jstanlick Seeks Balance and Control

[jstanlick]

Ya know, with I title like that on a site like this, this challenge should be about yoga. Should be, but its not.

 

No, the balance I seek is a life balance. The last 6 - 8 weeks have been a wee bit out of control. Mostly on the work front, but also on the parenting front and the neighborly front. Lots of stuffs going on (you really don't want to read all of the craziness) and taking care of myself was put on the back burner. Well, I need my life balance back and to do that I need to better take control of the things I can. I've tried to just roll with things and you know what happens? My life goals -- and frankly, my ambition to accomplish them -- vanish into the ether. It would appear that I have a limited amount of energy for caring about things. If I spend my time caring about other people's things, my things go bye-bye. It's not rocket science, but I had hoped it wouldn't be so all or nothing. I was also hoping the work stuffs would be more temporary and go away in March. They now look like they're here to stay through May. So, something needs to be done. Plus, this challenge ends on my birthday. I can't think of a better present to myself than getting back my life balance from 3 or 4 months ago.

 

Therefore, I have come up with the following goals to reclaim my balance and re-exert my control over my own destiny.

 

1. Clean up the clutter - In this case, the digital clutter. All that extra noise that keeps getting in the way. If I don't have to be somewhere, I'm not adding it to my calendar. If I don't read email from that sender and there's no unsubscribe or it's not honored, I'm creating rules so that I never see it in the first place. Logins to accounts I never use will be closed and deleted. And so on and so forth. First up, my work calendar followed by my gmail account. If those two are cleaned up and religiously kept that way by the end of the challenge, it's a win because honestly that gmail account is slightly organized chaos at the moment.
2. Moving meditation - I love running. It clears my mind. I think better. I've often had solutions to problems pop into my head without even thinking about them while I'm running. However, time has been stolen from me and I have had less time for running. But, with a cleaned up and religiously kept clean calendar (see Goal #1) I should get some time back. Running 3x a week is my goal. At the moment I don't care about times or distances. As long as I'm alone with my thoughts and moving. Since this has been difficult to come by and the exercise helps reduce stress, I'm also adding in...
3. Get the dog some damn exercise - Poor girl. She went to the vet and he told us the same thing my doctor tells me. She's either not getting enough exercise, eating too much or both. We've been working on helping her lose weight for the last 3-4 weeks and my daughter thinks she looks thinner. It's hard to tell given all the fluffy fur, but I've cut back on her food and have been getting up earlier to make sure she gets a decent walk rather than a quick trip around the block before bedtime. Since we just had 10 inches of snow last week and thunderstorms coming this week, I'm going to put a cushion in there and say we'll go for a decent walk 5 days a week. She can be rather obstinate about going out in bad weather, but I need more thinking time to feel more balanced so she may need to anyway.
4. Do more push-aways - Don't you mean pushups? Nope. I mean push-aways, as in push away from the table. I've been tracking my food for a while and I've come to the conclusion that I am eating too much for my age and activity level. Portion control is more portion and less control these days. So, that script needs to be flipped. I don't know what a great calorie number is, but it needs to be less than the 2000 I had been using. Given that my appetite goes up and down based on that activity, I'm going to set it at a weekly goal rather than daily. So, I'm shooting for 13300 calories (1900x7) for the week. I don't know if 1900 is the right number, but using the BMR calculators has left me with too high of a number. So, we're going to drop it a little, try it for a challenge and readjust in four weeks.

 

I think that will put me back on the right path by the end of this challenge.

[Laghail]

First and following!

[jstanlick]

I'm planning to put together a simple spreadsheet to keep track of this one easily. But, for now a quick update on the week so far.

 

Yesterday, I ran my fastest 5K of 2017. It's amazing what ideal weather conditions and the proper amount of sleep can do for your running performance. I know, I said I'm not measuring speed or distance and I'm really not. I'm measuring how I feel and I felt great.

 

So far, I've walked the dog each morning. But the weather was nice. The rest of the week doesn't look so nice (cold and rain). So I guess the easy part is over.

 

That's all I've got so far, but the week is still young.

 

Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk

 

 

[Xena]

Glad to see you back!

