Project Fear Less: Post The First

It could will happen.  via

I had been thinking about the topic of my last post for a long time before I wrote it.  The culmination was simply that day when I kept whining about being scared and weak like I had been for freaking ever and suddenly got all meta about it.  But it had been in the back of my mind for some time, and I kept half-thinking that it would be kind of a cool idea to act on that quote from one of my namesakes:

"Do one thing every day that scares you."

At first, when the idea emerged, I thought it would be too unrealistic and unsustainable - I'm not scared of THAT many things, right?  Um.  Well.  Upon reflection...yeah.  Below is a partial list of just some of the stuff I can think of right now:

1. I'm scared of being upside-down - doesn't matter how far I am from the ground.  Even downward dog in yoga makes me nervous.
2. I'm scared of falling.
3. I'm scared of speaking up in class.
4. I'm scared of asking this one person to hang out because he'll misinterpret it as flirting and I honestly just want to have a really good conversation.
5. I'm scared of being by myself in the woods at night.
6. I'm scared to ask for a raise even though I'm amazing at my job, am frequently complimented by my bosses and have been there almost a year.
7. I'm scared to go to new places alone.
8. I'm scared to walk around my neighborhood (let alone run in my exercise shorts).
9. I'm scared to get rid of a lot of the knick-knacks and objets d'art I've collected over the years because I feel like they hold my memories better than my brain can.  But now I have boxes full of stuff in a tiny apartment with one 1x3 closet.
10. I'm scared to practice any of the parkour-y stuff I'm beginning to learn on my breaks at school because PEOPLE WILL SEE ME and presumably...laugh?  Or something.
11. I'm scared of writing back to my friend because it's been way too long since she's written to me and I'm afraid she hates me now.  So I do what I always do in these situations and stall even more.
12. I'm scared of hitting "Publish" on this post because it got a lot more personal than I was expecting it to, and the internet can be cruel.

I can give you an embarrassingly large number of other examples...but you get the picture.

So now that I have the fodder, what's the plan?  It's dazzlingly simple: take the words of that other brilliant Eleanor at face value, and do (at least) one thing every day that scares me.  It could be something as small as attempting to walk backwards up the wall into a handstand, which scares the ever-loving piss out of me because my brain suddenly screams "OH MY GOD THERE IS NOTHING BENEATH YOUR FEET YOU ARE GOING TO FALL OFF THE WORLD" and then I fall over.  But hopefully that's not going to happen.  It could be as big as planning a solo overseas trip, which stupidly enough scares me way less than the thought of being inverted.  But at least one thing.  Every day.  Doesn't have to be unique, just has to get the butterflies going.

DAY 1:  Today I hollered at a class of 60+ people to shut up while the professor was talking.  And when I say holler, I mean holler.  I can be loud when I want to be.

DAY 1 BONUS:  Today I stepped between two rocks that were 5ish feet off the ground, jumped between two more rocks that were farther apart than I honestly thought I could make and swung under a rail multiple times without re-tearing my labrum, as my brain assured me would instantly happen.

That's all for now.  Keep me honest, people - bug me if I don't post.  Yes, I mean that seriously.

What scares you?

-N

Fear less

So last Friday, I headed to Chapel Hill to ape it up for a while.  As it turned out, my ape sensei for the day was not the Caveman Ninja, but someone else, equally as cool, but apparently moving to the fricking Swiss Alps, like, yesterday.  And amid all the jumping and rolling and whatnot, I found myself saying, over and over, some version of "I can't do that because I'm too weak and/or scared."  Even though I actually did go through with a lot of the stuff, I feel like I wasted the opportunity to learn as much as I could have because I was too caught up in what I couldn't do (at least, what my head told me I couldn't do).

Then I realised...that's been pretty much the defining factor of the past year (at least) of my life.  Fear.

It's not that I've failed to accomplish anything.  I got back in school, aiming for a dual degree in physics and engineering, and finished the first year with only one B.  I found my own place - a nice little duplex in Durham, less than two miles from both my main workplace and school.  I handled 65-70 hours of work per week over the summer and saved up a small chunk that should come in handy in the future.

