Un passo ed il seguente

[theodinspire]

"One step and the next" Big addition this time is the addition of walking tracking.

 

Exercise:

1. Camminare: 8 000 steps per day, which is roughly 4 miles. As measured by my PokéWalker. I remember reading this GQ article about the training required for a superhero body and one of the things that stuck with me was the 12 000 step daily goal. That's 6 miles, which is a lot, and hard to fit into my day. (The other thing I remember from the article is that while doable, the superhero body is a lot of work for the ordinary person. Actors and models can get away with it because it's their jobs. I work full time and am in grad school.) I actually get more steps in on school days, probably because I have to get dinner and go to class as opposed to going home from work. But the days that I'm not doing anything special? I only get about two and a half miles, if I'm lucky. For example, I only have 3 177 right now, and it'll only double because I'm going to the library after work.

 

2. Calistenia: This month, I add the Pull-Up and Dip progression to the /r/bodyweightfitness recommended routine. My rows weren't exactly horizontal yesterday, but I'm really close, and maybe the pull-ups will help. I have also gotten pretty good at the diamond push-ups, so I'm past due for the dips. I'll see how much energy I have left before upping the difficulty too much on my rows and push-ups. Reminder to self and the world. I want to get a ring muscle-up by the end of the year.

 

Other things to work on:

• Find more time to wear that weight vest.
• Keep up with the wrist stuffs

Diet:

3. Frutta e Verdura: Gotta keep eating that produce.

 

4. Integratori Alimentari: Eat those multivitamins. So, I've been trying to emulate the tonsorial style of a character, Shitty, from that hockey webcomic, Check Please! It turns out that Shitty and I have a lot in common anyways, and more than just the mustache. Well, the friend that introduced me to the comic is getting married in September and she wants me to stealth cosplay him there. But I need to grow as much hair as possible so that I can put it up in a bun. I haven't gotten it cut since December, but that was more of a trim on top and a clean up of the neck. Before that was a full cut at the end of October when I was tired of my dyed hair, and wanted to return to my natural color. So I am trying to take Vitabeard at the moment to facilitate the growth. I need to take it three times a day with food. Though if anyone has any knowledge of nutrition for hair, or growing hair out in general, it'd be greatly appreciated.

 

Other things to work on:

• More protein after workouts plzkthxbai
• Watch the baking. I've been baking more. I want to say that this is a sign of the depression fading as the last time I baked this much was shortly before that episode with my art professor. I don't know for sure. But I love it, even if carbs are the worst. So, don't bake too much, but hope that it doesn't disappear?

Life:

5. Studiare: Keep on that Italian practice and get those A's at schoool! The will finish in week 3 of the challenge. I'm not too worried about my grades at the moment. It's supposed to be a really good master's program, but I haven't yet found it particularly challenging. Don't know what that says about me or the program. 

 

6. Programmare: This will involve finally setting up that Hackentosh, but I want to improve the /r/bodyweightfitness recommended routine app to provide more info and store a bit more data. But this should help me learn Swift.

[Brawlrus]

Good luck! How do you feel about parking a ways away from anywhere you want to be? That'll force you to walk from the car to the place and back.

 

Grats on being good at the diamond pushups. I've never been good at them and my uncle use to give me crap. He'd tell me what his drill Sgt always said to him "Are you effing rich, Simpson!? You must be rich, because I've never seen a goddamned diamond that big!" Had to basically stack hands on top of each other to be satisfied.

[theodinspire]

Added another goal(? or are they more things to pay attention to?, perhaps I should have grades attached to them and have RL consequences should I fail?). I need to take my hair vitamins to speed hair growth for a friend's wedding. Uffda.

 

Good luck! How do you feel about parking a ways away from anywhere you want to be? That'll force you to walk from the car to the place and back.

