[Alanna]

Jumping in late due travel and illness. I'm going to treat the rest of this challenge as an extended Zero Week  - the plan is to test out some goals and ramp up my activity levels so I can hit the ground running next challenge. 

 

Goals for this week:

• Re-start bodyweight training, using Elements to build a base
• Go for a walk x2
• Build on my sleep success last challenge by 1) starting to get ready for bed by 10:30 pm each night, and 2) not using my phone in bed at night (besides for Kindle/alarm setting)

 

 

[Alanna]

Sunday, Week 0.0 

 

🔥⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ [Elements]

⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ [Walk]

💤⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ [Sleep]

 

(any emoji = I did the thing. In this challenge it is Zero week == I have no solid tracking plans/system == chaos reigns supreme.)

 

I started training again! I feel kinda bad/sad that I lost the momentum that I had earlier this year and am having to rebuild my base again, but there isn't anything I can really do about that now besides focusing on consistency moving forward. Session 1 of Elements was 30 min. focusing on A-frame and Bear. I used my new exercise space for the first time, and I think it will work well - it's definitely more space than I had when I ran Elements earlier. 

 

I also did @KB Girl's magic knee fix so that my knee hopefully cooperates when I start working on squats again.

 

Got ready for bed at about 10:10 and was in bed before 10:30 pm. 

[Harriet]

7 hours ago, Alanna said:

I started training again! I feel kinda bad/sad that I lost the momentum that I had earlier this year and am having to rebuild my base again, but there isn't anything I can really do about that now besides focusing on consistency moving forward.

 

I relate. And you're right, there's nothing to do but try again, maybe after reflecting on what prevented us before. I hope you can zero in on some good habits in the next three weeks!

[Alanna]

3 hours ago, Harriet said:

And you're right, there's nothing to do but try again, maybe after reflecting on what prevented us before.

 

Not getting evicted again and not buying a house in a crazy market again anytime soon will go a long way towards consistency in my case 😅. But otherwise - I thinking having go-to programmes/workout options and dedicated spaces to workout will help a lot, too.

 

3 hours ago, Harriet said:

I hope you can zero in on some good habits in the next three weeks!

 

 

Thank you - I hope your return to consistent lifting goes well, too.

 

 

 

Monday, Week 0.0 

 

🔥🌊⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ [Elements]

⬜👣⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ [Walk]

💤⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ [Sleep]

 

Had a nice evening walk with my partner, and then did a 15 minute session of Elements (squats, monkey, and bear). Sleep report TBA.

[juliebarkley]

5 hours ago, Alanna said:

Not getting evicted again and not buying a house in a crazy market again anytime soon will go a long way towards consistency in my case 😅.

I'm sure it didn't help with consistency. But the disruption in place and routine may have disrupted other, negative habits as well. Double edged blade, is moving.

[SakuraKitsune]

Yey welcome baaaack! I love that you've jumped back in! Let's gooooooooo!

[Alanna]

On 7/5/2022 at 1:31 AM, juliebarkley said:

I'm sure it didn't help with consistency. But the disruption in place and routine may have disrupted other, negative habits as well. Double edged blade, is moving.

 

Interesting idea - for me, I think my "bad" habits tend to be ones that are easier (e.g., require less energy and less motivation), so they try to pop back up when I'm stressed. However, I think the environment change can make some bad habits more difficult or disrupt location dependent habits (e.g., getting snacks at a particular corner shop), so in that sense moving does help my habits!

 

On 7/5/2022 at 12:13 PM, SakuraKitsune said:

Yey welcome baaaack! I love that you've jumped back in! Let's gooooooooo!

