athousandwords

The second half of this challenge (or, I guess, this entire 5 week challenge if it were in the appropriate channel) has been a little disappointing for me, personally. I feel like I haven't gotten my momentum back since we returned from the beach. And maybe that's understandable: school started last week, DH has been traveling more than normal, I had some intense deadlines at work, and I'm trying to settle into a new routine. But this challenge was supposed to be an easy "coast" - sort of a baseline that I could do even when life was unpredictable - and I'm frustrated in myself that I've let so many habits drop over the last five weeks. 🌊 Drink 64oz water daily I thought this would be easy to pick back up again - I wasn't great at hydrating while we were on vacation, but back home it was almost second nature to fill my big 24oz Tervis 3x a day. But I guess I got used to being dehydrated because my body hasn't been sending out thirst cues and I haven't been taking care of this at all. I'm trying to return over this lead though. Yesterday I drank 6 cups of water, and today I'm going to push for 9. 🍍 Track on LoseIt daily The first week we got back from the beach I got right back into tracking. And it was fine! But about midweek we went out for dinner or something and I just wasn't in the mood to estimate calories, so I let it slip. Then another day slipped. Then another. I've tried with varying success to get back into logging over the last three weeks and I'm just having trouble pushing through. It feels like too much of a bother to figure out what I'm eating and track it (even though I've been tracking pretty easily for about 9 months now). I think there's two things going on here: 1) The manual effort of logging feels too high at the moment. I think I could push past this - like I said, I've been logging for months and it's not actually that difficult once I get used it again. 2) I know once I start paying attention to calories again, I'm going to realize how much I'm overeating. And I guess I don't feel significantly motivated to stop overeating. This is the cycle that gets me every time. I lose some weight, I get in a good mindset around eating more mindfully with smaller portions and fewer empty calories. And then I take a vacation where I eat (and drink) junk and it's like my stomach adjusts to those new portion sizes and demands more. Suddenly I'm not sated with a full plate of food, I need that and snacks after dinner. Or an extra serving. Or a bar of chocolate for a midday pick-me-up. And I forget that I was actually pretty content even when losing weight and tell myself I'm going to be missing out if I go back to tracking calories. None of this is really true (I realize as I'm typing). But the urgency of losing weight has sort of passed (even if I still have a long term goal and my pants are still a little tight) so I tell myself, eh, I'll start again next week! And then next week and next week and next week passes until I'm right back where I was. I guess recognizing the cycle is important. But my little ADHD brain needs some kind of carrot to get back on track and I haven't figured out what it is yet. 🏄‍♀️ Move 60,000 steps weekly This one is better than the others. Last week I logged about 53,000 steps, which was a little lower than I'd like, but the two weeks prior were both over 60k. I still feel like I have some good habits here, I just need to prioritize getting these steps in. And I'd still like to aim for higher numbers (especially since I'm not going any other exercise right now), but I'm mostly happy with what I'm doing. ⛱️ Update NF 2x weekly Um, does writing a mega-long post after 10 days of nothing count...? My own posts aside, I feel like I've gotten out of touch with my friends here, because of course I feel guilty about not doing well on my own challenge so I avoid getting on this site at all, which means not checking in on anyone else. And that's kind of shitty because this is the only connection I have with y'all and now I don't know what anyone has been up to for the last few weeks and have to play catch-up. And that's the nature of NF, I know, but I wish I were doing better at this aspect. So that's where I am. There's one week left in the challenge and I'm going to resist the temptation to just be like, fuck it, I'll start up again next challenge. I can get back to baseline for one last week and it'll make the next challenge that much better. So I'm pledging to get back to my goals this week and to check in again on Friday and Sunday with updates. And to try to rekindle some of that back-to-school energy for the start of the next challenge. Let's go.

Yoga with Adriene is the only one I've really followed. She has a playlist of short yoga routines just to get the ball rolling.

Either works for me! I was originally thinking a duration - like 5 min every day - but now that you mention it, I like the idea of trying to do a yoga flow!

