a month of resolutions: March recap and April outlook

One word describes my month of March: UGH!

Seriously. Bad enough Kosh had (and still has) to work vampiric hours 5 nights a week, but the month also started out with me suffering from a bad cold that lingered, knocking me out for over a week, resulting in my being all too willing to sleep the day away alongside the zombified Kosh.

So the daily writing goals? Zilch. But hey, at least yesterday I finally managed to get my trip report d.o.n.e, so hopefully a huge mental block is now over and done with.

The daily fiber intake? Certainly wasn't daily. Might have hit 50%, but I think I'm being generous.

The daily meditation? Ugh. Don't even go there.

The daily exercise? I count 18 days, but most of them were 30-60 mins of morning post-work racquetball with Kosh followed by about 15mins on the elliptical. In theory I had the opportunity to go for evening exercise classes at the Y after dropping Kosh off at work, but that happened for one week, then my motivation went haywire. Hardly the "ramp it up" I was shooting for, eh?

But I'm not hitting myself over the head for the lack of achievement for this month: I had suspected Kosh's vampiric hours would wreak havoc on my schedule, after all... I just didn't expect how badly it would affect me! Still haven't figured out a compromise or way to deal with his schedule without going over to the dark side with him. As such, my goals for April are very toned down:

April Exercise: join the 5:45am classes at the YMCA 5x/week. Any other activities are bonus, such as also going for evening classes, or having Kosh join me in the morning once he's done with work so we can smack some blue balls around.

April Food: Consume only raw / barely-processed food during the weekdays. Weekends are kinda a lost cause (I don't have the heart to impose dietary restrictions on Kosh; neither do I have the willpower to stick to my guns when he's being all bad with his food...), so I'll work on being good to myself, by myself, during the week.

Yes to fruits, nuts, cottage cheese, water, tea ... No Kraft Mac&Cheese and other things that come out of a box; no bagels, bread, cereal (apart from oatmeal), sun chips; no Coke Zero!

It's going to be a challenge all right, but I need to be eating better, and this is the first step. The only exception will be the glass of fiber I still want to take daily. I've already got mangoes, advocados, kiwi and a bag of salad in the fridge, plus a 5lb bag of red 'taters and a first round of roasted chickpeas on hand!

btw isn't it a sign of the times that the smileys I found for "eating" were smiling when eating a burger but have this weird suffering look when eating a healthy apple??!!

... and that's it. Just those two main items for April; they are achievable and sustainable, enough to keep me going up to my departure for Malaysia. My time in Malaysia is going to be bad for me food- and exercise-wise, I just know it! :p

Oh btw, registration for the Postcard/Link Exchange of 2010 is now underway!
I'd love to send you a postcard from Malaysia, so please sign up, it's a lot of fun!
You can also be in the running to receive a Malaysian-themed gift, so why aren't you signed-up yet? Go go go!! :D

PLX2010 image derived from mailbox by clix
Calendar by djayo
All smileys from MS Office clip art

If you liked this post, please consider subscribing to my feed or subscribing via email. I'm on Twitter too!

a month of resolutions: February recap and March outlook

Remember my resolutions for February? Here's a recap of what I achieved, or didn't, in the following subjects:

WRITE: didn't get anywhere with this; I couldn't start (continue?) on this while I had an overdue trip report looming over my head, but I didn't feel like doing the trip report, and didn't feel like spending too much time blogging if I wasn't making a dent in either novels or report... and so all writing suffered.

MEDITATE: I feel positive about this, although I certainly did not achieve a daily practice. I estimate I managed to meditate perhaps half the month.

FIBER: This was pretty good, I think I probably had a glass of fiber and a glass of water chaser daily perhaps 80% of the month. I noticed that if I didn't get this done first thing in the morning, chances were I wouldn't/couldn't bring myself to do it later in the day.

EXERCISE: While I certainly didn't achieve daily workouts, I still exercised at least 4 times a week -- yay! Occasionally I'd have a two-fer, with a class in the morning, and racquetball with Kosh in the evening. I also quickly noticed that Wednesday was a hump day in addition to the weekend which is always a challenge. I allowed myself a lot of slack in terms of choice of exercise, wanting to build up the habit of exercising daily, and not beat myself up on the quality yet.

