Wednesday:
Whenever I think about making resolutions I want to cover every aspect of life. I start with making one but then think of a million more. I promise to eat perfectly/exercise every day/drink enough/write every day/keep a perfectly clean house/be a perfect wife and mother and person etc. But I am going to make one - only one - resolution for April. I am going to use my CPAP every night this month. The only acceptable excuse is sickness, like the very runny nose I've just got over or nausea (which is made worse by air blowing up my nose, for some reason). No other excuse will do. Not travelling (the CPAP is portable), not "it's too hot" (luckily nights are getting cooler here) and certainly not "can't be bothered".
Sleep is the foundation, for me, for everything else. When I'm tired I made poor choices, I give in to food cravings, I don't want to exercise, I can't think clearly to write creatively, I get snappy and irritable and unhappy. And, of course, sleep apnoea is dangerous for my health. When I get more sleep, everything else is much easier. So why do I ever resist wearing it? Because I have enough trouble getting to sleep even without having something strapped to my face, because it was very sweaty all through summer, because I can be lazy and want to avoid unpleasantness in the now even though it has bad consequences.
But this is my promise to myself. I will wear it every night in April. The sleep part of my report card will be about how well I do on this front - how long I keep it on during the night.
I will still be working on all my other goals. But sleep is my primary objective.
I forgot to weigh myself this morning, I usually use Wednesday as my weekly weigh-in. There is less than a week to go on this month's dietbet and there is no chance I will meet the goal, but I am not letting that worry me. Just forging on towards next month.
I went for two short walks today (total about half an hour). I still found it a bit tiring and my heart rate went up more than it usually would for a short stroll, but better than yesterday. And my resting heart rate is back down to normal, it's been way up all week just sitting around. I'll keep just doing a little more each day, not too strenuous yet. Feeling much better.
Report card:
Diet: Ok. Still having an afternoon slump, when I get tired, and I eat my way through it.
Exercise: Good.
Water: Poor.
Sleep (last night): Ok.
Mental health: Good.
Showing posts with label resolutions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label resolutions. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 1, 2015
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Resolutions for 2015
Thursday:
I thought I should make a few resolutions. Three is a good number.
Then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. (Monty Python)
1. First up, since this is a weight loss blog after all, I will continue to try to lose weight. I weighed 82.1 kg this morning. My plan is to do three dietbets in the first half of the year; which, if successful, should get me down under 75 kg. I've been trying to get there for years. I skimmed that weight for approximately three seconds when I was doing Weight Watchers, then went straight back up again. Losing 10% of my weight would be an awesome start, and then I'll see where I go from there.
2. Something that has become very relevant recently, I need to learn how to deal with stress. I don't mean to stop feeling sad, worried, angry, or whatever emotion is appropriate to the situation - but I do need to cope with it better when it over a long period. Right now I have so much trouble sleeping and my stomach is churning most of the time, and any tiny extra problem like a change to plans or having to disagree with someone or being asked to come out of my cave just tips me over into a crying jag, or nausea, or a spike of adrenalin into "fight or flight" mode.
I suck at meditation but obviously some kind of calming technique is needed. Breathing exercises or something. My mind is always on a hamster wheel, even when I'm not particularly stressed, so I think it would help me through "normal times" as well as bad.
3. Polish my book, let others read it and comment, finish editing and look for a publisher! And write/start on the sequel. I am a procrastinator and I let everything get in the way of what I really want. Any excuse will do. Sometimes its a valid excuse, often it isn't. But I did some great work in 2014, if a bit more slowly than I would like, and I will continue that.
Three will do. I hope everyone had a great NYE.
I thought I should make a few resolutions. Three is a good number.
Then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. (Monty Python)
1. First up, since this is a weight loss blog after all, I will continue to try to lose weight. I weighed 82.1 kg this morning. My plan is to do three dietbets in the first half of the year; which, if successful, should get me down under 75 kg. I've been trying to get there for years. I skimmed that weight for approximately three seconds when I was doing Weight Watchers, then went straight back up again. Losing 10% of my weight would be an awesome start, and then I'll see where I go from there.
