Starpuck Finds Her Passion

[starpuck]

"Through strength, my chains are broken..."

 

 

Goal #1 -  Train the Body

"Through Passion I Gain Strength"

- Continue training for functional strength and general fitness and performance.

• Strength Train 3X / Week
• Move 3X / Week
• Hockey 1-2 / Week

 

Goal #2 -  Fuel the Body

"Through Strength I Gain Power"

- Continue data gathering to dial in my specific dietary needs.  Fuss with numbers less; stop worrying about how many calories I am burning with every walk, run, hockey, session.   Eat a predetermined amount of calories per day and see what happens.  Adjust based off of results.   

• Weeks Zero & 1 : 1600 calories / day
• Weeks 2 & 3 : TBD
• Week 4 : TBD.

 

Goal #3 -  Free the Mind

"Through Power I gain Victory, Through Victory My Chains are Broken"

- Build up my mental and emotional fortitude so I can more easily overcome fears and defend against negativity.

• Post a positive thought, comment, revelation about myself daily.
• Share a pic with a body positive comment 1X / Week

 

Goal #4 -  Express Emotions & Practice Passions

"The Force Shall Free Me"

- Do things that bring me joy and happiness.   Explore my creative side and take pleasure in the journey of learning and progressing.

• Continue practicing art / digital art - aiming for 3X / Week
• Work on photography- trip coming up and I want to get some good pics.

 

 Extra Life Goal : Complete Apprentice Training

 

I will be taking a trip at the end of July which I would like to attempt a mountain hike on.      I am not great with edges when heights are involved, and this will be an 8 mile round trip hike, with an elevation gain of almost 3000' in the first 3 miles.  It will also be the middle of summer, in the Chihuahan Desert.     In order to prepare for this I am going to start doing weighted practice hikes.    With pictures!    Because that will also help my photography goal.  

 

A little bit on the theme choice...

This past October, my Sunday night gaming group made the switch to Star Wars Force & Destiny.    Now, if we go way back, you'll come to discover that Star Wars was my very first Nerd fandom as a child.   At age 5, I wanted nothing to do with Barbies or dolls, but everything to do with getting those awesome speeders for my Star Wars figures and ... oh, the Ewok Village??! YES PLEASE.     As I've been reintroduced to this world and its lore, I've found myself really drawn into it again.   It may seem a little ... dark side, sure.  But rest assured, I've no intention of blowing up planets or anything.   I just need to embrace my emotions and follow my passions, and well, those fuddy duddy Jedi aren't into that sort of thing.   

 

I have a lot of negative voices in my life- many don't even mean to be negative, but I am surrounded by a chorus of 'For your age,' 'you're not so young any more', 'you can't keep doing this, you're pushing 40' etc etc.   Then add in my own voice about how I should look, what size I should be, how I am failing this, or suck at that, can't do this.    It needs to stop!!    And, the Sith Code seems better suited to guiding my path in that endeavor.    

[SevenFootGeek]

IGNITE!

[alienjenn]

yo puck!

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Following for more victory.

[starpuck]

Week 0 / Day 1 (Monday 5/2)

 

Training:   2.2 mile weighted walk (11#)

It was a gloriously sunny day but I was still quite sore and exhausted from the weekend and hockey game the night before.   I chose Option L : "Listen to your body."   I grabbed my backpack (current weight 11#) and went for a walk with it on.   I made sure to tread through the grass rather than on the pavement and I pulled an easy 2.2 miles with it.   My heart rate never got above 120.

 

Fueling: 1620 calories in

 

Freeing:  I am choosing to fight against the negative comments shared with me on this day.   I had the courage to tell myself, 'No! I am not listening to this,' and felt strongly enough about it that the comments angered me.    In short?  To the person who said them?   "Your fate is NOT my fate.   Do not suggest otherwise."

 

Expression:  I did two things I desperately needed to get done.  I reinforced the buttons on my Wendy costume for Acen.   And I started working on crafting her ponytail holder / cat ear things.    Acen is just 2.5 weeks away!!!

