Mistr keeps climbing

[Mistr]

I'm late to the party on this challenge. More proof that I'm choosing the right goals.

 

My main goal this challenge is to get more on top of things. The messes in my house, garden and garage are the most obvious things. Last challenge I made substantial improvement in getting enough sleep by going to bed on time. I started meditation as part of a mini-challenge and signed up for a meditation class at work. I feel like I’m halfway up the mountain for most of my goals.

 

 

 

Exercise/wellness adventure challenge

I signed up for a spring wellness challenge at work to add some variety to my exercise program. Conveniently, it runs from April 14 to May 12. Many of the things on the list are already habits for me (marked in green).

Daily routine

Drink water: 10 points/8oz glass, max 600 points per day  (I marked my water glass with 8oz lines)

Walking/biking paths: 500 points per day

Fitness center: 500 points per day

 

Adventure challenges (5000 points each)

Fitness consultation: Meet with the trainer.  I do this every ~6 weeks. Need to schedule a session.

Lunch n Learn: Session with nutrition consultant.

Meditation series:  I signed up for this two weeks ago.

Meditation: group or individual session  (don’t know why this is a separate item but I’ll take the points)

New exercise: try something new

Peer fitness: bring a friend to a fitness class

Walking meeting: have a walking meeting with coworkers

Local trails: (walk or bike the local trails)

Salad: build a healthy salad from the cafeteria (I did this today for lunch)

Farmer’s Market: shop at the local market (market opens May 7 – only one opportunity to shop before 5/12)

Hot water: Use the steam room, sauna or hot pool

 

Work offers a variety of fitness classes. I tried Zumba for a while but decided it was too risky for my knees. I still have several passes for classes. The challenge will give me motivation to try something out. I’m leaning towards yoga or PiYo, a pilates/yoga mix. The yoga class is in the same building as the sauna and steam room. And it is after work. <rubs hands> A very attractive combination.

 

The nice thing about this goal is that I can keep doing my regular physical therapy exercises and strength training and get credit for it (under Fitness Center). If I want to max out my points I could bike partway to work on the bike path AND work out at lunch. I live about 9.5 miles from work. It takes too long to bike in for daily commuting. However, I could park 5 miles away and bike in. Google says that would take 30 minutes. Or I could put my bike on the back of my car and just bike at lunch, although that seems kind of silly. I'd rather hike in the woods at noon.

 

Aikido does not count for the challenge and it is not a goal because it is a regular part of my life. I expect to be teaching every Wednesday for the next few months. In a perfect world I would go to all the Monday and Friday classes. I might skip one or the other if work gets crazy or if I screw up and get too tired or too behind at home. If I go on the weekend I am likely to skip Monday class. No seminars this challenge.

 

Here is a photo of me at a seminar last summer, working on unfamiliar weapons exercises.

 

 

Food

Last time I tried a strict limitation on food and it backfired. I am starting this challenge two pounds heavier than I started the last one. I went to cons the last two weekends. Not only did I not have time to cook, I ate a lot of restaurant food and treats. My challenge for this time is to cook healthy food containing vegetables. A couple new dishes over the six weeks would be great. Green salad only counts if I prep all the components for multiple servings.

 

Grading: 3/week x 6 = 18 total, bonus points for new recipes.

 

Doing all the things

Over the last few challenges I have gotten better at balancing my activities. I’m getting more sleep, making better decisions and giving myself permission to take some time for fun things. I am hoping that adding meditation will help me be more productive by consciously taking time to not do anything at all.

 

The things include:

• Staying on top of financial records and filing
• Dealing with the backlog of old records and files
• Changing over winter/summer clothes
• Gardening
• Cooking
• Cleaning
• Sorting the stuff in boxes in the garage and family room.
• Getting rid of stuff identified in sorting (shredding, selling, taking to the city drop-off, etc.)
• Ongoing maintenance of things

For the most part these are not dreaded tasks. I like gardening. Entering financial records is fine as long as we have enough money. It gets stressful when things are tight. Cleaning is not exactly fun but mostly I find the satisfaction of having things clean is enough to get me through the work. The dread level increases for me when a task has been put off too long.

