faille's Post-30 Challenge

[faille]

 

 

 

Food

I sat out last challenge in order to dedicate all of my willpower to my Whole 30.  And I rocked it!  Lost 10 pounds, many inches, felt great, was able to stop my acne medication without my face going totally insane.. it was overall a really positive thing for me.

 

And then.. I went back to the way I was eating before.  

 

The two things that contributed most to my Whole30 success was my meal planning and bulk cooking.  Before I started, I had every single meal planned out from Day 1 to Day 30.  On Saturdays I shopped, and Sundays I cooked.

 

Eventually I would like to get to a place where I eat out twice a week for lunch, bring lunch the rest of the time, and eat my dinners Whole30.  For this challenge, I am going to focus on the dinner part.

• Cook 1 bulk meal per week for dinner and freeze it.  A meals qualifies as bulk if it is 4 servings or more.  Those of you familiar with math will see that 4*6 != 42, which is how many days are in this challenge.  HOWEVER, that will still be 4 more meals a week than I otherwise cooked during February. Going back to babysteps, here!

 

(Not my freezer... I wish!)

 

 

Fitness

My friend peer pressured me into signing up for the Carlsbad 5000 5k again this year.  I'm a very slow and sporadic runner, yet I always find myself signing up for these 5ks.  The Carlsbad race is known for being one of the 'fastest' in the world.  Last year I was so slow they ended up blocking me and the other stragglers while the waited for the next wave to start the race (I blame their poorly designed course where the start and finish overlap).  My time was 45:31

 

The race is on March 28th, so I have about a month to "prepare".

 

Previous goals during challenges when I do 5ks have been beat my previous time and finish without walking.  There's nothing wrong with these goals per-se, other than I failed them both times I tried!  So this time I'm not going to set any official expectations for my race.  This time, I just want to remain active leading up to the race.

• Work out 3 times per week.  I recently joined this fitness club called Fitn, which lets you take classes from lots of places all over San Diego county.  It isn't cheap, but it costs as much as the gym across the street from my work.  So, I figured it was a good buy so long as I get my use out of it.  So I will take 3 FITN classes a week.  Options include trampoline, aerial silks, more yoga than you can shake a stick at, spin... really so much variety.

 

 

Mental 

I feel better when I make things.  I also like to make things for people.  A couple challenges ago I made a Rainbow Brite doll for Bekah.  Now for my next challenges, I am going to make the rest of the Rainbow Brite friends.

• Complete one of the Rainbow Brite Friends

 

Life

CLUTTER OMG EVERYWHERE.  I joke that I'm half a hoarder, and that's not even really a joke.  I have piles everywhere.. my computer area, my craft room, my bedroom... it seems like everytime I start to make some headway, it all piles up again and it gets so overwhelming.  I will start with laundry, because clean clothes are good.

 

• 1 Laundry related thing every day: Sort, Washer, Dryer, Remove from Dryer and back in my room, Fold, Put Away.  Even if I do only one of these menial tasks every day, that would be 7 loads of laundry in 6 weeks.  Which about 5 more than I usually accomplish.  I don't even have to COMPLETE the thing, just make some honest attempt at it.

 

 

So, that's it for this go round!  I'll post my grading later this week.

 

[faille]

Food

Cook one bulk meal and freeze it per week.

 

Grading: 0 = F, 1 = D, 2 = C, 3 = B, 4-5 = A, 6 = A+

           

Week 1     Loaded Turkey Stuffed Twice-Baked Sweet Potatoes (6 total servings)

Week 2     No

Week 3     No --- uuuggggggh   it's seriously one meal a week why can't I do this!

Week 4     No

Week 5     No

Week 6     .

 

Fitness

Exercise 3x a week

 

Grading: By Week, with final rating to be averaged at the end

1 per week = C, 2 per week = B, 3 per week = A

 

           1  2  3

Week 1     F  Sa Su -- Pilates Fix, Dog Walk Class, Hot Yoga L1

Week 2     Sa YC .  -- Did a hike on Sat with my dog, and 4/7 days of a 14 day Yoga Shred challenge

Week 3     Su .  .  -- 5k walk around Lake Poway with my dogs

Week 4     .  .  Su -- Walk with my parents

Week 5     T  Su .  -- Walk with my parents, Carlsbad 5k race, time around 44 minutes

Week 6     .  .  .