But...I also neglected my physical fitness.  A LOT.  I stopped going to PT ostensibly because it was too expensive, but also because it hurt so much, and I was afraid of the pain.  I didn't start back up with training when my body could have handled it, because I was terrified of hurting my shoulder again, and because I was ashamed of being the weakest person there.

That's how it started.  I feel like that physical weakness and fear of pain transferred over into other aspects of my life, and made fear the main motivator.  I studied hard and got good grades because the spectre of failing at school yet again and thereby damning myself to a life in shit jobs constantly hovered over my shoulder.  I blinded myself to the bad and spent all my spare time trying the same bad fixes on relationships that kept not getting fixed because I was terrified of being alone in a big scary world for the rest of my life.  I worked so ridiculously much because I felt absolutely certain that if I didn't, I wouldn't be able to make rent and feed myself and would have to live in my car and probably get hassled by the police or possibly mugged by someone who would creep up and slash my tires at 3am and then just wait, laughing and sitting on my hood while I pissed myself trying to dial 911 but my phone would be dead.  That's how my brain works sometimes.

Some might say that it doesn't matter what your motivation is if you accomplish your goals in the end.  I think that's bullshit.  It's the same kind of effect that a lot of women get from trying the "motivation through shame" sort of transition to a healthier lifestyle: take a picture of yourself in a bikini or underwear and tape it up on the fridge or near your exercise equipment,  using that (presumably disgusting beyond words) image as negative motivation to eat better and exercise more.  The problem with that is the constant, poisonous inner monologue it can create, endlessly repeating how YOU ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH...and you never will be.  You might lose weight and look hot to others, but the voice will remain, and it's a tough sonofabitch to evict once it's in there.  I know this.  There are still times when I have to literally smack myself in the head and say "shut UP!"  Usually this is a silly enough move to help me get over it already, although it might freak onlookers out a bit.

I recently gave some advice to a friend who was considering the shame-picture method.  My alternative was to buy a cute bikini and use that as the motivation.  It's almost the same, but there's one major difference: with the picture, your motivation is something you're running away from.  With the bikini, it's something you're running towards.  And that small shift makes a world of difference.

I don't want to be simply "not living in my car" or "not alone" or "not weak and in pain."  I want to be actively seeking out a life of amazement and adventure - which, I'm now thinking, might actually include living in my car for a while (or at least out of a teardrop trailer...ideas, ideas!).  I want healthy, fulfilling relationships with interesting people...and I also want the security of being able to depend on myself first and foremost.  As for the pain...I can put up with that if it leads to the ability to hold a weight heavier than I am over my head, and vault effortlessly over a wall...and DO A DAMN HANDSTAND ALREADY.

That's right.  There are a lot of scary things in the world, but one thing that I am still absolutely viscerally terrified of is being upside-down.  And that's going to change.  This is going to be the year of fearing less in all areas of my life, and a sudden (literal) 180-degree switch in worldview is only going to aid that process.

Now, who wants to spot me?

-N

Back from Paradise

I will never, ever get tired of that view.  It's always exactly the same, and it's always absolutely perfect.

For the past week-ish, I've been in upstate New York, out of cell phone and GPS range and only around wireless once to send some emails.  So basically lost to the rest of the world, and it was FABULOUS.  Here's a basic day:

7ish: wake up, lie in bed for a while marveling at the fact that I have absolutely nothing that I need to do.  Eventually roll out of bed and don my swimsuit.  Grab a cup of coffee and a towel and walk down the hill to the lake.

8am-dinnertime: swim, lie in the sun and get dry, swim again, walk barefoot through the woods over a century-old carpet of pine needles, go for a quick paddle or row across the lake, head back up to the camp (that's Gahadaese for "house") for some ridiculous dinner made by my wonderful uncle - something like grilled marinated lamb.

