Dear Diary

[Inazea]

Sooo, a battle log. The battle of everyday life.

At first I wasn't sure because I'm already tracking intake and exercise on MFP but then I figured there is more to life than that (plus I was advised "to put" myself "out there", ha).

I want this to be about more than just food and exercise especially since there is not much yet to report, it's also somewhat like a diary accompanying my challenges and epic quest and other daily battles. Like getting out of bed.

 

I basically have 4 major goals (broken down into smaller, more specific steps in other places):

• body transformation - meaning losing fat, gaining strength and agility, but also to just be happy with how I look, not just the function; I also factor physical health in this

• academics - I'm majoring in Biology and still have a long way ahead, aiming for a PhD but depression keeps kicking my butt and with every setback I contemplate dropping out despite this being my passion (apart from writing)

• mental health - huge factor in my life, living with major depressive disorder and social anxiety/anhedonia is no fun (ha, get it?), I want to work towards leading a somewhat "normal" life to actually be able to achieve my other goals

• skills - up until I was about 20 I learnt so much, enjoyed learning facts and skills and practicing them, I'm still a curious person (especially regarding natural sciences) and I want to get back to that and learn a few handy skills and just study the things and topics I am interested in

 

I intend to follow my steps towards those goals here, for consistency, accountability and (hopefully) daily reflection on how I'm doing, what I'm doing and what can be improved. 

[Inazea]

Starting with today, March 8:

I did nothing. Well, that's not quite right, I finished the Southern Reach trilogy and had a very great day regarding eating. 

I made grilled zucchini with quorn, enough to eat from it all day and be full, it was super delicious and healthy and adding two potatoes it covered the calories needed.

And I ran some errands and got 45 minutes of walking in with that.

[Inazea]

Today I stayed in my calorie range, more protein than yesterday so that's good! 

And I did the Motion to Burn exercise from the Nike Training Club, no burn though.

I got some studying done, not as much as I want to but still an improvement compared to not studying at all.

Once again I got reminded why I need to find my own place as soon as possible.

It is time to choose the next book I will read tonight in bed and I keep my fingers crossed I will go for a run tomorrow.

[Inazea]

Sunday is refeed day so naturally I blew my budget but only by 80 kcal so who cares, right? 

Part of today's workout were burpees, my legs can carry me a few miles including uphill runs but apparently 5 burpees are too much, really have to work on that if I want to get into sprinting. Might as well start with that as soon as the storms are over and I can safely go run in the woods again. Hopefully in a few days, the local government has been sending out warnings for a week now telling everyone to stay inside if possible because of hurricanes. I have errands to run, dammit.

BUT that's perfect reading weather, since I reread the first two Harry Potter books last month I figured why not just continue you with the third and now I'm already halfway through.

 

I should study more, right? 

[Inazea]

Rest day! And I made an incredibly delicious pizza loaded with veggies and cheese, still managed to stay within my calorie budget. I have neither read nor played videogames, what have I done? I have hardly any recollection of today. D:

 

Today I took a step back and looked at how far I've come since I decided to put a stop to my low in January, my living situation hasn't changed yet but I've managed to take care of a few things that made it easier on me and I made/am making preparations for major changes in the near future and that is something I can be really proud of especially since I'm pretty much lacking support. I tend to beat myself up because I've been working on losing fat for so long now and keep falling off the band wagon, I've been writing at this book for 3 years now and don't seem to get any closer to be able to send it off, I still can't run a 5k but I'm actually already fighting other battles which I am not losing. I need to cut myself some slack.

[Inazea]

The great thing about the Harry Potter books is that I can't put them down, the bad thing about the Harry Potter books is that I can't put them down. I wish I could be paid to read.

 

My eating today was good, so much cabbage! I love cabbage! But I have to find ways to up my calorie intake that does not just consist of cheese. 

 

Every once in a while I noticed my knee acting up so I got out my old plan from the physician and got to work, hoping it'll do the trick. I should make especially the hip workout and stretches a habit I keep beyond getting rid of the pain to make sure it stays at bay...

[Inazea]

Today was rather unproductive but at least I got some cardio done and had a delicious and healthy lunch thanks to my dad. Though his negativity was a great reminder why I prefer to choose my family myself. 

 

I looked over my goals, what I want to achieve overall, and noticed that I did break most things down into smaller goals but felt like it's still too... unstructured? I realized that making a time oriented long term plan would make the single steps more obvious and especially steps I may not have thought of but are crucial so that is something I will do tomorrow and then incorporate into my planner.

[Inazea]

Just a quick check in for yesterday and today.

Eating was alright on both days, I did reach my calories and protein goal so that's good. Had a quick strength workout session. 

I noticed that my body needs some maintanance and that I should look for a new dentist but I keep pushing it aside, telling myself I'd do that once I have my own place and less things to worry about but the truth is that this is very important so I should kick my own butt and find a new dentist on Monday.