 

Track tasks completed every week. Note tasks that have been languishing on the list and difficult tasks. No specific number goal because tasks vary in time/energy needed.

[sarakingdom]

SAUNA.  I miss access to one of those.  I wish I'd used it more.

[Kishi]

Huh, 600 points for drinking water per day. 10 points for 8 oz of water. Which means 480 oz of water, or about three gallons per day.

 

That's, like, a lot. Are you really drinking that much?

 

Anyway, the rest looks good and also I like that your work is giving you things that you can take advantage of. That's cool.

 

Also, badass photo is badass. That is all.

[Snow]

Sounds like a great set of goals!

 

Is there a particular style of meditation that your course is focusing on?

[Xena]

Ditto on the photo!

[Mistr]

Huh, 600 points for drinking water per day. 10 points for 8 oz of water. Which means 480 oz of water, or about three gallons per day.

 

That's, like, a lot. Are you really drinking that much?

 

Also, badass photo is badass. That is all.

 

Someone had math issues.  The list says 6 glasses is 600 points, but 10 points per glass. Not sure yet if the max is 60 points or water is worth 100 points a glass.

 

Badass? really? I'm just holding a jo in the air, not even a boken. I'll have to find some better photos.

 

Sounds like a great set of goals!

 

Is there a particular style of meditation that your course is focusing on?

 

They are calling it "mindfulness meditation". So far they have given examples of several types of sitting practice. Focusing on the breath, focusing on a sound, open mindfulness without a central focus. A non-meditation example is mindful eating - paying full attention to a strawberry, then how it tastes and feels. CBS did a 60-minute series on this type of practice (here and here).

 

Personally, I have been practicing sitting meditation focusing on my breath and a mantra. The mantra is a Sanskrit word given to me by a meditation teacher many years ago. Doing meditation first thing in the morning has been working well for me. I found that setting a timer was counterproductive. Instead I set a stopwatch to track how long I sit.

[Mistr]

SAUNA.  I miss access to one of those.  I wish I'd used it more.

 

Yes, if only it was closer. The one I have access to is two blocks from my work. I could go there after work on days I don't have aikido or other committments. So far that has not happened.

[sarakingdom]

Yes, if only it was closer. The one I have access to is two blocks from my work. I could go there after work on days I don't have aikido or other committments. So far that has not happened.

 

You must.  For me.

[Mistr]

Week one so far:

 

Starting at 160.4 lbs with mostly enough sleep and not much in the fridge. 

 

Monday:

• Shoulder exercises at lunch, 1.5 hours aikido after work. I was the senior person there so I ended up teaching. I had several students demonstrate exercises they learned at a seminar last weekend.
• Did some grocery shopping. No time to cook.
• Tasks: got my checkbook up to date

Tuesday:

• Knee exercises, air squats, hip stretches and foam rolling at lunch.
• Meditation 11 minutes
• Tasks: e-filed federal and state taxes for the first time. This took longer than I expected. I had already done the calculations on paper. Just copying to the on-line forms took a long time. I stayed up to 11pm to get it done. Partly because I had little time between work and teaching on Wednesday and partly because I was afraid that the websites would be mobbed on the last day.

Wednesday:

• Meditation 13 minutes
• Nap at lunch
• Taught aikido 1.5 hours. Four students, worked on cross-hand grab basics: shihonage, ikkyo, iriminage, kokyunage.

Thursday:

• Meditation 13.5 minutes
• Walk outside on trails (bonus points) at lunch - gorgeous weather
• Date night with my partner, more walking in a park before supper.
• Picked up lacross balls for massage.

You might notice I said nothing about the food part of my challenge. This morning I was looking over my time for the week and I confirmed that I had no time to cook. Zero. Zilch. Nada. I have veggies languishing in my fridge that I bought last week with good intentions. Today I had celery, peppers, carrots and hummus for lunch. Cutting up raw veggies is as good as I could do.

