J3nn goes on a road trip

[J3NN]

This challenge I'll be spending two weeks on a road trip touring California with my husband, so I'm going to take it easy. But I'll keep posting and the rest of the time I've set myself some smaller goals to keep me on track. In addition, I'm still recovering from my bout with near pneumonia, so my energy level just isn't back to normal yet, and I don't want to push it, so I'll start easing back into things.

 

Fitness:

I am done with the gym for a while, so I'm going to transition to building up my walking. I'm going to do the Walk to Mordor. I'm not sure what that will look like goal wise, so for now I'm going to keep my goal to 5,000 steps a day. I bought a new fitness tracker, but it won't arrive until the weekend, so I'll start using that next week and just use my phone this week.

 

Nutrition:

I dropped below 200 lbs for the first time in maybe 5 years when I was sick. I've largely kept the weight off, but it's creeping back up. So my goal this time is to just try to stay at or under 200 lbs. That will be a big challenge since I'll be on vacation. I'm going to be flexible in how I do this, but it will mean tracking my weight daily and then adjusting my meal choices or activity level accordingly. If I get way off track I'll commit to food tracking to help me do a better job of staying on track.

 

Level up:

1. I committed to doing a crochet-a-long through a Facebook Group. It will be my first garment ever, it's a lightweight, 3/4 length sleeve cardigan. It starts on June 30 and finishes July 20. So with the road trip it's a perfect opportunity to have a portable project to take and work while we're driving, or in my downtime in the evenings. When the CAL isn't going, I'll be working on a blanket for my daughter's birthday.
2. During zero week I'm working on understanding my energy level, so I'm doing a self research project to see if I can get myself closer to normal.
   1. I'm doing a guided body scan every night before bed. Then I'm doing a mental check-in. I'm looking to see if it
      • Do I fall asleep faster?
      • Do I get out of bed without extra snoozes?
      • What is my energy level first thing?
      • What is my energy level mid-afternoon?
   2. I'm also adding in affirmations four times a day, I have reminders on my phone and I'm stopping myself at these four times to make a conscious acknowledgement to focus on blessings.
      • Blessed be the morn for me and mine
      • My work is a prayer for good for me and mine
      • Blessed by the day for me and mine
      • Blessed be the night for me and mine
3. If we get it going, I commit to doing the sea life art challenge with @Wobbegong and @Rookie

 

Habits:

I want to keep journaling regularly, so I'm just going to track that and see how often I am able to do that. 

 

So that's where I'm at this time...

[Rookie]

I like it. Rookie stamp of approval! 

 

We will need to see when Wobbegong is on her trip and try to arrange for when all 3 of us are home and not on vacation. Buuut I'm totally in for the sea life challenge! 

[J3NN]

My new fitness tracker was delivered today, yay! But it's at home, and I'm work going for my first walk with my friends after work, so I won't get to use it today, but now I have something to look forward to when I get home. I checked out the app, but I can't connect a fitness tracker with it, so I may just use the spreadsheet to track the walk to Mordor. I guess I better figure out what I'm going to include. I could just include the special walks/hikes, or I could include all my steps. I was thinking of using all my steps, especially since my values aren't that high. It's already going to take me forever...

 

I dropped back below 200 this morning, so yay for that! We'll see if I can keep it there now.

 

I tried to post this last night, but I guess I got carried away and didn't hit submit...

 

So I did walk last night and it was good to get out and moving. I finally felt energized for the first time in weeks. I slept better, I woke up easier and I'm in a decent mood today. Got my first 3 miles towards Mordor, counting all my steps from yesterday.

 

My tracker is Chinese... it's all in Chinese. It took me until this morning to figure it all out and get it connect and converted to English so I can actually use it. But it's all set up now, so l am ready to go!

 

[Bean Sidhe]

Have a good trip and I am glad you got the tracker working

[Wobbegong]

On 6/26/2019 at 8:54 AM, J3NN said:

If we get it going, I commit to doing the sea life art challenge with @Wobbegong and @Rookie

I was just going to make it an open-to-all mini-style challenge, but if you want we can delay it until next round since you're traveling. I suppose someone is always going to be traveling but you two started the idea so I think it's perfectly fair to work around your schedules. 

[J3NN]

3 hours ago, Wobbegong said:

I was just going to make it an open-to-all mini-style challenge, but if you want we can delay it until next round since you're traveling. I suppose someone is always going to be traveling but you two started the idea so I think it's perfectly fair to work around your schedules. 

I can be creative on vacation, so I'm okay with still doing it this challenge.

 

And technically, you started it, I just invited myself and @Rookie along for the ride!

 

I'll be on the road July 8-20.  But like I said, I have no problem  being creative and taking art supplies was on my list already. Plus, we're going to the Monterey Aquarium on the trip, so what better inspiration?

 

Starting tomorrow by painting ceramics with the fam. I'm going to try to make a mosaic octopus underwater scene. We'll see...

[Waanie]

Nice challenge . Although I'm not the creative type at all, I will follow along.

 

Considering the walk to Mordor, I have never done it myself, but 3k kilometers seems like a lot, even if you walk a ton it will take more than a year. I would count all steps . Are you using the app, or just the spreadsheet?

[J3NN]

6 hours ago, Waanie said:

Considering the walk to Mordor, I have never done it myself, but 3k kilometers seems like a lot, even if you walk a ton it will take more than a year. I would count all steps . Are you using the app, or just the spreadsheet?

