Monk puts on her Gi, equips a staff and steps on the trail. Let the journey begin.

[monk]

Motivation and introduction:
I am Monk, a Jedi philosophically and religiously. I can't do my Jedi duty of defending the weak and making change in the world when my body not mind are not in good shape. I must be smarter, stronger, and able to blend in (by being your average woman) and yet being able to have the charisma (via attractiveness) to perform "Jedi mind tricks" and coerce as needed.

Main quest: lose 25lbs by end of December and be unafraid and confident enough to attend a martial arts class next year

Quest 1: workout 4 days a week minimum. 2 strength days,1 heavy cardio 45 min session, 1 interval walking day.
A= 4 days B=3 days C=2 days
A: +3 str,+2sta +3 dex. B: +2str,+l sta, +2 dex. C: +1str, +.05 Sta, +1 dex.

Quest 2: Eat the Correct portion of foods and include 1 Cheat meal for myself per week,and don't freak out over measurements.
A= 1 Cheat meal B= 2 cheat meals C= 3 cheat meals
A: + 3 wiz, +2 con. B: +2 WIZ, +l con. C: +1 WIZ, +.05 con.

Quest 3 : meditate 3 times a week for at least 10 minutes.
A= 3 times B= 2 times C= once
A: + 3 wiz, + 2 WIZ, + l wiz B: +2 WIZ C: +1 wiz

[monk]

Day 1. There's 2 things I think people might glomp on to here.

1. Cheat meals. I'm paleo, previously ketogenic. That means I had 25g of cardio a day, and I was very VERY strict about that. Previously I was just paleo and lost my first 85 lbs. I didn't count anything. I worked out (similar to what I'm doing now but more weights), walked, and let go of stress. I adopted what I thought was meditation (which was close just not exactly). Then after I injured my shoulder I discovered ketosis which was supposed to make you lose faster. So I did that and went down to 205. Then I re injured my shoulder and then got into an accident and weight came back on. Ketosos no matter what I did would keep me at 250. So I decided screw it I'm going back to paleo again. Maybe I'll try it again but I'm back to square one. I say all that because in regular paleo, some people say you should go 80/20. I didn't before, I was 100%. But I think that I will go 90/10. The reason for this is because of the one cheat meal I want.

See I have a problem with sushi. I could eat it every day for as long as I live. Tuna or salmon with avocado and cucumber and cream cheese o m g. But sushi isn't paleo. I love Japanese food so much (especially the sushi) but it's not paleo. So I'm going to just go ahead and allow myself to have either stir fry that I make with the gluten free healthy stir fry sauce I found or sushi twice a month. I hope it won't kill my weight loss but we will see.

Second thing people may glomp on to is yes I am a Jedi. I've had people look at me strange when I say it but I don't believe I'm a character in a fictional story that wields a lightsaber (I would if I could). I am a defender of justice, I bring knowledge where there is ignorance. I want to protect those who can't protect themselves. I believe the essence of all things flows through me and I try to be at peace and be the best I can to everyone regardless of their background or their beliefs. If that makes me a crazy person than so be it. Honestly it makes me feel more like I'm a knight of old but meh. I don't think I'll get that much flack here as we nerds and geeks tend to think outside the box anyway, but it's part of my motivation to be better and to be real to myself.

Now on to regular posting stuff.

I worked out this morning, doing the regular basic workout this morning plus some I got from the fitness trainer which includes 30 standing crunches, 15 wall pushups which are better on my poor healing shoulder, and a 30 second wall squat. I had tried to keep workouts quick and under 30 mins as I do them before getting ready for work but I keep finding crap I want to do. Going to have to try to maybe do a tabata or 2 instead.

Saturdays are dance central day, since I've got the house to myself in the mornings and can throw my fat hips all over the living room without embarrassment. Plus it's fun and I have literally played the game for 3 hours before without stopping until xbox was like "no really go sit down we don't want to get sued for you dying by dance". Those warnings it gives you are funny.

As far as food I was late today so I skipped breakfast. That's no big deal since as I'm paleo I don't care too much about the hunger feeling. Don't get cranky or anything anymore, I just feel the hunger pang, say oh Yea I haven't eaten yet, and go on about my day.

