Progress in the deep, dark green

[deepdarkgreen]

My main quest currently is to regain a healthy state, as an individual who cares for herself by eating nourishing food, exercising daily, managing stress, and taking time to relax and reflect. One indicator of reaching my goal, this healthy state, will be maintaining a healthy BMI. My BMI is currently 41.7 and it should be no higher than 24.9.

 

There is a long road between where I stand today and where I want to be. But I’ve overcome far greater challenges in my past, and by taking one step at a time, I will complete my quest.

 

Until the next challenge begins, I will start with some teeny, tiny goals. They’re enough to get my feet wet and to motivate me daily to continue.

• Eat one serving of plain fruit in the evening. My main difficulty with emotional eating is late-night snacking. Adding one healthy snack that I consciously eat in the evening, will be the first step in eliminating this habit. As I mainly struggle with sweets, I will add a sweet fruit.
• 5 minutes of meditation daily. I need to reconnect with my body and notice what it is telling me. I’ve ignored my body’s messages, out of necessity, for long enough. It’s time to tune back in. 5 minutes may be all that I can stand for now.
• Complete my morning pages. I’m not entirely sure that I’m up to writing all 3 pages, so for now I’ll just set a goal to write every day. Even if it’s half a page or one sentence, it will help me to get back in tune with my thoughts and help me to reflect. I have always found journaling to be very helpful in the healing process.
• Move with intention every day. I use a Jawbone Up and usually move about 8,000 steps daily in the course of my daily commute and activities. I consider that incidental movement and it won’t count. I’d like to have some extra movement every day, whether it be time spent on my yoga mat, completing a posture (even savasana, though I hope I’m able to attempt more than that), or taking a stroll by the river.

There is plenty of time for intensity. For now, it’s all about taking first steps. These feel like reasonable, attainable goals. Anything more and I would definitely get overwhelmed, but I know it's just a matter of time before I start reaching for bigger and harder goals with the rest of you!

[legangles]

Hey

Thought I'd show some comment love in return. I am really excited for you and wish you all the best with this first challenge.

[rita lin]

I think these are super attainable goals, and you do right not doing too many as to be overwhelmed looking forward to see how you go

[deepdarkgreen]

Thanks so much!

[deepdarkgreen]

I’m too excited to let a whole day go by without posting some progress, so this is what I’ve accomplished so far:

• I have lovely fruit in my house for my post-dinner snack, including blueberries, peaches, and a teeny tiny watermelon that I bought at the farm market yesterday. Yet I forgot to eat my snack last night! Old habits die hard. I’ve set a timer on my phone to remind me this evening.
• I downloaded a meditation timer onto my phone yesterday and it works quite nicely for my basic purposes. There are some lovely Tibetan singing bowl tones to mark the beginning and end of the meditation time and you can set interim tones as you wish as well. I did wish to, and set one in the middle of the session and one marking the final minute. I meditated for 5 minutes yesterday and another 5 this morning. 5 minutes doesn’t sound like much (I know it isn’t) but it is a good starting point. 5 minutes is all the connection I can bear, for now. Yesterday, I noticed that I had a headache when I started meditating. Who has a headache and doesn’t even notice it? Me, apparently. Yesterday was about noticing the aches and pains that came up in my body as I sat. Today I noticed some uncomfortable feelings threatening to break through. Don’t let anybody tell you that meditation is a) easy or for wimps. It’s very intense.
• I found my journal and wrote three pages this morning. It’s been more than a year since I last wrote in my journal. I can tell that the combination of meditating and journaling is going to be helpful, especially in dealing with my emotional stress.
• Yesterday, I included more exercise in my day by taking a walk down by the river in my village. (Yes, I live in an actual village – I get a real kick out of that.) It was lovely and relaxing, though I was wearing flip-flops and today my feet hurt. So next time I’ll remember my sneakers. This morning, I did 10 minutes of very gentle yoga. I’d downloaded a yoga program onto my phone and this was the first day of a 2 week ‘beginner’ program. I was appalled by how tight my entire body was (not the good kind of tight, I assure you).

I’m glad that I’m starting off really slow with baby steps. I’m in worse shape than I thought. Hopefully, I will have blown away most of the cobwebs by the time the next challenge starts!

 

Scores:

Fruit Snack – 0/29 (plan to add a point tonight)

Meditation – 2/29

Journal – 1/29

Movement – 2/29

[rita lin]

Congratulations on hitting some of your goals! I think once I start back to uni I might have to take up this whole meditation thing. I like the idea of 5 minutes to just reconnect with yourself

Definitely remember trainers next time you walk and make sure you stretch out afterwards, though the yoga will help

[deepdarkgreen]

Thanks for the encouragement, Rebecca! I remembered my fruit tonight.

