Mistr stays on target

[Kishi]

Nice! Way to find ways to train more and meditate more.

 

Also, it's amazing how long the meditation can go if you just breathe and let go for a while.

[sarakingdom]

One of my friends at aikido works at the same company I do. We've talked about meeting at lunch to practice in the exercise room that has high ceilings. I like the idea of extra practice. I have very conflicted feelings about doing kata not wearing a gi OR wearing a gi in a non-dojo setting. Maybe I can convince myself that black exercise pants and an aikido t-shirt is good enough. After all, a gi is just Japanese exercise clothes.

 

I meditated for 17.5 minutes!

 

Not that all of it was beautiful focus with no distraction. My mind wandered fairly often and I brought it back fairly quickly. I started feeling that hot feeling of tired muscles in my back. Still, it felt like somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes.

 

Yay meditation!  Go you!

 

I recommend taking a belt.  I've found that doing aikido in street clothes, your shirt likes to go over your head.

[Mistr]

I am happy to report major progress on a dreaded task. Taxes!

 

I sorted through the pile and got current and previous year papers in their respective folders. Then I read the tax forms from the last two years to see what the accountants did. This is the first time in almost 20 years that I am doing my own taxes. Up until two years ago we had rental income and expenses from a duplex, contract income and had to file in three states. That was a nightmare. Now we are all in one state with no self-employment to document.

 

I worked through the federal form on paper to figure out what information I need. I am missing interest from one savings account and I need to check if our health insurance plan counted as high deductible for the Health Savings Account deduction. Then I need to do state taxes.

 

My head is swimming from reading forms on the computer. I'm going to take a break and play with yarn until I have to go to dancing.

[Xena]

I feel like such a slacker after reading about how everyone else has been working out and smashing their goals. Hopefully I will have energy to get back on track next week.

 

Wow, you are so absolutely not a slacker!

 

Hope you are feeling better. Or that you will be feeling better soon!

 

I still haven't done my taxes, and I don't know why! Mine are easy, I have done them myself every year, and I get money back. TOMORROW!!!!

[Mistr]

Week 4 & 5 report

 

My, but logging activities does help to show trends. I have been good about keeping notes but bad about actually tallying them. I just put the previous three weeks into my spreadsheet. Not so good on the accountability every week goal.

 

Sleep and focus

I have a pattern of going to bed on time and staying up late on alternating nights. Probably because I am tired the day after I stay up too late. I tend to stay up too late on Fridays and Saturdays. My grade for going to bed on time has been C+. I'm getting an average of 7.75-8 hours of sleep per night. This is better than it was a year ago but not great.

 

Focus has been better for the last couple weeks. More good and okay days and only a few tired or poor days. Even when I was sick I got quite a bit done.

 

Food

That strict goal I had about no white flour and no white sugar? It went out the window at the end of week 2. Aside from Pie day I haven't gone overboard on sweets or baked goods. I made baking powder biscuits and cornbread this weekend. Very little junk food. Reasonable portions. 

 

My weight is still within a pound of where I started the challenge. Maybe if I get more rest and exercise this week I will be a bit slimmer by the weekend. At this point I think a few extra sets of planks are going to make more difference than a few chocolate chip cookies.

 

Balance

This is one area that I feel better about. I can point at real progress on dreaded tasks and creative projects. I have the medical and tax paperwork filed. I'm current with HSA reimbursments and almost ready to file taxes. I even went through my retirement plan, rebalanced and increased my contribution.

 

On the creative side I finished spinning, plying and blocking the mohair yarn to complete the lace stole I'm knitting. I have seven more rounds of the border to knit. I figured out the yarn and pattern I want to use for knitting baby socks for my coworker. I may do those first because she could go on leave at any time in April. I looked through my stash and decided to pick up an old project spinning angora next.

