Keladris gets limber

[Keladris]

Yay new challenge time! After my respawn I'm super excited for challenge no. 2. These things are very motivating, aren't they? One day I'll write some nice flavour text about my epic journey to badassery, but I'm a little brain dead this evening

So, here's my three goals:
 

1. Maintain the respawn!
2. Do some flexibility training/stretching every single day
3. Eat 2 of every food colour each day

 

And some specifics on these...

 

1. My last challenge was to do 3 workouts a week (a mixture of bodyweight circuits and dancing), to walk twice a week and to stop eating seconds for dinner.
 

I didn't quite manage the walks, so for this challenge I'm just going to switch it up to 'get outside at least once a week'. I'm all for meeting easy goals first and making them habit before ramping it up.

I've actually signed up for an intro to jazz dance course on top of the weekly ballet classes. For circuit training, I'm super excited to have aced the NF beginner bodyweight program, I'm now aiming for the more advanced one (although not quite there yet!). 

 

Keeping off the seconds seems pretty easy at this point, so that's straightforward.

2. Being a good dancer means being flexible! I've been low-key working on this during the last challenge, but now I'm making it official. I'm going to base it on this: https://www.blogilates.com/30-days-30-stretches-to-splits-journeytosplits/ 
 

Spoiler

But I'll also be incorporating some other routines I've picked up from ballet. The more intense flexi training days will come after my workouts, but I'm going to do some degree of training in front of the TV in the evenings on rest days.

3. Although I've cut down my portions, I think I'm not necessarily getting too much vegetable variety in my meals. So I'm going to be using this:

Spoiler

I know it says it is for kids, but who doesn't love a star chart?!

I think for this one, rather than write a comment for every day, I'm just going to do a tick chart for each goal. Then I'll do reflections at the end of the week

 

[Cheetah]

Nice goals!  Happy challenge!

[Elastigirl]

Nice goals! Intersted to hear how you enjoy your jazz dance.

[Keladris]

Been doing some base-setting for zero week. (is that the right phrase? idk!). Done a wee bit of calorie counting again and it's just reminded me to reign in those portion sizes.

Making a slight alteration to goal 3. to make it 1-2 of every colour each day. It's just more realistic, and actually what the program I'm following recommends.

Took some photos for flexibility benchmarks and got the boyf to measure some distances. I'm 18-19cm off of a front splits, we measured from ankle to ankle on my straddle and it's 160cm. For pancakes I can reach forward to 88cm (loads of improvement needed there!).  Won't bore you with all of the photos, but here's the splits ones (with added wobbly drawn lines to make them a bit clearer!). 

 

Spoiler

Spoiler

I also made a (very basic) spreadsheet to track my strength training. Here is 0 week:


The weights are quite a big jump up from my previous workouts and I'm definitely feeling it today! Exhaustion level was pretty bad, I think cos of increased load and also hormones.
 

[suzyQlou]

Your rainbow veggie chart is awesome!

[Keladris]

Yeah I love it! There's a longer list somewhere too with more food. I quite like to think big picture with improving my diet. Rather than "eat this particular food"  I find "eat as many colours as you can" a nice overall goal that is very easy to understand. It also means I'm focused on what I should/can eat, rather than being restrictive. Plus, who doesn't like a good rainbow?!

I'm excited for week 1 Zero-week involved carrying over from my first challenge as well as setting some things I'm so I'm ready to go for the new one.

Also I've decided to add 2 side-quests:

1. Get out and practice skating 1-2 times per week. I got new skates yesterday and it's so great! Think I'll be more motivated to skate than to go for walks and it gets me outside.
2. Practice my balances and releves (going up on the balls of my feet) while cleaning my teeth. This week's ballet class showed me I need to improve my balance and ankle strength.

 

[starpuck]

Hey!  I figure I need to be here to see what I am doing.  I mean, what you are doing. 

That chart is amazing!  And terrifying!   I could never eat that many fruits and veggies in a day!  Unless I could legit count a single slice of tomato as a red serving hahaha.   I thought I was getting somewhere with this routine:

Scrambled eggs with SPINACH and SALSA.

Ham sandwich with SPINACH, TOMATO and a side of CUCUMBERS with HUMMUS

1/2 APPLE

VEGGIE with dinner.