[legangles]

 

 

 Don’t let anybody tell you that meditation is a) easy or  for wimps. It’s very intense.

wahey! Keep it up. Yoga breathing is great. It helped me get through my fear of heights.

 

Looking forward to more updates

 

[deepdarkgreen]

Thanks Legangles! Yogic breathing is awesome. I read a book once about the science of fear (Nerve? I think) and it said that the body is incapable of producing a fear response if you are taking deep breaths. Don't know how true it is, but I used it once in a medical emergency with my son and it definitely worked.

 

So, remembered to eat my fruit last night - a lovely fragrant peach, sliced to it didn't dribble all over me.

 

But this morning, OH, this morning! I was SO tired, I didn't want to get out of bed. But you know what? The idea of not being able to come tell you that I did my mini goals was too much to bear. I dragged myself out of bed (after hitting the snooze button THREE times) and did both my yoga and my meditation. I didn't have time for my morning pages, but I'll just make them evening pages instead!

 

It was completely worth it. I can feel the cobwebs being torn from my muscles as I complete each pose. They are very easy poses - today was beginner standing poses, most of them not even full poses (real asanas with names), but it felt really good to move. I took a walk down to the vegan food truck for lunch - it was parked pretty far away. Unfortunately the line was so long that I didn't have time to wait for a hot meal, but I did have a yummy lunch. The looks on the faces of people passing by the long line (at the vegan food truck) were priceless. It was a very friendly line, too.

 

Meditation was difficult this morning, as I've been worrying about a minor issue with my daughter. It's absolutely nothing serious and nothing that I need to do anytime soon, but I had difficulty getting my mind to drop it. I think my mom would call it 'fretting'. I might do a second session after my evening pages, because I felt unfulfilled by my morning session. Certainly, I didn't discover or notice anything new.

 

Thanks for checking in! Time to go see what's happening in the NF forest

 

Updated to add that I did my morning (evening) pages and also a second session of meditation. It went better than this morning, but my mind is still racing.

 

Scores:

Fruit Snack – 1/29 (plan to add a point tonight)

Meditation – 4/29

Journal – 2/29

Movement – 3/29

[deepdarkgreen]

Now I know why baby steps are such an important idea when you are setting first goals.

 

My goals are easy to achieve, they are pleasant, and I don’t dread any of them. That makes it really easy for me to accomplish them. It also helps me to understand that when I don’t do them, it’s because I’ve had a breakdown in execution and that I’m not a terrible person or failure for not managing things well.

 

The first two days, I woke up, did my yoga, did my meditation, then wrote my pages while I drank my coffee. I did all of this in about 30 minutes. I had plenty of time in my regular routine to fit these things in. I also routinely forgot to eat my fruit at night, so I set my alarm.

Yesterday, I overslept big time. I didn’t have time to do any of my new routines – I barely had time to do the essentials and run out the door to catch my train. I felt awful all day. I realized midway through the day that I had a guided meditation ‘break’ in the program that I use on my phone, so I did that at my desk. I couldn’t bring myself to close my eyes – people might have thought I was sick (or asleep!). It was still lovely and relaxing, though not ideal. When I got home, I completed my pages and ate my fruit. I never managed to get to the yoga.

 

This morning, I did my yoga and my meditation, but not my pages. I’ll do them when I get home tonight, as I overslept slightly again this morning. It’s just one of those weeks.

 

My failures to keep up with my morning routine highlight to me how difficult it is to implement change. It also reminds me that things happen in our lives that are unexpected, and so we need plan B. I’ll keep all that I’ve learned in mind when I set my first challenge goals. I plan on making changes slowly and make sure that each increase is manageable. What does Steve say? If you lifted 10 lbs yesterday and you lift 11 lbs today, you are stronger. (Actually, I think he said 200 lbs and 201 lbs, but 10 lbs seems much more reasonable to me.)

 

Scores:

Fruit Snack – 4/29 (watermelon)

Meditation – 5/29

Journal – 4/29 (one page tonight)

Movement – 5/29

 

Each time I perform these actions, I'm making a tiny little path in my brain - overwriting the paths of the bad habits they are replacing. I can already notice a difference in how my body feels, how my joints feel, how calm I am at the end of the day. Plus, they are like tiny hooks in my daily routine that I'll be able to hang bigger routines on when I'm ready! That will hopefully make it easier to implement a big change than just doing it all at once.

 

Now I'm going to listen to my body and toddle off to bed. Good night!

[deepdarkgreen]

Good morning! I didn't post last night, but presented within is my progress from yesterday:

 

- Fruit snack: this has gone from being the most challenging teeny-tiny goal to being one of the easiest. I had watermelon last night. It's not quite a habit yet, but it's getting there.