9ish-the wee hours: campfire time!  Shooting the breeze, jamming, taking an impromptu trip across the lake at 2am to see what the creepy light that appears there sometimes is (and then turning around before we got there because SOMEONE who happened to be rowing got skeered), roasting marshmallows, midnight swimming...and then finally picking your way back to camp barefoot in the dark to fall asleep and do it all over again tomorrow.

I spent the entire week barefoot, only slipping on my flip-flops a couple times but always kicking them off again before too long.  I sang with some old friends who are now incredibly good at guitar for a talent show (although our jam session earlier was miles better because I'm not used to microphones), danced for several hours straight at a square dance that also included multiple playings of "The Electric Slide" and wished it could have been twice as long.  And every morning I walked down to look over the lake, at that view that's been refreshingly unchanged ever since I first saw it as a baby.  Forget Paris. As long as we have Gahada, I'll be one happy camper.

Hunger. Also, human contact is good for you (whodathunk?)

I'm eating this right. now.  And it is delicious.  Stir-fried chopped squash, chicken hearts and ground beef in a hell of a lot of butter, with a little salt and more than a little coconut sprinkled on top.

Last night I got really hungry.  This isn't a very common occurrence.  It's not that I intentionally try to eat ahead of hunger with lots of small meals - tried it for a long time and it just doesn't work But the stuff I do eat, which is more and more based on medium volumes of meat and veggies, with that order of importance, in a large volume of fat, just keeps me so incredibly satiated that I almost never feel really honest-to-god(s) stomach-grumbling hungry any more.  Yesterday was a fluke because I'd woken up lateish and run to work with no breakfast, then worked through the day on two cups of creamy coffee and one (ONE!) piece of bacon.  And...no hunger until around 6pm.  None.  I also didn't feel totally up to scratch, but I can remember feeling meh before I ate like this, and always being hungry throughout illnesses, even though I always secretly hoped I'd be non-seriously sick for a few weeks and totally lose my appetite so I could finally get rid of my gut.  Nope...never happened.

Right now, though, the obvious extreme efficiency of what I'm eating makes me think about trying intermittent fasting again, reason being that although it's relatively easy to maintain my figure and abilities eating like this, I'd like to start getting noticeably better at badassery again, part of which includes (for me) lowering my body fat just a bit.  My first bout with IF, as I've mentioned before, got me kind of wacko as far as specifically planning what to eat when, and skipping or rescheduling other things so I could eat on time.  Disordered eating is disordered eating, whether it's how much or how you think about it.  But now I think I could be a little more successful at it - I know I can go a very long time without suffering ill effects from not eating, so I can worry a little less about scheduling and just eat more when I have the time.  More on that one later.

So this morning I finally got to hang out with my lovely friend Amy, for whom I was a mother's helper last year, and her adorable little monster Jojo, who is now literally twice the size he was when I first met him at 3 months.  It's cray, as the kids are wont to say these days.  We had a great time just sitting at the table over coffee and alternately talking about our lives and cooing at Jojo trying to ride his horse on wheels (which is a CAR, as anything with wheels is a CAR, even those rolly desk chairs) but not realizing that he can scoot it with his feet, so he just straddles it and then stands up and walks around with it.  Her neighbor stopped by too, unfortunately because she had locked herself out of her house, but it still turned into a fun girl-talk-and-coffee time.  I have missed that SO much.  There's a big disconnect in American society - people live so close together, but just stopping by to chat and have a cuppa is absolutely unheard of.  In my own life, I make myself so busy with work and school and Man that I feel like I've run out of room for more human connections once I actually get some time to myself, so I generally spend it running around in the woods, alone.  And that can be a wonderful thing, but I've starved myself of the other kind of connection to nature - plants are all well and great, but when it comes down to it, humans need other humans.

16Jul, 17Jul and 18Jul, plus oh yay it's RHABDO.

Monday's breakfast:

Kefir with egg yolks, coffee with milk, the whites of the eggs cooked in butter and lard, a handful of sauerkraut frizzled up (mostly to soak up the fat in the pan).