 

Grats on being good at the diamond pushups. I've never been good at them and my uncle use to give me crap. He'd tell me what his drill Sgt always said to him "Are you effing rich, Simpson!? You must be rich, because I've never seen a goddamned diamond that big!" Had to basically stack hands on top of each other to be satisfied.

 

Parking farther away from wherever would be a great idea, had I a car. I live in the city of Chicago and take public transit everywhere. In some attempts to get my step count up to 10k in trial mode, I would get off a stop earlier on the train and walk. This just takes so much time: it takes 25 minutes to walk a mile. Though I have found that having my phone read to me my class readings helps make up for the time.

 

It also took me a while to get good at the diamond push ups: all the weight was at the sides of the hands, which didn't feel well at first, especially on my previously-sprained wrist. But I just kept at them, starting wider at first and moving inward. It also helps to realize that you should push from the bottom of the sternum and not the clavicle.

[sarakingdom]

Walking is a little time-consuming if it doesn't slot into your day easily.  Podcasts, audiobooks, or class notes help a lot, then it's not wasted time.  Figuring out how many public transportation stops you can walk about as fast as the transport also helps.  (A lot of my walking, I get in because the walking time isn't a lot different from the train time, maybe five more minutes, and I'm tired of sitting.  Or I have a book I need to read, and I got it in audiobook form.)

[Kishi]

Yeah, I gotta say, so far the best way to integrate walking that I've found is to do it as a part of what I'm doing already. Taking extra time is just a pain, and especially if it's not sunny out, because one of the big reasons I'm trying to do it is to get sunlight. (alternately, if it's cold enough that I need to cover up, that just defeats the point for me).

 

Also, Check, Please! is glorious. I love the author's ear for dialogue and the characters strike me as being very realistic in their arcs and such. Cool.

[theodinspire]

Day 1 summary:

 

• 9127 steps made! Or at least according to my PokéWalker, which is a bit odd because I was between 6.5k and 7 when I got home for the evening. Did I really do that much walking in the apartment?
• My hand stand practice yesterday (I skipped Sunday because I was supposed to go to a home showing after the gym and wanted to save that five minutes) was a little lackluster. But it is getting scary approaching the wall. I suppose I should work on my pirouette falls at some point, which may also require me to integrate pike practice into my dailies.
• Oranges and apples eaten.
• 3/3 vitamins
• Nothing to report regarding school, other than I'm procrastinating a smidge.
• Got OS X installed on my desktop, but I can't complete the set-up for it turns out that it doesn't recognize the PS/2 keyboard. And I can't run the bootloader yet without USB legacy support so it looks like I'm stuck until I get my hands on a USB keyboard. I'm trying to figure out how to justify $140 on this beauty, and debating whether I can borrow a keyboard from the office for the mean time.

[Kishi]

Having a safe way out is pretty key to getting up and on the wall. Taking the teeth out of the fear of falling is very good.

 

Anyway, that is a pretty keyboard. I wish you wisdom in how you approach this.

[theodinspire]

Day 2:

• 8976 steps. 
• Oranges eaten. Vegetables at dinner on top of my other meals. Found a moldy orange in my pile: it's odd when an orange is green.
• 3/3 Vitamins
• Found a much cheaper ($9!) keyboard to get me through. I need to work on tightening my wallet in general.

 

Also, Check, Please! is glorious. I love the author's ear for dialogue and the characters strike me as being very realistic in their arcs and such. Cool.

 

They finally kissed! It was getting to be Phryne Fisher/Jack Robinson levels of tension!

[theodinspire]

Is it too late/too much to add toe-touching/pike training to this list?

[sarakingdom]

I don't know whether I'm more surprised you watch Miss Fisher, or that you read shippy fanfic for it.

 

[theodinspire]

I don't know whether I'm more surprised you watch Miss Fisher, or that you read shippy fanfic for it.

 

 

Alack, I have not read any fan fiction for it. I just watch the show with my wife and shout "Just **** already!" at the end of every episode. However, if you have any good leads on some Jaime/Brienne fic I am all eyes.