 

- Meditation: This goal took an unexpected turn when I realized halfway through my session that my mind was being deliberately uncooperative. I had to do a second session and focus on how different parts of my body felt (shoulders, neck, knees) to stay connected and present. I've done a great job of avoiding how my body felt for the last ten years (for survival purposes mostly) and the chickens have now come to roost. I'm determined to practice being present (yes in the here and now - I had to say it).

 

- Movement: I'm enjoying the wide scope of the 'beginner' yoga program that I am using on my phone. A pose yesterday (a rather odd version of king pigeon) made me realize that it probably isn't designed for overweight people. So I'm going to do some research to figure out what adaptations I need to do in order to protect my joints. Even though I've practiced yoga off and on for years, I feel as though I'm learning more about the whys and hows this time than before.

 

- Journal: This started off fabulous, as I love to journal, and suddenly got difficult. I ran out of things to write! I don't know if it's because I'm tired or if it's related to what was going on when I was meditating. I'm going to rely on a bit of a crutch to get me through the 'dry spell' and use some writing prompts for a few days.

 

I have a challenge which has snuck up on me. Or rather, I was too busy to realize that it would be a challenge until the day before. I'm going to the beach for a few days with my kids and my parents. We're all going to share one hotel room on the beach (challenge 1 - no room or privacy), there will be a ton of family members also there, so lots of socializing (challenge 2 - I'm an introvert and will be desperate to recharge and challenge 3 - lots of snacks and restaurant eating), and I'm just going into feeling a little panicked about how I'm going to accomplish my goals (challenge 4 - stress! my response to stress is to disconnect and eat). Today, I promise myself that I will do a little problem-solving for how I'm going to stay sane, enjoy the beach (oh, that sea air!) and maybe readjust my expectations for a few days.

 

Scores (from yesterday):

Fruit Snack – 5/29 (watermelon)

Meditation – 7/29 (twice yesterday)

Journal – 4/29 (sat and stared at the blank page)

Movement – 6/29

[rita lin]

A few days at the beach may not be nearly as difficult as you think, try to go into it feeling happy and positive and it will go a lot smoother . I'd suggest taking freezer bags with your fruit snacks in, and with the eating out thing, just be sensible. Don't order a starter, don't get dessert (unless it's frozen yogurt or sorbet or something), drink plenty of water during the meal, and eat slowly. And you can totally do your yoga in your hotel room, just tell the people you're with what you're doing, you never know, they might want to join in . Meditation might be out though lol.

 

You're doing so well!! I know you can keep it up

[deepdarkgreen]

Thanks Rebecca!

 

Vacation was lovely. I actually did more of my goals than I would have thought, though I have not been keeping track as well as I could have. While I was at the shore, it was very easy to meditate and get exercise. We walked long distances on the boardwalk every night, I took walks in the sand and went swimming with my kids. It was even easy to do my journaling and I did a lot of reading of spiritual books, which gave me new ideas to write about. The one habit that feel apart, largely because we ate in restaurants or from dry goods that we brought with us, was eating fruit every night. I did eat fruit every day, but we were saving it for our lunches on the beach.

 

I had a major hiccup near the end of my vacation, when my babysitter gave her notice. She has been practically a member of the family and it feels like breaking up and moving house all at once. We have to (first find and then) integrate a new person into our home, our routines, our family culture and it will be a major adjustment for all of us. When I get thrown for a loop like this, it’s like I’m swimming in the ocean during a storm and getting swamped by big waves. I spend the first few days doing nothing but trying to keep my head afloat and then figuring out how to get back to the dry, comfortable shore. So the last four days have been a complete lost cause.

 

But I’m back on dry land (or at least treading water very near the shore) – and eager to get back into my routines!

 

I’ve been collecting ideas for goals for my first challenge and getting really excited about it, too.

[deepdarkgreen]

Back to the daily grind, without the thrill of a "challenge". But it's all a challenge, I guess

 

My goals last challenge (my first challenge) were:

1) Move a little every day

2) Do meal prep once a week

3) Post daily

 

I plan to continue those activities (and hope to do better with the posting daily than I did the last 2 weeks of the challenge).

 

1) I plan to complete a small Pilates routine that my sister, a Pilates mat instructor in her former life, gave me. It's the Hundred and the Series of 5.

2) I plan to continue with the Happy Herbivore meal plans. The first 2 weeks have been really excellent. Right now I'm letting the 3 meals a day nourish me (physically and otherwise) and not worrying about sticking to the meal plans verbatim or losing weight. Just eating 3 meals a day is a big deal.

3) I tend to just post my stats, but I noticed that other people are using their posts like a daily journal as well. I am not sure if I'm comfortable doing that just yet or not.

 

I am going to add a 4th component, which I added the last week to deal with stress, which is:

4) Meditate at least once a day for 5 minutes.