 

I've done pretty well on cooking enough to keep food I like in the house. Things are a bit thin on the veggie side. I have some ideas on what to do about that. Next week may be grim because I will be gone all weekend. Who knows, maybe the guys will cook? I'm tempted to leave the fridge empty just to see how they cope. I don't actually expect much on the cooking or cleaning front. At least I'm not getting stressed about it any more.

[Kishi]

Your talk about activity versus calories is true after a while. Once your body adapts to the level of energy that you're taking in, you have to introduce some chaos and take up new activity. Activity and sleep are both good ways to handle this.

[Xena]

Wanted to thank you for a little "dreaded task" inspiration...I did indeed suck it up and finish my taxes tonight. Glad that's done!

[Mistr]

I did ~30 minutes of leg exercises and foam rolling at lunch, then an hour of aikido after work. It felt good to roll out the tight spots in my legs.

 

Apparently this cold took more out of me than I thought. I got winded at aikido. Friday night I practiced two hours and didn't notice any problems. Taking this as a sign, I did 21 minutes of HIIT on the eliptical at lunch today.

 

Rant:

Just when I got a good exercise routine going, something happens to screw it up. Work decided to remodel the locker room that I use for my lunchtime workout prep. I'm sure it will be lovely when it is done at the end of May. For now it is a pain to have to change clothes in the bathroom on the other side of the building. I could work out in the building across the street, but that would take even more time out of the exercise portion of my lunch hour.

 

My cunning plans to get up early and do PT exercises at home have not been working. Even if I was getting up early, we still need to get all the office stuff out of the family room. I suppose I should just stop grousing about it and move the office supplies myself. I will check with my partner, but I doubt he really cares how the supplies are organized. I did it at our last apartment and he did not complain.

 

The weather feels like spring again today. Time to get ready for biking and gardening.

[Teirin]

Ugh, it's going to take them until May to finish the locker rooms?

 

Will second that you are definitely not a slacker.  You have a packed schedule between work, Aikido, dancing, social commitments, and spending time with your partner :-) 

 

Very nice work on the meditation too!

 

It's really nice that your workplace has an onsite clinic!

[RisenPhoenix]

I did ~30 minutes of leg exercises and foam rolling at lunch, then an hour of aikido after work. It felt good to roll out the tight spots in my legs.

 

I need to do more foam rolling.  And I'm about to buy a pack of lacrosse balls and store them full time in the dojo for use, because I'm more likely to use them there.  Yesterday people walked into the dojo to the vision of me rolling my glutes with a LaX ball.  Pretty sure I scarred a few people...

 

Re: Sleep, I'm amazed you get 7.5-8 hours a night with everything else you do.  Seriously, are you sure you didn't steal Kishi's TARDIS/Time Turner?

[Mistr]

I need to do more foam rolling.  And I'm about to buy a pack of lacrosse balls and store them full time in the dojo for use, because I'm more likely to use them there.  Yesterday people walked into the dojo to the vision of me rolling my glutes with a LaX ball.  Pretty sure I scarred a few people...

 

Re: Sleep, I'm amazed you get 7.5-8 hours a night with everything else you do.  Seriously, are you sure you didn't steal Kishi's TARDIS/Time Turner?

 

I need to pick up a package of lacrosse balls. The sports medicine doctor told me that if I worked hard on the muscles and tendons around my knees I could get my range of motion back. Also I need to work on the muscles in my upper arm.

 

Nope, I've never even borrowed Kishi's TARDIS. What I have been doing is cutting out wasted time. Little things like using the three minutes while my breakfast is in the microwave to put away clean dishes. Medium things like coming home between work and aikido to give me 40 minutes to grab a bite to eat and spin for 20-30 minutes. It might seem silly that I am driving an extra 20 minutes for such a short time at home. Emotionally, the 20-30 minutes of fun time between work and teaching on Wednesdays makes all the difference. Otherwise I have to be responsible from 7:15am to 9:15pm with no break.