 

Thanks! Figure if I had goals, I might as well make some sort of challenge thread to go along with them  

 

 

----------

 

Tuesday-Wednesday, Week 0.0 

 

🔥🌊⬜🌬️⬜⬜⬜ [Elements]

⬜👣👣⬜⬜⬜⬜ [Walk]

💤💤⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ [Sleep]

 

Activity goals are going well. I did get ready for bed on time last night, but ended up on my phone. The night was a bit of a wash - I overdid it chores and activity wise the past couple of days, so I was wired and tired as well as a little ill, and my partner was ill too. We'll aim for a better routine tonight. 

[Rookie]

Zero week is such a magical time. So nice you do it thrice!   I am happy you are back

[Alanna]

On 7/7/2022 at 4:33 PM, Rookie said:

Zero week is such a magical time. So nice you do it thrice!   I am happy you are back

 

Thanks! I feel like zero week has a lot of excitement, introspection, and adaptability, which are exactly the challenge features I need right now!

 

-----------

 

Thursday-Friday, Week 0.0 

 

🔥🌊⬜🌬️⬜⬜⬜ [Elements]

⬜👣👣⬜👣👣⬜ [Walk]

💤💤⬜💤💤💤⬜ [Sleep]

 

Still adapting to the higher activity levels, but gradually figuring things out.

 

Planning ahead for the next week/few weeks:

• I really want to hang/install my new pull up bar soon so I can work on pull ups again - figuring that out should be a priority for this weekend/next week
• I remembered that I had a fun themed challenge all planned out before it was imploded by the unexpectedly accelerated house purchase/move. I need to revisit it and see if it is still suitable (possibly with some tweaks)

 

[Pyralis]

Slow and steady getting back to it, sounds great! Welcome back!

[Harriet]

On 7/8/2022 at 9:29 PM, Alanna said:

 

• I really want to hang/install my new pull up bar soon so I can work on pull ups again - figuring that out should be a priority for this weekend/next week
• I remembered that I had a fun themed challenge all planned out before it was imploded by the unexpectedly accelerated house purchase/move. I need to revisit it and see if it is still suitable (possibly with some tweaks)

 

 

Oooh, a fun themed challenge sounds, well, fun. We all need some inspiration I think.

[Alanna]

16 hours ago, Pyralis said:

Slow and steady getting back to it, sounds great! Welcome back!

 

Thank you! Good to see you're back, too

 

8 hours ago, Harriet said:

Oooh, a fun themed challenge sounds, well, fun. We all need some inspiration I think.

 

I have come up with a very suitable assassin-themed inspiration . I think the basic set up (and importantly, the gifs) will still work for next challenge! 

 

 

Week 0.0 Recap

 

🔥🌊⬜🌬️⬜⬜⬜ [Elements]

⬜👣👣⬜👣👣⬜ [Walk]

💤💤⬜💤💤💤💤 [Sleep]

 

The Zeroth Zero Week went pretty well. I think I'm going to venture away from the Elements programme, though, and get back to my own programming and/or just working on what I want to for the locomotion movements.

 

Plan for next week:

• I want to get in at least 3 training sessions (locomotion movements and/or bodyweight strength training). I'll probably pick up my pistol squat programme again, but for now I'll ease back into strength training with some shorter sessions. I'm also going to start tracking when I do my sessions, with the goal of doing my training in the morning 🌅 (starting by 12 pm) or afternoon ☀️ (starting by 5:30 pm), rather than the evening 🌔. Leaving training until late means it's less likely to happen, and if it does happen it means it's more likely to mess up my sleep.
• I'd like to do at least 3 walks in addition to training
• I'll start getting ready for bed by 10:15 pm

Week 0.1 so far:

 

🌅⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ [Training]

⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ [Walk]

⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ [Sleep]

 

🌅 = morning session, ☀️ = afternoon session, 🌔 = evening session

 

I worked on bear/twisting bear + slowing down monkey this morning, as well as prone swimmers for upper back strength and push-ups (negative push-up + pushing up on knees). 

