09 August 2014

Moving forward


Yesterday, as a hurricane day, was okay. Not perfect, but okay. I had a great breakfast; omelet with bacon, sausage, peppers, onions, cheese; awesome. Never had lunch but ate some Fritos and liquid cheese. Then we went out to dinner at Denny's. Had a burger, fries, and a milkshake. So part of the day was really good and part not so good. Oh yeah, I had dessert too. But breakfast was awesome and I felt awesome after eating it. I have to remember that.

This morning I'm supposed to go to Crossfit but I'm debating it. It's raining. My knee hurts a little. I'm still kind of tired. I can pass on today and go tomorrow. I need to listen to my body too. If my knee is hurting, I should probably wait until tomorrow. Hard to tell if I'm being smart or just justifying an excuse. I have about 20 minutes to figure it all out. Maybe another cup of coffee will help.

08 August 2014

Formulating a plan


When trying to make a change, my typical reaction is to just change everything. If I want to get organized I will clean and organize everything and then tell myself I will straighten up every night before bed. Well, that is highly impractical. I will do it for a night or two and then I will be really tired one night and not do it. Then the next night I may forget. Then, before I know it, things are a mess again. I know me. I know that in order to make really lasting changes, I need to take baby steps. So that's what I need to plan. Baby steps. So let's work this out.

I want to do the following:

  1.  Crossfit 5x a week
  2. eat mostly paleo - no processed food
  3. drink 100 oz of water everyday
  4. walk the dogs every night
Not that hard.I just can not just jump in completely and expect to succeed. So how can I go about this. The easiest is eating clean. I can easily do that. I can make breakfast and lunch to take to work with me everyday. That is a great place to start. I can also work on the water consumption since I bring my water bottle to school and have access to more ice and water. I can put the 5x a week Crossfit on the back burner, just for a week or so. I could go on the weekends and the mornings I feel like it. Walking the dogs I will do as often as possible.

Okay, feeling better already. For the coming week I will focus on eating. I will make breakfast and lunch and drink water like it's part of my contract. I will not force myself to go to Crossfit on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, but I will definitely go on the weekend.

This takes the pressure off of myself, and god knows I have enough pressure with the classes I'm taking and the classes I'm teaching. So, for next week the focus is on food and not the workouts. That may last for a couple of weeks, we will see how it goes. Once I have the food basically under control, I will start working on the workouts. Oh yes, baby steps. Feel so much better now.

Can't seem to pick myself up


Had great plans for this week, but they didn't turn out so well. I started the week off very optimistic. Got up and went to Crossfit at 5am on Monday morning. Got to school and got ready for the day. Made it through my first couple of classes well, but in prepping for the afternoon classes, I didn't take the time to eat lunch. By 3:30pm I was completely exhausted and my feet were killing me. Came home, had a hot dog, walked the dog, and called it a night. On Tuesday I forced myself to eat lunch and I felt much better in the afternoon. Woke up on Wednesday with my knee throbbing. No Crossfit. Had a small lunch and by afternoon I was exhausted again. Didn't walk the dogs. Thursday woke up feeling good. Forced myself to eat lunch and felt fine yesterday afternoon. Didn't walk the dogs because of the rain from the coming hurricane. All these days I ended up eating crap at night. I need to break that habit. I'm going to indulge in a little navel gazing to see if I can figure this out.

I know that I am making really poor choices because I'm tired. That I understand. I also realize that I am tired because I'm back to school. I spent 3 months doing nothing, so going back to work is tough. Plus, I'm at a new school and I'm teaching different classes. All of that adds to the stress I'm under. This will all ease as I adjust to working again and get used to all the changes I've going through. Having said that, I can not give in to the desire to just ride it out and wait until I adjust. It would be so easy to just say, I'll skip Crossfit and eat whatever until I adjust to the new schedule. That will not help at all. I need to have a solid plan that will carry me through the week or so until I do adjust. That may mean going to bed really early - I'm okay with that. It also may mean wearing my knee brace for a while and taking ibuprofen regularly, because part of being excessively tired is my knee hurts. So I must have a solid plan that I follow to the letter. Part of that plan involves food. I need to come up with food that meets a number of criteria. It must be quick and easy to eat, and it must be seriously portable. I will also need to schedule short, power naps. Seriously. Until I adjust completely, short naps will be the key to getting through this. I can set my internal clock for 10 minutes and completely fall out for that amount of time. When I wake I'm generally refreshed and revived. So I need to factor some power naps in. I also need to stop eating crap. I've been eating far too much of that because I am too tired to make good choices. So that has got to go.

Okay, I have some ideas in my head now. I just need to fill in the details and come up with a comprehensive plan. I will be back later to update this post with a detailed plan.

03 August 2014

A new routine


One of the perks about my new school is that it is 10 minutes from home. 10. Minutes. I have never worked at a place so close to home. Because of this, I can go to Crossfit in the morning and walk the dogs at night. I'm very excited about that. Crossfit has a 5am class that gets me done in plenty of time to shower and make it to work. Awesome. Then my evenings are free to walk the dogs. I love walking my dogs. I haven't been able to walk them because the last 2 weeks Hubby has been working nights. But starting today I can walk them again. But all of this involves developing a new routine. To make Crossfit at 5am, I have to get up around 4am. Early, but I am an early riser so not too difficult. Although I didn't get up on Wednesday. Also, 5am Crossfit is only on Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays. To get my 5 workouts a week in, I have to go on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday is not too bad, I usually go on Saturday anyway. Sunday though is hard. Sunday has historically been my rest day and giving that up is hard. Also, that means I do Crossfit Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. I don't normally like to do it 4 days in a row, but I think I can get used to it. So this involves changing my routines and creating new ones. So that is something I have been working on for the past 2 weeks. Tonight I start adding in the dog walking. That I'm looking forward to, so that should not be a problem. And since I get home 10 minutes after I leave work, I'll be home way before I have to walk them. That will give me a chance to relax a little and switch gears.

So that is the focus this week, getting a new routine set.

Conversation with Hubby

 So yesterday morning I presented my idea of working out at home to the Hubby. Once I presented it to him, he said he was in. I told him I h...