Testing it out

 April has come to a close and with that a new month.   To me, a new month is a time for new beginnings.  This month was no different.  

April was not a stellar month for me in some areas.   But in other areas it was fantastic!    I had some goals for the month of April (ok, they are the same most months).

** Track all my food

** Exercise daily

** Lose Weight

** Continue to bank my miles for my 2024 mile challenge

** Purge 5 items

** Read at least one non fiction /educational/self help (Edifying) book

** Drink 64 ounces of water a day

As I said, it was a mixed bag. here it is, the good, the bad and the ugly!

** Track all my food-  I did this!   I was spot on with my tracking.  I did it each and every day without fail!  I didn't always (rarely) track before I ate but it was all tracked!

** Exercise daily- This was a colossal failure!  I was gung ho at the beginning of the month. I was going to get back to my daily exercise and set the world on fire!   However, when it came down to it I failed.  I started the month strong and exercised two times in the first few days of the month....and then didn't exercise again the rest of the month. Yeah, huge failure!

** Lose Weight-  I had grand plans that I was going to lose and I was going to lose big!   This is one of those mixed bags.  It wasn't great, but it wasn't horrid!  I lost.....1.2 pounds for the month.  So a measly amount of weight loss.   And don't get me wrong, I am tickled with ANY loss.  Heck, I am even tickled with a maintain.  But I know in my heart that I could have done better.

** Continue to bank my miles for my 2024 mile challenge  Here is another colossal failure.  I was holding my own with my miles from January through March.  I wasn't banking a ton of extra miles, but I was holding my own.  And then April hit!  In fairness, I was fighting off some sickness the one week.  But that is just an excuse.  Because that was only one week!   There were three other weeks in the month!   But, the down and dirty of it all is that I ended up the month behind by 25 miles!   Not Cool!

** Purge 5 items.  Nailed it!   Yes, I nailed this one.  I am doing pretty good with the purging.  I need to really get into it and purge some more, but I purged.  I sold some items on facebook market place and the rest I carted to Goodwill!

** Read at least one non fiction /educational/self help (Edifying) book.   It should come as no surprise that I nailed this one.  Reading has never been a problem for me.....even if it is more 'edifying' content. 

** Drink 64 ounces of water a day-  This was another huge failure.    I may have reached the magical 64 ounces, which I want to be my MINIMUM each day once or twice!   I am telling you.  Huge failure!

May is a new month though.  It's a time for new beginnings.  It is time to be fabulous and not just meet my goals but smash them to smithereens!     My goals are remaining the same with the exception of an additional goal.  That additional goal is that I want to reach 5 thousand  steps each day.  I admittedly get most of my steps for the 2024 challenge on the exercise bike.  My steps are just the additional boost to get me over the hump so i don't focus on getting the steps as much as I should.  So this month I am aiming to get at least 5,000 steps a day.

I am trying a new journalling system of my own creation to keep track of everything.  I have never been happy with the journals that I can find.  They never have what I think a weight loss journal needs!  So I made my own. I"m going to play around with it and change/adjust and refine it and maybe I will have one printed for me for next year versus creating my pages each month on my own.  We shall see.   

I have a page where I will be keeping track of my habits, a page to track my food consumption.  And on that page I also have columns where I can indicate I ate fast or slow.  I have a place to indicate if I took my acid reflux pill and I have a column to keep track of the acid reflux.  (I am honestly not sure that the pill is working.)   I have a page for my measurements.  I also have a place for my word of the week.  And of course I have a page for my goals.  I have also included a page for me to keep track of my reading...not just what I am reading by an area for a small review for each book.  
 

I am trying to streamline my intel into one place.  I will still be using myfitnesspal for tracking and my garmin and the garmin app to track my steps.  But I need to have all of this information in one place that I can see all at the same time.  I do better with good old fashioned pen and paper.  SO I'm giving it a test run!   We shall see how it works!

 

A Light through the cracks

 I have made it my goal to read more 'inspirational or educational books' this year.  My goal is at least one a month.   Honestly, that's been pretty easy.  I am averaging about 2 a month (on top of my normal reading of fiction books).  I picked up a memoir the other day.   While maybe not educational in a sense that I would learn something that would be useful for my personal health and fitness journey, this book was still inspirational and a very good read.