 

My eating has been okay because I've been buying salads in the cafeteria at work (more wellness points!). This weekend I plan to spend a fair bit of time cooking. Also cleaning my office, knitting and gardening.

[RES]

I've been going nuts on the salads here when it's my turn to cook, seems to happen that way when the weather warms up

Better late than never, right? I am glad you're here, you're a huge inspiration for me! 

[Kishi]

I tell you, it's theoretically possible to eat out a lot and it be healthy. It has to be. It's just food. It's the same food as what we eat, it's just prepared differently.

[Mistr]

I've been going nuts on the salads here when it's my turn to cook, seems to happen that way when the weather warms up

Better late than never, right? I am glad you're here, you're a huge inspiration for me! 

 

I'm glad you're here too. I love looking at your recipes.

 

Friday:

Work was busy. A meeting was scheduled right before the mindfullness class and ran late. I am glad that we got to a resolution on a difficult issue. I felt worse about coming in late and possibly disturbing people than I did about missing part of the session. I feel like I got a solid grounding in mediation with my earlier classes. This is more refresher and broadening my training. I could have gone to work out over lunch. Instead I decided to take a break and knit for half an hour.

 

I was cranky about having to cover for my team all afternoon. I know that as a supervisor it is part of my job. I just wanted to catch up here while I was on call to help customers, instead of dealing with my email. I ended up staying late and missing aikido because I procrastinated. Grrrrr. I went home and played Minecraft 2 hours. Some friends were having a party to celebrate 200% funding of their Kickstarter, so I went and was social for a while. That was good.

 

Saturday:

Since I blew off aikido on Friday I promised myself I would go today. I made it to advanced class just a couple minutes late - I took too much time looking at all the flowers coming up in my garden. Class was fun, although I think I broke a toe. I stubbed it on a partner's foot and it hurt a lot. And turned purple by the end of class. That will teach me to pick up my feet.

 

22 minutes meditation

 

I made good progress on my to-do list

• oiled the belt and pouch from my Renfest costume (has been sitting out for a month)
• put the geraniums on the porch after wintering them over in the mud room  (yay! they have new leaves!)
• started a load of laundry
• put a wool sweater in to hand wash
• Much cooking:
  • beans with onions and almonds
  • split pea soup with ham (ham bone from two weeks ago)
  • pork steak  (my partner got this on sale and it needed to be cooked)
  • ground beef with onions  (I got this on sale last weekend and it really needed to be cooked)
  • cornbread
• did dishes
• Took the rest of the plastic off the windows and aired out the house
• Washed several windows

I feel better after listing all the things I got done. I look around my office and at the mess in the house and see all the things that are still waiting. They are going to wait until at least tomorrow. I'm out of energy for tonight.

[Kishi]

Eek, broken toes are rarely pleasant. I can't remember enjoying it the last time I did something like that to mine.

 

Glad all the things were done. More are waiting. You can do this.

[Teirin]

Broken toes suck.  Not much to be done for them.  I did find that a cold pack helps when they really hurt.

 

Your meditation practice is going really well!  Are you finding that it's helping?

 

Love the work wellness program too.  Lots of cool things going on there.  What other kinds of classes do they have available?

 

Nothing wrong with raw veggies and hummus for lunch.

[Xena]

I love my lacrosse ball. I keep it at my desk at work and also take it with me traveling (helps a ton when I fly). Hope you like them.

 

Yikes on the toe! It's not a big deal for most people (painful, but shouldn't impact most activities too much). I'm guessing it's a problem for aikido and dancing.

[Mistr]

Your meditation practice is going really well!  Are you finding that it's helping?

 

Love the work wellness program too.  Lots of cool things going on there.  What other kinds of classes do they have available?

