CallunaTook

As of tomorrow, my challenge for this round is over as I forge onward into Great UK Anniversary Adventure 2018. The biggest parts of my challenge are above. For the coffee/sugar/alcohol challenge: I am down to 1 cup of coffee per day and 0-1 alcohol per day. Sugary sweets remain the hardest part, but I'm (mostly) down to one serving per day on that too. I'm well into project fix-the-breakfast, eat dinner earlier in the evening, drink more water, and experimenting with supplements. The rest of the challenge: -Take the stairs 75% of the time at work, and sprint them at least once a day for a little extra cardio bump. (I keep expecting to fall on my face, but so far so good!) -I experimented with getting up early to do a stretching routine (sometimes I do PT stretches, sometimes random stretches, sometimes sun salutations). I hate getting up that early. I found that even as much as five minutes is an improvement, so next challenge I'll just try to work it in somewhere before lunch. -Daily time outside (done) -Daily five minutes of meditation or thoughtfulness (done) -I experimented with adding 15 minutes of hobby book reading to my day. I decided after two weeks that I don't need that. I read all the time already anyway, all kinds of things; it's a compulsion, and I'm ok with not purposefully reading on a specific novel or whatever. Some days it annoyed me because I was doing my 15 minutes of novel when I'd rather research articles online or read a cookbook, and that's silly. So I ditched this part of the challenge. -Wrote up a sugar avoidance cheat sheet So, that's it for now... carrying on. (Isn't this just cute as a button? I love Google Image Search)

Wow, that looks great!

Ta-da! (Somewhat) Science-ing the Diet: Not terribly long ago, I acquired a 23andMe report. During this challenge, I worked on making valid use of that information. There were several pieces to this: 1. I made an appointment with my doctor to get a blood test for one of my biggest risk factors. If positive, I would have needed to make a diet change. (Results are in: So far, so good, no diet change necessary.) 2. I also uploaded my data to FoundMyFitness for more health information. This gave health-based suggestions and risk factors to work with (complete with citations)... 2.a. Based on results from this report, I am experimenting with tweaking the times of day I have my meals. The results suggested I would do better with eating earlier in the day. I figured this experiment wouldn't hurt, so I've been trying it out. Eating earlier in the day is a challenge during the workweek because my desired window is often gone before I get home from work and settled in for dinner, but I'm getting better at reaching this goal and I'm still fiddling with it. I'm able to finish eating most days before 7pm, and will try to up the ante and bump it down to 6. (To be done before 6, I may have to go so far as to eat dinner before I leave work?) This practice has potential in my mind, especially in terms of better sleep and digestion (bonus, intermittent fasting benefits), so I'm going to try a few different tactics and let it settle in before I make any final lifestyle decisions. The down side to adjusting meal times is that I'm off- schedule with my house mates, but this has not been a deal breaker on most days. 2.b. I have also been tweaking the macronutrient content of my breakfasts, as the reports suggested I'd do better with having a carb/protein mix at breakfast. I lumped this in as another "wouldn't hurt" experiment. I have found it to be true that I do feel more alert if I add at least a little bit of carbs to breakfast (since going paleo and ditching bakery breakfasts, I've been almost exclusively an eggs-and-bacon kinda girl). Something as simple as adding cubes of sweet potato to my eggs or a cup of apple juice has a good effect and helps minimize coffee, but I find that if I have too many carbs (ie, a fruit smoothie with fat and protein added) that pendulum swings back the other way. I think I feel best if I keep the protein to over half, with the carbs as a side. I'll probably decide to keep this habit. 2.c. The report also suggests that I might not metabolize saturated fat very well compared to others, so I have cut sat fat meats down to one or less serving a day (I think my non-meat fats are probably not significant enough to be concerned about). The boys had been leaning our diet more and more towards fatty meat cuts and I've been too indifferent to tell them not to, but now I'm insisting on adding fish and chicken back into the meal plan. I feel no difference, but I expect any negative expression of this gene would be a longterm thing if it manifests at all. It seems like a wise choice anyhow. 2.d. I re-upped my commitment to have fish once a week (for the omega-3s, I'm not a fan of the taste) and have surpassed that goal. 2.e. This week, I completed the last piece of the utilizing my data to tweak my diet, which was to create informed supplementation habits. During the first couple of weeks, I simply finished off all of the vitamins in the cabinet. Not because I needed them, but just to create a habit of taking them. I even borrowed a tip from a coworker - throw the supplements in a tiny tupperware in my lunch box, then they are around all day so I don't have to take them all at once and can wait until I'm in the mood for it. That one little thing has made a huge difference. The second half of completing this goal was to schedule an appointment with a nutritionist (this required a lot of phone tag, ugh!). I brought my genetic risk factor reports, along with some questions and issues I've had with taking supplements in the past, and she has me set up with a basic regime and some guidelines. I started on my new set of supplements today. I'll follow up with her for tweaks to the plan if I have any issues. I was quite impressed; I utilized a free service that is available in my area, and I was expecting maybe 30 minutes. It was 2 hours, customized, covered a lot of topics, and was accompanied with reading materials and charts. Ta-da! So that's it, at least for now - the first leg of my journey for using DNA data to make diet changes. It's been very interesting. Anyone know what this Paul McCartney TaDa is from? It's pretty cute. As a side note... I've gone back and forth about supplementation in general over the years (as have all of my doctors). I've finally decided once and for all to take them, so long as my stomach handles them ok. If they don't help because the compounds aren't in the right form, aren't bonded to food, aren't regulated well enough, or whatever, the worst that will happen is that I have lost money on it, which I am ok with at this point in my life. If they do help, who knows, maybe I live longer. Or don't get some kind of disease. It really seems worth the expense. Besides, doing the nutritionist consultation makes it much more likely that I'm getting the right things out of my investment and not over-dosing. I figure I'm probably buffering the biggest supplementation risk factors just by getting a consultant.