 

 

 

 

Week 0 / Day 2 (Tuesday 5/3)

 

Training:  3.3 mile run

Another really beautiful day.   The run just felt GOOD today.  I warmed up with a 2 minute walk.   Then ran for 2 miles straight.   I think I could have pushed on a bit, but I wanted to enjoy the activity and not suffer through it.  So I walked for 3 minutes (about .25 miles) then picked it up and ran the last .75 miles to make it a solid 3.   Finished with a cool down walk until the Zombies, Run mission ended so tallied 3.3 miles total in 38 minutes with several minutes worth of walking in there.   Time tracked my mile 2 (all running) at 10:30/mile!   Nice!

 

Fueling: 1608 calories in

 

Freeing:  I am active and fit!   When I was running today, the other runners and active people all made eye contact with me, smiled, and waved.   Because, it's kinda this secret club we all belong to.  It feels really good to belong to this club.   My run felt great!   My legs moved me, my heart pumped blood for me, and my lungs - once excused from running the mile in gym class due to asthma - provided me air for the entire run!   Thanks body for being so freaking awesome.

 

Expression:  Did a quick starter sketch of what I hope to be our Twi'lek healer, Cham.   Used one of the 'poses for references' as a starter, then alienified him.     I'm actually pretty surprised at the waist up.   The legs, given the pose, are going to need some serious tweaking.   Hopefully throwing them into Manga Studio will bring to light what helps and what doesn't.

 

 

 

And now I sleep!    Got a lot done today and feel pretty good about it all.    Exercise, good eats, SWTOR time in with my friend, and some art all before 10:30pm!    Tomorrow I will have to double up a bit, and do strength on a hockey day.    Also must try and watch tonight's SHIELD in between dinner and hockey time.  Zomg.

[erosan]

Neechan! loooove the theme, and of course, count me in for the ride (and if you are good, maybe one of these days I'll tell you about my theory on how the Sith were not the evil ones in the star wars universe)

[obax]

Starpuck! I shall be following and cheering, as always! Glad to hear you had a good run, and enjoyed the weather. It's been nice here too, but circumstances have kept me indoors through it all so far...

 

1 hour ago, erosan said:

(and if you are good, maybe one of these days I'll tell you about my theory on how the Sith were not the evil ones in the star wars universe)

 

Interesting. I've not given it real thought, but I could totally get on board with that theory, I always liked them more than the Jedi anyway. I just can't support the whole 'blowing up a planet' thing, though....

[erosan]

3 hours ago, obax said:

Interesting. I've not given it real thought, but I could totally get on board with that theory, I always liked them more than the Jedi anyway. I just can't support the whole 'blowing up a planet' thing, though....

Aye. stupid, yes... but it was meant to bring peace to the galaxy... In the end, that is what Siths are fighting for.

 

Without too much detail:

 

The Jedi council were a theocracy of sorts, with weird ideas about the world (like,that all emotions are bad even though they are integral part of human nature) and clearly there were discontent with the senate. (V for vendetta has already shown us the kind of world where passion is suppressed by an state governed by religion... Didn't end that well...)

 

Then you have a rebel branch of force users who believe that emotions should be embraced (the siths, in case you were not paying attention), who are the true researchers and scholars of the Force, using all parts of them (we see siths can use both the light side abilities like the mind manipulation and the dark side abilities like the force lightning, whereas the jedi only use one set of them). Sith fight for such horrible ideals as protecting their loved ones, and the right to be with whomever you want and want to end wars and conflict. Because they have been marginalized and demonized, their organization is lacking, and thus they have to fight using guerrilla tactics and "terrorism" (if you had started with the premise of the jedi being a dictatorship or jedi abusing their powers at the beginning of episode I, and you ignore the they are evil cues like the black and red motif and evil sounding music on their scenes, and I had told you they were the good ones, maybe you would think of them as a rebellion fighting for emotional freedom).

 

That said, we cannot ignore the fact that they destroyed a planet... but while on the first 3 episodes (when the jedi were still in charge) we see a lot of turmoil and fighting, when the episode IV starts, the only war being fought is by the rebels (which are jedi remnants). If rebels were gone, there would be peace in the galaxy (albeit a temporary one, since violence never begets true peace). And yet we do not hear any external complains about the empire as such, so even if ruling through fear is not ideal, it is effective to a degree.

