Arrow hits restart

[Arrow]

*A few weeks ago*

I would have loved to be given this option for my computer a few weeks ago. Turns out the last Windows 10 update for my laptop was corrupt and my computer stopped functioning. I tried to fix it, and then let my computer die and put it out of sight until I felt like I could deal with it (read: afford to fix it). So often I put things out of sight and hope they will go away or fix themselves.

 

Spoiler: my computer did not fix itself. 

 

Luckily the lovely folks at Geek Squad had my computer back to me in less than 24 hours, unfortunately it was completely wiped clean. I hadn't backed up my files since April so I lost 6 months of work. Thank god I am no longer a student or I would be devastated. I lost photos and revamped versions of my resume. 

 

I spent a few hours the other day setting up my computer, reinstalling all the essentials. Within a few days of this I also happened to weigh myself for the first time in a few months. I noticed my pants weren't fitting anymore, they were too big?!

Turns out I have officially lost 20 lbs in the last year and a half!

I was pretty excited about this but it didn't hit me until I was buying pants yesterday and I fit in a size 4. I ended up buying a 6 in one brand and a 4 in another, WHAT?!!! Two months ago I was wearing a size 10!!! See here

 

Being down to the same weight as 6 years ago feels an awful lot like hitting restart on my computer. It feels a bit like this:

 

 

which when I then tried to do anything quickly turned into....

 

I am so weak. I have always realized I have little arms and have joked that they are my little t-rex arms. 

The one thing I have going for me is that I hike twice a week for work (occasionally 3 times) anywhere from 2-5 miles per hike or up to 10-12 miles a week.

 

My plan at the moment is to incorporate body weight workouts and make a plan to combat my scapula dyskinesis! Also ideally find a new job and stop putting things off.

So this challenge is going to be about restarting with what I have and building in a new direction! I'm going to take the last few days before the challenge officially starts to get my goals figured out. 

[Arrow]

Food goals: 

-remember to eat dinner every day

-when eating said dinner make sure to have at least one type of veggie

 

Fitness:

-do the NF bodyweight workout 2 times a week

-ride my bike to work once a week

 

Life:

-drink one nalgene of water a day (I'm bad about staying hydrated)

-volunteer once a week (I'm already lined up to volunteer at a museum, this is to make sure I follow through with it)

-make an appointment with a physical therapist for shoulders 

-after appointment is made make a plan on how often to do exercises or whatever PT recommends

 

Bonus/Practice:

-facing fears: try to acknowledge when I am avoiding something and why, maybe even write it down. 

 

I might add a few things here or there. I know I had other goals in mind but I forgot them...

[Maggie-Miau]

*bodyslams the Follow* 

 

You've got this, Arrow!

[Infinity.Creates]

Appropriate photos/gifs are appropriate!

 

Sorry to hear about your laptop. (Quickly goes to backup everything on the cloud) But that's a really good turnaround to get it fixed!

 

The hiking sounds like good fun, and all the best for your challenge!

[Arrow]

On 10/28/2016 at 8:03 AM, MiaulinTheCat said:

*bodyslams the Follow* 

 

You've got this, Arrow!

Bodyslam?! That's intense, don't hurt yourself! Thanks!

 

On 10/28/2016 at 8:25 AM, IAmInfinite said:

Appropriate photos/gifs are appropriate!

 

Sorry to hear about your laptop. (Quickly goes to backup everything on the cloud) But that's a really good turnaround to get it fixed!

 

The hiking sounds like good fun, and all the best for your challenge!

BACK UP EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME. Thanks

[Arrow]

I finally remembered the other things I wanted to put as goals so I edited my original post to add them! So far so good on everything. As it gets colder it's getting hard to get out of bed to get to work on time so the biking to work once a week might be more of a challenge that I originally thought. 

 

Yesterday I kinda forgot the challenge started, my weeks usually start on mondays not sundays, I failed the water part of my day but I did have veggies with dinner. I went to a haunted house with my best friend too so I guess that counts as facing my fears  I love haunted houses! We also went on an adventure in the woods near by and went to a corn maze that was a TON of fun. We loved it so much we went back in the exit and went back as far as we could (1/2 way before we were blocked by staff) just to confuse people and then went back out again!

