Ohlemontine grindin'

[ohlemontine]

Yeah, I'm back again for another crack at this habit making thing. 

One thing that can be said of me is I at least don't give up for good... even if I'm terrible at follow through >_< 

But one day, this may stick, so I'm going to keep forging on. 

 

This challenge has a few incentives to stay on track though, so that will definitely help. I am currently in the thick of a 6 month diet bet, that I have already paid in full, so if I want to see my money back, I need to get my butt in gear! I also am signed up for 4 more 5k runs this year, one each month - August, September, October and November. Again, already paid for these, so if I want my money to not go to waste i need to train and actually see some progress. 

 

I liked the set up I had the last time I did one of these challenges, so I will be setting a spreadsheet with different goals and each time I complete one I get the assigned number of points for that item. My total of points at the end will determine my grade for the challenge and also my rewards. 

 

I'll be linking the spreadsheet eventually and at least weekly post my current point total and the highlights of the week, but in the meantime some of the goals that will be on the sheet will be:

Complete c25k training 3xs a week

Complete Beyond Flexibility mobility exercises 3xs a week (will likely be completed after or before run as my stretching. I am focusing on the "I just want to feel good" focus which is an upper, a lower, and a full body mobility exercise each week)

Log all food eaten and drinks drank - this can be done on paper, in mfp, or just photo logged, this challenge I am only focusing on tracking what I eat and when, not so much the calories yet, because that gets overwhelming fast.

Starting next week I will also be completing the Core Play exercises as well. 

I will also be working on 10 minutes of drawing practice daily.

 

I'll also be practicing being patient with myself, so I will not beat myself up over not reaching 100% completion, it's not healthy. But as long as I do SOMETHING everyday, it will be building those habits and creating the me I want to be.

[PaulG]

Glad you're back! Making new habits is no joke, but betting a bunch of money on it helps.

 

I also have a tendency to beat myself up over whether or not I 100% complete something. It helps me to remember that  in the realm of self-improvement, no one else is going to see setting ambitious goals and partially completing them as a character flaw. If at the end of five weeks, you only cross two or three of those things off your list, you've still made tremendous progress over where you were on July 25th.

[WhiteGhost]

6 hours ago, ohlemontine said:

I'll also be practicing being patient with myself

This can be so hard, but it really important.  Following along  

[ohlemontine]

So, got in my run for the day despite the sticky gross heat even at 7 this morning >_<

 

I dont always update on the forums regularly, but I am keeping my instagram updated fairly regularly, if anyone wants go follow along there 

@lifeslittlemistrys.

[WhiteGhost]

20 hours ago, ohlemontine said:

but I am keeping my instagram updated fairly regularly, if anyone wants go follow along there 

Ah, I had seen you there but didn't make the connection with your NF persona.  Following you there too  

[Mad Hatter]

Welcome back!

 

On 7/27/2020 at 7:49 AM, ohlemontine said:

I'll also be practicing being patient with myself, so I will not beat myself up over not reaching 100% completion, it's not healthy. But as long as I do SOMETHING everyday, it will be building those habits and creating the me I want to be.

 

On 7/27/2020 at 8:52 AM, PaulG said:

If at the end of five weeks, you only cross two or three of those things off your list, you've still made tremendous progress over where you were on July 25th.

Yes and yes!

 

[ohlemontine]

waiting for my cell phone to charge enough to go on my run... so i'm setting up my spreadsheet and realized i have no good ideas for rewards for myself this challenge. what are some non-food reward suggestions you guys have. Looking for a range, from small rewards for not the best performance, to really big rewards for A+ performance. Almost all the previous rewards I had set up were things that we have not opened back up here - concerts, fitness classes, day spas/massages... 

[WhiteGhost]

What about signing up for online classes?  Maybe not even fitness stuff, but anything (art, music, programming, etc.)?  Home gym components are also a useful thing to have right now, so maybe something in that genre?

[ohlemontine]

1 hour ago, WhiteGhost said:

What about signing up for online classes?  Maybe not even fitness stuff, but anything (art, music, programming, etc.)?  Home gym components are also a useful thing to have right now, so maybe something in that genre?

The online classes are a good idea. 

Unfortunately the home gym stuff is something I'd love, but I live in an upper apartment and the lady below us already complains about us making too much noise just walking around and talking. Anytime I try to work out inside its met with screaming from below. >_< 

But it's definitely a thought for the future

[raptron]

Oh dang, I didn't even think about how tricky rewards are right now. Maybe like an upgrade for something you use a lot? Running accessories for your 5ks? 

[ohlemontine]

Alright! Official start time! 

Day one point total: 6 - Sundays will almost always be a low point day, it's the day I mostly spend sleeping because it's my transition from normal daywalker back to nightwalker. 

This challenge will also prove to be especially crucial to developing a routine, as I will now be homeschooling the little one this year, and doing that on a 3rd shift schedule will be tricky. 

[WhiteGhost]

4 hours ago, ohlemontine said:

I will now be homeschooling the little one this year, and doing that on a 3rd shift schedule will be tricky. 

Ah, I see you will be playing life on hard nightmare hell mode this year

[ohlemontine]

16 minutes ago, WhiteGhost said:

Ah, I see you will be playing life on hard nightmare hell mode this year

Yeah, the perfectionist in me wouldn't have it any other way xD T_T

[raptron]

Oooof, yeah. That shift schedule plus homeschooling? Best of luck to you! 

[Mike Wazowski]

Oooof, best of luck with that schedule! All the working parents who now have full-time child care and/or educator jobs on top of their actual work have mad respect from me.