I am not ashamed to say that I picked up this memoir due to the fact that the mountain climber had been kidnapped and I wanted to read the gory details.  However, I got a lot more than that in the book, A Light Through the Cracks by Beth Rodden. 

The book does give the details of the kidnapping that occurred while she was on an international climbing trip.  However, the story of that terrifying ordeal is interspersed throughout the book as the author relays what brought her to that point and how she struggled to survive and move on after the experience.   This was a story of a young girl who followed her dream of being a climber and became a professional/sponsored climber.  It is the story of a young woman who struggled for years to overcome the fears and trauma caused by the events that occurred during a seemingly simple overseas trip.  The guilt caused her to pursue relationships that were not healthy.   Her fear caused her to avoid people and situations.  Almost every decision made after that momentous event was clouded with the past traumatic stress of the events.  

Even more interesting to me, we are able to follow a professional mountain climber as she lives in a male dominated sport.  We walk with her as she fears losing her sponsors and as she works to complete difficult climbs.  Along the way, she explains different aspects of mountain climbing so that the without realizing it, the reader is becoming educated in the sport of mountain climbing.

I really enjoyed this book.  It was not what  expected in that it didn’t dwell on the actual events of the kidnapping.  But it was a really good read. The story flowed and was informative and told in such a way that you couldn’t help but like the characters and hope for the best for them. 

Grief is a Funny Thing

Grief

 Just when I thought I was doing better.  We have been powering through clearing out my parents house.  While it is overwhelming and some weeks I leave and feel as if we are not making any headway, because seriously were does all this stuff come from?   But in my heart I know we are doing good.  We have moved through the house with laughter at the memories that our parents left us.  I have cried less and less.  But then grief reared it's ugly head.     In a way, it's funny.  But on the other hand, I just sit here and cry.

For the last two nights I have had dreams. Both of them had a similar theme, a parent had come back to life.  In the first dream, my dad was alive again. After all these years (dad died in 2017) he was back with us and alive.   And in my dream I was panicked, because over the last few months since mom died, we have dismantled his life.  We have gotten rid of things that he saved for years.  (Bulletins from every Sunday he preached, which spanned 50 years, files upon files both in paper and digital formats). And we have been ok with it, what we are getting rid of is not at all sentimental to us (we keep anything that is sentimental to us and we even have a box of things that we have kept that was highly sentimental to our parents, things like my dad's squeak toy from when he was a baby).   But in my dream I was in a state of panic because my dad had come back to life and I had to tell him that I had gotten rid of so much of his stuff.  I woke up before i had to tell him, but the angst was there.

Then last night, I dreamt that I was working and had to run out to get something for my computer, so I snuck into a visit to 'mom's new nursing home."  Mom directed me and I pushed her in a wheelchair through this new home and when people would talk to us, we would share the story about how she had been dead for 10 days, but was alive now and that is why we moved her to this new (weirdly laid out) nursing home.

I'm telling you, grief is weird!

What goes around comes around

 A few years ago I wrote a post about "It's only."   (you can read it here)  I used that mantra for a while, but then I totally forgot about it!  For a few years I forgot about it!  But today, I remembered it.  I was watching a youtube video of a fellow weight loss journey and the gal was talking about her frustration and actually just doing it and how she had to do something but she kept failing day in and day out.   And at that moment I knew and remembered my mantra!  

The process of this is to set a goal or a challenge for just a short time.  And then stick to it....because it's ONLY a day, or a week, or a month!   This came around when I was working at the bank.  EVERYONE was bringing us donuts, candy and other treats and it was really hard to resist.  My manager and I were both struggling.  And then one day while we were talking we decided that we were going to challenge each other to resist the temptation until our back to back vacations. (she went on vacation one week and I went the following week).   During our conversation we made the comment that 'it's only six weeks until vacation time, we can resist for six weeks.  Anyone can resist for six weeks!  We laughed and said that after the six weeks we could eat anything we wanted....we only had to make it the six weeks.

And do you know what happened?  The mantra worked.  When people brought us donuts and other amazingly tempting items, we resisted because it was only a few weeks that we had to do it!  And we both made it the complete 6 weeks!

