AggieGrace

You make a strong argument. It's still my failure color, but consider me somewhat swayed.

Not especially, it's just a very assertive color. I'm a green girl through and through. Thank you! I have to out-SMART the evil me that just wants to eat oreos and chicken fingers and milkshakes and not move ever. I'm a visualizer, so knowing what my next meal is usually means I'm picturing it, whereas me not knowing my next meal defaults to picturing those non-nutritiously dense items above. Once these things become habits, I can probably relax a little and just plan meals and workouts instead of EVERYTHING but for now, we are accountable af and we'll grow onwards and upwards!

Week 1 Accountability. I may add some more Prime Livestreams to keep myself focused on my wellness, but my cleaning time, my meals, and my workouts are all scheduled per the challenge. An adjustment to my preferred fasted time was made for Saturday to accomodate a family BBQ. I MAY decide to switch the pancakes and smoothie around to get that nice load of fiber right before a 5PM-1PM fast. My goal was to balance fruits and vegetables, and to eat sustainable, small meals up until my larger dinners, which I get through Blue Apron. I estimate I'll be around 1400 calories per day, which is about on track with where I'd want to be with my weight loss goals, BMR and activity level. All of this looks more overwhelming than it actually is, however because of it's daunting nature, I added some deliberate self care activities to keep myself feeling good/on track and to prevent feeling overwhelmed. After a week, I will probably start adding in some actual weigh ins and measurements, but for the first week and probably second week, we're only focused on actions.

First challenge! I'm trying to use SMART goals more, so these are set up pretty specifically. Each challenge is meant to be specific, clearly measurable, attainable (meaning I give myself some flexibility, and do not strive for perfection), realistic (meaning I will not try to become Captain Marvel overnight), and timebound (5 weeks). I'm setting these up this way not because the evil voice in my head is a master manipulator and will talk me into all kinds of silliness if I don't. I will return to this thread after dinner tonight and print my goals out as a handout (possibly with a little design flair) and keep a copy by my desk and in my kitchen. Nutrition - I will set aside a 5 hour awake period where I do not eat food, as part of working my way into sustainably doing intermittent fasting. IF has been the best fit for helping with my binge eating, and has been the easiest to stick to, when I hold myself accountable. We are breaking up with grazing all day! We will notate this time on Google Calendar and honor it to the best of our ability. When we do not honor the 5 hour period, we will set the color of the event to Orange (as I do not like orange, so this is a tiny punishment/deterrent). We will try not to break this fasted period more than 7 times in the 5 week challenge (80% success rate) - I will know what my next meal is and I will stick to this plan at least 75% of the time. I will put my meal plan in Google Calendar. When I do not stick to the planned meal, I will change the color of the event to orange, so I can track my success rate. Estimating two meals and a snack per day, this means 105 meals in total, this means we need can only afford 26 mistakes. We will not consider additional snacks eaten for reasons that are solely to fulfill an unanticipated nutritional need to be mistakes, provided they whole food, properly proportioned snacks. (IE if we do a really good workout, and need more protein into our plan, it is okay to eat an extra egg or sausage as a snack, or if we do a great cardio workout before work and need an extra boost mid-day, it is okay to have a mango or some grapes) Fitness -I will alternate body weight, running intervals (5K training), and rest days, fixed to days of the week to keep track more simply. I will do at least 10 minutes of the workout on the day it is assigned, even if that's all I can do, this is better than nothing. I will try to grow, improve and do better with each work out, but I will forgive myself if I don't always exceed expectations. I will allow myself to make up a missed workout on a rest day without penalty. I will stick to my plan 90% of the time, meaning we can miss 3 workouts without making them up and still succeed. Missed workouts that were not made up will be tracked in brown on our Google Calendar. An extra rest day on Sunday July 19th will be awarded if the NF5K is complete. Sunday - Body Weight Monday - Rest Day Tuesday - Running Intervals Wednesday - Body Weight Thursday - Rest Day Friday - Running Intervals Saturday (excluding NF5K) Body Weight. Level Up My Life I will start to organize my space in a way that will become eventually easily sustainable. I will set aside no fewer than 3 hours per week for the 5 weeks for cleaning, organizing, folding, sorting, and putting things away. I will actually do whatever I say I am going to do in the time set aside. I will bundle this time with an activity I enjoy to make it more enjoyable (IE I will listen to an audiobook I really like while I clean, or put on a movie I've wanted to watch forever on the condition I fold a load of laundry while it plays) - I will take a before and after picture of my space. If I do not stick to my goal, I will embarrass myself and post the before picture of my room on this thread at the end of the challenge. Success for this challenge is both meeting the time goal, as well as putting myself in a position where 1 hour of cleaning per week is enough to stay decent.