 

And you are the perfect person to ask about this....I've read that sometimes "unsubscribe" is a bad idea because unscrupulous people/companies take that as some kind of verification of your address and then just add you to more email lists. For reputable mainstream companies (something like "Pottery Barn") it seems to work, but I'm wondering if that's usually the case or now.

 

[in case you're wondering what the heck kind of websites I'm talking about, it's not anything weird! It's so-called "predatory" scientific journals and conferences. They "invite" you to give a talk or submit a paper, but it's just a money-making scheme. I probably get ~10 of these per day]

[jstanlick]

No, it's true. Some companies will use the fact that you clicked on the unsubscribe link in the email as proof that they're sending to a valid email address. I went to an unsubscribe link today and it had 10 different newsletters listed. I had only ever signed up for one and that's because I had to in order to get the whitepaper I was interested in reading. Its pretty ridiculous.

 

Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk

 

 

[Xena]

I'm following your example. When I got to work today, I counted the number of garbage emails I deleted right off the bat (9, I think). I subscribed from one list. I'm gonna see if the number ever goes down or if new things keep accumulating.

 

My computer gets backed up daily, and the software emails me some kind of backup log every day. My next project is to have that automatically sent to a folder somewhere.

[jstanlick]

Alright, yesterday's update. I was awesome...until I wasn't. I had laid out clothes to walk the dog, packed my gym bag, packed my lunch, prepped the garbage to put out on the curb all the night before. Got up, walked the dog in the cold, put out the trash, got the kids up and on the bus, drive off to work feeling good about myself, parked the car and reached over to grab my gym bag from the empty passenger's seat. Gym bag was still sitting on the floor next to the door at home.

 

So, no running yesterday. I did walk the dog today as well and got it in before the rain started. But, no running today either. So far on the week I'm up about 300 calories. But, tomorrow is a Friday in Lent and the fasting should help me out so Saturday shouldn't be too hard.

 

My calendar is all cleaned up. Now I need to keep it that way. Also started in on my gmail account. This one is going to take a while. How and why did I let it get this out of control?!?

 

Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk

 

 

[jstanlick]

I like the convenience of Tapatalk, yet I cannot figure out how to keep it from unfollowing my follows. Tis irritating.

 

Anyhoo, today has been pretty good. The weather was gorgeous so I went for a run during lunch since rain is in the forecast starting tonight until infinity. Two days ago I was walking the dog with a 0 degree wind chill and today I was running in 60 degree weather. Such is spring in Wisconsin. The run was kind of weird because I thought I was running faster than I was and I was spent when I was done. I guess not enough sleep last night had an effect. At least I can say I gave it everything I had.

 

Also got a walk in with the dog and worked on the gmail account. Hopefully the weather forecasters are wrong and I'll get some opportunities outside this weekend.

[jstanlick]

Week 1 updates:

1. Clean up the clutter: Well, I think I've got the calendar cleaned up, but that was the easy part. I have been unsubscribing from just about every email I get, they still seem to be sending me email. Well, some of them anyway. I guess I will need to add them to my spam list.
2. Moving meditation: Weather and forgetting my gym bag at home derailed my 3 runs here and I only achieved 2 for the week. Can still make that up this challenge.
3. Get the dog some damn exercise: Exactly 5 days with a minimum of 1 walk for the dog from me. She's also gotten a bunch of walks from my wife and even a couple from the daughter.
4. Do more push aways: Good thing I was fasting on Friday. I still ended up over my weekly goal by almost 300 calories. Oh well, I shall work harder on it this week.

Week 2 thus far:

1. Still working on that gmail account.
2. Ran 3.7 miles today on the treadmill...because rain.
3. 2 more days of walks with the dog so far. We're going to get in shape together or die trying.
4. Finished yesterday at 1735 calories, 135 below my target. Finally! Which is good, because so far today I've got about 600 calories left.

[Xena]

On 3/24/2017 at 5:57 PM, jstanlick said:

Two days ago I was walking the dog with a 0 degree wind chill and today I was running in 60 degree weather. Such is spring in Wisconsin. The run was kind of weird because I thought I was running faster than I was and I was spent when I was done. I guess not enough sleep last night had an effect. At least I can say I gave it everything I had.

