Waanie experiments

[Waanie]

Because of the virus, I'm spending more time and home, and frankly, I don't exercise enough. I'm getting grumpy more often because of that, which has a negative influence on about everything. On top of that, all my social activities like orchestra rehearsals are canceled, but I haven't replaced that with activities at home that bring me joy. So this month, I'm going to try and find activities that I can enjoy at home. I will even experiment with the number of goals this challenge; usually I have 3-4 goals, now I have a gazillion like the rest of you.

 

Exercise

1. Go outside for a walk or bike-ride daily
   Continued from last challenge.
2. Spend at least 250 minutes per week on biking or walking
   There is no ban on going outside in The Netherlands, so this is something I should just do. This is about 35 minutes a day on average, which is still very low for me.
3. Do yoga every day on work-days
   Continued from last challenge. Currently I'm on day 22 of the 30-day morning challenge of "Yoga with Kassandra", I might start it over once I finish it, or find another X-day challenge.
4. Do one form of other exercise once a week
   Can be any kind of youtube workout, or fitness blender, or I don't know what's out there.

Food

1. Cook one recipe from a cookbook once a week
   I have a ton of cookbooks, but I usually get my recipes online. Even though I eat a variety of dinners, I like the added variety and the charm of cookbooks.
2. Experiment with bigger breakfasts
   I recently realised that it is not normal to get light-headed around 10AM every morning, so I want to reduce my snacking and increase breakfast instead. Yesterday's pancakes made me full until lunch (Sunday we usually have special breakfast), but this morning's increased portion of oatmeal didn't do the trick. Maybe I should look at getting more fat into my breakfast.

Other

1. Clean after dinner for 10-15 minutes every day
   Continued from last challenge. It really does a lot in keeping a clean house.
2. Doodle/draw in my bullet journal once a week
   My latest "system" for tracking is my bullet journal, but I don't have a fixed idea of what I want it to look like yet. I do know however, that I've always been terrible at drawing, mostly because I never did it (even as a child I rarely drew). I recognise that I might enjoy it if I could do it though, so I want to try it out a bit this challenge.
3. Use a metronome when playing the clarinet three times per week
   I'm terrible in playing the clarinet when using a metronome to have a consistent tempo, so I need to practice this. It is not fun, but it's essential for my play to improve it, otherwise I'll always have difficulty in playing in a steady tempo.

 

Let's experiment!

[Rookie]

Wow Waanie you really did set all the goals for your challenge. They seem doable though! 

 

I think adding some fat into your breakfast is a good thing to try to help combat the lightheadedness.

 

 

[Waanie]

2 hours ago, Rookie said:

Wow Waanie you really did set all the goals for your challenge. They seem doable though! 

I know right! If necessary, I can drop a few things, but since I now have so much more time and most of these are only once a week, it should be fine.

 

2 hours ago, Rookie said:

I think adding some fat into your breakfast is a good thing to try to help combat the lightheadedness.

I hope so! It's the main difference between pancakes and oatmeal that I can think of (that 1 egg for 2 people is not a significant amount of protein, I think). This goal is not very SMART at the moment, so it's more a reminder to actually try something.

[Jupiter]

Agree with @Rookie, they seem very doable! Following!  

[Waanie]

3 hours ago, Jupiter said:

Agree with @Rookie, they seem very doable! Following!  

Thanks!

 

Monday May 4th

Yesterday I had the day off (and today as well), so I took it a bit slow. After a breakfast of a large portion of oatmeal with chocolate sprinkles and banana, I did yoga and played the clarinet to start the day right. I also did most of my other goals, like going for an afternoon walk, cooking a vegetarian gumbo from a cookbook (not worth the time it takes) and vacuuming after dinner. I almost managed to stop snacking; I just had a cup of broth around 5. My weight has been steadily increasing since the start of the crisis, and I think I can win most calories by cutting out snacking.

 

Tuesday May 5th

I started the morning with a traditional breakfast of whole-grain bread with cheese and a cup of buttermilk. It's tasty as long as you have good bread and good cheese, which is currently the case. The cheese is high in fat, so we'll see if this will keep me full. I wouldn't mind eating a banana at 11 or so as a snack. I did yoga already, but nothing else yet. Today is a holiday in The Netherlands, so I have a day off, but I don't have plans yet. 

[Terah]

Wow, those are a lot of goals! 

Following off course  

[Jupiter]

7 hours ago, Waanie said:

Monday May 4th

Yesterday I had the day off (and today as well), so I took it a bit slow. After a breakfast of a large portion of oatmeal with chocolate sprinkles and banana, I did yoga and played the clarinet to start the day right. I also did most of my other goals, like going for an afternoon walk, cooking a vegetarian gumbo from a cookbook (not worth the time it takes) and vacuuming after dinner. I almost managed to stop snacking; I just had a cup of broth around 5. My weight has been steadily increasing since the start of the crisis, and I think I can win most calories by cutting out snacking.

