Going to be a Lonely August

Wolfie just moved out east, Bard has gone out west for a month to attend some weddings, and Hugslut is leaving in a week to drive out to BC, hang out there for a bit, and drive back.

I'm going to miss them all and although I get Hugslut and Bard back in September, August is going to have a big hole in it.

I plan to keep busy by rearanging Hugslut's appartment so I can finish bringing my stuff over and making it our appartment. We've already discussed what's going where, and I can do almost everything solo. Kettle said I could borrow her boyfriend to help me carry the dresser and bed across the street and everything else is light enough for me to carry by myself. I do plan to keep up with my challenge while they're gone and as long as I'm not going psycho with the house stuff I should be fine for the workouts.

I've been succeeding with the No-S with one modification. I decided that if I was having a drink(since I don't usually do straight shots) the cola wouldn't count as a "sweet". I am going to go lower carb all August by cutting out the cola completely and making sure I get in lots of veggies(spinach, broccoli, brussle sprouts, etc), with a good amount of fats(olive oil, avocado, whole fat dairy) and protiens(chicken, eggs, fish, tofu). I want to have progress to show Hugslut when she gets back.

To-Do List For This Upcoming Week
 - Monday is weigh-in/measure day (Aug.3, next is Sept.7)
 - Keep up with challenge
 - Spend quality time with Hugslut
 - Help Hugslut prepare for trip

To-Do List For The Rest Of August
 - Keep up with challenge
 - On weekends prep work lunches & dinners, do laundry, and rearrange appartment
 - Go to bed at 9 and get up at 5:30 for BBWW(M&F) or Walk & Meditate
 - Rearange appartment after work most nights
 - Create basic food & workout plan for Hugslut to look over when she returns

I'm feeling kinda brain dead today. Kinda detached and distractable... while at the same time feeling like my train of thought is chugging through wheel-high tar. Hope your day is going better.

Goal: Ninja

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I want to be the kind of fit I don't have to think about. The kind that makes everything fun.

I'm not interested in spending more than a minute at a time running, 

but I love walking/hiking for hours.

I'm not interested in pounding out sets on machines for an hour every day, 

but I'd love to just pop into handstand push ups when I'm bored.

I need to be able in the next 3 years to get fit enough for the homestead, 

but I'd love to exceed that to Ninja Warrior level bodyweight fitness.

I can see myself learning deadlift and weighted squats as an add on to my regular training, but I'd mostly like to be able to fly around a jungle gym / forest / urban environment looking like a special effects team has me on a harness.

Seriously. 

If I can fly around having fun and looking kickass I don't care if I'm 225lbs. 

(gymnastics at that weight would require more strength though)

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Challenge Time

I've started my very first 6-week challenge over on the NerdFitness forums.

Figured I'd start very simply:

Do my bodyweight training Mondays and Fridays (doing the thing is enough. no need to add yet)

Take a lunch to work 4/5 workdays so I'm not eating fries or such for lunch every day

Stick with the No-S Diet (no snacks, no sweets, no seconds, except sometimes on days starting with S)

Walk at least 30 minutes daily 

Doing pretty well so far. Did my bodyweight training, today's not a work day, haven't snacked, already got 20/30 min down so a nice stroll with Bard later will top that up.

Been keeping track of my habits with HabitBull. It's a great little app and completely free if you only want to track 5 or fewer habits.

Adjusting my Sails

So... I have a confession to make. I did not do my bodyweight exercises Friday after work.

 

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I had thought that my main struggle would be the habit building, the inertia of couch-potato-dom, the "but it'll hurt" or "it takes forever" whining. I was wrong. I had successfully picked out times that I would have no excuse to avoid exercising and had not yet settled into browsing position. I picked a routine that was short (less than 30 min) and, with proper stretching, not at all painful even the next day. Turns out that although I'm not hurting... I am exhausted.

Part of addressing that will be eating healthier, another part will be scaling back on the frequency of my workouts. I had thought Mon, Wed, & Fri made sense with rest days between them and all weekend off... but that's the problem with logic, it has no place without data. I have now done science too it and found out that I am not fit enough to do bodyweight training 3 days a week, especially not if I'm walking an extra 2-3km on the "rest" days.

I don't see this as a failure, I just hadn't got a weather forecast before leaving port and the headwinds are stronger than anticipated. I'll adjust my sails to keep the ship from tearing apart and still make (slower) progress. Anything is better than nothing so scaling back to Monday and Friday for now will be good for me.

I Did The Thing!

Actually did my first real workout at home. Here's what I did:

Warm-up fast-walk (2km)
Climb 6 floors of stairs +
10 body weight squats *
5 incline/chair push ups *
10 walking lunges +
10 dumbbell rows (using a full ketchup bottle because I didn't plan ahead)+
20 second plank *
20 jumping jacks +
Cool down stretch

+ means I could have done more easily so make it harder next time

* means the last one or two were really hard so stay there

- means I couldnt finish, ease up a bit next time. There were none of these because I purposefully tried to make it easy so I wouldn't chicken out.

Happy dance!.... Actually... I'm gonna take a shower. I'm super sweaty. Ick.