#other note my body just changes so much like my weight is constantly fluctuating and it would get stretched and shrinked

[bixy]

people always get really weird when they find out I don’t have any tattoos and always tell me they want to get matching ones or whatever but like, what people don’t get is that I might go back to Japan at some point in my life, and go back to teaching English or something and existing in Japan with tattoos is too much of a pain in the ass (and like before anyone says anything it’s different if you’re like obviously a foreigner vs if you’re Japanese or mixed lmao), but also if I had the money to burn, I’d have my breast reduction by now, or my car paid off but people always get so pushy like can’t you respect my decisions on my own body, hello??

also tattoos are something I used to want so badly and I’d like hyper focus on them but also I feel like I’d just end up staring at them and picking apart the imperfections in my brain, and they’re just so… permanent, like piercings you can always get rid of whenever and it’s not a big deal but you can never really undo a tattoo (sure there’s laser removal but you can still see hints of what used to be there), and like the type of art I like and appreciate changes so drastically every few years, I don’t know, I’m too indecisive for something like this

[shinebrightlikeanarwhal]

Travis-centered plots because I Like fix it’s… (I just finished typing them all, I’m ashamed for my sinful brain oml)

- Larry and Travis having once been friends but being torn apart by Travis’ father. Larry keeping an eye on Travis for years but then turning his attention to Sal, whom in turn receives the sudden disdain of Travis.

Sal confronts Travis in the bathrooms one day and Larry listens from the door. Eventually Sal talks Travis into tears. He confesses to being jealous of Sal and not wanting Larry to stop focusing on him, even if Larry ends up hating him. How his dad would beat him if Travis and Larry ever got close again. Larry barges in and holds Travis close. They reconcile (Sal opting to let the boys talk, clearly not in the mood to see Enemies to Lovers tonguing den in the school bathroom.

They uproot and destroy the cult, blah blah blah, Happily ever after and Travis gets help for his trauma induced depression and anxiety.

- Travis has been off for a few days. He doesn’t antagonize anyone. Philip does more talking and ginger touching that Travis violently jerks away from. During class he barely responds and teachers don’t try to force him. Sal didn’t expect to find Travis sleeping on a bench one day. His worn shoes now tattered with holes at the bottom. His black eye prominent but accompanied by a busted lip and what looked to be severe damage to his legs.

Not sure how he did it, but Sal managed to convince Travis to come home with him. Introduces Travis to Henry and leads him to the bathroom where he washed off and got treated. His damage was severe and Sal really wanted to call the police but just seeing a fearful Travis weened him off the idea.

Larry was not too pleased to find Travis at Sals. He almost yelled until he noted Travis look at his raised hand and cower from him. Larry pausing and pulls Sal to the side to understand. Of course they don’t know the full story but it’s enough to have Larry texting the group for help. Most were curious about what could lead them to wanting to help Travis. Ash, however, seemed to know a lot.

They find out about Travis’ abuse, the cult. Travis helps a little. He is still terrified of them but they start to grow on him with time. He even allows contact with Sal rarely, who shows him his face during a bonding moment at the dead of night. Larry makes playlists and CDs to help Travis get accustomed to loud noises (many of which are songs Larry personally thinks Travis would enjoy.

After the gang destroys and puts the cult behind bars. No demons, no murders, and no dead friends. Sal manages to convince Travis to report his father, thankfully they kept his clothes to give to the state police, Todd refused to trust the local police after further investigating the cult and their connections.

Healing and coping, cuddling and coddling. Travis getting the love and attention he deserves! Could end with him dating someone or him just being under their care for a while.

—Salvis but Sal is a bit more aggressive with Travis. Fuck it ABO, Travis is a very spicy omega that pretends to be a Beta. Sal is a strong scented alpha, like it’s a musky and domineering scent compared to his appearance. Larry is an alpha, though his scent is murky and smoky, and he doesn’t act like the stereotypical alpha. Travis nitpicks them like usual, though sometimes they are too distracted by the nice smell seeping off of him. Larry sneers and asks if Travis mom scented him before school. Travis is upset at this. Much more emotional than usual. Sal notes the spike in scent and jabs Larry.

Uh oh, Travis is presenting in the bathroom, and beta Philip isn’t able to fight off the alphas coming to investigate the scent, thankfully Sal is here to soothe and calm the terrified Travis while his friends help fend off the other students.

Mr. Phelps is pissed about an omega son. Travis is constantly scented with distress. He isn’t allowed to talk about it but everyone can smell it. They are well aware of Travis’ fluctuating weight, fatigue and his tan skin turning pale and bruised worse than before. Larry is annoyed by this but can’t tell whether it’s the scent affecting him or his stern belief in protecting omegas from abusive alphas.

Sal hates it, he knows he felt the mate bond but Travis doesn’t seem to notice. Travis’ suffering eats away at Sal until he all but corners Travis and propositions him to save him from his father and give him sanctuary. It takes a lot to convince Travis. Heck, he has to promise Larry wouldnt hurt him (Larry later seeks Travis to reconcile their bad blood).

They get to know eachother. Sal is head over heels and watching Travis grow and blossom into his omega blood. Travis starts falling for someone else and Sal tries to be supportive (until he can’t even look at Travis without feeling heartache). But Travis notes he doesn’t love ____ And follows his heart to Sal. They bond, they love and boom, happy little family. (With three cute babies because Travis and Sal deserve happy families)

Larvis: roughly the same as the salvos ABO but Larry straight up picks up Travis and carries him home. Travis tries to fight but is swaddled and pampered until he’s fast asleep and purring in Larry’s arms.

Mr. Phelps doesn’t have much ground to stand on when he tries to take Travis back. Larry confirming that Travis is his mate and based off of Phelps’ beliefs he should reside with his mate.

Travis is surprised his father backs off so easily (because how could the pastor refute what he preaches?? Such blasphemy would be heard by the church blah blah blah). Larry and Travis talk and Larry admits that they are indeed mates, he never brought it up for Travis’ health. He was already struggling to care for himself, a mating bond would send his already feeble body and fragile mind spiraling. Larry also admits he knew they were mates ever since he presented, which wasn’t that long after entering highschool. But, Travis was so proud to be ‘normal’ and not some horny mess like the others. He also didn’t like seeing Travis harass and bully others, which probably aided in his aggressive rejection of the omega and prolonged Travis’ presentation.

Life goes on and Larry and Travis are happily married with four kids (two more in the oven, because Larry is a very affectionate husband). Cult was handled and Sal is NOT dead and very much the worlds best uncle.

-Travis having a hot girl summer.

That’s it. That’s the plot.

Thotty church twink marching about in short shorts and tank tops (sinful!) showing off his goodies to the masses. Larry shamelessly offers to partake, and gets thrown for a whirlwind when Travis’ phat ass is delightfully uncontrollable. Sal jokingly shoots his shot and winds up slumped in the back of the church from immaculate head.

Mr. Phelps is away so the thot is out to play. (Courtesy of Mama Phelps aiding and abetting her sons growth as a person. He may be throwing it back to the boys he once sneered at but at least he’s nicer to people)

-Travis being rescued from the Phelps home after a concerned report to the state police. The church closed and his father put behind bars for many accounts of child abuse and neglect and the disappearance of Travis’ mother.

Sal and gang are curious about what the new home will do to Travis after months of rehabilitation, and all damn near faint when they see Travis with long pink hair and a cute sun dress marching into the school. Directly towards them and apologizing for his horrible treatment of them, specifically Sal. They can’t believe his change at first but after weeks of watching him, he seems genuinely happier.

This new happiness starts to get unsettling to Larry, who watches Travis and Philip be closer than before. He shouldn’t care he hates Travis! But god he wished the boy would wrap his arms around his and march down the halls. He would kill to get surprise back hugs or do the hugging. He wanted to share lunch with Travis. Be hand fed meals and have his mouth cleaned whilst being scolded.

Fuck, he’s in love! He thought he nipped that in the bud when Sal started getting bullied by Travis. But no, Travis being rescued from his awful father and being a genuinely good person from then on was astounding. Hell, he even brought Sal treats as an apology for walking in on him with his mask off once. Sal said it was fine but Travis babbled ok about feeling bad because Sal looked terrified even though Travis didn’t think Sal was any less cool. (Yes, Sal cried in his room about how much it meant for someone to say that).

For fucks sake, Travis had pictures upon pictures of his new family and their pets. PETS. He had dooogs, god Larry lost his mind seeing Travis jogging around town with dogs in shorts and a sweaty, almost see through tank top!! He’s too gay for this.

He finally confesses, maybe tries to play it off as a joke, but Travis just smiles sweetly and pecks his cheek. He’s sorry but he’s already dating someone. Larry tries not to let his disappointment show, but he just can’t feel the need to go to school for a couple of days. Hides out in his tree house and just smokes. Cause, cmon.. who’d wanna date him?? All he does is smoke and play around! He hasn’t had a stable relationship in years and most he’s known for is sleeping with whoever he deems the hottest.

Sal notices his behavior and tries to comfort him, not sure why Larry is like this, by offering to introduce him to his partner. Maybe they have a friend Larry is interested in. Larry wants to be supportive but he really doesn’t care to see Sals new beau(ty). He really just wanted to camp out in the tree house and smoke away the pain. Or, he did until he sees Travis and Sal holding hands and nuzzling on the couch one day. Sals legs on Travis’ and Travis combing Sals hair. Larry felt like his world came crashing down, his best friend?? And his first and worst crush?? The crush that sent him spiraling for what could have been weeks? Sal is innocent, he didn’t know that Larry was madly in love with Travis. Didn’t know that Travis so politely rejected him and offered to cease contact if Larry felt he couldn’t be around him.

Larry wasn’t much of a romantic after that. He played around with whoever he felt needed love. His partying spiraling out of control in adult hood. Travis tried to contact him and help him find a good person, but any attempts to help Larry ended with Larry crying to him drunkenly. Asking why he wasn’t good enough, why he couldn’t have been Sal. Travis wasn’t allowed near Larry after Larry drunkenly made advances at him, he doesn’t blame Larry he’s extremely emotional, but Sal felt Larry would only get worse the more they stayed in contact, so they were kept apart.

Larry never loved anyone as much as he loved Travis Fisher.

-Last one was a sadder Onesided Larvis, this one is Larry teasing and cornering Travis so much that Travis tries to shock him by kissing him. He came home with some hickies and a very prominent limp.

They’re not saying, yet, but Wingman Sal is politely judging Travis into Larry’s arms. They are constantly alone together. Larry blowing Travis’ back out in an abandoned amusement park when the others split up to explore. “He sprained his ankle running from a shadow” Hmph, Travis smelt like axe. He HATES the smell of axe… but okay lovebirds.

Sal has 100% walked in on the secret lovers getting frisky when moms out. Later helps Travis shop for more pretty clothes, because who wouldn’t want a shopping body??? That’s almost illegal to not take the opportunity.

Larry eats ass. A lot. Travis can literally be on FaceTime shopping with Sal and Larry just slips under the covers and enjoys his fill of boyfriend cheekies~ yum!

Travis, as revenge, will give the gawk gawk 9000. Larry is NOT safe if he thinks Travis has forgotten the embarrassment of Sal chuckling and telling him he has to go walk his homework. He could be on the phone with his boss or Lisa and Travis will give the sloppiest top he’s ever had. (Praise the son for horni bratty bottoms)

[harleyhua-archive]

it’s elle again! took me longer than I thought it would, but i’m here with the bio of my second son, harley. he’s my newest oc; i’ve had him for about a year, but i didn’t get to rp much during that time. i’m fluent in asl, so harley has a special place in my heart. usually my gifs that include him signing won’t actually match the signs up to what he’s saying, but this one does. he’s signing ‘hello, my name is....’ so it felt like an appropriate intro post.

[ chella man, genderqueer trans man, 21, he/him ] did you see who just walked in? it was that JUNIOR, the ╳ + HARDWORKING AND  - DISORGANIZED ╳  one? you know, the one who lives at SONTHENA HALL, HARLEY HUA! i heard they are majoring in ART and they can’t wait to get out of here to BECOME AN ILLUSTRATOR.  crap! stop staring, here they come!

name. harley hua hometown. detroit, mi major. art (illustration) birthday. may 27th, 2000 gender. trans man, genderqueer orientation. pansexual religion. jewish languages. english, asl, some cantonese and french hobbies. cheerleading, drawing, comic books

[ BIO ] [ tw. gender dysphoria ]

harley was born hard of hearing, although it wasn’t discovered until he was six. his audiologist discouraged his parents from teaching him sign, saying he would stop talking and stunt his language skills, so he grew up using his hearing aid and filling in the gaps with lipreading.

his yearly hearing tests showed he was gradually going deaf. he kept getting stronger hearing aids and being able to catch less and less of what was happening around him. the expectation was that he would get better at reading lips, but that only got him so far (only 30% of the English language is visible on the mouth!)

he had been a social kid, but he slowly withdrew into art. there, he could create anything he wanted. he often drew superheroes, or just ‘regular’ civilians (usually men). for a few years, harley took a sketch book and at least three graphic pencils everywhere he went.

in middle school, harley was eligible for a cochlear implant. his parents urged for him to get implanted, but decided to let him make the decision himself. he found a way to compromise with them; he agreed to get the surgery, but in exchange his parents agreed to pay for him and his brother to take ASL classes.

once activated, the implant was an immediate change. the world sounded different through it than what harley remembered, but he could understand his teachers and classmates better than he had in a very long time. he was able to join in again, and went from the kid scribbling in a notebook alone to being very outgoing. once he was able to use an ASL interpreter in classes, his confidence and grades shot up.

in high school, harley was very popular. it didn’t take long for his friends to give him a makeover, convincing him to throw out his baggy tshirts and most of his jeans, in favor of more feminine pieces. mini skirts, heels and crop tops (at least, when he could sneak them past his parents). he grew out his short hair to better hide his cochlear implants, smiling and nodding when he couldn’t keep up in conversations instead of drawing attention to his deafness. for the first time in his life he fit in, and he didn’t want to remind people that he was different.

(tw: dysphoria) but something was different, and it wasn’t his cochlear implants or the fact he was one of the only asian kids at his predominately white high school. something about the way he looked bothered him. he would often stare at himself in the mirror, and he knew the girl staring back at him in the mirror was pretty, but he couldn’t connect with ‘her’. she felt like a completely different person, almost like a mask he wore despite not understanding why he ‘needed’ to wear it or why he felt so numb to his own body.

the huas weren’t really hurting for money, but sending two teenagers to college only a year apart would be tough for any family. harley didn’t want to put that kind of stress on his parents, so he focused on cheerleading scholarships. he toured suffolk because it has one of the best cheer programs in the country. it was a dream school, but he doubted they’d want him on their team, let alone offer him enough money that he could afford to attend. yet that’s exactly what happened, so harley accepted and moved to boston.

during his freshman year of college, he realized nobody cared what he looked like in college. many of his classmates showed up to lectures in their pajamas. he started experimenting with his clothes, trading out the feminine pieces he’d been wearing for the past four years and wearing the things he wanted to; androgynous and masculine pieces. at first he wasn’t so sure why it made him happy, he just knew it did.

(tw: dysphoria) harley had never paid much attention to the trans community. he certainly never thought of himself as trans or genderqueer. sure, he often felt like an alien stuck in someone else’s body, but he assumed that was normal - something every girl secretly felt. after joining his college’s gsa and meeting trans people for the first time and hearing their stories, it began to click. harley came out towards the end of his freshman year of college, and started transitioning a few months later. his parents didn’t try to stop him, but it’s clear they don’t understand. a small part of harley is bothered by this, but he doesn’t let it get him down. it took a long time for them to accept he was deaf, too, but they eventually came around. they’re just slow to accept changes. between that and their refusal to learn ASL, harley isn’t on the best of terms with them, but he doesn’t stop to let this get to him. 

overall harley is a very happy kid. he’s at his dream college, living his best life and preparing for the future he’s wanted since he was a kid

[ HEADCANONS ]

not wanting to take much money from his parents, harley works as a bartender three days a week at a popular bar near campus

if he’s not at work or in class, he’s either practicing cheer, working out at the student rec center, or at one of two coffee shops (one being the starbucks in his building, the other being an independent mom-and-pop cafe not far from campus)

he’s basically a jock villager from animal crossing. as stated before, he’s really into cheerleading. since getting his top surgery last summer he’s fallen in love with swimming. he also lifts weights and goes running a couple times a week with nadia.

harley is very busy, and his schedule is constantly fluctuating between working late nights and practices at any time of day. he’s pretty much always sleep deprived, and lives on an insane amount of coffee (he doesn’t like energy drinks).

harley’s preferred method of communication is asl. he uses interpreters in class and is involved with the deaf community in boston. but since most people on the squad only know a limited amount of sign, and other people he knows on campus don’t know the language at all, he often relies on the combination of his cochlear implant and lipreading to communicate. if he can’t hear with his cochlear implant (dead battery, too much background noise, etc) he won’t be able to understand enough by reading lips. but on the other hand, if he’s using his implant to communicate, watching the other person’s mouth helps him fill in the blanks.

[ WANTED CONNECTION ]

teammate // they do cheer together, so they spend a lot of time with each other

asl friends // harley prefers asl, so it would be great for him to have people to sign with!

regular customer // your character hangs out at the bar harley works at. conversely, they’re a bariste at one of the cafes harley is at multiple times a day

workout buddies // they lift weights together

rainbow family // in the queer community, they say you make your own family. harley doesn’t have a great relationship with his parents, and his brother is attending school on the west coast, so harley could use some lgbtq+ family in boston

comic book nerds // harley loves comic books. they were a major escape for him growing up and how he got into drawing in the first place. so maybe your character is also really into comic books, or they just share a passion for the mcu movies

[ FINAL NOTES ]

That’s all I got, but I’m open to almost anything with him. Looking forward to getting to explore him more here!

[ahgaseda]

made of stone || chapter 07

⇥ synopsis : when you return after years apart to pursue a divorce from your husband, Mark, you fall back into a contentious relationship because your partner still refuses to give up his dangerous fighting career...

⇥ warnings : this story in its entirety includes but is not limited to strong language and dialogue, descriptions of blood and violence, alcohol or drug use, and explicit sexual content, and is intended for an adult audience only!

Standing before the mirror, you pulled on his leather jacket, hesitating at what his reaction might be to see the old thing again. When you left that night, it had been in your car and though you grappled over bringing it back to him, you didn’t have the strength to face your husband after leaving the way you did.

And truth be told, you couldn’t bear to be parted from it for even a moment.

Rarely was there a time you weren’t wearing the worn old coat. It smelled like him and at night as you curled in the bed for another round of restless sleep, you would tuck your face inside the lapel and breathe him in.

Stepping out of the bedroom, you smiled faintly as you approached.

Mark glanced up, lingering on you from head to toe, and murmured, “My jacket?”

“Yeah,” you said with a nod, gripping the hems with both hands.

Mark chuckled. “Still looks better on you than me.”

Blushing, you whispered, “You’re biased.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

Shifting your weight, you merely studied each other. The tension seemed to constantly shift, but the pull between your bodies always remained.

