Chemgeek seeks consistency

[chemgeek]

Mrr. I give myself a well-deserved D for last month's efforts. First failed challenge in a while. Plenty of reasons why, but reasons are just excuses if you don't do anything to address them. 

 

Combo of travel, allergy nonsense, asthma, etc is totally messing up my exercise and sleep. Lack of exercise and sleep are leading to poor decisions on the diet and lifestyle front. Problem is that diet and exercise and sleep feed into the allergy and asthma nonsense. Basically, I let last month's unexpected travel and health challenges set up a negative feed back loop on all aspects of my lifestyle, and that's a problem I need to fix. I can't control travel, but I can control my own behavior. So, time for (another) respawn. The mantra this month is, "Nothing fancy, just consistency." 
 

1. Sleep: In bed by 11, every night except Saturday. Out of bed by 6:30 on weekdays. Nothing fancy, just consistency.
2. Exercise: average 1 hour per day.Just stop with the stress slug routine and get moving (exercise improves my mood anyways and studies show that exercise is at least as good as an extra asthma control med so if I can get myself moving, that will help both the stress and the asthma, and helping the asthma will help the sleep which will help the stress even more - which will in turn help the energy level and help me build momentum on everything this challenge. Almost everything going pear-shaped at present will be helped by me moving more).
   1. "I don't feel like it" work out: 100 squats, 50 pushups, 50 crunches, 250 jumping jacks, 50 burpees. Split into 5 sets as appropriate.
   2. Repeat: Nothing fancy, just consistency. 
3. Food:
   1. Food prep for lunches on Sunday.
   2. Make some home-made breakfasts and breads (I suspect I'm reacting to some pre-made food products because I've noticed when I eat pre-made stuff I tend to have a mystery hives day. I don't eat much pre-made things outside bread and breakfast, so plan is to get myself a bread maker and cut out the pre made stuff entirely for a month and then slowly add stuff back in. This will let me experiment to perfect a home-made whole-wheat bread recipe and do a few other things I've been meaning to do at home, so I'm cool with it. A breadmaker is something I've been considering for a while now, anyway, and really this just gives me an excuse). 
   3. Eat actual vegetables.
   4. Again: Nothing fancy, just consistency. 
4. Other stuff:
   1. Work elbow and ankle strengthening/stretching - I am pretty much 100% from elbow sprain last month but let's NOT have a recurrence, shall we? Do this daily
   2. Writing: Even 10min/day. Just do it. 
   3. "I'll do it tomorrow" penalty: 60s plank. I hate planking. No procrastination allowed this challenge! 

 

Note: Bread maker purchased (yey for online order). Now to await its arrival. In the meantime, I have post-trip laundry and a restock of most nonperishable consumables to get on. 

Re-prioritized everything in the order of their importance to helping me regain good momentum (original version of this had food above exercise). Sleep is the foundation on which my entire lifestyle is built (I have the willpower of a turnip when I'm sleep deprived. Yes, I realize turnips are inanimate objects with no free will. That's kind of exactly my point). Sleep gives me the willpower to be consistent with exercise. After that, exercise improves my mood and my sleep, giving me the motivation to make good food choices, which in turn lead to good sleep and exercise. I know that's kind of backwards of how most people do it (most people make good food choices to fuel sleep and exercise), but for me, if I'm not sleeping and exercising, I seem to be incapable of good food choices. Instead of trying to fight how I'm wired - a big part of why last month was one to forget was shorting myself sleep and expecting myself to magic up willpower out of nowhere to maintain food and exercise momentum - it's better to work with my personality and predisposition. 

[chemgeek]

Slept 11 hours last night (let myself sleep as late as I wanted because was super sleep deprived from a 6AM departure to return home from my work trip yesterday). Awoke feeling fantastic. Promptly got a big chunk of cleaning backlog done, worked out, did laundry, cleaned dishes, went out to buy groceries, ordered the bread maker, ordered my med refills, and now have some home-made granola cooking in the oven.

Fancy that: I get enough sleep and suddenly I'm a productivity machine. 

[Kishi]

"Fatigue makes cowards of us all." It's interesting how we adapt to getting less rest and assuming it's our new normal, and then we actually get rest and holy crow what a difference!

 

Also, total bread envy over here. I remember, we used to make homemade sourdough when I was growing up and it was pretty much the best thing. Haven't thought about that in a long time, and now it's something that's on my mind, so, thanks for that.

 

All seriousness, though, it does sound like you identified a central switch that you can flip to create virtuous rather than vicious cycles. It already sounds like you've flipped it, so now you have to keep it in that position. Easier said than done. Good luck!

[chemgeek]

Good news: Blood test came back negative.  This means I am probably not allergic to peanuts!

 

Bad news: we still don't know what I DID react to. :/

 

soooo... ?

 

At present best guess is really bad oral allergy syndrome or to honey. 

