[ixaera]

 

~ I don't have a theme! ~

 

Get Fit (again)
Used to be fit! Am not now fit!

Week 1 - 3 workouts, 2 strength 1 cardio

Week 2 - 4 workouts 2 strength 2 cardio

Week 3 - 5 workouts 3 strength 2 cardio

Weeks 4 & 5 - keep doing  5 workouts!

Bonus points for more

 

End goal is a 5:2 pattern on workouts, nothing fancy. I've never been much for cardio so my version of it is basically like a brisk walk for 20-30 min. Strength workouts tho are my jam. I've BEEN doing bodyweight at home stuff since COVID began and I cancelled the membership I had to an indoor gym that hosted medium sized indoor boxing classes for safety and health reasons. As the 2 years have gone on though, I've been less and less diligent and now I could use the movement again. Good news! I moved in October and I have a small garage, big enough to host a squat rack and barbell,  so I'm working on finishing out that setup now. I have the barbell, the squat rack is due tomorrowish. For plates and such I'm planning to visit a second hand gym store if I can find one. HOPING that this is in place for this challenge, but I will just be doing my bodyweight/home stuff until it's there.

 

Don't Eat Your Feelings

I like bread when I'm sad hbu

Goal - stay under maintenance, stick to better-for-you foods overall

 

I'd like to lose about 20 lbs. I gained it eating bread and stuff. That said, I don't really want to focus on a specific deficit this challenge, so I'm keeping this one simple. Stay under maintenance by any amount, keep junk to a minimum.

 

 

5 weeks no alcohol

 

Bit of a social drinker here, which isn't super conducive to fat loss. Gonna kick this one in the shins for a minute and give more room to nutritious foods.

 

So there you go. My super simple reboot challenge

 

 

 

[Defining]

[Emissary2Ornj]

Yes! Excited to see your challenge. Following!

[ixaera]

The squat rack is here! It's in 7 boxes! Well, like 5, the other two are spotter arms and a bench. I guess I have plenty to do tonight~

 

[ixaera]

Yesssssss

[ixaera]

First day check in!

 

No exercise today, but I did a LOT yesterday, so it's fine to start on a low note there. I used my new squat rack Saturday with the empty barbell, and I didn't find any second hand plates so I'm gonna give in and buy a 160lb set from Rogue.

 

Stayed barely under maintenance, and did eat frozen pizza. Obvs had no alcohol.

 

Tomorrow I am hoping to get up early or take a lunch break to get some movement in, since I won't be able to after work, and should be a good-food-filled kinda day~

 

 

[Scaly Freak]

Following purely for the new squat rack.  

[Emissary2Ornj]

The new squat rack looks GREAT all set up. Yay, shiny new things! And yay for having an adaptable plan when things go a little different. 👍 Solid first day report, sweet.

[ixaera]

On 2/14/2022 at 12:21 PM, Scaly Freak said:

Following purely for the new squat rack.  

You're making valid life choices. As a reward, here's my cat trying to climb it:

 

Two more days to talk about, eh?

Monday was like so - No exercise, didn't get up early enough. Good at food - nothing that counts as junk. Stayed under maintenance, a feat MADE POSSIBLE by my alcohol hiatus, because I totally would have had half a bottle of wine with my valentine yesterday if I hadn't been abstaining, so I remained (barely) under maintenance.
Today was like yo - Strength training (just finished) which included a 20 rep set of barbell squats and a solid 20 min walk with a neighbor. DID eat junk today, because I was strapped for time and work stressing, a bad combo. 600 cals of golden double stuffed oreos. That was lunch. Anyway, everything else was NOT junk, and I had a solid deficit today.

 

Proving to myself the last two days that stressy days don't REQUIRE a beer to unwind from. In fact, I'm seeing benefits: sometimes when I have a drink with dinner I'm just too relaxed/buzzed/whatever to work out so I don't. Since I'm not, this is not getting in the way  And it's nice to fill that 200-ish calorie gap with filling foods instead.

 

I'm so BUSY this week *flails*

Plates are still on the to-do list. I need to go to the gym store place but it closes at 7 and life is hard you guys.

[Emissary2Ornj]

Parkour kitty!