It was a fairly restful day - I had a lot of stuff to take care of, so I took the day off from the lab and got nearly everything done.  In the evening after he got off work, The Man and I took a trip down to the Eno and strolled around in the woods for a good long while.  Any Durhamites who haven't been there yet...really?  Just go already.

Yesterday's breakfast:

Kefir (this is actually made partly with colostrum, or "first milk."  It's what comes out when the cow's milked for a few days following the calf's birth, and it's super high in protein and fat and all kinds of immunoboosters.  People worried about the calf: there is a LOT.  this cow is used to getting milked, so if she didn't, her udder would be like a fricking balloon, she'd probably get mastitis and it would likely be too painful for her to feed her own baby), coffee with milk, ground beef and sauerkraut (the beef is under the sauerkraut so it can soak up all the delicious juices, and also because it's raw (yes really) and I figured people would be grossed out) with brown butter poured over.

Today's breakfast:

Kefir is still fermenting!  I guess this is a good thing because it means my apartment isn't at a steady 80 degrees anymore.  I love that stuff so freaking much, though!  Probably should start making a couple batches at a time.  But anyways, without the kefir, this looks pretty much like the average breakfast, right?  Coffee and a bowl full of something that looks kind of mealy.  Except in my case there's not so much cereal with fruit and a little more diced squash and chicken hearts sauteed in butter and lard, with dried coconut sprinkled on top.

...I'm beginning to think I'm weird.  It's ok, though.  It's the good kind.  (and the coconut?  made. the. meal.  wow)

So yeah, rhabdo.  Last time I was at CFD, we did this thing involving power cleans (65# for me) and pull-ups (ring rows for me) - 10 of each, then 9 of each, then 8, etc etc.  It was awesome.  I liked the setup a lot - it's 55 reps of each move total, but the way it's split up makes it seem like it's going by much faster.  I tried to strike a balance between going heavy-ish and actually completing the whole thing.  I could have done band pull-ups, but it seems like my shoulder is stronger than it is stable, for some positions - there's more of a danger of hurting it if I go faster.  Obvs.  Anyways, I need my damn pull-up bar!  But moving on...

I did the whole thing.  Took me 15:04, and I was the slowest by about 10 seconds behind the second-slowest.  It wasn't terrible, but I figured my arms would be pretty smoked the next day.  That night, I took an ice bath - my normal regime is 10 minutes up to my waist, 5 minutes up to my neck with arms out and 5 minutes with arms in.  This time the cold tap water was warm enough so I didn't get numbed like I usually do (damn you, record-breaking North Carolina summer!), so it was considerably more of a hassle to stay in.  So I kind of skipped the part where I put my arms in.

And maybe I also didn't drink enough water.  Like, say, any.

And then suddenly on Friday afternoon, my arms were so swollen that my elbows were completely obscured and I couldn't straighten them past a 90-degree angle.  I was also nauseous and totally brain-fogged, and absolutely convinced that it was some kind of crazy allergic reaction to the scone and cream puff from Guglhupf I'd had that morning as a treat, after eating pretty damn clean for the past two months.  Except for the Walker shortbread cookies.

I didn't think it's was anything super serious or that wouldn't go away relatively soon, so I just muscled through it (er, so to speak), trying to eat very clean but still not figuring out the part where I SHOULD DRINK SOME FREAKING WATER.  This continued all through the loooong work weekend.

So then Monday I messaged Dave that I'd be by CFD probably the next day, since I had this omg crazy arm thing going on!  but I'm icing it like a mofo and I'm sure it'll be totes fine by tomorrow!  k cya!  And then he wrote back "ummm, Nelly...that sounds a lot like rhabdo."  And I was like WHAT.