2. Something that has become very relevant recently, I need to learn how to deal with stress. I don't mean to stop feeling sad, worried, angry, or whatever emotion is appropriate to the situation - but I do need to cope with it better when it over a long period. Right now I have so much trouble sleeping and my stomach is churning most of the time, and any tiny extra problem like a change to plans or having to disagree with someone or being asked to come out of my cave just tips me over into a crying jag, or nausea, or a spike of adrenalin into "fight or flight" mode.
I suck at meditation but obviously some kind of calming technique is needed. Breathing exercises or something. My mind is always on a hamster wheel, even when I'm not particularly stressed, so I think it would help me through "normal times" as well as bad.
3. Polish my book, let others read it and comment, finish editing and look for a publisher! And write/start on the sequel. I am a procrastinator and I let everything get in the way of what I really want. Any excuse will do. Sometimes its a valid excuse, often it isn't. But I did some great work in 2014, if a bit more slowly than I would like, and I will continue that.
Three will do. I hope everyone had a great NYE.
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Happy New Year
Wednesday:
Happy New Year everyone!
After a troubled night's sleep due to the heat, I got up and did an 8 minute standing yoga session then a 30 minute walk so that was a good start to the New Year. I didn't actually enjoy the exercise; yoga is difficult and boring (I am getting so old and creaky!) and outside was hot and full of flies ... but I did it anyway! Tick.
I just read through the last couple of years' NY resolution posts and it was a bit depressing. Same talk of weight loss, finishing my novel, drinking more water etc. Things I still haven't achieved. I weigh more now than I did in either of the previous two years. I think reading those posts was a bad idea. Forget them and look forward.
Starting weight for 2014 is 82.5 kg.
I worked out my Uni timetable and full time would be five pretty full days, with three days going past the end of my children's school hours, requiring after-school childcare. And that is not including study or assignments. No time for writing my novel, grocery shopping without kids, exercise, helping kids with homework or anything else. And the children already have extra-curricular swimming lessons, dance, karate, and violin to fit in. I am going to investigate part time. It will take a lot longer, of course, but who knows what tomorrow will bring? For now, I just can't manage 19 face-to-face hours per week plus study and homework. I have a course advice session this Friday so I will be able to chat to someone.
Happy New Year everyone!
After a troubled night's sleep due to the heat, I got up and did an 8 minute standing yoga session then a 30 minute walk so that was a good start to the New Year. I didn't actually enjoy the exercise; yoga is difficult and boring (I am getting so old and creaky!) and outside was hot and full of flies ... but I did it anyway! Tick.
I just read through the last couple of years' NY resolution posts and it was a bit depressing. Same talk of weight loss, finishing my novel, drinking more water etc. Things I still haven't achieved. I weigh more now than I did in either of the previous two years. I think reading those posts was a bad idea. Forget them and look forward.
Starting weight for 2014 is 82.5 kg.
I worked out my Uni timetable and full time would be five pretty full days, with three days going past the end of my children's school hours, requiring after-school childcare. And that is not including study or assignments. No time for writing my novel, grocery shopping without kids, exercise, helping kids with homework or anything else. And the children already have extra-curricular swimming lessons, dance, karate, and violin to fit in. I am going to investigate part time. It will take a lot longer, of course, but who knows what tomorrow will bring? For now, I just can't manage 19 face-to-face hours per week plus study and homework. I have a course advice session this Friday so I will be able to chat to someone.
Monday, December 30, 2013
Thrive
Tuesday - New Year's Eve:
'Tis the time for reviewing the old year and looking forward to the new one.
For 2013, a couple of stand-outs for me are writing half a novel and finding out my mum has cancer. One good, one bad. Did anything else big happen? Not that I can think of right now. Health/weight stayed much the same (overall probably a bit worse). Same house/husband/children/friends as before.