I like how real-world you are about this stuff. Instead of justifying your decisions, you're acknowledging them, like "Here's what I did. 95% of it was beneficial. Win!" 👏 Also I think connecting our food choices to personalized, non-scale results (like alcohol for unwinding impedes workouts for your) is a game-changer for flipping switches on how we traditionally are taught by society/culture/whatever to think about food. Taking away the guilt/shame or just the bad/good labels (or even healthy/unhealthy labels), specifically.

I had a beer the other night, and it didn't make me feel horrible, but it wasn't great, either. I haven't had one in a looong time, so I was kind of looking forward to it. It ended up being anticlimactic. Turns out I'd rather have chamomile tea.

[Pyralis]

25 minutes ago, Emissary2Ornj said:

It ended up being anticlimactic. Turns out I'd rather have chamomile tea

Nice plot twist though

[Scaly Freak]

13 hours ago, ixaera said:

Proving to myself the last two days that stressy days don't REQUIRE a beer to unwind from. In fact, I'm seeing benefits: sometimes when I have a drink with dinner I'm just too relaxed/buzzed/whatever to work out so I don't. Since I'm not, this is not getting in the way  And it's nice to fill that 200-ish calorie gap with filling foods instead.

 

I think that loud noise we just heard was your future self cheering and celebrating this particular part  

 

And having a great workout is an awesome side-effect of skipping the beer/wine/whatever, and very good incentive to do it.

 

1 hour ago, Emissary2Ornj said:

Parkour kitty!

 

So... normal cat then? 😛 

[Emissary2Ornj]

1 hour ago, Scaly Freak said:

So... normal cat then? 😛 

Yes, haha! (I actually typed the comment, thought that 👆🏻, typed a sentence explaining I know most kitties are parkour kitties by nature, decided it was trying too hard, deleted it and left the original 'duh' obviousness. 😄 Overthinking on forums again, I am.)

[Scaly Freak]

1 hour ago, Emissary2Ornj said:

Yes, haha! (I actually typed the comment, thought that 👆🏻, typed a sentence explaining I know most kitties are parkour kitties by nature, decided it was trying too hard, deleted it and left the original 'duh' obviousness. 😄 Overthinking on forums again, I am.)

 

I don't think it is that cats are parkour cats by nature, as much as it simply is that humans decided to use the label "parkour" for what really should be more accurately labelled, "we just realized that living in a three dimensional world means we don't have to stay on the ground all the time and now we're playing!".

 

The feline approach is a lot more similar to, "everything in any direction is by default my domain and if I can't travel to it that means it's not worth my time", and they apply this to every direction they can imagine. I'm more than half convinced that the true ending to Schrödinger's famous riddle/thought experiment is that when he opened the box the cat had simply left, by following one of the many curves in the space-time continuum, and rematerializing in the pantry.

[ixaera]

13 hours ago, Emissary2Ornj said:

Parkour kitty!

I like how real-world you are about this stuff. Instead of justifying your decisions, you're acknowledging them, like "Here's what I did. 95% of it was beneficial. Win!" 👏 Also I think connecting our food choices to personalized, non-scale results (like alcohol for unwinding impedes workouts for your) is a game-changer for flipping switches on how we traditionally are taught by society/culture/whatever to think about food. Taking away the guilt/shame or just the bad/good labels (or even healthy/unhealthy labels), specifically.

I had a beer the other night, and it didn't make me feel horrible, but it wasn't great, either. I haven't had one in a looong time, so I was kind of looking forward to it. It ended up being anticlimactic. Turns out I'd rather have chamomile tea.

 

XD I'm actually very into the flavor of certain beers. I love a good tripel (La Fin Du Monde is my favorite, but other tripels are great too), and heavier stuff like winter ales and yummy lagers. I ALSO like wine. I'm boned, really. That said, so far this challenge of not having any isn't hard, though of COURSE the second day I bumped into a delicious looking temptress stout of the peanut butter persuasion. I resolved to buy some after this is done lol

 

I am also a tea drinker, though! Chamomile is often not my jam (I wish it were, a nice sleepy tea is hard for me to find), but right now I've been enjoying cycling through these: hi caf salted caramel black tea, downtown afternoon black tea (by Driftwood Tea Co), and a gold thread reserve oolong. My favorite is probably the salted caramel for straight flavor. I don't do a lot of nighttime tea, but right now my evening tea if I do it is Tea Goblin's Enchanted Forest (just don't steep that too long, gets very over sweet).

