts from the community here and get 'er done like it is Inktober in May!

 

And that's it.    I don't need to stress myself out with too much, while I already have full plates.   So let's just get back into the habit of accountability, and support, and doing the things!

 

[Cheetah]

Welcome back!  Your goals are great.  You can do it!  Happy challenge!

[DarK_RaideR]

Have a grrrrreat challenge!

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Missed you. Welcome back.

[Elastigirl]

Welcome back! Glad you enjoyed your trip. How is  your sister doing? I bet she is glad to just have surgery over and working on recovery now.

[JuiceeTarget]

Yay! So glad to see you back. I like how simple your challenge is. If you can give yourself some leeway to cheat on the eating out thing... like if you eat out it can only be X or Y, I feel like that might be easier to keep up with. I know when life is crazy, I find myself having to choose between cooking, working out, or just giving up everything and becoming a blob... and the blob thing wins if I don't have the flexibility to say, "You know what, I would rather be sane today."

And I really think you should be posting your art here so we can keep you accountable  (and because we want to see it!)

[starpuck]

23 hours ago, Cheetah said:

Welcome back!  Your goals are great.  You can do it!  Happy challenge!

Thaaaanks Cheetah!

 

23 hours ago, DarK_RaideR said:

Have a grrrrreat challenge!

Ayyyyye mate!  Thanks!

 

23 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Missed you. Welcome back.

<3  Thanks Tank!

 

21 hours ago, Elastigirl said:

Welcome back! Glad you enjoyed your trip. How is  your sister doing? I bet she is glad to just have surgery over and working on recovery now.

Thanks thanks.   Sis is dealing with lots of post op pain, but her PT's and docs say she is doing just fine.   Hopefully she gets past the major pain soon.

 

17 hours ago, GoodDoug said:

Yay! So glad to see you back. I like how simple your challenge is. If you can give yourself some leeway to cheat on the eating out thing... like if you eat out it can only be X or Y, I feel like that might be easier to keep up with. I know when life is crazy, I find myself having to choose between cooking, working out, or just giving up everything and becoming a blob... and the blob thing wins if I don't have the flexibility to say, "You know what, I would rather be sane today."

And I really think you should be posting your art here so we can keep you accountable  (and because we want to see it!)

Heeeey.   The eating out shouldn't be hard to stay within prescribed amounts because honestly... I don't even LIKE eating out anymore.   When I do, it's typically my ma and pa taco place.  (Two Fat delicious tacos + chips and I am at a bill of $5.50.)  Or a craving for a burger.    But yeah, flexibility has been on the upswing these past months, so I'll make sure to keep that in place for the foods too.      Posting art eh?   Deal.   Once I get to making art again.

 

 

Zero Week check in:

I did a super laid back, low weight, higher rep strength day yesterday.   It was my first time lifting things up in seriously 3 weeks.

I am paying for it today, haha.

Food was fine, and I ended the day at the right amount of tracked calories.

No art, but I did relax with some Northgard.  

Planning to do some dance at home tonight (Weather sucks here.  50 and rain.) and so am gonna try and do some art stuffs on my lunch break.

[Grandkai_NL]

I like it! Following!

[Wild Wolf]

The Return of the Returnsies! 

 

 

Following!  

 

Wolf

[starpuck]

Midday for D3 Week Zero.

 

Food's been fine and the few flash pounds I snagged during my week of slacking are starting to shred off.  Good good.  I've been within a 3lb range for like 5 months, I am going to call that one helluva good run at maintenance!

 

No exercise yesterday - continued poor weather, plus super mega DOMS urged me into funk-inspired rest day.    Lots of gaming at night with friends which was a nice change of pace from solo gaming.   I think I might be a little company-starved; but it's weird, because I try to keep company with my sister for her sake, but she/her hubby watch tv shows I just can't stand so it's like ugh!    I think I need the no stress - normal routine company.  As opposed to "Everything at home is turned upside down" type of company.    Just for a recharge ya know?

 

We have a rare few hours of sunshine today, so I am going to go out for a nice bike ride at lunch time.   Hoping to snag an easy 8-10 miles, but it'll only be my second ride, AND I am still really sore in the quads/hamstrings, so maybe not that many hah. We'll see.

 

Tonight, I am taking my sis to DQ.   She's mobile enough to walk to a car, so she needs out of the house for a bit!

 

No art yet this week- the depressed mood has been too strong to warrant any creativity in that regard.  

 

[Moros]

Following!  Good to see you back.

[starpuck]

Two days of sun, and the mood is much better!  Man, why do I live someplace that has clouds and cold for seriously 7-8 months of the year?   