2014 is shaping up to be a big year. I'd been wavering about Uni but my Poppa (grandfather) gave me some money at Christmas so I feel less guilty about that side of it and decided to go for it. I've enrolled to start full time in February. We'll see how that goes, might have to change to part time.
As I mentioned, I wrote (nearly) half a book in the second half of 2013. I was hoping to complete it in that time, but didn't. And then I stopped entirely with worrying about my mum, then going away on holiday and Christmas and now school holidays plus finishing reading nearly 200 short stories for an award I am judging. But I am not going to abandon my novel, even though I'm planning full time Uni and have all the usual other commitments of family and health. It was going really well and it is something I've always wanted to do. I'll just have to make time, somehow.
As usual, my main NY resolution is to work on my health. Good food (not too much), exercise, drinking water, sleeping, enjoying life. A few blogs I read this morning talked about picking a word or phrase as your theme for the year, and I loved "Thrive". Not just staggering through my days, but unfurling the tendrils of being. Looking after my health without punishment or guilt. Nourishing my body and my mind and appreciating the results. Feeling gratitude for what I have.
'Tis the time for reviewing the old year and looking forward to the new one.
For 2013, a couple of stand-outs for me are writing half a novel and finding out my mum has cancer. One good, one bad. Did anything else big happen? Not that I can think of right now. Health/weight stayed much the same (overall probably a bit worse). Same house/husband/children/friends as before.
2014 is shaping up to be a big year. I'd been wavering about Uni but my Poppa (grandfather) gave me some money at Christmas so I feel less guilty about that side of it and decided to go for it. I've enrolled to start full time in February. We'll see how that goes, might have to change to part time.
As I mentioned, I wrote (nearly) half a book in the second half of 2013. I was hoping to complete it in that time, but didn't. And then I stopped entirely with worrying about my mum, then going away on holiday and Christmas and now school holidays plus finishing reading nearly 200 short stories for an award I am judging. But I am not going to abandon my novel, even though I'm planning full time Uni and have all the usual other commitments of family and health. It was going really well and it is something I've always wanted to do. I'll just have to make time, somehow.
As usual, my main NY resolution is to work on my health. Good food (not too much), exercise, drinking water, sleeping, enjoying life. A few blogs I read this morning talked about picking a word or phrase as your theme for the year, and I loved "Thrive". Not just staggering through my days, but unfurling the tendrils of being. Looking after my health without punishment or guilt. Nourishing my body and my mind and appreciating the results. Feeling gratitude for what I have.
(Mother's Day 2012, my mum and me and the kids)
(December 2013, my mum and the kids)
Friday, December 30, 2011
What I learned in 2011 and New Year Resolutions
Saturday:
New Year's Eve, 2011. Time to look backwards, then forwards.
What did I learn in 2011? Weight-loss wise, I learned that exercise alone is not enough for me to lose weight -- at least not at the fairly reasonable intensity of an hour five days per week. I gave it a good go for about four and a half months, and lost not a gram nor a centimetre. Of course I'm sure if I exercised three of four or more hours a day there would be a different result; but one hour five days a week seemed to me to be achievable consistently even with work and family to consider. There are health benefits to exercise other than weight loss, but if weight loss is what you are after then exercise is not enough.
Anything else? I love love love to read. I already knew that, obviously, but the knowledge has been reinforced recently. I've had a hectic reading schedule as a judge for a fiction award -- at the moment I need to read a book every two days for the next two months -- some are great but some of the books are atrocious and I certainly don't want to be reading those ones. I look forward to this committment being over. Why? So that I can get back to the long list of books that I want to read that aren't part of the award! I want the time to plunge back into the George R. R. Martin series, to re-read some old favourites, to read a new-found 'Anne of Green Gables' prequel (not by the original author) in the bath. To find new interesting bloggers and read their entire archives. I want to finish this batch of reading so I can do some more reading!