 

Jedis are performing an older-than-old-trick, what Nietzsche called the transvaluation of moral values (also worth reading about the master-slave morality part of his philosophy), where the strong will usually rule over the weak, but since the exceptional are not the many, the weak ones in their rage of being the lesser kind starts trying to sell their weaknesses as moral values to be praised. The classical example he uses in Genealogy of moral IIRC is the weak who cant fight back, so instead of saying "I am incapable of fighting back" he says "I will not fight back, because compassion and forgiveness is what is moral and good"...

 

Somewhere along the lines, the jedis decided that emotions were bad (includding the good emotions, like happiness, love and quite possibly friendship), so they launched a sacred war against them and anyone who might think differently. As far as we are told, that belief is the only thing that differentiated a sith from a jedi in the beginning.

 

But stating that the dilema is clear cut good (jedi) vs evil (sith) is naive. I mean, if anakin's story is an indication, siths are no strangers to LOVE (I know there is a rick astley joke here),positive creative impulses (anaking keeps creating robots) and striving for peace (even if their methods are suspect). On the other hand jedis are no strangers to unethical warfare (clone army anyone?), cruelty ("save" anakin from slavery by separating him from his mother without allowing him to come back to save her) or killing (which they seem to do almost as much as the siths).

 

Anyways, the siths have some clearly unstable elements among their ranks, but probably the jedis have some zealots too among them...

 

Having to pick my side, I'd pick the Sith anyday over the Jedi. At least they allow you to be true to your nature and experience emotions, instead of trying to brainwash you into their way of thinking (its called indoctrination, and a common way sects do them is separating the kids from their mothers at early ages and secluding them in padawan schools where they only teach the jedi code instead of science) :D.

[erosan]

7 hours ago, Starpuck said:

 

Expression:  Did a quick starter sketch of what I hope to be our Twi'lek healer, Cham.   Used one of the 'poses for references' as a starter, then alienified him.     I'm actually pretty surprised at the waist up.   The legs, given the pose, are going to need some serious tweaking.   Hopefully throwing them into Manga Studio will bring to light what helps and what doesn't.

 

 

 

Wow! that is a great sketch! the proportions are right, the hands are really well done! And the face/expression is spot on. I also think that the legs came out great too! The problem with the legs (as I see it) is not the drawing, but the pose. If you try to adopt the pose depicted, you will notice that the "behind" leg naturally adopts a straight-down-then-90-degree-angle posture (think of the end posture of the exercise Lunge).

If you wanna have it at an angle, you need to put much stress on the abdominal muscles or throw your body forward, and considering Cham is also twisting his torso, it turns it into an uncomfortable position. Not unrealistic, nor impossible to sustain... just uncomfortable. Go on, get on the floor and try it (I did).

[Polgara19]

14 hours ago, Starpuck said:

Freeing:  I am active and fit!   When I was running today, the other runners and active people all made eye contact with me, smiled, and waved.   Because, it's kinda this secret club we all belong to.  It feels really good to belong to this club.   My run felt great!   My legs moved me, my heart pumped blood for me, and my lungs - once excused from running the mile in gym class due to asthma - provided me air for the entire run!   Thanks body for being so freaking awesome.

 

 

Oh man, I almost cheered reading this!  Yes!  All of this!!

[Raxie]

19 hours ago, Starpuck said:

Fuss with numbers less; stop worrying about how many calories I am burning with every walk, run, hockey, session.   Eat a predetermined amount of calories per day and see what happens.

 

Ah, I see you actually are doing what I suggested moments ago in your old thread.  Great minds this alike

 

Following OBVIOUSLY <3

[starpuck]

Thanks for all the hi's and what up's guys!       I am feeling pretty excited about this challenge.    In fact, yesterday, I ran without my HRM on!  It was soooo weird.   (And ok, my Fitbit auto tracks exercise like that, but still.   Kinda neat.)    And so far, my goal of 1600 calories seems pretty satisfactory.  I mean, I have eat more than just my 3 meals, and I've not been left starving yet.