 

 

Today I had work and I am almost done with my nalgene of water. I made an appointment with a Physical Therapist for tomorrow!! I'm excited to hopefully get some good direction from them and some exercises. I also made an appointment with a dermatologist because I am 100% done with this adult acne crap, that's next week so wish me luck. Plan for the rest of the day is errands and cooking up a butternut squash for dinner, yum! At the moment I feel motivated to go for another woods adventure but I'm not sure that will happen, if not I'm going to try and do the body weight workout tonight. 

[Arrow]

I definitely got my workout in today, I did a 3-hour hike for work (the longest one) which is over 5 miles. I even had to almost run up the first part which is naturally the longest, steepest, hill ever. I had to get my group of dogs up before the other hike could unload from the car and they were right behind me. I made it up the hill in 7 minutes with two 5 gallon jugs of water in my pack! It was a beautiful hike. 

 

This afternoon I had my consultation with a physical therapist. He had me do lots of exercises and told me I don't actually have any major irregularities in my shoulders that would be diagnosed as scapula dyskinesis. I do however have very disproportionate use of muscle. My trapezius muscles are doing all the work and the other muscles around my shoulders/back/scapulas are very weak. He didn't give me specifics just 'back strengthening' exercises are what I need to work on. I also need to work on my posture to help out and my hips/waist have no hinge to them. Essentially all of me is tense and I can't touch my toes to save my life. 

 

I need ideas for good back strengthening exercises! So far I have:

-rows

-pull ups (eventually, assisted for now if I go to a gym)

-planks

-reverse fly's

-supermans

 

I also need to start stretching more...I'm gonna need a lot of help here, he suggested yoga as a great idea because it could help both shoulders and flexibility but I know nothing about yoga and I'm poor. 

 

Please help a girl out!

[Arrow]

Just gonna keep updating. So I stretched forever yesterday, looked up a bunch of yoga videos on youtube and found some good ones. I discovered just how inflexible I am in certain areas (looking at you hip flexors!) my body reacted interestingly to all this new movement. I'm going to try and stretch everyday but allow myself every other day because life happens. My back is generally sore, after sitting with proper posture last night and as frequently as I remembered today at work, it is very noticeable when I am slouching. I also tried to do most activities right handed today (I'm a southpaw) and boy oh boy did my right shoulder get a workout in. I had to scrub 5 kennels today and it went something like:

*scrub, scrub, scrub* "Shit, ow, ah fuck, why am I doing this?!" *scrub, scrub, scrub* 

 

I have kept up on my other goals of water and a veggie with dinner so far this week! Those two are coming easily to me for now, I might have to revamp this challenge more for my back/shoulders since they are taking the majority of my focus these days. Time to go stretch and get ready for bed! 

[ShadowLion]

You've got a lot of goals and are managing to get a lot done! Those hikes sound great!

[ShadowLion]

You still with us, Arrow? I hope you are hanging in there...

[Arrow]

14 hours ago, ShadowLion said:

You still with us, Arrow? I hope you are hanging in there...

 

I'm alive! I definitely fell off the bandwagon but nothing too bad. I stayed strong on the stretches for a week and half or so. I got partially caught up because I knew I needed to re-vamp my challenge goals and didn't have the motivation to do it. I honestly forgot for a bit. Life has been a roller-coaster.

 

A coworker asked me to watch her dogs for a week while she was gone and I am a sucker and even though I didn't really want to I said yes. When driving over there a couple nights ago my car got hit. I'm 100% fine just a little shaken up, my car is mostly fine, alignment is off but otherwise seems ok. I drove it minimally when I realized the alignment was off and got someone else to watch the dogs for the last day and half. I'm waiting for shops to open tomorrow to take the car into the auto-body shop to get checked out. In the mean time I hit up Reddit to see what I could try to check myself, and thus far haven't found anything bent/wrong. 

 

Today is a bit of torture because it's a waiting game. Waiting to call the insurance when they open tomorrow, waiting to get the car checked, waiting to see if I need to ride my bike to work every day, waiting to let extended family know if I need a ride to thanksgiving...the list goes on. Good news is I planned a vacation right before this happened and I get to go home and see some friends for the first time in years along with my nephews (one furry, one human). 

 

My organization went out the window and I was already panicking before the accident so naturally things are a mess.