I've learned I'm not such an outsider in my mother's extended family as I have always felt. They are all fit and tanned and athletic and not at all academic. Always lovely to me, but I've never felt really comfortable with them since I was a little kid. There seemed a long period when I just didn't fit in. Whether I am more secure now with my own little nuclear family, or they have all grown out of sulky teens/tweens now (I am one of the eldest of my generation), or some other reason; Christmas was really comfortable this year. I had seen them more often than usual due to several events like my cousin's wedding (I live in a different state) so maybe that helped too. Maybe the change is in me.
I have learned that working from home is hard to juggle. I get easily distracted (I'll just stack the dishwasher/check my blog feed/ pop up to the shops/watch this segment on TV...) and have trouble separating work time from home time. When you are in an office you are away from other things that need doing and also have the "police" of your workmates and boss. At home, if making a cup of tea takes 20 mins there is no-one to care but yourself. And, eventually, your client. So managing that issue will be one of my resolutions.
Which leads neatly into ... 2012 New Year's Resolutions
Since this is a weight-loss blog, I will start with that. There is some acronym I can't remember that says goals need to be measurable and achievable and accountable and a couple of other things. Whatever. I will start 2012 at approximately 79 kg (174 pounds), and I want to get down to 58 kg. That is 21 kg to lose -- but as I've said before I may be happy with 63 or something around there. We'll see when we get closer.
*I'm not going to make a final long-term goal for now. For the moment, I am only looking at the short term. Two months, four kg. By the end of Feb, I will be 75 kg. Earn my first glitzy weight-loss charm at last. When I've done that, I will look at the next bit.
How is this to be achieved?
Firstly, continue/get back to the exercise. An hour of vigorous exercise five days a week. More would be fine. Until the kids go back to school at the beginning of February, this will mainly be using the Kinnect. Dance is good, and some of the games on the Adventures disc are really high cardio. I've been doing well on this front so far, the trick will be not to slack off and get lazy with it. Five days a week! I can go to the gym on the weekend to get some weight training in.
Secondly, sort out something with my diet. Very restrictive diets certainly make me lose weight, but I can't stick to them. I don't want to give up my "treats". But I quite liked the meals I made for myself when detoxing; so my plan is to modify meals to reduce fat and calories. Cutting down on calories will probably mean cutting down on (but not cutting out) carbs. Less, not none. Tonight I made fajitas -- lean meat marinated in spices and lime juice, lots of vegetables, a little bit of oil. But the two tortillas added about 300 calories and plenty of salt. I will, in future, wrap my fillings in lettuce leaves instead. Just as delicious; far fewer calories, no artificial preservatives or added salt or sugar. I'm sure I can make modifications like this to many meals, yet still have some chocolate when I want to. And stay under my calories limit of 1340, five days a week.
Non-weight-loss goals?
*Organise my work time better so I am doing paid work in the hours allocated for it. My time while the kids are at school will include exercise, lunch (and tea breaks), and work. Other things are for outside work hours. Oh, except grocery shopping is much easier without the kids, so I will be doing that in school hours. And things like hair-cuts and waxing ... you see how easy it is to fill the hours with non-paid-work? But not TV or blogging or housework. If I'm going to make a real go of this freelancing business then I need to devote a reasonable number of hours to it. Three billable hours a day.
*In 2012, I am not going to over-commit myself. No work scheduled for school holidays. One week buffer between projects to allow for illness and emergencies and rush-jobs for special clients (I started doing this a few months ago and those buffer weeks fill up quickly!) I am not going to judge any awards in 2012 -- this year's 66 entries meant hundreds of unpaid reading hours. No free proofreading or manuscript critiquing for my writing guild. I need to take a year off all the volunteer stuff to make time for some other things. This doesn't mean no volunteering ever again, but in 2011 it has taken me away from my family and my own writing and paid work so much that it has become a huge burden and I need a break from it. I will continue reviewing the free books I get -- I get to choose which ones -- and slush reading for ASIM magazine as that only means a couple of short stories a week. So I guess I am still doing some unpaid work. But not nearly so much. I remember the good old days when I had time to volunteer at my kids' school; helping out with the home readers and in the library. When I could spend time with my family on the weekend instead of catching up on work. When I could play computer games in the evening without feeling guilty about it because I had so much work to do. In 2012 I am pulling back a bit.