 

Mental

Finish one of Bekah's Rainbow Brite dolls.  Intent is to do something related to this task every week

 

Grading: Completion - Yes or No

           

Week 1     Organized and purchased remaining needed colors

Week 2     Completed the first arm of the Blue Brite, and sewed the muslin for the Red Sonja gloves.

Week 3     Finished the gloves for my friend's Red Sonja costume.

Week 4     Finished second arm for Blue Brite

Week 5     Finished the leg bands for Red Sonja and worked on the head for Blue Brite

Week 6     .

 

Life

Something Laundry Related every day

 

Grading: Standard Scale out of 42

21 - F, 25 - D, 29 - C, 33 - B, 37 - A, 42 - A+

 

Key: (S)ort, (W)ash, (D)ry, ( R)emove, (F)old, (P)ut away, (G)ive/throw away

 

           M T W R F S S

Week 1     S W D R F F P  -- Took 3 days to fold and put away, but that normally takes me like 2 weeks so WIN

Week 2     W D S F P W .  -- Load of delicates finished.  Darks dried/removed by BF but I still need to F/P

Week 3     . F F F F . F  -- Taking my sweet ass time putting this load away.

Week 4     . . . . . . .

Week 5     . . . . . W D  -- Started a load over the weekend

Week 6     . . . . . . .

[Nusuth]

On Saturdays I shopped, and Sundays I cooked.

 

Recipe for success.

 

My friend peer pressured me into signing up for the Carlsbad 5000 5k again this year.  I'm a very slow and sporadic runner, yet I always find myself signing up for these 5ks.  The Carlsbad race is known for being one of the 'fastest' in the world.

Especially after the guest-blog post on NF last week I cant help myself thinking : Is that really the place you want to be next month ?

 

 

1 Laundry related thing every day:

 

From my personal experience i can say this helps.  I myself have to go out to a washing place.  preparing the bag a day on advance can do wonders.

 

 

wish you all the best on your challenge!

[Bekah]

[Ahyar Dreamspark]

WELCOME BAAAAAACK!

 

Congrats on the Whole 30 and the weight/inches loss victories!

 

Argh, I hear you with the laundry thing. Our washer is still broken, and we're only getting the new one Wednesday. I am just about to run out of clothes completely and it's a fucking disaster lol.

[faille]

Especially after the guest-blog post on NF last week I cant help myself thinking : Is that really the place you want to be next month ?

 

This is a good point and I thought about this today.  It is one of the reasons my goal is general fitness related and not running related.  I do love the atmosphere at 5k runs, and how I feel after.  Plus having a drink with my friends after.  So it is more of a social event than a personal best type event for me.  Part of my problem with running is my cardio endurance is never there, and I don't enjoy running enough to gain endurance that way.  So hopefully focusing on just MOVING  3x a week will help!

 

 

I was wondering when you were gonna show up

You know what works now, and that my dear, is a win!

I was all O.o about the math

and that freezer! I WISH!

You can do it! (will be back with appropriate gifs later)

I'm fucking peanut butter and jealous, just sayin'

Congratulations Faille! You just won the award for best ever mental health challenge goal!!! *the nerds go wild cheering*

FYI, I am nowher close to a hoarder and I have many many many piles! Like everywhere! I always thought it was ADHD related, don't tell me I'm just a latent hoarder!!! lol!

the gifs in this post

 

Epic reply!   You need to teach me how to reply to each portion of a post like that!  And I had a feeling you would like my mental challenge this time around

 

 

WELCOME BAAAAAACK!

 

Congrats on the Whole 30 and the weight/inches loss victories!

 

Argh, I hear you with the laundry thing. Our washer is still broken, and we're only getting the new one Wednesday. I am just about to run out of clothes completely and it's a fucking disaster lol.

 

Hiiiii!  Oooh at least you are getting a new washer.  That means because it is new and shiny, you will be motivated to do laundry for a little bit because new and shiny is fun.  You didn't happen to get one of those new models that washes, dries, folds, and puts away for you, did you?  As if...

[Bekah]

Epic reply! You need to teach me how to reply to each portion of a post like that! And I had a feeling you would like my mental challenge this time around

you hit "quote" on whatever post you want to do that with, then the very first part looks like this:

[ quote name="faille" post="1392009" timestamp="1424749863" ]

(no space before or after the bracket)

and then you copy that bit and paste it before each part you want to quote and then type at the end of each part.