 

ANYWAY

Today was good. No exercise cuz no time. I didn't sleep well, so I slept as long as I could justify, then work was crazy pants. Had an appointment after, then my guild was doing stuff. But at least food was solid - not a thing that counts in the "junk" category and I got myself a decent deficit

[Scaly Freak]

2 hours ago, ixaera said:

I am also a tea drinker, though! Chamomile is often not my jam (I wish it were, a nice sleepy tea is hard for me to find), but right now I've been enjoying cycling through these: hi caf salted caramel black tea, downtown afternoon black tea (by Driftwood Tea Co), and a gold thread reserve oolong. My favorite is probably the salted caramel for straight flavor. I don't do a lot of nighttime tea, but right now my evening tea if I do it is Tea Goblin's Enchanted Forest (just don't steep that too long, gets very over sweet).

 

I do a lot naturally caffeine free herbal teas in the evening. I emptied my jar of lavender mint tea a few days ago, which was a sad occasion for everyone involved. This evening was peach lemongrass blackberry hibiscus tea.  

[Emissary2Ornj]

On 2/16/2022 at 2:44 PM, Scaly Freak said:

The feline approach is a lot more similar to, "everything in any direction is by default my domain and if I can't travel to it that means it's not worth my time", and they apply this to every direction they can imagine.

Yes! It's interesting to think of different animals and how they move in their environments - and how differently they move from other animals who are sharing the exact same environment. Like birds, for instance - there's a big difference in how woodpeckers(mostly climb up, a few climb down headfirst), blue jays (nonclimbers), and nuthatches (can walk down headfirst) navigate trees. This is a really big subject, we could take it faaaaaar!

 

And then there's the cats that go up a tree and won't/can't come down in timely fashion.

 

16 hours ago, ixaera said:

I am also a tea drinker, though!

13 hours ago, Scaly Freak said:

I do a lot naturally caffeine free herbal teas in the evening. I emptied my jar of lavender mint tea a few days ago, which was a sad occasion for everyone involved. This evening was peach lemongrass blackberry hibiscus tea.  

Oh, cool, fellow tea drinkers. That oolong sounds exciting, @ixaera! I don't visit tea shops nowadays, but I used to visit one in... somewhere in southern Michigan, I think? I really enjoyed rooibos around that time, and I seem to remember they had a nice hearty one. Rooibos

smells like a pipe tobacco to me, in a good way. Currently I have  decaf black tea, decaf Earl Grey, decaf green tea, and one last bag of Mint Medley in addition to the aforementioned chamomile. I do enjoy coffee but prefer decaf - at my budget there's probably a significant flavor sacrifice, but if you don't buy it, you don't miss it and I really enjoy my occasional morning cup. For some reason I'm not a big fan of the hibiscus flavor.... but now I'm pondering why I have never tried lavender mint yet. It sounds lovely.

 

16 hours ago, ixaera said:

But at least food was solid - not a thing that counts in the "junk" category and I got myself a decent deficit

I'm finding more and more the positive effect of a good nutrition day is far-reaching. It impacts how I feel physically and how I think about myself and my progress. Not limited to that, either.

[Scaly Freak]

40 minutes ago, Emissary2Ornj said:

now I'm pondering why I have never tried lavender mint yet. It sounds lovely.

 

Lavender Earl Grey is wonderful too  

[ixaera]

Haha, I'm all y'alls tea opposites. Earl Grey is my least favorite black tea, and roobios I have tried to love, only to fail. XD I definitely lean toward vanilla and caramel flavors overall, and a smooth black tea unflavored is rare but LOVELY. There exist vanilla chamomile teas that I'll happily night-time sip on! I don't have one at the moment, but I should pick one up when my tea goblin gets low.

 

Yesterday I did some light cardio and my junk food was a single 230 calorie lindor truffle chocolate bar. Not the worst!

So that's 2 workouts down. Might get a bonus one in tonight if I don't have to clean before game night.

