Lenore

Good evening! This week has been good. I meditated already, and have done 1 set of Goal 3 questions. I read parts of this Buddhist article, which I'm doing for a Buddhism class through Edx: https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/refuge.html Stalled on exercising, though. I did take the stairs several times at work, but not totalling 5 minutes!

OMG CONGRAAAAAAAATS!!!!! I LOVE stage stuff, almost everything except acting. Music especially. Not exciting!!!

Hello! This is my second challenge, so I am selecting smaller goals so I don't get discouraged. I tend to be an all-or-nothing type, so if a challenge isn't going well, I'm liable to lump it partway through! Here are my goals for the "short version", and then I'll describe myself afterward. My focus this month is my mental state. 1) Ramp up meditation practice, adding 1 session each week (up to 4 times on the last week of the challenge). I will use the Calm.com app for this. 2) Read 1 mindfulness or Buddhist article each week (I have a subscription to Simplify Magazine). 3) At least 3 days each week, write down 3 things that I am grateful for and 3 amazing things that happened that day. 4) At least 4 days each week, do 5 minutes of exercise. Looking into mindful options, suggestions welcome! I need to enjoy it, so I'll try almost anything for a day or two! 5) Bonus: Limit Facebook to 10 minutes a day and look for offline opportunities to connect - this may push the boundaries of my comfort zone. Copied from my first challenge: " Hello! I am a nearly-39 year old gal, married with two feline kids. After going back to school, weight crept on and bad habits stuck around, even after graduation. So it's time to get back in shape and get healthy!" I am also working on a vegan diet, but that may be next month's challenge. If you've read my first challenge, you noticed that I was reading a book about sticking with things. I'm a horrible start/stopper, and I've already moved on from that book. Oops. I'm reading Kate Hudson's "Pretty Happy" (which I got free from T-Mobile). Once I'm done with that, I might pick up the other one. It's not that books aren't interesting, I just have too many of them and they all seem so relevant!! So my Goal #2 is to help me establish a reading habit. I am thankful that I only have about 20lb (or less) to lose, but I am an emotional/stress eater, so I am hoping that by working on my state of mind and cultivating my self-care, I'll make better choices all around.

Thanks to everyone who responded to my challenge thread! It's been a little up and down, but I loved the support encouragement! I am off to choose a guild and figure out my second challenge!

Oops, I meant to post yesterday! Anyway, going well here. Begaindoing some very light upper body exercises - they're really my husband's physical therapy exercises that I'm doing along with him, but the extra pull in the muscles feels great! I'm a T-Mobile customer, so I today (T-Moble Tuesdays - free stuff every Tuesday) I picked up Kate Hudson's new book about listening to your body, treating it with respect, building a holistic mindset about yourself. I think it's called Pretty Happy. I've read the first few pages of the intro and I'm pleasantly surprised! Bonus that it was free. Anyway, fruits and veggies haven't made it onto the shopping list yet (down to one car is a drag) but my diet has been decent. I've fasted a little today since we were at a kids' birthday party on Sunday and I just wasn't all that hungry today. Kept up with water / tea, though! Vacuumed the house, only checked Facebook for a few minutes. So all is good! Thanks so much for the advice, @SkyGirl - it helps to give myself "permission" to not have to be perfect! Oh, and LOVE the Tolkien quote, but LoTR fan here!

Sure! There are two, one for vegan "parmesan cheese" which is hard to stop eating out of the bowl! https://minimalistbaker.com/how-to-make-vegan-parmesan-cheese/ There are other recipes at the end of that one on where to use it. And here is the pasta sauce recipe - it calls for roasting brussels sprouts, but I had spinach on hand and am not a huge brussels sprouts fan: https://minimalistbaker.com/vegan-garlic-alfredo-pasta/ LOL!! Keeping busy, focusing on offline friendships. Awww you're so sweet. I need to remember to not beat myself up too much when I don't do things 100% perfect. The mindset of a "challenge" seems rather black and white, and it's hard for me to be okay not being compliant every day! Maybe that's a sign that I set my goals too difficult?

Good afternoon! Been doing pretty well this week with swapping out snacks with healthier alternatives, but it hasn't been fruits or veggies, rather a granola bar or 12-grain toast and cashew butter. I made some vegan "alfredo" sauce with almond milk, cashews, nutritional yeast, and garlic. It's a VERY good and creamy substitute and didn't leave me feeling heavy. That's been dinner the last two evenings. Keeping up with housework has been good as well. Laundry done, dishes put up, I even cleaned up my computer desk (out of necessity because we switched internet providers). I've also easily limited Facebook. I think I may have used it 15 minutes in the last 3 days. Move goal is also going well. Haven't finished out this week, but have met it 4 times this week, and have active plans for the weekend (yay for warmer weather!). My only downfall is to choose fruits and vegetables. I forgot to pick up fruit at the grocery store, so that didn't help, and I've been working from home this week with no plans to get groceries until maybe Monday.