 

Were you overheating? Easy to do in the spring and makes a giant difference.

[jstanlick]

15 hours ago, Xena said:

 

Were you overheating? Easy to do in the spring and makes a giant difference.

That is entirely possible. When I got back to the office (lunch time run) a friend who was getting off the treadmill said, "Whoa, you look wiped out." and it did take a little longer than usual to cool down. I didn't have nearly as much exhaustion with yesterday's treadmill run that was actually a little bit longer in time and distance. Although, today I could use a nap

 

Yesterday's calorie counting ended up nullifying Sunday's gains. That's okay. I didn't work out on Sunday, I did on Monday. Makes sense I'd be eating more on Monday. So, Monday's 2157 plus Sunday's 1735 brings me to a total of 3892 for the week. That's 92 calories over the two day goal of 3800. I'm good with that. We'll see how today goes as the plan for dinner is a fundraising night at Culver's. So, I tried to plan ahead with a very small breakfast (just coffee today) and a small lunch.

 

My daughter started track practice last night. This is the girl who adamantly states she doesn't like running. She did track 3 years ago and didn't like it. But, it's her last year in middle school and her friends convinced her it'll be fun to hang out. I made her think about it for a week before signing her up because I didn't want to relive all the complaining from 3 years ago. But, along with hanging out with her friends, she decided she didn't get enough exercise over the winter and this will be a good way to get in shape for volleyball practices which start in the summer at the high school level. This time around, I'm not coaching track so maybe that will make it easier for her to have fun. And now that she's in 8th grade, they get to do more of the field events which she finds more interesting anyway. Plus, the coach they have this year is probably a better coach than me anyway. When I asked her how practice went, her response, "I did better than I thought I would. All my friends played basketball all winter and their season just ended a week ago. I kept up with them pretty well for the first half of practice. And, I did better than most of them at the core exercises. Plus, I like the feeling after I finished all the running." So, we'll see. Maybe I'll end up with a running partner out of all of this.

[Xena]

4 hours ago, jstanlick said:

And, I did better than most of them at the core exercise

If I remember right, she is the plank queen!

[Sloth the Enduring]

Are you still kettlebelling with her?

[jstanlick]

Hey, sorry I've been a little absent. Still having difficulty with my balance and control apparently. So, let's get to it.

On 3/28/2017 at 3:25 PM, Xena said:

If I remember right, she is the plank queen!

Good memory! The kid does have abs of steel. I am amazed how long she can last on a normal plank. And its not like she has crappy form or anything. She's as flat as a board.

 

On 3/30/2017 at 8:06 AM, Sloth the Enduring said:

Are you still kettlebelling with her?

Not for about a month or so. She's not a get up in the morning before school kind of person, and I'm not going to start with her at 9 PM after she has her homework done since we both need the sleep. But, she has taken to doing some KB workouts after school before I get home from work.

[jstanlick]

Week 2 updates:

1. Clean up the clutter: Man, where does all this shit keep coming from? The more stuff I delete, unsubscribe, etc. the more emails show up. Despite GMail throwing tons of stuff into my junk folders, there's still a bunch of stuff getting through. And meeting requests at work? They obviously never look at my existing calendar. It is taking a great deal of effort just to keep it concise. No wonder it got so messy before. I just gave up. One of these days....
2. Moving meditation: Another week with only 2 runs. Time is running out on me catching up and the weather isn't helping. Way too much rain these days.
3. Get the dog some damn exercise: This is actually going well. And I think it's paying dividends for the dog. Her harness seems to be getting more and more loose. Pretty soon, I'll have to tighten it up a bit.
4. Do more push aways: Hmm, this is harder than I imagined. Finished up last week over my goal by 1120 calories. But, on the plus side, I've figured out when and where the calories are coming from. If I'm at home, I do pretty well. If I leave the comfy confines of my home, I go off the reservation. Especially when my co-workers say, "Hey, anybody in a mood for XYZ for lunch?"