[faille]

[Bekah]

I was just thinking yesterday before I read this thread "I can't wait for the others but I'm NOT rushing her bc it's too awesome and I don't want her to feel bad bc I'm an impatient spaz! (At Walmart) Oh look that's the yarn, $100 should buy enough" lolololol (can you tell I have no idea how much it actually takes?)

[faille]

Doing good so far.  Haven't fallen behind although i do have to do my exercise for the next 3 days.  oops!

 

For my mental challenge, I spent the last couple days looking for the yarn I need to make the dolls.  I think I am getting close... what do you think Bekah?  The colors all look different in person than in natural light than in my house lighting... I am most confident about the Red, Purple, and Blue guys, so if you have a preference of those three let me know

 

 

[Bekah]

Doing good so far. Haven't fallen behind although i do have to do my exercise for the next 3 days. oops!

For my mental challenge, I spent the last couple days looking for the yarn I need to make the dolls. I think I am getting close... what do you think Bekah? The colors all look different in person than in natural light than in my house lighting... I am most confident about the Red, Purple, and Blue guys, so if you have a preference of those three let me know

the image isnt showing up, and maybe the blue one first...to motivate me to workout (being that he is all fitness-y! lol) but really whatever you want is fine

[faille]

I think I fixed the image.

 

Just did my Pilates Fix video from my Beachbody 21 Day Fix program.  Tomorrow I am doing a dog walk with Leash Your Fitness, and Sunday I am going to find a yoga class to join.

 

Laundry is happening, even if it is the bare minimum.  The load of laundry that I dried wednesday was put into the hamper and back into my room yesterday, and I folded and put away 10 items (underwear and socks count individually of course!) today, and I'm going to try to put some more away as i putter around tonight.

 

For food, this weekend I am going to either make a bunch of turkey burgers or try the curry sweet potatoes that went out on the site this week.

 

go go gadget progress!

[Bekah]

I think those colors all look good

[faille]

Week 1 finished!

 

Today I made Loaded Turkey Stuffed Twice-Baked Sweet Potatoes for my bulk meal.  I doubled the recipe and used 2lb ground turkey.  Instead of baking the potatoes ahead of time, I will just nuke one on the days I want it and mix it in after, so it is more like a casserole.  The hot sauce gives this a really nice kick and I LOVE this meal.  It made about 6 servings total, I ate one tonight, gave one to my boyfriend, so I have four in the freezer for this week.

 

I also went to my first HOT Yoga class today.  Most of my yoga has been at home using Beach Body videos or through Do You Yoga.  It was sort of intimidating to do a class full of what looked like very fit people.  The class was super busy probably because it was raining out so everyone came to class instead of going outside.  I didn't know it was possible for me to SWEAT that much.  It was rollllling down my body.  The room was HOT!  But overall I survived and it was a good class and I felt great after.  I knew almost all of the moves so it was pretty easy to follow the instructor's directions.  He corrected me on one move and god bless him for that - I don't know why he would want to touch ANY of us the way we were sweating  Next time I go I will show up much earlier so I can steal a spot in the back of the room instead of right up front.  I tried to do a warm barre class in January during my whole30 and I got dizzy and had to leave about 25 minutes in.  So it was a small victory for me to make it all the way through this class without having to step out or feeling like I was going to pass out.  Yay fitness!

 

Laundry.. well... I did the bare minimum required every day, and that is just the way it is going to be.  It took me 4 days to fully put away my laundry this week, including the day where all I did was take it out of the dryer and put it in my room.  But that is still about 1-2 weeks faster than normal so this is still a win.  Usually I just start digging through the basket every day and throwing what I want to wear in the dryer each morning for a touch up.  At least now it is all hung up or put away in drawers

 

Hope everyone else has started off strong for this challenge!

[faille]

So even as I succeed at this challenge, it is an exceedingly boring one, so updates are not coming fast and furious

 

I did get a new color green in the mail for the brites.  This weekend I will start working on the blue one and will POST PICTURES woohoo.

 

My coworker also commissioned me to make accessories for a Red Sonja costume for his girlfriend, so maybe I'll throw in progress on that also.  There's um... really not a lot to Red Sonja though haha so it won't be much to show!

[faille]

Fizzled out at the end of last week.  Then daylight savings happened and I forgot to bring my computer to work yesterday and my whole day I was just "off".  Need to get back on track today!  Going to decide what meal I'm going to make this week, get caught up on at least 2 of my yoga days, and fold my laundry today.

[Bekah]

and fast forward 3 hours...how's it going?


