To Forge an Ironmaiden...

Nevetharine

Nevetharine

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Been offline(ish) a few days. Dieting woes... I won't go into it... just that I had some massive mental anguish about it for the last few days. Like it consumed every ounce of mental energy I had.

About having a small breakfast, if you can imagine that.

I'm trying to get into some sort of normal schedule but it's freaking me the hell out because I'm scared to death of gaining weight. I know we've been here before.
Yay for disordered eating... or should those words actually be reversed?

So now the only thing I'm able to rationalize is... I'll allow myself the portions, but I need to weigh in everyday for 31 days... so that I can have a weekly average to work out and prove to myself that after a month of "intuitive eating a.k.a normal eating" I won't swell up like a balloon.

So following all that panic, I didn't even have the energy to "formally" workout yesterday.

I'm still walking daily with hubby... and yesterday I trained by numbers. 100 push ups, 100 plank leg raises, and 100 tricep dips throughout the day. I also did 5 minute strength, but it wasn't five minutes because I turned it into a power workout. So I used heavier weights and did the reps very slowly.

Today:

✔Walking
✔D12 of Lower Body Blast
✔D1 of Bootcamp, 5 sets, 1m rest.

❇Consecutive days of exercise: 111

Although I started Bootcamp, I'm just fooling around and don't have any "set" program going on right now.

I'm just focusing on doing something everyday to keep the streak going, and trying to keep my maniacal head on my shoulders.
 
Nevetharine

Nevetharine

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Viking from The Depths
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Posts: 879
Workout was pretty much nonexistant yesterday... But I hauled groceries, did the lower body challenge, and walked. That's something, right?

Today will be better because I have a lot of time to myself. My hubby has gotten a weekend job, for this weekend only, of stock taking. I'm prepping to go for a long walk now, around 3.4km. And later, or maybe after, I'll come back to a random Darebee workout.

Dieting woes 》
Food is taking up a lot of mental space. All of it, really. But right now I have "safe meals".

Breakfast has been eggs and bulletproof coffee/toast throughout the week, dinner has been a bowl of oatmeal. Sometimes they switch, but they don't change ATM. Lunch varies.

I'm getting into the habit of not snacking, which I don't think is a bad thing. And I'm allowing myself a "cheatmeal" today. Maybe. Or maybe tomorrow. It's going to be dessert.

I've been doing this a week and already I start panicking when I think of eating anything but the oatmeal or the eggs, because now magically everything else is uncertain and will make me gain 100lbs overnight or derail everything to oblivion. Man, my body loves routine.

The good thing about it is that it cuts out some of the mental anguish, which has a lot to do with too many choices and being uncertain about which one is the "right" one. That doesn't even make sense, but well, anxiety rarely does.

Alrighty, I'm going for that walk! I've started editing my book again, posted the first eight (?) Edited chapters on Inkitt. And I get lots of ideas while walking with music blasting in my ears.

The intention is to edit my book. I might end up playing Skyrim. But that doesn't last long because the movement gives me motion sickness these days.
 
Nevetharine

Nevetharine

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Viking from The Depths
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Posts: 879
Maegaranthelas said:
I now eat fancy muesli with oatmilk every single morning, it saves me so much thinking.
In the past, not knowing what to eat would often leave me just not eating till well after regular-people-lunchtime.
But fancy muesli with vegan chocolate and raspberries is a great way to start my day ^^
Click to expand...

A few months, might actually have been a year, ago, I ate so much oatmeal. I posted my food here almost every day. Oatmeal and lentils. Although lentils don't agree with my digestion anymore, eating the same thing everyday cut down a lot on my anxiety.

Some people suggest counting calories to actually manage it, but I just rebel against the number. And it's never accurate anyway because I loathe weighing food. Sometimes I just spontaneously weigh to check that the portion I'm eyeballing is still correct, but weighing EVERYTHING? I did that to lose most of my weight. No thanks.

I'd rather just eat the same thing everyday until I get sick of it for months and then pick something else. Humans are creatures of habit. Sadly I form bad ones much quicker than good ones...

Today was a "cheat" day, or I had a different meal at lunch than my normal routine.

It wasn't even worth it. Maybe I just need to realize that, for me, it never will be. It will never be enough... or satisfying... or last long enough.

My husband laughed at me last night because he offered me muesli and yoghurt. And I ate it out of a teacup with a baby spoon, just because its so calorific. He finished a bowl four times that size (he can eat a lot... and darn him... stay just as he is) before I finished my cup of muesli. And had an internal storm of panic.

Some people just accept they will always be hungry on a diet and just get on with it. Lol. Guess I have to try that too. And I can be pretty good at rotating the same foods over and over. The problem is keeping the routine when life changes happen. That's usually when I gain. Too much freedom and choice.