Mark smiled at the excitement in your eyes and lowered his head, pulling on his shoes before rising again. He was still buzzing from the sensation of your body pressed against his own and was hungry for more. But he knew why you stopped and it made him vaguely hopeful.

You followed your husband as he grabbed his keys and held the front door open for you, the two of you coming to stand by the motorcycle.

“Hey, let me drive,” you blurted, still trying to assuage the tension.

Mark laughed loudly before deadpanning, “No.”

“Come on!”

He shook his head. “Absolutely not.”

You shrugged, grinning playfully. “Thought I’d try.”

Suddenly, Mark said, “I’m gonna ask you something.”

The tension was back and all at once, the air swooped out of your lungs. Your face fell when you replied, “Oh.”

Bracing his hands on the bike, Mark studied your feet, noting how you shifted your weight nervously. At long last, he finally posed the question, “Have you been with anyone since you left me?”

“No,” you replied after a short pause, taken aback.

Mark studied you, but not from a stance of accusation.

“I haven’t, Mark,” you insisted, unnerved at the quiet. “Just the occasional vibrator.”

The corners of his mouth turned upward slightly at that. “Do you think about me?” he asked flirtatiously.

You smarted, “No, I think about Jason Momoa.”

Mark gawked. “That’s not fair!”

“Of course I think about you, you asshat,” you groaned, pushing his chest lightly. “We’re married. I’m faithful to you even in my dreams.”

Mark could see the emotions change on your face and his breath hitched.

Swallowing, you started, “We should talk about the…”

“Don’t,” Mark silenced you sharply. “I told you don’t ever bring it up again.”

Sliding your hands into the pockets of his jacket, you pleaded, “Mark…”

“I’m serious,” your husband said, hissing your name in borderline scolding.

That was his choice. You respected it. “Okay,” you relented, biting your lip.

Mark glanced at you through the loose strands of hair that had fallen over his eyes. Without another word, he pulled on his helmet and handed the other to you.

The motorcycle sputtered to a stop in the same place as before, though the rowdy boys that had whistled at you the previous night were rather respectful and tight-lipped this time around. As Mark took your hand and guided you toward the entry, you planted your feet.

“I want food,” you blurted.

Mark turned, still gripping your hand, and asked, “What do you want?”

Your eyes lit up. “Egg bread and fried cheese for a start.”

“You still have the taste buds of a toddler,” your husband teased with a grin.

“You’re one to talk,” you chided him, smiling with victory as he led you to the nearest vendor. When your eyes landed on what they were offering, you exclaimed, “Ooh, meatballs!”

Mark chuckled. “Come on, kid.”

When you finally entered the concrete venue, the crowd was boisterous and tightly packed. Mark wormed his way through the throng, his hand around your waist as he kept you shielded against his body. Meanwhile, you balanced a drink in one hand and a plastic cup of chicken in the other.

“Jackson,” you called, beckoning your friend as best you could with snacks in hand.

“Oh my god, fried food,” Jackson whined, practically drooling. “God give me strength.”

Wiggling your eyebrows, you popped one of the pieces of chicken into your mouth with a toothpick and teased, “Want a bite?”

“I can’t. I’m on a raging bender of protein shakes,” Jackson exclaimed, radiating glee. “Got your boy spending money, huh?” he asked after glancing at Mark, who was predictably ignoring him after their little spat.

“Yep,” you replied, stuffing your face some more. “Revenge is delicious.”

Going out of his way to avoid looking at Jackson, Mark droned, “Very funny.”

“Hey, after this let’s all go out, get some dinner and beer,” suggested Jackson, elbowing you gently.

The smile you sported at the idea made your cheeks hurt. “Sounds perfect to me!”

“I’ll think about it,” Mark answered like a petulant child, no fluctuation to his tone.

You rolled your eyes, amused at the appearance of petty Mark. Jackson giggled at his brother and his sulkiness before giving you a quick hug as he was summoned to the ring by Jinyoung.

“Hey,” Mark called to his friend, dropping his voice to a low whisper. “I’m sorry… about earlier.”

“I can’t hear you,” Jackson yelled, grinning broadly.

Mark shouted, “I said I’m sorry I didn’t kick your ass earlier!”

“I love you, too, brother.”

The two of them bumped fists.

“Get it done,” Mark muttered strongly and Jackson nodded, serious at last.

As your husband maneuvered you to a nearby half-wall, you handed him your food and drink as you said, “I still don’t get it. There are better ways to make money.”

Mark held the cups as you launched yourself onto the concrete, sitting on the edge with legs dangling. “You won’t understand,” he admonished softly. “We’ve been fighting since we were born, fighting to survive.”

Taking back your drink from his outstretched hand, you said, “I was there, Mark.”

“Yeah, you were the scrapping queen,” Mark taunted, almost standing between your legs. “Don’t even try to deny it.”

“I didn’t make a career out of it. I only did what I had to do.”

Mark sighed, propping his hands on opposite sides of your hips. “We’re animals, baby. I know you like to think we’re more than that, but we aren’t,” he spoke, gentle yet stern. “You have to give us something to chew on or we destroy the house.”

That was very telling and even though you’d had your suspicions, you were getting closer and closer to the root of the problem that spurned you to leave the love of your life in the first place.

Meeting his eyes, you tilted your head and reached forward, brushing his hair out of his face. “You’re not like him, Mark,” you finally whispered, though with how close your husband currently was to you, he had no trouble hearing you over the roaring crowd.

Mark flinched at your poignant words. Somewhere behind him, Jackson delivered his first hit of the night.

You let your hands fall, placing them on his taut chest before grabbing his collar. “You would never hurt me,” you told him firmly, staring into his irises. “We say a lot of childish shit to each other, but you would never ever raise a hand to me.”

Mark said nothing, but he turned around and set his attention to the fight.

You stared at him. God, how could you have ever forgotten even for a moment how much you adored this man? Sliding closer to your husband, you weren’t satisfied until you were on the wall behind him, your legs around his waist possessively.

Mark smiled faintly and let his arms rest on your thighs as he leaned back against you.

No sooner had the two of you gotten comfortable, Jackson’s opponent landed on the floor with a thud that ricocheted around the concrete hall. Unlike your husband’s usual poise and severity, Jackson was quite the opposite.

Bounding in a circle around his downed foe, Jackson smacked his chest and yelled, “Stand the fuck up!”

The onlookers were screaming and the scent of alcohol was heavy on the air. As your gaze fell to the bloodied man on the ground, your heart churned. Mark had been there before and you hated him for making you watch.

Mark bore no expression on his face. Since you had come home, he had gotten to thinking, which was never a good thing as Bambam would say.

The life he had known made him calloused to the violence, but you insisted on clinging to innocence, no matter how little was left. Mark had a lot of resentment and acrimony that led him to seek retribution and punishment in that ring.

You were right. You had been right all along, but Mark couldn’t let go. He didn’t know who he was without the bitterness in his soul. What would fill the void in its place?

“Mark,” you called gently.

He turned his head, glancing at you in the corner of his eye with brows raised.

“You spaced out. Where did you go?” you asked.

The roar of the crowd turned deafening as Jinyoung called the match over with the man on the floor tapping out, not willing to stand and face Jackson’s wrath again.

Mark sighed loudly and answered, “I wanna forgive you, baby.”

You blinked in surprise.

Mark angled back to the ring, gaze stopping at the crimson on the floor. “But I gotta find a way to forgive myself first.”

chapter 06 ⇤ chapter 07 ⇥ chapter 08

Hey there, beautiful! If you enjoyed this, please leave a like or reblog or follow me! Or maybe buy me a coffee so I can keep writing? Or check out my masterlist here for more stories! Thanks for reading :) - Katya

This work is fictional and for entertainment purposes only, but is licensed and protected under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. Any instances of plagiarism will be dealt with accordingly. Do not re-post or translate without my permission.

{ copyright 2018-2020 © ahgaseda // all rights reserved }

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

I have a phone interview for a new job in a couple weeks. Day shifts, no evening hours, no 12-hour shifts, pay undisclosed. Yay?

But at the same time, my stomach is getting really bad. Really bad. I’m eating less than half of what I was eating in 2018 (my weight keeps fluctuating up and down 10-15 pounds). Four horrible incidents leaving me trembling and crying in the past week. Including tonight, so now I’m too freaked out and aching to get to sleep. You know, tonight, the last night before I work 36 of 72 hours? 

My primary care moved to a location I can’t get to on the bus, so I have to wait a few more weeks to talk to someone about getting a note so I don’t keep almost passing out at work. 

I can’t see a specialist for my stomach until October. 

There’s a group project I really want to start with the org, something that could help other people and literally change my life, but I’m too sick, depressed, exhausted, and hopeless to have enough motivation to actually do it.

I’m constantly feeling overheated and dehydrated, even when I’m sleeping 12-15 hours and laying on my bed right in front of my air conditioner (set at 66 degrees, but I’m STILL sweating), and even when I drink 1.5-2 liters of water while Doing Literally Nothing, I can’t curb the thirst. (That could be from stress. But it’s not a stress flag I’ve ever experienced before?)

Even after two days off work, doing absolutely nothing, when I wake up on Tuesdays my whole body is still aching. Shoulders, legs, back, neck, feet, even my hands sometimes. I keep getting tendinitis in my elbows. My ankles are getting weaker. I’ve stumble a few times.

Work is STILL ignoring my need to stay out of 80+ degree weather.

My mood is constantly fluctuating between “life sucks but I can deal with it” and “I’d really rather be dead right now”. I haven’t felt genuinely happy for longer than 15 minutes in... a great long time now.

I think I’m approaching burnout again, and that thought is terrifying.

This year started off with so much promise. But if it keeps rocketing downhill like this, it’s going to end with me in the hospital again.

I haven’t been able to figure out how to talk to my mentor about ANY of this, because there’s just... There’s so much. And my diaphragm hurts too much to talk for more than MAYBE a minute at a time, I can’t send her a voice message that’s nine minutes long. I can’t possibly fit all of this into two minutes or less. 

I miss her, but I can’t help feeling like it’s not worth her time, anyways. There are so many more people accomplishing so many greater things than me, and why should I waste her time with negativity? Why should I waste ANYONE’S time with this crestfallen, hopeless downward spiral?

It’s not that I don’t believe I can, and would, recover if things would let up, just a little. If I could stop constantly hurting, thirsting, crying, aching, fearing, dreading, and being forced to face my worst, most agonizing fear on a daily basis. But they won’t. It’s getting worse. I’m getting worse.

And I don’t have the tools or resources to cope with this all at once.

(And don’t you dare tell me “you’re never given more than you can handle”, because if that was true, I wouldn’t have been in the hospital for 6 days and I wouldn’t be This Close to going back.)

Honestly, one of the only things stopping me from checking back in at this point is literally not being able to survive if I lose my job over it. Certainly not being able to keep my commitments (which is devastatingly, perhaps even dangerously, important to me). And sure as HELL won’t be able to move my life forward with a big fat “Terminated” on my employment record...

[g0ldpainted]

Gladiolus cheating on Fem!S/O

Hey c:

Here’s Gladio for this series! 

1st Part ; 2nd Part ; 3rd Part // Noctis cheating 1 ; 2 ; 3 // Prompto cheating 1 ; 2 ; 3 // Ignis cheating 1 ; 2 // Ravus cheating 

Words: 3750+

Genre: Angst, heartbreak, betrayal

Spoilers: None

Trigger warnings: Anger, verbally abusiveness, pregnancy, coma, cheating, explicit sexual act depicted briefly

Taming a beast was almost impossible. Gladiolus was such a beast. All the ladies were swooning over him, flirting with him whenever they could. No one cared about the fact that he had been dating his current girlfriend for over 6 years. Actually, the couple was beyond happy, completing each other seamlessly. But Gladio was still an untamable beast.

He was a charmer, couldn't resist flirting back, couldn't reject those females entirely. However, he always stayed faithful. So far at least.

Their relationship had been fairly rocky ever since his S/O fell pregnant. At first, it didn't change their lives all too much.. Until all the complications started. Her pregnancy was far from ideal. Morning sickness, back- and headaches, fatigue, abdominal cramps, high blood pressure - she had it all. Unfortunately, she also suffered from severe swelling. Face, feet, ankles, hands - they all had moments in which their size increased tremendously. After a check-up at her doctor, they diagnosed her with Preeclampsia. Therefore, their pregnancy was one with high risk. She was at high risk of losing her baby if she wasn't being careful. As result, she quit her job immediately. From there on out, Gladiolus was the only one earning money for them. He worked twice as hard, thinking of his future family as motivation.

The first weeks were difficult for both of them. His S/O had to get used to the pain she was almost constantly going through while Gladiolus had to get used to the lack of affection from their side. He was an extremely physical guy. Any and every physical touch was a reassurance to him that he was loved.. But she couldn't give him that. Sex was off entirely. When she was feeling decent, she at least managed to help him with his urges, took care of his not-so-little friend if it was necessary. To say she enjoyed pleasing him would be a lie. The continuous pain drowned her libido and every wish to receive and give pleasure. It was just something she did for him because she knew how important it was to him. The little praise afterward made up for it. He was thankful for her trying to not let her pregnancy affect their relationship too much. Truth was that it still took a huge toll on them. While Gladio was satisfied for those first few weeks, he eventually grew tired of her sloppy blow- or handjobs and started declining them. That she denied him giving her pleasure upset him, too. It eventually stopped feeling like a relationship to him simply because they had no physical contact other than some gentle kisses.

The happiness of expecting their first baby was overshadowed by lack of physical love.

Needlessly to say, they also started having arguments about it. The further she got in her pregnancy, the grumpier he got. Gladiolus even started calling her fat, giving the vibe of that she was completely undesirable. It's true that her weight was fluctuating. Preeclampsia was causing it.. And of course, her pregnancy. While Gladio was still fairly supportive most of the time, he seemed to distance himself more and more. He apologized for his behavior almost daily, regretting his spiteful words greatly, blaming his temper and work for stressing him out for it. She accepted all his apologies for the sake of their unborn baby. All she wanted was for their daughter to grow up in a safe family environment.

By now she was 7.5 months in. Finally at the third trimester. Her doctor was as far as to give her medicine to help her baby grow faster so they could induce labor as soon as possible. Gladiolus S/O was suffering greatly while he was most likely at work.. Or hanging with his friends. He was working as a hunter, it was the most beneficial. 

She just wanted this to be over, wanted to deliver her healthy baby and heal. Her body was exhausted. It was pure luck that she didn't suffer from a stroke or seizure yet because of all the extra stress her boyfriend caused. On the bright side, although Gladiolus was being quite ignorant of his girlfriend's state, he at least always brought her little gifts when he returned from a hunting job.. And he even called her every day if it was multiple-day job. Those moments where what gave her strength to believe in their relationship. 

It seemed to be falling apart at rapid speed - all because she wasn't into sex and instead, groaning about pain. The treatment she received helped but.. Didn't make it better. Her case was apparently very severe, yet no one could explain why. Gladio knew about it, always accompanied her to check-ups, yet he didn't seem to care all too much anymore. At least that's how she felt. 

The more distant he became, the sadder his S/O was. And when he started leaving for partying, her jealousy peaked. She was scared of losing him to someone else. He excused himself by claiming the chocobros wanted to catch up and that all their wives and girlfriends were fine with it - she shouldn't complain. But she hated this. And when she smelled different perfumes on him, she was infuriated. But he shook it off, claiming he met the girlfriends of his bros because they joined them and that it was a shame she didn't show up. Being the loving girlfriend she was, she believed him. But her trust was scraped. 

"Ever since he went out two days ago.. His phone's been vibrating constantly.." his S/O thought to herself, sitting on their couch and rubbing her baby bump gently - it was sensitive as heck, "He's showering.. Maybe I.. Should take a quick glimpse."

Looking around the room to ensure he really wasn't around, she carefully got up. Groaning, she bit her lip hard. The moving of her belly caused slight discomfort and walking on her swollen feet ached. It was another bad day. She was quick to pick up his smartphone. Luckily, Gladiolus didn't put in a code - it unlocked with a simple swipe. At first, nothing seemed suspicious.. Until she went through his recently send messages. Multiple females were in there. 

"That doesn’t mean a lot.. He's always been famous with ladies - he usually blocks their number, though.." she thought to herself, "Maybe he forgot.."

But the second she clicked on each message, her stomach dropped. They were all flirting with him - which she would've tolerated if they hadn't sent nudes. And even videos of them masturbating. One quick glimpse into his phone's gallery was enough to see that he had been interested in a lot of different girls. Tons of nudes greeted her. None of them of her own body - she wasn't even on his phones background images.

"He.. He would've deleted them if he didn't like them.." she whispered, going back to the messages as she started feeling worse.

She ended up finding out that he even demanded those… they had phone sex.

"What are you doing?!" Gladiolus snapped, only a towel wrapped around his lower half.

Jumping from the sudden raised voice, she almost dropped his phone on the floor but caught it last minute.

"Did you go through my phone!?" he shouted, a deep frown present on his forehead as he stomped over to her and tore the phone out of her hands.

"Who are those girls?!" she replied, using all her energy to raise her voice, too.

"That's none of your business!" he shouted in their face, "You don't go through someone's phone!" 

"You're my boyfriend, of course, it's my business who you're sexting with!" she argued, frowning as well. 

"Oh c'mon, it was just fun" he groaned, rolling his eyes.

"They sent you nudes!" she shouted, clenching her jaw as she felt a stinging pain erupting from her stomach - it was because she was too emotional, "You.. Wanted those nudes. And masturbation videos."

"You should be grateful it's only photos and videos - I didn't have actual sex with them even though that would've been tons better than just waiting for your sorry ass" he growled, squeezing the phone in his hands tightly as he stared into his girlfriends eyes, "It's like watching porn and you don't care about that either."

Her eyes widened at that. Was that a threat? A note? It hurt her to know that he was admitting to having phone sex with them and at the same time telling her to be glad he didn't actually sleep with them. Little did she know that he actually lusted for those girls and hoped for real sex with them. The reference to porn made her feel even worse about herself. 

"I don't want you to have any contact with those women" she calmly said, lowering her head slowly.

"And I don't want you to rummage through my phone!" he replied, raising his voice again.

"Go through my phone if it makes you feel better" she whispered, reaching into her pocket and pulling out her phone, even unlocking it for him.

A picture of them kissing and one of them hugging was her background. A picture of better times.

"Fuck that!" he slapped her phone away, making it fall to the floor with full force.

At his sudden outburst of anger, she started sobbing. Before her pregnancy, she would've been able to deal with it but now that she was in pain, physically weak and going through intense mood swings, she couldn't help herself.

"Don't you love me? Am I not good enough?" she whispered.

"Oh come the fuck on, if I wouldn't love you, I would've left ages ago" he replied, sighing, getting annoyed with them.

"Then why are you looking at other girls? Why are you messaging them with such lewd intentions?" she asked, trying hard to hold back any tears, "I know you have nudes of me, why don't you use those to ma-" 

"You piss me off.. I'll go head out and meet with the guys" he cut her off, turning around and walking off, leaving her standing there. 

"No! I want an answer!" she yelled, storming after him and pulling on his arm, "Now!" 

