Fiddle Flies Far

[fiddle-on]

I'm keeping this challenge modest because I'll be on vacation for a week in April (Las Vegas and San Diego area), and because in March, I was struggling with some overambitious parts of my challenge. The main goal is to keep a routine despite taking a vacation. I've also got a few mini-challenges in mind for my weeks at home.

Fitness and diet has been going well, so I just want to keep up my established routine, and continue the slow, steady progress I've had for the past three months.

I want to become a better writer, but I've been really struggling to make steady progress on this goal the last few months, in part because I keep splitting my focus between a whole bunch of related writing goals and then doing nothing. I've thought about what long term goal would give me the most satisfaction, and that's either fiction writing, or well-researched science writing. I've got a couple of stories I'm in the middle of, and I don't have easy access to scientific journals. So I'm working on writing fiction. I want to finish a long fan-fiction story I started last October. I've got a couple of short stories I'd like to improve. That's enough for this month. No writing a blog, no looking to write for other people, just a chapter a week of a story I'd love to finish.

I'm giving slightly different goals on vacation than I have at home. Normally I eat out about once a week, plus every day at the very predictable, accommodating work cafeteria. On vacation, it will be something different every day, usually with too much food. Trying to lose weight when I can't predict my meals is very difficult. Instead, I'll focus on not overeating. If I do that, I won't gain any weight, and I won't loose the mindset of thinking about what I eat.

My bike will be unavailable, as will my gym. On the other hand, I'll be walking in general a lot more than I would at home. So I'm going to focus on not losing my workout routine, and using the hotel gym at least twice.

I'll have more time for writing than I would at home, and no job to sap my mental energy. But I don't know how much time I'll actually have. So I'll just stick to the same goal both at home and on vacation: sit down and get wome writing done.

Home version:

Fitness: Keep up what I've been doing. 2 exercise classes per week, plus biking. Biking can be replaced with something else if I want. Goal now is 12 miles per week or more, which is my usual 6 mile loop at least twice a week. I'd like to up this, so I'll be recording how far I actually bike each trip. I've given myself a long term goal of buying myself a new bike if I ride this one 2000 miles. Basically, I want to buy an expensive new bike, but I can't justify it when I don't use the one I've got very much.

Diet: Same as usual. Moderate carb. Once serving carbs per meal, plus unlimited veggies and 2-4 fruits per day. At least one veggie per meal.  And if I feel like I'm not doing this, start tracking my food again.

Writing: Write at least 100 words towards my fan-fic story per day. Better would be 1000+. If I finish the story, I can switch to editing at least one page per day. I'd really like to write a chapter a week, but writing any amount will beat writing nothing.

Cleaning: At least 10 minutes per day. I need to set a timer, and clean until the timer goes off.

Vacation version:

Diet: Don't overeat at restaurants. Ask for a to go box before I start eating, if needed, just to get the extra food out of sight. Have at least one fruit or veggie per meal, even if I have to bring it with me. Buy fruit and veggies to keep in the hotel room so there's something healthy to snack on. Celery or cucumber and hummus are always good, plus a bunch of apples and bananas and probably a can of peanuts.

Fitness: I'll generally be more active than usual. Goal number one is Don't Irritate the Plantar Fasciitis. This means no hiking. This needs to be mentioned, because hiking is normally a central feature of my vacations, and the people I'm with know this. I've gotten enough better that I think I'll be able to be on my feet all day with good shoes and pavement, but rough terrain irritates it fast. I've found some kayaking to do instead one day, and if there's enough interest, I'll look into a bike tour day.

For strength and conditioning, I want to do a structured workout in the hotel gym at least twice during the week, even if it's very short. Depending on whether they have kettlebells, I'll either do a Simple and Sinister kettlebell workout, or a weighted beginner bodyweight workout variation.

Writing: I'll bring my computer. The goal is the same as at home: write every day, finish a chapter per week.

Cleaning: Yay for maid service :-).

Oh, and I also started a long term tracking log. I'll be tracking leveling up there, as well as marking progress towards the long term stuff that doesn't show up directly in shorter challenges. I couldn't get the link to work, so here's the long version. http://rebellion.nerdfitness.com/index.php?/topic/80494-fiddles-long-term-log/#comment-1860623

 

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Following for fiddle's fantasticness.