My hubby has given up on trying to support me with eating because the plans keep changing and he can't keep up. And more often than not I end up getting mad at him. So he promised not to say anything ever again. He's not against anything, nor supporting anything.

It actually makes it EASIER for me. Because there's less guilt involved feeling like I've "failed" someone. There's no one to fail but me.

The food noise in my head is a lot though. I wanted to work on my book today, never got around to it. I've been reading Reddit posts all morning. I have such a headache. :giveup:

But I WILL play skyrim later, because that gets my mind off it. Or reading a good detective novel.
 
Nevetharine

Nevetharine

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Posts: 879
I did this today. And with half EC. Because I can't configure my dumbells to 8kg... only to 7 or to 10. And 10kg was too heavy.

And I did the day's challenge.

I'm less distracted today. 🙂 Or rather, distracted with things other than food. Which is good. I'm having muesli tonight for dinner, and it won't be in a teacup. (Edit to add - because I weighed it out. And a serving doesn't just fit in a teacup, but in a small bowl, in fact.)
 
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Nevetharine

Nevetharine

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Viking from The Depths
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Posts: 879
I did Frontier today, 4 sets, 45s rest.

And remembered I love HIIT.

Ever had someone slap a title on you? One of those days, there have been many, where a stranger tells me: "You know that's a sign of ASD, right?"

Or like that guy in the bank one time, who asked me, "Can't you stand still??"

And I'm like Noo! Why would you want to?

Or, classically, my brother, "Stop swaying like that, you're making me seasick." Well jeez, look the other way dude.

You read all the stuff online, and know you are a textbook case. Even the one and only psychologist you saw in your life for completely unrelated reasons had her suspicions.

So when people get in your face about not looking them in the eye when they talk to you, you sort of stare at them. Maybe a bit too long... enough to make them uncomfortable.

And then you smile, and realize you can't please everyone.

Imagine if I started telling them all the sh&% I write in my novels. They'd think I'm a psychopath. :giveup:
 
Nevetharine

Nevetharine

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Viking from The Depths
Pronouns: She/her
Posts: 879
A family member wants to start injecting testosterone to get bigger, because, as he puts it, he can't gain weight because he shits like a bird.

I personally think it's a horrible idea. And encouraged him to rather eat more, or if it's a problem, go see an endocrinologist.

But he's nineteen, and using exercise as coping (sometimes he works out for two hours a day). He's had a hard life... He wants to "get big" so nobody would bother him ever again. He doesn't have huge muscles, but I'd wager he's plenty strong even if he's lanky.

And he won't listen. Makes me worry. His mother had addiction problems, and I'm afraid he'll go down the path of a different addiction. :tap:

Society woes - Trigger warning for those with EDs
I feel like society highlights these kinds of issues in women so much, they forget that men can have them too.

I've had a male friend who had bulimia, and even as he got severely thin, his family just kind of dismissed it because "guys didn't get eating disorders", that's a "girl" thing. They figured he *wanted* to be that thin. (?!) Couldn't imagine how anyone could think someone getting up from the table straight after dinner to go make himself throw up is "normal" or a "phase". Kind of makes me sick.
 
neilarey

neilarey

Administrator
DAREBEE Team
Shieldmaiden from Greece
Posts: 650
"Trust The Awesomeness"
Happy Birthday @Nevetharine :welcome:

Happy Birthday Love GIF by Hallmark Gold Crown
 
Nevetharine

Nevetharine

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Viking from The Depths
Pronouns: She/her
Posts: 879
:sneaky:

"Hi," she said awkwardly, idly dragging a foot on the floor. "I'm alive, and yes, out of shape." 😂

Thank you all so much for the birthday wishes! I'm going to have to do all these workouts soon.

My fitness has completely fallen to the wayside, in favor of writing, and I'm back to just walking again. Ironically only because it gets my stories going. 😅

I'm spending most of my day writing, editing my work, reading and reviewing other people's works etc. Sigh, if only I got paid to do it. :tap:

But it pays in satisfaction and fun.

All my streaks have been annihilated. My diet is... eh, alright I suppose. When I'm focused on writing, a lot of that dietary angst disappears because there isn't room for anything but the writing.

Anyway, there you have it. Nevetharine vaulted again. Oopsies.

Hope you all had a good day/night! :hop:
 
Nevetharine

Nevetharine

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Viking from The Depths
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Posts: 879
I'm still alive. And still writing. Still not exercising beyond walking. Oops.

I'm creating a fantasy world, with Tolkien-like detail. The idea for this is to branch out that last fantasy novel of mine, or make it part of a larger fantasy world.