"Because they're hot, okay? Everything about them is smoking hot and it's a nice change to not be looking at your body all the time!" he yelled back, pulling his arm out of their grip, "You didn't want any physical contact with me, so at least let me have fun on my own! It's not like I'm cheating!"

His ignorance and selfishness finally caused tears to fall. It's been a few days since she last shed tears.. But those were also because of him. He made it seem like this was her fault.. He didn't seem to understand that he body was inflamed and that she was carrying their baby.

"I'm pregnant.." she whispered in defeat, "My entire body hurts.. I'd appreciate if you'd be considerate of that."

Gasping he glared down at her: "Oh, I am! Every single day I work my ass off for you and our daughter. Then I come home and just have more work here because you can't do a thing right - at least let me have my goddamned fun!"

Shaking her head in disbelief, she turned around and headed back to their couch. Her legs were beginning to fail her and her vision was blurring. The way her heart raced was hurting faintly, too. Something was off. She was stressed out.. And hurt from his words. She felt betrayed.

Gladiolus stormed into their bedroom to get dressed, didn't bother about how she was struggling to breathe. Placing both of her hands on her baby bump, she tried to relax - for her daughter. Taking deep breaths, she attempted to make her body relax but her hands started swelling instead. While her boyfriend got ready, she felt pathetic about herself. Her appearance, her disease, her pain. And she was scared, scared of the next weeks. Their doctor already warned them that he'd induce her pregnancy at exactly 37 weeks. 7 weeks were left until that'd happen. Chances were high her body would go into labor sooner, though. One thought lead to the other and she just crumbled on the couch, crying. Although Gladio claimed to be loving her, she didn't believe that. The guy she fell in love with loved her, supported her endlessly.. But this guy was just harmful, angry, upset and inconsiderate.

"I'll leave now" he announced, grabbing his keys and shoving them in his pants along with his wallet, not once looking at the crying mess on their couch.

For a few seconds, she didn't say a thing, she couldn't. Right when he was about to close the door, she turned around and looked at him.

"Please don't.." she whined, "I…-.. I d-don't fe… feel good."

"Take a bath or something, I'll be back in an hour or two" he groaned, not even bothered to look at her.

"Pl-..please.. No" she stuttered, wanting to walk over to him but her legs refused to carry her weight.

"See you later" he coldly mumbled, closing the door afterward.

That was the final thing she needed to feel pushed off the edge. This was the first time he didn't even bother to check on her before leaving. She figured she shouldn't have been noisy but she was still going through a risky pregnancy.. She expected him to care. And she also couldn't believe that he didn't apologize about his female contacts. Some may consider it cheating, some don't.. But she did. Those were real people he actively asked for nudes and videos - not someone earning money with it. To be angry about this and highly suspicious seemed legit to her. But she wished she could just turn off her emotions - for the sake of not stressing her baby out.

In those 6 years they had been dating, they sure fought every now and then. Most times, both were too stubborn to give in so their fighting usually escalated. Stuff was thrown around, hateful words were yelled in each other's faces. But it was fine, their makeup sex was incredible. None of them ever cried because of it - but she was vulnerable for now.

"This entire pregnancy has been terrible.. The pain, the fights,.. I didn't think it'd go this way" she thought to herself, wiping her tears with the back of her hand, "He was so happy when he found out.. And now he.. He's not here and he complains all the time."

With each minute, her head felt more like it was about to explode. She had a terrible headache - or even a migraine - and her heart was about to burst from her chest. It all just kept getting worse. But the moment her vision started to blur and her face began to swell up, she knew she had to call someone.

But her phone wasn't in her pocket anymore.

Panicking, she hastily started looking around the area. It took her a few minutes to remember that Gladiolus slapped it onto the floor.

"Shit.. Hopefully it's.. Okay" she thought, slowly getting up, still searching for it.

Eventually, she finally saw it. Her stomach was twisting and turning while she tried to bend down towards it. But without warning, she felt dizzy, lost her balance and fell forward. Luckily, she managed to catch herself before she crashed on her baby bump. But now she was panicking even more.

"Oh god.. That was so close.." she whispered, "I'm so sorry."

After sitting down on her bum, she took her now shattered phone. Unlocking her phone and finding the telephone button was harder than she thought it could be. Not only was her vision becoming worse, moving her fingers was insanely difficult.

"Something's wrong.. Shit" she cursed under her breath.

Finally, she seemed to have found the recently called tab and just clicked on the first name. She couldn't read it, her vision was shaking and was way too blurry. Little did she know that she accidentally face timed her boyfriend instead of just making a simple call. And he picked up. Unintentionally.

"Ugh it's nothing important, ignore it. Keep going, we don't have a lot of time" he ordered the women in front of him to continue giving attention to his not-so-little friend.

Throwing the phone aside, it landed on a pillow.. Perfectly showing off what exactly was going on. Two females were licking and sucking on his dick. He stood before them. They both teased him, fondled with his balls as well. All of them were naked. At first, his S/O didn't understand what was going on.. Didn't want to believe what she thought was happening. But when Gladiolus started moaning.. Her heart finally broke.

Rapidly blinking, her vision improved a tiny bit.. Enough for her to actually see it. Her naked boyfriend face-fucking the females she saw on his phone. They took turns, were both hungry for him. Her headache increased and increased, the pressure on her head eventually feeling unbearable. She couldn't look away, couldn't move either.. Her eyes were locked on the scene.

"Ugh! Fuck, you're amazing" Gladiolus moaned before he came over both their faces.

Without saying a word, he pulled both of them up, kissing each briefly before pushing one down onto her back and the other one on top on all fours. He squeezed her butt with both of his hands before rubbing his shaft along both of their cores, coating himself with their wetness. For a few seconds, he just thrusted in between them, delicately rubbing along their buds to pleasure them, too. They were all moaning softly. 

Meanwhile, his pregnant girlfriend slumped to the side. Her body suddenly fell to the right. She hit her head on the ground. Her left hand was still clutching onto the phone which so happened to fall right in front of her face.

"So many holes to chose from .. Ugh. I wanna claim them all" Gladio proclaimed, running his hands along both of the girls entrances, "I'm going to claim them all.. But where do I start?"

His S/O sobbed, hoping he'd hear - but he didn't. 

"Please.. Ho-home" she whispered, unable to raise her voice and speak properly. 

Again, no one heard. She witnessed how her boyfriend started thrusting into some strange female while fingering the other. Tears ran down her face while her eyes widened. While he was having fun.. She was having a stroke. For a moment, everything hurt.. But then it all stopped. She lost control of her body.

"Harder!" one of the females demanded and he happily obliged. 

Although she lost control of her body.. She was very much conscious of what was happening. She saw it all. She saw how her boyfriend enjoyed taking care of two females at the same time. The slapping sounds, the squishing, the moans, the groans. Everything. It was like she was there, like he was cheating right in front of her eyes.

"I've always dreamed of a threesome with two sexy girls.. Ugh, shit.." Gladiolus admitted, cursing as he increased his thrusting speed.

He held his word and claimed every possible entrance those girls could give. It took forever. He came two more times until he was satisfied and no longer feeling sexually frustrated. All the while his girlfriend was clinging on to her life. She zoned out, just stared at the screen and watched.

"We have to do this again.." one of the girls breathed out, laying on the bed in attempt to calm down.

"Oh yes, please" the other one begged, agreeing.

"We'll see.." Gladiolus shrugged.

"Your girlfriend won't be pleased about this" one of them whispered, cleaning her body off of several juices. 

"Mmh" he agreed, biting his lip hard.. As if he was showing regret. 

"Wasn't she watching this entire time?" the other girl wondered.

"Watching?" he repeated.

"Yeah.." she replied, pointing up towards this phone, "Or is that a screensaver?" 

Once Gladiolus saw his phone and that their facetime call had been going for over an hour, his eyes widened.

"Shit" he exclaimed, quickly picking up his phone, "Can you hear me?" 

She didn't reply, only blinked occasionally.

"Fuck.. Can you smile?" he began to panic, feeling beyond guilty for what he just did now that he saw his girlfriends tear-stained face.

No response. She couldn't move.

"Shit.. Shit shit" Gladiolus repeatedly cursed, "Someone diall 911! She's having a stroke! And she's pregnant!" 

Only one of the girls reacted, threw her phone over to him. He immediately called an ambulance over before he ran home. By the time he arrive, the ambulance already carried her out and the car was ready to drive off. He barely hopped into it.

Once they finally arrived at the hospital, she had already suffered brain damage. To help her body heal and relax, they put her into an induced coma. They had to run quite a few scans to check what exactly happened and give her the best possible treatment. 

"I'm so sorry.. I'm so incredibly sorry.." Gladiolus kept whispering as he sat beside her hospital bed, holding one of her hands between his, "I should've been there. I should've listened to you. This is my fault.. I'm so sorry."

Lucky for them, their daughter was fine. She didn't suffer any damage. His S/O in return lost her ability to walk and her entire right side was paralyzed. The day they woke her up, they realized she also couldn't speak, didn't quite remember how to. She had Aphasia. Her life had changed for the worse. Most days she spent crying - after all, she still had preeclampsia, too. His S/O was now a broken woman, not even slightly resembling who she used to be. But unlike before, Gladiolus supported her. He paid for all her bills, her therapy, medication, and treatment. But most importantly, he spent time with her. 

The second he realized what he had done to the one he sincerely loved, he broke all contact with any other female and deleted all photos that weren't her. He was grateful for the second chance he was given - even though no one could guarantee that she wasn't suffering from memory loss as well and simply didn't remember that he cheated. Gladio regretted what he did just to get some stress relief. He wanted to better himself, become the man she deserved. And aside from that, he wanted to be a great father for the daughter that he almost lost too.

Masterlist ;  1st Part ; 2nd Part ; 3rd Part  // Noctis cheating 1 ; 2 ; 3 // Prompto cheating 1 ; 2 ; 3 // Ignis cheating 1 ; 2 // Ravus cheating

[evangelainy]

1/2. Soooo your post about girls-who-don't-know-they're-girls got me thinking (for the umpteenth time). Like many others, it describes me very well (as in, me as I am in the present). I've been very confused about my gender (girl? enby? just a femme guy?) for a very long time, and I honestly get scared thinking about it sometimes. Transition in particular is really scary to me, and I'm not especially miserable with my body/pronouns/etc. I was just wondering if you had any advice for people

2/2. in my position on how to figure things out re: whatever identity suits us best/would make us happiest? Or where would be a good place to go to seek out that kind of wisdom? Thank you regardless. Just seeing myself and the place I’ve been at be acknowledged and sympathized with and not just called gross/unhealthy/fetishizing transition (not that I don’t acknowledge the rampant issues in crossdressing subcultures) helps.

hey there. this is a bit of a loaded question that i’m not too sure how to respond to but i’ll answer the best that i can.

i think, really, the best advice i can give people in your position in this: if you have been thinking intensely about your gender identity for a long period of time, there is a very large possibility that there is something there, even if you don’t feel the intense physical anxieties or discomfort about your body and ID that many often associate with dysphoria. this may not necessarily mean you are trans: you may purely be gender non-conforming and wish to express that in more diverse ways - perhaps your feelings can be sated by drastically changing your presentation and how other people perceive you. however, if you feel the effect that has on alleviating your confusion is limited, then it is worth considering that you may not be a cis gnc person after all.

at that point, your best bet is to experiment. with names, labels, identities & pronouns, and find which, at the end of the day, makes you feel more at peace with yourself. you could be a demiboy, you might be a woman, you might be bigender, genderfluid, even. whether or not you get it right away doesn’t matter. you should take all the time that you need to decide what mode of self-identification works best for you. even then, that definition might be constantly fluctuating or evolving - and that’s fine! it’s a perfectly valid state to be in, because gender is a confusing, messy, arbitrary abstraction that is almost impossible to get a true hold on. what matters is that at a given point in time, you can think deeply about yourself and your gender identity, and you can have that moment of pause where you’re like “yes, this is correct, this is true and valid and in this time and space specifically i feel that i have attained a sense of self-actualisation”. 

now, here’s the thing about transition. a lot of gatekeepers push the narrative that trans people MUST hate their body, to the point of feeling sexless and humiliated and ashamed unless they change it through HRT and/or confirmation surgery. of course, this is definitely true for quite a lot of trans people - but, it’s in no way a universal experience. you don’t need to undergo a physical transition at all if you don’t desire to. it doesn’t make you less trans by any metric. for many people, “transition” is the act of acknowledging that they are trans, realising the power of that, and by extension internalising the concept that their gender identity is genuine.

what i want to emphasise is that transness isn’t about any set of procedures or expectations. transness is sobriety. it’s the point where you realise what you can be, what you are, what you want to be. it’s a sigh of relief, a heavenly light, years upon years of weight being released from one’s shoulders. it’s about being happy and content with your identity. but more importantly, it’s about whatever you want it to be about.

a closing note, pertaining to the last part of your ask. in my view, when other people in this community brush off certain crossdressing subcultures wholesale as being gross, ultra-fetishistic, and therefore not worth our time, they are being (either consciously or subconsciously) disingenuous. the sad truth is that so many of us came from these places. so many of us have our roots in s*ssy/tr*p/forc*d femini*ation (i don’t want this post to end up in the tags) kink communities. so many of us learned about our transness through often unhealthy sexual experiences. and there’s still so many of our sisters who are still in there because they don’t know. they don’t realise the beauty and power in the things they are hiding away in the depths of their heart. they’ve never been taught that just being a girl is an option. they don’t understand that it’s not okay for these men to be preying on them. and one day, they’ll be sober. something will click in their mind. they had fun being a feminine boy, but that’s not quite right for them. they want to be more. and a light will click on in the darkness of their brain, and they will know they are a girl.

and what will happen is that all of the friends they thought they were making being a trap will hurt them. then they’ll be alone, and they won’t know why.

we can do so much better for them.

[phynxrizng]

AUGUST 2017 FORECAST

The Heat Is On - August 2017 Forecast

Source, a message from Emmanuel Dagher

To view more of Emmanuel's insight, please visit his website, EmmanuelDagher.com

It’s a blessing for me to be able to connect with you this way my friend. We have so much energy talk to catch up on, so let’s get right to it!

We are currently moving through a highly active energy cycle that began at the end of July, and will continue until early September.

During highly active energy cycles, there’s often a great deal of electricity in the air, which is felt most powerfully by those who are sensitive to energy.

When this much electricity is in the air, it offers us an excellent opportunity to take action towards creating the reality of our choice.

This is not the time to sit on the sidelines, watching as life passes us by!

Just like the seasons, energy goes through different cycles. Sometimes the energy is in a dormant cycle, and at other times, the energy is in a highly active cycle.

Right now, we are in a highly active cycle.

Turning Up the Heat When the energetic heat is turned up as it is right now, it often manifests itself in the following ways in our personal lives:

• Beginning a new project, job, or creative venture • Cleaning up and resolving past debts (personal, financial, etc.) • Deciding to move to a new home or location • Changes in appetite and eating habits • Being more social and making new friends • Giving ourselves a healthy outlet to express our creativity • Starting a new relationship or rekindling a past or current one • Feelings of being motivated and action-oriented • Taking a trip • Exercising and being more physically active • Taking a new class or course • Cleaning our house or living space

If any of these examples sound good to you, now is the time to explore them!

Two Kinds of Action There are two kinds of action: inspired action and forced action.

When we try to take forced action, we usually come up against a great deal of resistance.

Making or forcing something to happen often requires that we spend lots of time and energy on something that may not be natural to us. It often feels hard, and requires a great deal of outer control.

Many of us grew up being taught that making or forcing something to happen is what brings it to us. We were taught that if we were assertive about making our dreams a reality, we would be rewarded with positive results.

We were taught that the harder we worked, the more things we could acquire to make us happy. Even though this method may work temporarily, most of the time it comes with a hefty price, like the disruption of our wellbeing.

When we operate from a space of always trying to make or force something to happen, that usually puts a great deal of pressure and stress on our emotional and mental bodies.

Over time, this shows up as an imbalance in our emotional, mental, or physical body.

But there is a kind of action that doesn’t require us to push so hard, and that is inspired action.

When we take inspired action, we do so from a place of awareness, ease, and grace.

We become so present to the opportunities and blessings the Universe is offering us, that we easily step into them from a place of gratitude. There’s no force, control, or pressure needed.

With inspired action comes a trust that the Universe/Our Spirit is taking care of us fully.

With that trust, we no longer need to oversee or control every specific detail in our lives. We move out of any survival or victim patterns.

Taking inspired action is not to be confused with sitting around and waiting for life to make things happen for us.

It does, however, mean that we are intentionally choosing to be present and open to the opportunities that come our way.

The Universe/Our Spirit is constantly gifting us with new opportunities and blessings that will help us create the kind of life we truly desire.

However, when we are focused on the future or dwelling in the past, which most people have been taught to do, we tend to miss what’s being presented to us in the present moment.

It’s in this present moment that we are the most effective deliberate creator of our lives.

Special note: Because of the highly active energies right now, it has become very challenging and almost uncomfortable for us to procrastinate—to resist being active.

Even if it’s as simple as going for a walk outside or moving our body through dance or any kind of aerobic exercise, these inspired actions will serve us greatly during this time.

Physical Shifts When we are in a highly active energy cycle, our body can experience any of the following:

Our vision sharpens.

Our sense of hearing, taste, touch, and smell become more refined.

We might feel a bit dizzy at times, or spaced out.

Our skin may feel a bit more itchy than usual—a confirmation that we are energetically “shedding our old skin,” and letting healthy new skin to emerge.

Our weight fluctuates.

Our sleeping patterns change.

We tend to lose track of time.

However these energy shifts show up for you, just know that it’s normal, and part of the process.

The Power of the August 21 Total Solar Eclipse The pinnacle of these highly active energies will be reached on August 21 at 2:30 pm Eastern Time, when we will experience a total solar eclipse.

Eclipses are some of the most powerful astrological occurrences because they often usher in major changes.

During an eclipse, humanity is upgraded energetically, so the energies will feel very high as they move through us.

It might be a good idea to write down whatever inspirations, ideas, and insights we receive at this time, so we have them available for easy access later on, to integrate into our lives.

An eclipse is also a great time for healing because it brings to the surface deeply buried patterns that are no longer aligned with our highest potential.

If you find yourself and others feeling a bit more emotional or sensitive than usual during this time ... be gentle with yourself and them, as this will allow the healing to be a much smoother experience.

As we use this time for healing, it’s also a great opportunity to let go of the illusions of separation and to remember that we have always been One with all of Life, including each other.

This particular total solar eclipse is asking us to be fully transparent, open, and honest when it comes to how we live our lives.

Anything or anyone operating covertly or without integrity during a time of this total solar eclipse, and for several months afterwards, will struggle Big Time.

Keep an eye out for how this shows up, both in our immediate reality and also on the global stage.

One of the greatest ways to work with this solar eclipse is to be clear about what our intentions are, and to be willing to follow through on them when the opportunity to do so presents itself.

During a total solar eclipse, meditating on the Sun energy strengthens our internal Sun (located in the solar plexus/stomach region), which is another way of saying our Divine power.