I'm sorry! I believe that you will be weather the storm. I hope things improve quickly...

Good luck on your house showings tomorrow!

That sounds awesome! It seems like you have a great starting point, and even building your resume already! Very sweet. I don't get the relationship to pizza, admittedly... I've been thinking off and on about voiceover/narration for awhile, as well. It seems like it would be really fun... plus anything that I could theoretically do in my pajamas gets bonus points. I also have a theater/speaking background, but I don't think I have a great voice quality. I know there is a place for every type, but I'm always a little bit startled when I hear recordings of myself (like... I feel so serious that I forget I'm a chipmunk...).

Also, I am intrigued by this new business venture.

Ludicrous Speed?! Oh no! Stop the ship!! Bonne chance dans le maison! Et aussi d'autres objectifs...

Thanks everyone! I decided to go with outlook, and nobody has made me change it back (although they still say "future outlook" in discussion, which is fine). And as far as business jargon goes... the one I really can't stand is "mission statement." BLECH! Those things have no value add for me! (Luckily my workplace business jargon tends to be policy jargon, which is amusing to me - I think some of these acronyms are funny - or science jargon, which I enjoy because it is meaningful and people actually know what I'm saying.)

I have realized in past weeks that my attraction to sugar, coffee, and alcohol are basically linked into one overarching addiction. Aside from being very delicious to me, these things are all also often shortcuts to being less moody. I would totally be that idiot from the Ghost in the Shell live action that wants to waste pricey medical technology on engineered, alcohol-immune livers. It's even possible that previous attempts to buck sugar addiction has been less effective than hoped because I was missing the coffee and alcohol links in the chain. I basically control one craving by just shifting it to another. I've only been able to tackle the sugar addiction, for example, by consuming coffee and alcohol instead. It works in the other directions. I can bypass coffee with sugar, or alcohol with coffee, etc. And, in past months I've been doing very well on consuming less sugar, and quitting coffee by noon or early afternoon. So you know what that means. Lots of alcohol. And I was liking it way, way too much. I have probably had more hangovers in the past few months than I have in the past few years (not a lot of them by any means, but still...). I am also slightly embarrassed to admit to having a handful of days where I get up thinking: I had three drinks yesterday. That's bad for my liver. And my everything. No drinks today. Two hours later: Ok, just a little. In my coffee. Won't hurt... Which I took as major warning sign number one that I was on the path to actually becoming alcoholic. So. I've been attacking this three-prong like, and stepping down from all three together, gradually. TA-DA!!! I've had no more than ONE alcoholic drink per day, for 17 days straight. Last week, I started skipping days here and there, relatively painlessly. I'm down to no more than one serving of sweets per day, for 9 days straight. Last week, I successfully quit coffee at 10 am on every day except one or two, when I got busy and just didn't drink my earlier cup fast enough. 