But for lunch I had a salad with baked chicken and 3 tbsp of olive oil. Dinner will be turkey with asparagus.

Final note on paleo vs ketosos. I haven't enjoyed asparagus and carrots so much as I have now. While in ketosis fruit and sweet veggies was a no no so I had my first set of blackberries not too long ago. Were delightful. Carrots and asparagus both who have sugar and some carbs were also off the menu and I went and had some. Glorious. I almost feel like I'm cheating. By eating vegetables!

My next post won't be so long I promise. Just wanted to get stuff out.

Here's the TLDR:

Going from paleo to ketosis back to paleo again, slight obsession with sushi and Japanese food but I'll allow it now.

I'm a Jedi and no I'm not cray cray.

Workouts getting long may need tabata.

Ate carrots, blueberries and asparagus, felt bad because keto brain says they are bad.

[Teirin]

Hello Monk!  Welcome to NerdFitness!   We totally like Jedi around here.  I'm one of the Guild Ambassadors from the Monk's guild.  You mention that you're working up to joining a martial arts class and, well your name is Monk, you sound like you may be interested in joining us :-)  If you like, drop by the Monk's Courtyard and say hi to everyone.  If you need any help or have any questions, please let us know! 

 

If you are interested in the lightsaber stuff too, Oramac is involved in the TPLA (Terra Prime Lightsaber Academy).

 

Your current workouts are pretty Assassin-y so the Assassins and Blaidd, who watches out for all of the new people around here, will also be by shortly to say Hi.

 

Once again, welcome!

[y.werin]

Hello. Your write up seems rather awesome. Also, monks are full of win!

[Lou_be_Lou]

I'm loving the idea of asparagus and carrots and blueberries feeling like cheat foods!  They are tasty and delicious and full of nutrients so go on - eat them again!

 

Go MONKS!

 

Have you found the martial arts club you want to join? 

[monk]

There's a Wing Chun dojo that's about 20 mins away from here, which is good as everything is 20 mins away from me so that's a normal timeframe to drive to get somewhere. It's $100 a month which is a bit much for me but I'm willing to do it anyway.I'm going to look at it either Wednesday or Thursday to take a look and see what classes are like.

[Teirin]

Hope it's a great club!  If you talk to the instructor (Wing Chun has a Sifu?), they may be able to give you some direction on home training that would support your classes.  Good luck!

 

There are weekly mini-challenges here that you may be interested in trying :-)

[monk]

Week 1 is over. I did good by working out 3 times but I wasn't able to do my cardio as I had family down for my birthday on Saturday. But I also did bad by looking at the scale. I gained 2 pounds. I realize that it's probably due to a lot of things but that didn't stop me from being depressed and feeling like nothing I do is going to work. I had salmon and veggies last nignt, felt guilty about the Brussel sprouts since they are high in carbs. Dealing with switching back to paleo from a strict ketosis diet is stressful and scary. I hope the switch doesn't make me gain fat before I see any type of loss.

Anyway discouraged as I am I go on. I worked out this morning but will do another set tomorrow morning.

[Teirin]

Happy (belated) Birthday!  Fitness is all about the long term commitment and habit-building.  Try not to stress. 

 

Brussels sprouts are yummy, hope you get used top paleo again soon.  So many good recipes!

[monk]

Thanks Teirin. I am feeling slightly better. My weight has stayed at the spot it was before, regardless of me working out this week like I did last week. My calories have stayed around 1900, I have increased the carbs to about 70 (blasphemy!) and I'm waiting for the body to catch up. I feel like I've lost weight in certain places, they feel smaller they look smaller, but the weight stays the same. My muscles seem to feel like it takes less effort to use, like they are stronger but I don't really  know if that's true or just wishful thinking. Either way I guess I'll find out something at the end of this. I need to take more measurements I think.