This helps us to express ourselves and our gifts more openly and freely, without holding back. It also helps us build confidence in ourselves, including our gifts, talents, and overall presence in this world.

This total solar eclipse is going to shake up a lot of things, which will open the door for many new blessings to enter our reality.

As always, it has been such an honor to connect with you in this way.

Have a wonderful August, and I will look forward to catching up with you again soon!

Till next time,

Miraculously yours,

Emmanuel

Found in ,Witches of the Craft.com

Reposted by, PHYNXRIZNG

[lindafrancois]

Taking Body Measurements: The Ultimate Guide for Tracking Fitness

If you’re on a weight loss or fitness journey, you need to read this article.

Why?

Because tracking your body measurements and fitness progress can be crucial for getting in shape!

Those who succeed in transforming themselves are those who write everything down. As they say “That which gets measured gets improved.”

Or as we tell our 1-on-1 Online Coaching clients, “track the problem to crack the problem!“

A Nerd Fitness Coach can guide you and track your fitness progress! Learn more here.

Today, we teach you these life-changing habits:

How do you measure fitness progress?

How do you take body measurements?

What should you measure for weight loss progress? (Your food)

How do you know if you are making progress in the gym?

Success Stories of people who tracked their progress

Let’s jump right in!

How Do You Measure Fitness Progress?

Does this sound familiar?

You decide you want to get in shape.

You go for runs every day for a week and try to eat less food.

You step on the scale every day for a week and the numbers go down. Yaaaay!

You go to a cookout on a Sunday, step on the scale on Monday, and it’s higher than before!

You freak out, go crazy, and fall off the wagon.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

I’d guess this is 80% of people who try and fail to get in shape.

Fortunately, you’re reading Nerd Fitness which means you’re most likely smart, incredibly good looking, humble, and aware that doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results is the definition of insanity.

On top of that, you understand and value the importance of tracking your progress – as the saying goes “that which get measured gets improved.”

This is true specifically for these reasons:

1) Scales don’t tell the whole story. I’ve already covered my thoughts on scales. If you are training the right way (with an emphasis on strength training), your weight might not drop as fast as it would if you starved yourself and ran 20 miles a day.

Heck, you might be getting stronger and more muscular but the scale refuses to budge. Now, if you only had a scale as your ‘measuring stick,’ you’d probably get super discouraged and depressed at the lack of “progress.”

However, if you were tracking your body changes properly, you’d realize that you are making far more significant and healthier progress by doing things the right way. At the end of Saint’s journey to the Ab-promise land, his weight WENT UP while his body fat percentage went down. The scale can lie!

NOTE: the scale can also serve as a good “trend tracker” and I’ll cover that below – it was a key tool for me in losing 22 pounds over 6 months while building muscle.

2) You don’t know if you’re on the right path. Along with the scale not telling the whole story, it’s tough to tell if you’re losing the right kind of weight in the right kind of places.

There are so many other aspects to consider other than the number on the scale, including how you look, feel, and where the weight loss is coming from – your muscles or your stored fat.

It’s like driving cross country without a map, compass, road signs, or landmarks to use – how do you know you’re going the right way if you have no idea where you were or where you’re headed?

3) You don’t know how much you’re eating. If you’re overweight, you might think your metabolism is broken and you simply can’t lose weight. (Tracking some things will tell a different story). If you’re underweight and “can’t gain weight no matter what you eat,” you probably don’t realize how many calories you consume on a daily basis. We often have such a warped sense of reality when it comes to proper “portion size” and what constitutes a meal.

For example, this is a serving of carbs and fat:

Taken from our Healthy Eating guide. 

We need to be better informed on proper portion sizes.

4) You can’t tell if you’re getting stronger. Our bodies need to be constantly challenged in order to adapt and get stronger. If you do 3 sets of 10 push-ups every day for a year…you will just be really good at doing 3 sets of 10 push-ups and nothing more.

You need to constantly increase the difficulty of your workouts in order to get results.

This concept of “progressive overload” is the cornerstone of strength training. If you didn’t know how you did last time, how the hell are you going to know if you’re doing better this time?

That which is measured gets improved! I’m sure there are actual psychological reasons behind why this works, but I know that I get better results when I exercise if I know EXACTLY what I need to lift or how fast I need to run to get stronger and better. If I did 30 push-ups in a row last week, then this week I have “31! 31! 31!” emblazoned in my mind while doing them…sure enough, I’ll get to 31.

On top of that, if you’re constantly:

Keeping track of what you eat

Taking measurements

Tracking your workouts

You will always be thinking “healthy!” and thus make healthier decisions on a more consistent basis.

Hopefully, at this point you’ve at least come to the conclusion that maybe you should start tracking your progress. “Yes Steve, I have seen the light and I’m ready to start tracking my progress…tell me what the hell I need to do!”

PERFECT. Here’s how to do it.

How Do You Take Body Measurements?

THE NUMBER ON THE SCALE DOES NOT DEFINE YOU! When you strength train and eat properly, your body tends to only shed fat while keeping the muscle you already have. I deep dive into the subject in the article “Can you lose weight and gain muscle at the same time?”

Compare that to crash dieting and hours of cardio where your “weight loss” will be greater, but you’ll be losing both muscle and fat (and leave you looking and feeling like a weakling).

By tracking your body composition in more than one way, you’ll have a more accurate view of what’s working and what’s not working with your training. If after a few weeks you’re not losing the right kind of weight, you’ll know that you need to make some adjustments.

Before we get into metrics, let’s set one ground rule: Don’t track everything on a day-to-day basis.

Our bodies are incredibly complex pieces of machinery where all kinds of crazy stuff happens all day and all night.

Our weight can fluctuate by many pounds over the course of a day. Measuring EVERY day can promote an unhealthy OCD behavior where every tiny little change will be scrutinized and blown out of proportion.

So measure yourself once a week at the same time under the same conditions. I advise after you wake up and before you eat breakfast.

Depending on your schedule, I’d either pick Friday or Monday mornings to track all of your measurements – if you tend to let yourself go on the weekends, I’d advise doing your measurements on Friday morning so that you’ll have a whole week to get back on track and see long-term changes.

Here are the best ways to track yourself OTHER than a scale:

1) Take a front and side picture – My favorite method. Stand in front of a mirror in a bathing suit or your underwear with your cell phone camera and take a picture.

Then turn to the side and take another picture of your profile view. Just take the picture, hide it in a folder on your computer, and add to it once a week.

You live with yourself (duh), so it’s tough to notice changes on a day-to-day basis. However, if you have two months of week-to-week photos to look back on, you’ll be able to tell if your body is transforming in the right way.

2) Take body measurements – Go to a craft store and buy a cheap tape measure or buy one of these self-help tape measures. Make sure your measurements are taken under the same conditions each time.

Also, make sure you measure the same location each week – kind of weird, I know, but I pick freckles on my arms and legs so I know exactly where to measure each week.

Take a circumference measurement at each of these spots and write it down:

Neck (for most people, this is the thing that connects your body to your head).

Shoulders (both arms down at your side, at the widest point from shoulder to shoulder).

Chest (lift up your arms, wrap the tape measure around your chest, just above the nipple, and then lower your arms).

Bicep (either left or right, but be consistent).

Waist (at the belly button for consistency).

Hips (measure the widest part of your hips).

Thigh (left or right, but pick the same spot on your thigh each week).

3) Measure your body fat percentage – This one is a little tricky depending on your resources and financial situation.

Your best bet would be to purchase a simple body fat caliper if you’re strapped for cash.

If you want to be more accurate, pay $40-60 per visit and get your body fat tested at a Bod Pod Location – a wise investment once a month (or every other month) to make sure you’re on the right path.

I am NOT a fan of body fat calculators that are built into your scale as I find them to be wayyyy too hit and miss.

Important info about body fat percentage tracking: no test is truly 100% accurate, and the specific number isn’t nearly as important as how it’s changing from month to month.

You can at least make sure you measure it the same way each time to measure if it’s trending in the right direction.

What Should I Measure for Weight Loss Progress? (Your Food)

Are you aware of how many calories you eat on a daily basis? When I talk to somebody who is trying to gain weight/lose weight, the response is the same: “I eat enough for my goals, but I’m not getting results…I guess it’s genetics!”

Unfortunately, 99% of the time, it’s usually ignorance and not genetics. It’s a subject we tackle in-depth in the article “Why can’t I lose weight?”

Unless you’ve taken the time to actually count calories for a few days of your normal eating schedule, you probably have no freaking clue how many calories you eat!

Want a rough idea on the number of calories you should be eating? Calculate your caloric needs right here.

You CAN’T outrun your fork – 80% of your successes or failures will be a direct result of how you eat.

Although the quality of your calories consumed is incredibly important, the quantity of calories you consume is the first thing that needs to be fixed.

Think of your stomach as a muscle that adapts to its surroundings. If you continually shovel 4000 calories down your throat, your body will start to crave 4000 calories even though it doesn’t need that many.

Most people eat the same few meals over and over again on a weekly basis – I do. For that reason, I don’t think it’s necessary for you to track ALL of your calories EVERY day for months and months. However, I think spending a week writing down every calorie is incredibly important for your education and awareness on what you’re eating.

I’m talking every freaking calorie: that half of a Kat Kat bar at Judy’s desk when you stopped by to grab some cover pages for your TPS reports, the handful of M&M’s you ate while watching 30 Rock reruns on Netflix, the five cans of Coke you drank while finishing up that late night project, and the six beers and three slices of pizza you crushed to celebrate afterwards.

Every. Single. Calorie.

Once you have an idea of how much you eat regularly, take a look in the mirror. Do you like how you look? If so, GREAT! Keep doing what you’re doing.

If you’re not making progress AND you’re tracking your calories, congrats! No, your body isn’t broken. You need to get better at tracking. Consider getting a food scale, and making sure you have your portion sizes correct!

TO LOSE WEIGHT: Start by eating slightly less than you’re used to (so you’re not miserable), and training your stomach to expect less. You can also look into Intermittent Fasting.

Once you have your numbers under control, you can start making some other healthy changes.

We’ve actually factored all of this stuff in, and created the 10-level Nerd Fitness Diet – pick the level you’re comfortable with, then follow the instructions in our strategy guide (free when you sign up in the box below), and level up your nutrition (and your physique) permanently!

Download our free weight loss guide

THE NERD FITNESS DIET: 10 Levels to Change Your Life

Follow our 10-level nutrition system at your own pace

What you need to know about weight loss and healthy eating

3 Simple rules we follow every day to stay on target

I understand writing down your calories can be a pain in the ass, which is where sites like MyFitnessPal come in handy. They all have massive food databases that allow you to simply plug in what you ate (Big Mac, one apple, a gallon of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, etc.) and it keeps track of calories, protein, carbs, and fats for the day.

If you eat out frequently, you’ll have to do some research – go to the restaurant’s website and they’ll probably have nutritional information on there. If they don’t have it online, do your best to estimate by picking a similar meal option on one of the sites listed above and use its meal information instead.

It doesn’t have to be perfect, but tracking your food for just a few days could be one of the most eye-opening experiences you have when it comes to getting in shape.

Write it down, sucka!

For more help on counting calories, check out our guide on “calories in, calories out.”

How do you know if you are making progress in the gym?

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. “I don’t much care where–” said Alice. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

When you exercise, do you know what you need to do to be better? Do you know exactly what you’re going to do and how long it should take you?

Or do you kind of wander around the gym like a lost sheep, trying to figure out which machines look fun to use that day? If you’re serious about getting in shape, you need to start tracking your workouts.

Think of it like racing your ghost in Mario Kart: when you can see how you did last time, you know exactly how much better you need to be this time!

Here’s how to track your workouts:

If you did 3 sets of 10 push-ups last week for a total of 30 push-ups, you need to be able to do 31 total push-ups this week to be stronger.

If you did squats with 135 pounds last week, this week you better be squatting 136 pounds or more

If you did 3 pull-ups last week, you know you need to get to 4 this week if you want to be stronger.

Have a plan, know what kind of results you need to get in order to be better today than you were yesterday, and then GET THERE!

You can certainly use any of the sites listed above for diet tracking to keep track of your workouts too, but I’m a huge fan of strength training, so I just track my workouts in Evernote. It’s this simple tracking method that got me to deadlift 400+ pounds.

I always know exactly how I did in my last workout so that I know what I need to do in this workout to get stronger.

I’ve been working with an online fitness coach for 5+ years – he can see my progress and then create the next workout that is sliiiightly more difficult.

As we’ve learned from the Spartans, “appearance is a consequence of fitness.” If you are focusing on getting stronger and faster, taking a more active role in how you eat, and you are consistently tracking your progress to make sure you are heading in the right direction, you WILL get the results you’re after.

A quick note: strength training has transformed my life and the lives of every success story at Nerd Fitness. If you want to transform like them, and you’re interested in strength training but don’t know HOW to get started, we’re here for you!

Walking into a gym can be intimidating, especially if you’re not used to using the free weights section. Knowing how to eat for your body type and goals can be overwhelming too.

We remove all of that guesswork in our 1-on-1 Coaching Program, where our coaches get to know our clients, build custom workout programs for them, help adjust their diet in a way that doesn’t make them miserable, and gets the permanent results!

You can schedule a free call and learn more over on our the coaching page by clicking below:

Success Stories of People Who Tracked Their Progress

We’ve had some incredible success stories here at Nerd Fitness.

Guys like Saint who dropped 60 pounds of fat and got in shape for his wedding:

And women like Staci who started strength training and transformed her life:

Or Leslie a single mom who lost 100+ pounds since she started her Journey with Nerd Fitness:

These are just three examples of hundreds and hundreds I could share with you.

Some people gained strength and muscle while others lost tremendous amounts of weight and body fat; despite the differing goals and vastly different results, they all made one specific change that helped them truly get the results they wanted:

They wrote everything down: their measurements, their food intake, and their workouts.

If you’re serious about making changes to your life and getting in shape, I cannot stress enough the importance of tracking your progress, and I don’t mean just stepping on the scale every morning and freaking out every time it goes up 1/10th of a pound. I’m talking about a plan that allows you to find and stay on the right path.

Luckily, I’m here to help you start putting these practices in place TODAY.

I bet you’re here because you’re interested in transforming and losing weight like Saint and Staci and Leslie above. I know how tough this stuff is – it’s not just KNOWING what to do, but ALSO knowing how to do it correctly and sticking with the plan for months.

There’s nothing worse than walking into a gym and not knowing what you’re doing, or spending months training only to realize that you’ve been training the wrong way the whole time! K

Knowing how to exercise, and then getting yourself to actually follow through with the program long enough to get permanent results is brutally difficult.

If you’re ready to cut through the noise and you’re looking for guidance, accountability, and personalized attention, check out our 1-on-1 Coaching Program! We’ve been helping busy people like you (and Leslie above, a coaching client!) get results in a healthy, sustainable, non-miserable way.

You can learn more about our coaching program by clicking on the image below and scheduling a free call with us to learn more:

Your turn:

How are you tracking your progress?

Have you made adjustments to your plans after tracking your results?

Do you have any questions on how to properly track your body, food, or workouts?

That’s what I’m here for. Well, that and comedic relief.

Let me know in the comments!

-Steve

PS: If you’re looking for EVEN MORE instruction and guidance, check out Nerd Fitness Prime. 

Nerd Fitness Prime contains at-home exercise routines, live-streamed workouts with NF Coaches, a supportive online community, group challenges, and much more!

Plus, you can even chat with me in our private Discord group!

See you in there?

###

pencil, numbers, tape, flatlay, the notebook

Taking Body Measurements: The Ultimate Guide for Tracking Fitness published first on https://dietariouspage.tumblr.com/

[denisalvney]

3 Reasons to NOT Step On the Scale Today

I bet you weighed yourself this morning.

Did you like the number you saw, or were you expecting something lower?

Did you get overly excited if it was low or unreasonably depressed if it was too high?

We’ve all been there, so don’t beat yourself up too much.

Seriously, quit hitting yourself!

Whenever somebody tells me that he or she is going to get in shape, it’s always something like: “I’m going to lose 50 pounds,” or “If I can just get down to 200, I’ll be good.”

I’m here to tell you that you should reconsider stepping on that scale anytime soon.

Why?

Because although picking an arbitrary number for weight loss is a decent starting point (and it’s definitely good to set goals), your scale certainly doesn’t tell the whole story and can send you on an unnecessary roller coaster of emotions.

Yes I do realize most roller coasters are amazing – the emotional ones kind of suck though.

Today we explain why the scale is only one piece of the puzzle.

A quick note before we jump in: I bet you’re reading this because you’re struggling to get the scale to move in the direction you want. Believe it or not, 90% of the equation is your diet! 

I know how tough it can be to stick with a nutritional plan, and that most people abandon a diet after a few weeks! Plus, dieting stinks. We took this into account and created a 10-Level system that allows you to slowly change your diet to get in shape the right way, and change your physique permanently. Pick a level, follow the instructions, level up when you’re ready. Done!

Grab our free NF Diet strategy guide when you sign up in the box below, and then keep reading this article about why scales suck!

Download our free weight loss guide

THE NERD FITNESS DIET: 10 Levels to Change Your Life

Follow our 10-level nutrition system at your own pace

What you need to know about weight loss and healthy eating

3 Simple rules we follow every day to stay on target

I identify as a:

Woman

Man

1) Your weight will fluctuate more than the stock market

The human body is one incredibly complex piece of machinery. There are things going in, coming out, transforming, and dissolving all of the time. As a result, your weight can fluctuate wildly over the course of a 24-48 hour period, by up to five to six pounds.[1]

Let’s chat about some variables that can change by the hour:

What did you eat or drink today? All food and water have weight to them. An eight-ounce glass of water will add weight to you, because it itself has some weight (half a pound). Even eating a salad will affect your weight, since vegetables are heavier than air.

How much sodium did you have today? Consuming salt will make you retain water.[2] The more water you are holding, the more you will weigh.

Did you eat any carbs today? Speaking of water weight, eating carbohydrates can make you hold onto water.[3] Refined carbohydrates in particular, like bread and pasta, cause a high insulin response. When insulin is high, you hold onto more sodium, meaning more water.[4] Which is why people often lose a lot of water weight when following a low-carb or ketogenic diet.

Additionally, carbohydrates are stored in your muscles as glycogen. What’s attached with the glycogen? More water.

What time of the month is it? Following along on our trend of water weight, a menstrual cycle will also cause water retention, meaning more overall weight.

Have you, ah, been hitting up the bathroom today? I’ll just say it: urine and feces weigh something. You do the math.

When did you work out last? Exercising will cause you to sweat, which means less water. But you’ll also likely drink more water in response, which will have an impact on the scale too.

If you’re trying to lose weight the healthy way (a pound a week is a good goal to shoot for), your successful weight loss could be hidden by any number of circumstances that falsify your statistics.

That means you could be down three pounds since last week, but because you ate Chinese food last night (oh hey sodium), drank water this morning, and didn’t get to weigh yourself til the afternoon (while wearing jeans), the scale could show a GAIN of one pound. After working so hard, this “weight gain” can instantly demoralize you, sending you to the kitchen for some pity rocky-road ice cream and then over to the couch for a Game of Thrones marathon.