 

Dr said to work nuts back in and just do watchful waiting.

[Mistr]

On 8/12/2018 at 11:16 AM, chemgeek said:

Re-prioritized everything in the order of their importance to helping me regain good momentum (original version of this had food above exercise). Sleep is the foundation on which my entire lifestyle is built (I have the willpower of a turnip when I'm sleep deprived. Yes, I realize turnips are inanimate objects with no free will. That's kind of exactly my point). Sleep gives me the willpower to be consistent with exercise. After that, exercise improves my mood and my sleep, giving me the motivation to make good food choices, which in turn lead to good sleep and exercise. I know that's kind of backwards of how most people do it (most people make good food choices to fuel sleep and exercise), but for me, if I'm not sleeping and exercising, I seem to be incapable of good food choices. Instead of trying to fight how I'm wired - a big part of why last month was one to forget was shorting myself sleep and expecting myself to magic up willpower out of nowhere to maintain food and exercise momentum - it's better to work with my personality and predisposition. 

^^^^^^^^^^^This is perfect.

 

So many people try to make things move against the stream of their lives. You are addressing the foundation first. I hope your sudden burst of energy did not tempt you to stretch your curfew.  

[chemgeek]

Slept well. Was tempted to lazy but I made myself go for one class. One became 2. I worked out so hard my gi is soaked and for a while I could both hear and see my pulse. Wiped. In a good way. 

 

Now to go home and finish off the healthy day with a healthy stir fry.

[chemgeek]

Food: chicken stir fry with orange and yellow pepper and shanghai choi. 

[chemgeek]

Planned treat day yesterday (rotisserie chicken + poutine + cake for supper). Back on track today: Breakfast of hemp hearts, chia, blueberries, dried unsweetened cranberries, and yogurt. Lunch will be stewed black beans with spinach, peppers and onions. Supper is sweet potato and mixed vegetables with eggs. 

Plan once the breadmaker arrives is to make some oat whole wheat brown bread.

 

Going in early to work to be able to leave in time to go to martial arts for the first class assuming I'm in the mood to deal with children this evening (yesterday would've been a hard no - I made an assumption I shouldn't've made, and a work snafu resulted. One of those situations where everyone did their job, but the bad thing happened anyway. I need to think about our communication processes to figure out how to avoid it in the future). 

[Legionary]

Bread makers are a nice addition to the kitchen. We used to make home made pizza dough with it when I was a kid, plus fresh breads are great for morale in general. 

[chemgeek]

Doing the "Don't feel like it" workout today not cuz I don't feel like it but because I forgot to pack a critical part of my uniform for martial arts and didn't discover that until it would be too late to double back and pick it up while making it in time for class. Rawrg. 

 

So. FRIGGIT. I am still working out dammit! 

NTS: Stop lying to yourself with the, "I'll remember to pack it after" line. You forget it. Every time. Just pack the thing when you notice it's not in the bag. Enough of this nonsense. 

 

EDIT: Workout complete and hooboy. 

I'd worried I was too conservative in setting the "don't feel like it" workout. Nope. I can tell I've been slacking bodyweight exercises lately. Only the squats and the jumping jacks were easy - and of the remainder, I seriously struggled with the last set of pushups and side peels. Sooo yeah. Not in fact too conservative. I have just lost that much strength since I was training this stuff diligently back in May. :\

[chemgeek]

Welp. 

 

Breadmaker arrived yesterday. Got back from martial arts, decided to set it up. 

 

Realized the counter needed a deep clean. Cleaned it. Realized toaster, slow cooker and rice cooker could all use a clean so cleaned those too. Then noticed the kitchen was now asymmetrically clean. And... snowball. 

 

Tl;dr that is how I spent 4 hours giving a long-overdue deep clean to the kitchen and literally all of the kitchen appliances. 

 

Thankfully I need groceries so managed to stop at just the kitchen else I would've been at it all day.

 

Also I really need to learn to get over my irrational hangup about things needing to match cleanness. This whole "I seem to be psychologically incapable of cleaning just one thing" thing is super annoying and disruptive. I mean the cleaning needed doing but I had plans for today.

[chemgeek]

Heyyy so if you ever find rhat squats are too easy, I just gotta say: frog jumps, y'all. Frog jumps. Did 30 yesterday and the DOMS is real. :p

[chemgeek]

Sooo. Just realized: Since I respawned a bit under a week ago, my asthma control has steadily improved. Last week, I was using my rescue puffer 1-5 times a day (WAY too much, for those without asthma - the target for well-controlled asthma is twice a week or less). I was also waking up several times a night with breathing problems (target for asthmatics is less than once a week), and having a hard time with chest tightness, coughing and shortness of breath in exercise (goal is for asthmatics to be able to exercise normally). With sleep, better diligence on house cleaning, better diligence on asthma plan compliance, and regular exercise, I haven't used my rescue puffer since Friday. 