*My own writing. My novel. My word-child. 2012 will be the year to finish the first draft. I have paid work projects booked in until the end of March. I have blocked out the first two weeks of April to do some writing; then it is school holidays. I stress about booking out May to write my novel; it would mean that if I get an enquiry now I would have to put them off until June, five months away! That is a long time for someone with a finished novel to wait for an edit, and I would likely lose their business. So I am undecided about that one. If I get an enquiry soon I might give them May and block out June for myself. I like to have a couple of clients lined up.
I also want to do some incidental writing. Chuck Wendig has some great short story prompts on his blog, they used to be every Friday but I'm not sure if he has kept up with that. It's good practice, and would also be great if I could get some short stories out there.
Well, that is enough non-weight-loss rambling for a weight-loss blog. In 2012 I want to be a better wife, better mother, better friend, better person, re-start learning the guitar, sing more, help Jasmine with learning the violin, get the house and garden in order, have more fun ... but my four measurable goals are:
1) Lose 4 kg in 2 months
2) Work smarter
3) Stop trying to do too much
4) Finish the first draft of my novel
See you in 2012
New Year's Eve, 2011. Time to look backwards, then forwards.
What did I learn in 2011? Weight-loss wise, I learned that exercise alone is not enough for me to lose weight -- at least not at the fairly reasonable intensity of an hour five days per week. I gave it a good go for about four and a half months, and lost not a gram nor a centimetre. Of course I'm sure if I exercised three of four or more hours a day there would be a different result; but one hour five days a week seemed to me to be achievable consistently even with work and family to consider. There are health benefits to exercise other than weight loss, but if weight loss is what you are after then exercise is not enough.
Anything else? I love love love to read. I already knew that, obviously, but the knowledge has been reinforced recently. I've had a hectic reading schedule as a judge for a fiction award -- at the moment I need to read a book every two days for the next two months -- some are great but some of the books are atrocious and I certainly don't want to be reading those ones. I look forward to this committment being over. Why? So that I can get back to the long list of books that I want to read that aren't part of the award! I want the time to plunge back into the George R. R. Martin series, to re-read some old favourites, to read a new-found 'Anne of Green Gables' prequel (not by the original author) in the bath. To find new interesting bloggers and read their entire archives. I want to finish this batch of reading so I can do some more reading!
I've learned I'm not such an outsider in my mother's extended family as I have always felt. They are all fit and tanned and athletic and not at all academic. Always lovely to me, but I've never felt really comfortable with them since I was a little kid. There seemed a long period when I just didn't fit in. Whether I am more secure now with my own little nuclear family, or they have all grown out of sulky teens/tweens now (I am one of the eldest of my generation), or some other reason; Christmas was really comfortable this year. I had seen them more often than usual due to several events like my cousin's wedding (I live in a different state) so maybe that helped too. Maybe the change is in me.
I have learned that working from home is hard to juggle. I get easily distracted (I'll just stack the dishwasher/check my blog feed/ pop up to the shops/watch this segment on TV...) and have trouble separating work time from home time. When you are in an office you are away from other things that need doing and also have the "police" of your workmates and boss. At home, if making a cup of tea takes 20 mins there is no-one to care but yourself. And, eventually, your client. So managing that issue will be one of my resolutions.
Which leads neatly into ... 2012 New Year's Resolutions
Since this is a weight-loss blog, I will start with that. There is some acronym I can't remember that says goals need to be measurable and achievable and accountable and a couple of other things. Whatever. I will start 2012 at approximately 79 kg (174 pounds), and I want to get down to 58 kg. That is 21 kg to lose -- but as I've said before I may be happy with 63 or something around there. We'll see when we get closer.