It’s just a number, and it can vary widely over a short period of time.

2) Your weight does NOT tell the whole story

The scale alone often won’t demonstrate fitness progress.

I have two pictures from my past to as an example, taken about four years apart.

Want to know something crazy?  I weighed the EXACT SAME AMOUNT in both pictures.

While my body weight in the two photos may be identical, it’s clear to see I packed on more muscle for the photo on the right.

What’s going on?

Let’s discuss a couple changes the scale might not be capturing:

Yes, it’s true that muscle weighs more than fat. Although if you want to be technical about it, a pound of muscle weighs the same as a pound of fat. That’s what “pounds” mean. However, a pound of fat takes up about twice the space as a pound of muscle, since muscle is about twice as dense as fat. That’s why people typically lean out as they drop their body fat percentage.

Strength training will increase bone density. On average, bones make up about 15% of body weight. And strength training will increase bone density, meaning they’ll weigh more.[5] After some time strength training, your bones might literally drive the scale up.

That’s why – although I weighed the same – I likely had more muscle, denser bones, and less body fat over the four year period.

All good things in my book.[6]

3) The scale does not define you

If you set out to lose 100 pounds in a year – an incredibly ambitious goal – and you only manage to lose 85, you might consider yourself a failure. After all, you set a goal and failed to achieve it, right?

YOU STILL LOST 85 freaking pounds, something you might have been struggling to do for years. I bet you’ve had to buy a whole new wardrobe and get all kinds of “holy crap you’ve lost a lot of weight!” comments.

Not bad for a failure, huh?

Don’t get caught up in the numbers game, and instead be proud of what you have accomplished instead.

I had a friend who wanted to get down to 199 pounds badly. He went from 235 pounds down to 202 pounds, and got stuck there for weeks. I remember trying to get him out of his funk: he saw himself as a failure for not losing those three pounds, when in reality he had lost 30+ pounds, completely redesigned his body and his diet, and was in better shape than he had been in years.

You’re not a statistic.

You’re not a number.

If you’re reading this, it means you’re part of the Rebellion.

I want you to know that if you’re like my friend, frustrated by missing your goal, you’re not alone.

We constantly receive emails from Rebels, letting us know they are struggling to hit their fitness goals. It’s actually the reason we decided to create our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program, so we could offer specific guidance tailored to their individual needs.

Here’s how it works: we get to learn your goals, lifestyle, challenges, and situation: Kids? An old injury? A job that requires travel? All the above? We got you covered.

We’ll then pair you with a coach from Team Nerd Fitness that fits your personality and situation. They’ll work with you to build custom workouts and nutrition guidance to meet any goal you might have. Unless that goal is ruthless world domination. Use your powers for good, okay?

Want to see if we are a good fit for each other? Click on the button below to schedule a free call. We’d love to talk to you, no matter what!

How to keep track of your success instead

I will admit that the scale can have its uses. If you’re just getting started, a few big changes in the first few weeks can really help you see progress and build momentum.

Also, over long periods of time, it’s a good way to tell if you’re headed in the right direction or not.

However, a scale can also cause all kinds of mental issues that bring you down quickly, and becomes less and less important as you get closer to your goals.

Here’s how you can stay strong and motivated without stepping on a scale regularly:

Remember that your journey to a healthier life is a marathon, not a sprint. Changes from day to day are practically meaningless and incredibly difficult to quantify, so go with changes over a longer period of time. Weigh yourself once a month or every other week to make sure you’re trending in the right direction. If it’s weekly, make sure you weigh yourself at the same time of the day, wearing the same type of clothing. Remove as many of the variables as possible to make your reading accurate. And even then, don’t put too much stock into it.

Look at your body composition rather than your weight. I try to take a picture of myself every month or so, giving me the chance to compare how I look.  You can also buy a body fat caliper (I use this one) or tape measure to keep track how your body is adjusting. Just make sure you’re taking your measurements in the same places on your body at the same time of day. If you’re taking photos, take a straight-on photo and a profile photo.

Set goals that are not weight-oriented. Say you want to do 15 push-ups, run a half marathon, and/or do a pull-up. With your mind focused on a strength building or endurance goal, you won’t have to worry so much about a dumb scale. If you can only do 5 push ups now but next month you can do 15, you definitely got stronger, but you probably also lost some fat.

Keep a journal. I know plenty of 170-pound people who are out of shape and 250-pound folks who are incredibly healthy. How do you FEEL this month compared to last month? Maybe you can now run around the track without stopping, you don’t get winded going up and down stairs, and you can give your kids a piggy back ride without being out of commission for days afterward. Keep track of your energy levels, your conditioning, and your overall well-being. Screw the scale.

If you’re interested in other ways to track your fitness progress, I’d encourage you to check out our post “How to Properly Track Your Progress.” We cover the tips above, plus much more.

As the saying goes, “You have to track the problem to crack the problem.” Make sure you look into ways of tracking besides a single scale.

What say you?

Are you a scale junkie?

I’m a recovering one. However, over the years I’ve learned my overall health, strength, and happiness are far better indicators of how I’m doing.

Moral of the story – if the scale is working for you and you’re seeing results, stick with it. If that number on the scale constantly screws with your mind, maybe it’s time to take a break.

So how about you?

Have you had success with stepping a scale daily? Had some rough weeks because of what the scale said? How about skipping the scale entirely and seeing great results?

Let’s hear some scale-related stories from the Rebellion!

-Steve

PS: Ready to change your physique the right way? Want to have an actual plan to follow? Grab our NF Diet Strategy Guide and our Strength Training 101: Everything You Need to Know free when you join the Rebellion and sign up in the box below:

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THE NERD FITNESS DIET: 10 Levels to Change Your Life

Follow our 10-level nutrition system at your own pace

What you need to know about weight loss and healthy eating

3 Simple rules we follow every day to stay on target

I identify as a:

Woman

Man

###

All photo sources can be found right here.[7]

Footnotes    ( returns to text)

You can check out this interview with Dr.  Leslie Heinberg for more.

You can check out a study on this here and here.

Scope out this study.

You can read this study for more.

You can check out this study for a review.

Which can be purchased right here🙂

Scale, Lego Businessman, Eurobasket, Brickendo, Blue, Freedom.

3 Reasons to NOT Step On the Scale Today published first on https://www.nerdfitness.com

[sunriseoverastorea]

Hunger

♬ Jeremy Soule - Secunda

Rajya Sleekfur grew up in the copper valleys of Ascalon. The lake near her fahrar was tainted, turned shifting shades of oily incandescence, so she didn't learn to swim as a cub. It wasn't until she became a full-fledged soldier, when a superior pushed her into a river because she had sneaked away to read a book, that she miraculously, by virtue of necessity, figured out how to keep her massive weight from sinking like an anvil into the murky depths of the water. The book had been ruined, swept away and soaked. The Priory forgave her for the loss. They never hesitated to loan her books.

Now, Rajya Sleekfur finds herself on the sea. She can't feel the waves, the swell of the ocean. Nor can she feel the sun, the blessed, blinding sun, or the sharp, salty wind that cuts through the ship's sails and sends sailors running about the deck, yanking on ropes and shouting orders to each other. She cannot feel, but she can hear, and see, as if in a dream.

The Unending Sea is bigger than she ever could have imagined. Of course she understood the concept of a sea, a huge body of water spanning hundreds of miles, if not thousands. If not millions. After all, it is called 'unending.' Is it simply due to Tyria's limitations, or could it go on forever and ever? Her chest tightens at the thought of such a thing. Sucked into the depths of an ancient, unknown world. All it would take is one storm, one undetected leak, one small mistake.

Pen Yfan pats her own shoulder, shaking her head as she turns away from the sea. “Do not be afraid. Nothing can happen to us, not as long as I am in charge of my body. You understand? No more screaming at the captain. He thinks sylvari are strange as it is. We will find her, wherever this ship takes us. I am sure of it.” She speaks softly, as if to a child. Rajya is conscious of this, on some level—condescension. She should be insulted. A seasoned scholar of her years. But she is not who she once was. A shadow of a creature, reduced to basic instincts—fear, brooding, longing, and love. She clings to Pen's words as to the hand of a mother, and knows that Pen would do the same with her.

The sylvari makes her way to the captain's quarters, dodging a scampering young deckhand as she slips through the swinging door into the cabin. Typhon Bashere sits at his desk, a large map spread before him, covered in scribbles of coordinates and notes. He holds his weathered head in his hands, deep in thought.

“Captain Bashere,” chimes Pen, sitting on the little stool in front of the desk. She pushes her fronds back from her face, and smiles warmly, trying to seem approachable. “Any news on the search? I see you have made some additions to the map. Perhaps I could look over them again?”

Bashere glances up at her with eyes sunken into sun-baked wrinkles. “Aye. That seems a fine idea. Though I do dislike having a talking tree upstage my own plans. There's no denying that you earn your stay on this ship with that intellect of yours.” He relaxes, sinking back into his threadbare armchair, and crossing his arms over his chest. “We detected tremors from the northwest at approximately 6:02. We've been heading in that direction since then, but the wind is fighting us. Perhaps you can discern the trajectory of whatever caused the tremors. Save us some effort.”

Pen bows her head obligingly, ruddy fronds falling about her face once more, and she leans in over the desk. She closes her eyes for a moment. Releases the reigns of her spirit to Rajya. And when she opens her eyes again, they glisten gold as they take in the intricacies of the map. Every minor slash and dot, hastily erased coordinates, frustrated doodles of squids and octopuses, every detail settles into place in Rajya's mind, and a thousand scenarios unfold beside them.

What do you think, Rajya? Are there conclusions to be drawn?

Yes. Unfortunately.

Pen lifts her head, and allows the charr to speak through her lips.

“Captain, I am afraid there is no trajectory. Just as with all of the past tremors, it was extremely powerful, and remained in a fixed point throughout the episode. If it were to have moved, we likely would have suffered from the fallout of such an obstruction in the sea. It also seems unlikely that the source of the episode remains; however, if we can reach the coordinates before nightfall, we may be able to find evidence of the cause.”

“Aye,” Bashere says softly, taking off his glasses to rub at his eyes. “That'd be the closest we've gotten, at least. We should make it in time.”

Rajya lets go, willingly, and Pen has the sudden, jarring sensation of plopping back into her body. She jerks in her seat, as if startled awake, and Bashere raises a tufted eyebrow.

“Sorry,” Pen says with a chuckle, “I had a chill. These ships are awfully drafty, are they not?”

“They can be. Best get you back in the sun, warm your bark, or whatever.”

“Yes, certainly! Thank you for allowing me to assist in your search, Captain. As always, I look forward to the day when we either find my friend, or your enemy.”

She tilts her head back, and smiles at the mural on the ceiling. A pearly white squid, tangled in a mess of tentacles and indigo ink. A tiny human depicted for scale—merely an ant beside the primal, otherworldly beast. She waves to the depiction, and then turns on her heel, making her way back to the hectic, frenetic world of the deck, where she sits in the sun, and tells Rajya of the warmth on her back.

Hundreds of miles away, Marea descends from the sky. She breathes deeply as the ley lines streak past her ship. She can feel them, buzzing in her blood. The air is alive with magic, intoxicating, sending the automated controls on her ship into a frantic beeping frenzy. She performs the landing unaided, coming to a smooth stop in the shallows of the ocean, and drifting forward a few more feet until the bottom of the ship becomes lodged in the sand. She quickly fills a small pack with rations and ammunition, hands shaking with anticipation, and then she's out on the deck, leaping into the water and wading the rest of the way to the beach.

As her feet connect with solid, dry ground, she drops to her knees. A smile of pleasure tugs at her lips, fills her eyes with a manic light as she swivels her gaze from side to side. The beach is small, only a couple miles long, before it meets the bulk of the island—those spire-like cliffs, pirouetting high into the sky, almost high enough to touch the clouds. Fairy tale towers with a dense network of pulsing rainbow light weaving through them.

“This is fucking crazy,” she says aloud, cackling lightly. “How has nobody found this yet?”

In her ecstatic state, she spares little thought for how she found it herself—there were no changes in the readings, no warning bells, not a single telltale ley line that she could've followed from farther back in her journey. It was as simple as nothing, becoming something.

She gets to her feet, and makes her way up the beach, to where the cliffs begin, their foothold shrouded by sparse, wiry jungle plants. Lush and green, she plucks a leaf from one, and experimentally shoves it in her mouth, chewing loudly. It tastes like shit, but she keeps at it anyway, never one to waste 'food,' and presses on past the trees and bushes.

The foliage only lasts for a moment. Soon she stands in a sandy valley of spires, and she cranes her head back, eyes straining to find their tops up in the violet sky. Down on the ground, the spires are far wider than they appeared, each one at least twice as wide as she can hug—and hug them she does. She wraps her arms around the base of one, pressing her face to the cool gray stone, flecked with a slightly porous pattern. A surge of energy flickers through her bones, and she imagines she could kill the birds in the sky with so much power. Though it occurs to her suddenly that there are no birds. She pulls back from the spire, and her eyes slowly scan the valley floor. Not a single sign of the smallest lizard, or even a fly. Just a few plants, like a rudimentary shield against the ocean, protecting their rocky friends from the water.

Despite the lack of life in a place so teeming with energy, she is unperturbed. She forms a metal fist and knocks on a spire experimentally—a hollow, deep chime echoes through the valley, bouncing from spire to spire until it fades into the distance. The ley lines high above seem to tremble from the vibrations. She feels each knock like a heartbeat, pulsing against her skin, trying to burst forth from her pathetic, mortal body. So weak, flesh and bone. So sad, a human form. Her teeth suddenly ache. She pushes the feeling away, and strides deeper into the forest of stone, footprints absorbed by the sand as soon as she leaves them.

The sky fluctuates softly, shifting from violet to indigo to deep blue and back again. The light here feels strange—there is no warmth to it. It comes from nowhere, and fills everywhere. Still, the island is comfortable, not cold or hot; in fact, she came to realize a short while ago that she could feel no temperature, as if the air was constantly adjusting to her body heat. Soothing her senses. There are no smells, either, except for the faint hint of steel on the breeze, like pavement after the rain. She sees an oily puddle in her mind's eye. With tiny bare feet, she splashes into it, splattering her pale legs with mud. An older child's hand grips her shoulder roughly, wrenching her away from the water, steering her into a dark alley, and putting a finger to her lips. “Shhhh,” she whispers. Marea stares at the girl's face, and after a moment, she realizes it's Winnie. Deep, cool brown skin, a round face, and rattlesnake braids that hang loosely over her shoulders. She stumbles along beside her guardian, the alleyway swimming before her eyes. She feels something, in the pit of her stomach—hunger. But so great that it spreads to her chest, and she struggles to breathe. Suffocated by it. Her ankle twists, and she crashes to the ground, not even a peep escaping her lips.

“Come on, Marea,” Winnie snaps, fingers gripping her wrist and yanking at her, to little effect. Winnie was always rather weak. Not in Marea's way, where she could have been more, had more, if only someone had bothered to notice her. For Winnie, it was ingrained in her being. A part of who she was. Physically and emotionally, the girl had little to offer. But if she picked on her baby doll, the infant she found abandoned in the trash and chose to tote around like an accessory at the ripe old age of five, she could be powerful. Everyone in the family picked on her doll, her stupid, tiny 'Rea, and the doll would come to her for comfort. Which she would give to her, for a time. A few minutes, perhaps. Before she found more interesting things to do.

Winnie yanks at Marea's wrist, and her stomach drops as she realizes the girl isn't getting up. She falls on her butt, shell-shocked, and begins to cry, holding the cold hand of her charge, stricken with the fear.

Marea awakens with a shout. Her head bangs into one of the spires, and she squeezes her eyes shut in pain as the echoing stone chorus rebounds through the valley once more. The eerie sound reverberates in her eardrums, increasing with intensity, until suddenly, without preamble, it stops. Blissful silence once again sits upon the island.

She slowly looks around her, eyelids heavy with weariness. She had been meditating—but at some point she must have fallen asleep. She remains where she was before, deep in the sea of spires, stretching up like pillars to support the ripening sky. It must be morning, of a new day. Surely not that much time has passed? Yet there it is, the sunrise. Without a sun. The sky only goes through the motions, here.

She gets to her feet, and reaches into her bag. She makes grabbing motions—unable to feel with her prosthetic appendages, she simply digs in and hopes to pull out what she needs. But this time, she grasps nothing. She upends the bag. Flattens it on the ground. The rations are gone. When did she eat them?

With an irritated huff, she turns back the way she came. She squints at the stone spires ahead of her. They fade into the distance, becoming a mist-like blur the farther off they get. She whips her head around, looking in the opposite direction.

Endless spire forests, in every direction. The sand unmarred by her passing—wherever she passed from. Her stomach grumbles, and with sudden urgency, she reaches for a lone bramble sprouting from the ground, stuffing it in her mouth, stems and all. The leaves are sweet, but the stem is bitter. It reminds her of Winnie—a strange person to recall, at a time like this, or any time. She tries not to remember her. She tries not to remember anything of her life before Rajya. Even without thinking about it, the lingering effects of that time cling to her like poison.

She chooses a direction, and she walks.

Winnie digs her fingers into a cake. An entire chocolate sheet cake, stolen from a bakery window. She pulls out filthy handfuls and stuffs them in her mouth, then offers the bits that cling to her skin to Darius, who drags his tongue over them slowly. Winnie giggles wildly, swinging her legs. Marea also swings her legs, wanting them to be like Winnie's. Skinny but pretty. They sit atop a crumbling wall in the courtyard of an abandoned townhouse, shadows of the towers of Divinity's Reach  stretching across them in the afternoon sun.

Marea watches her companions. Darius is slightly older than Winnie, with a classic Krytan look, bronzed skin and brown hair, long and unkempt in a way he thinks is dashing. The rest of the family agrees with him. Their mop-headed savior. He knows the routes the Seraph will take before the Seraph themselves do. He has informants, real adult ones, leaders of gangs. Sometimes, when Winnie and Marea are out walking, gathering food or medicine, Winnie gushes about marrying him.

“One day, Darius will be the greatest crime lord in the whole city. We will live in a mansion with silk curtains and Elonian antiques, as my mom always wanted, and we'll eat the finest food, drink as much alcohol as we can without dying, and have lots of pets. I want five cats, personally. Darius will probably want something nastier, like a drake.”

Marea spots an apple in the gutter, likely fallen from someone's shopping bag, and snatches it up, promptly biting into it. It hurts her teeth.

“What about me?” she says softly, but with an edge to her voice, unable to keep the bitterness from surfacing. Some days are like that. Days of clarity, awareness. Few and far between.

“Marea!” Winnie snaps, whapping the apple out of her hand. It rolls right back into the gutter, and seems content to stay there. “You do not eat first! I don't know how many times we have to go over this. You get what's left. And now nobody gets the apple, because you've ruined it. Wasted it.”

“Wh—what about me?” Marea asks again, unfazed, until Winnie's hand cracks across her face, and her spindly legs topple over.