All in all, this week is going well so far. I'm back to tracking and drinking and walking and checking in on NF. And I've been thinking about my next challenge - even though we still have 2.5 weeks to go on the current challenge, this one has been running since June for me and I'm ready to take on new things. Plus the kids start school next week and I'm high on that back to school energy. Some things I'm playing with right now: TWO walks a day. What?? #2MuchWalking?? Maybe. But I'm trying out a quick morning walk to greet the day right after the kids get dropped off at school (during the school year the bus comes at 7:15, so plenty of time for a refreshing walk before I have to start work). This is also the time when I used to run, and with my annual 8k coming back up in March, I'll probably transition to some light running during this time again. But I also want to keep my mid-day walk during a meeting. My coworkers have come to expect seeing me on my treadmill during our 1-hr calls, it keeps me more focused on the conversation, and it feels like such an easy way to get in some "free" exercise. Stretch goal - admittedly I haven't started this yet, but I'm thinking about it. Especially when my joints and bones feel all creaky and I realize it would be so good for my overall health to stretch more. Strength goal - same thing for overall health. I'm in awe of all the barbarians here doing powerlifting at the gym. I think doing at least a little ST every week would help me age better. That's all exercise stuff. I feel like I'm doing okay on diet these days, so no need to change what I'm doing. Maybe I'll try to do some kind of extra-curricular goal, but my attempts with that have gone poorly when it's not well defined. Though a declutter goal to get back on track with our eventual move might be good...

Can't wait to see the house once it all dries - I love the color now, but I agree it would look divine with a darker, evergreen tone. And I am so proud of you for taking that leap to talk to the coach!! And jealous too! I wish a reasonably priced coach would fall into my lap. 😆 I have all my fingers and toes crossed that this works out for you - it sounds like the start of something fantastic!

I have a picture like this from the beach last week. I want to look at it and see the happy memory: my husband, son, and I crashing into the waves. But instead I just see a person I don't recognize, who looks nothing like what I see in the mirror or my own mind. The crazy thing is, I don't overanalyze how my husband looks or my son looks - I love them no matter what physical space they take up, and I can recognize when an unflattering photo of them is just that: a moment that the camera captures when they're not focused on being perceived. But I can't apply that grace to myself. Not yet anyway. I'm catching up, but I love your villain arc and I can't wait to see where you go with it. ❤️ 😈

Adding to my TBR. I've been chasing that high since 2007. 😭

Welcome back from vacay and happy belated birthday!

I know!! Just a year or two ago I was going to yoga regularly and I think my brain still thinks that counts. 😂 Want to do a stretch goal with me next challenge? I'm thinking about starting with just 2 or 5 minutes a day and trying to work my way up from there. I know I can't be held accountable to 30 min a day, but some is better than none!

Is this the meme that gets me to finally start getting in the habit of stretching? ...maybe....

Home again, home again. Two weeks at the beach was marvellous, but admittedly, it's nice to be home. Although today was a little rough - I had a headache all day, maybe from being back on a computer, maybe just my body rebelling against being at work instead of the beach. Week 7 / 8 / 9 Trackers (Or, the week leading up to the beach and then 2 weeks on vacation): 🌊 Drink 64oz water daily ✅ ❌ ❌ 🍍 Track on LoseIt daily ❌ ❌ ❌ 🏄‍♀️ Move 60,000 steps weekly ✅ ✅ ✅ ⛱️ Update NF 2x weekly ✅ ❌ ❌ And that's really all there is to say about that. Our beach time was a lot of fun - we got lucky with absolutely amazing weather the first week and we took advantage of it, getting out to the beach almost every day. The kids had a great time playing in the sand, my 7yo learned how to boogie board, we stuffed ourselves with seafood, and spent a lot of lazy days drinking hard seltzer on the beach. The second week we moved to a condo that was a little further from the beach but closer to some museums and other things to do, which ended up being a prescient move. Hurricane Debbie thankfully left us alone, but did bring a lot of rain. But we had some windows of nice weather so we got out to a lot of local attractions: visiting the Wright Brothers memorial, the Outer Banks aquarium, the original Roanoke colony site, and the largest natural sand dune on the East Coast. We also did some shopping, eating, drinking, board gaming, and lots of relaxing. I'm trying to kick this week off on the right foot. It's our last week with the kids in summer camp before they have M-W off next week and school starts on Thurs. And of course hubby's flying out for a quick business trip tomorrow morning, and maybe again next week. 🫤 But I'm going to focus on what I can control: actually drinking water, restarting the food logging habit, keeping up with my steps, and, of course, getting back to NF. I decided for now to just continue logging on this thread - apologies to anyone who doesn't check old threads (although I suppose you're not seeing this). I just want to finish out the last 3 weeks here because it feels like a good record of the summer and start fresh with a new thread in September.