 

Yes, the meditation seems to be helping me let go of distractions. At aikido on Saturday, sensei had us work on a connection exercise. We were supposed to keep gentle pressure on each other and feel when there was an opening. At an opening we were supposed to switch who was leading and who was following. It was okay if one person led another into a fall, but we were not supposed to try to throw. My partner was having trouble letting go of doing techniques. Sensei came by and tapped him on the forehead and told him to empty his mind. That is exactly what meditation practice is for.

 

The extra focus makes a difference when I am on task. It is not enough to get me past having to do something I don't want to do. I need to keep working on including fun things in my planning. Otherwise I feel like all I'm looking at is work, and I want to goof off.

 

Today for example, I decided to go home after work instead of to aikido. I want to make more progress on cooking, sorting files and laundry. Clearly I need to plan some time spinning or knitting so I am not a total grouch about too much work.

 

Classes currently on the work calendar:

• Yoga
• Gentle Yoga
• Barre
• Insanity
• Barbells
• Ripped
• Cycling
• Bootcamp

These change from time to time. Zumba and Piyo (pilates/yoga) are on the list but not on the calendar right now. Most of these are in the building across the street from mine. Yoga is a couple blocks away. That makes it challenging for me because my department is on a tight schedule around lunch. Most of the company is more flexible about hours.

 

Yikes on the toe! It's not a big deal for most people (painful, but shouldn't impact most activities too much). I'm guessing it's a problem for aikido and dancing.

 

I danced last night and the toe did not hurt as much as I expected. It has turned amazing colors. Probably it was lucky that only the outermost joint is injured. I don't need to grip with my toes in any of my normal activities. Going up on the balls of my feet doesn't bend that joint. I am wearing Dansko clogs today to protect my toes from bending.

[Mistr]

Sunday

 

Exercise: medium walk, dancing

Food: no cooking, light on veggies

Meditation: 11 minutes

Things:

• Cast off one edge of mohair stole. Almost finished!
• Sorted clothes my mom sent home with me
• Put summer clothes in dresser and closet, packed up winter clothes
• Balanced checkbooks and updated Gnucash
• filed papers from last two weeks of bills
• Prepared dances for teaching
• One load laundry

At least I realized that preparing for teaching always takes longer than I anticipate so I started in the morning. I spent a lot more time sorting through dances I could teach than actually preparing the ones I chose. I completely dropped my cooking plans for the day.

 

Working in my office with piles of mess is driving me nuts. My plan for tonight is to deal with the worst messes. At the very least, clean up my desk. Also to do laundry because the underwear situation will soon be dire.

 

Week 1 wrap-up

 

Exercise/wellness: I kept moving most days. No upper body or HIIT workouts. Walking outside was fun. I need to keep up my knee exercises. My left knee is cranky again. I'm enjoying the meditation.

 

Food: After a week of eating anything I damn well please, my weight is back down to 159. I like this trend

It proves that I can have the occasional donut and still lose weight.

 

Doing all the things: Big win for the week was getting my taxes filed on time for the first time in years. Also getting the tubs of summer clothes out of the living room and into the dresser and closet. Making progress.

[Snow]

Great job on week 1! I hope your toe continues to get better!

 

I've been thinking about getting into meditation and have come across mindfulness meditation a few times. Are there resources you would recommend to a beginner? 

[Mistr]

I've been thinking about getting into meditation and have come across mindfulness meditation a few times. Are there resources you would recommend to a beginner? 

 

Here are some basics to start with. Different styles add extra things to these.

• Find a place where you won't be disturbed
• Start short: 2-4 minutes. Increase the time gradually
• Sit in a comfortable position with good posture. This can be on a chair or cross-legged on a cushion. Make sure your seat is high enough that you can keep your back straight without strain. Your hands can be on your legs or in your lap.
• Start with your eyes closed. Visual distractions are challenging.
• Basic meditation practice is to watch your breathing. Try to smooth your breath so that it does not make noise.

While you sit quietly and breathe, thoughts will arise in your brain. Look at these thoughts as an outside observer. No judgement, just notice. Bring your attention back to your breath. If your mind wanders off on a tangent following a line of thought, check your posture. Sit up, move your shoulders back and down, feel like you are floating. Breathe.