[Inazea]

I was out and about all day yesterday, kinda regret it? I got healthy food but eating on the go is always super expensive especially when not going for fast food. Plus I have a really hard time being a social animal, I should say no to spending time with people more often! And then continue complaining that I can't find people with similar goals and that I am all alone in my journey, ha.

 

Today was a very relaxing day but was under my calorie goal, even below the minimum I should eat in a day... Tomorrow will be very busy so I should make sure to take time to eat properly. 

[Inazea]

It's been a week since my last check in, my days of underdating continued until I decided to keep a bag of nuts and seeds with me at all times. That was definitely one of my brightest ideas lately. And people say mindless snacking is bad, pft! 

There was also a lot of hiking involved the past few days, enjoying that rare sunshine. 

Also I got diagnosed with ADD this week so that explains a lot but it does make me feel a lot less bad about my lack of discipline and I'm on the right track to learn to work with it. Unfortunately the people in my life still don't respect my need for silence when I want to focus on something.

 

I need to get back on track and keep my goals in mind, I feel like I've lost them a bit over the past (almost) two weeks.

[Inazea]

I took a long, nice walk today and topped it off with a lower body strength session that made the walk to the fridge a lot harder than I like it to be. Worth it.

Stayed under my calorie goal but hit my protein goal.

Finished reading another book in just two days.

Today was a pretty productive day in general, I didn't get any writing done but apart from that I was able to check everything on my to do list so that's pretty sweet!

Now I just have to keep that up.

[Inazea]

So much for consistency. Ha. 

Life and especially mental health can throw me off the bandwagon really easily.

But I have been back on track for about a week now after I changed my mindset from worrying about what I look like and using that as my main motivation to what I can do with my body and more importantly what I want to be able to do. One follows the other anyways.

Due to my knee injury I can't go running but hiking is fine so last week I simply walked on my usual running trails through the woods four times and it was really nice, I figured I could make it more exciting my exploring new trails and see how long they are so I can progress in running once I can do that again.

 

I have been eating on maintanance and kept my body weight, now I've been eating with a 500 kcal deficit for a while and also been keeping my body weight so that's something I should be looking into since the body fat stayed pretty much the same too. 

 

At least I have read quite a few books in the meantime and I'm 3 books ahead of schedule for my reading goal this year. It's really satisfying to watch my to read pile shrink.

[Inazea]

I did not do very well the past few days, apart from one hike and a few strength sessions I didn't move much and my eating has been... full of cakes. Hooray for poor impulse control.

On the bright side I got more reading done and I spent the last days with a lot of writing too so that's good.

 

I need to find a structure that makes me think about writing down how my day went, etc., because I tend to forget about that.

[Inazea]

I talked to my therapist about the impulse control and she told me to write down the circumstances, how I feel, etc., whenever I stuff my face with cake, candy, chocolate and not to worry yet about doing it eventhough I'd obviously prefer to have it solved immediately. Anyways, just forcing myself to think about the situations makes me stop beforehand and in about 99% of the cases I prevented myself from acting impulsively despite not even having the goal of stopping myself. So that was a very sweet and uplifting experience.

 

I did a whole body workout yesterday and now every muscle is sore but I've been pretty consistent with it since I climbed on the band wagon again so keeping my fingers crossed my brain will continue to recognize it as a good thing.

I've also been practicing the piano more often and now that the rainy days appear to be back I might be able to finish some video games I started playing ages ago. Plus more reading! 

[Inazea]

I've been pretty consistent lately apart from strength training but I'm still doing a lot of hiking so I give myself big credit for that. 

And over the past few years I've been told over and over again that low carb is pretty good for thyroid patients, still don't know if it's true but what I do know is that it helps me up my protein intake and I've been losing a little bit of weight so that's good.

Still trying to find a way to check in here everyday, especially now that I'm doing well so if I feel like taking a very, very long break I have a reminder that I can do it.

Something else I noticed: I took up my doctor's advice to sleep a bit less and get up 1-2 hours earlier, I've been a lot more productive ever since but it does take me longer to get out of bed.

[Inazea]

I haven't tracked my intake the past two days but I stuck to my meal plan so it's safe to say that my eating still was fine despite breaking my food tracking chain. 

Still haven't continued with strength training but I was on another long hike yesterday and I felt very relaxed afterwards so that was nice. Plus hiking up- and downhill for about 10km still does something for the legs so I really can't say I'm doing nothing. And an exercise I have fun with and thus stick to is better than the exercises I don't do. 

 

I decided to try out setting myself weekly goals instead of daily ones. Especially with ADD and the issues with setting proper priorities, etc. it can become discouraging to look at my to do list at the end of the day and notice how many things I haven't done so weekly goals/to dos leave more room for jumping around from one task to another or hyperfocusing on one or two things for a day. It might make me feel more accomplished to look at a finished to do list at the end of the week rather than at a list with one finished task, 6 half done things and a few extras I hadn't even planned at the end of the day.