Well, as you may be able to tell by the lack of updates, I am in full beach vacay mode and not checking in much on the internet at all. It's been all beach, pool, conversation, and Olympics coverage here and it's been a blast. My goals are all over the map, but here's a brief run down on where we stand: Hydration: Great last week, not so great at all this week. Do hard seltzers count as water?? LoseIt: This one just completely fell off. Last week was so stressful with packing and solo parenting that something had to give, and it was calorie tracking. And I haven't picked it back up this week, and truthfully won't next week either. I'm just enjoying not being hooked to my phone all the time, honestly. Steps: Smashed it out of the park last week, doing okay this week. I've tried to get in some steps along the beach, and I'm averaging decent numbers. I'd like to get out a little more, but I'm happy where I'm at. Posting on NF: Well, I'm here now. I'll figure out if I'm going to make a new thread when I get home or maybe I'll just keep updating this I've. I'm not too fussed if no one checks for updates honestly, it's going to be a quiet couple of weeks!

Yay for the dentistry savings and the beautiful completed BuJo tracker. I love the thoughtful reflection you're bringing to your next challenge and I hope you settle on something that works for you. But if not, no harm in trying again next challenge - or midway - or whenever you feel the pull toward different goals.

Hope everything goes well with the move this week! Remember to have some grace with yourself: one week of pizza and easy foods is not going to undo all the progress you've made. You'll be settled in soon enough!

Congrats on learning and growing through your challenge. If this is 'so long' for a while I wish you all the luck on your journey!

Wait - do you not just go through your notifications to see updates??

Congrats on completing your challenge! Sounds like you did pretty great overall. ❤️ That screen time thing is so difficult - I'll be curious to see what you come up with for next time.

I try to take one meeting a day while walking and it's such a nice way to get in "free" movement! Hope it works out for you!

I realized I've been pretty bad about checking in on everyone else's challenge threads, so I started to take a look around and was actually surprised to see everyone's challenge wrap ups and realize it's zero week already. 😆 Anyway - I'm sticking with this same challenge all summer, but I suppose I'll create a new post when the next boards go live. Or maybe stick with this one...? It's not like they lock down these posts... hmmm.

