Inkybrushes' BatRep!

[inkybrushes]

So, who's familiar with the term batrep?

In miniatures gaming, at least, we use batreps (or battle reports) to analyze tactics used by ourselves and our opponents during tournaments or other events. The theory is, by recording our small steps, we can get a better view of the overall picture, leading us to be better tacticians, and eventually, better players.

Welp, life is my tournament. Unhealthiness is my opponent. And sweet mother of Jesus, he's been kicking my ass. I've made a lot of Big Life Decisions lately, such as quitting my job and moving across the country to the West Coast. The lazy procrastinatey part of me would be all like, "You should wait until you get to Seattle in September, then start your new life." Fuck that, I'm starting now, and I'm going to start my new life in Seattle IN BETTER SHAPE.

So consider this my batrep as I try out new tactics to crush unhealthiness, and take home the tournament trophy of Ultimate Badass Winner Yay!

About a week ago, I began training using the basic beginner's exercises as outlined in the Beginner's Guide to Parkour, adding beginning sun salutations and ending with stretching for flexibility. I also began eating Paleo. By the way, not to crap on anyone's difficulties with this diet...but holy shit, Paleo just feels so right for my body and it's reasonably easy to follow for me. I literally am not missing anything off of it, except for the occasional habit craving. But then I eat eggs from the cast iron and it goes away. I'm finding it difficult to reconcile with my stance on animal cruelty and factory farming, but it's something I'm going to try and work on as I go along. Also, cooking all the time SUCKS. I'm coming off of eating out for basically EVERY meal. I ordered a couple of cookbooks though, so we'll see how it goes.

But back to the strength training. Just a week in, I feel GREAT. The first few days were sore and rough and I wanted to punch all the things but my arms felt like wet noodles. But today I woke up feeling crazy energized. Here are some things I achieved:

No push-ups ---> Two sets of ten perfect form wall push-ups! (Ow, my triceps...)
Can only touch my shins and it hurts like hell ---> Can put my fingertips on the ground and stretching feels GOOD (Thanks, downward facing dog, and squats!)
Sluggish, no energy ---> Running up stairs two at a time and trying to climb trees and shit!

I'm making a conscious decision to not focus TOO much on my appearance and weight until I'm three months in. I suffer from bad body dysmorphia due to lifetime yo-yo dieting, so it's a good thing for me to focus on how I feel instead. The only appearance related thing I'm going to be doing is taking my photo each month so that I can keep an eye on my body composition and how it is changing. I attach for accountability's sake my first photo. Please don't judge too harshly.

So here are the things I pledge to do in this batrep:

1) Post my food and workouts every day so that I can keep an eye on correlations between what I'm doing and how I'm feeling.

2) Post my in progress images every month, and eventually, my weight when I start paying attention to that.

3) Post if I've slipped up. Because hey, accountability!

4) Occasionally ramble about nerd shit I'm doing.

Ok? Ok! Awesome!

--Sarah
 

[ToadChild]

You've been doing great so far, keep it up!  I'm looking forward to getting those cookbooks so that we can keep on trying new foods and keeping things fresh.

[TheHalfie]

Found it! Also, awesome. Stoked to read your progress, stoked to start a thread too. All around super-ness. 

[inkybrushes]

You've been doing great so far, keep it up!  I'm looking forward to getting those cookbooks so that we can keep on trying new foods and keeping things fresh.

 

Thanks, homeslice. You did a killer set of pull-ups today. We'll cook all the things, it'll be awesome.

 

Found it! Also, awesome. Stoked to read your progress, stoked to start a thread too. All around super-ness. 

 

Yay! Start a thread! I'll comment on it with rambly nonsense peppered with support and you can read it and be motivated!

[inkybrushes]

So today I feel like I slept. A lot. I actually took a nap in the middle of the day. But after my nap, I went out and played fun games and ate at Mission Barbecue with friends! I ate a giant pile of meat, it was awesome. I also ate a few bites of green beans, forgetting, once again, that green pod things are LEGUMES, not veggies. I messed this up once before by sticking snow peas in a stir fry. Maybe I'll download that "is it paleo" app after all. Oh well, there are worse things to mess up on. I didn't eat a donut.

Oh, if you like board games, the new expansion for Elder Sign is out. We played it tonight! It makes some great improvements to the existing rules (no more buying Elder Signs from the shop guys! You have to beat adventures!) and adds some new core mechanics that echo the flavor of Arkham Horror, such as blessings and curses, extra-challenging Mythos cards, and Children of Abhoth. Those guys suck. Additionally there are mask monsters for use with Nyarlathotep. And even sleeved, it all fits in the base box, so, win.

 

Now for the daily log!

July 12th, 2013

Foods:

-- 3 fried eggs
-- 1/2 cup strawberries

-- shrimp and broccoli and egg stir fry (about 3 cups)
-- handful of cashews

-- 1 chicken breast with 1/2 cup of fresh salsa

-- 1 apple

-- 1 1/2 cups of pulled pork, no sauce

-- couple bites of green beans with bacon (I didn't realise these little fuckers were legumes until...right now.)

Workout:

-- 2 x 10 wall push-ups

-- 2 x 10 leg raises

-- 24 walking lunges (12 each leg)

-- 2 x 15 squats
 

Awright, peace out everyone! Have a good night!

 

Sarah

[TheHalfie]

Thanks, homeslice. You did a killer set of pull-ups today. We'll cook all the things, it'll be awesome.

 

 

Yay! Start a thread! I'll comment on it with rambly nonsense peppered with support and you can read it and be motivated!

Alright. Alright I will start a thread! I was gonna wait for the next challenge to start but I'm inspired, haha. 