[Elastigirl]

Love how you have preplanned a vacation strategy for staying on track. Bummer on the no hiking, but it looks like you have thought of some fun alternatives

[fiddle-on]

Just spent half an hour cleaning, and my apartment has moved changed from disaster area to merely very messy. If I do that for two or three more days, I bet I can actually reach neat.

 

I did a strength class this morning, and signed up for one on Friday. I may be able to fit one in on Monday morning as well, but I'm flying out on Monday afternoon, so I'll see.

 

I've been really bad about food since Saturday, when I went to a friend's birthday lunch and overate, followed by Easter dinner on Sunday. I've overeaten every day since then. I need to start tracking again tomorrow to get back on track. I don't want to start the vacation in a bad place.

 

In other news, I've put in applications to a couple jobs, and heard back from HR to discuss setting up an interview from one of them. From what I've seen so far, they probably want a programmer who knows geography, while I'm a geographer who programs. Guess I'll find out in the interview whether I'm enough of a programmer for their needs. On paper at least, the other job sounds like a better fit, but it's 3 hours north of my current location, and I'm already feeling like I've got too much winter in my life. So who knows what I'd do about that one.

 

 

 

[Sloth the Enduring]

I'm here for the biking. 

[redimagination]

Following again.

 

i like the fact that you have a separate goal for home and away. I'm going on holiday in June and I was wondering how I was going to manage it. 

[fiddle-on]

15 hours ago, redimagination said:

Following again.

 

i like the fact that you have a separate goal for home and away. I'm going on holiday in June and I was wondering how I was going to manage it.

Yeah, I'm hoping that by keeping it very basic, and by planning in advance, I won't lose ground. But the food thing will be hard.

[fiddle-on]

Wednesday update:

 

Food: Tracked everything I ate, which made me notice when I was going to keep nibbling for no good reason.

Fitness:  I went for a 6 mile bike ride. I ordered a bike computer to track mileage, but I need to set it up. I could have yesterday, but I went for a bike ride instead :-).

Writing:  Bare minimum. I wrote about 2 lines of the story before I realized I'd written as far as my planning went. So I wrote about a hundred words of planning. I really only need to wrap up loose ends, but at the moment, my loose ends could fill a novel all by themselves. Seriously, if I write a sequel, it's going to involve an entire revolution.

Cleaning:Spent a little over 10 minutes cleaning. Slightly above the minimum, but I need to do significantly more at least a few days.

[redimagination]

On 31/03/2016 at 2:37 PM, fiddle-on said:

Yeah, I'm hoping that by keeping it very basic, and by planning in advance, I won't lose ground. But the food thing will be hard.

 

Eating well while away is quite hard. It is very easy to slip!

[fiddle-on]

I've definitely been struggling with too much sugar all week. Basically, I've only two days where I didn't eat too much of it.

 

I'm flying out of Boston tomorrow, and we're forecast to get up to half a foot of snow during the day, right when I'll be flying. So I'm hoping nothing gets delayed or cancelled, but we'll see. This includes my ride to the airport :-(  I wish I'd flown out today, but it's not like the weather is predictable a month in advance.  I'll bring healthy airplane snacks tomorrow, and airport food is so overpriced that it's not even a temptation. The snow does make me extra excited about getting out of town, though. And I've got plans in place to meet friends out west, so this will be a good break.

 

Been doing much better on the exercising than diet. Yesterday was very rainy, so I didn't take my bike out, but I did today even though it was around freezing and pretty windy. I got through it because I kept telling myself that the alternative was NOT doing it, and then I'd be stuck indoors all day. Except for the half a foot of snow I shoveled this morning, or course. Seriously, this week is bringing more snow than we've had all winter.

 

The writing goal has been going OK. I've been doing some writing, but I need to step back and think about where the story is going, because right now, it's kind of aimlessly expanding. I need to narrow it down, or commit to a full novel. I'd rather narrow it down.

 

I've also been mostly keeping up on my cleaning. I want to get ahead tonight, so I have a decent apartment to come back after vacation.