“You!” Winnie hisses, sticking a foot on her head to keep her down on the cobblestones. The street is suddenly empty. Marea imagines she can hear the sounds of doors and windows locking, curtains being drawn. “You might get to stay with me and Darius, if you're very good, but I wouldn't count on it. Selfish and inconsiderate. I regret the day I ever took you in. You know that?” She shouts down at her, wild, sudden rage filling her voice. “You would be dead if it weren't for us! Show a little gratitude!”

With that final note, her foot connects with Marea's face, and the world goes dark.

The three of them sit on the wall in the townhouse courtyard, and Marea watches chocolate cake crumbs tumble into the grass. Ants have already assembled for the feast, picking up bits five times their size and marching off towards their fortress. Marea hops down from the wall, and crushes them beneath her bare feet.

The awakening is worse this time. She gasps so hard her chest cramps, and the pain is piercing. She grits her teeth and waits for it to subside. And as soon as it has, she rolls over onto her stomach, face to face with lush green moss. She digs into it without hesitation, teeth tearing up greenery and sand alike. She sighs, she laughs, and at the end of it, when the binge seems to be over, she presses her face to the ground and begins to sob. The magic is everywhere. When she looks at her hands, they seem to vibrate before her very eyes. She has to get out. Has to—eat. No, she is a human, not a cow. She doesn't eat moss and leaves. She hates vegetables. Hates them, hates them. Even so, she finds herself digging up clumps of moss a moment later, and sticking them in her mouth.

“What the fuck is this?” she whispers through her mouthful, green juices dripping onto her chin. “Ship. Ship is that—that way. Because the stars, no stars, right. Okay. So the ship is, it's gotta be that way, because that feels right, and, and--”

“And you wouldn't want me to get hurt, would you?” Darius says gently, though not without a hint of warning. Of consequences for Marea's that don't put the needs of others before themselves. “You're a big girl now. I just need you to keep watch, and make your best judgment if anything goes wrong. Got it?”

Marea shakes her head. She's not a big girl. Winnie told her that she just turned five. She gave her a gift—a small knife, though not small enough for a five year old's hands. Grape vines decorate the handle, and her own name has been sloppily scraped into the blade. She's never seen it spelled before. It looks strange to her.

Darius gives her a hug, too tight, the touch of his hands filling her with a feeling she can't yet place—revulsion. And he rolls his eyes as lets her go and starts away. “You better not fuck this up.”

Marea slinks behind a pile of crates, peering out attentively, though she trembles like a frightened rabbit. After only a minute, a man in fine clothes, perhaps a merchant, appears at the end of the alleyway. He storms toward Darius, furious, counting something off on his hands as he attempts to lord over the younger boy. Marea hears his exclamations, but the words don't add up in her head. Too many, too fast, and with so much anger. She picks out the letters of the alphabet as she listens, and they spin about and tangle in her mind like an alien language.

The merchant draws a pistol. He backs Darius into a corner. Marea hears Darius call her name, and the reaction is automatic—she lifts her dress, taking her knife from the holster on her thigh. She walks into the open. Her hand moves. There is resistance. She struggles to plunge the blade into the merchant man's waist. Her appearance alone buys her enough time, as the man stares at her, dumbfounded, by the skeletal little girl that just appeared from the shadows with intent to kill.

As the man falls, her knife slips out from his flesh. She grips it tightly in her hand, and watches as thick drops of blood dribble down the blade. It reminds her of icing. Or ketchup. Or the sweet sauce that the butcher's wife puts on her homemade meatloaf.

Darius wraps his arms around Marea and spins her through the air, clutching her tight to his chest. “Nice work, kiddo! Wasn't expecting the man to pull a gun on a kid like me, but hey, you were there to save the day.” Her plops her back down on the ground, and wipes at a bit of blood on her cheek, where she was sprayed from the dying man's wound. “I'm proud of you, 'Rea. And I know Winnie will be, too. Hey, what's the matter? Don't get all teary eyed on me. This is exciting! Come on, I know you're a little brat, but you can do better than this.”

She stares at the merchant's lifeless body, a crimson pool spreading beneath his hips. She wipes at her eyes, but the tears just replenish themselves, hot against her chilly skin.

“What's, wr—wr--wrong?” She whispers, vision blurring.

Darius looks from her to the man, and back again, an eyebrow playfully raised. “Well, he's bleeding out on the ground. You killed him. That's the magic of knives.”

Marea shakes her head.

Darius nods.

Marea looks up at the sky, pure and blue across the low rooftops of the Commons. It sickens her.

She sits up, and before she can grab the nearest flora and begin ingesting it by the handful, she turns to the nearest spire and bangs her head against it, as hard as she can. The valley echoes like thunder, and she screams in pain at the sound, ears ringing, warm blood dripping down her neck. She gets to her feet and she runs, footsteps light as a child's upon the smooth sand.

She runs, and she runs, and soon she sees the faint outlines of bushes on the horizon, sprinkled amongst the misty gray spires. A flurry of memories fight for dominance in her mind, but she forces them away, she thinks only of her ship, of her friends, her cat and her books, she thinks of what she left behind, good and bad, old and new. She thinks of what she has learned to live for. She thinks of Rajya's burnt remains, Kaylee's crushed face, Noctis appearing behind her as if he were her shadow; and she thinks of her first kiss, with an uncouth, juvenile sylvari. She hasn't seen him in a long time. She tossed him aside, and he made certain that he would never feel anything but disappointment towards her, ever again.

She thinks of Raigar and Geneva. She thinks of the world, and how wrong it feels. Of how it has always felt wrong, since Darius swept her off her feet and twirled her around with joy. How dare he? How dare Tyria? How dare they allow her to be made like this? How dare they allow her to remember a world in which she wasn't the monster—everyone else was. She clings to memories of Raigar and Gen, sitting with them in the Sun, flying with them on the Rogue and lounging with them in the refuge. She clutches tight to Raigar's face in her minds eye. With the hands of a frightened little girl, who hasn't yet learned how to be empty.

She breaks through the foliage. Collapses to her knees in the sand, right where she knelt some time ago. Perhaps one day, perhaps several. After a minute spent catching her breath, she realizes the buzzing is gone. The humming in her veins, pulsing in her bones. She looks over her shoulder. And the island is only a patch of sand, perhaps a mile long. There are no bushes or trees. No spires, not even rocks. The ley lines are gone, and even as she stares, the far shore is growing closer, the relentless waves of the ocean eating it up and turning it to no more than particles, drifting in the endless abyss of the sea.

She is back in her ship, her eyes to the sky. It is black, now, just as it should be. The stars are all in their places. They fill her with hope. She munches on jerky from a large bowl, several day's servings within. She remembers little from the island. But whatever happened, it left her starving.

[felicitasdumas0-blog]

However This Is Exactly how You Cope with The Blunder That Issues.

You do not intend to just be actually a good hubby; you desire to be an outstanding other half as well as daddy. Given that you inform all of them that the inspection engine light is actually on, auto mechanics are actually not mind visitors nor perform they automatically know exactly what's inappropriate along with your vehicle merely. One more popular cars and truck garage error cars and truck proprietors create is actually dismissing the advise of the auto mechanic. If you loved this information and you wish to receive more info relating to yellow pages residential uk (Continue Reading) generously visit our web-site. P.S. Oversight # 6: If you have no wall structure messages on your page it means there is no socializing on this earth (account). You can also hear records that will definitely verify simply exactly how enterprising these identification criminals have ended up being that they even use modern technology to conveniently collect personal particulars easily. Or else, if the criminal accused can confirm that the mistake sensibly negated a factor from the unlawful act, the defense will generally be actually held to acquit the accused and administer of responsibility. This puzzle, showcased here, is going popular considering that that is actually produced several smarty-pants seem like simpletons. You pull into your lifestyle exactly what you focus on. Considering your mistakes are going to not shield you coming from making future mistakes. If it helped make folks examine your expertise, placed much more records reveal there certainly to fix their leave. When there is actually a component oversight about a product facet of the contract, the important objective of the agreement, there is actually the inquiry of the expectation of the threat. In some cases oversights are actually pretty small as well as cause very little damage or trouble. The checklist can continue. Having said that, my knowledge as a card-carrying member from the POPULAR CULTURE delivers me to the conclusion that the perfect error is actually the fake . Enable your own self to hope and assume large, dare one thing deserving, create lots from oversights along the way-- and also fill up your expertise box to the edge! So many folks are afraid to even take a handful of sure things because they could cause a blunder." So they do not try just about anything brand-new. Still, this is not where very most identities are actually stolen as well as it is a significant mistake to believe that just shielding your personal things may produce a major difference in your identity burglary danger. Already that was actually practically impossible for me to track down the identification and place from the pet dog manager so I had to decrease the situation (which I believed possessed a settlement value of at the very least $50,000 to $75,000). Yet another common error made by those that are actually trying to enhance their appeal is strongly believing that they have to possess the simplest. The fifth oversight firms create is to never take into consideration creating a photo and identity for their company. Having said that, the specialist and fully grown factor to carry out is to have up as well as confess to your manager or supervisor that this was you that made the mistake. ERROR 3: Reproduce or unoptimised information- Numerous material farms feed on the internet that deliver write-ups on numerous topics that have been copied coming from various other resources. Gadgets that recognize a wrong activity or even part can be made use of to error evidence a method. After a considerable amount of catastrophic-seeming mistakes, I've related to realize that few blunders are irreversible. If you have actually transgressed, own it. (Actually, if you have slipped up, own that also.) Take the hit. The Birdman superstar was introducing the candidates for Finest Assisting Actress in a Motion Picture when he reached Octavia Spencer's name and claimed she became part of the film 'Hidden Fences'. No matter what mistakes you make, and you will continue to make all of them, don't quit. Do not permit on your own be or think defeated. After this is actually around, as silly a fellow as I am actually could find that mistakes were actually made. The very first thing to accomplish after creating an inaccuracy is actually to approve obligation for this. Some folks make the blunder from denying obligation and delay positioning blame on others. You are going to be actually surprised through just how promptly you react to mistakes in the future and also your ability to stay away from identical scenarios entirely. When you try to find as several traits as you may to become thankful for in an oversight, you amazingly change the blunder into benefits. . The first step in error proofing is to identify the sort of inaccuracy, or even mistakes, that triggered the defect. To oversight A for B → A mit B verwechseln, A für B halten; it can certainly not probably be actually misinterpreted for everything more → das ist doch unverkennbar!, das kann guy doch gar nicht verwechseln! A blunder, as it seems to be to me, is none the much less a blunder considering that it is actually made deliberately in the pursuit of an incorrect motive. Lastly, the last major error that lots of ladies create is overcomplicating their program. The elimination of error-prone steps in a procedure is actually another method of blunder proofing. Filmed under the functioning title The Cellar, no person expected the film up until an unanticipated trailer decreased in January. Do certainly not let the fact that you have made a handful of errors to quit you coming from aiming to take care of the relationship. We merely have one chance to present our kids the determination and willpower necessary to allow all of them to pick up from the errors that we have actually all brought in. In this particular short article you will definitely check out a number of usual oversights produced when individuals check out body language. A typical error created is actually using the inappropriate pads or shoes for an automobile. Therefore allow me give you a run-through of the 10 most usual mistakes I observe fellas creating when they first approach a woman - and this really isn't just students - this applies to normal individuals I note when I walk out. Move toward the individual as well as deliver an earnest apology if your blunder has induced an individual to lose trust fund in you. The Hynix courtroom clarifies the variation in between an oversight of law ... where the facts are recognized however the lawful repercussions are actually certainly not, or even are believed to be other than they really are ...," Century Importers, Inc Definitely, blunders benefit our team - they make us which our experts are and usually make up our most beneficial prizes from knowledge as well as knowledge. Understand that your challenge along with your little ones' mistakes resides in reality a reflection of your problem managing your very own blunders; know this as well as manage your own issues first. You can speak to RI Legal representative David Slepkow through visiting Rhode Isle Family members Rule Attorney or even by calling him at 401-437-1100. However regardless of the office atmosphere, you need to figure out how you may equate the error off a responsibility in to a resource," Gergen claims. Constantly producing the same error is going to trigger concerns to be asked - not good inquiries either! When you've created a blunder as well as move on, the secret is actually to accept. Perspective it as a practice that produced practical details. For technical calculations, a celebration might have the ability to set aside the contract on these premises provided that the various other gathering does not aim to make use of the error, or even 'take up' the promotion (including a bargain that one did not aim to create, revealed by an inaccuracy in arithmetic etc.). This will be actually found by an objective standard, or if a reasonable person will have the capacity to know that the mistake would not make sense to among the celebrations. That's why most participants (as well as dieters) end up getting back their initial weight As our team've said prior to: physical fitness is actually a skill-set If you want to absolutely progress, you'll have to drop words blunder coming from your lexicon to ensure you can change internally. The very first common mistake folks create when this reaps powerful communication is that they are actually not knowledgeable about their physical body language, vocal or intonation fluctuation. Here are actually seven common blunders that earns a degree make in their return to and should avoid that. Following opportunity you experience that you've slipped up, merely smile as well as enjoy that you only made a big down payment right into you experience account. This is actually far much easier in a knowing culture compared to in a performance-focused society, where errors are often watched a lot more roughly. Many individuals create the oversight of not safeguarding the pre-approved loans before searching for houses.

[yes-dal456]

Forget Body Positivity: How About Body Neutrality?

By Marisa Meltzer

It is late afternoon on a sunny day in Vermont and around a dozen people are gathered to talk about their bodies. They’re all staying at Green Mountain at Fox Run, a retreat where women (and only women) stay from one week to several months to learn healthy eating habits and make peace with their bodies. It’s much more bare bones than a spa, and rather than focus on numbers, like a typical weight-loss program, the aim is to teach women how to change the way they think about food. The days are structured, with classes on meal planning, goal setting, self-care, and workouts like yoga and strength training. Even meals are to be eaten mindfully, with a weekly exercise that involves savoring every bite of a tiny dessert.

That journey to peace is a lot easier said than done, as the group, who range from college age to their 40s, is learning in the Body Neutrality workshop, led by the program director Anne Poirier, BS, CSCS, CIEC, whose previous job was running the fitness program at Colby-Sawyer College. She has prompted everyone to consider “what your body felt like and looked like at different times in your life” and they’re all jotting notes down in a binder with Green Mountain’s “womanifesto” printed on it (“too often, our lives play out on the stage between our ears”). A blonde in her 30s talks about being a former competitive swimmer who feels shame because she gained weight; a brunette next to her talks about how, despite losing half her body weight in college, she always feels obese.

Poirier listens to all of this and nods. “There’s a whole movement talking about loving our bodies. But it’s kind of a long jump to move there from dissatisfaction,” she says. “Some people are just going to land in body neutrality, which is the term we utilize here for somewhere in the middle.” It’s a kind of détente, a white flag, a way station between hating oneself and loving oneself.

*****

If we judged how we felt as a culture about our bodies just by Instagram alone, the results would be mixed at best. There are the celebrities shilling sketchy tea detoxes, all the sweaty post-workout selfies our friends post, and countless pretty, proportionate girls in an array of sizes posing in bikinis encouraging all of us, no matter our weight, to embrace our curves, to shun diets, to just love our bodies — and, by extension, ourselves —already.

“My problem with body love, beside the fact that it’s a high standard, is it’s asking women to regulate their emotions, not just their bodies,” says Autumn Whitefield-Madrano, author of Face Value: The Hidden Ways Beauty Shapes Women’s Lives. “I don’t see the pressure on women really easing up, and then you’re supposed to have this bulletproof self-esteem on top of all that. It’s not something we can really live up to. Body love keeps the focus on the body. The times I’m happiest are when I’m not thinking about my body at all.”

The way that we feel about our bodies, she notes, is not a simple upward graph where one day we vow to love ourselves and each day we progress forward on the journey to embracing our thighs that touch or total lack of six-pack abs. “It’s a topographical map, it’s fluctuating. And that’s normal and healthy.”

Another thing that’s unavoidable: feeling less than unqualified joy about what you see in the mirror. “If you’re even a tiny bit of a critical person, there are always things that are wrong with everything. We have this notion of love that is connected to perfectionism — the image that we should be in bliss all the time is so strong in our culture,” says Joan Chrisler, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Connecticut College in New London. What might instead be a more successful and realistic approach is to think, “You have the body you have and accept what you have. It’s an essential part of yourself.” At least it’s something to work toward.

“I don’t think I know anybody who walks around every day thinking, ‘I am loving this today,’” says Kelsey Miller with a laugh. She’s the 29-year-old New York–based author of the memoir Big Girl: How I Gave Up Dieting and Got a Life. Perhaps ironically, while she was writing the book about learning to love her body, she was working around the clock, barely having time to exercise and living on takeout by necessity. “I put on weight. I was thinking, here I am supposed to be body positive but I don’t feel psyched about this right now.”

She vowed not to let it ruin her life, nor her sense of accomplishment at finishing a book, even if she wasn’t her most satisfied. Part of the implicit goal of body neutrality is to free up all the energy and attention that women often devote to body angst so that they can care about other matters instead. “I realized my body is going along with my life, and there’s nothing wrong with that — I hadn’t committed a terrible crime. If I can’t like this, I have to be able to accept it, otherwise I’m not going to live my life.” One thing she committed to was to stay resolutely in the present, with no place for magical thinking about losing ten pounds in a week. In the weeks that followed, she didn’t go on a crash diet or start weighing herself religiously to mark her progress, but instead simply let her life return to normal. Miller went to barre classes and “remembered what a joy it was to make my own damn breakfast,” she laughs. “I don’t weigh myself but I know I’ve lost some weight. My message to my body was, thanks for getting me through this and not breaking down, and now I can devote time to doing what makes you feel good: sweating, eating homemade food, going to sleep.”

Wanting to be fit isn’t antithetical to body neutrality, nor is dieting. “But it’s a tricky balance,” says Elena Ramirez, Ph.D., a clinical assistant professor of psychology at the University of Vermont in Burlington. “It’s reasonable, if someone is overweight, that they should lose weight. It’s all about moderation and being grounded in reality instead of avoiding the issue.” Body neutrality isn’t a license to throw in the towel, dive head-first into a pile of chips, and give up on feeling healthy, but to move on from the mindset of needing to lose weight or worrying about what you see in the mirror to focusing on how you feel. “It doesn’t mean suddenly stopping things like being physically active or choosing nutritious foods. Just focus on what feels good: dancing, bike rides, going on a walk, eating more vegetables, meditating, taking a bubble bath, getting a massage,” says Chrisler. “Sometimes you’ll lose weight without trying. The important part is not delaying your happiness until then and remind yourself not to be so demanding.”

Thirty-one-year-old Mara Glatzel is a life coach in Cape Cod who helps women come to terms with their bodies. But she wasn’t always in such a good place. In fact, she uses the words “damaged” and “difficult” to describe her relationship with her body. “I was just constantly creating plans — diets, workouts — which all had to do with how I looked to somebody else,” she says. So instead of jumping straight from a place of loathing to love, she shifted her focus to “things I was overlooking. I picked one or two things to focus on, really simple ones like brushing my teeth and making sure I washed my face before bed or drinking enough water,” she says. “ But it worked because I tried to turn down the volume of what I think about. Now I take good care of myself.” For some of us, that’s enough of a breakthrough right there.

