Treedwelling druid

[thatgirljj]

Hey there Druids... I'm back! After a challenge where I went back over to the Assassins, felt totally swamped by the busy forum, and then totally failed at my goals, I'm coming back to the fold. I'm pretty much always going to be a Druid/Assassin hybrid, but I think the druids are a better place for me to do my challenges.

Quick intro: I'm jj.... aka the treedwelling assassin/druid. I train in circus arts, mostly aerial stuff (fabric & rope) hence the treedwelling bit, but I'm getting into some contortion recently. Otherwise, I'm a pretty normal working mom, I just turned 39 (ACK!) and I'm a major foodie.

1. Diet goal: Fail gracefully. Over the past few months life has been teaching me some lessons about failing gracefully and picking myself back up with minimal internal drama. While this is totally applicable to the big life things like marriage, parenting and work... I've been starting to realize that it really also applies to my eating. Especially over the holiday season. I am the queen of "baby out with the bathwater"... I screw up and I think to myself "Well, today is toast, I might as well eat some more junk before I start over tomorrow." Or sometimes I get all guilt-tripped and work myself into a stress ball and end up screwing up my eating even more because I'm upset. So my goal over this challenge period is to fail gracefully. I know I'm going to eat stuff I shouldn't... but my task is going to be to pick myself right back up where I left off, and quiet my internal monologue about how much I suck. Just get on with eating well again. No drama.

2. Fitness goal: Use my fitbit every day and try for a goal of 8000 steps a day. I'm going to be training as usual (2-3 times a week) and possibly even training for a holiday recital with my fabric partner. The fitbit goal is to make sure that I don't spend the other 22 hours a day sitting on my ass just because it's a bit chilly outside.

3. Fitness goal: Independent flexibility training 3 times a week. I've spent some time over the last week working out a new flexibility training routine for myself that supports my circus training (backbending & oversplits) and then adds on some things that I want to do on my own (yoga based frontbending).

4. Life goal: Have fun! I know this seems easy, but it's not. My group at work has a major grant due in early December and then over the holidays my mother-in-law is coming to stay with us for a week (her and I do not get along). My goal is to find time every week to talk to friends, take my son out for fun holiday things, and take alone time to relax. So each week, I need to check off one of each of those things: phone call or coffee with a good friend, an activity with my son (playdates and parties included) and 1 hour of relaxing time to myself.

I'm also participating in Steve's Level Up Club over the holidays and my first two goals are pretty much the same as what I'm pursuing over there.

-jj

(And as usual, I'm a wee bit too busy to work out my points today... will update with those later in the week.)

[Stareyedgirl]

Love your goals! Welcome back

[BambiKhan]

YAY! Love your circus goals! I'm just starting out in that myself! oh I'm so glad you're here so I can bombard you with questions!

Also, Kudos to failing gracefully. We all fall down. Its a matter of getting up with panache.

[livingroovy]

Yeay welcome back jj!!! We love you over here! Love your goals, especially the 'fail gracefully' goal. That is amazing. And so very druid-like of you. Can't wait to see you succeed!

[SpazzyMal]

Your life sounds fun, I'm gonna enjoy watching this!

[Wandern]

"training in the circus arts" that is just so cool. My favorite goal of yours is the Have Fun one - it is hard to remember to do that when everything gets so busy, and then the MIL shows up. But - at least she can watch the kids so you can get out for some "you" time!

[thatgirljj]

Thank you all for the welcomes.

BambiKhan I saw you're starting aerial stuff. If you have any questions or need encouragment, let me know!

livingroovy Yeah, I know, "failing gracefully" is as druid a goal as they come.

Goal wise today went well. I had a bean cake from a vietnamese co-worker and I didn't freak out about it, I just went on with my planned meals. But I resisted the break room carmel corn... because really, break room junk food is just never all that good (I just eat it anyway). I also got over 9000 steps on my fitbit, so that's a win there too.

Today I actually had contortion class, I've only been training at that level for about a month and it's a big step up in difficulty. It's starting to get easier and I've started feeling relaxed and loose after class rather than just feeling totally trashed. I also got in a little bit of time on silks in open workout... just enough to practice, but not a full workout.