Week 3 thus far:

1. Still working on that gmail account.
2. Had my longest run of 2017 yesterday. I managed to get in 4.2 miles before the rain came out.
3. Just 1 walk so far this week, yesterday before the run. It was just under 2 miles and I ran with her the last 1/4 mile. I figured it was a nice warmup before my run. She was nice and calm and relaxed most of the day. Which is pretty much unheard of for a 2 year old Brittany. They're one of those "high energy" breeds.
4. Finished yesterday at 1709 calories, 191 below my target. So, I now need to fix my weekday intake I think.

[Xena]

Well, for what it's worth, I think my jstanlick-inspired unsubscribing has been working! I had kind of given up on unsubscribing, but this recent burst seems to have made a  big difference!

 

Get the runs in while you can with the rain. It will stop eventually, maybe...

 

I had a similar experience. The first benefit to tracking calories is just learning where the big gains can be made, or at least learning how your choices affect the bottom line.

[jstanlick]

18 hours ago, Xena said:

Well, for what it's worth, I think my jstanlick-inspired unsubscribing has been working!

I'm glad its working for someone. It seems like each time I unsub something, I get a new email from someone that I never signed up with in the first place. Although, the number of emails I delete each morning without reading them is now down to the low teens. That's roughly half of where I was at when I started this challenge. So, that's kind of a win.

 

18 hours ago, Xena said:

Get the runs in while you can with the rain. It will stop eventually, maybe...

Hit the treadmill today at lunch for a nice run. Well, as nice as the treadmill gets anyway.

 

18 hours ago, Xena said:

I had a similar experience. The first benefit to tracking calories is just learning where the big gains can be made, or at least learning how your choices affect the bottom line.

Yesterday was not as bad as I though it was going to be. I was over by 284 calories, which brings my net for the week to over by 93 on the week. So, I tried some different things and I did much better this morning than my average morning. I was a little higher at lunch than usual, but at this point in the day I'm lower than I usually am. We'll see if that's just due to not being hungry after running and I'll get super hungry later today. Or, if this is something that could be sustainable.

[jstanlick]

I woke up this morning to only 11 emails in my Gmail Inbox (my work Inbox is another story) and only 4 were what I would call unsolicited. So, I think I'm finally winning at the Email Whack-A-Mole game. There are less of them popping up after unsubscribing. So, I'm counting that as progress this week

 

The dog and I have only missed 1 day of walking this week despite the rain, snow (yep, got some of that too, but at least there was no real accumulation) and wind. And the next 4 or 5 days are supposed to be sunny with temps near 70 degrees. Our weather is schizophrenic. I wish I could build habits as fast as a dog does. She now wakes up about 5 minutes before my alarm, stretches and sits by the bed staring at me until I get up to take her for a walk. Why doesn't my body want to go for a walk without knowing what the weather is like first? Maybe if I slept on the floor, I'd be ready to get up and go, but that ain't happening with a perfectly good bed begging me to sleep in it

 

Since the rain had stopped and the sun was finally peeking out at lunchtime, I decided to work on my Vitamin D while getting in a run today. You'd think 45 degrees is a little cold for running in shorts and a T-shirt, but it really wasn't bad at all. Now the 35 MPH wind gusts that ripped the air out of your lungs were a different story. But, running the trails in the office complex are SOOOOOO much better than the treadmill that it was well worth it to run outside.

 

Now, on to the calorie counts. After running on Tuesday, I got super hungry at night. Yesterday, I was only over by 48 calories. In both of those cases, I'm okay with what I ate. Granted, my total for the week compared to my goal is +631 calories. My highest calorie count days have been on days I went running. If you could believe the extra room MFP gave me due to exercise (which I guess I don't believe the numbers in an empirical sense, so I usually ignore them), instead of being 631 calories over my goal, I'd be 810 calories below it. Numbers are fun to play with. But, what is more fun is the fact that I'm getting my running legs under me again and creating a better headspace at the same time. For now, that's plenty of goodness to make me happy.