So that is my challenge!  Next week. I want my calories between 1200-1400. I'm only asking for next week.  Not the next month, or the next year or the rest of my life!  Just one week!  I am being kind to myself and giving myself a pass for the weekend...but those days I have to remain under 1600 calories.   I am doing this because i am trying to find balance between being mired in a weight loss journey and life!  So my weekends are usually a bit more relaxed.   

So this is my line in the sand!  This week...one week...it's ONLY one week!  I can definitely do it!

Did I do it

 My word (or rather phrase) of the week for last week was Just Do it.   The question is did I actually do it?

So what did I have to 'just do'.   The main thing was get my butt in gear and move!   I had been fighting off a cold or some crud. (Jason had it worse and is still congested and sniffly.) Due to feeling under the weather I stopped standing at my desk.  I had worked my way up to standing about 3 hours and then I felt so run down that I didn't stand at all for a week.  At the same time, I also failed to get on the exercise bike during my break.  

The bike is important because that helps me earn the miles that I need each day for my 2024 miles in 2024 challenge. (You can read a bit about that challenge here.)    In short, I need about 5.5 miles each day in order to obtain the magical 2024 miles by the end of 2024.   I was on target with my miles, and even had a few miles banked for a rainy day.  Then I was sick and didn't ride or even walk all that much.   So after my week of being sick I was behind!  This past week was to be my redemption!  I was going to get back on the bike and at the barest minimum not fall further behind.  So how did I do?   Well, I did ride!  But not enough!  I missed one day, simply because I had fallen out of the habit (yes, one week and the habit was broken) and simply forgot!  I also was off on day and didn't ride that day.  So I didn't make up ground and in fact, I actually am a bit further behind now!  Yup, so a mixed bag of success for actually riding at all; but a failure because I fell further behind.

So how did I do with the stand up desk?   I stood.  The first day I only stood for an hour, but by the end of the week I had gotten myself back to 3 hours.  In fact, that last day I was even doing a little two step dance at times at my desk!  

My eating was pretty solid!  I didn't have any day where I binged and/or overate.  I made healthy choices and kept my calories in line.  Of course, there is always room for improvement!  ALWAYS.   So this week I will focus on getting more fruits and veggies.   I will also work on drinking more water (why is water such a difficult one for me?)

It's spring and I've been able to get outside some and work in the yard.  It feels good to get some fresh air without freezing my behind off.  This past week I worked on preparing the soil in the three new beds. Yes, we are adding three new beds to the vegetable garden.  (they are each about 8 feet by 4 feet).  I have been digging and raking and working the soil and pulling junk out of it (weeds, roots, clumps of grass, trash, and the ever present rocks).  And each time I go through the soil to remove all this unwanted junk, it is just helping to prep the soil!    I have also weeded (Must.Get.Mulch.Soon) and transplanted plants from my mom's to my place.  Yes, I grabbed some hostas!  I had been talking to mom before she died about splitting her hostas (they are Way past due for a split) but ended up totally removing about 4 feet of them after talking to my brother.  Free plants are GREAT!  

 

I'm slowing starting to see my weight trend lower and lower.  My scales have been really odd lately and they fluctuate and aren't at all reliable (At least I don't feel they are since I can weigh myself twice right in a row and get two different numbers.)  Could I get a new scale?  Sure.  But I have a sneaky feeling it is our uneven floors that is the culprit!   BUT, what I am feeling good about is the fact that just a month or so ago the numbers were fluctuating at the top of this 'decade' and even going into the decade above my  weight.  And now, the numbers are fluctuating at the lower end of the decade and I have even seen the decade below once or twice!   So I'll take that as a sign.   I don't need to know the exact number, I just need to know that it is going down.  So I will take that as a win!

Jason got a new toy yesterday, so we stuck around the house and he messed around with that.  Today we HAVE to get out and mow the yard (at least a few areas that are bad).   We hopefully will be getting a riding mower within a week or so.    Jason's parents have a friend that is selling a zero turn mower at a good deal. Jason's dad went to look at it and says it looks good.  They originally told us that it would need back tires within a year, but they were thinking that they would last for another year.   But when they pulled it out to tune it up and sharpen the blades (yes, they do their own work on their equipment...and actually do some as a side business apparently and yes we will be calling them to tune up our push mowers and snow blower soon!) they realized the tire wouldn't hold air, so they ordered them and are putting them on !  Yay!  So hopefully the days of push mowing 8 hours to get the yard mowed (and doing it weekly) will soon be behind us!  Once we can mow faster, we will have more time for the fun stuff in the yard.   Fun stuff?  Finishing clearing the brush and weeds, landscaping, gardening, etc!   Ohhh yeah, and maybe we can get back out to hiking too once the yard doesn't take so much time! 