-jj

[inara]

Oh no you ran away!

Haha our brains must be synced, 3 of our goals are kind of similar Looking forward to this!

[Erick the Red]

Failing gracefully is a wonderful goal. Since I fail less-than-gracefully more often than I want to admit, this is a useful skill to pick up.

[micmac]

I really like your goals, especially 1 and 4. I have yet to master failing gracefully with diet! I think making a goal to enjoy yourself is wonderful! It's so easy to get caught up in the negative.

[ScurvySpider]

A normal working mom into contortion... can't not love that. Love the goals, too, and that you can so cheerfully admit you "failed." It's a great idea to ponder -- extending the same graciousness to ourselves, that we wouldn't hesitate to offer other people.

[thatgirljj]

OK... points time... I'm not awarding myself any points for the last challenge because I frankly dropped the ball on it. So my points at the end of the previous challenge were: STR 6.5 | DEX 3.5 | STA 5.5 | CON 7 | WIS 7 | CHA 6

Diet goal - Fail gracefully: WIS 3 CHA 2

Measurement: I'm going to start myself off at 100% on this one, with the assumption that I will "fail" at eating perfectly all holidays. Failure is a given here, my goal is to practice doing it gracefully, over and over many times a week. For each time I fall WAAAAAY off the wagon and binge, I'll subtract 10%. (For a health condition I occasionally need rescue medication that screws up my appetite, so if I have to take it and have a day where I extremely overeat I'm only knocking off 5%... generally speaking my goal when on meds is to simply graze a lot on safer, low calorie foods until it wears off.)

Fitness goal - Fitbit 8000 steps per day. STA 1 CON 1

Measurement: Total steps over 6 week period/336000 = percentage completed.

Fitness goal - Flexibility training 3x a week. DEX 2 STA 1

Measurement: Count total workouts, divide by 18 = percentage completed.

Life goal - Have fun. CON 1 WIS 1 CHA 3

I have three areas in which I want to do a fun thing per week, so like the flexibility training my denominator should be 18 here. I'm going to be flexible here though, if I do two cool fun things with my kid one week, but don't have time for some fun alone time, that counts as 2. If my son wants to spend the entire week hanging with his Nana, but I get more time to go for coffee with friends, that counts as 2. I'm assuming that over the whole challenge period fun stuff will be distributed over the three areas.

-jj

[thatgirljj]

Challenge update:

Diet goal: Failed gracefully yesterday. For sure. There were breakroom doughnuts in my favorite flavor so I had half of one. And then a box of my co-worker's halloween nerds. And then an unexpected change in my schedule had me skipping my planned healthy afternoon snack, so by dinner time I was starving... so what did I do? I had a couple of handfuls of raw cashews (probably too large on the portion size, but at least a healthy choice), and then my planned proper dinner and then I stopped eating after dinner! Without mentally bashing myself or anything.

Fitbit goal: Totally forgot to wear it yesterday. Boo. It's hard on days when I wear a dress to work... I always forget to clip it to my bra.

Flexibility goal: Trained last night. Trained really well actually. Yay.

Have fun goal: Ugh. Did not do at all yet this week. Yesterday I was supposed to have some time off in the afternoon to read Dance With Dragons, but I ended up with two unexpected work meetings. My time off was postponed for today... so I'll get in some alone time today at least... if I can resist the need to clean all the things. Saturday is a birthday party for one of my son's friends, so that's a fun thing for him & me... should get me up to two for the week.

-jj

[BambiKhan]

Is half a doughnut a fail? Its a matter of...Is this doughnut half in me, or is the WHOLE doughnut in me? I count a win. ( I get so much crap for taking half doughnuts! bossy always asks "who took half a doughnut?" like I havent been doing it for three years.) just have some protein with it! It'll level out your GI a bit.

Don't forget to eat! You can't be awesome without fuel in the tank. Portion those cashews out and keep some in your (desk? purse?) and trader joes has freeze dried mango chips, which are sweet tart crunchies, Nom.