I decided to use the spreadsheet here in the forum and use my new fitness tracker to track the mileage. And I am definitely using all my steps.

[Chesire]

Hello fellow crocheter!  The next crochet project on my list will be my first garment after this blanket redo.  I'm a little intimidated, but it can't turn out worse than the hat I made for me and ended up giving to a toddler.   Hahah!  Learned a lot that time.  

[Rookie]

I fell off the "track Mordor" practice lol. I was doing it for fun last challenge randomly. 

[J3NN]

46 minutes ago, Rookie said:

I fell off the "track Mordor" practice lol. I was doing it for fun last challenge randomly. 

Only 443 miles to go... what was I thinking. lol

 

2 hours ago, WildSonja said:

Hello fellow crocheter!  The next crochet project on my list will be my first garment after this blanket redo.  I'm a little intimidated, but it can't turn out worse than the hat I made for me and ended up giving to a toddler.   Hahah!  Learned a lot that time.  

I just did that too, but I kept it... I keep hoping my head will shrink or the yarn will get stretchy by winter... It's only a tiny bit too small, I think I just used the wrong size hook for the gauge. What garment are you making?

 

 

[Diadhuit]

Hello fellow crocheter!  The next crochet project on my list will be my first garment after this blanket redo.  I'm a little intimidated, but it can't turn out worse than the hat I made for me and ended up giving to a toddler.   Hahah!  Learned a lot that time.  

Do you follow a pattern or freeform?
I tried both, and the important part is that if you follow a pattern you discover if US or UK (dammit, I made that mistake!)
If you freeform try it on often!!

[Chesire]

9 hours ago, J3NN said:

What garment are you making?

 

 

I plan on a sweater, but we'll see what ultimately catches my fancy when I get to it.

 

2 hours ago, Diadhuit said:

Do you follow a pattern or freeform?
I tried both, and the important part is that if you follow a pattern you discover if US or UK (dammit, I made that mistake!)
If you freeform try it on often!!

I'll use a pattern so I get some idea of what I'm doing.

[Waanie]

How are things going?

[Tateman]

Hope you are having fun on your trip. One day I hop to reach that under 200 goal too

[J3NN]

A long overdue update. The vacation was 14 days, and we used every last minute of every last one... so much so that when we got home, I woke up the next day with a fever which kept me down for two days. It broke last night, so I'm taking it easy today and trying to ease back in. Yikes. The trip was great, California is an amazing state. We didn't know the half of it.

 

Fitness:

I logged 65.53 miles on the Walk to Mordor on our trip. Our biggest day was 17,000+ steps. It was a long day! I averaged over 10,000 steps a day, so that was awesome. Now to keep it up.

 

Nutrition:

I have never had this happen before, but I actually lost weight on this trip. I don't even know how that's possible... So, I did not go into debt and will not have to dig myself out so I can keep on working to getting down below 200. Yay for that!

 

Level up:

1. Summer's End Cardigan crochet-a-long - I only got about 4 rows done on this. :/ I'm going to keep it in my WIP pile. I did get more done on the Havana lap blanket I'm working on, that was easier to work on while we were driving, so I found myself working on that instead.
2. Self research project
   1. guided body scan. I'm looking to see if it
      • Do I fall asleep faster?
      • Do I get out of bed without extra snoozes?
      • What is my energy level first thing?
      • What is my energy level mid-afternoon?
      • It does not seem to have had an impact during the short 7 day period. But I did find it be helpful for calming my racing thoughts, and I did use it on vacation a few times.
   2. affirmations four times a day
      • I have found that these phone reminders turned into noise, but I am trying to make myself remember to stop and breath and really focus on them.
3. Mini challenge - Art Collective
   1. I didn't do anything but enjoy art... I plan to work on some this week now that we're back. Most of the places we stayed in just didn't have a good table to draw at, so I didn't get anything done, but I did get a lot of inspiration.

Habits:

1. Journaling
   1. The last time I journaled was July 2, It didn't even cross my mind on vacation. Now that I'm back I plan to resume.

All in all, I guess  I'm satisfied with where I'm at. I'll start thinking about what I want to do to drive down to that below 200 goal now for the next challenge.

[Waanie]

That's great on the holiday! It's amazing about the US that you have all kinds of different landscapes within one country, so that travelling to them is easy . 65.53 miles is nothing to sneeze at either, and more than 10k steps a day on average is huge. Just a few months ago, 10k on one day was already a lot for you .

 

13 hours ago, J3NN said:

I don't even know how that's possible...

More movement, less snacking? Possibly fewer eating moments? Anyway, good job on staying under 200 .

[Tateman]

That is a nice bit of walking there! Nice job on the nutritional side too. 

[Chesire]

On 7/23/2019 at 6:43 PM, J3NN said:

Fitness:

I logged 65.53 miles on the Walk to Mordor on our trip. Our biggest day was 17,000+ steps. It was a long day! I averaged over 10,000 steps a day, so that was awesome. Now to keep it up.

Woot!  That is a long day!  And now the hard part, keeping that momentum at home.

 

On 7/23/2019 at 6:43 PM, J3NN said:

Nutrition:

I have never had this happen before, but I actually lost weight on this trip. I don't even know how that's possible... So, I did not go into debt and will not have to dig myself out so I can keep on working to getting down below 200. Yay for that!

Isn't that the best!  That happened to me when I was in Rome.  So much pasta, wine, and all the things, but so much walking.  Yay for your continued progress to one-derland!