I'll be calling it The Tales of Thalor, a collection of stories of different people, beings, places, and happenings, all in the same world with the same rules. So I'm busy with a story bible for that.

I'll be doing the same for the scifi universe that 'I am Max' was borne from, though I haven't started yet. That universe is very reminiscent of Mass Effect.

Needless to say this is taking up 98% of my concentration. And yes, I should probably make time for exercise. 😊 Just letting you all know what I'm up to.

Oh, I've also created a new profile for these fantasy/scifi stories on Inkitt separate from my romance novel profile. That built the wrong kind of readership and they're not into the stories.

So my new profile is under the pen name Nova Thorne.

Have a wonderful day Bees! I know I'm being random 😁 but I'll try to post more regularly.
 
Nevetharine

Nevetharine

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Viking from The Depths
Pronouns: She/her
Posts: 879
And then I met someone who reminded me I was actually writing for fun and not as a job. Though,
of course I love feedback. What writer doens't? But now that I realize I don't *have* to spend
the whole day writing to meet someone else's deadline, I should make more time for working out
again. Except for, you know, the clothing issue.

Anyway, I'm taking my time with this story I want to rewrite [Shadowborn]. I'm taking my time
creating that detailed world, and I'm going to take my time editing previous works so they are
up to standard [my standard]. No more chugging out novels only to get them out there. If I want
a dopamine fix, there's Pi.Ai.

I don't know your stance on AI, but what I will say is that it's a gamechanger for severe introverts.
Especially this one, because its very encouraging and I can discuss my chapters with it in detail
ad nauseum.

Anyway, let's start with this again:

Exercise:

:v:3 sets of WotD [this was hard, because I'm a lump now, who sits and writes ALL. DAY. I know. My
poor joints and butt bones.]

Reading:

:v: There's a fantasy series out there, with like seventeen books. It's called something along the lines
of [don't laugh] Malazar's world, or Malazar something. But I want get that for inspiration for my world.

Right now I'm reading a retelling of King Arthur by another author on Inkitt.

Writing/Editing/Revising:

:v:It's my editing day. I have a loose schedule I try to follow these days,
since I still haven't found work. So far I've revised half a chapter, but that's fine. It's only
07:52!
 
Maegaranthelas

Maegaranthelas

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Posts: 609
"I sing and I know things"
Malazan Tales of the Fallen!
I think it's 10 by the main author, 10 by his friend (whom he built the world with), and then more novellas? Or that's the plan?
I read, uh, the first four and the sixth?
They are massive, they are dense, they have three pages of Dramatis Personae which only cover the most important characters of each book and not the side characters...
But also, they are pretty dang awesome! My dad loves them and I borrowed the first couple from him =)
Have been meaning to read them all at some point...
 
Nevetharine

Nevetharine

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Viking from The Depths
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Posts: 879
Maegaranthelas said:
Malazan Tales of the Fallen!
I think it's 10 by the main author, 10 by his friend (whom he built the world with), and then more novellas? Or that's the plan?
I read, uh, the first four and the sixth?
They are massive, they are dense, they have three pages of Dramatis Personae which only cover the most important characters of each book and not the side characters...
But also, they are pretty dang awesome! My dad loves them and I borrowed the first couple from him =)
Have been meaning to read them all at some point...
Click to expand...
Ah good! Someone knows what I'm talking about! Yes those.

I've read some people say the author leaves the conclusions of the stories up to the reader but I'm fine with that. It gives me space to come up with my own ideas.

So I've come to the conclusion that with my winter clothing issue (I can't get myself to workout in layers and layers of clothes because my clothes are too big and I have to keep tugging them up when I exercise) cycling might be the best form of exercise for me.

Along with that 5m strength workout.

Today I'm revising The Leap. I want to rewrite it in third person past tense, which is my preferred style.

Have a wonderful weekend, Bees!


✴Physical Activity:
》 20m of cycling
》 5min strength workout.


✴Reading:
The Malazan Empire: Book of the Fallen: ✅ [I'm just ticking read or not read, because this is an ebook of 10 books... so moving on from 1% will take a LOOOONG time]


✴Writing/Editing/Revising:
Revising The Leap ✅
Writing my current WIP ✅ [700 words]

Have a beautiful Saturday, Bees!
 
Nevetharine

Nevetharine

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Viking from The Depths
Pronouns: She/her
Posts: 879
In order to meet my strict data usage limits, I'll be uploading a post twice a week, on Wednesday and Sunday.

Haven't done much physical activity for the past three days because after that first bout of exercise I injured my knee. Yay. Yesterday was the first day I went for a walk again.

