Excellence and Not so much

Well I had this fantastic day for steps on Sunday - hit a new record at over 20K steps. Thanks in large part to hunting Pokemon with my nephew. It was good but I was definitely foot sore by the end of it.

Then we roll on to Monday (my lowest step count since I started back to tracking these things) followed by Tuesday which wasn't much better. I really need to make sure I get more sleep - that was the big problem those two days. Pair that with working at home and you have a recipe for SEDENTARY. And for me it is also a recipe for unhealthy food choices. Still working through the tired and the food choices. In the end I just need to pay the price for it - the price being that for the rest of the week I have a lot less flexibility for how many points I can eat in a day. So really, not that bad.

And now I am going to get myself ready for bed so I can try and catch up and get back into the routine.

Just about a month

I am now nearing the month mark of working on a change in my lifestyle. So I thought today would be a great day to do a video (see it below if I manage to get it to work).

But I also wanted to do a bit of a recap of how things are going.

Activity

This borrowed image is exactly how I feel.

• Morning Dance Party 12/22 days I have done it. 
• Walking 10K steps - 198523/210000 - 13 days I hit the mark, 8 I didn't.
• Yoga - Only got out to it 2 times since I started tracking. It is hard, I find every time my shoulder gives me some grief, each time we do triangle and my shoulder is on the edge of pain I want to retreat from it. But I will work through it, I know the downward dog etc we do there is good for it, it was part of my physio. I will just have to be very cognizant of shoulder position since the instructor has a big class and can't provide much correction.
• Standing - I have to add a column to my tracker, but I would say I hit the 2 hour mark 2/3 of the days I worked at the office.
• Sleep - this has been a very serious challenge and is a big part of the reason I haven't done as well as I would like on many of the other markers. It can be hard to motivate and spur myself on when I feel like I have barely slept or I wake up with a headache.

Eating

• Home cooked - doing fairly well on this, again I don't have a column for it, so I will need to add one. I have eaten meals out a bit more than I wanted to, I think this is where some prep work will come in handy. If I have lots of stuff prepared and frozen, or at least set up to be easy the appeal for getting food out will be smaller. 
• Fruit and Veg - I may have missed the odd tracking on this but about 8 days I hit the 5 servings mark, several others I was at 4, so still room for improvement here
• Water - usually this is one of my easiest things. BUT, this leads us back to sleep up above, and perhaps a too much information moment. I was getting up SO many times in the night to go to the bathroom that I scaled back my water intake in the hopes of getting a decent night's sleep
• Tracking - I have done it consistently although I did bundle an estimate a couple of times instead of details.

LOL and now I see that it is really only 3 weeks in. But I was looking at the start of September falling in this week and thinking it was a good time to do the recap. So here it is regardless of whether it is at the "month" mark or not.

Now for the video. Here is me doing some wall pushups because I know I would not be working with good and safe form if I tried them on the ground. I will always choose form first with any exercise. This is inspired by the people doing the 22 pushups for 22 days in support of first responders and veterans with PTSD. While I won't promise to do them every day, I like pushups as one of the video docs of my progress. Please try to ignore my clicking wrist (that is what I was trying to do).

Finding Yourself

So I keep playing the song "Sand in my Shoes" by Dido. I love this song. On the face of it, it seems it is about a woman who perhaps met someone while on holidays and is now home.

BUT, here is my take on this song. The interpretation I am feeling right now.

First the YOU, is ME. It is that me that is my best and happiest me. It is the me that is unafraid and open and everything else. It is the me that I unfortunately also regularly stifle. Why do I do that, why do I stifle that me? Fear is likely a part of it. Some ill conceived notion I have of who I should be, of the labels I and others have applied to me.

We start with the idea of "I don't have time" right at the start of the song. Guess I will have to start making time to grow that me, nurture her so she feels safe being out.

"I've still got sand in my shoes. And I can't shake the thought of you. I should get on, forget you. But why would I want to." I love this line so much - this idea of moving on because we should. How many things have I done in the name of should that in hindsight really were shouldn'ts.

"I know we said goodbye, anything else would have been confused but IIIIIIIII wanna see you again". Well let us hope it isn't too confused. That brighter me is still me, and I do, I wanna see that me again!

And then again maybe that you I want to see again is also some sandy beach somewhere that can provide the sand for my shoes. A beach where I can let that ME out to play. But I am not going to wait for that beach - today is as good a day as any to start opening the door for her.

Tiredness thou art my enemy

... well tiredness and arrogance :). I kind of expected my "effortless" comment last blog to come back to bite me. I only wish I hadn't taken such a big bite of comeuppance, and pizza, and donuts. So I knew the birthday gathering was going to be a big point affair. And it was. But the plan had been to get back on track with lower point choices the next day.

Unfortunately I was so very tired that not only was it almost impossible for me to muster up the energy for the short walk I took with my nephews (didn't even hit my steps for the day). But it left me so tired that I just couldn't even think of making supper for me and the boys. The other thing is that I do find my cravings for unhealthy junk always goes through the roof when I am tired. So I ate more pizza and donuts than I should have.