[ohlemontine]

Yeah, it will be an adjustment, but I'm very (VERY VERY!) blessed with a really good really smart kid, and only one right now, so it's nowhere near as hard as it could be. Technically, he could have gone back to school, or done online remote learning, but the way those options were presented would not work for our family. 

My son is going in to 3rd grade, and at the beginning of the quarantine baloney he was at somewhere around a 4th grade reading and math level. When the quarantine started, they basically halted learning new stuff, so the 3rd graders will likely spend the whole first semester finishing up 2nd grade, so it would be extremely boring for my son, who continues to do math and reading and writing exercises and homework style pages throughout the entire year, summer included (he actually really likes to learn and I think it's his choice to keep doing the homework pages all summer xD). Couple that with having to wear a mask ALL DAY (minus lunch, and sensory breaks if we did those again this year), and the fact that they would group all the kids into small groups of 3 and those would be the only kids they interacted with for the entire semester (and there were some kids that bullied him so theres a chance of getting stuck with one of them) and I wasn't having that.

And online remote learning would again be mostly review, and also the schedule for class times and such wouldn't work with mine and my SO's work schedules. So homeschooling just seemed to be the best option. And truth be told I've wanted to do homeschooling forever, but just didnt think I could make it work, but this whole pandemic fiasco has kinda forced my hand, so that's cool in a way.

 

next post: an update on week 1 so far! Stay tuned!

[ohlemontine]

Okay so here's the rundown so far this week (also today's points may still increase, but this is what I have so far)

Total Daily Points

Sunday: 6

Monday: 13

Tuesday: 5

Wednesday: 7

 

So, quick daily highlights:

Monday

- Good day, great day, I should be averaging about 14pts a day if I do what I'm supposed to daily. 

-🏃‍♀️Got my run in! Did not do my mobility afterwards though... shame on me lol

- 🍽 Logged all my food!!! Even the embarrassing stuff

 

Tuesday

-☠🦈 felt like crap, its shark week

- 😴 I think those points were for sleeping 8 hours... i slept a lot yesterday.

 

Wednesday (so far)

- 🏃‍♀️ Got my run in - will definitely need to repeat this week though... possibly more than once, can't run for 3 minutes straight yet.

- 🧘‍♀️ Mobility done! Today was upper mobility, and I was finally able to grab my hands together in swimmers stretch with right arm up (still using a strap for the other side)

- ⛲ 2 liters of water down the gullet already! (Granted I say already like it's not basically the end of my day lol)

 

[raptron]

Woo on the swimmer's stretch gains.

[Nyx, Daughter of Chaos]

On 7/29/2020 at 6:00 AM, ohlemontine said:

waiting for my cell phone to charge enough to go on my run... so i'm setting up my spreadsheet and realized i have no good ideas for rewards for myself this challenge. what are some non-food reward suggestions you guys have. Looking for a range, from small rewards for not the best performance, to really big rewards for A+ performance. Almost all the previous rewards I had set up were things that we have not opened back up here - concerts, fitness classes, day spas/massages... 

 

Some suggestions...buying books/movies, buying a garment, buying something for a hobby/project, extra TV time.

[ohlemontine]

And it happened again >_< started out strong then stopped tracking as much half way through... ugh... 

Anyone have any ideas to help keep this from happening? 

At least this time, I did at least keep up with my fitness regimens (for the most part) but tracking of everything went out the window. 

[raptron]

On 9/5/2020 at 11:38 AM, ohlemontine said:

And it happened again >_< started out strong then stopped tracking as much half way through... ugh... 

Anyone have any ideas to help keep this from happening? 

At least this time, I did at least keep up with my fitness regimens (for the most part) but tracking of everything went out the window. 

Maybe track on paper? A big calendar on the wall? Something visual that can remind you to take note of what you've been doing?

 

Then when you want to check in with us, you can just look at your visual calendar and give us a quick update on how things are going.

[ohlemontine]

That might work, especially since we have a working printer and an ink plan that will auto send ink when we start to get low lol. 

As for how the last 5 weeks went, it went about fair to Midland I suppose... lost a few pounds, kept up with my running, and towards the end I started keeping up with my Korean. Also been cleaning and organizing well. Things to work on for the next challenge will be: keep up the running, Korean, and cleaning. Finish the Sept 5k in under 50 minutes, track my eating, and work on mobility. 

In other news, homeschooling is going.... well it's going. XD some days it's great, other days Its all I can do to keep from strangling this boy >_< but it is helping me keep on track with several things. I am getting more sleep than usual, the korean streak I'm on is mostly due to the homeschooling, and same with the cleaning and organizing. And since we already boot up the computer every day for math lessons and Mandarin lessons (son's language choice) I can more easily update here regularly next challenge, and also update my spreadsheet. We'll see I suppose lol

 

[WhiteGhost]

On 9/9/2020 at 9:18 PM, ohlemontine said:

Mandarin lessons (son's language choice)

 

Mandarin?  That's what Ghostlet is learning too  

[ohlemontine]

On 9/14/2020 at 11:07 AM, WhiteGhost said:

 

Mandarin?  That's what Ghostlet is learning too  

it was an odd choice, but he seems to enjoy doing it. It's a language i know almost nothing about, so it's been interesting trying to help him, but luckily Duolingo is pretty intuitive. 

[WhiteGhost]

3 hours ago, ohlemontine said:

it was an odd choice, but he seems to enjoy doing it. It's a language i know almost nothing about, so it's been interesting trying to help him, but luckily Duolingo is pretty intuitive. 

Well if you ever have any questions about it, I would be happy to answer (having lived in China for the last 16 years I am pretty confident that if I don't know the answer, I know where to find it  )