 

@erosan - Thanks for the tips.   Admittedly last night I really wanted to keep playing SWTOR but forced myself to get some drawing in.  LOL.    I've noticed that sometimes when you come back to the pic the next day, the things that are off sort of pop out immediately at you.   - Just from having taken a break from looking at it.    Going back to the pose I used as a starting point, I see where the hiccup is.      There's way more torso twist on the ref pic, and so, since I'm happy with the torso up, changing the legs IS the better option!     Even in the reference pic, the legs seem a little weird to me, now that you've mentioned it hee.

 

 

@Polgara19 - Hee!   Right?   Thanks for the support chica!    I know that you have also experienced that feeling of being waved at by fellow runners.  It's so great!

 

@Raxie - Oh that is so encouraging that you found success with the set numbers!     I was chatting up with Flex and he was the one that suggested it.   He's kinda helping me on the side with figuring out what's what.    At first I was all, omg don't take my calories away!   But now I am more like, hmm, ok, I can do this actually.  It's still way better than a 1200 calorie goal!    Plus.  Once it's sorted out, I may get a few more calories on my big big days.   Just for now we're sticking straight numbers so we can see what happens.

 

 

So it's STAR WARS DAY!    I am super geeked out about it too.     I changed my FB stuff for it;

 

And of course, am decked out in my gear!

 

Gonna play some SWTOR after dinner and then head off to hockey where I can wield a very poor representation of a lightsaber lol!

[erosan]

I'm also looking forward to tomorrow (you know... the Revenge of the 5th)

[starpuck]

3 minutes ago, erosan said:

I'm also looking forward to tomorrow (you know... the Revenge of the 5th)

Ayup.   I have my  next FB cover/pic ready!    And I am hoping my Boba-Fitt shirt comes in today.

[starpuck]

Training:  Strength Workout (Nia Shanks DB/BW 12 Week Program, Week 7!)

• Reverse Lunge - 5 x 6 x 40#  **I misread my last notes as 21# working weight PER HAND, not total.... whoops.   Way to double my weight!  >.>
• Push Ups - 5 x 6 x new level!  **This is exciting, as I have graduated to a height below the bench.   The pic below represents the progression from wall, to box, to bench, to stacked weights!
• Inverted Row - 5 x 6 x new level!  **Marked now with tape for progress data.
• Glute Bridge - 1 x 6 x 45#, 1 x 6 x 50#, 3 x 6 x 55#  **I need a bar cushion.   Ow.
• Reverse Crunch - 32 - 26 - 26
• DB Lateral Raise - 2 x 15 x 5#, 1 x 10 x 8# **Still crackles a bit, taking this one super slow.

Workout felt really good and strong today!   And I so didn't wanna do it when it was time to change and head back there.    Good thing the voice of my Sith Master told me to go unleash my anger.   Indeed I did.    Also, warriors!   @Flex Luthor and @Wufkar and anyone willing to advise really -- I snagged some video of my inverted rows and push ups (since the push ups are close to being regular again) and was hoping you guys could look for potential concerns given the shoulder stuff I have to be wary of!  I've been focusing on keeping my shoulders back through these exercises, and so far, I've been able to progress without having the pain come back, but I'd still say I am not 100% in the clear on shoulders stuff.  Just way way better than I had been.

 

Push Ups - Angle Above-ish

Push Ups - Side View

Inverted Rows

 

 

 

 

Also - do not walk away from your pull up bar / resistance band while focusing entirely on your phone. 

 

Bad things happen!!!

 

 

Fueling: 1633 calories in

 

Freeing:  I don't take myself too seriously most of the time.   I find this a great trait to have.  It means I can laugh when I get my nose stuck in a resistance band, and find it amusing enough to share the pic with my friends!    I love laughing, and even more so, I love being able to make others laugh - which I think I do a fair job of most of the time.   The world needs more people not afraid to show off their silly, nerdy, goofy, dorky sides.    And I'm okay with waving that flag!

 

Expression:  Nothing today.  Hockey night.