So we talked about pee for a while and I looked up some other symptoms of rhabdo, and yeah...probably got it.  Here are all the symptoms I had, plus the ones I'd been told to look out for but didn't see:

• Your pee looks like Coke.  I didn't have this one, and it was still pretty bad.  This is NOT the only indicator.
• You have crazy soreness and cramping.  Like, way way more than normal.  Not just in the stomach, either, which is what I'd been told.  My arm muscles literally felt like they were about to rip when I tried to straighten my arms.  And I come from a long line of English majors, so I know what "literally" means!
• You are swollen up like a balloon.  When I say I couldn't see my elbows, I mean they were totally obscured by the swelling - I couldn't even feel my elbow bone.  Even now, the better part of a week later, they're significantly larger than normal.  Also, my muscles felt like they wouldn't stop flexing - they were rock-hard all the time, which for other things can occasionally be a good thing, but here was not so enjoyable.
• "Brain fog," i.e. UTTER CONFUSION.  I knew I was out of it when one of the cooks said something to me about pretzels, and after I actually understood her words the third time she said them (not a normal event), I was like "oh no, John's making the pretzels today."  And then she looked at me weird and said "no, I mean give me one."  And we laughed merrily together, but inside I was like "wtf??  damn gluten..."  Seriously, though, I was in a total haze and honestly probably shouldn't even have driven the mile and a half back to my house.
• Nausea and general feeling shitty.  BLARG.  It's never, EVER been so easy for me to turn down all the delicious Mexican food the cooks make for each other.  I entertained the thought for a second, but my stomach started gurgling even at that.

That's everything I noticed.  Don't be stupid like me, kids.  Drink your damn water.  I'd fallen out of the habit when I stopped going to CFD* on a regular basis, but now I've got my liter bottle in my hand and I'm chugging like a sixth-year senior frat boy trying to fill the emptiness inside.

-Nelly

*I will probably be there at 6 or 7 tonight.

10Jul12 plus first (real) day back at CFD!

BREAKFAST
Coffee with milk.  Kefir with two raw eggs whisked in,  Sauerkraut.

So yesterday was my first day back at CFD.  It's changed a lot since the last time I was regularly there, as have I.  I saw a lot of new faces mixed in with the old ones, nearly all of whom (minus one scary elite) were smiling at me...so that was good.  I'm prepping to do a Wendler program, so yesterday was figuring out my 1-rep maxes on the lifts used in the program - press, back squat and deadlift.  The final one used is bench press, but it took me close to an hour to get the first three, and I'm a little nervous about trying for the heaviest I can go without a spotter.  Below are my new numbers.

PRESS - 55
I don't remember what I was doing for press last year, but I know my clean and jerk was somewhere around 120-130, so I think it's safe to assume press was probably a little under a hundred.  This is the one I was most worried about, as even a year afterward, my right shoulder is still not where it used to be as far as mobility and strength go, and the press is the lift where your arms and shoulders get the least help from the rest of your body.  If I weren't so overly worried about re-injuring myself, I could probably have gone higher, but I'll stick with this for now.

BACK SQUAT - 125? 115?
I had written down 115 but then I realised I didn't add up the plates correctly, but by that time I had moved on and couldn't quite remember how I had it.  I'm most likely going to err on the side of caution here and go with the lower number, as the position for holding the bar is absolute murder on my shoulder.  I can get the high-back position ok fine (thanks to a tip from Bonesetter Stew, who happened to be there), but the low-back - my preferred technique last year, as I found it helped me go heavier and also work more on my legs and less on my neck and shoulders, which I'd rather leave slender-ish - is incredibly painful.  I'm gonna pull the head off the broom and practice with the stick, for starters.  The last numbers I recall for back squat were around 175-185.

DEADLIFT - 175
This was the only lift that I honestly sought out failure on, both because it was the last one I was doing for the day and it doesn't really involve shoulders.  My last number for this was 225, and I was immensely proud of it because I was getting really close to doing 1.5xbodyweight.  This is...significantly less.  More like 1.167xbodyweight.  Not gonna lie, this is the lift I love the best, and it was more than a little disappointing to see how much it's dropped.  Still, it only went down 50 lbs in a year, and since it's generally so heavy and uses the really big muscle groups, there's a chance I could see significant improvement pretty fast.

And then when I was putting stuff away, I tried to hang clean 95 lbs to put it on the rack and failed miserably (the first time.  got it the second) with the scary elite watching.  Felt pretty goddamn stupid.

