03 January 2015

Cooking


I have had some revelations today. I started watching my 600 lb life and it is an eye-opener. If there is anything that will convince you to lose weight, it is that show. But one of the shows really hit home with me. The woman was 500lbs and had convinced herself she couldn't walk. So she spent her life in bed. She got bypass surgery and then refused to follow the diet they gave her. 6 months after surgery she had gained 5 lbs. She was eating things and had convinced herself that she was doing everything right. She was in complete denial. That really hit home because I do that. I do that with food. I do that with my weight. I do that with money. I live in a fantasy world sometimes. And I've been living there lately. I stepped on the scale this morning because I start a diet bet tomorrow and I am 204.4. There is no justifying or explaining or whatever that number. I am over 200 lbs and that is something I swore I would never be again. So no more fantasy land, time to face reality.

I also realized that in order to be healthy I need to cook. That is something I had forgotten. I'm not really a cook, but I can do it and do it pretty well. When I'm really focused on losing weight and living healthy, I cook. That hit me again today. I have to get back into cooking. So I did, I cooked my lunch. It was under 400 calories and it was delicious.

So the takeaways today are, don't live in a fantasy land and cook.

Bit of a slow start


The last few days I have had a head cold and so things were not moving as quickly as I would like. But I think that actually may be a good thing. I usually start something all gun-ho and hit 100 right out of the starting gates. This usually leads to burn out pretty quickly. This time I've had some time to reflect on exactly what I'm doing and how I'm going to go about doing it. So this may be a good way to start off my Project Me. And truthfully, it's not how you start but how you finish.

Yesterday was not good at all. I woke up and really felt like crap because of this head cold. I didn't go to Crossfit. I did go to school and get the test I needed to finish my grading. I was absolutely freezing all day long and spent the day in sweats. After lunch I took a bit of a nap and when I woke felt a little better. I was supposed to go to a friend's house but the weather started getting nasty and I did not really feel like socializing so I bailed. The rest of the day was spent working on different things and getting ready to return to work on Monday. Then about 8:45pm we lost power. It was raining like crazy and the wind was like a monsoon. So we all went to bed. I woke up this morning though feeling much better. I think the head cold is finally receding and I'm going to be okay. So today will be my unofficial official start of Project Me. I'm going to Crossfit in a few minutes and my food is going to be spot on today. Confession: I did have Jack in the Box for dinner last night with a shake. I will track every thing I eat and I will be productive today. Actually, I have to be productive, I'm back to school on Monday.....

Okay, I'm off to grab a small something to eat because my stomach is rumbling and then it's off to Crossfit.

02 January 2015

Day 1 down


Yesterday was good. I went to Crossfit at noon and did the Crossfit total - a New Year's tradition. Then came home and didn't do a lot the rest of the day. I did get some work done that I needed to do and realized that I needed to run to school - which I will do today. Otherwise, that was it. I have a bit of a headcold and am dragging a bit because of that. I realized that I left something off my Project Me yesterday. I need to add finances in there. My finances are a mess and I need to get a grip on them. So that is being dealt with by putting a moratorium on spending and being aware. Very, very aware. In order to be aware, I need to keep track of the accounts. I currently have two accounts that I keep money in and I pay bills and such from. I need to check these accounts every day and keep track of the balances. I have a few bills I need to catch up on, but before I can do that I need to get a handle on where we are. So that category has been updated on my project me page. Oh, that's what I need, a project me page. Okay, I'm off to make that page and get me some breakfast and then get moving. Must be productive.

01 January 2015

January


It all begins this month. So my goals for January in each category are as follows:

Fitness: Crossfit 4x a week for a total of 20 times. Yes, that is technically more than 4x a week but I can squeeze in an extra workout during the entire month. Also, walking the dogs 4x a week for a total of 20 times. Success will be measured if I meet those goals.

Health: Prepping my food for the week every Sunday this month, that is 5x. Taking my breakfast and lunch every day this month except January 5th. That will be a total of 17 breakfasts and lunches due to a couple of holidays. Success will be measured by meeting these numbers.

Work: Have a plan when I return on the 6th for each class. Enter zeros for work not turned in the same day the assignment is due. Enter grades for work turned in no later than the next day and all grades for the week entered in by Friday. Success will be measured by not having any ungraded papers when I leave school on Friday.

School: This is the hardest one. I will work on my prospectus every morning for 15-30 minutes. I will work on classwork every night for at least one hour. Success for my prospectus will be measured by having the prospectus completed and submitted by the end of January. Success in my classwork will be measured by not having to sit for hours on Saturday and Sunday completing assignments at the last minute.

Okay, I have a plan for the month and I feel good about it. I am going to post these goals where I can see them every day and I am going to check in every weekend to see how things are going. I'm excited to have a plan and a focus for all the things I need to get done.