[Emissary2Ornj]

2 hours ago, ixaera said:

my junk food was a single 230 calorie lindor truffle chocolate bar. Not the worst!

I have a really hard time thinking of chocolate as "bad", especially if I'm not eating it very often, and extra-especially if it's a plainer version.

 

You've got me wondering now - maybe some of those vanilla teas (which my taste buds really enjoy, too) would help satisfy sweet cravings. I mean,  as long as they didn't have actual sweeteners in them. I know some of those tea blends can be verrrry smooth-tasting.

 

Sometimes cleaning counts as a workout, maybe just scaled down.

[Scaly Freak]

2 hours ago, Emissary2Ornj said:

I have a really hard time thinking of chocolate as "bad", especially if I'm not eating it very often, and extra-especially if it's a plainer version.

 

Me too. As far as I am concerned, chocolate with 80% coca content, or higher, is chocolate that we can continue to eat while reducing sugar in our diet. Which is as it should be.  

 

2 hours ago, Emissary2Ornj said:

You've got me wondering now - maybe some of those vanilla teas (which my taste buds really enjoy, too) would help satisfy sweet cravings. I mean,  as long as they didn't have actual sweeteners in them. I know some of those tea blends can be verrrry smooth-tasting.

 

A lot of fruit-flavored herbal teas should work for this as well. A raspberry blend, for example.

[ixaera]

Week 1 Summary! 

Goal 1 - 2x str 1x cardio workouts - ⭐

Strength Sunday & Tuesday

Light Cardio on Wednesday

 

Goal 2 - Did okay a lot of the time, not as good as I wanted to be. Saturday was a friend's birthday party and I definitely overdid it on the food. Overall like a B- which doesn't get a gold star but isn't a fail.

 

Goal 3 - ⭐

Saturday was the first time this was hard. Everyone else was enjoying frozen margs and I wanted to join in so bad! Definitely a social pull. I held my ground with myself here though, and stuck to water and coke zero.

Friday I also turned down an invite to a pub because I'd had such a frustrating work day that I wasn't sure I could only order the pretzel.

4 weeks to go

I'm actually really proud of myself on this one.

 

Week 2 has begun and is already shaping up well.

[ixaera]

How I'm feeling about my goals about now:
 

[Emissary2Ornj]

Royalty! Way to go with these goals. Not easy ones, either. Simple does not always equal easy.

 

It's cool how you're able to check yourself - like turning down that pub invite Friday.

 

I reread your challenge goals and saw the "eat bread while sad" line again. Mac & cheese  from a box (most of my life), $1 noodle kits (more recently), and just about any salty/carby snack (chips, especially) are my self-soothing foods. I'm waffling between abstaining completely and eating them once in a while. Mentally waffling, that is; I haven't actually eaten them since hubby and I did our nutrition reset a couple months ago. I do keep tortilla chips on hand, but no potato chips so far.

[ixaera]

16 hours ago, Emissary2Ornj said:

Royalty! Way to go with these goals. Not easy ones, either. Simple does not always equal easy.

 

It's cool how you're able to check yourself - like turning down that pub invite Friday.

 

I reread your challenge goals and saw the "eat bread while sad" line again. Mac & cheese  from a box (most of my life), $1 noodle kits (more recently), and just about any salty/carby snack (chips, especially) are my self-soothing foods. I'm waffling between abstaining completely and eating them once in a while. Mentally waffling, that is; I haven't actually eaten them since hubby and I did our nutrition reset a couple months ago. I do keep tortilla chips on hand, but no potato chips so far.

 

I'll reach for any bread and then go "well now I'm MORE sad dangit"
It sounds like you're doing great in your accidental no chips campaign! Congrats! I have to keep them out of my pantry or they disappear EMBARRASSINGLY quickly. Family size bag? I'm family!

 

Quick Sunday check in: 
Did an OHP-based workout, found that 3 reps with the empty bar is where I'm at now. I'll need to supplement with dumbbells I guess to get back to where I was. Pre-covid I was reliably getting 8-10 reps with the empty bar, so we've got work to do!

Diet was very meh. I had a big piece of leftover cake for lunch. (Everything else was fine.)

 

With 4 weeks to go, this is too early to think about but here we are anyway -- I think my next Goal 3 will be housework-oriented.