Aaaannd now this song is stuck in my head again...   

Congrats Sov! That is a HUGE success! Be proud of yourself, we're all so proud of you!

Thank you.    Upside found out my insurance covers a clinic that focuses on Functional Medicine! Goal is to call them after work today, probably after a meditation.    Yesterday was 3 points for mindful eating...   I realized I did feel like I was hit by a truck yesterday... and didn't realize we were having a heat advisory... *sigh* Yesterday was a partial not so restful day... but we keep at them. 

Reduce: Reduce high expectations. Reduce pressure and stress. Reduce clutter.   Refuse: Refuse to do things or go to events that I don't really care about just to please others. Refuse to smile and nod and stay quiet when people upset me.   Recover: Recover from burnout. Recover the sense of self that was lost decades ago. Recover from drinking too much.   These goals are rather vague, but the path of self-improvement and self-acceptance and all that bullshit is different for everyone and one thing I've learned so far is that SMART goals always end in failure when I attempt them. Having said that, the above "goals" are more of a direction than actual goals. The only thing I'll be tracking is alcohol use, just like in the last challenge. I'll also be using this thread to do thought dumps/thought records and journaling. The goals highlighted in yellow will be the main focus, and the non-highlighted ones will be getting worked on as much as possible whenever possible. I'm definitely keeping "reduce high expectations" in the back of my mind for this whole challenge.   June 17:  June 18:  June 19:  June 20:  June 21:  June 22:  June 23:    June 24:  June 25:  June 26:  June 27:  June 28:  June 29:  June 30:    July 1:  July 2:  July 3:  July 4:  July 5:  July 6:  July 7:    July 8:  July 9:  July 10:  July 11:  July 12:  July 13:  July 14:    July 15:  July 16:  July 17:  July 18:  July 19:  July 20:  July 21:    ^ So I don't have to dig through my own thread at the end of this challenge to count wins.   I'll add tags and possibly more to this post later.

Following.   I'm sorry the movie turned out to be horribly boring and not at all to your taste. I hope your next outing is something more fun for you.

You had positivity to share, Sal - your continued sobriety in the face of a very difficult weekend in the midst of all of the rest of your stress. That is incredible, Darling. Just fucking fabulous. I know you don’t feel amazing right now, but I am in awe of you doing the hard work to set new habits and pathways that are less destructive. I am so, so, so proud. Keep going. ❤️ 

Ok, now for the opposition. This level, I will be battling Vampirates:   Because who doesn't love undead sailors? May or may not have been influenced by recently introducing my niece to Pirates of the Caribbean.      And because Vampirates are always accompanied by Shadows, my old Level 2 (I think it was level 2, maybe 3?) nemesis is coming back:   So each  Vampirate as 1d4 Shadows attached to it that I must defeat before facing the Vampirate directly. The first one only had 1, which I killed in Zero Week, so we're already off to a good start.      

Reclaiming space, especially with decluttering and putting up art, is so empowering. I am excited for you!   Also freaking stoked about that deck, it is so gorgeous!!! I think the message is really powerful and a good vibe for the work you are doing right now. ❤️ 

Following of course. Welcome to Level 5!!!  

Week 1 has been going well so far. I think all the goals I set for maintenance feel really achievable. And even with a maintenance focus, I've actually been dipping lower on the scale - I was under 170lbs at every weigh in this week... until this morning anyway, when the consequences of my food choices this weekend caught up with me. 😆   We kicked off summer break this weekend in an epic way. On Friday, the kids finished school early and spent the afternoon making a splashy mess on the deck until after dinner, when we had a neighborhood ice cream social. Picture dozens on neighborhood kids hyped up on ice cream, chalk drawing, lawn jenga, and bikes everywhere as the sun starts to go down. Bliss.   On Saturday we took the kids to the pool - it was a nice hot day, even if the water was still a little chilly. Both kids had a great time splashing around and trying to remember their swim lessons from previous years. We packed a picnic lunch and ate at the pool; the kids lasted about 3 hours before they were totally wiped. Since it was still early in the day, we checked out an open house for a neighborhood about an hour away from home, more to get a sense of the neighborhood than anything. (We're thinking about moving next spring/summer before my youngest enters kindergarten, so we're exploring areas at the moment.) After the open house we found a fun brewery up the road that served kids' strawberry 'daiquiris' and self-service beer taps with a ton of options. I actually loved that, because I could get a little 4oz pour of a beer instead of a whole pint. We played games with the kids while we cooled off and enjoyed our drinks, then scouted out a sushi restaurant nearby for dinner where we got this amazing sushi boat:     Then Sunday was US Father's Day. The kids showered Matt with homemade cards and presents and then it was off to DC for a baseball game! We had perfect weather, seats in the shade right behind home base, the home team won (Let's Go Nats!) and everyone had a fantastic time. I enjoyed 2 ridiculously expensive stadium beers, but what's baseball without a cold beer? On the way home we picked up Peruvian chicken for dinner, which really killed my calorie counts for the day.   It's hard to adjust to the mindset of tracking but not particularly worrying about hitting my calorie targets. I thought about adjusting my numbers to more of a maintenance target on LoseIt, but right now I'm still clinging to those weight loss numbers. But it's nice to know that even if I go 700-800 calories over during the weekend, I'm still at a loss overall for the week because I've been sticking to lower numbers up until then. I think that's going to help overall with not gaining weight back.