 

As far as food is concerned, I have been eating the following:

 

Breakfast either:

• chicken soup (home made, chicken breast, celery, carrots, broth, onions)
• or 2 eggs, 3 uncured bacon, sausage patty
• plus decaf coffee with 2tbsp of coconut oil in it for the fats

 

Lunch

• lettuce leaves with turkey breast, real mayo, tomatoes and cucumbers
• salad with chicken, tomato, olive oil, ranch

Dinner

• chicken soup
• baked salmon with brussell sprouts or broccoli and cauliflower

Snacks

• Dark chocolate bar and almonds
• Occasional Quest bar
• Blueberries during the day

 

That's about it. Totaling around 1900 calories. Trying to increase my fats, the coconut oil helps with that during the day. I can't do too much fat right now or my kidneys fuss at me but I know I need more than what you'd get with what I'm eating so the 2 tbsp is good for now.  I'm still doing the bodyweight exercises 2-3 times a week, I'm not up to 3 reps yet as the time factor kicks in. I want to add weights to make it harder, as in my mind if I'm not half dead and can't move a muscle without pain by the time I'm done I'm not doing it well enough, but I've been told to stop that.

 

OH last week on my birthday I had fish and chips with a paleo cake (coconut flour and cream cheese frosting) and lactose free ice cream (17 carbs imagine that) as my cheat meal, but I also had some sushi and sashimi. Yum.

[Teirin]

Your food looks great and that is a good birthday meal!

 

No, you do not need to be broken at the end of a workout to improve.  Slow and steady progress.

[monk]

So last week I did 3 again, and eating as normal. However I lost my mind. See, I have 2 cats and much like normal cats some times they go insane and run throughout the house like they're cray. My idiot self also decided to go insane and chase them as they do this. Much like those cat videos you see where they try to jump up on something but miss, I was running through the living room and the carpet is on top of a hardwood floor, it's just a throw rug really. I slip on that while rounding a corner and tumble on my left knee into the wall, and I land facing the ceiling with two cats looking at me and if they were capable of laughing I know they would.

Either way I hurt my knee. It's getting better but squats are a no. I can barely walk lol. So now I have to find upper body work to do and have to leave the lower body alone for a bit while my knee heals. It's better after 2 days but I tried to take a walk and no.

Good news is that I lost 2 pounds. Oh yes. My costocondritis (Costochondritis is an inflammation of a rib or the cartilage connecting a rib. It is a common cause of chest pain) is kicking in again. Chest pains from the increase of working out. I'm working through the pain but there is surely pain. Doctor says I will continually have it throughout my life but I refuse to just not workout due to it.

Edit: 2pm. Just ate 3 cookies. I seem to have made myself so freaked out over my job, the fact that I thought I lost my ring, and to top it off the soup we made was so spicy my bowels are on fire that I got upset went downstairs and got 3 cookies and a salad.

Dkp minus 100 for the week.

[SevenFootGeek]

Greetings prospective Monk-in-training!

 

Blaidd may have you guys hopping with your introductory mini-challenges to help you organize your goals and get you used to life in the Rebellion.  But we monks are a social bunch and we need your help.  Yes, you young go-getter!

 

Part of the Monk's Week 3 mini-challenge is to list one thing you are thankful for.  That sounds fairly normal for this time of year, but we are nerds and we have to nerd it up.  Each Monk (or Monk-in-training) is recording what number he or she falls at in the record of posting and uses the corresponding letter of the alphabet to give thanks.  

 

To give you an idea, here's what I wrote.

 

SevenFootGeek:  6

 

F - I am thankful for my Friends, who are the family I wasn't born with.

 

Help us fill out the entire alphabet!  And if we get all the way to Z, let's loop back around again!

[Teirin]

Oh grief, my cats try that on me too.  Hope you're feeling better in knee and ribs, and also in stress levels. 

[monk]

Last week was crap. I get a D. I worked out once, tried to continue with squats and my knee said newp. So then I failed even harder and ate an entire sweet potato pie in 4 days. Shame on me. Now I'm doing quest bars to kick myself off sugar (using them to quell the late night need a piece of pie but omg I can't I want something RAWRFACE) and I'm looking to find out what exercises I can do now with this stupid knee. It's much better but still hurts after a lot of movement. I'm going to drop the squats down to 2 sets of 10, slowly as to try to get some strength in it, and increase my pushups, lifting and plank. I hope that's a good enought job to keep me from gaining.