[fiddle-on]

Monday and Tuesday were overall not great days, due to travel.

 

Monday in Boston snowy, so my flight took off an hour and a half late. Luckily, my connection was also delayed just enough that I only arrived an hour later than planned, rather than the 2 hours later if I had to take a later flight. It was still after 10PM before I got to my hotel, which was 1AM on my internal clock. Then, being me, I woke up at 3 AM, or 6 on my internal clock, and just couldn't get back to sleep. So I had a bad headache that didn't go away until pretty late Tuesday.

 

I went to the Clark County Museum, which is kind of a well curated junkyard museum: they have lots of transplanted buildings and train cars whose only theme is that they were built or used in Clark County, NV, where Las Vegas is. There are also a couple of nature trails and an indoor time-line exhibit. I really enjoyed it, especially the old-fashioned jail house. Being a myth-busters fan, I compared the19th century jail cell here to the one the myth busters tried to break out of. This one was way less secure than the one they built, and the bars could totally have been pulled off by a good team of horses.

 

The best part of the museum, though, was that they had some nice, shaded benches and no crowd. I just lay down and dozed off for half an hour before lunch. Then after lunch I went back to the hotel and slept some more. I met up with some friends for dinner, which was great.

 

Diet: Monday  I didn't eat enough, because the flights left me with a bad headache and an unsettled stomach.

Tuesday I didn't eat much until dinner time, when my headache had finally gone away. As a result, I ate a little too much at dinner. We went to a burger place because it's got really good food. I ate about 3/4 of my meal, but I was actually full after 1/2.  Catching up with friends I hadn't seen in 2+ years was a lot of fun. I've only kept in touch with half of the people, so I got surprised by someone's two-year old daughter who I think I'd heard about, but hadn't remembered existed. I've succeeded in avoiding sugar for the most part, and been eating plenty of fruits and veggies.

 

Exercise: Not really anything above a slow walk. Today I plan to kayak for a few hours.

 

Writiing: Due to travel and related woes, I haven't written at all the last two days. After I'm done posting this, I'm going to work on the writing until 8 AM.

 

Plan for today: Visit my friend's 2 year old (the one I knew about, not the surprise), arrange to visit with a friend who couldn't make the "Hey I'm in town" dinner, and rent a kayak for a few hours. See if anyone wants to go for dinner again. Maybe stop by my old workplace and see who's still around. Write.

[Maggie-Miau]

Heyoo, Fiddle! Great goals, and it looks like you're doing well on them, too! Feeling you on the writing one. May I ask about your fanfiction, which fandom it's in? (fanfiction is wonderful, and people who write it are wonderful)

 

I hope you're having a good time, mellon nin!

[redimagination]

Hope you are feeling better from all the travel problems! 

[fiddle-on]

Back from vacation. Had a lot of fun, and mostly ate well. The first 3 days were in Las Vegas, where I saw old friends. The second half was near San Diego, with my parents and one of my brothers and his wife.

 

My last morning in Las Vegas was kayaking at Willow Beach, which is below the Hoover Dam. I spent about an hour and a half on the water, and made it probably a mile, mile and a half upstream before turning and letting the current carry me back. There were a couple of small caves at the furthest point of my trip, and a bald eagle sitting above me on a cliff. Excellent ending. Then I spent the rest of the day in the car, driving to San Diego.

 

The highlight of the San Diego bit was the San Diego Zoo. I'd heard good things about it, and it lived up to it's reputation. My personal favorites were the mama and baby gorilla, who were out playing, and the aviary I walked through. But an amazing number of animals. I planned food in advance that day, and brought healthy snacks so I wouldn't have to buy food there. I was glad I did, because most of the options were carnival-style food: pretzels, cotton candy, and soda. I could probably have found something healthy in one of the cafes/restaurants, but since I brought my own food, I didn't have to search.

 

I never made it to the fitness center, because it didn't open until 7AM, and I was mostly living on east coast time. But on 3 days I did 10-20 minute workouts in the hotel room instead. I used the warm-up from my classes, plus a modified beginner bodyweight workout. For a vacation workout, it was good because it kept me doing something, but didn't involve a lot of commitment.