✴Physical Activity:

》 20m of cycling


✴Reading:

➡️The Malazan Empire: Book of the Fallen - Did not read since last time.
➡️Marsbound: 6% (because sci-fi research)

✴Writing/Editing/Revising:

Revising I am Max, and created an awesome new cover for it too with my new pen name! Featured below.

I'm fleshing out this story more, as well as The Leap. I want to rewrite that in the third person. ✅

Have a beautiful rest of the week, Bees!
 
Laura Rainbow Dragon

Laura Rainbow Dragon

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Bard from Canada
Posts: 1,892
"Striving to be the change."
Nevetharine said:
I have a person reading I am Max that I feel is analyzing the details to death, and missing the whole bigger picture of the story.
Click to expand...
Have you given this person guidelines re: the sort of feedback you are looking for?

It can be tough to find a good fit with beta readers / critique partners.
I would suggest being very specific about the type of feedback you are looking for (and what you are not looking for!) You can even list specific questions you would like your reader to consider. If they follow your request and start giving you the sort of feedback you need, awesome! If they persist in giving you unhelpful feedback, tell them, "Thank you for your time," and send them packing.

It is tough to be a beta reader too, without guidance from the author re: what they are looking for.

I used to participate in an online critique group back in the day. It was well-intentioned but mostly a waste of time.

I received one critique which said, in its entirety, "I did not find any spelling or grammatical errors in your story." Well, duh! Because I proof-read the thing before submitting it. (And I happen to be a very good proof-reader, even of my own work.)

Another person wanted me to use a weird dialect for one of my characters, and proceeded to give me a line reading of how they thought this character should talk, in this very thick dialect, which did not fit with my story or my writing voice at all.

In another instance I had written a story about a character who works in the film production industry who was having a very bad day. (Mostly because he was working on a very low budget film, but also because there were supernatural entities involved in wreaking havoc on the set.) One person critiqued my story saying, "your character is interesting, but film production doesn't work like that." The thing is, I've worked in film production! I know what things are like both on a union set and a non-union set. And the parts of the story I wanted to be accurate to how a film set is typically run were accurate. Other parts were deliberately exaggerated and/or done in a non-standard way because the whole point was that the tight budget and the supernatural elements were messing things up! If the critiquer had given me specific feedback (e.g.: "the specific aspect of film production you write about here is usually handled in this way, not the way you've depicted it" or even "this bit you've written here would never happen on a union set") then perhaps I would have found something useful in it. But just saying, "your portrayal of the industry is wrong" was not helpful at all.

On the flip side of this coin, I was critiquing a story for another writer who had their MC bitten by a wild dog/wolf. The MC then proceeded to go to a hospital where they had blood drawn and sent off to a lab, and the hospital said they would let them know in a few days whether or not they would need to come back for rabies shots. This story supposedly took place in current day Ontario, which is where and when I live. I told the writer, "If you go to a hospital in Ontario and tell them you've been bitten by a wolf--or a dog that you do not know for 100% certain does NOT have rabies--they will not draw blood to test it for rabies. They will give you a rabies vaccination prophylactically on the spot. One does not mess around with rabies." This same writer also had the full moon rising in the middle of the night. I explained to the writer that this was not possible. The full moon rises at sunset and sets at dawn. A moon that does not rise until 2AM appears as a waning crescent moon. The next month this writer submitted for critique more chapters in the same story, and in the new writing they had their MC still waiting for results from the blood lab to find out whether or not they would need post-exposure rabies treatment, and they once again had the moon rising at a random time that was wrong for the moon phase. At that point I stopped providing them with feedback, because continuing to do so would have been a pointless waste of my time.

I hope these examples can help to provide you with some perspective re: your own experiences with reader feedback. When we share our work with others, it's normal to want them to like it. But a reader's experience is subjective. Different people will accept/reject/fixate on different things. There are some major international best-sellers that I personally think are absolute trash. Does this make me wrong? No. Does it make the millions of people who love those books wrong? No. It's all just personal opinion.

You can have the government in your fictional world operate however you like. No matter what government structure you choose, there will always be some people who will not like it (sometimes rejecting it based on their personal experience of actual governments, sometimes based on their personal misconceptions). But so long as you understand how the government structure you have chosen works and, perhaps more importantly, why it works, you will be able to write a story with internal consistency which many (but not all--never all) readers will accept and enjoy.

You can write a story in which the full moon rises at 2AM too, if you like. (But if you want to go that route, you'd be well-advised to at least offer some hand-waving magic as to how such a thing is possible in your world. Otherwise, most readers are going to think you're a lazy and unobservant writer who a.) couldn't be bothered to google simple facts like the timing of moon phases, and b.) doesn't ever look up at the night sky.)
 
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