Have you read Atomic Habits? This reminds me a lot of how he breaks down habit building in terms of aspiring to an identity and then breaking down the concrete steps you can take that validate/affirm that identity and further breaking those into smaller actions that you can build upon. It feels like a really useful framework, and I specifically like how you've broken your example of learning Germanic languages - but I agree, it somehow feels easier to do this with an academic/deliverable-based outcome vs something a little more nebulous like "health". I'd challenge: why does it matter if you don't want to do it in 5 years as long as you want to do it today? Or, what's wrong with following a course that you think would be fun for the next year - just because you may not want to pursue it after that year? It feels a little like you're approaching life like a dissertation; something you have to commit to for a set amount of time without changing course. And while maybe that's true for some things (sure, we have a limited amount of time and energy, if you're working toward goal "A" you may not be able to give focus to goal "B", which could make it harder to pivot) - but in general I don't see any fault with achieving a single-point goal and then deciding whether you want to continue or move on to something different. Or maybe just a healthy mix. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Week 6 Trackers 🌊 Drink 64oz water daily ✅ 🍍 Track on LoseIt daily ✅ 🏄‍♀️ Move 60,000 steps weekly ✅ ⛱️ Update NF 2x weekly ✅ This was a good week - felt like I was getting back in the groove of things. Step count was better, even though I was still short on Sunday night. I ended up cleaning up the basement after this kids went to bed and then walked around house while writing up task lists on my phone and finally just pacing around my bedroom to get those last 100 or so steps in (I was not going to fall short on this goal with just a few steps to go!). We had a really lovely weekend here - it was a really good mix of work hard/play hard. On Friday I spent about 7 hours power-washing everything outside: the back patio was a nightmare, the back deck, all the outdoor furniture and outdoor toys are all de-grimed. Then we took the kids out to dinner and the local baseball game, which was actually packed and super fun. It had a real different energy than the MLB game we went to earlier this summer - players were stealing bases and playing dirty. 😆 We had to leave a little early because the kids were getting restless, but overall it was a fun time. Then on Saturday we spent the whole morning weeding the front garden beds (which had grown into a jungle with us neglecting them this summer) and I spray-painted our mailbox. It rained a little, but cleared up in time for us to go to a Wine & Food festival downtown. It ended up being perfect because the rain cooled everything down and it was a gorgeous night. We got to try a few new wineries, they had tons of kids activities like painting and coloring and face paint, and a fantastic band that the kids spent hours dancing to. Perfect way to spend the evening. ❤️ Matt left for a conference on Sunday and I took this kids to his parent's house to hang out and swim at the pool. We did dinner and bath over there, which made for a really easy evening when we got home. It was a good way to start what's going to be a crazy busy week. Matt doesn't get back until Friday - the same day our house-sitters are due to arrive. Then we leave for the beach on Saturday. So this week I have to handle all the packing, getting the house ready for the sitters, plus all the normal parenting stuff. And I have a big project at work to wrap up. 🫠 I have lists and reminders and calendar blocking set up for basically everything. I did grocery pickup this morning and put together a super simple meal plan that's mostly easy meals, take out, and leftovers. One good thing is that I have 1hr meetings I can walk on the treadmill during every day this week, so at least I'll get my steps in easily, which is great because it's going to be raining all week. I'll just be over here singing this all week:

SW: 170 6/17: 169.6 6/24: - 7/01: - 7/08: 173.4 7/15: 171.8 7/22: 171.6 Still hovering around maintenance, which is fine. It's been a busy week and losing weight isn't really my primary goal this summer. Trying not to get in my head about it even though it would have been nice for the scale to nudge down a little...

Midway through the week and things are going pretty well. I've really been making strides on my step goal (🥁) - I woke up at 6am a couple times this week to get in an early morning walk before the rest of the household got up, and twice I took 1-hour calls on the treadmill. I have about 30k steps right now, so I guess I need to step it up (🥁) for the last three days this week to hit the second half of my goal. Meal plan and eating at home has been solid - I feel like I'm closing in on a meal plan rubric that makes for easier meal prep. It's a good mix of meals-with-leftovers and quick-easy-single-meals that lets us do a clean out the fridge night on Thursdays. So no cooking tonight, which is nice. Tomorrow we're talking about going to our local collegiate league baseball game, so we'll probably get dinner out before that. I'm already starting to stress out about next week - Matt's out of town, big work deadline looming, packing for the beach, and getting our house prepped for house sitters. But I'm trying not to borrow stress. Next week may be rough, but there's vacation in sight.

That worked - What a fun trip! The moose and bison were so cool, and I love the page layouts. I honestly thought you meant physical scrapbooking, not digital! But now I love the idea of having friends come over to do digital scrapbooking together. I always put that sort of thing off.

SW: 170 6/17: 169.6 (-0.4) 6/24: - 7/01: - 7/08: 173.4 (+3.4) 7/15: 171.8 (+1.8) Down a little from last week's weigh-in, but still up from my starting weight this challenge. My goal is to be back under that starting weight before we leave for the beach in two weeks (where I'll probably gain it all back 😂).