 

Tuesday May 5th

I started the morning with a traditional breakfast of whole-grain bread with cheese and a cup of buttermilk. It's tasty as long as you have good bread and good cheese, which is currently the case. The cheese is high in fat, so we'll see if this will keep me full. I wouldn't mind eating a banana at 11 or so as a snack. I did yoga already, but nothing else yet. Today is a holiday in The Netherlands, so I have a day off, but I don't have plans yet. 

 

Looks like you're off to a great start! Nice job!  

[KB Girl]

All the goals

and I like all of them, especially the cooking and the bullet journal. Even just adding a fancy title to a tracker makes me relax.

[Waanie]

6 hours ago, Terah said:

Wow, those are a lot of goals! 

Following off course  

Thanks .

 

2 hours ago, Jupiter said:

Looks like you're off to a great start! Nice job!  

I am! Having the first few days off work really helps .

 

10 minutes ago, KB Girl said:

All the goals

and I like all of them, especially the cooking and the bullet journal. Even just adding a fancy title to a tracker makes me relax.

That's the dream, for me to actually starting to enjoy making something like a fancy title, or a little cartoon, or something like that. I've never thought of myself as a creative person, but I'm starting to realise that it's mostly a combination of lack of practise and some anxiety (since everyone everywhere is so much better at it... duh!).

[Waanie]

Tuesday May 5th

I got in all my planned goals (outside, adulting, yoga, clarinet) and actually tried to doodle. I looked up online tutorials on "how to draw a flower", and realised that I have a really long way to go before I can start on most of those tutorials . At the end I could successfully draw a tulip though, which is progress. My first doodling-projects is to get a small illustration at my NF challenge-page in my BuJo. While starting that spread, I also realised that 9 is a perfect number of goals on my BuJo page .

 

Wednesday May 6th

This morning I weighed in at 62kg, which is not as bad as I had feared. Apparently I didn't snack as badly as I thought, or I got in more unconcious exercise or something. I repeated my breakfast of a cheese sandwich with buttermilk, and put everything on the scale to compute the total number of calories (335kcal, with 21g protein). Eating two sandwiches for lunch, adding some fruit as snacks and having a decent dinner of around 750kcal, should actually have me losing weight. It's good to see that it was really the snacks that made me gain weight.

 

Anyway, got my yoga done, but nothing else yet.

 

Edit: I just did an online barre-class. It was fun, but I don't really have a convenient space for it.

[Jupiter]

19 hours ago, Waanie said:

At the end I could successfully draw a tulip though, which is progress.

 

Very nice.  And good job on the yoga.  

[Tateman]

I've started too look more into adding in some yoga into workouts.  Following along

 

[KB Girl]

ohhh man i want pictures again

 

[Waanie]

On 5/7/2020 at 4:04 AM, Jupiter said:

 

Very nice.  And good job on the yoga.  

Thanks .

12 hours ago, Tateman said:

I've started too look more into adding in some yoga into workouts.  Following along

It's really helpful in staying mobile . I hope you'll find something that works for you.

10 hours ago, KB Girl said:

ohhh man i want pictures again

I'll see what I can do .

 

The last two days, I had some intense days at work (in the office), so I didn't manage to get all my goals those days. Getting ready, in the sense of bringing lunch/snacks and putting on proper clothes, was more hassle now that I'm not used to it anymore. I skipped yoga to be at work at a proper time. I also skipped my cleaning on Thursday because I couldn't bring myself to do it.

 

On the other hand, I got plenty of exercise yesterday . I don't have the exact numbers right now, but bike-commuting makes it easy to get the minutes in .

 

ETA: I'm now at 218 minutes, so I'm well on schedule .

[KB Girl]

Are you still going to be working from home mostly, or moving back to the office now? Which would you prefer?

[Waanie]

Just now, KB Girl said:

Are you still going to be working from home mostly, or moving back to the office now? Which would you prefer?

It's mixed. I like going to the office, both because I'm still new and because of the social contact, so whenever I'm allowed to go, I'll be in the office. Next week will be working from home only though . We're basically taking turns, since it's otherwise impossible to keep 1.5m distance.

 

Climbing will not happen until September at the earliest, btw, as all indoors sports facilities have to stay closed until then. I also don't expect any orchestra rehearsals to happen before then, so my social life will still be very limited throughout the summer .

[KB Girl]

I know.. it’s rough.. maybe you could join something outside? I’m sure there will be lots of new things popping up.

[Waanie]

Just now, KB Girl said:

I know.. it’s rough.. maybe you could join something outside? I’m sure there will be lots of new things popping up.