Today feels much more back on track though. And I am just about at my 10K steps (thanks to my sister's treadmill which I really enjoyed) and then a walk once I was home. I think I might need to do a bit of looking for a treadmill. I could see myself using it regularly. But for right now I will just feel happy to be back on track and ready for a new week.

Other insights:
I have found myself dwelling on the scale results way too much. So I have decided that I will only weigh in once a month when I do my photos. If I need to do a bunch of analysis I can always look through my tracking file and look for trends in behaviours etc.

New Hair!

So maybe this is normally about fitness things, and food/health things, but part of that is about feeling good. And I have to say my new "do" was making me feel good last night when I got it. Here is the picture from last night - I kind think I look almost elvish in it, and I love that about the way the picture turned out.

On the topic of fitness and eating etc. I am very happy with things so far. I have been making great choices. Healthy home made foods most of the times. Small portions when one of those two things isn't the case (not healthy or not home made). It feels pretty good, and surprisingly effortless. I am pretty sure the harder bit will be tomorrow when celebrating with family and the potential for cake - it will be point heavy so I will need to work around the knowledge of it and try to keep it in moderation (I do love cake so the moderation might be a challenge especially if it is my sister's home made chocolate cake)

I am also happy to report my step count has been consistently above 10K. My morning dancing has been going well (only missed it on Wednesday when I had to leave extra extra early to get to an appointment).

Now I better go to bed since I need to be up so I can find and pack up stuff for yoga tomorrow. Which I better go book right now before I forget :)

Yoga!

Yoga at lunch time today was great. Although my feet felt like they were getting the workout of a lifetime. I don't know if it is the extra weight I am carrying these days or if something fundamental has changed in the musculature of my feet but they get sore and tired and almost crampy whenever I do a significant amount of exercise that requires them to be working.

Outside of that, the workout was a great one. I know it is probably completely mental but I can already feel my body working its way back to easier movement. It was easier today than it was Friday and I hope for that trend to continue (although as it gets easier I will try to push myself so that it doesn't truly become easier).

I found it so good in fact that I am planning to add in the lunch time yoga class on Monday into my routine as well. Here's hoping it is a great one (it is a different yoga class but I really like the sound of it - Dragon Flow - apparently it is lots of big movements followed by lots of deep stretching poses).

Food wise today has been great so far. Although the experimental concoction I have cooking right now might change my mind about that :)

Challenging Second Day

The big challenge yesterday was the massive headache I had for most of the day that got really bad in the early evening. Likely a result of the terrible sleep I had the night before. But despite that I did still manage to start my day with my morning dance party (did so again this morning).

The big problem was that when I feel that way I often crave foods I know aren't healthy. And I didn't really have anything in the house to satisfy that in a reasonable way (at least nothing that was more work than my headache was going to allow). So I did end up tacking on the giant 6 points half a twix bar costs. But I did try to take my time with it at least.

Today is yoga at lunch time so I better get going so I can get showered and get my stuff all packed for it. 

Starting Again

It is sad to me that I have to say I am almost back at the beginning. I have let myself be way too sedentary. I have started eating piles of the foods (well food like substances) that I know have little or no redeeming characteristics. The end result is that my body feels achy and full of little reminders that not moving enough is not a recipe for a fit feeling body. All this is not to mention that the other obvious result is that I am again carrying around a lot of excess body fat. That is not the healthy me I want to be. So today I start back down the road of returning to a healthy lifestyle. My plan is as follows:

Activity

• Steps – 10K/day - I dusted off the fitbit and slapped it on my wrist.
• Standing – 2hrs/workday – I have the sit stand desk it is time to use it with a goal in mind.
• Dancing – 15 minutes/morning – I love doing it, it is a great way to start the day.
• Yoga – 2 sessions/week – I need to get back to moving my body and stretching it. I will swap in other activities as desired – and once I get going I plan to up this goal to more times a week.
• Sleep – 7 hours/night – so important, so easy to neglect

Eating

• Food Tracking – I wish I could say I don't need something like this. But the simple truth is, for me it is very helpful to track my eating, as it helps to remind me about portions and keeps me reminded about yet another reason why the foods that aren't healthy aren't healthy.
• Cooking at home – this is a huge key. It is so easy to grab foods on the go. Problem is those are too often food-like substances that have little resemblance to real healthy food.
• Fruit and Vegetables – 5 servings a day (minimum)
• Water – 8 glasses/day (minimum)

Measurables/Accountability

• Pictures – I believe these are a valuable way of documenting the journey.
  
• Videos – because it isn't primarily about what your body looks like, it is about what it can do. I will be setting myself a couple of goals and then doing regular videos of my progress towards those goals.
• Scale – body fat % is the one I will primarily be concerned with (although I doubt my scale actually does a good job on this). I might drop this measurable as generally I don't consider it a healthy thing to worry about.
• Community – I will blog about this, and I will look for a community to connect with, that was a really important part of the process last time. And I hope to find something like that again.