 

For my fellow Elements aficionados ( @Gemma, @juliebarkley, @Emissary2Ornj ) : GMB recently posted a video on working towards stalls, which I know we've puzzled over in the past! There isn't anything particularly surprising in the video, but it's nice to see the form broken down further.

 

[Alanna]

Quick update:

 

Week 0.1, Sunday - Tuesday

 

🌅⬜☀️⬜⬜⬜⬜ [Training]

👣👣👣⬜⬜⬜⬜ [Walk]

💤💤💤⬜⬜⬜⬜ [Sleep]

🥬⬜🥗⬜⬜⬜⬜ [Food prep]

 

🌅 = morning session, ☀️ = afternoon session, 🌔 = evening session

 

I'm adding one more goal, which is to do more food prep (my partner takes care of a lot of it right now). Only rule for it to count is that I have to make more than one serving - so, enough for both of us and/or enough for leftovers. On Sunday I blanched some cabbage to use as wraps, and yesterday I cut up a lot of veg for salads and also made gelatin gummies. We finally (almost) finished organising and unpacking our kitchen last weekend, so there is finally a decent amount of counter space!

 

The weather has been really nice in the evenings, so my partner and I have been going to lots of walks.

 

Training on Tuesday was frogger and long-legged monkey (the Spiderman pose one), then front scales and one set of Bulgarian split squats. I'm being careful easing back into squats to make sure I don't re-ignite the knee issues. Surprisingly, long-legged monkey actually felt stronger and more stable than this spring, and I think I had better mobility too - although I'm still working towards getting my heel onto the ground in that position. 

 

Today is DOMS 😅

[Pyralis]

5 hours ago, Alanna said:

gelatin gummies

pics or it didn't happen!

 

5 hours ago, Alanna said:

finally a decent amount of counter space!

That sounds great! Working in a clutter free kitchen with a lot of space is so much more inviting. My kitchen goal is one day having a free standing counter where we can sit and also work. Counter tops are magnetic though and attract allll the stuff all the time.

 

[Harriet]

7 hours ago, Alanna said:

I'm adding one more goal, which is to do more food prep (my partner takes care of a lot of it right now). Only rule for it to count is that I have to make more than one serving - so, enough for both of us and/or enough for leftovers.

 

I mean, if it isn't more than one serving it's not meal prep it's just cooking, right?

 

7 hours ago, Alanna said:

gelatin gummies

 

what are these for, and are they delicious?

[Alanna]

On 7/13/2022 at 3:15 PM, Pyralis said:

pics or it didn't happen!

 

 

lol it was a slab of gelatin messily cut into squares - not that photogenic food-wise 😆

 

On 7/13/2022 at 3:15 PM, Pyralis said:

That sounds great! Working in a clutter free kitchen with a lot of space is so much more inviting. My kitchen goal is one day having a free standing counter where we can sit and also work. Counter tops are magnetic though and attract allll the stuff all the time.

 

That's my husband's dream, too! Or some other sort of place to sit so he can work and cook at the same time.

 

On 7/13/2022 at 5:49 PM, Harriet said:

I mean, if it isn't more than one serving it's not meal prep it's just cooking, right?

 

 

Huh, now I'm thinking of how I define these terms. In my head, cooking involves heating something for the first time (i.e., not reheating something that was cooked previously). As such, I use "food prep" to also encompass chopping stuff up. And then I throw the word "batch" on if there will be a decent amount of leftovers. 

 

On 7/13/2022 at 5:49 PM, Harriet said:

what are these for, and are they delicious?

 

Gelatin (and collagen, which is similar to gelatin but doesn't become a gummy) have similar benefits to bone both - if I remember correctly, they have a different amino acid profile compared to muscle meat, and those amino acids are anti-inflammatory or gut healing or something like that. I just wanted a fun protein-based snack! You can add it to a lot of things - my favourite is probably ginger (the water from boiling ginger) + honey. The liquid just needs to be hot when gelatin is added to turn into a gummy. Here are some examples: https://mybigfatgrainfreelife.com/2016/09/21-great-gummy-snacks-paleo-aip-gaps-scd-refined-sugar-free.html. They don't need to be fruit-based, either - I used to make some out of pumpkin puree (+ coconut milk, if I remember correctly) - kinda like pumpkin pie. 