Try thinking about your body the way you think about friends and family, says Ann Kearney-Cooke, Ph.D., director of the Cincinnati Psychotherapy Institute. “The way I like to look at this is, think about your best friend. Is she perfect? Well, no. Are you mean to her because she’s not?” she says. “There is nobody out there who is a perfect ten emotionally or physically and yet people fall in love with people all the time. Look at your partner and you might say, ‘Well, he has a receding hairline but is funny and loyal and has beautiful eyes.’”

Working on neutrality — and it is an ever-evolving process — is ultimately about how you want to allocate your time and focus. “Neutrality is the freedom to go about your day without such a strong focus on your body,” says Kearney-Cooke. “We have only so much energy, where do we want to use it? There are lots of other things that need attention. You don’t want to neglect your body, so you listen to it, and are aware of the function it serves.”

Melissa A. Fabello, a 31-year-old Ph.D. candidate in Philadelphia, wrote a blog post on body neutrality in 2015 (the term seems to have been popping up on the internet for the past few years, but Green Mountain applied to trademark it last year) that sums up how it can be both a joy and a relief for those of us who have previously felt only body turmoil. Body neutrality is “going to the Cheesecake Factory and perusing their ‘Skinnylicious’ (ugh, I hate that name) menu just because you want more options to choose from,” she wrote. “It’s ordering S’mores cheesecake because it strikes you as sounding amazing. It’s only eating half of it because that’s when you get full. It’s taking it home for later, in case you need a midnight snack.”

Talking on the phone, Fabello said just the idea that a kind of peace with our bodies is possible is important. “I’m in a place where I can order pizza without a problem and not feel bad about myself all the time.” But that was not always the case. As a conventionally attractive, relatively thin woman, she had a positive body image growing up. Then, she gained a lot of weight for her frame — around 25 pounds — when she went to college. In her early 20s, she was in an emotionally abusive relationship with a man who would tell her she was fat and needed to go to the gym. After he broke up with her, “I thought, well I’ll show him,” she says. “I went on the first serious diet of my life, spiraled out of control and was diagnosed with an eating disorder. After that I had to do some work to get to a place where I felt okay about myself.”

One thing she does is recognize that negative thoughts about her body are a pattern, one she doesn’t have to just succumb to. “We spiral and make up stories about how bad they are. I don’t have to place a value on it,” she says. “So if I think, I don’t like my thighs, I will think about my thighs in terms of how they actually are. What are the things I need my thighs for? They hold me up, I can walk, I can bend down. It sounds trite, but we lose sight that our bodies are to help us move through the world.”

*****

Back in Vermont at Green Mountain, Anne Poirier sits down after teaching and talks about her personal history. “My journey is yo-yo dieting, diet after diet, and never happy with my body. I’m tired and I don’t like how much it has occupied my whole life.” She calls all the space food talk takes up in her brain “Judge Foodie.”

When asked about whether she has gotten to body acceptance, she shakes her head no. “I honor and respect my body. I like feeling strong, certain things I like, but I can’t say I love it.” Instead of sounding like a failure, the revelation that she’s making her way through the spectrum of body hate to body love and falls somewhere in the middle makes it sound more real and more achievable. “Body neutrality is experiential and not something that happens overnight,” says Poirier. “It’s one awareness at a time, one thought at a time.”

More from The Cut:

50 Simple Pieces for Building a Classic Wardrobe

Meet the 82-Year-Old Runner Famous for Chugging Beer Mid-Race

Yoga, Meditation, and a Yurt: My Weekend at a Breakup Retreat

There Is a Best Time to Work Out and It’s Not in the Morning

Trans Teens on What ‘Bathroom Anxiety’ Really Feels Like

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from http://ift.tt/2mQiQJK from Blogger http://ift.tt/2mf3uBB

[imreviewblog]

Forget Body Positivity: How About Body Neutrality?

By Marisa Meltzer

It is late afternoon on a sunny day in Vermont and around a dozen people are gathered to talk about their bodies. They’re all staying at Green Mountain at Fox Run, a retreat where women (and only women) stay from one week to several months to learn healthy eating habits and make peace with their bodies. It’s much more bare bones than a spa, and rather than focus on numbers, like a typical weight-loss program, the aim is to teach women how to change the way they think about food. The days are structured, with classes on meal planning, goal setting, self-care, and workouts like yoga and strength training. Even meals are to be eaten mindfully, with a weekly exercise that involves savoring every bite of a tiny dessert.

That journey to peace is a lot easier said than done, as the group, who range from college age to their 40s, is learning in the Body Neutrality workshop, led by the program director Anne Poirier, BS, CSCS, CIEC, whose previous job was running the fitness program at Colby-Sawyer College. She has prompted everyone to consider “what your body felt like and looked like at different times in your life” and they’re all jotting notes down in a binder with Green Mountain’s “womanifesto” printed on it (“too often, our lives play out on the stage between our ears”). A blonde in her 30s talks about being a former competitive swimmer who feels shame because she gained weight; a brunette next to her talks about how, despite losing half her body weight in college, she always feels obese.

Poirier listens to all of this and nods. “There’s a whole movement talking about loving our bodies. But it’s kind of a long jump to move there from dissatisfaction,” she says. “Some people are just going to land in body neutrality, which is the term we utilize here for somewhere in the middle.” It’s a kind of détente, a white flag, a way station between hating oneself and loving oneself.

*****

If we judged how we felt as a culture about our bodies just by Instagram alone, the results would be mixed at best. There are the celebrities shilling sketchy tea detoxes, all the sweaty post-workout selfies our friends post, and countless pretty, proportionate girls in an array of sizes posing in bikinis encouraging all of us, no matter our weight, to embrace our curves, to shun diets, to just love our bodies — and, by extension, ourselves —already.

“My problem with body love, beside the fact that it’s a high standard, is it’s asking women to regulate their emotions, not just their bodies,” says Autumn Whitefield-Madrano, author of Face Value: The Hidden Ways Beauty Shapes Women’s Lives. “I don’t see the pressure on women really easing up, and then you’re supposed to have this bulletproof self-esteem on top of all that. It’s not something we can really live up to. Body love keeps the focus on the body. The times I’m happiest are when I’m not thinking about my body at all.”

The way that we feel about our bodies, she notes, is not a simple upward graph where one day we vow to love ourselves and each day we progress forward on the journey to embracing our thighs that touch or total lack of six-pack abs. “It’s a topographical map, it’s fluctuating. And that’s normal and healthy.”

Another thing that’s unavoidable: feeling less than unqualified joy about what you see in the mirror. “If you’re even a tiny bit of a critical person, there are always things that are wrong with everything. We have this notion of love that is connected to perfectionism — the image that we should be in bliss all the time is so strong in our culture,” says Joan Chrisler, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Connecticut College in New London. What might instead be a more successful and realistic approach is to think, “You have the body you have and accept what you have. It’s an essential part of yourself.” At least it’s something to work toward.

“I don’t think I know anybody who walks around every day thinking, ‘I am loving this today,’” says Kelsey Miller with a laugh. She’s the 29-year-old New York–based author of the memoir Big Girl: How I Gave Up Dieting and Got a Life. Perhaps ironically, while she was writing the book about learning to love her body, she was working around the clock, barely having time to exercise and living on takeout by necessity. “I put on weight. I was thinking, here I am supposed to be body positive but I don’t feel psyched about this right now.”

She vowed not to let it ruin her life, nor her sense of accomplishment at finishing a book, even if she wasn’t her most satisfied. Part of the implicit goal of body neutrality is to free up all the energy and attention that women often devote to body angst so that they can care about other matters instead. “I realized my body is going along with my life, and there’s nothing wrong with that — I hadn’t committed a terrible crime. If I can’t like this, I have to be able to accept it, otherwise I’m not going to live my life.” One thing she committed to was to stay resolutely in the present, with no place for magical thinking about losing ten pounds in a week. In the weeks that followed, she didn’t go on a crash diet or start weighing herself religiously to mark her progress, but instead simply let her life return to normal. Miller went to barre classes and “remembered what a joy it was to make my own damn breakfast,” she laughs. “I don’t weigh myself but I know I’ve lost some weight. My message to my body was, thanks for getting me through this and not breaking down, and now I can devote time to doing what makes you feel good: sweating, eating homemade food, going to sleep.”

Wanting to be fit isn’t antithetical to body neutrality, nor is dieting. “But it’s a tricky balance,” says Elena Ramirez, Ph.D., a clinical assistant professor of psychology at the University of Vermont in Burlington. “It’s reasonable, if someone is overweight, that they should lose weight. It’s all about moderation and being grounded in reality instead of avoiding the issue.” Body neutrality isn’t a license to throw in the towel, dive head-first into a pile of chips, and give up on feeling healthy, but to move on from the mindset of needing to lose weight or worrying about what you see in the mirror to focusing on how you feel. “It doesn’t mean suddenly stopping things like being physically active or choosing nutritious foods. Just focus on what feels good: dancing, bike rides, going on a walk, eating more vegetables, meditating, taking a bubble bath, getting a massage,” says Chrisler. “Sometimes you’ll lose weight without trying. The important part is not delaying your happiness until then and remind yourself not to be so demanding.”

Thirty-one-year-old Mara Glatzel is a life coach in Cape Cod who helps women come to terms with their bodies. But she wasn’t always in such a good place. In fact, she uses the words “damaged” and “difficult” to describe her relationship with her body. “I was just constantly creating plans — diets, workouts — which all had to do with how I looked to somebody else,” she says. So instead of jumping straight from a place of loathing to love, she shifted her focus to “things I was overlooking. I picked one or two things to focus on, really simple ones like brushing my teeth and making sure I washed my face before bed or drinking enough water,” she says. “ But it worked because I tried to turn down the volume of what I think about. Now I take good care of myself.” For some of us, that’s enough of a breakthrough right there.

Try thinking about your body the way you think about friends and family, says Ann Kearney-Cooke, Ph.D., director of the Cincinnati Psychotherapy Institute. “The way I like to look at this is, think about your best friend. Is she perfect? Well, no. Are you mean to her because she’s not?” she says. “There is nobody out there who is a perfect ten emotionally or physically and yet people fall in love with people all the time. Look at your partner and you might say, ‘Well, he has a receding hairline but is funny and loyal and has beautiful eyes.’”

Working on neutrality — and it is an ever-evolving process — is ultimately about how you want to allocate your time and focus. “Neutrality is the freedom to go about your day without such a strong focus on your body,” says Kearney-Cooke. “We have only so much energy, where do we want to use it? There are lots of other things that need attention. You don’t want to neglect your body, so you listen to it, and are aware of the function it serves.”

Melissa A. Fabello, a 31-year-old Ph.D. candidate in Philadelphia, wrote a blog post on body neutrality in 2015 (the term seems to have been popping up on the internet for the past few years, but Green Mountain applied to trademark it last year) that sums up how it can be both a joy and a relief for those of us who have previously felt only body turmoil. Body neutrality is “going to the Cheesecake Factory and perusing their ‘Skinnylicious’ (ugh, I hate that name) menu just because you want more options to choose from,” she wrote. “It’s ordering S’mores cheesecake because it strikes you as sounding amazing. It’s only eating half of it because that’s when you get full. It’s taking it home for later, in case you need a midnight snack.”

Talking on the phone, Fabello said just the idea that a kind of peace with our bodies is possible is important. “I’m in a place where I can order pizza without a problem and not feel bad about myself all the time.” But that was not always the case. As a conventionally attractive, relatively thin woman, she had a positive body image growing up. Then, she gained a lot of weight for her frame — around 25 pounds — when she went to college. In her early 20s, she was in an emotionally abusive relationship with a man who would tell her she was fat and needed to go to the gym. After he broke up with her, “I thought, well I’ll show him,” she says. “I went on the first serious diet of my life, spiraled out of control and was diagnosed with an eating disorder. After that I had to do some work to get to a place where I felt okay about myself.”

One thing she does is recognize that negative thoughts about her body are a pattern, one she doesn’t have to just succumb to. “We spiral and make up stories about how bad they are. I don’t have to place a value on it,” she says. “So if I think, I don’t like my thighs, I will think about my thighs in terms of how they actually are. What are the things I need my thighs for? They hold me up, I can walk, I can bend down. It sounds trite, but we lose sight that our bodies are to help us move through the world.”

*****

Back in Vermont at Green Mountain, Anne Poirier sits down after teaching and talks about her personal history. “My journey is yo-yo dieting, diet after diet, and never happy with my body. I’m tired and I don’t like how much it has occupied my whole life.” She calls all the space food talk takes up in her brain “Judge Foodie.”

When asked about whether she has gotten to body acceptance, she shakes her head no. “I honor and respect my body. I like feeling strong, certain things I like, but I can’t say I love it.” Instead of sounding like a failure, the revelation that she’s making her way through the spectrum of body hate to body love and falls somewhere in the middle makes it sound more real and more achievable. “Body neutrality is experiential and not something that happens overnight,” says Poirier. “It’s one awareness at a time, one thought at a time.”

More from The Cut:

50 Simple Pieces for Building a Classic Wardrobe

Meet the 82-Year-Old Runner Famous for Chugging Beer Mid-Race

Yoga, Meditation, and a Yurt: My Weekend at a Breakup Retreat

There Is a Best Time to Work Out and It’s Not in the Morning

Trans Teens on What ‘Bathroom Anxiety’ Really Feels Like

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from Healthy Living - The Huffington Post http://huff.to/2mQvM26

[lindafrancois]

Taking Body Measurements: The Ultimate Guide for Tracking Fitness

If you’re on a weight loss or fitness journey, you need to read this article.

Why?

Because tracking your body measurements and fitness progress can be crucial for getting in shape!

Those who succeed in transforming themselves are those who write everything down. As they say “That which gets measured gets improved.”

Or as we tell our 1-on-1 Online Coaching clients, “track the problem to crack the problem!“

A Nerd Fitness Coach can guide you and track your fitness progress! Learn more here.

Today, we teach you these life-changing habits:

How do you measure fitness progress?

How do you take body measurements?

What should you measure for weight loss progress? (Your food)

How do you know if you are making progress in the gym?

Success Stories of people who tracked their progress

Let’s jump right in!

How Do You Measure Fitness Progress?

Does this sound familiar?

You decide you want to get in shape.

You go for runs every day for a week and try to eat less food.

You step on the scale every day for a week and the numbers go down. Yaaaay!

You go to a cookout on a Sunday, step on the scale on Monday, and it’s higher than before!

You freak out, go crazy, and fall off the wagon.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

I’d guess this is 80% of people who try and fail to get in shape.

Fortunately, you’re reading Nerd Fitness which means you’re most likely smart, incredibly good looking, humble, and aware that doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results is the definition of insanity.

On top of that, you understand and value the importance of tracking your progress – as the saying goes “that which get measured gets improved.”

This is true specifically for these reasons:

1) Scales don’t tell the whole story. I’ve already covered my thoughts on scales. If you are training the right way (with an emphasis on strength training), your weight might not drop as fast as it would if you starved yourself and ran 20 miles a day.

Heck, you might be getting stronger and more muscular but the scale refuses to budge. Now, if you only had a scale as your ‘measuring stick,’ you’d probably get super discouraged and depressed at the lack of “progress.”

However, if you were tracking your body changes properly, you’d realize that you are making far more significant and healthier progress by doing things the right way. At the end of Saint’s journey to the Ab-promise land, his weight WENT UP while his body fat percentage went down. The scale can lie!

NOTE: the scale can also serve as a good “trend tracker” and I’ll cover that below – it was a key tool for me in losing 22 pounds over 6 months while building muscle.

2) You don’t know if you’re on the right path. Along with the scale not telling the whole story, it’s tough to tell if you’re losing the right kind of weight in the right kind of places.

There are so many other aspects to consider other than the number on the scale, including how you look, feel, and where the weight loss is coming from – your muscles or your stored fat.

It’s like driving cross country without a map, compass, road signs, or landmarks to use – how do you know you’re going the right way if you have no idea where you were or where you’re headed?

3) You don’t know how much you’re eating. If you’re overweight, you might think your metabolism is broken and you simply can’t lose weight. (Tracking some things will tell a different story). If you’re underweight and “can’t gain weight no matter what you eat,” you probably don’t realize how many calories you consume on a daily basis. We often have such a warped sense of reality when it comes to proper “portion size” and what constitutes a meal.

For example, this is a serving of carbs and fat:

Taken from our Healthy Eating guide. 

We need to be better informed on proper portion sizes.

4) You can’t tell if you’re getting stronger. Our bodies need to be constantly challenged in order to adapt and get stronger. If you do 3 sets of 10 push-ups every day for a year…you will just be really good at doing 3 sets of 10 push-ups and nothing more.

You need to constantly increase the difficulty of your workouts in order to get results.

This concept of “progressive overload” is the cornerstone of strength training. If you didn’t know how you did last time, how the hell are you going to know if you’re doing better this time?

That which is measured gets improved! I’m sure there are actual psychological reasons behind why this works, but I know that I get better results when I exercise if I know EXACTLY what I need to lift or how fast I need to run to get stronger and better. If I did 30 push-ups in a row last week, then this week I have “31! 31! 31!” emblazoned in my mind while doing them…sure enough, I’ll get to 31.

On top of that, if you’re constantly:

Keeping track of what you eat

Taking measurements

Tracking your workouts

You will always be thinking “healthy!” and thus make healthier decisions on a more consistent basis.

Hopefully, at this point you’ve at least come to the conclusion that maybe you should start tracking your progress. “Yes Steve, I have seen the light and I’m ready to start tracking my progress…tell me what the hell I need to do!”

PERFECT. Here’s how to do it.

How Do You Take Body Measurements?

THE NUMBER ON THE SCALE DOES NOT DEFINE YOU! When you strength train and eat properly, your body tends to only shed fat while keeping the muscle you already have. I deep dive into the subject in the article “Can you lose weight and gain muscle at the same time?”

Compare that to crash dieting and hours of cardio where your “weight loss” will be greater, but you’ll be losing both muscle and fat (and leave you looking and feeling like a weakling).

By tracking your body composition in more than one way, you’ll have a more accurate view of what’s working and what’s not working with your training. If after a few weeks you’re not losing the right kind of weight, you’ll know that you need to make some adjustments.

Before we get into metrics, let’s set one ground rule: Don’t track everything on a day-to-day basis.

Our bodies are incredibly complex pieces of machinery where all kinds of crazy stuff happens all day and all night.

Our weight can fluctuate by many pounds over the course of a day. Measuring EVERY day can promote an unhealthy OCD behavior where every tiny little change will be scrutinized and blown out of proportion.

So measure yourself once a week at the same time under the same conditions. I advise after you wake up and before you eat breakfast.

Depending on your schedule, I’d either pick Friday or Monday mornings to track all of your measurements – if you tend to let yourself go on the weekends, I’d advise doing your measurements on Friday morning so that you’ll have a whole week to get back on track and see long-term changes.

Here are the best ways to track yourself OTHER than a scale:

1) Take a front and side picture – My favorite method. Stand in front of a mirror in a bathing suit or your underwear with your cell phone camera and take a picture.

Then turn to the side and take another picture of your profile view. Just take the picture, hide it in a folder on your computer, and add to it once a week.