 

Now. SOME of that is weather-related (we had like a week and a half straight of severe thunderstorm weather and that weather is the only type of weather that's a really bad asthma trigger for me - sounds weird but thunderstorm asthma is real and dangerous, and I get it less bad than some but still bad enough to sludgify my lungs). But a good chunk of that is lifestyle, and this is a good reminder that taking time for self care is necessary. 

Let It Be Known that the low point in my personal health was also my low point in personal self-care time, and a time when my lung function was about 30% of what it is today... a big chunk of that was my cats (and why I no longer live with cats and had to find them a new home - my asthma is badly triggered enough by cats that if I were to own a cat, I would go from reasonably healthy to practically disabled in about a year flat. Because that's what happened last time. Cats totally wreck my lungs), but a lot of it was the fact that I was 60lbs heavier, never exercised and didn't eat well.  Lifestyle matters for all folks with chronic illness, but it seems to really be the dominant factor in my overall wellness, both mentally and physically. 

 

So I guess the lesson for this challenge is to slow down. Stop trying to do All The Things and instead focus on what's important to me and my health.

[Mistr]

On 8/16/2018 at 6:06 PM, chemgeek said:

NTS: Stop lying to yourself with the, "I'll remember to pack it after" line. You forget it. Every time. Just pack the thing when you notice it's not in the bag. Enough of this nonsense. 

 

Oh yeah, been there far too often. I now do things right away when I think of them. I do not trust my memory to bring up the reminder at a helpful time. No, I'll remember halfway to work about something I needed to pack. Much better to save the brain cycles by doing it right away.

[Kishi]

On ‎8‎/‎19‎/‎2018 at 11:52 AM, chemgeek said:

So I guess the lesson for this challenge is to slow down. Stop trying to do All The Things and instead focus on what's important to me and my health.

 

This is a hard lesson, and it's one I'm struggling to learn to do, mostly because I'm just ragingly insecure about my results. (how tf you mean I can outfight and outrun everyone and still not have a six pack despite going on cut? must be something in the training. Do all the things! *CRACK* ow ow ow)

 

It's a good lesson for all its difficulty. I will struggle alongside you, because it's worthwhile. Life is so much better this way.

[Jigme]

@chemgeek hey, I've had these weird allergy reactions to nothing and now I'm getting tested for this bad boy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mast_cell_activation_syndrome.

[chemgeek]

What kind of specialist do you need to see for that one?

[chemgeek]

Accountability note: I am socially drained this week. Client site visit most of this week means all social, all the time. Adding to social, I had martial arts on Tuesday and game night yesterday. I am naturally an introvert, left to my own devices (e.g., when I have a week off if my partner isn't around) I can and will hermit to total isolation for days at a time. I don't start itching for face-to-face human contact until I've been alone for about three or four days. I'm running on fumes, social brainpower-wise. 

I want to go to martial arts anyway. I made great progress on my kata Tuesday and don't want to lose it. Also working kata really recharges my mental batteries. 

So posting my intentions here so it's public and I have to explain myself if I give into the temptation to bail and hermit. 

[Kishi]

I feel your pain. I usually have to go train when I don't feel like it on a people level. You'll feel better for going.

[chemgeek]

I know - that's why I made the accountability post. Thanks for the encouragement though.

[chemgeek]

Went. Still socially wiped. Smashed my knee but good on a training partner's shin (I think. Something bony and harder than that side of my knee anyway) and have an impressive swelling already and also poked myself in the eye blocking a jab against a dude with fully 13" and 70lbs on me.  That will teach me not to hold my nonblocking hand too high. May have a shiner tomorrow. 

 

Ow. 

 

More annoying cuz both were my own fault.

 

I do feel better tho. Injuries aside.

[chemgeek]

I have the beginnings of a nice bruise on my knee. The area is bigger than my palm but smaller than my hand... buuut I can bear weight and pain is mild so nice bruise but nothing serious. Also no shiner but my eye area is still tender from eye poke.

[Jigme]

On 8/22/2018 at 4:59 PM, chemgeek said:

What kind of specialist do you need to see for that one?

 

It was a referral from my PT to a family doctor in the area who does this sort of thing. That doctor, in turn, ordered a bunch of tests to measure histamine levels: a blood test and two tests that required 24-hour urine collection, which was an absolute blast to pull off at work, let me tell you.  Pay no attention to the plastic bag with a jug in my cubicle...

[chemgeek]

Ah. Something to keep in mind. For now allergist would like to take a watchful waiting approach. See if it was a fluke or not.

 

Also I am sick with a virus today (partner was laid up with it all week and it is apparently my turn) and it is mainly making me weak and lightheaded and tired (as in I slept 14 hours last night and could sleep more). No work out as that would push me too hard.

[Kishi]

Yikes. Get some rest, man. The training will still be there when you're ready.