TiogaGirl Tracks, Moves, and Sleeps

[TiogaGirl]

Hi all,

 

UGH November is kicking my ass! Perfect storm of the convergence of millions of deadlines, weather getting colder and darker and more drizzly, and being ground down already from the first few months of term. And then everyone else is similarly stressed ‘cause all going through the same stuff!

 

This is all to say that yesterday (tue) was one of those days that one spends in meetings all day, schedule packed more fully than I like it, to the exclusion of getting any real work done. Much less progress towards challenge goals! Here’s the scoring for my day, yeesh,

• Food: 0 (tracked most of the day, then stopped, and coincidentally (not really) ate a full box of crackers and a couple handfuls chocolate chips, Bleah!
• Water: not tracked, probably not to goal
• AF: fell down here too, a couple glasses of beer (at least I waited til after piano was done though!)
• Lifty/ stretchy: nope
• Steppy: I practically always get this one but not today! I had an early meeting so rode my bike in (which is also a delightful commute) rather than walking, to buy me that critical extra 20 minutes of time — love cycling but it’s not too steppy. I could have made up the rest of the step goal by walking dogs after work, they were game, but I was feeling too lazy by then
• Early to rise: OK. I did get that one +1
• Early to bed: eh, right on the bubble (I think it was 10:35 by the time I turned out the lights), I’ll assign 1 out of 2 points for that.
• accountability: yeah, here I am +1

An ugly 3 points for the day. Oh, one thing i did to advance my goals was to batch cook a bunch of turkey meatballs, so there are now some go-to high protein snacks that are convenient and easily trackable. Go me! Much better to fuel up with a few of these than with a whole box of crackers (blush) before choir tonight.

 

Another pretty busy day coming up today, and the whole rest of the week honestly, but after this weekend things should start to taper. May start booking some self carey things to look forward to that require advance bookings, like massage or PT. I”m almost to the end of the toughest part of the year, it’ll get better, I know this. And I have my meatballs.

 

[TiogaGirl]

Ok, Wednesday is going well so far (except for cold drizzly rain but not much to do about that!) Lecture was very well received (it’s a super interesting topic to this bunch of students); ate and tracked healthy breakfast and lunch; had some good talks with colleagues;  did kettlebells and squats already! 

 

Just one more meeting scheduled, then home for a quick bite and off to choir rehearsal and dance practice. Feeling good about the stockedupedness of my bat cave; Granny Smiths, turkey meatballs, kombucha are all prominently positioned to hopefully deter eating chips, crackers, or chocolate like a jerk. Then when I get home my plan is to have a quick bath rather than decompressing with junky snacks or booze.

 

wish me luck?

 

Edited to add: EEK my work friend just came by and brought me a bunch of Lindor truffles... candy cane flavour, yum! I, uh, scarfed down a handful (they were delicious) so those are tracked and accounted for. Well maybe they will give me super turbo dance powers for practice tonight?? Can still hit my goals and macros if I don’t eat like a jerk anymore today. I’ll set the fancy bath as reward for keeping a lid on eating for the rest of the day.

[TGP]

yeah this time of year is a tough one weather wise isn't it?

 

I was just thinking about that the other day.  I almost think it is the worst (though  I have a special hatred these days of the coldest, more artic part of winter).

 

at any rate.

I note the effort to deal with food.

 

Not an easy time for THAT either.  so please DO appreciate that your efforts matter if they fall short of what you might want them to be.

 

at any rate, I wish you Luck and say "Happy (almost) Thanksgiving".

[TiogaGirl]

Happy Thanksgiving right back, @TGP, to you and all the US ranger-nerds!

 

Was just reading a great post on another site about gratitude for all the fitness activities that enrich our lives (http://fitisafeministissue.com/2019/11/28/thanks-giving-to-physical-activity/) This really resonated and I think I’ll spend some downtime today doing the same thing! I love the mind switch to viewing physical as something that we GET TO do. 

 

Anyway! Wednesday turned out pretty great for the challenge. I’m not sure exactly what was different, why I didn’t come home starving and stark raving snack monstery after work and again after choir. I note that macros were much higher on fat and protein, lower on carbs than typical for me, and maybe that contributes. But for whatever reason, despite a day just as busy and stressful as any other, I was able to just calmly fix up some of the healthy options in the fridge (turkey meatballs, frozen berries with plain Greek yogurt). I have to think on why this was, so I can help it to happen again, haha! [the meatballs really are good, but not the kind of thing that one could mindlessly mow down a whole pile of). So, food was right on fleek DESPITE the candy cane truffle incident — also good to remember that it is possible to come back from something like that, no need to write off the whole day or more.

 

• Food +3 
• Water — eh, not sure. I think I drank more water than usual but fizzled out on the tracking
• AF +1
• Lifty / stretchy +2 (kettlebells, and clearly the key to this one is to do it before work because I’m reliably NEVER motivated afterwards)
• Steppy +1 — way over goal here, nice (the bright side of busy day followed by dance practice!)
• Early to rise +1
• Early to bed — no, stayed up til 11
• Accountability: +1 and sooo nice to have good progress to report! 