[inkybrushes]

Yo everybody, I'm checking in!

Today I (accidentally?) did intermittent fasting. When I woke up this morning, I still felt full from the pork extravaganza last night, so I didn't want breakfast. And then, around lunchtime, I sent one of the most important emails that I will be sending for the foreseeable future, which resulted in an Instant Panic Attack. I took a valium to calm my heart the fuck down, cause seriously? It shouldn't be beating so fast it HURTS unless I'm doing crazy exercise. Well, that put me in bed for a little while cause it kinda turns your muscles to goop for awhile. So I didn't eat lunch either. Instead I took a nap.

Anyway, Jonathan and I went out for dinner since I've done such a good job all week, and then when we got home, we made banana ice cream in the blender. Which, by the way, is THE SHIT and everyone should try it. We threw some almond butter and cocoa powder in there and it was like eating the richest, most delicious peanut butter chocolate swirl that exists. I couldn't even finish my bowl of it. Here's a little write up from the Kitchn about banana ice cream, along with a few links at the bottom with instructions and add-in recipes.

I went a little light on workouts today, because I'm going to ramp up the bodyweight exercises tomorrow, increasing to twelve instead of ten reps on my leg raises. And...I'm going to start doing incline pushups (you'll see why when you check out today's workout). I will also be incorporating five sun salutations at the beginning and end of each workout to warm up and cool down, as it really gets the necessary muscle flexibility and blood oxygen levels I need to do strength.

Now, you know the drill:

July 12th, 2013

Foods:

-- handful of cashews
-- avocado salad with crabstick (I'm worried they mixed the crabstick with some sort of sauce that had sugar...it tasted sweetish, maybe mirin)
-- sashimi of scallops, salmon, yellowtail, and shrimp
-- banana ice cream with almond butter and cocoa powder

-- two fried eggs

I also had a little nibble of their vinegared cucumbers, which I KNOW have mirin in them. But I couldn't resist a nibble, they're so good.

Workout:

-- 2x15 wall pushups

Now I probably shouldn't have done more push-ups today, but so obsessive is my quest for THE push-up, I've taken to just stopping and doing wall ones to admire how much stronger I've gotten already. I'm ready to move onto inclines though, because these weren't a challenge today. Exercise has to be about getting me stronger, not just boosting my ego. XD

So...now I'm going to go play vidja games with my favourite dudeman, because the Steam Summer Sale is going on, and we bought all the things.

Night!

 

Sarah
 

[TheHalfie]

Oh man, so sorry about the panic attack. That sucks! But, um, good job intermittent fasting? Gotta be a silver cloud in there somewhere right? haha. 

 

And I love The Kitchn, but when I started going paleo I found it wasn't so applicable to my life anymore, and that saddened me. The banana icecream though is killer right? KILLER. So good. And stupid simple to make. I gotta make that. 

 

As for THE pushup, you are such a rock star. Look at ya, doing those wallies now just for the ego boost. The ego boost! Can't wait to hear about the inclines. Nice work. 

[inkybrushes]

As for THE pushup, you are such a rock star. Look at ya, doing those wallies now just for the ego boost. The ego boost! Can't wait to hear about the inclines. Nice work. 

 

Oh, don't worry, those inclines will take my ego down a few pegs, I'm sure. We'll be back to the carefully worded "Did some incline pushups to failure (ie I did one and then my arms broke)". Workout for tomorrow is as follows:

5x sun salutations

3x15 bodyweight squats (I NEED a gym membership so I can start putting a barbell on me.)

2x12 leg raises

24 walking lunges

pull-ups to failure

incline push-ups to failure

5x sun salutations

Going to try and get a walk in there too.

[inkybrushes]

Yesterday was made up of things that were difficult. There were unpleasant conversations about priorities. There was a trip to the gym that contained no working out due to intimidation. I learned that my form on a lot of exercises was not so great, and that I really am going to have to start SMALL and work up. I couldn't do the workout I had planned for myself yesterday. I did have two small triumphs, though. I managed to move up to 2x12 leg raises. And when doing sun salutations, I managed to hoist myself up from cobra into down dog without getting on my knees first, which definitely means that both my arms and core are getting stronger.

So here are the things I'm going to be working on today:

- ask for opinions on, and learn how to do, a proper squat when you have a badonkadonk the size of Texas.

- measure progress on wall pushups by marking how far away from the wall I am, and how high my hands are, because these things matter

- read through my new paleo cookbooks and figure out some things I'd like to make: I'd like to do a new recipe each week

- ask weight lifting friends to help me learn to use the barbells at the gym

- use the new information to plan a revised workout.

 

July 13th, 2013

 

Food:

-- 1 bowl of pho, no noodles or sauces

-- 1 chicken breast

-- handful of cashews

-- 2 eggs

-- 2 slices bacon

-- 1 1/2 cups roasted broccoli

-- 1 apple with almond butter

 

Looking at my food, I realise that I need to be eating more vegetables. This shit isn't Atkins, and I don't want to have a heart attack.

Workout:

-- 10 sun salutations

-- 2x12 leg raises

The rest of the workout time was spent evaluating form on my squats and wall push ups. The reason I've been so "successful" is because I haven't been keeping good or consistent form. SO, for the next couple of workouts, squats and wall push ups are going to be to failure, until I can figure out a good set number.

Hopefully today sucks so much less.

[rubbish_tiger]

Awesome job with your diet! Eat clean, train dirty.

 

Also, I'm TheHalfie's fiance and just signed up, so I thought I should say hi.

 

Hi.

 

And if you'd like advice on barbells, I'd be more than happy to help.