 

I came back at the same size I left, which was my goal. I decided losing weight on vacation would make it harder to enjoy myself, but gaining weight would just be upsetting. So I focused on not overeating. There were two days when I definitely overate, but it was balanced by eating healthy the rest of the time. One night, we went out to a really nice dinner at an Italian restaurant. I was torn between a pasta dish and a grilled vegetable platter, and ended up with the platter, which was by far the healthier choice. It was a giant platter with servings of about different veggies, plus a few pieces of bread. I've never had so many veggies before that I couldn't finish them all! Very healthy and yummy.

 

 

[fiddle-on]

Vacation goals:

Food: Success!

Exercise: Success!

Writing: Moderate success. I started out strong, but then I got an invitation to do a job interview, with a 20 minute presentation. So I spent the rest of the writing time prepping for that. On the plus side, the interview went pretty well. It's just frustrating that work intruded on my vacation.

[fiddle-on]

This week's mini-challenge is:

Clear off one piece of furniture per day.

 

Right now, I've got a messy desk, a messy  kitchen counter, a messy table, a messy bedroom chair, a messy bookshelf (you get the idea). I want to straighten out one of these pieces of furniture each day.

 

And since I don't have that much furniture, it's a good choice for a short week.

 

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Good job winning at vacationing.

[Elastigirl]

Sounds like an awesome vacation. The kayaking sounds really cool. Great job of making wise choices on vacation too!

[Rurik Harrgath]

It's great to hear that you enjoyed yourself on vacation and didn't let your goals crumble away.  Progress is tricky like that.

 

As a fellow writer, I appreciate your writing goals.  I tend to go through spurts where I am hammer out pages and pages of text, only to follow that up with months and months of writer's block.  Basically I am my own worst enemy. 

[fiddle-on]

Friday. The end of my very short work week. Somehow, it still felt normal length.

 

I did an exercise class this morning, and yesterday biked 7 miles. I'm going to have to cut down on the biking, because I realized it was making my back hurt a bit, and was probably the main reason that 2 weeks ago, I had to do a VERY modified personal training session because standing up hurt. I think I'll put my panniers on the bike, and just use it for going to the grocery store, and maybe to and from work.

 

I've been happy with my diet since I got back. I've only been doing the minimum of fruits and veggies, but that's mostly because my stomach has been grumbly, so I've been eating the minimum of everything, including calories.

 

I've also been good with the cleaning. I've cleared the kitchen counter twice, my desk, and my shower. I think today or tomorrow will be the living room and laundry.

 

On a side note, I suddenly decided I'm interested in trying out weaving. The first thing I realized is that looms are expensive. Then I started doing a lot of reading, and ran into tablet or card weaving, which at it's simplest only requires cardboard squares with holes, yarn, and something to tie it off to, like a doorknob. I tried it, and made a very bedraggled looking belt on my first try in just a few hours. I enjoyed it enough that I want to do more, maybe with actual quality materials instead of what I've got lying around the house. Just what I need: another hobby! I'm going to replace crochet with this, I think, because I don't actually like the stuff I can make by crocheting. I just like having something quiet and mindless to do with my hands in front of the TV. The simplest weaving looms seem like they'll be quite effective for this.

[fiddle-on]

I've been struggling with holding a routine since vacation. Bedtime's been all over the place after spending a week in a time zone 3 hours off, I had an mildly upset stomach all of last week, so I wasn't able to jump straight back into normal eating after traveling, and I figured out that it was biking that was bothering my back, so while I've kept up the strength classes, I've got to rethink the cycling part of my goal.

So for the next week, my mini-challenge is to keep up a routine. Basically, I'm taking my original goals and making them more specific.

 

Diet:

Breakfast: 2 eggs or oatmeal on non-class days, smoothie + eggs or oatmeal on a class day.
Lunch: Salad at work.
Dinner: About 300-500 calories, high fat and protein.
Snacks: No junk food/chocolate, and no snacks unless I'm really hungry.
Dessert: I'm going to try sticking to fruit for the week.

 

Exercise:
2-3 strength classes per week. Two is my establish "I know I can" goal, but I want to see if I'm up to doing three.