You live with yourself (duh), so it’s tough to notice changes on a day-to-day basis. However, if you have two months of week-to-week photos to look back on, you’ll be able to tell if your body is transforming in the right way.

2) Take body measurements – Go to a craft store and buy a cheap tape measure or buy one of these self-help tape measures. Make sure your measurements are taken under the same conditions each time.

Also, make sure you measure the same location each week – kind of weird, I know, but I pick freckles on my arms and legs so I know exactly where to measure each week.

Take a circumference measurement at each of these spots and write it down:

Neck (for most people, this is the thing that connects your body to your head).

Shoulders (both arms down at your side, at the widest point from shoulder to shoulder).

Chest (lift up your arms, wrap the tape measure around your chest, just above the nipple, and then lower your arms).

Bicep (either left or right, but be consistent).

Waist (at the belly button for consistency).

Hips (measure the widest part of your hips).

Thigh (left or right, but pick the same spot on your thigh each week).

3) Measure your body fat percentage – This one is a little tricky depending on your resources and financial situation.

Your best bet would be to purchase a simple body fat caliper if you’re strapped for cash.

If you want to be more accurate, pay $40-60 per visit and get your body fat tested at a Bod Pod Location – a wise investment once a month (or every other month) to make sure you’re on the right path.

I am NOT a fan of body fat calculators that are built into your scale as I find them to be wayyyy too hit and miss.

Important info about body fat percentage tracking: no test is truly 100% accurate, and the specific number isn’t nearly as important as how it’s changing from month to month.

You can at least make sure you measure it the same way each time to measure if it’s trending in the right direction.

What Should I Measure for Weight Loss Progress? (Your Food)

Are you aware of how many calories you eat on a daily basis? When I talk to somebody who is trying to gain weight/lose weight, the response is the same: “I eat enough for my goals, but I’m not getting results…I guess it’s genetics!”

Unfortunately, 99% of the time, it’s usually ignorance and not genetics. It’s a subject we tackle in-depth in the article “Why can’t I lose weight?”

Unless you’ve taken the time to actually count calories for a few days of your normal eating schedule, you probably have no freaking clue how many calories you eat!

Want a rough idea on the number of calories you should be eating? Calculate your caloric needs right here.

You CAN’T outrun your fork – 80% of your successes or failures will be a direct result of how you eat.

Although the quality of your calories consumed is incredibly important, the quantity of calories you consume is the first thing that needs to be fixed.

Think of your stomach as a muscle that adapts to its surroundings. If you continually shovel 4000 calories down your throat, your body will start to crave 4000 calories even though it doesn’t need that many.

Most people eat the same few meals over and over again on a weekly basis – I do. For that reason, I don’t think it’s necessary for you to track ALL of your calories EVERY day for months and months. However, I think spending a week writing down every calorie is incredibly important for your education and awareness on what you’re eating.

I’m talking every freaking calorie: that half of a Kat Kat bar at Judy’s desk when you stopped by to grab some cover pages for your TPS reports, the handful of M&M’s you ate while watching 30 Rock reruns on Netflix, the five cans of Coke you drank while finishing up that late night project, and the six beers and three slices of pizza you crushed to celebrate afterwards.

Every. Single. Calorie.

Once you have an idea of how much you eat regularly, take a look in the mirror. Do you like how you look? If so, GREAT! Keep doing what you’re doing.

If you’re not making progress AND you’re tracking your calories, congrats! No, your body isn’t broken. You need to get better at tracking. Consider getting a food scale, and making sure you have your portion sizes correct!

TO LOSE WEIGHT: Start by eating slightly less than you’re used to (so you’re not miserable), and training your stomach to expect less. You can also look into Intermittent Fasting.

Once you have your numbers under control, you can start making some other healthy changes.

We’ve actually factored all of this stuff in, and created the 10-level Nerd Fitness Diet – pick the level you’re comfortable with, then follow the instructions in our strategy guide (free when you sign up in the box below), and level up your nutrition (and your physique) permanently!

Download our free weight loss guide

THE NERD FITNESS DIET: 10 Levels to Change Your Life

Follow our 10-level nutrition system at your own pace

What you need to know about weight loss and healthy eating

3 Simple rules we follow every day to stay on target

I understand writing down your calories can be a pain in the ass, which is where sites like MyFitnessPal come in handy. They all have massive food databases that allow you to simply plug in what you ate (Big Mac, one apple, a gallon of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, etc.) and it keeps track of calories, protein, carbs, and fats for the day.

If you eat out frequently, you’ll have to do some research – go to the restaurant’s website and they’ll probably have nutritional information on there. If they don’t have it online, do your best to estimate by picking a similar meal option on one of the sites listed above and use its meal information instead.

It doesn’t have to be perfect, but tracking your food for just a few days could be one of the most eye-opening experiences you have when it comes to getting in shape.

Write it down, sucka!

For more help on counting calories, check out our guide on “calories in, calories out.”

How do you know if you are making progress in the gym?

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. “I don’t much care where–” said Alice. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

When you exercise, do you know what you need to do to be better? Do you know exactly what you’re going to do and how long it should take you?

Or do you kind of wander around the gym like a lost sheep, trying to figure out which machines look fun to use that day? If you’re serious about getting in shape, you need to start tracking your workouts.

Think of it like racing your ghost in Mario Kart: when you can see how you did last time, you know exactly how much better you need to be this time!

Here’s how to track your workouts:

If you did 3 sets of 10 push-ups last week for a total of 30 push-ups, you need to be able to do 31 total push-ups this week to be stronger.

If you did squats with 135 pounds last week, this week you better be squatting 136 pounds or more

If you did 3 pull-ups last week, you know you need to get to 4 this week if you want to be stronger.

Have a plan, know what kind of results you need to get in order to be better today than you were yesterday, and then GET THERE!

You can certainly use any of the sites listed above for diet tracking to keep track of your workouts too, but I’m a huge fan of strength training, so I just track my workouts in Evernote. It’s this simple tracking method that got me to deadlift 400+ pounds.

I always know exactly how I did in my last workout so that I know what I need to do in this workout to get stronger.

I’ve been working with an online fitness coach for 5+ years – he can see my progress and then create the next workout that is sliiiightly more difficult.

As we’ve learned from the Spartans, “appearance is a consequence of fitness.” If you are focusing on getting stronger and faster, taking a more active role in how you eat, and you are consistently tracking your progress to make sure you are heading in the right direction, you WILL get the results you’re after.

A quick note: strength training has transformed my life and the lives of every success story at Nerd Fitness. If you want to transform like them, and you’re interested in strength training but don’t know HOW to get started, we’re here for you!

Walking into a gym can be intimidating, especially if you’re not used to using the free weights section. Knowing how to eat for your body type and goals can be overwhelming too.

We remove all of that guesswork in our 1-on-1 Coaching Program, where our coaches get to know our clients, build custom workout programs for them, help adjust their diet in a way that doesn’t make them miserable, and gets the permanent results!

You can schedule a free call and learn more over on our the coaching page by clicking below:

Success Stories of People Who Tracked Their Progress

We’ve had some incredible success stories here at Nerd Fitness.

Guys like Saint who dropped 60 pounds of fat and got in shape for his wedding:

And women like Staci who started strength training and transformed her life:

Or Leslie a single mom who lost 100+ pounds since she started her Journey with Nerd Fitness:

These are just three examples of hundreds and hundreds I could share with you.

Some people gained strength and muscle while others lost tremendous amounts of weight and body fat; despite the differing goals and vastly different results, they all made one specific change that helped them truly get the results they wanted:

They wrote everything down: their measurements, their food intake, and their workouts.

If you’re serious about making changes to your life and getting in shape, I cannot stress enough the importance of tracking your progress, and I don’t mean just stepping on the scale every morning and freaking out every time it goes up 1/10th of a pound. I’m talking about a plan that allows you to find and stay on the right path.

Luckily, I’m here to help you start putting these practices in place TODAY.

I bet you’re here because you’re interested in transforming and losing weight like Saint and Staci and Leslie above. I know how tough this stuff is – it’s not just KNOWING what to do, but ALSO knowing how to do it correctly and sticking with the plan for months.

There’s nothing worse than walking into a gym and not knowing what you’re doing, or spending months training only to realize that you’ve been training the wrong way the whole time! K

Knowing how to exercise, and then getting yourself to actually follow through with the program long enough to get permanent results is brutally difficult.

If you’re ready to cut through the noise and you’re looking for guidance, accountability, and personalized attention, check out our 1-on-1 Coaching Program! We’ve been helping busy people like you (and Leslie above, a coaching client!) get results in a healthy, sustainable, non-miserable way.

You can learn more about our coaching program by clicking on the image below and scheduling a free call with us to learn more:

Your turn:

How are you tracking your progress?

Have you made adjustments to your plans after tracking your results?

Do you have any questions on how to properly track your body, food, or workouts?

That’s what I’m here for. Well, that and comedic relief.

Let me know in the comments!

-Steve

PS: If you’re looking for EVEN MORE instruction and guidance, check out Nerd Fitness Prime. 

Nerd Fitness Prime contains at-home exercise routines, live-streamed workouts with NF Coaches, a supportive online community, group challenges, and much more!

Plus, you can even chat with me in our private Discord group!

See you in there?

###

pencil, numbers, tape, flatlay, the notebook

Taking Body Measurements: The Ultimate Guide for Tracking Fitness published first on https://dietariouspage.tumblr.com/

[lindafrancois]

3 Reasons to NOT Step On the Scale Today

I bet you weighed yourself this morning.

Did you like the number you saw, or were you expecting something lower?

Did you get overly excited if it was low or unreasonably depressed if it was too high?

We’ve all been there, so don’t beat yourself up too much.

Seriously, quit hitting yourself!

Whenever somebody tells me that he or she is going to get in shape, it’s always something like: “I’m going to lose 50 pounds,” or “If I can just get down to 200, I’ll be good.”

I’m here to tell you that you should reconsider stepping on that scale anytime soon.

Why?

Because although picking an arbitrary number for weight loss is a decent starting point (and it’s definitely good to set goals), your scale certainly doesn’t tell the whole story and can send you on an unnecessary roller coaster of emotions.

Yes I do realize most roller coasters are amazing – the emotional ones kind of suck though.

Today we explain why the scale is only one piece of the puzzle.

A quick note before we jump in: I bet you’re reading this because you’re struggling to get the scale to move in the direction you want. Believe it or not, 90% of the equation is your diet! 

I know how tough it can be to stick with a nutritional plan, and that most people abandon a diet after a few weeks! Plus, dieting stinks. We took this into account and created a 10-Level system that allows you to slowly change your diet to get in shape the right way, and change your physique permanently. Pick a level, follow the instructions, level up when you’re ready. Done!

Grab our free NF Diet strategy guide when you sign up in the box below, and then keep reading this article about why scales suck!

Download our free weight loss guide

THE NERD FITNESS DIET: 10 Levels to Change Your Life

Follow our 10-level nutrition system at your own pace

What you need to know about weight loss and healthy eating

3 Simple rules we follow every day to stay on target

I identify as a:

Woman

Man

1) Your weight will fluctuate more than the stock market

The human body is one incredibly complex piece of machinery. There are things going in, coming out, transforming, and dissolving all of the time. As a result, your weight can fluctuate wildly over the course of a 24-48 hour period, by up to five to six pounds.[1]

Let’s chat about some variables that can change by the hour:

What did you eat or drink today? All food and water have weight to them. An eight-ounce glass of water will add weight to you, because it itself has some weight (half a pound). Even eating a salad will affect your weight, since vegetables are heavier than air.

How much sodium did you have today? Consuming salt will make you retain water.[2] The more water you are holding, the more you will weigh.

Did you eat any carbs today? Speaking of water weight, eating carbohydrates can make you hold onto water.[3] Refined carbohydrates in particular, like bread and pasta, cause a high insulin response. When insulin is high, you hold onto more sodium, meaning more water.[4] Which is why people often lose a lot of water weight when following a low-carb or ketogenic diet.

Additionally, carbohydrates are stored in your muscles as glycogen. What’s attached with the glycogen? More water.

What time of the month is it? Following along on our trend of water weight, a menstrual cycle will also cause water retention, meaning more overall weight.

Have you, ah, been hitting up the bathroom today? I’ll just say it: urine and feces weigh something. You do the math.

When did you work out last? Exercising will cause you to sweat, which means less water. But you’ll also likely drink more water in response, which will have an impact on the scale too.

If you’re trying to lose weight the healthy way (a pound a week is a good goal to shoot for), your successful weight loss could be hidden by any number of circumstances that falsify your statistics.

That means you could be down three pounds since last week, but because you ate Chinese food last night (oh hey sodium), drank water this morning, and didn’t get to weigh yourself til the afternoon (while wearing jeans), the scale could show a GAIN of one pound. After working so hard, this “weight gain” can instantly demoralize you, sending you to the kitchen for some pity rocky-road ice cream and then over to the couch for a Game of Thrones marathon.

It’s just a number, and it can vary widely over a short period of time.

2) Your weight does NOT tell the whole story

The scale alone often won’t demonstrate fitness progress.

I have two pictures from my past to as an example, taken about four years apart.

Want to know something crazy?  I weighed the EXACT SAME AMOUNT in both pictures.

While my body weight in the two photos may be identical, it’s clear to see I packed on more muscle for the photo on the right.

What’s going on?

Let’s discuss a couple changes the scale might not be capturing:

Yes, it’s true that muscle weighs more than fat. Although if you want to be technical about it, a pound of muscle weighs the same as a pound of fat. That’s what “pounds” mean. However, a pound of fat takes up about twice the space as a pound of muscle, since muscle is about twice as dense as fat. That’s why people typically lean out as they drop their body fat percentage.

Strength training will increase bone density. On average, bones make up about 15% of body weight. And strength training will increase bone density, meaning they’ll weigh more.[5] After some time strength training, your bones might literally drive the scale up.

That’s why – although I weighed the same – I likely had more muscle, denser bones, and less body fat over the four year period.

All good things in my book.[6]

3) The scale does not define you

If you set out to lose 100 pounds in a year – an incredibly ambitious goal – and you only manage to lose 85, you might consider yourself a failure. After all, you set a goal and failed to achieve it, right?

YOU STILL LOST 85 freaking pounds, something you might have been struggling to do for years. I bet you’ve had to buy a whole new wardrobe and get all kinds of “holy crap you’ve lost a lot of weight!” comments.

Not bad for a failure, huh?

Don’t get caught up in the numbers game, and instead be proud of what you have accomplished instead.

I had a friend who wanted to get down to 199 pounds badly. He went from 235 pounds down to 202 pounds, and got stuck there for weeks. I remember trying to get him out of his funk: he saw himself as a failure for not losing those three pounds, when in reality he had lost 30+ pounds, completely redesigned his body and his diet, and was in better shape than he had been in years.

You’re not a statistic.

You’re not a number.

If you’re reading this, it means you’re part of the Rebellion.

I want you to know that if you’re like my friend, frustrated by missing your goal, you’re not alone.

We constantly receive emails from Rebels, letting us know they are struggling to hit their fitness goals. It’s actually the reason we decided to create our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program, so we could offer specific guidance tailored to their individual needs.

Here’s how it works: we get to learn your goals, lifestyle, challenges, and situation: Kids? An old injury? A job that requires travel? All the above? We got you covered.

We’ll then pair you with a coach from Team Nerd Fitness that fits your personality and situation. They’ll work with you to build custom workouts and nutrition guidance to meet any goal you might have. Unless that goal is ruthless world domination. Use your powers for good, okay?

Want to see if we are a good fit for each other? Click on the button below to schedule a free call. We’d love to talk to you, no matter what!

How to keep track of your success instead

I will admit that the scale can have its uses. If you’re just getting started, a few big changes in the first few weeks can really help you see progress and build momentum.

Also, over long periods of time, it’s a good way to tell if you’re headed in the right direction or not.

However, a scale can also cause all kinds of mental issues that bring you down quickly, and becomes less and less important as you get closer to your goals.

Here’s how you can stay strong and motivated without stepping on a scale regularly:

Remember that your journey to a healthier life is a marathon, not a sprint. Changes from day to day are practically meaningless and incredibly difficult to quantify, so go with changes over a longer period of time. Weigh yourself once a month or every other week to make sure you’re trending in the right direction. If it’s weekly, make sure you weigh yourself at the same time of the day, wearing the same type of clothing. Remove as many of the variables as possible to make your reading accurate. And even then, don’t put too much stock into it.

Look at your body composition rather than your weight. I try to take a picture of myself every month or so, giving me the chance to compare how I look.  You can also buy a body fat caliper (I use this one) or tape measure to keep track how your body is adjusting. Just make sure you’re taking your measurements in the same places on your body at the same time of day. If you’re taking photos, take a straight-on photo and a profile photo.

Set goals that are not weight-oriented. Say you want to do 15 push-ups, run a half marathon, and/or do a pull-up. With your mind focused on a strength building or endurance goal, you won’t have to worry so much about a dumb scale. If you can only do 5 push ups now but next month you can do 15, you definitely got stronger, but you probably also lost some fat.

Keep a journal. I know plenty of 170-pound people who are out of shape and 250-pound folks who are incredibly healthy. How do you FEEL this month compared to last month? Maybe you can now run around the track without stopping, you don’t get winded going up and down stairs, and you can give your kids a piggy back ride without being out of commission for days afterward. Keep track of your energy levels, your conditioning, and your overall well-being. Screw the scale.

If you’re interested in other ways to track your fitness progress, I’d encourage you to check out our post “How to Properly Track Your Progress.” We cover the tips above, plus much more.

As the saying goes, “You have to track the problem to crack the problem.” Make sure you look into ways of tracking besides a single scale.

What say you?

Are you a scale junkie?

I’m a recovering one. However, over the years I’ve learned my overall health, strength, and happiness are far better indicators of how I’m doing.

Moral of the story – if the scale is working for you and you’re seeing results, stick with it. If that number on the scale constantly screws with your mind, maybe it’s time to take a break.

So how about you?

Have you had success with stepping a scale daily? Had some rough weeks because of what the scale said? How about skipping the scale entirely and seeing great results?

Let’s hear some scale-related stories from the Rebellion!

-Steve

PS: Ready to change your physique the right way? Want to have an actual plan to follow? Grab our NF Diet Strategy Guide and our Strength Training 101: Everything You Need to Know free when you join the Rebellion and sign up in the box below:

Download our free weight loss guide

THE NERD FITNESS DIET: 10 Levels to Change Your Life

Follow our 10-level nutrition system at your own pace

What you need to know about weight loss and healthy eating

3 Simple rules we follow every day to stay on target

I identify as a:

Woman

Man

###

All photo sources can be found right here.[7]

Footnotes    ( returns to text)

You can check out this interview with Dr.  Leslie Heinberg for more.

You can check out a study on this here and here.

Scope out this study.

You can read this study for more.

You can check out this study for a review.

Which can be purchased right here🙂

Scale, Lego Businessman, Eurobasket, Brickendo, Blue, Freedom.

3 Reasons to NOT Step On the Scale Today published first on https://dietariouspage.tumblr.com/