[maegs]

On 4/6/2017 at 4:01 PM, jstanlick said:

 I wish I could build habits as fast as a dog does. She now wakes up about 5 minutes before my alarm, stretches and sits by the bed staring at me until I get up to take her for a walk. Why doesn't my body want to go for a walk without knowing what the weather is like first? Maybe if I slept on the floor, I'd be ready to get up and go, but that ain't happening with a perfectly good bed begging me to sleep in it

This is awesome! Soon you won't need an alarm, she'll just get you up when she's ready to walk  

[jstanlick]

15 hours ago, maegs said:

This is awesome! Soon you won't need an alarm, she'll just get you up when she's ready to walk  

Maybe. Our old dog got to the point where he just would wake me up whenever he decided he wanted to go for a walk, whether it was the right time or 2 in the morning. Then I had to break him of that habit.

[jstanlick]

Week 3 updates:

1. Clean up the clutter: Slowly but surely. I'm waking to less garbage emails waiting for me each morning. But there are a few emails that I can't seem to shake (I'm lookin' straight at you Dell). As someone who's job it is to take care of data -- including making sure we have audit trails of opt-out preferences -- I just don't understand how companies think its acceptable to tell people it could take up to 10 days for the opt out to take effect. There is no good reason for that.
2. Moving meditation: 3 runs! I debated adding more to catch up to the monthly goals, but I was reluctant since by body always rebels against running 2 days in a row. Then I saw @spezzy's post on letting go of a schedule and concentrating on healing. Her needs might have been slightly different than mine, but I decided it was not worth taking an injury risk just to be able to check something off a To-do list, and a make-up list at that.
3. Get the dog some damn exercise: I got in 6 days of walking with the dog and I even weighed her. We've even started running the last block or two of her walks. She's getting better about not pulling so much when we're running. She seems to think its a race or free for all once I start running. Maybe I'll get her to a point where she can run longer distances with me. She's down 2.5 pounds since the vet visit a month prior. That doesn't seem like a lot, but it was about 5% of her weight. I know I'd be pretty ecstatic if I lost about 11 pounds of fat in a month. Well, she might have lost more fat than that. She seems a lot stronger when she's decides to pull on the leash to chase that rabbit that's always hiding under the neighbor's tree.
4. Do more push aways: Meh. Over by 1607.  Of that, only 235 of those calories came on non-workout days. So, I either need to tailor my goals to what I'm doing that day, or walk around hungry on those days. The first one makes a lot more sense to me. The second one seems dumb. So, I will get smarter about my nutrition goals for the next challenge.

Week 4 thus far:

1. Still working on that gmail account.
2. Another 4.2 mile run on Sunday. Felt really good. Weather was...alright. Lower temperature was nice actually. I have been working on more hydration prior to runs to avoid overheating. When the temps are a little lower and I'm not all bundled up helps too.
3. 3 days of the week so far, 3 walks. I almost didn't take her today since I started the work day at 3:30 today, but I'm so glad I took a break for a 25 minute walk. Especially since my meeting I had to get to work for by 8:00 was rescheduled to 4:00 after I got here. So, today is going to be almost 14 hours. Without that break, I'd probably go nuts. I left my old job when that workload became the norm.
4. Finished yesterday at +59 calories on the week. So, I'm pretty close to the target so far.

My other takeaways for the upcoming challenge based on what's going on with this one:

1. Mobility needs work. My upper left quad and really all the tendons around my left hip are continually tight. I don't know if there's something up with my running form or I just need to do some mobility work. I think I'll start with mobility work of some sort next challenge.
2. Strength needs work. I love running, I really do. But, I need to spend some time on strength as well. I have struggled with balancing the two without falling out of running shape for a long time. I need to figure something out here.
3. Nutrition, nutrition, nutrition. I continually struggle with this. I KNOW if I could get my nutrition fixed, I'd be in so much better shape. However, I seem to be in a decided minority in my house on what I think good nutrition looks like. Yeah, I'd rather eat some of the stuff the rest of the family is eating, and honestly its so much easier to just go with the flow -- which is why I struggle with this. So, I'll try to come up with one thing for the next challenge and see if I can make it become a habit. Because I honestly think that's the only way I can make this work.
4. Doctor. It's been almost 2 years since the last time I was in for a check up. I'm pretty sure I know everything they're going to say ("You're not in bad shape for your age, could use to lose 10 pounds, good job continuing to exercise, let's get a blood panel and see where you're at.") That's pretty much been every checkup I've had for the last 5-10 years. So, I didn't bother with one last year. That's probably not the smartest choice.

