Rev. Andy 🐺 🌿 🪱 @andy@mentalhealth.social

My #introduction toot!

I'm Andy and I'm the admin of mentalhealth.social.

My interests are covered in my profile. On #mentalhealth I've briefly known the Black Dog in the past and work hard to keep him on a leash. My wife lives with #BPD bundled with #anxiety and #depression (though has a grip on all of them) and her illnesses are one of the things that drive me to be so passionate about #MH support and care. Which is why I set up this Masto instance; a safe place to socialise and chat. 👍

And yes, I just noticed the typo. 😆

I've been working on an improved layout for my RPG rulebook. Just about finished with character creation, barring some placeholders and I started playtesting some of the core mechanics (and found issues!) last weekend. It's coming along well. #GameDev #RPG #Writing

36 hour fast done, my first long #fast since Xmas. That was hard, way harder than the previous 40+ hours I've done. Broke it with asparagus, bacon, eggs and seeded sourdough. I have a cracking headache, even though I stayed fully hydrated and supplemented missing minerals.

I think I'll aim for max. 36 hours Thursday night to Saturday morning from now on, as well as my daily 16-18 hours. Having a breakfast is a treat and I've been mindfully eating (with birbcam on the TV!)

The timeline is done. There are seven pages of edited and laid out text to accompany this. 😆 I think I'm going to take a well-deserved break for the rest of the day. Probably. #GameDesign #RPG #SciFi

I've been #writing. A lot. I've finished the rules for my hard sci-fi #RPG (think Neill Blomkamp meets The Expanse) and I'm on to the fluff now. I just finished three days of work on the timeline, it needs a few gaps filling in and some editing now, before adding to the layout. It's. Hard. Work. But I'm making fantastic progress. Soon I'll be moving on to playtesting and sourcing some paid art (maybe with the help of the fediverse). 2022, here I come.

'tis my birthday. I know, I know. I'm 49 today, which is a magickal number as it is equal to 7*7. 49 is also, coincidentally, the number of mouthfuls of Stollen my gob is going to consume today. Bollocks to the diet. Have a good one, folks. ❤️

1.1kg lost in the last five days, so I'm getting consistent results from the one extended fast per week, though that's bordering on an unhealthy amount lost. Once I hit my goal weight I'll rethink things again. Plus, Xmas is going to fuck it all up anyway. 😂 #IntermittentFasting

Finished another 40 hour #fast yesterday. I think this is going to become a weekly event moving forwards. I feel great and am enjoying the changes to my middle aged dad bod (waist, musculature, skin). Closing in on 90kg and then I'll reevaluate my diet and work on the next 10kg stretch to 80kg in conjunction with exercise and muscle work. #IntermittentFasting 💪🏻😂🤳

Experimented with a longer fast this weekend as I feel I'm hitting a plateau. It wasn't too difficult and that first meal yesterday lunchtime was mindful as fuck. Next weigh in is Wednesday so we'll see if it's made much of a difference.

If it has, I'll probably include a 36-40 hour fast each week from Thursday evening to Saturday morning. With how fucking busy my work is, I doubt I'll even notice Friday. 😂

#IntermittentFasting #Health

16 months sober today. 26 pounds lighter thanks to a few months of IF. And I think resisting the mince pies is going to be more of a challenge than avoiding the booze this year. 😂

I have applied my third set of virus updates. Perhaps fortunately, they weren't doing flu vaccinations at the same time, even though they said they would be. Arm is hurting already and here comes the headache...

I stumbled across artflow.ai over breakfast and that's me sorted for, well, forever, when it comes to RPG character portraits. Introducing "a stubbled space captain".

10lb of beetroot harvested ftom the garden. That's half the crop. I've run out of jars before beetroot. 😂 I hope people like pickles. This lot gets added to the 4lb of green tomato chutney and 6lb of piccalilli I made a few weekends ago. #gardening #cooking #harvest

I started doing 16:8 IF at the weekend, and just finished my 5th fast. Not only is this a good use for the immense volume of vegetables we have growing in the raised beds, I feel SO good. More energy. Less bloated. I've lost half a stone in the first 3 days (admittedly, a chunk of that will be fluids) and I'm drinking 6-8 pints of water a day. No sugar or simple carbs, lots of fibre, fish, and white meat.

In between that and 416 days sober, shit is improving (and not just literally).

The weekend was challenging. We've had a death in the family. Without going into detail, a relative that lived in the US was murdered. It hit us hard and triggered the fuck out of me, dragging up trauma responses and putting me into full fight.

I was going to say "uncontrollably" but I've coped. I've got tools now. I'm present and aware of what I'm feeling and where I'm feeling it. So yeah, it's horrible and we're hurting but I'm not going to allow it to dominate. RIP buddy. 😥

Things I never thought I'd be doing a few months ago: picking my lunch from the garden at 6.45am, as I'm popping into the office today. 😁 #gardening #soberlife

I've been playing a lot of The Ascent this weekend, and I've gotta say, janky dual stick controls aside, it's a gorgeous cyberpunk experience. So many nods to the likes of Neuromancer, and a really cool Bladerunner, Shadowrun, and SLA Industries vibe.