tideling

155 push-ups is something to be proud of! Yay for getting up early and getting to the gym!

Preparing stuff the night before is so important! When I'm really on top of things, I try to pack lunch at the same time I'm plating up dinner. Sadly, I'm not always on top of things, but that's the goal. I also usually try to keep a can of tuna and an avocado around as a back-up, so if I have to, I can just grab them in the morning and mix them up at school. Definitely agree about snacks! I always get super hungry around 4pm, and if I don't have something to eat in my desk (lately it's trail mix), I know that I'll swing by the convenience store on the way home and get candy.

I found your thread searching the "bullet journal" tag, and I identify so much for that quest for a morning routine. The mornings really do set the tone for the rest of the day. Good luck!

Yesterday was almost a bust. I fell back asleep in the morning and failed to make lunch (or breakfast) in time. Fortunately, my husband saved me from the horrors of the cafeteria. He packed a lunch and brought it to me at school during my prep period. My school is on the way to his work, so he didn't even have to make a special trip! Yay for support! During my last class of the day, one of my favorite students had a really bad grand mal seizure. It was the scariest thing I've ever seen as a teacher. After the paramedics rushed her off to the hospital, one of my colleagues gave me a candy bar because I was kind of shaken up. Then my husband found out what happened and bought me another candy bar. I am weak and I ate both of them. Then I drank a Monster. At least I logged it? Not until this morning, but still . . . I logged it. And I got my words done last night. Baby steps, I keep reminding myself. Baby steps.

Good goals! And I definitely understand showing up late to the party! I'm working on writing this month, too. Good luck with your novel!

Good for you! I have been there with losing weight and then gaining it back again. It's great that you're getting back into the game!

I try to finish 750words.com every day as a journal, but the 500 is in addition to that. I've got a number of fiction projects that I'm working on (a couple of short stories and a recently started novel). I count blog entries as part of that too. Basically, if I'm intending to post it online or try to get it published someday, I will count it under my 500 words. I have a spreadsheet I use to track my progress and projects.

I hear that! Even if I eat lunch, I've found that I need to keep something like trail mix in my desk. Otherwise, I'll end up swinging by the store for a candy bar or something on the way home.

I'm restarting my health journey again after a long, long absence. My primary goal this year is to get pregnant, and I am trying to make better decisions about my food and activity levels. I want to teach my kids how to enjoy an active lifestyle and that means I need to have one myself. But starting with baby steps, here are my goals for February: Pack my own lunch at least 4 days a week. (I'm a teacher, and if I don't remember to pack lunch, I'll default to the school's hot lunch, in which tater tots are considered a vegetable) Use my bullet journal to track what I'm eating every day. Log everything, especially the bad stuff. Do a yoga video once a week. Write 500 words every day.

I joined the forums a few weeks ago, but have fallen silent for the last week. This new challenge is a good opportunity for me to re-focus my energy, though. My Motivation My husband (Osito!) and I are going to be starting a family soon. I don't want to teach my children the same sedentary lifestyle I learned from my parents. I want them to enjoy using their bodies, to grow up with a sense of adventure and a love for movement. But that's not something I can teach them unless I learn it myself. My Six-Week Goal Two years ago, I bought a cute green dress at a consignment shop, even though it was a size too small and I couldn't zip it up all the way. Since then, it has hung, unworn, in my closet. My six week goal is to fit comfortably into that dress - and to wear it somewhere awesome! My Three Sub-Quests 1) Run three times a week 2) Avoid refined sugar during the work week 3) Do the BBWW twice a week

EXERCISE Knee is still messed up, though it's a lot better today. I am going to go ahead and rest it today and tomorrow, then try the body weight workout again on Monday and launch back into C25k next week. FOOD Breakfast: The usual smoothie, except that I gave into temptation and drank the whole thing because my husband wasn't here to take half of it. At least it's fairly healthy -- a lot of sugar from the fruit, but at least the yogurt is homemade and the almond milk is unsweetened. Snack (I know, I shouldn't have needed one after the smoothie, but I got really hungry for some reason): a handful of almonds and 2 small squares of cheddar Lunch: 1/2 chicken sausage fried up with about 1/2 cup of diced sweet potato and a handful of mustard greens Dinner will be homemade pizza and red wine. Damn, I am not putting forth the best first impression on these forums!