[Sloth the Enduring]

Why did the doctor suggest less sleep?

I have the ADD too. My to-do list has columns. “Do today”, “do soonish”, “do sometime in this lifetime”. Things switch columns often, but categorizing by urgency helps me to prioritize and not get discouraged by the overwhelming largeness of it all.

[Inazea]

17 hours ago, Sloth the Enduring said:

Why did the doctor suggest less sleep?

I have the ADD too. My to-do list has columns. “Do today”, “do soonish”, “do sometime in this lifetime”. Things switch columns often, but categorizing by urgency helps me to prioritize and not get discouraged by the overwhelming largeness of it all.

 

She said too much can cause depressive symptoms. It worked well for a while but I'm starting to notice the missing hours.

 

I also have one "urgent" column and I usually put things in there a week before they have to be done.

[Inazea]

The past two days went rather meh, haven't gone back to tracking my intake but I've been snacking on candy and played videogames all day without moving much so today is an electronics free day until I get everything done that is either urgent or brings me closer to my goals because I can feel my mood slip and I do not want to drift back into a depressive episode just because I've gotten lazy and distracted. I even ignored my skin care routine and now my skin is completely dry again.

At least I bought all the ingredients for a big filling salad yesterday so mixed with protein I'll have a healthy lunch today.

I will give a more in-depth report tonight when going to bed.

[Inazea]

Here we go.

Meals:

• breakfast: protein cereal

• lunch: mixed salad with grilled seitan pieces

• dinner: potato gratin & ramen 

• snack: brazil nuts

 

I did 15 minutes of HIIT with focus on lower body and 15 minutes of Yoga. 

 

I don't know what happened with dinner, that is not at all what I had in mind with lowering my carb intake (it was insanely delicious though) but I am not unhappy with how it went. I can feel depression creeping up on me though so I'll use today's sunshine to take a long walk, get some of that sweet vitamin D and not think about the 738328 appointments next week. And I'm making a crustless quiche so I'm looking forward to that. 

[Inazea]

The heat makes me not do much lately, my whole creative side is taking a nap.

But I'm hiking a lot and do at least a little bit of bodyweight strength exercises in the evening when it's cooled down.

My food consists mostly of salads and added protein because anything else just makes me want to lie down for the rest of the day to digest, I have not been tracking my intake though because I also have started to snack on candy and fruit so I should definitely track again to "scare" myself. Because my fructose intolerance doesn't do that well of a job with that.

I'm doing a complete goal review today, add or scrap long term goals and update short term goals accordingly and prioritize, something I have big issues with. My therapist told me to sit down and think long and hard about my priorities and change habits and routines accordingly so I don't spend 2 hours playing a videogame because my goal is to finish it although I could have used that time to write because I want to someday get published which is actually more important to me in the long run.

[Inazea]

I actually like these temperatures but they make me very lazy, been doing core and back workouts most evenings though.

Getting up early, putting phone, etc. aside has really helped with productivity + jotting down how long a task actually takes makes planning more realistic. How did I never think of that myself?

I managed to fight my sweet tooth but I have yet to go back to tracking my intake, maybe I should participate in the next challenge and get myself back on track with the more basic things again and put some focus on not fat loss related goals.

But I've been doing very well with my writing lately since doing that first thing in the morning and I've been reading more again since finishing the Battlefront II single player mode. 

[Inazea]

I have created and tested the exercise routine for my knee and it works well, it exhausts my muscles without hurting my knee.

 

The routine:

• 3x8 lunges per side (only if my knee does not hurt)

• 3x8 front leg raise 

• 3x8 side leg raise

• 3x8 hamstring curls 

• 3x8 standing leg raise

• 2x10 calf raise (not really for my knee but I figured why not just work the whole leg while I'm at it?)

 

Ending the routine with various leg and hip stretches and a nice protein rich meal. Thank god for protein cereal, one of the few foods that require no preparation AND doesn't make me bloated. 

[Inazea]

I have been overeating yesterday, my mother was so "kind" to bring me a whole lot of chocolate I can eat without cramps despite me telling her not to. So of course I had to eat all of it... On the bright side, it's gone now and can't tempt me anymore. 

Yesterday's workout consisted of 10 minutes of step ups, not quite what I had in mind but better than nothing.

Looking for an apartment on a budget and with two cats is starting to become tiring, usually I can't afford it or pets are not allowed.

[Valkyrie21]

5 hours ago, Inazea said:

 

Looking for an apartment on a budget and with two cats is starting to become tiring, usually I can't afford it or pets are not allowed.

Hope you find something suitable soon, finding a place that allows pets seems to be a universal challenge, you'd think in these day and age they are regarded as family and non-negotiable.