 

But now I am inspired to try and improve it a bit!!

 

[Keladris]

Hehe hello me! Good to see you

That's a pretty good line up you have! You're just missing purple and yellow. I find those the hardest to get in on a daily basis too. 

The folks I get my food from now sell rainbow carrots! Which means purple, yellow AND orange. It's a whole new (colourful) world  
 

[Keladris]

Week 1 Reflection

Bit late posting this! But here goes.

So far, I've done my flexibility every single day - whoop! And I'm feeling good in my body for it, and building on the flexibility I've been working on since the start of the year.  I've also stayed generally on track for maintaining habits from the first challenge.

I actually had quite a big lesson this (last) week because I kept putting off my strength training since I was feeling really fatigued and just not quite myself. I was beating myself up for the fact I took two rest days Thursday+Friday and didn't get around to strength training until Saturday...

HOWEVER! It actually worked out to be the best decision. I really hit the workout feeling much better and it showed in my progression:

I really love how I get stronger every time! 45 second planks is deffo something to be proud off, as is getting consistently over 10 pushups in each circuit. (I'm still doing them against the bar cos I'm not strong enough to do them on the floor. But if I can get to 15 on all three circuits, I'm going to lower the bar and gradually I'll get to doing a proper push up!)

I didn't do great at remembering to tick off my food rainbow chart every single day, so I've now set it up as a spreadsheet (I'm often tinkering on the laptop in the evening so this will help me remember to track). But I have been very consciously trying to eat each colour each day and managed it at least half the time. I find the purples especially hard to eat every day. It's been making my salads extra tasty to have all these colours and I think it's really helping me be healthier in general. Onwards and upwards!

[Keladris]

Just a mid week update... I did my first pirouettes! This feels like such a huge achievement since I'm really not used to throwing my body around and have always had this perception of myself as clumsy and a bit overweight. Still working on the weight, but I can feel my body changing. Flexibility training is also making me feel like I can use my body better (sidenote: my splits felt really good tonight).

Getting more and more confident to try things out, and determined that I can be 'that person' who is strong, fit, flexible and generally nimble.
 

[Elastigirl]

Woot! Very graceful and smooth.

[PaulG]

I am also quite interested in mobility stuff, so I'm curious to see how your program works for you!

 

Are those yoga blocks in your benchmark photos, or are you using the world's most sophisticated yoga blocks (bricks)?

[Epsilonte]

Love your happy smile at the end of that gif! Looks great!  (the pirouette I mean)

[Keladris]

On 2/25/2021 at 1:03 AM, PaulG said:

I am also quite interested in mobility stuff, so I'm curious to see how your program works for you!

 

Are those yoga blocks in your benchmark photos, or are you using the world's most sophisticated yoga blocks (bricks)?

Haha! Yes they are yoga blocks, they're made from cork (I was looking for something more eco-friendly than foam/plastic). I really like them! Will keep you updated on the flexy stuff, so far I feel that I've made improvements, but I need photos/measurements to be certain.

[Keladris]

Speaking of measuring progress...

 

Week 2 reflection

My feet have gone from 160cm to 166cm apart on my straddle, and I was reaching 88cm forward in a pancake and am now reaching 100cm!

 

Also here is a front splits progress pic:

 

Spoiler

 

Definitely much better form and getting that front leg straighter. This is my better side, but I'm pleased to see some progress, since Iw asn't sure if I was getting anywhere.

I also posted my weight loss pics over in the 10lbs 10 weeks PVP group. Big changes! Progress pics ftw!

 

I did my workout today (so technically within week 3) since I've been feeling under the weather and wasn't able to do it until today. But I'm saying it still counts as week 2!

 

We lowered the push up bar, which makes those push ups much harder but I'm really pleased to be inching closer to the floor. I've also switch from doing resistance-band rows, to inverted body weight rows. Boy are they tough! Currently the bar for those is at low-chest height. Maybe next month we'll lower both down again. I'm saying "we" cos today my partner decided to join me for the workout! It was nice having some company, and I released my inner PT and helped him with his form! Being a man, he has much better upper body strength as a starting point, but struggles with the lower body stuff, so we balanced each other out

 

As for rainbow tracking, you can see I'm finding the oranges hard. Didn't eat too many carrots this week...