[theodinspire]

I didn't make a breakdown yesterday because I misplaced my Pokéwalker. I found it, but neglected to put it on today DX. However, my phone also pedometers, so...

 

• 9 984  and 11 053! !!! 11k? Where did that come from. Also, I apparently climbed 39 floors of stairs yesterday! I suppose that I did go down and up the gym a couple of times (four tall stories in total. Lockers and equipment lending on first floor, weights and machines and studios on the second, basketball courts on the third and track and rings on the fourth), and who knows how many times I went up and down the stairs at work. And then the train. Damn
• 3/3 and 2/3 on the vitamins. I got home at 7:30 and made dinner for me and my wife and just blanked on the taking the vitamin with food until I was in bed and didn't want to eat something. 
• Oranges and Apples
• Got my user account set up on my hackentosh. Now to get the drivers I need installed for sound and video and wireless.

 

Edited to add:

I added in the negative pull-ups and dips into my routine. I got the 3x5 on the pull-ups, but with the second and third set I had to step up to the bar. I burned out on the third set of dips at three. I think my body line was good there: I kept it hollow. My horizontal rows are sad DX. I keep rocking the box I use to get my feet off the ground, which makes me feel that I'm not directing my energy properly, and I can't get my chest to the bar. It's odd that I can do them at 30 degrees from horizontal explosively and well for eight reps, but horizontal I fail, when the difference in force should only be about 16%.

I think I need a form check on my row and that I'll need to grease the groove on all of these exercises.

[sarakingdom]

Alack, I have not read any fan fiction for it. I just watch the show with my wife and shout "Just **** already!" at the end of every episode. However, if you have any good leads on some Jaime/Brienne fic I am all eyes.

 

Surely there must be.  It's the internet.  Rule 34 applies.

 

(Um.  Google rule 34 very carefully.)

[Tkal]

My trick for the steps: walk during your rest time while you are doing pushups and pull ups. One minute rest is about 110-120 steps for me, but that is really fast pace.

Depending on the logistics and schedule at work and school, also going for coffee not at the nearest coffee machine or using the toilet on a different floor can add plenty of extra steps without noticeable extra time. Roughly one regular house floor means 100 extra steps between going up and down

 

Are walking meetings doable?

[Kishi]

Well, that's the trouble with bodyweight work. No matter how much you try to quantify it, it just doesn't behave in the same predictable patterns that you would expect from weighted work. It just isn't that way. I wish it was. Believe me. But that just means you need to practice and try to keep everything under control.

 

I'd be glad to take a look at what you're doing if you're comfortable posting video.

 

Yeah! They did! It was really fast, though, like at the halfway point of the given arc. I thought things would draw out a little bit longer, play out the tension some more, but I don't know that they could have. Oh well. Done is done. Be interesting to see how it goes.

[theodinspire]

Got so tied up at work yesterday and fight night that I missed a couple of my daily things, like studying Italian and stretching my wrists and hamstrings. And then I missed a day's worth of vitamins. I've still managed to keep my step count up, which I felt would be the hard one. 

 

Additionally, I'm so very sore from the dips and pull-ups. My pectoralis minor has been complaining for a day and a half now. I'm gonna have to take it easy on my handstand practice, my arm support practice and my dips tomorrow. My rhomboids have finally stopped complaining, though. Uff, DOMS, amirite.

[theodinspire]

I'd be glad to take a look at what you're doing if you're comfortable posting video.

 

Well, I took a video. Sorry about the angle: I borrowed a GoPro from work, but I forgot to take the password with me so I couldn't connect and had to guess on the angle. However, I would guess that I need to work on keeping a straighter line: I notice that I'm kinda bent at the waist. I also used a 25 lb place on the box to keep it down so that it wouldn't rock on me.

 

I'm also finally not sore.