 

Okay, I'm going to sit still for 5 minutes.

Ack, my left shoulder doesn't like this. [readjust left hand] Okay, that's better.

Breathe quietly

Boy, those birds are loud this morning.

Breathe

I have to remember to take those library books back today. 

Later! Just breathe now [straightens spine]

Breathe

I should...   It can wait. Just relax and breathe.

Briiiiing!  Wow, that was already 5 minutes?!?

 

That is how it goes. It takes some practice to give your brain permission to relax and not do anything. That is what focus on the breath is for. It keeps your "monkey mind" occupied so that you can take a break from planning and reflecting.

[The Shogun]

Great job on week 1! I hope your toe continues to get better!

 

I've been thinking about getting into meditation and have come across mindfulness meditation a few times. Are there resources you would recommend to a beginner? 

 

Ahem, ahem... <.<

 

Oh, hi!. This might help you. 

 

Ehm... So, Mistr. Sorry to hijack your challenge.

 

THAT's an amazing picture of you! It should be on the cover of Monk magazine. =D

[Mistr]

Thank you Shogun!  I knew I started meditating again because of the mini-challenge, but forgot all about those resources.

 

Week 2

 

Monday:

• 40 minutes knee/core work at lunch. I had to back off from the reps and times I was doing the last time I did these exercises. Probably because last time was 18 days ago. Argh, I had no idea I had slacked off so much. Now I'm paying for it. Oh well, the strength will come back with work.
• Meditation 11' 50" after work
• Made popcorn for dinner. I was going to make broccoli and peanut sauce but the peanut sauce had developed a hot pink shiny stripe. This was a cop-out, I could have had broccoli with cheese. No progress on the cooking front.
• Tasks: dishes and laundry. Prepped clothes and food in hope of a better day Tuesday.

Tuesday:

• Successfully got up at 5:30am and did knee/core exercises ~40 minutes.
• Worked 7:30-4:30 so I could go to yoga. Gentle yoga class was okay. Lots of stretching. Nothing too strenuous. More strenuous would have been welcome because the room was on the cool side.
• Challenge adventure win - used the steam room and sauna after yoga. It felt heavenly to sit in the steam room and get warm. I was chilled enough that it took several minutes before I started sweating. I showered off and sat in the sauna to get warm again before I got dressed. Luxury.
• I had to go back to work to finish up some things before I headed home. That threw a wrench in my cooking plans. I also stopped by the grocery to pick up some of the really cheap on-sale chicken breasts and they were out. Two strikes on cooking. I got home to find that my partner had set out all the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies. I can take a hint.
• No other tasks done. I opened up the tub of angora and merino so I could say that I was not completely ignoring that project. 

Thank you Sara Kingdom! I would not have made the effort to go to yoga yesterday if not for you.

[RisenPhoenix]

I'm here!  Finally!  Sorry I'm late!

 

Huzzah jo!  My instructor who passed last challenge was a big jo fan.  She was also fond of saying that at the high block that you're doing it should almost feel like you're nikkyoing yourself.  Ouch.

 

Also very jealous of the adventure challenge you have going on at work.  I'm looked at as strange for being as active as I am.  Wish my work had half those amenities and a fraction of that "healthy workers are good" mentality.

 

And water?  Nalgene bottles.  Good lab stuff, good personal stuff.  I don't leave home without my Nalgene bottle.

[sarakingdom]

SAUNA WIN!  I am so envious.

[Kishi]

Hahaha! I don't think I've ever heard of a sauna as a luxury in a martial arts context before. Typically, it's the horrible place you go to shed water weight.

 

But if it helps you feel better, then, hey. More power to you.

 

And as for cooking, oh well. It happens sometimes. And hey, at least your partner has fun with you about that kind of thing.

[Xena]

Sorry about the slow yoga...it can get cold, and it can be frustrating if it's not what you thought you would be doing.

 

I thought the cookie story was super cute!