Time to work on me


Last year one of the blogs I read started on a project me. Each month the blogger would outline goals and steps to get there. Their overall goal was to lose weight, control their diabetes, and depression. It worked, it's also possible they started before last year, but whatever. I want to do this. I have a lot I want to accomplish this year and if I don't keep on top of it, things fall apart very quickly. In a previous post, I outlined four areas that are really important to me and that I want to focus on this year. They are:


  1. Fitness (workout out)
  2. Health (food)
  3. Work
  4. School
In that post, I outlined what I needed to do for each, and schedules that would make this work. Now let's look at details. 

Fitness: My goal is Crossfit 4x a week and walking the dogs 4x a week. Yes, I would like to say that I will each one 5 or 6x a week, but that creates a lot of stress and pressure on myself. So 4x it is. I go to Crossfit on Saturday and Sunday, so that just leaves two more days to fit in. Probably Fridays and then another day. Now if I go more that's good, but if I don't that's okay too. For the dogs, again weekends are good and the days I don't do Crossfit after work. They would prefer everyday, but I'll start with 4x a day. 

Health: My goal for this category is to plan and prep my food every weekend. I want to have breakfast and lunch ready for the week. In this same category, I need to focus on prepping the next day at night so that it's ready and I don't have to deal with it in the morning. 

Work: My goal for work is to get everything done at work and never bring work home. This will require me to be focused and persistent at work to get things done. 

School: Finally, school. This is the hardest but probably the most important category. My goal here is to finish my prospectus by the end of January; keep up on all my classwork and get A's in those classes. 

None of these are difficult by themselves. I just need to stay focused and committed. I need to not come home every night and fall asleep in my chair or watch hours of mindless TV or play stupid computer games. Yes, I can take time to relax and rest, but 2 hours of computer games followed by 3 hours of TV is not necessary. My next post will lay out my goals and plans for January. Every month I am going to have a plan. I will look at what needs to be accomplished that month. I will examine what worked and what didn't from the month before. I will adjust as necessary and have a plan for each month. I will also check in mid-month to see how it's going. I feel good about this. To-do lists work really well for me, and I feel like this is a just a giant to do list. 



31 December 2014

2104 is almost over


and 2015 is ready to begin. I know that these are arbitrary days we humans have chosen, but I love new beginnings. I used to make a fairly big deal about the new year, but the past couple of years I've let things weigh me down. But not this year. This year I'm excited about the new year and eager for it to begin. It is going to be a good year.

One thing that has brought on this positive attitude, is Crossfit. I have been doing Crossfit for 3 1/2 years now and this year was tough. Really tough. I felt like I was not making progress. It seemed I had injuries all the time. I finally admitted that I cannot run or jump anymore. I really felt like I was getting old and even Crossfit wasn't going to stop that. But the last couple of weeks I've had some major successes in Crossfit and it has highlighted the fact that I am getting much, much stronger.

First was the sore lats. Last week we did some negative pull-ups. I can't do them well, but I was able to lower a little bit slower than a straight drop. The next two days my lats were so sore. That set off something in my brain. Prior to that I could not even really activate my lats for a pull-up. So the fact that I can now engage them tells me I am getting stronger. Then on Christmas day we did the 12 days of Crossfit. Last year I did it in 36:13, this year in 34:00. That is a 2 minutes and 13 second improvement. Wow. Then last Sunday, the weekend warrior was to row 5000 meters. I did it just to see if I could do it. And I did. I did it in 31:38. Wow. That's freaking amazing. Finally today. New Year's Eve is traditionally the 365 workout. There are nine moves. We can do as many of each move as we like, but we must do at least one and the total must equal 365. The nine moves are:

Burpees - 10
Lunges - 20
Push-ups - 40
Push Press - 40
KB Swings - 40
Snatch - 40
Step ups - 40
sit ups - 95
Cleans - 40

Last year I could not finish this workout. I stopped at 30 minutes and did not finish the burpees and the push press. This year, I was determined to do it. I broke it up somewhat evenly. I originally was going to do 40 of each, but then I realized there was no way I was doing 40 burpees or 40 lunges, but I could do 100's of sit-ups. So this is how I broke it up. I ended up finishing it in 29:32! Woot!! Not only did I finish it this year, I beat my 30 minute cut-off from last year.

So these few things the past couple of weeks had made me realize that I need to focus on the positive and not the negative. So starting tomorrow, I'm going to do this:


Every night I will write down something positive that happened during the day and put it in the jar. When things get rough I can look at the good things that have happened and at the end of the year I look over the year and remember all the great things that happened.

So I'm looking forward to the new year. it's going to be a great year!!!!


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...