 

[starpuck]

Aren't greens just the absolute easiest one to get???   I might steal your graph there, because I printed (and laminated) the kids one you shared, but I got lazy with it after being annoyed they had only two circles.      I am still loving on that gif you shared.     Like, it could be set into a search field, for 'happy dance' because that look of joy is so pure and awesome.    Thank you for sharing that with us nerds!

 

Omg.  Can you post that table in a way I can steal it for reals? I am bad at making tables haha.

[Keladris]

Greens are deffo the easiest. But that's as it should be, since I think they are the most important. Lots of fibre, vit C and iron

 

I have attempted to upload a sample chart: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HZfjWxN9ioctJwfmOXpvWGcLUCwkbEPk/view?usp=sharing You should be able to download it and copy/paste and amend dates/weeks to your heart's content. Let me know if it doesn't work for whatever reason!

[starpuck]

Oh thank you thank you!

 

[Keladris]

Quick update, my middle splits/pancakes are improving! Still a way to go, need to get that back straighter. Actually, by happy coincidence my Feldenkrais classes this week are focused on splits, and we've been doing a lot of interesting things to open the hips. Feldenkrais is absolutely not about stretching and pain, it's about staying within a comfortable range of motion and exploring, and thinking about how different parts of the body are connected. I definitely think it helped me to open my hips for this photo!

 

 

[Keladris]

Week 3 reflection

 

This week was kinda tough. My energy just took a dive. I'm hoping it's just a hormone thing, since I had something similar at the same point in the last challenge. Ballet had me so exhausted I was almost crying! And had to take extra breaks during the strength  training.

 

Again, haven't always been as diligent tracking my rainbow colours. I've done fairly well from what I have tracked, but struggling with oranges. Currently we're trying to eat up what we have in the fridge, so I imagine this week might be trickier to eat the rainbow. But it's for a good cause since we want to reduce food waste. Will also set me up better for meal planning in the future since we're going to switch to twice weekly food deliveries instead of once a week. So I can make sure to order and eat my carrots!

Flexibility is going strong! I've done it every day so far and I can really feel the difference.

 

[Keladris]

More dance gifs! I love making these haha. Learnt some actual choreography in jazz class yesterday! Excuse the concentrating face haha. 

[starpuck]

I know you'll be shocked by this... but energy dive here too.

Also timing with hormones of potential shark attack due?  LOL.  Geez this is getting out of hand lol!

 

Again I LOVE LOVE YOUR GIFS!!!    

 

[Keladris]

More gifs for the gif gods. But also to show that sometimes you gotta fail and try, try, try again!


And sometimes, you just gotta cover up the failures with a fancy finish...

Also - new proper ballet outfit!! I feel so fancy xD

[Epsilonte]

Lovely outfit for lovely pirouettes.  

I still think your smile at the end of the gifs is too cute, one can really see that you enjoy what you do. ❤️ 

[Keladris]

Week 4 reflection

 

My tracking of my rainbow diet wasn't great for week 4 - I only actually tracked for 2 days! But I was definitely thinking about it every day. I was actually focused on eating up leftovers since we skipped a food delivery, which funny enough meant I ended up eating more colours.

I missed a flexibility training one day, although my spreadsheet didn't save so I lost track of which day I missed. I was just too tired, I think it was the right decision to skip. I picked it right up where I left off the next day, and the improvements continue! 

Did my strength training earlier in the week, which meant I also got one in on Sunday. So I'm hoping for this week I'll have 2 workouts to track. Definitely got my strength back after shark week, and I'm doing that gradual but progressive overload thing but always making the workout a little harder than the last. One day, one day I will get a pushup on the floor...

My balances were much better in ballet this week, I've been practicing a little bit each day and figuring out how to have strong legs and even out my pelvis. We also finally got out the house for a walk... I've realised I've been slacking on the whole 'get outside once a week' thing. Spring is slowly slowly on its way (we never really get much spring in Montreal anyway, tends to be like a week and then SUMMER) which is tempting me outside.

Can't believe it's week 5 already! Will have to think up some new goals. I'm thinking something around balancing, both in terms of dance and body, and mind too.