I really really really need to make this a habit again.  I was whining to JJ (not too shrilly, I hope) about how it didn't feel like I knew the place anymore.  Well, there's only one way to change that, and I need to suck it up and just keep coming back already.

Running the numbers: Round 3

I just got back from having Bonesetter Stew set my bones and take my stats.  Here's the first time I had this done and the second, for interested parties.  Also, if I can find someone tall, dark, handsome and named Tony to hold the camera for me, I'll get more pictures and do a side-by-side comparison with the old ones.  Below, I've listed first/second/latest numbers, in that format.

Weight: 161/155/149.  I'm pretty happy with this, but there are more interesting numbers to focus on...

BMI: 25.06/24.28/23.34.  I know this one is totally inaccurate and you're not supposed to put a lot of stock into it, but this is the first time in recent memory that I've checked it and it was solidly in the "normal" range.  Moving on...

Body Fat Percentage: 26.3/24.9/23.3.  This, along with waist-to-hip ratio (which I'll post as soon as I can dig up a tape measure), are the numbers I'm most interested in.

Total Body Water: 59.7%/64.0%/68.5%.  Stew says around 70% is a good aim, so I'm doing awesomely here.

Basal Metabolic Rate: 1540/1518/1492.  It's dropped as I've lost weight, as is to be expected.  I wish it were a little higher, but that should come with more lean mass.

Daily Energy Expenditure: 2002/2278/1940.  And I still have no clue how to translate this into real-world terms - I mean, I get that it's supposed to be how much you burn in a day, but how the hell is that actually measured in an instant?

As I said before, WTH ratio and pictures are forthcoming.

Now for the coolest part of this: the time span between the first and second stats was a little less than a month when I was doing a strict calorie-restricting diet/cleanse and working out very heavily probably 6 times a week or so, with most of the rest of my life being relatively easy and unstressful.  I saw definite improvements in my numbers, but as I noted in my follow-up post, my overall results weren't totally desirable.  I was cranky and  bloated; my trichotillomania was seriously acting up and I felt extremely constrained and regimented by the specific way I was supposed to eat and train, as well as discouraged by the way my performance in the gym had dropped.  I was moving towards some goals, but at the expense of others.

Now, fast-forward to today.  I haven't done more than an hour or two of formal exercise in a year.  (I'm not counting the forest walk/running I do with my zombie running app, because that's almost entirely walking, I've only done a few episodes and it's also a game.)  I've gone through some incredibly stressful times in the past year and am now working three jobs  for a total of 60-70 hours/week.  When I'm at home, I spend most of my time lying on my bed reading or web-surfing via my phone.  My diet is insanely high in animal fats: schmalz, lard, fatback, butter and heavy cream make up the bulk of my calories, with coconut oil being added soon.  Other than that, I eat raw or rare eggs, beef, offal (liver, heart, etc) and milk (which I drink almost entirely cultured into kefir at this point).  Sometimes I roast a chicken.  The only carbs I normally have come from my homemade lactofermented sauerkraut and the kefir, or other veggies if The Man buys them for me.  He also surprised me with Walker shortbread cookies yesterday, and I gave him a kiss and promptly demolished half the (large) package.  That's another thing: while what's listed above is my default way of eating, I definitely "cheat" more than I think I should.  I also take 20-minute ice baths a couple times a week, a la Tim Ferriss.  And I try not to stay up past 11 most nights.  That's it.

Whatever I'm doing seems to be mostly working.  I'm not entirely happy with everything - I want to regain my flexibility and strength, for starters, and eventually I want to start moving back towards competition-level lifting and parkour, as well as dripping a couple more percentage points of body fat and working on having an ass like whoa.  But as far as I can tell without actually having been to the gym, a surprising amount of my strength is still there - things like air squats and burpees come easily to me, and (most amazingly) I can still do a few unassisted pull-ups in a row (remember, I had shoulder surgery last year). 

I like where I am.  I love where I'm going.  Here's to documenting the whole process.

-n