Oh also for food my thanksgiving is never really crazy. I had turkey, yams, green beans, collards, and mashed potatoes. Aside from the mashed potatoes and the sweet potato pie I did well. Never ate till I exploded either, just normal portions.

Tomorrow I try the bike.

[Blaidd]

we all have sucky weeks (and some of us even find those sucky weeks coincide with week 3 of the NF challenges, dunno why, lol), but looks like you didn't do too badly at Thanksgiving.  I have two pieces of advice for you:

 

Cutting sugar is hard, so you can either go cold turkey or you can ween yourself off of it (seems you're attempting the weening process).  If you are weening, then start small, like having some cooked apple with crushed nuts and cinnamon instead of pie.  It's a healthier option and should hopefully have the same/similar results.  Just throw the pie out (or give it to a homeless person, if you don't want to waste - they'd appreciate it too and you'd feel good). I'm learning to cut sugar by slowly cutting my carbs - i was averaging 180gr per day and I am currently down to 160gr per day.  This is not particularly good, but it's all heading in the right direction.  You also start finding yourself weighing good carbs against bad carbs and refuse to waste your carbs on crappy things (I'd personally rather have a cup of rice with my dinner than a packet of crisps as a snack these days).

 

For your knee, I would stay away from the bike - it will aggravate your knee (I'm a cyclist, I know ) - rather use the eliptical.  There is less impact on the knee.  Does your gym have an indoor pool (preferably heated, as you're heading into winter if i'm not mistaken)?  If so, then I would look into exercises that you can do in the pool.  The pool offers a little resistance against gravity and certainly does relieve some of the pressure in your knees.

 

Good luck.

[Teirin]

Would something like this help with the pie cravings?  2 minute pumpkin pie.  You could skip the sweetener or use a bit of stevia (if that's ok for you).  Mashed sweet potato also tends to work on place of pumpkin.  I have never bothered with the icing side of it. 

 

*qualifier: a lot of the other recipes in that series really aren't great. 

[monk]

I have failed at quest #2. And #1. I think the pie I had at thanksgiving and the injury has screwed me. I have stepped on the scale and gained weight. My entire weekend, ruined. Depressed beyond belief. I don't even think if I refused to eat at all I would lose anything by the end of December. I'm very very close to saying screw it. I knew not being so restrickier was a bad thing, I knew that I needed to continue to monitor my portions by the ounce and punish myself for doing anything else. Why I thought I could get away with anything that wasn't that is beyond me but I'm paying for it now.

I won't make that mistake again.

[Blaidd]

Ok firstly, you shouldn't base your happiness on what your scale tells you.  It's a bladdy liar.  The worst of the tricksters there are.  Weight is literally our mass in relation to gravity, so yes our body mass has something play in the scale, but so does gravity.  You could weigh more today because of water retention, or where the moon is in the sky, or where you are in your menstrual cycle.  Another thing to remember is that fat weighs less than muscle, so if you're picking up muscle faster than you're losing fat you are going to weigh more on the scale.  See it's a tricksy little bastard. Stop wasting your time with the scale.  Maybe you should rather measure inches/centimetres and only do it once a month.

 

Secondly measuring every single little grain of salt, sugar, gram etc and then punishing yourself if you don't meet it, is really not all that healthy. You're creating a negative (associated) mindset regarding food. The same associations are probably what is contributing to the depression too.  Is there possibly another way to go about it that doesn't have negative associations? That would make you feel better about a small set back (because really, that's all it is).

[monk]

Ok firstly, you shouldn't base your happiness on what your scale tells you.  It's a bladdy liar.  The worst of the tricksters there are.  Weight is literally our mass in relation to gravity, so yes our body mass has something play in the scale, but so does gravity.  You could weigh more today because of water retention, or where the moon is in the sky, or where you are in your menstrual cycle.  Another thing to remember is that fat weighs less than muscle, so if you're picking up muscle faster than you're losing fat you are going to weigh more on the scale.  See it's a tricksy little bastard. Stop wasting your time with the scale.  Maybe you should rather measure inches/centimetres and only do it once a month.