[micmac]

Flexibility goal: Trained last night. Trained really well actually. Yay.

That's great! Glad you had a good training session!

Have fun goal: Ugh. Did not do at all yet this week. Yesterday I was supposed to have some time off in the afternoon to read Dance With Dragons, but I ended up with two unexpected work meetings. My time off was postponed for today... so I'll get in some alone time today at least... if I can resist the need to clean all the things. Saturday is a birthday party for one of my son's friends, so that's a fun thing for him & me... should get me up to two for the week.

Oh no! I was really looking forward to following your "have fun" progress, especially since that is something I need to learn to do. I hope you fnd time to make yourself a priority and enjoy this week!

[thatgirljj]

Is half a doughnut a fail?

Yes and no. It kind of gets to the heart of what "fail gracefully" means to me. Half a doughnut alone isn't a fail.. But half a doughnut + leftover halloween candy + missing a planned healthy snack does add up to a fail for me, because that's exactly the kind of equation that leads to me throwing up my hands and saying "fuck it, today is screwed I might as well follow dinner with a bag of potato chips and start over tomorrow!" To be able to pull out of that spiral, put a stop to things and get on with healthy eating... that's what I mean by "fail gracefully"... to be able to take some small failures and move on constructively.

And you guys will be happy to know that fun was had in spades last weekend...

1) Time with my son = his friend's little brother's birthday party. There were cupcakes and kicking adults out of the big kids playroom. :-)

2) I did finally get some time to myself with Dance With Dragons. Yay... I'm nearly finished, just another hundred-ish pages until I join the hordes willing G. R. R. Martin on to finishing the series already.

3) My "with friends" fun kept getting cancelled on me. But I ended up spending some time having coffee with a few circus friends before class AND I got to do doubles aerial which I'm going to count as fun because I sooooo love working with my doubles partner. It's really one of my favorite things to do right now, and I'm bummed she's going to be in Peru for the next week and a half.

So far, I'm rocking on my having fun goal, my failing gracefully goal and my flexibility training goal. However I'm really sucking on my fitbit.

8000 steps is no problem for me in the summer, but I find that I'm having a VERY hard time getting that much walking in when it gets dark early and is intermittently raining. So, I need to start brainstorming solutions to getting my steps up. I pulled out my wii fit and did some of the cardio stuff on that, but it really doesn't add a lot of steps to my daily total (especially for the amount of time it sucks up). Since I do plenty of bodyweight training, I need to do something low intensity like walking, but I'm not sure how to build it into my day in the winter.

-jj

[thatgirljj]

Ahoy there fellow druids! How was thanksgiving for everyone?

Mine went OK. It wasn't as much of an exercise in failing gracefully as I would have thought. I actually did pretty well, I only had small spoonfulls of the bad-for-me sides, ate decent quantities of the good-for-me stuff and focused on saving room for my mom's amazing pie. The next day was decidedly LESS graceful, when I fell face first into leftover pie my mom insisted on sending home with me. The rest of the weekend has been an exercise in failing somewhat gracefully... not making the most awesome eating choices, but getting plenty of exercise.

Diet goal, I'm going to give myself the -10 this week, for having two pieces of leftover pie in one day and then sharing onion rings with a friend that same afternoon... in addition to all my normal meals. That was the bad day.

Fitbit goal: Been wearing it every day and my average steps day for the whole week is 9000. Yay! I got a Zumba game for my Wii and while it's not the worlds greatest workout, it's a decently entertaining add-on for the days I'm falling behind.

Stretching goal: 2/3 this week.

Fun goal: Fun was had!!! A rare night out a dance club with my best friend. Lots of fun time with my son, including a couple of trips to go run the high school track. And I carved out a little time for myself, though not as much as I would have liked.

-jj

[Chanda]

Like everyone else, I love the "failing gracefully" goal. Thank you for giving a name to what I am kinda doing myself. I keep telling myself its not about how poorly I have done/or not done something, its about what I do next.

Remembering to have fun as a working mum is so important and so easily forgotten. Great life goal!

Sounds like you are doing great. And I am glad you came back the the Druids! Looking forward to seeing how well you do!