I have been lamenting for the last year or two that all of my healthy living and life stats are scattered here and there.   For example my calories are in Myfitnesspal and my steps are in garmin. And I have to manually add my exercise bike miles to one or the other or both.  And each app is awesome, but they don't always integrate into one thing.  Myfitness pal doesn't do to bad with pulling info into one...but I have other things that I want to track like healthy habits, my reading (which I do have an app for...but once again...a different app) and even if I took my medicine for the acid reflux and how I feel after I eat.....trying to see if the medicine helps...or if certain foods and certain eating behaviors help).  I buy a day planner yearly, which I try to pull everything to....but there is a lot of stats and information.   In December I toyed with creating my own planner.  I was going to create it in canva, place it in my kindle direct publishing account for 'sale' and then buy it from there to have it printed up nice.  But when I started to create it I was stumped.  What do I need to include...how do I want it laid out...so many questions and I just didn't do it.   BUT, I have decided to do more of a bullet journal for now.  Each month create pages that I think I would like to have included.  And then use it for the month.  I can then take notes of what is missing, what doesn't work, what works and adapt it for the next moth.   I will only be creating one month at a time, so I can always adjust.  So yesterday I bought a blank 'sketch pad' style book and hopefully today I can start creating what May is going to look like.  Right now I am thinking of the following things:

*  Calendar page (typical calendar month page).  On this calendar page I will divide the square for the day into 4-5  each section will be colored when I successfully complete the habit for the day.   So I can be working  on and tracking  4 habits.  (I will be tracking things like   water, food tracking, exercise, vitamins, Did I get my miles for the 2024, etc)

*  Pages for Food consumption.  I have gone back and forth with two thoughts on this.  The first is a place that I can write down all my food and the corresponding calories.  The second is to actually just have a page (another calendar??) that shows my total calories for the day.  I like the abbreviated version because it would be easier to see how I did at a quick glance.  But I feel as if I need to have my food written out side by side with my habits while eating (did I eat fast...slow...etc) and how I felt after I ate (acid reflux or no)  AND a place to indicate if I took my pill or not before eating.    That is the benefit of creating each month as I go....I can try both and I can adjust monthly.

*  Water consumption....

*A monthly goal page - monthly goals.  such as 'did you lose weight', 'did you exercise 3 times a week'  did you at least maintain your 2024 miles.   Simple yes and no questions (Could be broken into different sections, weight loss goals, life goals, reading goals, household goals)

*Monthly wrap up -  page for highlights from the month (for example if we go for a long hike or on vacation....) and any goals that need a bit more discussing.

* I have always gone back and forth between adding in mood/emotions to a journal.  But it could be an interesting add to the journal to correspond with my food... how much does food affect me mood?

* Obviously an area for weight 

* A review page for a quick review on books I read for the month.....or at least a place to PUT the books I read that month. 

* I also just saw someone else include in their journal a calendar that allowed them to show when they started a book and when they ended the book.   I thought that would be neat.  

*A place to put my word of the week- and maybe a little area as to why I chose it..or how it affected me?

*Body Measurments

What am I missing???

So we shall see how this goes!   Wish me luck!  I will share on here when it's done!  

Bust

 This last week was a bust, all around!  It was a bust for what I did with exercise.  It was a bust with my weigh in and it was a bust for the couch!

The weigh in week started really strong.  It was the weekend and we had a productive weekend!  I got my strawberries planted.  We mowed.  We weeded.   We cleared brush.  We did so much!  I was going strong!

I even took apart our old couch!  Literally, I busted it up!  I first ripped off the fabric and then I started to deconstruct it piece by piece.   

I have always enjoyed taking things apart.  It is interesting to see how things are made and put together.  Who would have known!   So it was a fun time for me!   

