[Severine]

This challenge brought to you by @fleaball, the patron saint of Severine actually showing up to do challenges. Thank you for the reminder and motivation!

 

As of my most recent testing last month, my cancer is still in remission (yay), but I just turned 43 and my physical fitness is so far from where I want it to be that I lack the words to properly encapsulate my disillusionment. The melodramatic title of this thread truly conveys the level of melodramatic panic I sometimes experience when I realize that every year I get older without improving my health and fitness, I'm hastening my own decline and lowering my chances of living a fulfilling life as I age. Scary shit. In the long term, I would like to lose a bunch of weight, regain a ton of strength, and in general better prepare myself to traverse the next ?? years/decades in a state where I am physically able to do cool shit. All of this requires a lot more actual engagement than I have shown in the last few years. Moving to Vancouver in 2021 was, in general, not great for me (turns out I don't like it here), but it's going to be at least a year before we can think about moving, so I need to figure out a way to do more than just float in a dissatisfied limbo while I'm here.

 

The immediate, short-term focus of this challenge is that I am going to be travelling from October 18 - November 11. We're flying to Vienna, spending five days there, and then taking a train through the Alps to Venice, where we'll begin the Italian segment of the trip: Venice, Lake Como, Genoa, Bologna, Florence and Tuscany, and finally Rome. European cities, done properly, require a lot of walking, and I want to be able to do it as comfortably as possible. It's already going to suck being fat in Europe, but I can at least be fat and somewhat capable. Thinking about the trip has also been a good reminder that I want more travel/adventure in my life, and all of that is easier when one is in reasonable shape. For example, I would love to do some of the trips these people put on, but the really cool ones are beyond my current fitness level. I need to keep this in mind as part of my 'why'.

 

Enough preamble. Here's the plan:

1. Walk every day. This can be an outdoor walk, or I can use the elliptical. Minimum twenty minutes. Extra points for forty minutes or more. Pace doesn't matter at this point.
2. Work on reviewing Italian every day 
3. Do one thing off my to-do list

 

That's it. Trying to keep it simple.

 

I will close with a bit more melodrama (what can I say, I love it), in the form of something I sometimes say to myself: Death is coming, Severine. Do something that brings you alive.

[fleaball]

[Sovalis]

Good to see you! ?

[Laghail]

On 9/7/2024 at 10:03 PM, Severine said:

1. Walk every day. This can be an outdoor walk, or I can use the elliptical. Minimum twenty minutes. Extra points for forty minutes or more. Pace doesn't matter at this point.
2. Work on reviewing Italian every day 
3. Do one thing off my to-do list

 

Walking and language challenge??? Very yes. If you have access to a track or somewhere you can safely walk while glued to your phone, apparently "A new study reports that working out during a language class amplifies people’s ability to memorize, retain and understand new vocabulary." 

 

From https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/16/well/move/how-exercise-could-help-you-learn-a-new-language.html

[Severine]

On 9/7/2024 at 9:33 PM, Sovalis said:

Good to see you! ?

 

Likewise! I like your new user icon. I will come parachute into your thread and find out what you're up to.

 

14 hours ago, Laghail said:

 

Walking and language challenge??? Very yes. If you have access to a track or somewhere you can safely walk while glued to your phone, apparently "A new study reports that working out during a language class amplifies people’s ability to memorize, retain and understand new vocabulary." 

 

From https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/16/well/move/how-exercise-could-help-you-learn-a-new-language.html

 

Isn't it maddening how useful exercise is for everything? Dastardly, in my opinion.

 

I often use walking/elliptical time to listen to foreign language podcasts (French mostly, with some Spanish and Russian), but my Italian isn't good enough yet to listen to truly interesting podcasts. I could certainty try a podcast geared toward learners, if I can find one that is actually engaging...maybe I can count searching for Italian podcasts as the useful to-do list thing for today ?

 

I walked 27 minutes today plus a bit of a cooldown. Not an impressive pace or anything, but it happened, and that's huge relative to what's been going on around here lately. Reviewed my Italian vocabulary in the two apps I'm using atm (Drops and Lingvist), and about to go cross something off my to-do list. Possibly a thing I just put on my to-do list. 

[Laghail]

10 hours ago, Severine said:

I often use walking/elliptical time to listen to foreign language podcasts (French mostly, with some Spanish and Russian), but my Italian isn't good enough yet to listen to truly interesting podcasts. I could certainty try a podcast geared toward learners, if I can find one that is actually engaging...maybe I can count searching for Italian podcasts as the useful to-do list thing for today ?

 

I walked 27 minutes today plus a bit of a cooldown. Not an impressive pace or anything, but it happened, and that's huge relative to what's been going on around here lately. Reviewed my Italian vocabulary in the two apps I'm using atm (Drops and Lingvist), and about to go cross something off my to-do list. Possibly a thing I just put on my to-do list. 

 

Pure BAMF material.

[Severine]

Update! I have been good about walking (only missed two days so far) but bad about updating my thread. I'm keeping up with my Italian review, but not getting as many things crossed off the to-do list as I would like. My insomnia is acting up (yes, I am updating this at 3:30am for a reason), and it makes it so hard to coordinate basic productivity because I end up taking random naps in the middle of the day (I'm lucky I work from home and can do this at least some of the time) and otherwise being very off-kilter.

 

I keep hoping the extra exercise will help make it easier to fall asleep, but so far no luck.