 

Secondly measuring every single little grain of salt, sugar, gram etc and then punishing yourself if you don't meet it, is really not all that healthy. You're creating a negative (associated) mindset regarding food. The same associations are probably what is contributing to the depression too.  Is there possibly another way to go about it that doesn't have negative associations? That would make you feel better about a small set back (because really, that's all it is).

 

I don't know, I'm so angry at myself right now. I'm trying to convince myself that it's due to the fact that yes I am still trying to workout (just feels less intense without the squats) so I still have muscle forming, and my body is transitioning from being so restrictive in a ketogenic diet to being not restrictive with a regular paleo diet. The convincing is not working, but I'm trying. I haven't taken Jedi Mind Trick 101 yet. I'm still pretty sure there won't be any significant weight loss by Dec. 21st, which makes me a sad panda, but I guess it is what it is.

 

 

Thanks for the recipe, Teirin, it looks pretty good, I think I'll give it a shot. Posting it here so I can find it quickly:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup pumpkin puree

1/4 cup egg whites (from an egg or carton)

Sweetener

Cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice

Directions:


Mix together all ingredients. If you prefer a flan-like texture, add more pumpkin; if you prefer a cake-like texture, add more egg whites. Microwave for 2 minutes. Use a mix of Greek yogurt, hazelnut cream cheese, and pumpkin pie spice for icing. Top with toasted pecans.

Makes one serving.

[Blaidd]

maybe you need to find a middle ground between the ketogenesis and paleo.  Perhaps you can have a slightly more restrictive paleo (have you tried Whole30 - it's pretty restrictive version of paleo, but not quite ketogenic yet).

[Teirin]

Hey, no giving up!  This is a learning process.  Blaidd's suggestions about pitching the scale and using measurements instead is a good one.  The scale number isn't everything.  I bet your meaurements are going down.  You are working out and that builds muscle.  You are making improvements.

[monk]

I guess I give this whole30 thing a shot. I need to be more restrictive than paleo alone but going back to keto only will keep me stagnant. Granted staying at 250lbs is a lot better than being 260lbs. Yes yes the scale again. I know but the number is important. It's part 1 of 3 things that are the basis of my worth on this planet and it has to be low as possible before I'm 50 and nobody cares anymore.

[Teirin]

Whole 30 has some great recipes.  Everyone works a little differently.  It may take some time to find what works for you but you will!  Keep building good habits.

[monk]

Today was such a crap day, emotionally. Job being stupid. So stupid in fact that I lost my appetite for most of the day. I ended up eating:

 

1 egg, 2 bacon 2oz sausage

 

no lunch

 

4 oz chicken breast + cup of collards and some carrots for dinner

 

Then, I had some wine. I don't remember how much wine I had...I'm still really coming off the tipsiness of it... but I remember shoving a KIND bar in my face maybe 2.  If I add that up in my handy dandy MyFItnessPal app, I had 1211 calories for the day (with 6.5 oz of chardonnay...was probably a lot more but I don't remember) 69 carbs (FTMFL.....want under 50...and GOOD carbs ...stupid wonderful KIND bars I don't even know where I got them from it's amazing what you find when you're drunk...) and 67 proteins. Only 73 fats.  

 

I did workout this morning, I spoke with the personal trainer at the jobby job and he gave me some things to do to alter the movements for the beginner bodyweight workout so I'm back to doing that. I also got some resistance bands yesterday and I plan on adding some more exercises with it.  I did try the elipitcal (however you spell it) and my knee did well so I'm going to be doing that again tomorrow. My gym is a work gym which isn't open on Saturdays so I'm not sure what I"m going to be doing that day for cardio since I don't think this knee is up to dancing quite yet. I might try the bike just to give it a shot, not go far just around the block. Maybe just turn that into a pilates day until I feel stable enough to shake my groove thing in front of the XBOX again.

 

Anyway, even thoiugh i"m hungry, which I think is understandable at 1211 calories for the day I"m just going to go to bed. I need to sleep the crap of the day and the alcohol off.