That's a great menu! I always pack lunches for my husband and me, so it's great to see what other people are eating. How do your eggs hold up? I love eggs, but I've never tried packing them in a lunch before. I use a laptop lunch box to force myself to get a variety of foods into my diet. It comes with 4 containers, 2 large and 2 small. My rule is that at least one of the large containers has to be full of vegetables. Usually, whenever I'm plating up dinner, I pack up the lunchboxes at the same time. My coworkers act all impressed with my lunches, but I keep trying to tell them that it's no harder than serving up two extra dinner plates. But if your roommates are cooking, that approach might not work for you. Here are some tips I use that don't involve leftovers, though: At the beginning of the week, I usually make a ginormous green salad (usually kale and mustard greens, since they hold up a lot better than lettuce), and toss some into my lunch every day. In spring and summer, I also slice up some fruit and toss it together in a bowl with a splatter of lemon juice to keep it from browning. I use whatever is cheap at the produce stand near my apartment -- this week it was apple, kiwi, and blueberries. So usually my lunch includes one large container full of salad and another small container full of fruit. A trick I learned from Just Bento (not a paleo site, but several of the meat and veggie recipes there can be adjusted to become paleo) is keep a decent stock of quick protein on hand for days when I don't have enough time to cook something in the morning, or when we don't have leftovers in the fridge. For instance, whenever I make meatballs, I double the recipe and freeze a bunch of them. I stick them on a baking sheet in the freezer for an hour or so, until they are mostly frozen, then toss them all into a freezer bag or tupperware container. That way, they don't stick together. If I make dahl (I know legumes aren't paleo, but I refuse to give them up) or a hearty stew, I ladle some of it into a greased muffin tin, freeze it for a few hours, then pop the muffin-sized bites out and transfer them into a storage bag. One or two of them is a perfect lunch-sized serving. I also prefer having soupy things frozen to cut down on the mess potential during my commute. Even though one of the inner containers of my lunchbox has a lid, spills occasionally happen.

EXERCISE I had C25K wk7 day 2 scheduled today, but unfortunately, I seem to have royally fucked up my knee with improper squat form yesterday. It was all swollen and painful by the time I got home from work. I iced it last night, and will do so again today, but I'm not going to try to run on it. If anyone has any brilliant ideas for cardio that doesn't put any stress on the knees, I'd love to hear them. FOOD Breakfast: I need to make more yogurt, so no morning smoothie for me. Instead I made a scramble (1 egg, 1/2 a chicken sausage, red and yellow pepper, onion, tomato, and a handful of mustard greens) and ate it with half a grapefruit, sliced. I am trying an experiment where I designate two containers of my laptop lunch box as snacks and eat them mid-morning and afternoon, instead of eating all 4 at lunch. I'm hoping it will lead to less crazy hunger as I finish work. This is what I have packed for today: Snack: 1/2 sliced apple with natural, unsweetened peanut butter Lunch: Leftover chicken curry and cauliflower rice (again . . .) Snack: 1/4 cup roasted almonds Dinner: Okay, so guys, I messed up. My husband and I moved about a month ago, and we still have a bunch of our stuff in his parents' garage. We went up to their town to get some of it last night, and on the way, we decided to stop by one of our favorite restaurants because we wouldn't have time to cook. So, long story short, dinner was 3 tequenos, 1/2 a steak with chimichurri, 12 fries, about 1/4 cup of roasted vegetables, and a big spoonful of black beans. Aaaand a Cuba libre and a mojito. And tres leches cake drizzled with Bailey's and kahlua because I am weak and their tres leches cake is amazing. *cringes* I didn't regret a single bite last night, but I am feeling bad about it today, especially knowing we are having pizza for dinner (homemade pizza on Friday nights is our thing) and that friends are coming over for an RPG tomorrow and there will be snacks galore. Aside from the Friday pizza thing, I feel like I cook healthy most of the time, but I just go crazy in restaurants. I don't know how to get past that.

Thanks for the advice and encouragement! Most of the swelling seems to have gone down, but I will ice it on and off throughout today, just to make sure. I'm bummed because today was supposed to be the next day in the C25K plan, but I'm not going to try to run when I was having trouble walking on it last night. And yeah, I will definitely have to pay more attention to my form last time. I suspect that's what caused the problem.

This morning I started the BBWW. I didn't leave myself enough time and only managed to get one circuit in, but even with only one set of 20 body weight squats, my right knee started twinging. I didn't pay much attention to it, but throughout the course of the day, it got steadily worse. By the time I got home from work, my knee was swollen. It hurts to put any weight on it. I am icing it now to take care of the swelling. But I'm wondering if this kind of thing is normal when you start working out, or if I should go see a doctor. What do you guys think?