 

Got a bike ride in yesterday, it was so great!  Except that the sustained winds were 23mph.   Um, that legit pushes against you and makes it way harder!  That's rough for the first proepr ride of the year.  Still managed 8.2 miles in 40 minutes, got back to work, put bike away and stretched.   My hamstrings have been sore all week.   Loser hamstrings.

 

Food continues to go fine and the scales downward trend again reinforces the return to better habits.   I had plenty of cals left last night for the ice cream outing, and I ended up getting a mini cookie dough blizzard (because that's what I REALLY wanted) instead of a small blizzard of another flavor.   (Small Oreo blizzard is like 500 cals.  Whereas a small cookie dough is 710.   - I consider this a huge win in my brain.   Getting less of what I wanted, than going for quantity on a flavor that would have been second rate.

 

Today I got a 3 mile slog in.     First 2.5 miles I alternated 2 minutes of slow running with a minute of walking.   Then I walked the last .5 miles and did lots of active stretching along the way.   Man the weather is just so gorgeous.   (And starting tonight we go back to like 6 days straight of rain and highs only in the 50-60 range.  Bullshit.)

 

Getting the itch to plan my next National Park trip, and am really tempted to plan it for Shenandoah, in the fall, to coincide with Maryland's Ren Fest.   Just need people to go with me hah.

 

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

1 hour ago, Starpuck said:

Two days of sun, and the mood is much better!  Man, why do I live someplace that has clouds and cold for seriously 7-8 months of the year?   

*Acts smug in Texan*

[Sloth the Enduring]

Bike riding and cookie dough on a sunny day is perfection.

[starpuck]

Scrapped the homemade tacos last night, because I didn't want to stay inside my friends dark, dank, muggy ass house when we had a beautiful day still kicking out sunlight.    We went to Uncle Julio's so we could eat while sitting outside on the patio.  Atmosphere was great!  A couple of Corona Lights, some chips and salsa, and then I ordered the ceviche for my meal and stole my friend's tamale.  (That sounds dirty.)    Thought I was being pretty mindful with the choices, while still letting myself 'enjoy'.   

 

...

 

I got sick guys.  Stomach was so pissed at me.   It is seriously like 90% of the time, *anything* I order at a restaurant, will end up making me sick.    I mean that's great in a way, saves me the money of eating out, and the unnecessary calories.  But kind of a bummer that I can't just do this once in a while and get full enjoyment.   I'll keep trying - ordering more and more toned down things, but I think whatever restaurants use in their prep, is just really bad for me.

 

The other downside to this, is that my remedy for stomach woes is ... EAT MORE JUNK.    So I did not do well at gaming.

 

Also gaming was very bad!  (In a great way.)   We might be facing a TPK here, at level 17!!!     We had to pause mid-chaos because it got too late, but we've already permanently lost our bard, Allon.   The wizard we are fighting, cast a prismatic wall, which blinded all of us, then cast telekinesis on the bard and forced him through the 7 layers of the wall, and knocked him to 0- then turned him to stone - then cast his stone-shaped, unconscious body into limbo.   He gone.  He just gone!        Our one time enemy, who we have been trying to convince to our side, was found imprisoned in his manor, so she's with us, and currently the only one not blinded, so is trying to pull us out on a full retreat.   SO INTENSE!

 

Our nice weather is gone again, and will be all weekend... sigh.   Supposed to be a lift day, but I jumped back into lots of back to back days of leg stuff, so I am kind of not feeling super great about going back there to work out.  Might spend the lunch drawing or D&D prepping instead.

 

 

[Elastigirl]

Woohoo for eating mindfully, but still enoying it. Bleck about getting sick. Restaurants can be iffy with me too. Better since I quit the milk and wheat, but there still seems to occasionally be food that just doesn't sit well with me. I think it may be the oil that is rancid I am sensitive to. I hear you on being tempted to eat more junk when my stomach is bleh. I have no idea why, you'd think that would mean to eat less. But my stomach is always convinced that I need to eat more junk when it's upset, and it frequently wins the battle

[Wild Wolf]

1 hour ago, Starpuck said:

Also gaming was very bad!  (In a great way.)   We might be facing a TPK here, at level 17!!!     We had to pause mid-chaos because it got too late, but we've already permanently lost our bard, Allon.   The wizard we are fighting, cast a prismatic wall, which blinded all of us, then cast telekinesis on the bard and forced him through the 7 layers of the wall, and knocked him to 0- then turned him to stone - then cast his stone-shaped, unconscious body into limbo.   He gone.  He just gone!        Our one time enemy, who we have been trying to convince to our side, was found imprisoned in his manor, so she's with us, and currently the only one not blinded, so is trying to pull us out on a full retreat.   SO INTENSE!

