EricMN Posted February 14 Report Share Posted February 14 Hello, Nerds. A re-introduction is in order. I used to be here regularly. I went from skinny in high school to overweight in college to sedentary and obese as an adult to finally making a change ten years ago and losing a lot of weight and getting pretty fit. I stayed that way for several years. When COVID hit, I went from a routine that worked for me to needing to protect my immunocompromised family members, which led to a lot of regression to bad habits that I thought were gone forever. Turns out the world is round and you can wind up right back where you started if you aren't careful. Fortunately, the world is round and you can also keep moving forward and wind up right back in a good place, too. You just have to do it intentionally. I'm older than I was when I got healthy the last time. I deal with the effects of arthritis on a daily basis. I'm going through a major transition with work over the next year and right now it's kind of a time sink. I am now a single parent and I'm trying to completely integrate my fiancé into my family and even though we've been together for years this is a long, exhausting process. These are all things that weren't challenges when I was in this place health-wise last time. They're just things to overcome. The good news is I developed a LOT of healthy habits over those 7-8 years and I know the things I need to do. Move Intentionally I had joined a gym in January of 2013 and stayed with it until this past summer, with a major break for the COVID shutdown that sent my gym remote. It was during shutdown that everything sort of went sideways. I completely stopped running and I haven't worked out regularly in... yeah, it's been a long time. When my kids went to distance learning, it also meant I spent a lot of time sitting shotgun to make sure my kids did homework, and I went from commuting to work to working from home and being able to mentally disconnect from the office most of the time to it just being ~here~ and it's a challenge. Goal: Move Intentionally, one hour per day. I have resources and I want to be able to do a 5k again by April. Eat Mindfully For almost seven years I was able to successfully track macros and make solid food choices. I knew when my treats happened and I dealt accordingly. I have fallen WAY off that path. I know how to do this. I'm going to set a sensible calorie and macro target that will allow me to drop this excess weight and still fuel my workouts. I'll adjust as I go along. Goal: 1850 kCal/day. I need to set my underlying macros. I'll post that separately. Embrace Self-Care I have allowed this to happen to myself and I need to do two things: Not lie to myself about how it happened, so I can move forward away from this place in my life Not lie to myself about the effort it's going to take. It's going to take an lot of labor - physical and emotional - to get where I want to be. I need to be sure to be kind to myself along the way. I need to remember that progress is not linear. Goal: 30 minutes per day with no screens, no work, and no living the drama of others. This includes my family. I'm looking forward to being here regularly in a place I called home for so long. 8 Quote Rebel Scum - Current Challenge - Battle Log - Epic Quest Link to comment
Terra Posted February 14 Report Share Posted February 14 So excited to see you back!!! 1 Quote Ranger-Monk Hybrid I am a strong little powerhouse Current Challenge: Slow is smooth Link to comment
Sloth the Enduring Posted February 14 Report Share Posted February 14 1 Quote “We might as well start where we are, use what we have and do what we can." – Caitlin Rivers Sloth: The Man with the Hammer battle log Link to comment
Rooks Posted February 14 Report Share Posted February 14 Ha! You and coming back to NF for the same challenge! Let's go! 1 Quote Link to comment
Tanktimus the Encourager Posted February 15 Report Share Posted February 15 1 Quote Current Challenge "By the Most-Righteous-and-Blessed Beard of Sir Tanktimus the Encourager!" - Jarl Rurik Harrgath Link to comment
Kestrel Grey Posted February 15 Report Share Posted February 15 It's good to see you! 1 Quote Current Challenge: The Cliffs of Insanity Previous Challenges: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12, #13, #14, #15, #16, #17, #18, #19, #20, #21, #22, #23, #24, #25, #26, #27, #28, #29, #30, #31, #32, #33, #34, #35 Battle Log: Operation Fly-By-Night “Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” ― Neil Gaiman Link to comment
darkfoxx Posted February 15 Report Share Posted February 15 1 Quote Level 83 Wood Elf Druid Druid: || 59 | 60 | 61 | 61.5 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75 | 76 | 77 | 78 | 79 | 80 | 81 | 82 | 83 || Ranger: || 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 || ||Char/RPG|| STR: 57 || DEX: 59 || STA: 52 || CON: 47 || WIS: 59 || CHA: 59 Link to comment
EricMN Posted February 16 Author Report Share Posted February 16 Thank you, friends, I have missed you all. Ahsoka Tano is the most nuanced character with the most depth in the Star Wars universe. I will not be entertaining your incorrect opinions on this issue. We're going through a major project implementation at work. in 2017 the privately-held company I work for (which would be immediately recognizable to locals) was purchased by the second-largest multinational corporation in the industry. They claimed they needed to adopt our business practices and wanted to scale them up from "regional success" to "global empire". They left my team more or less alone at first. In April of 2021 my team was brought in to migrate one business-critical information flow to change the way we were feeding the data into our system. This poorly-tested, loosely-managed effort turned into a crap-fest upon implementation that had me