An unspoken hoped-for consequence of the proper implementation of the above would be my getting up early, consistently, with a routine of fiber&water intake, meditation, devoted writing time, and exercise. I obviously didn't quite get there, but I feel I was certainly moving in the right direction... and I was looking for March to be the time to tighten up on that... except that Kosh now has vampiric hours, and it looks like my days will end up upside down as a result... so trying to set a certain routine in stone at a certain time of day is just not feasible right now.

As such, the resolutions for March are pretty much the same as February's, with the following fine-tuning:


FIBER: 1 glass of fiber followed by water chaser (refilling glass with water and letting it sit for the whole day doesn't count!)

MEDITATE: at least once daily, for however long/short a time as seems to be needed

WRITE: for 1 - 2 hours, daily. ... Understanding February's poor achievement, for March this can be almost anything (catching up on overdue emails; blog posts; my trip report; yes even my novel(s)...) but specifically does NOT allow for Twitter, Google Reader, Facebook, Entrecard (my other persona still hasn't quit it), BlogExplosion and other timesucks until the 1-2 hours have been done.

EXERCISE: daily, ramped up from February. I noticed that many of the exercise classes I've been going to tend to be the stretchy yoga/pilates classes that are great for core muscles and flexibility, but don't help with cardio or resistance. So for March the exercise target is twofold: one, still targetting daily workouts, but also, two, ramping it up: doing two back-to-back classes... or do 30mins on the elliptical before/after the class... that kind of thing.

I *was* going to have a new item relating to food: cut out added sugar, drastically cut sodium, or go soda-free, something like that. But I've not had a chance to really consider/plan for it, what with being sick and all (been struggling with a sore throat since Friday, which finally erupted into sneezes and sniffles yesterday), so I'll shelve it first and keep it for another month.

What's your outlook for March?

If you liked this post, please consider subscribing to my feed or subscribing via email. I'm on Twitter too!

a month of resolutions

I've never been one for New Year Resolutions. However, I have been needing and wanting to establish some new/good/overdue habits. Nudged by Karl who's doing a Year of Resolutions, here are things that I am striving to do on a daily basis, during the month of February:

• write
• meditate
• fiber
• exercise

Write:
This doesn't mean churning out blog posts daily, although that might be a natural side-effect. My focus here is on the two novels knocking around in my head, one half-written, the other perhaps only 10% done, both inter-related enough that I need to map them both out properly, both to prevent inconsistencies as well as to see more nodes for connections between the two. I am 0/3 so far for this, ugh.

Meditate:
I have yet to establish regular daily meditations, even though I know I would benefit greatly from this. Shooting for doing this first thing in the morning, before I wake up the computer, because once the 'puter is on and I start checking email and twitter feeds, my attention is shot and inertia is high. I think I'm at 1/3 for this, ugh.

Fiber:
Again something to shoot for in the mornings: a glass of fiber, followed by a water chaser. This gets my digestive system on track and ensures I get at least 800 mL water in me. So far I'm 3/3 for this, yay!

Exercise:
Daily! To chase away the funk, to meet new people, to just plain move, to lose weight, to feel good, and so many more reasons. There are a variety of "free" (read: already paid for in the monthly membership fee) exercise classes at the YMCA, in addition to racquetball facilities and the normal stuff like running track, weights, machines, etc. In addition, Nia classes have started! I'd be 3/3 except that today found me in a funk of sorts. Nvm, I'll allow myself a break since I'm still sore from the racquetball or weights (or both) I did on Monday.

They say that doing something for 21 days makes it a habit, so I'm working on getting the above incorporated into my routine establishing a morning routine that incorporates the above. I'll report back at the end of the month and we'll see how successful this month of resolutions has been.

In the meantime, a malaysian abroad is kicking off a Food in February theme, do drop by and check it out, k? I'd love to know how you did on the quiz :)

Image credit: MS Office clip art