Oh! And the smoothies were about getting in fruits and vegetables. So I might swap in some stewed apples or something in their place, and add in veggies to other stuff. Now that I hope to "make time" for more meal planning and prep, I can get back to roasting veggies, etc, so that I won't need smoothies. Leave those for the summer!

Good morning! [sorry, this has turned into a mini book... I guess I'm chattier than I thought this morning] Had a few days of all-day meetings and obligations (BUT we went to this AWESOME salad/wrap restaurant called Wicked Greenz, so I totally won on my veggie content on Friday), so I've been doing okay this week. I have a KILLER sinus headache this weekend, but I've been doing okay. I realized that I ate vegan all day yesterday, finishing up with some mushrooms and hummus for a snack. For dinner we had some Frontera (Frontega? whatever) vegan fajitas, which were really good (not too spicy, sweet potatoes, beans, green beans, etc). Anyway, I've been keeping up with the house stuff, too. I started a Bullet Journal (BuJo for those who like the catchy names), which has helped me keep on track and write down ideas / to-dos as they come. I've seen some great options for weekly trackers, so I'll incorporate that at some point. I believe I've been hitting my move goal - some days I go waaay over. I accidentally let me watch run out of battery, so there was one and a half days where I didn't track (because my charger cord was going bad, so I didn't even realize that it wasn't charging - technology fail!). Good news - I am going to look for one vegan meal to try a week, which will also slowly help me build up a pantry of the replacement items (nutritional yeast, etc), so that meals will get faster. This week's meal is garlic white wine pasta with spinach (originally called for brussels sprouts, but we have spinach on hand, so...). We have Weber Grill reservations tonight, which will obviously be meat-based, but I'm not going to stress that. They have really good vegetable options! Also on my to-do today... planning "personal development" time. We both finished up school about 6 months ago, and after a little break have been taking some Udemy classes, but at the usual "hit it hard" pace that we were used to at school. But that doesn't leave a lot of room for meal planning, cooking, exercising, etc. So we're going to swap out "study time" with "personal development time", which can encompass all of those things. I'll be using my BuJo to "theme" my days depending on my expected energy level and remaining time after work (some days we both work from home, some both in various offices, and some days I'm in the office and he's at home). I think that about covers it for today!

Hola, all! So the last few days have... not been great. Super stressful work, very cold out (so smoothies don't even SOUND good), plus husband goes and buys a lot of cruddy food. Couple that with low motivation.... yeah. I won't mention all the particulars, since at some point it just gets embarrassing. Anyway, I had a decent breakfast this morning (nut and seed bread with cashew butter), and I'm thinking of a smoothie for lunch anyway. Maybe make it more room temperature?? Anyway, sorry for the absence, I'm trying to do better. I need plans for when this stuff happens.

You can absolutely steal whatever, I stole most of them from a "how to" post!!

Good evening, all! So far I'm doing well - had another smoothie for breakfast, and instead of caving for a hot chocolate (brrrr!) I had some toasted nut-and-seed bread with cashew butter. It killed that sweet-tooth craving, and has filled me up pretty well! That checked off goals 1 and 2 for today! Today's been really busy at work (Meltdown/Spectre stuff, boooooo!), so I've kept off Facebook, bonus! I'm at 70% of my move goal for today, and I'm going to go put in some laundry. Phew! Now on to some Udemy classes to round out the day.

Good evening! Today I didn't do the best, but I did okay. I had a light "breakfast" of just coffee, and lunch was meat-and-potatoes based, with a baked apple side. Dinner was spaghetti and sauce. Not the best choices, but tomorrow's another day! And I did do laundry, which counts for goal #4. I'm close to closing my Move Ring on my Apple Watch today. See y'all tomorrow!

Okay so maybe I will check in more often! Since I have come up with no other way to track my daily progress, I guess I'll just reply here?! To work on goal #1 and #2 today, I've had 2 green smoothies (one for breakfast and one for lunch), which contained a handful or two of spinach, some flax seed (ground), a banana, and some unsweetened frozen fruit (cherries for breakfast and pineapple for lunch).

Hello! I am a nearly-39 year old gal, married with two feline kids. After going back to school, weight crept on and bad habits stuck around, even after graduation. So it's time to get back in shape and get healthy! My goals for this challenge are small - this way I don't get discouraged! 1) Swap out 1 processed food snack each day with a fruit or vegetable. 2) Eat a vegetable with a meal each day. 3) Meet my Apple Watch move goal 5 times each week. 4) Clean my house for 2 minutes each day. 5) Bonus: Limit Facebook to 10 minutes a day. I am hesitant to add too many tracking methods, as those have overwhelmed me in the past. But I plan to check in here once or twice a week, for accountability and tracking. Along with this I am also reading a library book called "Stick With It: A Scientifically Proven Process for Changing Your Life - For Good". Hopefully that book, along with the Level Up book, will finally move me in the right direction! Oh - I have also chosen to pursue a vegan diet, but that's a work-in-progress.