 

-----------

 

Week 0.1, Wednesday - Friday afternoon

 

🌅⬜☀️⬜🌔⬜⬜ [Training]

👣👣👣⬜👣👣⬜ [Walk]

💤💤💤💤💤⬜⬜ [Sleep]

🥬⬜🥗🍠⬜⬜⬜ [Food prep]

 

🌅 = morning session, ☀️ = afternoon session, 🌔 = evening session

 

We got an air fryer on Wednesday! I helped make the sweet potato fries and bok choy (latter on the stove). The salmon we made in the air fryer turned out really good. Fries weren't bad either for a first attempt, but we need to fine tune the process to get them all crispy.

 

Walks are going well this week - we've been exploring the paths near our house. There are lots of houses near most of them, but thanks to the trees and underbrush they feel much more rural. We stumbled across a mare and foal today!

 

My body is still adjusting to training, and I may need to fine-tune my recovery if I want to push harder. I didn't quite manage to hit my preferred training time yesterday, but I wasn't too late (started at 6:15 pm, almost as soon as I stopped working for the day).  

[Pyralis]

On 7/15/2022 at 9:25 PM, Alanna said:

We got an air fryer on Wednesday! I helped make the sweet potato fries and bok choy (latter on the stove). The salmon we made in the air fryer turned out really good. Fries weren't bad either for a first attempt, but we need to fine tune the process to get them all crispy.

 

My bf tried to get me invested in buying one but I just didn't see it. How is it different from an oven? The result, I mean. The only thing that would convince me is if that thing was able to more dry things with a temperature of ~42°C so they would still count as raw. 

[Alanna]

10 hours ago, Pyralis said:

My bf tried to get me invested in buying one but I just didn't see it. How is it different from an oven? The result, I mean. The only thing that would convince me is if that thing was possible to more dry things with a temperature of ~42°C so they would still count as raw. 

 

So our oven is not good (small gas oven), so we wanted an oven replacement until we can eventually re-do our kitchen! The air fryer results have definitely been better than our oven - we haven't been able to find an over temperature where fish actually cooks but doesn't partially burn. The air fryer is also a lot faster, which is nice - it's more convenient for same-day cooking. It also has other settings, like dehydrating, that we haven't experimented with yet. 

 

 

------------

 

Week 0.1 Recap

 

🌅⬜☀️⬜🌔⬜🌅 [Training]

👣👣👣⬜👣👣👣 [Walk]

💤💤💤💤💤💤⬜ [Sleep]

🥬⬜🥗🍠⬜⬜🧊 [Food prep]

 

Pretty good Week 0.1 - I think I was a little late for sleep one night, but not too bad. Haven't done too much this week yet - just surviving the UK heat wave.

[Sovalis]

I don't envy you that heat wave! 🥵

 

Sounds like you're having a productive and rejuvenating time. That's good! 😁

[Alanna]

On 7/21/2022 at 8:28 PM, Sovalis said:

I don't envy you that heat wave! 🥵

 

Sounds like you're having a productive and rejuvenating time. That's good! 😁

 

Well I was, and then that heat wave really knocked me off track 😅. Sleep, exercise, and energy levels definitely suffered. I'm getting back on track, though, and have gotten in a few walks and a couple of light training sessions since ~Thursday last week.

 

Quick challenge reflection: Having the flexibility to adjust goals from week-to-week works well, and jumping in and doing what I can is definitely better than nothing. Reflecting and readjusting every week is a bit much, however. 

 

I'm planning to post a new challenge soon - probably tomorrow or Wednesday. Just need to tweak a few goals based on this challenge!