Maaike Brinkhof's blog

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life

life

Articles about healthy living, my life, my interests (music, mainly) and philosophical questions about life.

Your abnormal is my normal

Your abnormal is my normal

Thank you for all the responses on my last post, where I told the story of how I got into strength training and got in the best shape of my life this year. The beauty of having musclesThis is the story of how and why I decided to pursue a

The beauty of having muscles

The beauty of having muscles

This is the story of how and why I decided to pursue a muscular physique as a woman in my thirties. Most of it was sort of unplanned, but the start of it all has a very common reason: back pain. It's 2018 (I'm 32 years

I am the disruptor.

I am the disruptor.

For as long as I can remember, I've had contrasting opinions. I never really fit into a group, and can never figure out whether that's a bad thing or not. I want to belong, and at the same time, I don't. Observing from the

Favorite albums of 2025

Favorite albums of 2025

Heavy metal warning! I don't exclusively listen to heavy metal, but yeah, it is my preferred genre. Here are my personal favourite releases of this year, in no particular order. Buried Realm - The Dormant Darkness This was a very good "play it in the gym"

Visual Thinking learning journey, Day 2 - Play

Visual Thinking learning journey, Day 2 - Play

Yesterday, I devoted almost the entire working day and beyond to get my learning journey started. Today, I didn't have this luxury. I had a lot of to-dos for my IT job, but I managed to sneak some practice in. Because I had so little time, I decided

Visual Thinking learning journey, day 1 - Overwhelm

Visual Thinking learning journey, day 1 - Overwhelm

Date: 20 October 2025. Last updated: 18:00. This day is still in progress, so this post will be updated. The Why I saw the (free!) Sketch Your Mind online conference, and the intro talk alone convinced me to give this a try. "This" being: marrying textual thinking

Trying out health tracking spreads in the Hobonichi Weeks

Trying out health tracking spreads in the Hobonichi Weeks

So far, I've been using my 2025 Hobonichi Weeks for a variety of purposes. I've used it as a planner, a health tracker, a diary. Next year, my new Weeks will have a very clear purpose: tracking my (mental) health status by logging workouts, scoring my

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