[erosan]

4 minutes ago, Starpuck said:

I don't take myself too seriously most of the time.   I find this a great trait to have.  It means I can laugh when I get my nose stuck in a resistance band, and find it amusing enough to share the pic with my friends!    I love laughing, and even more so, I love being able to make others laugh - which I think I do a fair job of most of the time.   The world needs more people not afraid to show off their silly, nerdy, goofy, dorky sides.    And I'm okay with waving that flag!

 

And it is why we love you. 

[Wufkar]

Literally lol'd at your picture. Litrally. 

 

Vids look good

[obax]

@erosan I like that was 'without going into detail'... That's pretty much how I look at it, but I've never really thought about it that hard that I could put it into words. I was never real comfortable with some of Yoda's training of Luke, even as a kid...

 

1 hour ago, Wufkar said:

Literally lol'd at your picture. Litrally. 

 

 

Me also! Ha!

[Raxie]

HAH.  Totally noted about the pull up bar...

[erosan]

@erosan I like that was 'without going into detail'... That's pretty much how I look at it, but I've never really thought about it that hard that I could put it into words. I was never real comfortable with some of Yoda's training of Luke, even as a kid...

oops… yes I can be… verbose at times

this "message" was brought to you through the ether using ero san's arcane magics (and a cellphone)

[starpuck]

Well huh.     I guess Yoda was right.   Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate...       

 

Took a stick to the face so hard tonight that it knocked me off my feet.    Yes.  I wear a full face cage.   No that does not stop it from being terrifying.    I was fine... except that it scared the hell out of me and I reacted by getting pissed at the guy who did it.      Like, almost threw my stick at the bench pissed.      He didn't do it on purpose, he was just trying to whack my stick up to steal the puck.  He missed my stick, so all that upward energy came crashing into my face.    So yeah, unintentional, but it ticks me off because our Wed. night skate is a group of friends who get together, no refs, no whistles, no clocks, no score... it's just for fun and tunes and beer.   So maybe tone down the killer instinct just a bit.   Especially when going up against a girl half your size.   

 

Unleash my fury indeed.  Pretty sure that poor guy got this look out of me.

[Raxie]

Eek hope your face is OK! It's apparently taken a lot of abuse lately.

[chickie.monkey]

On 5/3/2016 at 0:00 PM, Starpuck said:

Fuss with numbers less; stop worrying about how many calories I am burning with every walk, run, hockey, session.  

 

Thank you!!!  This mess has been driving you crazy for a while now. You deserve some peace in this area.  

 

Following along, of course.

[starpuck]

Week 0 / Day 4 (Thursday 5/5)

 

Training:   2.2 mile weighted walk (15#)

Another sunny day, so I took the backpack out for a trip to Target and back.    Started at 11# but then I bought several bottles of BAI tea and trudged back.  Noticeable difference.  Also, the lines took ten minutes to get through, so I had only 12 minutes to get the 1 mile back that it took me 17 minutes to get to in the first place.   Hah, not good!     Felt good to be outside though and it counts as exercise!

 

Fueling:  I'm at 1340 calories in right now, and that has my dinner and popcorn snack.   I KNOW there will be a sweet snack at gaming too, so I am saving the last 260 for whatever that ends up being.  Maybe I'll shop for it and make sure I get something that works juuuuust right!   Some of those prepackaged flans could be fun!  1626 total.

 

Freeing:  Would you believe I've been stumped for almost 30 minutes on this today?  I am gonna say it's because I had a rough night, and poor sleep. K?   So I'm gonna take an easy one today.   This is me, last week Thursday.  (Thursdays are so hard.)   I was being silly and taking a pic of myself sleeping at work.    Except?   I actually really like this pic of me!   It does in fact show off that quality I love about myself again... (the silly don't take yourself too seriously one) and.. well, I look pretty darn cute here!    Pair o' jeans, layered tees.   Very comfortable looking young woman there.   Yes, I am saying young.  She sure looks young to me!    And that's part of what really does it for me in this pic.   I love how just 'ME' it is.     And I am the best ME there is.

 

 

Expression: This week is being difficult on this front.

[Wufkar]

Oooo look who's rucking now[emoji14]