 

Making more time for fun projects in my regular activities has helped. I am less likely to spend an hour reading the junk mail at supper just to get a break. On Tuesday I took advantage of the nice weather to prune bushes for about an hour after I got home. Then I had supper and played Minecraft for an hour. On one hand I felt guilty about not doing more productive things. On the other hand, I was able to stop playing by 9:10pm instead of going a couple hours past my bedtime like I used to.

 

Hopefully doing meditation will continue to make things easier. It gets me used to letting things wait for a few minutes so that I can concentration on what I need to get done right now. I'd like to get better about making decisions. Too often what I feel like doing and what needs to get done don't match. I worry about making the wrong choices and having to face consequences later.

[sarakingdom]

I'd like to get better about making decisions. Too often what I feel like doing and what needs to get done don't match. I worry about making the wrong choices and having to face consequences later.

 

I am now filled with terror that this exact thing never gets better.

[Mistr]

Wednesday

9' meditation

upper body - bodyweight workout at lunch

taught aikido 1.5 hours. Ten chin movement from tsuki. I knew they needed work on V-step. Who ever suspected that stepping back with the front foot would be so difficult?

 

Thursday

Knee/core PT: floating lunges (3 x 26), pilates clam series (2 x 5), side planks "thread the needle" arm reach (2 x 80 seconds) all done on both sides.

 

need to do meditation after work.

Also pick up books on CD at the library and pack for the weekend.

 

Ugh, my strength work over the last two days has been shaky. Except for dips (on a bench) which felt better. Everything else I could not do as many reps as usual. Aikido felt fine but I was only taking a little ukemi since I taught class. I hope this is a temporary after-effect of the nasty cold. I'm at the age where any negative physical thing has the possibility of being permanent. I hate that. I want to keep getting stronger and more flexible.

 

I expect to be offline most of the weekend. I'll be at Minicon in the Minneapolis suburbs. Hopefully connecting with old friends, staying up late and carousing. Then Easter dinner at my aunt's and a long drive home.

 

Minicon will be a touchstone for me. It has been 10 years since I got my PhD and moved away. Ten years before that I was involved with running the convention. A lot has changed. I am coming into this from a place of strength I could only dream about back then. I'm very curious to see how that will play out.

[Kishi]

Honestly, as long as you're constantly striving to be stronger and more flexible than you were, I don't see why you'd have to worry about permanent loss. I mean, it's possible, sure, but I don't think it would have happened after a cold...

 

Also, so cool that you get to go back to an old con! Should be interesting to see how things have changed.

[Xena]

Hope you have a great meeting!

[Teirin]

Hope it is just cold leftovers.  Looking forward to hearing about your weekend adventures :-)

[Mistr]

Con report:

The music was great. The trip was worth it for that alone.

 

Family stuff was good. I helped my mom sort stuff on Saturday. As expected, I came back with a car full of stuff. I have all my brother's old books, some clothes and a brand new stainless steel stockpot. A mix of junk and gems. I helped mom mend a couple things with wood glue, got rid of some recycling and put three bags of old clothes in her trunk to take to charity. I suppose I can count it as a stair workout.

 

I had dinner on Sunday at my aunt's house. I enjoyed connecting with my cousin and her son and my aunt and uncle.

 

Things that make you go "hmmmm". My cousin teaches diet and exercise classes at a community college. She is a professional at the stuff we talk about here. She has put on some weight since the last time I saw her. I was not surprised to see that quite a few of my fannish friends had put on a few (or quite a few) pounds. I didn't expect to see that with my cousin. I'm starting to see why my trainer says I'm doing really well to get back to where I was 10 years ago.

 

Seeing old friends - not so much. There were a few people I was glad to see and talk with. Some people I saw from a distance and never actually found them to talk. I ended up feeling like I was in the right place but my friends weren't there. That could be because I got in late on Friday after stopping to visit a good friend who lives on a farm not too far off my route. She had a bunch of bad things happen last year. I was happy to give her a sympathetic ear and see that she is starting to recover. The difference between my connection with her and the level of connection with people at Minicon was telling.

