Very much a work in progress

I guess the hardest thing for me to grasp is the fact that at 55 years old I still don't have all the answers. I honestly thought that by now I would know what I was doing. That is just not true. I am searching and learning just as much now as I did when I was 25 or 35. I guess that is the kind of the point though. If you stop growing and learning, you become stagnant.

So yesterday ended up being a bit of a strange one. I cleaned this room with a vengeance. I threw stuff away that has been hanging around here for a long time. I purged and purged. I ended up with a huge garbage bag and a giant box all filled with garbage. From one room!! No wonder I feel so overwhelmed. I have too much stuff in my life. I actually have plans to get rid of more stuff today. Very excited about that. Need to work on the rest of the house, but it is a good start.

After my cleaning fit, I napped on the couch for a bit. Hubby came home and I chatted with him for a while. Then the rest of the day kind of passed in a blur. I honestly don't remember what I did and suddenly it was 4 pm and time to walk the dogs. One thing that did, or didn't, happen yesterday was that I did not eat much. I had Cookies for breakfast. A salami sandwich for lunch. That was it. That is not a good idea. I think that was part of the reason I ended up taking two naps yesterday. So that won't happen again. Today we are going to lunch at the newly remodeled Kona Brewery. It is a special fundraiser lunch and should be fun. Also, I'm going to have a little something to eat before Crossfit this morning. And I AM going to Crossfit, no excuses today.

Interesting how food effects the body and yet many people ignore it. I ate crap on Friday night and I pretty much felt like crap on Saturday morning. I ate nothing but crap during the day, and pretty much felt like crap all day. When I finally ate some good food, dinner, I immediately started to feel better. When I woke this morning, I was feeling a little down and droopy, but as soon as I ate my good breakfast, banana and bacon, I could literally feel the cloud in my brain start to lift. I feel better now than I have since Friday night. Food. Food. Food. Why oh why do I keep forgetting that? Why oh why do I continue to put crap into my body and not understand why I feel like crap? Maybe I should try eating as soon as I wake up again. I used to do that and I remember it working rather well. While I was getting my coffee ready I would eat something small, 1/2 a banana or a hard boiled egg. Hmmmm....maybe I will try that this week again. That and amazing whole foods and see what happens.

At least I'm feeling better now and looking forward to Crossfit this morning. I need a good butt kicking.

Seeking balance

I am a person of extremes. With me it is all or nothing. Fast or dead stop. Feast or famine. I've been that way for most of my life. I'm working very hard now, in my old age, to find balance. Rather than fast forward or not at all, I'm trying to find a speed that plays well for me. I'm trying to find this balance, this middle ground, in all areas of my life and I'm not sure that I am succeeding at any of it. I have a habit of procrastinating that then requires me to pull marathon sessions to get things done. That is not balance. I will work out for an entire week, then eat an entire box of cookies in one night. That is not balance. I need to find balance and I'm not sure why I can't. Is that I have too much on my plate? Or not enough? Am I trying to accomplish things that I don't want to? Am I not having any fun? All of these things will make balance impossible to find. So what can I do about it? Work to find that balance? Include something in every day that makes me happy? Plan things out and stick to the plan? I just don't know. I don't know what will work. I've tried so many things and not had great success. What do I do now? Try again? Keep trying? The definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expecting different results. But what can I try that I haven't tried before? Maybe I'm not giving these things a far shot. Maybe I need to stick with it longer and try to make it work. I just don't know. I really, really don't know. What I do know is that I'm tired of the way things are going and I need to change them. Maybe I'll try again today. Maybe instead of just wanting, I'll start doing. Maybe instead of thinking things through and trying to understand why, I'll just move. Just move in the direction I want to go in and hope for the best. Stop thinking, start acting. Maybe I'll try that......


6 hours later:
So I got up from the computer and just started doing. I showered. Washed the sheets. Brutally cleaned this room. Just worked and worked and worked. I feel better. I feel like I've accomplished something. I feel like I have purpose and goal. Doing is good. Thinking is good, but doing is better.

Lazy Weekend

that's what this weekend was. Lazy. I did some things but nothing earth shattering. I cleaned house a little. Got some breakfast made for the week. Went to Crossfit twice. Took a nap every day. Went to lunch with Hubby. Did laundry. And all that took me three days. It has been nice to not have papers or assignments hanging over my head. To just take it easy and relax for a couple of days. But I think the relaxing is over. I have to get to school early tomorrow and jump right in to get a lab set up. So it will be early to bed tonight and then up and at em in the morning.

I went the whole week last week without eating any sweets. I avoided cake, ice cream, etc, with no problem at all. Then Friday night the wheels came of the bus and they have not gotten back on yet. Sunday I bought lemon Oreos at the store and over the course of two days, I ate almost the entire package. Now I know this is not good. After I ate some yesterday, I crashed - hard - on the couch for over an hour. I know that was a sugar crash. Especially since I hadn't really eaten any sweets in a week. It hit me hard. On the program I was following, I could eat wheat last week. But I don't like the way that makes me feel. So this week it will be no sugar, no wheat. That's all. Nothing earth shattering. Just avoiding the things that don't make me feel good. I only have to do that for 5 days. Next weekend I can have sweets again, though I'm going to try to avoid eating an entire bag of Oreos.