Bike to work when the weather is good, at least 2-3 days per week. Gold stars if I do more than 3. This is just a mile and a half, mostly flat, and the test ride I did on Monday caused no back pain or tightness. So I think I'll be able to keep this up.

 

Writing:
Umm, I really haven't. So instead of having a write 10 minutes a day goal, I'm changing it to get home from work, spend 15-20 minutes outdoors as a break (possible my bike ride home), then sit down and write for 20-30 minutes. I tend to do better with fixed times planned out for things, so this should help.

 

Cleaning:
I've been doing this about 50% of the time. I need to up it. So either before or after I write, I need to spend 10 minutes cleaning.

[Elastigirl]

Like the getting back into a routine plan.That is always tough after vacation

[fiddle-on]

Diet is going so-so. I'm still struggling to not eat in a way that will make me gain weight. I've been cutting down the chocolate and sugar, but have yet to have a day in the last two weeks where I haven't had any. I'll probably start out tracking my food next challenge, but I'm just not motivated enough to do that right now.

 

Exercise is going well. I rode my bike to work 3 days last week. I'm going to try for 4 this week. I didn't ride it today because it was pouring rain, and I'm not that ambitious. I'm also still doing the exercise class 2 days a week consistently.

 

I still haven't been writing at all.

 

I've been way ahead on cleaning. I applied for, but didn't get a job that would involve moving, so I started spring cleaning with an eye to moving before they told me they hired someone else. Now that I'm not moving (yet), I've decided to seriously rearrange my apartment. So I'm packing up stuff I don't want or haven't used in the last 3 years to store or give away. The goal is mostly give away. I've gotten rid of a set of shelves, and am planning to buy a pegboard for my kitchen. Maybe after work tonight, siince I've got my car here. But I cleaned part of my living room, a closet, and part of my bedroom. The kitchen will happen once I've got the pegboard.

 

So I'm doing great on 2/4 goals, adequate on 1/4, and I'm just going to pretend that there's nothing else to talk about here.

[Elastigirl]

 

Diet is going so-so. I'm still struggling to not eat in a way that will make me gain weight. I've been cutting down the chocolate and sugar, but have yet to have a day in the last two weeks where I haven't had any. I'll probably start out tracking my food next challenge, but I'm just not motivated enough to do that right now.

 

Exercise is going well. I rode my bike to work 3 days last week. I'm going to try for 4 this week. I didn't ride it today because it was pouring rain, and I'm not that ambitious. I'm also still doing the exercise class 2 days a week consistently.

 

I still haven't been writing at all.

 

I've been way ahead on cleaning. I applied for, but didn't get a job that would involve moving, so I started spring cleaning with an eye to moving before they told me they hired someone else. Now that I'm not moving (yet), I've decided to seriously rearrange my apartment. So I'm packing up stuff I don't want or haven't used in the last 3 years to store or give away. The goal is mostly give away. I've gotten rid of a set of shelves, and am planning to buy a pegboard for my kitchen. Maybe after work tonight, siince I've got my car here. But I cleaned part of my living room, a closet, and part of my bedroom. The kitchen will happen once I've got the pegboard.

 

So I'm doing great on 2/4 goals, adequate on 1/4, and I'm just going to pretend that there's nothing else to talk about here.

Great job on the exercise and it looks  like even if your diet isn't quite where you want it, you are making steady progress.

[fiddle-on]

Big Giant Stupendous WIN!

 

This past Saturday, I pushed myself hiking to see how far I could go before my foot started hurting. I was at Noon Hill trails, doing the loop that goes along the Charles River. When I tried it in early March, I got about 2 miles before my foot starting hurting, and three miles before it was bad. This time, I did about 5 miles before it started hurting, after I tacked on an extra mile (or two?). By the end, when I was pushing my pace to finish before meeting a friend for lunch, it only hurt a little. I had a few twinges yesterday and this morning, but the 6-7 miles hurt less than the 3 miles I did back in March. So that makes me very, very happy.

 

I feel like I'll be able to be back to normal in the forseeable future. In January, when walking 100 ft was very painful, I was wondering if it would ever get better. Now I know it will.