Theria

I just looked and it's been just over a year since I was last on these forums. Thinking about it, I was in my last semester of grad school for my master's, so I imagine I got distracted with final assignments and dropped out the the habit of coming here. Since then I started my doctoral program so limited time and mental energy are still factors I need to account for in my plan to improve my health. Right now my focus is on being more conscious of my health choices. For the past year I haven't really put any thought into food choice and activity/non-activity so I want to change that. I know building small habits is the best way to go, so that's my plan right now.

Optimal Health Daily has some good episodes and they periodically read from Nerd Fitness.

Thanks for the reply @Dragonwolf. I'm curious to know what tests your current doctor ran for you. I've been off hormonal birth control for several months now (boy has that been fun ) and I'm supposed to go back to my OBGYN to finally test my hormone levels.

The struggle is real. Got my period yesterday and my brain has pretty much completely shut down (in addition to depression), which is great since I have 2 critical assignments due in my classes. Can't even think about food choice and exercise right now...

I really want to start checking in on here more frequently to keep myself thinking about my goals and progress. It's too easy for me to not think about it for a day or two and then weeks will go by before I realize it. The last few days have been all over the place. On Thursday my diet was bad. Like lots of coffee, donut, cookies, and little in the way of nutrition bad. I didn't even log my food because I knew it wasn't gonna be pretty. I was out running errands for hours and just stopped thinking about my food choices. On the bright side, when I got home I chose to get on the treadmill, aiming to get in my one Zombies Run I had in my week one challenge list. Well my phone crashed 3 times, each when I was 3 or 4 minutes into the app session. I chose not to try launching it again because I was already 15 minutes in on the treadmill and didn't want to overdo it adding a full session on top of that, so instead I just walked for another 15 minutes. Not as good as getting some interval jogging, but I'm glad I didn't use the crashing as an excuse to just stop. Yesterday my diet was a bit better, but spent most of the day at the computer. Need to work on getting up from my desk more regularly.

Yeah it does. I'm still working on their 5k training program but I hear they're up to season 7 now.

I'd say if it works, it works. Maybe ask someone you trust to do a sniff test to make sure you're not getting more than 'volume' on your ride to work. You can also try adding a dry shampoo to your routine. But don't feel too weird. A lot of hair does better being washed every 2-3 days, not daily. You're going a bit past that but you're not the only one out there.

Fitbit Challenge is still helping. Yesterday when my professor gave us a ten minute break I took a walk and grabbed another 650 steps instead of just sitting at my computer the whole time. Then when I got home I was way behind my friend & cousin so I hopped on the treadmill for half an hour. I almost didn't because I was perseverating over if I should get started on Zombie Run even though I have that scheduled for next week. I didn't want this walk to not "count" towards that. But I don't have music on my current phone, and listening to podcasts during Zombie Run is sort of weird because two narratives mash together. But then if it didn't count towards Zombies Run then should I even do it? And if I do... Yeah, I spiraled for a while in the car ride home, then said F it, I'm just gonna get on and walk. Tried playing 3DS while walking but it was disorienting and I hunched my back so I opted for an audiobook instead and I was glad I did it. Thanks, I'll be following you too.

Really happy I finally got my Fitbit fixed (it would not sync no matter how much troubleshooting I did). As soon as I got it to sync I challenged my friend and cousin and it's motivating all of us to move more. Hurray for outside accountability. I also started tracking my food in the Fitbit app. Since I'm opening the app periodically it's easier to remember to log my food than using a seperate app. Still working on not letting perfect be the enemy of the good. I feel like if I'm taking the time to log it, the numbers should be perfect but then I'm too caught up in confirming every bit of nutritional info that I get burnt out and stop so trying really hard to not do that.

Thanks for the feedback. Yeah I just have to be more conscious of my choices. Today we were out taking care of several projects so we ate out for lunch and dinner Since I couldn't change that I decided to try tracking what I was eating. It didn't change my lunch choice much since we were eating at a new place and I wanted to see how their food was, but for dinner I entered my food before ordering to help me decide what I should get. Got salad instead of fries and less other food so that was good.

Wow there's some amazing work going on in here. I haven't done much art wise in a while and now I want to.

lol thanks Jean We have 3 adults in the house, no kids. We prepare food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I ideally we would do that seven days a week, but I have evening classes 3 days a week which can make that difficult. Typically we have something quick for breakfast like cereal, but on good days we make spinach & fruit smoothies. On weekends we might do eggs and toast, or oatmeal. When we cook dinner we do a double batch and save half for lunch the next day. My sister is a great chef and does most (all) of the cooking, but we all work full time so we try to find quick prep foods that won't leave her standing in the kitchen for hours. My PCOS causes insulin resistance so I know I need to limit carbohydrates, but I've found conflicting info on how much to limit them. In the past I lost weight when I cut out all carbs, and maintained the loss when I added complex carbs only. So I guess the happy medium would be no simple carbs at all, and occasional complex carbs so I don't feel too constricted. My cholesterol is good, but I need to raise my LDL Cholesterol so I need to add more unsaturated fat to my diet, without also taking in more saturated fat or an insane number of calories. We don't eat much beef or pork, so our main protein source is chicken. We're fine eating tofu but I can't have too much soy because it can mess with my hormones. We also eat fish but tend to save that for Friday or Saturday when we don't need to save it for lunch the next day since it doesn't heat well. I considered adding beans for protein, but they have more carbs then protein so that may not be a good idea. My sister is allergic to tomatoes and shellfish so those are out, and I can't eat raw onion. Sorry that's way longer than I intended it to be ^_^() On the bright side, answering your question is helping clarify all of this for me : )

Gotta get back into posting here regularly. I can do this. Ugh. Why is figuring out an eating plan so hard! I want something that will generate a plan for me based on general guidelines, but not create a plan full of difficult cooking or exotic ingredients. I don't need instagram meals, I need realistic ones. Sigh. Back to searching until I inevitably realize that what I want isn't out there and i need to put the hard work in to just make a plan myself.

Reflecting on this challenge I certainly could have done a lot better, but I am trying to look on the bright side. This was my first real challenge and I am learning as I go. I found that I am definitely an all or nothing kind of person. I can't say I'll do something a certain number of times per week, because it's too easy to say I'll do it another day. So certain things like checking in on NF need to be daily tasks for me. Habits that I can't do every day like running need to be specifically scheduled. The same thing applies to tracking my food choices and water intake. If I'm doing it regularly I make good choices, but it is all to easy for me to forget and not make any attempts at change or improvement. I'm also considering how these challenges are set up and what I need to do to make sure it works for me, my lifestyle and needs, and my brain and body. I won't feel so locked into the guidelines next month and will design my challenge however I think will most benefit me.

Thank you for both checking in. I keep going AWOL. Ack. Not going to do a full write up, but here is my end of challenge update. Diet Drink at least 48oz of water each day Met this goal 7/28 days or 25% success rate Tracked my water 15/28 days Reduce fast food meals to one per week Met this goal 2/4 weeks or 50% Was much more cognizant of my food choices overall Fitness Do ZombiesRun5k 3 days per week Never met this goal. Only used the app once in the entire month. Stretch 5 days per week Failed on this one. Once or twice i stretched for like a minute, but never did proper stretching Level Up My Life Have a heartfelt conversation with the boyfriend for at least five minutes every day Didn't fully track this. Had a very rough start but this pat week we've been doing a lot better See a psychologist about possible ASD Haven't gone but I did contact two and chose who I am going to go to so I'm on the right track.