*I'm not going to make a final long-term goal for now. For the moment, I am only looking at the short term. Two months, four kg. By the end of Feb, I will be 75 kg. Earn my first glitzy weight-loss charm at last. When I've done that, I will look at the next bit.
How is this to be achieved?
Firstly, continue/get back to the exercise. An hour of vigorous exercise five days a week. More would be fine. Until the kids go back to school at the beginning of February, this will mainly be using the Kinnect. Dance is good, and some of the games on the Adventures disc are really high cardio. I've been doing well on this front so far, the trick will be not to slack off and get lazy with it. Five days a week! I can go to the gym on the weekend to get some weight training in.
Secondly, sort out something with my diet. Very restrictive diets certainly make me lose weight, but I can't stick to them. I don't want to give up my "treats". But I quite liked the meals I made for myself when detoxing; so my plan is to modify meals to reduce fat and calories. Cutting down on calories will probably mean cutting down on (but not cutting out) carbs. Less, not none. Tonight I made fajitas -- lean meat marinated in spices and lime juice, lots of vegetables, a little bit of oil. But the two tortillas added about 300 calories and plenty of salt. I will, in future, wrap my fillings in lettuce leaves instead. Just as delicious; far fewer calories, no artificial preservatives or added salt or sugar. I'm sure I can make modifications like this to many meals, yet still have some chocolate when I want to. And stay under my calories limit of 1340, five days a week.
Non-weight-loss goals?
*Organise my work time better so I am doing paid work in the hours allocated for it. My time while the kids are at school will include exercise, lunch (and tea breaks), and work. Other things are for outside work hours. Oh, except grocery shopping is much easier without the kids, so I will be doing that in school hours. And things like hair-cuts and waxing ... you see how easy it is to fill the hours with non-paid-work? But not TV or blogging or housework. If I'm going to make a real go of this freelancing business then I need to devote a reasonable number of hours to it. Three billable hours a day.
*In 2012, I am not going to over-commit myself. No work scheduled for school holidays. One week buffer between projects to allow for illness and emergencies and rush-jobs for special clients (I started doing this a few months ago and those buffer weeks fill up quickly!) I am not going to judge any awards in 2012 -- this year's 66 entries meant hundreds of unpaid reading hours. No free proofreading or manuscript critiquing for my writing guild. I need to take a year off all the volunteer stuff to make time for some other things. This doesn't mean no volunteering ever again, but in 2011 it has taken me away from my family and my own writing and paid work so much that it has become a huge burden and I need a break from it. I will continue reviewing the free books I get -- I get to choose which ones -- and slush reading for ASIM magazine as that only means a couple of short stories a week. So I guess I am still doing some unpaid work. But not nearly so much. I remember the good old days when I had time to volunteer at my kids' school; helping out with the home readers and in the library. When I could spend time with my family on the weekend instead of catching up on work. When I could play computer games in the evening without feeling guilty about it because I had so much work to do. In 2012 I am pulling back a bit.
*My own writing. My novel. My word-child. 2012 will be the year to finish the first draft. I have paid work projects booked in until the end of March. I have blocked out the first two weeks of April to do some writing; then it is school holidays. I stress about booking out May to write my novel; it would mean that if I get an enquiry now I would have to put them off until June, five months away! That is a long time for someone with a finished novel to wait for an edit, and I would likely lose their business. So I am undecided about that one. If I get an enquiry soon I might give them May and block out June for myself. I like to have a couple of clients lined up.
I also want to do some incidental writing. Chuck Wendig has some great short story prompts on his blog, they used to be every Friday but I'm not sure if he has kept up with that. It's good practice, and would also be great if I could get some short stories out there.
Well, that is enough non-weight-loss rambling for a weight-loss blog. In 2012 I want to be a better wife, better mother, better friend, better person, re-start learning the guitar, sing more, help Jasmine with learning the violin, get the house and garden in order, have more fun ... but my four measurable goals are:
1) Lose 4 kg in 2 months
2) Work smarter
3) Stop trying to do too much
4) Finish the first draft of my novel
See you in 2012
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