[Sloth the Enduring]

I think the shortest interval I've had between doctor visits has been five years. Do people really go yearly - male people I mean.

 

Could you eat your own thing at breakfast and lunch and have family dinner?

[Xena]

I know I've already said this, but your inspiration has made a huge difference in my email clutter. I'm still unsubscribing from ~2 things per day. Amazing that it keeps coming. Can't believe how much I was dealing with before.

 

Sloth's idea sounds pretty good to me. And if you wanted to make dinner a couple nights a week, you would have control there too.

[jstanlick]

On 4/11/2017 at 4:11 PM, Sloth the Enduring said:

I think the shortest interval I've had between doctor visits has been five years. Do people really go yearly - male people I mean.

 

Could you eat your own thing at breakfast and lunch and have family dinner?

I used to go every year because they wanted to check my blood work for prescriptions for cholesterol. I never liked the idea of being on a drug in perpetuity. After much reading of medical studies and researching I challenged my doctor on the validity of prescribing statins to someone under the age of 60. So, I haven't been there in a while, but had gotten into the habit of seeing them. Kinds feels like I should. Damn habit forming habits.

 

As far as breakfast and lunch, that could work. It's not a bad idea. I have a mental hurdle to get over first though. I'd have to let go my desire to eek sustenance out of every penny I spend on food. I tend to make my lunch out of left overs from dinner the night before. Otherwise, they build up and the fridge and get thrown out because no one eats them. I hate throwing away food as it seems so wasteful to me. So, instead I abuse my body with it. Like I said, I'd have to let go of it. Or who knows, if I didn't eat all the leftovers, maybe we'd start having leftovers nights for dinner.

 

20 hours ago, Xena said:

I know I've already said this, but your inspiration has made a huge difference in my email clutter. I'm still unsubscribing from ~2 things per day. Amazing that it keeps coming. Can't believe how much I was dealing with before.

Well, I'm glad its working for you. I seem to be treading water. For every one I get rid of a new one shows up. And it's not just email. Now, it seems all of my apps are constantly sending me notification messages through my phone. The digital clutter keeps piling up. Even my work calendar is conspiring against me. I had to contact our Exchange System admins, because the system keeps putting meetings back on my calendar that were previously removed. It seems to think they were removed erroneously and is restoring them automatically. It has a great message when I look at them too:

 

Quote

Exchange 2013 re-created a meeting that was missing from your calendar.

 

It wasn't missing, I removed it! Sigh.

 

[jstanlick]

So, let's wrap this up and maybe I can put together my next challenge while it's still zero week.

 

Clean up the clutter: As I stated in the previous post, things are conspiring against me. Despite that, I do have less overnight click bait emails showing up and my calendar is much more manageable and usable. I still have a ways to go here, but better is...better. I will likely keep this next challenge.

 

Moving Meditation: Averaged 2 runs a week when the goal was 3. Weather played a part as did work. So 67% compliance I guess. I'm going to try to tweak the exercise goal to see if I can get in more resistance exercise.

 

Get the dog some exercise: Lucky dog. She's getting in much better shape between her numerous long walks per day and me giving her less food to eat. This one is a success. I don't think I'll make this an actual goal for upcoming challenges, but I will continue doing this.

 

Do more pushaways: So, I missed my calorie goal most weeks, but not by much. I actually came in under the target this last week of the challenge despite having a birthday on the last day of the challenge. Yep, actually came in under my calorie total on Saturday despite running 4.5 miles in honor of my 45th birthday. Wow, that looks like a big number when it's written down. Doesn't feel like a big number. But, I digress. Yep stayed under the 1900 calories. Holy Saturday and it's 3 hour vigil mass may have had a hand in me not eating during the day.

 

Not a complete success, but not a failure either. I've got some ideas for the upcoming challenge that I want to try and see if they bear fruit. I don't know that I achieved balance AND control. I think I'm a little closer on balance. Control, well I'm told that's just an illusion anyway. But, that's a cynical way to look at things. There certainly are things I control. Just maybe not as much as one would like. Instead of control, perhaps serenity should be my goal. I feel a new challenge writing itself...