I'm not sure... I'm extremely injury-prone so anything that includes running or a trainer that encourages me to go over my boundaries is out. I gave up on group-lessons because I ended up injured with a significant percentage of them, possibly also because there's very little time between "last rep good form" and "injured" for me. I've actually had very few climbing injuries, but I think that's mostly because there's very little impact, and I haven't messed up my fingers or shoulders during my youth (except for a few sprains(?) that were over within a few weeks). My hips and back are a whole different matter, with my knees and elbows somewhere in between.

[KB Girl]

I forgot which area you're from.. but maybe i can recommend a place that has trainers with solid heads on their shoulders? 

[Waanie]

11 hours ago, KB Girl said:

I forgot which area you're from.. but maybe i can recommend a place that has trainers with solid heads on their shoulders? 

About 10km from your gym, according to google maps .

 

At this point, I just don't know what I want for the summer. At this point, I don't have the mental energy to be social in a new group, and the social aspect would be the reason why I would look for a group in the first place. I don't know if it's my autism, but putting on my "social" persona and meeting new people sounds so exhausting right now. I just don't know. I know I should do exercise, otherwise I will lose my ease of movement and also climbing would be horrible in September, but at the same time I never feel like it and I have to force myself to do it. I'm also lacking the mental flexibility to properly react to setbacks and unexpected events, which makes "not doing anything new" a very attractive option. I guess I just want to go climbing again, but that's not an option this summer .

[KB Girl]

Oh that’s close! I totally get it though. Wether it’s your autism or just the general strain of everything, not doing anything new is a valid option if it doesn’t seem like the benefit will outweigh the gigantic effort to make yourself do it.

 

There are actually a couple of outdoor climbing spots around here, maybe that’s an idea? Not sure how good you’d need to be for them.. but maybe worth looking into it. 

[Waanie]

On 5/10/2020 at 10:37 AM, KB Girl said:

Oh that’s close! I totally get it though. Wether it’s your autism or just the general strain of everything, not doing anything new is a valid option if it doesn’t seem like the benefit will outweigh the gigantic effort to make yourself do it.

 

There are actually a couple of outdoor climbing spots around here, maybe that’s an idea? Not sure how good you’d need to be for them.. but maybe worth looking into it. 

As far as I'm aware, the outdoor climbing spots are in Germany, and I'm not sure how safe I'd feel climbing outside anyway. I'm not sure if I think myself as slacking for not actively looking into outdoors sports options, but my boyfriend assures me that it's okay to not exercise a lot right now.

 

Week 0 report

Outside: 7/7

Exercise-time: 258/250 minutes

Adulting: 6/7

Yoga: 2/4 + 1 on Wed

Clarinet: 3/3

Experimental exercise: 1/1

Experimental breakfast: 3/1

Cookbook: 2/1

Doodle: 2/1

 

If I have so many goals, it's not a problem if they're not all 100%, right?

 

Anyway, I'm mostly happy about this week, although having only 2 working days had a big influence on it as well. I liked the pasta with fennel, mushroom and sausage, which is actually great. The other experiments were less succesful, but that's the point of experimenting: if I'd know what I'd like, I wouldn't need to experiment.

[KB Girl]

4 hours ago, Waanie said:

but my boyfriend assures me that it's okay to not exercise a lot right now.

it totally is. Jaap hasn't exercised at all in the past 8 weeks and he's still alive. 

 

4 hours ago, Waanie said:

If I have so many goals, it's not a problem if they're not all 100%, right?

absolutely. 

[Waanie]

On 5/11/2020 at 11:57 PM, KB Girl said:

it totally is. Jaap hasn't exercised at all in the past 8 weeks and he's still alive. 

 

absolutely. 

Thanks, I needed that. I'm also still alive and injury-free, even though I'm sitting for hours in a row on working days. At least I'm doing yoga, and I'm doing so many stairs nowadays . I'm usually already on around 10 flights of stairs before I start working, and during the day I'm going up and down a lot.

 

During my clarinet lesson on Monday, my teacher said that she can really hear that I've been practicing with a metronome more . Apparently my play is now much more regular, and this will help me in becoming a faster player as well. Big win!

 

Otherwise not much happened during the past few days. I was slacking a bit with cleaning yesterday: I did something, but not as much as I should. This morning I made up for that slack though, so all is fine. I did yoga every day, and went outside every day. No weekly-experiment-stuff, which is to be expected on work-days.

 

We will have a staycation this year, and are now trying to come up with ideas; so far we're making plans for

• elaborate home-cooked meals (I want to make tapas again )
• board games (probably playing Gloomhaven from the start)
• hiking nearby (not in Germany, unfortunately)
• hanging out together without electronics nearby

We're really going to try to make this a vacation instead of a "nothing to do"-week, and I'm glad that my boyfriend agrees with this and also comes up with ideas .

[Jupiter]

Sounds like you had a great few days. Nice job!