I'm between classes right now and I would very much like to get some work done on my prospectus. I would love to have it ready to submit by March 10th. So for the next two weeks I'm going to devote 30 minutes every night to it. That should get me really far with it. I have heard from numerous sources that you should write every day, even if it's only for 10 minutes, just write every day. But I honestly don't work that way. I work better if I write, then walk away, then write, then walk away. But then I read something today that made more sense to me. If you don't write every day you lose track of what you are doing. Then every time you sit down to write, you have to figure out where you are and that takes time. With that thought in mind, I see that writing every day, even if for only 10 minutes, makes sense. I submitted my prospectus last week and I seriously have no idea what is in it. So I'm going to try to commit 30 minutes a night to it. That is a huge thing and if I could get that submitted and approved, that would be huge.

Okay, I'm tired and it's time to get ready for bed.

Very lazy day

Today I was lazy. I went to Crossfit this morning and did two WODs. I stopped at Burger King for breakfast and I came home and did nothing the rest of the day. I watched Sons of Anarchy on Netflix and napped on the couch. It was completely awesome. I had one small assignment due that I just busted out and submitted. Now my classes are officially done and I can rest for two weeks. I'm so very excited about that. It helped that I got little sleep last night. It was so windy that it kept waking me up. Then the weather today was rainy and ugly. Perfect day to be lazy. I so needed a complete down day and I'm glad I got one. Don't know what's happening tomorrow but it will start with Crossfit. Now, I'm off to lie back down on the couch.

Time for an update

This week has been pretty good. Last weekend I read a really good book about losing weight and it beginning in your head. The book lays out steps to get into the mode of weight loss slowly and not overwhelm yourself. Since I tend to try and make huge, sweeping changes and failing miserably, I decided to give it a try. Week one I was supposed to:

1. Not eat sweets.
2. Get 8 hours of sleep a night
3. Walk for 15 minutes every day
4. Meditate for 3 minutes every day

That's it. I was mostly successful. I did not walk on Monday and Thursday due to conflicts in scheduling. I forgot to meditate on Wednesday, just plain forgot. So for a first week I consider it a success.

Next week, I continue this and add some to it. I have to look up exactly what I add, but it's not too crazy. 

I actually found that it was not too terribly hard to avoid sweets this week. I thought about it every day and kept telling myself no sweets. Hubby had dessert a couple of nights and I easily passed it up with no problem at all. 

Everything else is going well. I am working out and walking the dogs 66% of the time. Not great, but much, much  better than it was. Also, I missed some things due to weather and a job interview, so it was not just because I was lazy. 

I made my food on Sunday and took breakfast and lunch every day this week. 

So overall a good week. Definitely room for improvement, but as my mentor says; progress not perfection....

Searching for motivation

I've been feeling lately like time is not on my side. I need time. Time to work on my prospectus. Time to work out my eating. Time. Time. Time. The one thing that is in very short supply. So instead of time, I need motivation to move my ass and make progress on all these things. So if someone has a great white, please send it over.

I'm reading the book I mentioned last post and I have to say it is making a whole lot of sense. One thing he mentions is that there is no good reason to eat every 2-3 hours and that humans should be able to skip a meal here and there with no problems. That is exactly what I found when I followed strict paleo. I got hungry but it was not that crazy I MUST EAT NOW hunger, it was more a hey, time for food. And if I didn't get to it right away it was no problem at all. That makes sense to me too because ancient humans didn't have access to food 24-7 like we did and I'm sure it was not possible to eat every 2-3 hours. He seems to take Paleo and push it a little further and it all makes sense. For example, he says that some people have no problem with dairy, so remove it completely for a month and then add it back in to see if it bothers you. That makes complete sense and is a great way to determine if you can tolerate milk.

The real reason I wanted to write this post is that I have to make a to do list to really get things done. I took off yesterday to get some stuff done and I didn't really accomplish what I wanted to. But I do want to get everything done today so that I have tomorrow free. I'm over these classes and I need to be done with them. So my to-do list for today is:

• Crossfit 
• Breakfast
• Shower
• Finish videos for class #1
• Comment on other classes
• Complete assignment for class #2
• Comment on others in class #2
• Post everything for grading. 
• Walk the dogs

That's it. I walk the dogs around 4 pm, so that means all of this has to be done by then. None of it is terribly complicated, I just need to sit down and get it done. That is what today is focused on. No games, no tv, no nothing until this is all done. 

Okay, time to get ready for Crossfit. 

WTF?????

I cannot seem to get my act together this week. I've been really tired and just not able to get it all together. I've been horrible in school and I haven't been much better at home. I'm not sure what is wrong exactly. I cannot get control of my eating. I feel huge. I'm tired. I'm lazy. What the f*ck is wrong with me?????

There are about 3 hours between that first paragraph and now. After I wrote that last sentence it all kind of clicked for me. Since the beginning of the year I have been trying to do this myself. I have not had a definite program, just some general plans; eat less, no sugar, workout more, blah, blah, blah. I realized I cannot do it that way. I have never been able to do it that way. I need a hardcore plan. I need a program. I need something to follow. That got me thinking about something I had read a while back. There is this facebook page I follow by Jason Seib. He was publishing some Fat Loss Tips and they made a lot of sense.

• eat enough calories
• prioritze sleep
• manage stress
• don't drink calories
• don't eat healthier versions of garbage

 Things like that. He has recently published a book so, after debating it for 3 hours, I bite the bullet and bought it.

Okay, it has been kind of emotionally draining tonight. It always is when I face my demons.