on my last nerve for 14 hours a day for two weeks. In August, they came back to us and told us they were going to move all our systems to theirs based on "the success" of the first project. We have spent six months ramping up for what I knew was going to be the scaled up version of last June's disaster. We launched the first pilot on Monday. It has turned out to be akin to a pride of monkeys having a crap-flinging contest. So far this week I have been over-booked and need to do a better job of intentionally carving out "Move, Intentionally" time. But I'm still here on this challenge so far this week. I'm counting this as a win. Monday Overbooked and the monkey caca was beginning to fly. A bit of non-consecutive Intentional Movement to clear my head every hour or so - body-weight squats and lunges. No dedicated workout. It's something, which is better than nothing. Spent about an hour reading a book in the evening. Got started on macro tracking (all values validated by my kitchen scale, no guessing allowed): KCal: 1735 Protein: 77g (too low) Carbs: 125g Fiber: 26g Sodium: 2500mG Tuesday Hip-deep in poo, dodging monkeys. The metaphorical monkey screeches got worse as well. The temps rose above 35degF and a lot of the snow and ice in my driveway melted and then re-froze when the sun dipped below my roof-line. I wound up slipping and falling on my driveway and hurt my hip and my wrist. Wrist is tender and sore but it's not seriously injured. My hip is bruised but I'll be fine. I'm going to let "Move Intentionally" happen organically as time and body permit. KCal: 1796 Protein: 82g(too low) Carbs: 170g Fiber: 32g Sodium: 2500mG This is off to a respectable start considering. I'll feel better when "Move Intentionally" becomes "Worked out today". 2 3 Quote Rebel Scum - Current Challenge - Battle Log - Epic Quest Link to comment
Rooks Posted February 18 Report Share Posted February 18 Oof... sorry sir. I've been in those situations where everything gets over promised and to meet the deadlines it takes herculean efforts. It sucks, and I'm sorry you are there. Double sorry about the wrist. I hate our driveway in the winter. We have a south facing house so everything melts to the end of the driveway, then refreezes there. By winter's end, it's usually about a solid 1.5" thick. Makes taking the trash can down there every week an interesting chore. And for what it's worth, you first challenge days still went better than mine. Quote Link to comment
Sylvaa Posted February 21 Report Share Posted February 21 I've been thinking about you as I look at the whiteboard at my gym. I'm glad you're back, even though everything is crazy. Quote Sylvaa's BattleLog Sylvaa's Tracking Spreadsheet Link to comment
Tanktimus the Encourager Posted March 2 Report Share Posted March 2 Has work been a sarlaac pit? Quote Current Challenge "By the Most-Righteous-and-Blessed Beard of Sir Tanktimus the Encourager!" - Jarl Rurik Harrgath Link to comment
Sloth the Enduring Posted March 2 Report Share Posted March 2 Oh no. What if he’s in carbonite? 1 1 Quote “We might as well start where we are, use what we have and do what we can." – Caitlin Rivers Sloth: The Man with the Hammer battle log Link to comment
darkfoxx Posted March 3 Report Share Posted March 3 Quote Level 83 Wood Elf Druid Druid: || 59 | 60 | 61 | 61.5 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75 | 76 | 77 | 78 | 79 | 80 | 81 | 82 | 83 || Ranger: || 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 || ||Char/RPG|| STR: 57 || DEX: 59 || STA: 52 || CON: 47 || WIS: 59 || CHA: 59 Link to comment
Rooks Posted March 3 Report Share Posted March 3 Maybe his ship wasn't quite fast enough to get away from the exogorth? 1 1 Quote Link to comment
Sloth the Enduring Posted March 3 Report Share Posted March 3 I thought that thing was a “space slug”. Quote “We might as well start where we are, use what we have and do what we can." – Caitlin Rivers Sloth: The Man with the Hammer battle log Link to comment
Rooks Posted March 4 Report Share Posted March 4 8 hours ago, Sloth the Enduring said: I thought that thing was a “space slug”. To be fair, I only learned it was named exogorth this morning. I googled "millennium falcon giant worm" which led me to the exogorth name. Then "exogorth gif" got me the desired content. It's dirty work looking for the proper internet gif, but somebody has to do it. 2 Quote Link to comment
EricMN Posted March 15 Author Report Share Posted March 15 "GREAT SCOTT! MARTY! WHAT YEAR IS IT????" Wait... I'm mixing thematic elements and that weirds me out. I would like to say the last four weeks have come as a surprise, but no, they haven't. I'm coming up for air between major projects. It's been... not great. It's been a lot of long hours and at the very least I'm being recognized for my work but this whole "being digested by the Sarlacc" is not as cool as it may sound. I'm mostly making good food choices and I'm down anywhere from three to seven pounds, depending on how late I have to work and how much I move around, but when you're working anywhere from ten to 16 hours a day to make sure things don't burst into flames, well... This isn't how I wanted the last month to go, but here we are. We'll see what the world looks like since I heard it's starting to warm up out there. 6 Quote Rebel Scum - Current Challenge - Battle Log - Epic Quest Link to comment
Tanktimus the Encourager Posted March 15 Report Share Posted March 15 I hope things get better for you soon. Quote Current Challenge "By the Most-Righteous-and-Blessed Beard of Sir Tanktimus the Encourager!" - Jarl Rurik Harrgath Link to comment
Rooks Posted March 22 Report Share Posted March 22 Best of luck on the grind, Eric. Hopefully things lighten up a bit in the not to distance future. Quote Link to comment
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