DOOOOO THE YOGA!!!! FOLD THE LAUNDRY!!!! ( I have about ten loads to fold, so I am right there with you!!! LOL!)

[Bekah]

I wasnt exaggerating

[Ahyar Dreamspark]

Wow, there are so many colors in your laundry Bekah. I guess I have it easy because almost all my things are black, so I don't have to separate anything lol.

 

 

Fizzled out at the end of last week.  Then daylight savings happened and I forgot to bring my computer to work yesterday and my whole day I was just "off".  Need to get back on track today!  Going to decide what meal I'm going to make this week, get caught up on at least 2 of my yoga days, and fold my laundry today.

 

CURSE THE TIME CHANGE! Everything is still off here x_x

 

Congrats on rocking the challenge so far though!

[Bekah]

Wow, there are so many colors in your laundry Bekah. I guess I have it easy because almost all my things are black, so I don't have to separate anything lol.

 

 

 

CURSE THE TIME CHANGE! Everything is still off here x_x

 

Congrats on rocking the challenge so far though!

a lot of those are towels and all washed together, my "clothes" are mostly blue and green shirts and black bottoms

[faille]

Well this challenge went to hell in a hand basket, haha.  I don't even remember what week 4 was all about.

 

Last week I visited my parents in Phoenix.  It was really awesome to spend an entire 7 days with them when it wasn't around the holidays so there was no drama or other family or stress going on.  My dad retired earlier this year and my mom is retiring at the end of the school year (she's a teacher).. so I was feeling really homesick and having some trouble with this whole next phase of life.  I'm so excited that they are retiring and able to enjoy the fruits of their labor, but at the same time it's reminding me of their (and my) own mortality and all the weird things my brain starts to think of related to that.  But it was a really awesome trip and we even took some walks so my fitness wasn't a wash.

 

On Sunday I ran the Carlsbad 5000 race.  Very proud that I completed it because I haven't been training and I was at a friend's birthday party on Saturday night so basically I ran on little sleep and with a hangover!  But I still woke up and got out there and did it.  Time was 42:29, which is about consistent with my other 5k zombie shamble paces.   Actually I just looked up my time from this race last year, and it was 3 minutes better!  Although I did get stopped last year when they let the next wave go (the start/finish overlaps which is stupid).. I still think that is an improvement.

 

As far as crafting goes, I finally finished the leg bands for the Red Sonja commission on Sunday and delivered them today.  I'm proud of how they came out and will post a couple pics tonight.  That means I can focus on Bekah's Blue Brite for the rest of the challenge!  I got some work done on it last week, half the head, most of the hair, and the other arm.  So basically a disembodied sprite at this point!

 

After spending the week with my folks and eating metric tons of crap, I am hoping that this week I will find the motivation to cook a bunch of healthy foods and get back on track in that respect.  Its such a hard thing for me.  I hate how I look and feel when I'm not working out/eating right, but finding the consistent motivation to continue on the right path is just soooo hard.

[Bekah]

I'm glad you had a good trip That race time is better than anything, I'd have done and faster than last year WITH a hangover!! Awesome

I'm sooooo excited to get him! Thank you

[faille]

Ok.  Next challenge will be a respawn challenge.  Still trying to find the right balance for my goals.  This time I think I went too "simple" which strangely made it difficult to stick with it.  Seems like I do better with my goals when I don't have a challenge thread going, but I so crave the interaction and support from having a thread.

 

I'm now about 90 days out from Comic Con, which means I need to get back down to "fighting weight".  This is something I do every year, try to get in shape for Comic Con (I dress up and get my picture taken a lot), then don't really succeed and look at my pictures after thinking maybe NEXT year.  So, this is the year.  I hope.

[Bekah]

Ok. Next challenge will be a respawn challenge. Still trying to find the right balance for my goals. This time I think I went too "simple" which strangely made it difficult to stick with it. Seems like I do better with my goals when I don't have a challenge thread going, but I so crave the interaction and support from having a thread.

I'm now about 90 days out from Comic Con, which means I need to get back down to "fighting weight". This is something I do every year, try to get in shape for Comic Con (I dress up and get my picture taken a lot), then don't really succeed and look at my pictures after thinking maybe NEXT year. So, this is the year. I hope.

Maybe do a couple of simple and a couple of harder ones then the simple ones are more fun and relaxing but you have to push for the harder ones? That seems to work for me. I never can stick with a Battle Log either though, so my way might be entirely wrong for you.

but if it helps, I have no clue what my goald are yet this time either!