   

It wasn't until Wednesday that I started to feel it.  Ok, if I want to be honest, my throat started hurting on Tuesday and on Monday I kept saying "I'm so darn tired".  But I thought that I was tired due to our crazy busy weekend and I thought my throat was just raw due to the fact that this acid reflux thing (you can read about where it started here.)  seems to make my sinus' drain all the time.  But no, by Wednesday I had to admit that the head cold (moved to chest) that Jason was dealing with had been oh so kindly shared with me!    

Luckily for me, I never got it too bad.  I just feel run down, sore throat and some sinus drainage. I think what has saved me from really getting sick is the fact that I have been religious about taking my vitamins.  I've also been really on top of eating lots of fruits and veggies. (Thanks to that book Built to Move that I read a while back. You can read my post about it here.)  I also listened to my body and I slowed down and rested....a lot!

 

Which brings me to my next bust.  I did not stand even a single hour this week at work and at my standing desk.  I didn't get on the exercise bike even once.  I did NO formal exercise routine.  I didn't do anything!

My food was the only thing that was not a bust!  My average daily calories was 1300!   That's awesome!  I had lots of fruits and veggies!  I ate nutritious foods!  I did great!

But I did have one more bust....and that was with my weigh in! I stepped on the scales expecting great things!   I didn't get great! Luckily I didn't get horrible either!   What I did get was a loss of 0.2 pounds.  2/10ths only!  Not even a half of a pound!   Like I said, not horrible.  Horrible would have been a gain!  So I didn't do that!  But dang, I want more loss!

I'm not out!  I know that I am feeding my body nutritious food.  I am giving my body what it needs.  This weight loss journey is NOT just about weight loss.  It is about being healthy and I know that I am feeding my body healthy options!   That is just as important!  In the meantime,  I will monitor my calories more closely and see if I can get the weight to reflect my efforts!  I'm not giving up!  I've got this!

March Review

March is in the books!   How, because this year is just FLYING by!   But irregardless, March is over and we are now 10 days into the next month!  I have been remiss!  I haven't shared my progress report for the month of March for my weight loss (and life journey).  So before more time passes, lets review March and talk about April.

Purge Project

    I have been working on this project.  It is more a sporadic effort.  I am not vowing to do one item per day or anything like that.  I am aiming for 5 big items or 5 collections!  In this way, I can't purge a single book and say "One down!"     NO, I have to purge a collection of books. (For example, I have some photography books that are just collecting dust.  Getting rid of ONE of them does not count!  However, if I purge the collecction, then it counts!)   I made it to about 4 big items.  So while it was not hitting my goal, I feel as if I was somewhat successful!   

For the month of April I will be continuing with my purge goal of 5 big items or collections!

Books to Edify the mind

In February I decided that I wanted to make sure that each month I am reading at least one book that is good for my mind, and betters me along the path to health and fitness.    I started out with a book called Thinsanity (you can read my review here)   And in March I read the book Built To Move, which I loved (you can read that review here., even though it went live in April, it was read in March!)   I actually read two books in March, and the review will be written eventually!)   I have also already started on my April book!

Exercise and Movement

This was a mixed bag of success and failure!   I was so successful with getting my miles in!  I didn't actually bank a lot of extra mile toward my 2024 miles in 2024 Challenge, but I held my own!  Beyond the miles, I did not do any formal exercise!   Ok, maybe once or twice, but that is a big maybe!  So that is also a big fail!    The other success for the month was that I actually bought a stand up desk!  I typically stand for about 2-3 hours a day at this point.  I'm building my time standing!  (it's crazy how much my hips and feet hurt from standing!)

Food and Weigh In

I actually did pretty good with my food.  I ate quite nutritiously!  I feel like I ate good for my health!  My calories were right in line most days!  I was doing good.   I would have expeccted my weight to drop quite a bit!  But it didn't!  I lost a whole whopping 4 pounds!   Ok, that was a bit condescending!   I lost 4 pounds!  YAY!     Every pound gone is a good pound!  (But I still wanted it to be more!)

Overall, it was a good month.  I had my successes and I had my failures.  But my failures were smaller and they did not derail me from the overall goals of losing weight, being healthy and being happy!