 

 

That sounds mega intense!! Hopefully all goes well in y'alls favor and you're able to be pulled to a full retreat. This wizard you're battling sounds like a badass (in a not so badass way).

 

Sorry to hear about your stomach woes  I hear you both on "wanting more junk food when stomach is upset". How freakin weird is that?? Sounds like the enemy is trying to make your Zero Week a successful fail, but, I know you won't let him win. You're Muthatruckin Starpuck, master of awesomeness and courageous under fire!!

 

 

Wolf

 

Wolf

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

6 hours ago, Starpuck said:

and stole my friend's tamale

 

6 hours ago, Starpuck said:

I got sick guys.  Stomach was so pissed at me.

 

Tamale theft is a serious crime, and the universe does not take kindly to it.

[Cheetah]

I hope you're having a great week!

[starpuck]

Almost forgot I was doing this thing.    Tired now, want to get to bed on time so short update.

 

I got a work out in!  A strength.  Despite my total lack of consistency, I still pulled 5x5 unassisted pull ups and that made me feel really motivated to jump back in fully.   Got a nice, safe weight level, focus on form lift day in.

 

Food was fine.    Dinner at home was canceled because the chef opted to order in Chinese instead.   I had a dentist appt, and so instead of getting god knows what in a chosen Chinese dish, I stopped at the Burrito place by my dentist and got two pork tacos, cilantro and onion only.   I feel that was more 'fresh/real' than the Asian option would have been so there's that.

 

No art, I really gotta get over my fear of jumping back in on that.   I will plan to do it tomorrow.   If it's raining at lunch- I'll do it then.   If it's sunny out, then it's a bike ride or run and art at home afterward.

 

 

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

I'm always impressed by your pullup mojo.

[JuiceeTarget]

13 hours ago, Starpuck said:

No art, I really gotta get over my fear of jumping back in on that.

I hear you on that. Just have to "embrace the suck" and make some really crappy art to start with. Its like you have to get the crap out of your system to get to the good stuff.

[Cheetah]

Great work!  Keep it up!

 

[starpuck]

I've not been doing the greatest guys.    Exercise and general activity has been up, but with no results to show for it because the food has not been good.    Not for lack of wanting good food, but timing, schedules, kitchens that are too cluttered to cook in, or last minute change of plans.      They're not meant as excuses, they're reasons.   But I have to do better this week at not letting them become excuses.    It's super hard, but if I make it a priority, I should be able to find a way around the food-cooking hang up.  (Example.  Yesterday ended up sunny and nice, and so instead of spending an hour inside a dark ass kitchen at my friends house, I wanted something fast so I could enjoy the weather.  We ended up going to our taco place...)

 

Tonight normally is a dinner ready after work night, but my sis has late PT, so they are going out for food or bringing something home.   I said I'd pass.  But now I have to find something to eat on my own- and again, the kitchen where I live is NOT conducive to cooking or anything because of clutter and fridge's stuffed to the gills already.    I am not one to really care for 'dinner salads' as they don't hold me.   (Omg, maybe I should make a grilled cheese, lol - this is your fault @Tanktimus the Encourager)    I need easy things to make, with limited space and cookware, for one person, that is protein-y and filling.   Ideas?

 

Ok, food aside, I think I am getting close to settling back into better routine.   I would really like to nail it this month, and then flaunt it in July.  My goal?  I want to do a bike ride, wearing just my shorts and a stylish sports bra!  I want my mid-torso to get some sun this year!   It's SOO BLINDING WHITE!

 

I did one art - and it's not .... totally terrible?  Just, very off in a lot of spaces.   But it was a picture of my character Kess, the rogue/assassin fighting that terrible Arch Mage in his manor.    We had left off with Milisent trying to lead the blind Kess away from the wizard, so I drew a picture of that.   I'm actually pretty okay with the head and expression  It's the arms that are all kinds of off for me, but hey, I was only getting into body stuff before I took an art break.     Really want to get back into this.

 

 

We watched the second season of Dragon Prince on Netflix this past week (guys that series is so good, so so good, watch it) and it really makes me want to try and learn how to draw in that style.    I just don't know exactly what 'style' that is.  Western/Disney-ish character style?  It's not true comic style, and it's more toward Disney, with a side of some borrowed anime effects.   It's fun though, and I think I could really make some cool D&D looking art with that.

 

OH!  And I thought of an idea for my youtube channel.  But it would require a lot of writing and comedy, and maybe some acting and camera work, so it seems way too big for me right now.  It's on the side pile of the thinker desk though...   So we'll see.

 

Week 2 starts today, and I aim to make it a much better week!  

 

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

I take full credit for any grilled cheese you consume.