Due to starting up my PhD, my actual time on skates has been pretty much nil. For the same reason, my time to blog has been basically nonexistent. After some hair-tearing and soul-searching, I put my skates back on last Friday. I've also decided to keep blogging on Mondays and Thursdays, so please check back on those days for new posts.
Last Friday was the beginning of LOCO's Best Fit You challenge. Skaters can, if they choose, compete in three areas, each with its own 10-skate card as a prize. Our areas are highest percentage of weight loss, highest percentage of improvement for a fitness test, and a point-based day by day system of eating according to Canada's Food Guide. Some skaters are opposed to the food guide challenge, others to the weight loss, but I decided to try all three. Though I'm not a fan of the weight-loss challenge (for reasons of size acceptance), I took part largely because I don't have a scale at home and I was curious to see whether there would be any corresponding change in my weight after the challenge.
But I digress. Getting back on skates can be intimidating. I hadn't skated in ages. I was worried that my fellow skaters would have continued getting more awesome while I was hunched over Ulysses in the PhD1 cave. This of course was indeed the case, but I was welcomed back regardless. I chose to work with the newer skaters, because my skill acquisition has been a bit patchwork and my T-stops are terrible. (They still are.)
In some ways, the Best Fit You challenge was incredibly well-timed. It gave me a clear starting point to get back on my quads and a clear structure of activity and nutrition aimed toward a specific end-point. Structure can be key to getting back on skates: often, we've stopped skating because we stopped making time for it. Having the sense that the structure is being imposed for us (in this case, in the form of a league-wide challenge) can make getting back on skates seem easier than it really is. Am I advocating tricking yourself into skating? Frankly, yes.
League or team challenges can be a great way of encouraging absent skaters to get back in the game. It's not really about winning: it's about having these structures ready-made for skaters who are looking for reasons to skate but aren't great at self-motivating.
Now, I'm off lose a point for drinking coffee. It's totally worth it.
I already massively flunked the nutrition challenge. I think writing down what I eat is too "diety" for me? But I'm still going to try and kick the fitness challenge's ass, which does mean eating well if I want my body to perform well. Also -- I hear you on the time to blog bit!
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