Scale is down nicely too, but what I really want to do (on the weekend probs) is revisit progress photos or measurements. It’s the lowest scale weight I’ve had in months but my scale is kind of a flighty b*tch, if you know what I mean!

 

Tragically no holiday for me today — Canadian TG was well over a month ago — so I carry on!

 

[TiogaGirl]

Quick report on Thursday,

• Food +1 (for tracking; went well over cals. Not really due to snacking this time, Thursday is the one day I usually buy lunch on campus and it’s a lot richer/ bigger than what I would normally pack. Could have scaled back at breakfast or dinner to compensate, but didn’t. So there’s another tricky spot in the week that I will look at for next challenge: either pack a lunch like I would for other days of the week, or make allowances elsewhere in the day. Ooh, or plan big workouts for Thursdays since I’ll be taking all that fuel on-board!
• Water, 0 (0 points, not zero water. Probably not all that far from goal, but didn’t track well.)
• AF +1
• Lifty/ stretchy: +2 for KBs and squats, this is working pretty well to just crank ‘em out after walking the dogs in the morning but before getting ready for work
• steppy +1 
• early to rise +1
• early to bed +2 — yay!  Had a nice wind-down type of night, actually, so was well ready for sleep by 10.
• accountability +1 —> 9 points for the day

It had been a crazy busy day running around from meeting to teaching to more meetings, and had to chair a meeting for the first time in ages (that went pretty well actually! But had been stressing about it) and I didn’t get home til like 6:30 pm... just as the pizza guy was arriving. Pizza on the couch while cheering for the Bills, then a LUSH bath watching The Crown, then into jammies and read some of John Hodgman’s newest book. Can’t imagine a nicer way to wrap up the busiest part of a busy work week. Well, I do still have work today, but mostly just showing up to meetings and lectures, not running them. I’ll take it!

 

I’m also pretty excited to not have drifted off by the wayside this challenge! Wow, we are in the final days now!

 

Oh y

[bker1370]

On 11/28/2019 at 5:47 AM, TiogaGirl said:

. I note that macros were much higher on fat and protein, lower on carbs than typical for me, and maybe that contributes.

 

This is very likely the contributing factor.  Based on my reading knowledge from several sources, macros digest as follows.  Carbs digest the fastest (hence the idea of rice/carb-heavy Chinese food leaving you hungry again a few hours later).  Protein digests next, and fat digests slowest, leading to higher protein and higher fat meal making you feel full longer.

[TiogaGirl]

@bker1370 thanks, I bet you’re right!! Next challenge I will incorporate some sort of macro-focused goal or else just prep and plan food with that in mind. Growing up in the dietary-fat-phobic ‘80s it always seems so scandalous to me to be cool with higher fat, higher protein foods, but can’t argue with the effects on satiety. One of the outcomes I’m happiest about this challenge is logging my food (almost?) every day... so I can crunch some serious numbers and look at typical patterns later this weekend.

 

Friday: meh, somehow this day ended up being pretty hectic, although not quite as much as Mon through Thurs. Was still running around slightly double-booked. This level of busy-ness usually gets me a great step count, but this time I was so booked up that had to take the bus to work rather than walk in! 😩 Did get to walk home though, and hub / boy / both dogs came out to meet me part way, so a nice fam stroll through the neighbourhood checking out people’s Christmas lights, before getting home to fix up some lasagna. Nice chill night.

 

Scoring: 

• Food +1 for tracking, but no deficit
• Water goal- nope
• AF +1
• Lifty-stretchy- nope
• Steppy +1 (even without the morning walk to work)
• Early to rise +1
• Early to bed- nope
• Accountability +1

5 points for Friday, but bet I can beat that today and Sunday!

 

So despite not having Thanksgiving at the same time as our American neighbours, we do have Black Friday stuff going on here in Canuckistan. This is relevant because my favourite (but pricey) yoga studio sent out a deal that I couldn’t refuse, so I re-activated my unlimited membership effective today! It seems a little premature to hand out challenge rewards to myself while this one is still going, but had to pull the trigger on it. And the colder and darker it gets outside the more I looooove hot yoga, mmm. So ... I guess that’s my reward for sticking through the length of this challenge!

 

Final weigh-in and measurement updates coming tomorrow!

 

 

[TiogaGirl]

Just back from the yoga studio — sweatier, stretchier and stronger than I started the day. 😃

[TiogaGirl]

OK, points for Saturday: Food 0 (tracking got derailed), water +1, AF 0 (siren song of homemade eggnog by the fire), lift/stretch +2, steps +1, up before 06:00 +1, bed before 10:30 +2, checkin +1, total for the day 8.

 

And that’s a wrap, I guess! Scale progress since October 28th: slow but steady, baby! Down 4.1 lb. Didn’t take measurements at the start of this challenge, dang it, but compared to my last set (end of August) waist is down 1.5 “!  Excellent! 

 

Feeling good, strong, and like I’m getting back towards my groove of eating well and exercising. Going to review what went well and what didn’t this challenge, in order to figure out best goals for the next one! See you on the other side