[theodinspire]

The weekend got a bit away from me. But since then, I've kept up my step count and my vitamins. I need to get some fruit in at work so that it's on hand.

 

The thing that's really pressing on me is my final for my cognitive science class. I know that all I have to do to start it is grab some paper and start writing, but I keep finding ways to not think about it. It probably doesn't help that my professor suggested that we should have started last week, which seems to make it more daunting and therefore easier to procrastinate. And thinking about easy it could be to start and how small it actually is (he suggests 10 pages, but if I get it covered in more or less, it doesn't matter, as long as the content has quality) and why I'm procrastinating and that I'm writing about all this is really messing with my head.

 

This will have to go into my "ideas file" for the class (that I will also need to type up because I am writing these by hand, because of reasons), but this feels a bit like the deciding to purchase a thing. You might be a person who can think about it, and research it really well, but still can't make up your mind on whether to buy it. But I know (intellectually) that it won't be a terrible thing to do, and I know (intellectually and viscerally) that it's not that hard of a thing to do, but I feel viscerally that it's a Thing and it's Important and it's a Big Deal. And so I'm filled with negative emotion (trepedation? anxiety? fear?) slash discomfort and it just feels better to ignore it than attempt it.

[Kishi]

You'll get it done. It's like all college papers - you wait until the last second and then you just rush to get it done. It is how the thing is done.

[theodinspire]

I missed the gym yesterday, as there was an condo open house for a property we were interested in that may sell before we go out with our realtor on Sunday. Subbing in tonight. 

[Kishi]

Life happens. Do as you must.

[Luciana Valerosa Culming]

Did you get, what you were intrested in?

 

I hope last week was good for you.

 

 

[theodinspire]

On 3/20/2016 at 0:17 AM, Luciana Valerosa Culming said:

Did you get, what you were intrested in?

 

We didn't make an offer on the condo we saw on that Thursday: it was much too small for our needs and not in our ideal location. However, we did find one on Sunday, we put an offer in, made an amended offer after hearing back that they got a few offers. But our amended offer was accepted! This one is smaller and a little pricier than we'd like, but it is in the perfect location: less than a block from the train, under a half-mile from the grocery store, and, perhaps most importantly, a nine minute walk from our sword fighting salla. We will need to get rid of a lot of stuff, but that probably should've happened anyways. That'll probably be the focus of my next challenge.

 

This made last week a bit rough:

• We had to jump through all the paperwork hoops after the offer was accepted.
• I had perhaps the busiest work week I've had at this job, having to merge a five-month old snapshot website with the production site.
• Finals.
• C2E2 (Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo).

I was hoping to go to the gym twice last week since my schedule opened up a smidge, but because I wound up at work until 10 PM on Tuesday, that didn't happen. Went on Thursday, will go tomorrow. Plenty of walking done at the convention, so even though I had to exclude my PokéWalker in my Kraven costume on Saturday, I'd expect my step count to be high anyways. Could've eaten more produce over the weekend, but hopefully I can make up for it this week.

 

This week is Spring Break. I was hoping to finish setting up my Hackentosh and get some Swift practice in this week, and C2E2 has rekindled interest in this story/epic poem I've been kicking around for 5ever now. But now that I'm not working hard to keep my head above water, I can see the oncoming storm of school and moving and all the stuff I have to do to prep for that.

[Kishi]

Hey, the storm you're ready for can be turned to your advantage. It can be used to kickstart and cultivate lots of good things in your life, like getting rid of excess possessions and pursuing interests long thought dead.

 

You can both survive and do the things you want to do. It's possible. How is up to you, but may I remind you that even stupefyingly small steps will carry you forward. It really works.

[theodinspire]

Alright.

 

I got A's in both my classes again, though just barely. I kinda stumbled on my finals, ~85% on one and ~65% on the other. Luckily my performance in the classes was enough to keep my GPA from slipping. So, a pass with a warning on that category.