7 days good on this goal. Next week's goal is one cup or less of coffee per day, no more than one (smaller, bite size like) serving of sweets per day, and maintaining the 1 or less alcohol per day. I have further stair steps written out. I have a goal of eventually happily maintaining at 1 cup of coffee or less per day, sweets only on special occasions, and 3-5 servings or less of alcohol per week. I'm not going to lie. I'm not real happy about this. These things are more delicious to me than real food. In fact, I could happily eat nothing else every day. But it's physically pretty terrible for me, and I'm apparently using it as an emotional crutch, so it has to go. Especially since it is in direct conflict with my desire to live to be 10,000 years old. I found these were some useful motivators over the past weeks: TEDx: Sugar is Not a Treat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tic7X3ET4gE FoundMyFitness episode: Refined Sugar and it's affects on mortality, the brain, cancer, hormones and more https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/refined-sugar

Yep. I have been lurking on this thread during the week, and have really been enjoying it...

Semantics question for all you language nerds: The phrase "future outlook" seems to be commonly accepted lexicon, but isn't it redundant? Regardless of common use, should it just be "outlook" or something similarly simple? I'm putting together a presentation for work and every time I see "future outlook" it grates. I am wondering if I should change it. I know it's a small thing, but I've also enjoyed meetings that completely revolved around arguments over commas. We're a picky bunch over here.

Ha ha, yes, that is exactly what we are doing with our money! So, for years, every time someone visits Edinburgh they come back and tell me how much I would love it and I should go. It is for Edinburgh, and ONLY Edinburgh that I get this. Now we have a fan club. The anticipation is really building. There are some date overlaps for when we'll be there, too. Have fun at your wedding! The Green Dragon looks charming. How did that go? The first time I visited those lattitudes, it was around the summer solstice, and I was fascinated and nigh giddy with the amount of daylight. I didn't want to sleep. At all. Ever. I've never experienced the flip side of that. It definitely sounds harder. That does sound lovely. Thanks to everyone for the recommendations! I'm taking notes and I'll try to hit some of these, too. Exciting!! Except, apparently, the Harry Potter set tour tickets are sold out already (except for the primo packages which are over $300 a piece). So I missed the boat on the butter beer... darn it.

Something Wicked... is fantastic, isn't it?! Bradbury is one of my favorites, and especially that one!! See, I'm even adding extra exclamation points!! I have mixed feelings about the film adaptation of books... I always have. But I'd much rather they go nuts on book adaptations than continue the trend of just re-making every movie we've already seen. At least that way we have new-ish things to watch.

Currently reading: Children of Hurin Cooking For Geeks (yes, still. I've been slowly picking away at this one for a long time) Living With Intensity Britain's Real Heritage Pubs Frommer's Edinburgh & Glasgow Bien Dit! (French text book) Women in Pants: Manly Maidens, Cowgirls, and Other Renegades There's also a baseball program from the local AAA team on my night stand, because I'm studying the system for recording plays shorthand, or whatever you call it. Plus rpg books. We relatively recently started a new system (Starfinder) so I have a universe to learn. I made it extra hard on myself by designing an academic character, so... yeah. I try not to pick up too many books at a time, but I'm not always successful...