 

On the plus side, I shared a hotel room with friends of friends who I had never met before. They turned out to be great people. One invited me to do yoga with her on Sunday morning. We were both short on sleep after staying up late at music parties. She led a nice early morning yoga session in the atrium. I was pleased with how easily I could follow along. I think she was surprised too. The only issues were with hamstring flexibility - and those I've had all my life. I felt good about my level of fitness.

 

This con had a wider demographic than the small con I went to in February. More range in the body types of people too. Unlike the earlier con, there were plenty of people in the normal-to-thin end of the range. I could feel good about how I looked without feeling exceptional.

 

Next weekend I will be going to a local con with the specific goal of meeting new people. It will be interesting to compare the cons.

[Teirin]

Right place/wrong time is an odd feeling, like they're going to walk in any time and they don't.  Meeting friends of friends and the yoga sounds good! 

 

Glad the family visits went well :-)

[Xena]

I liked hearing about the yoga. Lots of the stretching/rehab-y stuff we do shows up in yoga, and martial arts would have prepared you very well.

 

When I was in grad school, my brother came out to visit me and came with me to yoga class. He was doing a lot of martial arts at the time, so he was very strong and flexible. The yoga teacher was practically falling all over herself trying to convince him to take up yoga (in a sincere/professional way, not a flirty way). I remember her saying, "any teacher would love to have you as a student" and then I remember thinking, "she never says that to me!!"

[RisenPhoenix]

I feel like aikido can blend nicely with yoga in much the same way we can blend well with Tai Chi.  Everything is all about balance and staying centered.  In weird positions.  That's yoga, right? <.< >.>

[Kishi]

Yoga's another killer app. It makes everything better if done right, and aikido seems to be really close to that...

[Mistr]

Yoga's another killer app. It makes everything better if done right, and aikido seems to be really close to that...

 

Yes, but aikido provides the additional fun of flying through the air and flinging your friends around.

 

Challenge wrap-up

 

Sleeping and focus:

I did better about getting to sleep on time some of the time. My average was close to 8 hours a night each week. However my grade for when I went to bed was C+. Only a few A's each week. I know what I need to do. Now the task is being consistent.

 

Focus at work was better than last fall. Still lots of room for improvement.

 

Balance:

This has been getting much better. I did a variety of things and felt good about it most of the time. There were a couple days where I was caught up in a book. Not much sitting around reading junk mail to avoid doing chores. I am feeling vastly less stressed about all the tasks I juggle in a typical week.

 

Food:

I kept to the strict limitation for the first week and a half. After that I found more and more exceptions until I just gave up on the no white sugar/ no white flour rule. I did not see any change in my weight. I did see a change in how my jeans fit from day to day. No real pattern there. I had the same bad emotional reaction to a restrictive diet that I've had before. Apparently I can do it for a week and that's it. If I want to make long-term changes they need to be just that - changes that I am happy living with.

 

This counts as a learning experience.

 

Logging:

I kept a spreadsheet for the challenge. I did not log as often as I intended, but did update from my notes every couple weeks. Looking back at the data is interesting. I will probably keep this up.

 

New challenge

 

Con report

The local con was interesting. I succeeded in meeting new people and spent some time talking with people who I had met previously. It felt much more welcoming than the con the previous weekend.

 

One of the author guests was Jonathan Maberry, author of Ultimate Jujutsu. He used to teach martial arts and self-defense at Temple University. Now he is a full-time fiction writer. He gave a fascinating talk on fight scenes in books and movies. He told stories about working as a bouncer in a seedy bar and as a bodyguard. Lots of points on things to do and not to do.

 

The focus of the con was on the horror side of SF and on gaming. I don't care for horror. My partner and I compared notes afterwards. We agreed that it was okay, but too small and not really our thing. We are going to a bigger local con this summer to see if maybe that is a better fit.