word wrecker

Goal Post #20 follow-up Turns out, vacation and a family wedding are not great for re-establishing routine. With that said, I still managed to do yoga and planks more than I expected. The discouraging news is I ended up doing about as many planks and yoga sessions in October as September. The encouraging news is I walked and biked more this month than September, so while the goal wasn't officially reached, overall I moved more and that's a good thing.      so close! 

Goal Post #20 intention: re-start daily exercise This blog has mainly been about how little positive changes add up over time. The opposite is also true. Letting myself go a bit over the summer preceded my worst illness in over a decade which snowballed into my back going out for the first time in two years. September was quite a month. Would better exercise habits this summer have kept me from getting a bacterial infection in my throat? Of course not. But the week of forced inactivity probably wouldn't have hurt my back as badly if I had been in better shape before the mandatory time out. Of course I have reasons. There are always excuses. The heat this summer, the lack of good bike trails around our new home, no more garage so every time I want to ride it means hauling my bike up from the basement, etc, etc, on and on. But all of that is nonsense. We're still a short, if a little longer than before, ride to a beautiful bike trail. The heat last summer only kept me ins...

Recently I started looking back over my posts covering the beginning of my journey making better health choices. One thing stood out right away: they are difficult to navigate, y'all! To help with this, I'm arranging them in chronological order here. If you're at all interested in how I went from 40lbs overweight and (if family medical history is an indicator) pre-diabetic, to my current state feeling healthier and happier in my skin - here are fourteen posts chronicling the process. Buildup Beginning Burnout Body Composition Calories, again Complexity Drinks and Digestion Dancing Exercise Excitement Eating Adjustments Flow Flower Grandchildren Gently Yes, I intentionally did an alphabet thing. Not sure why now, but it gave me a place to start when coming up with titles so I'm standing by that decision. There is one thing I would change about these posts if I could. Before starting two and a half years ago I would visit a doctor to give me more t...

Goal Post #18 follow up At the beginning of this month, I thought finding a primary suspect for extra salt intake was going to be easy. Potatoes are one of my favorite things and potato chips are almost the best form potatoes can take, besides french fries, tater tots, home fried, roasted or mashed potatoes. Did I mention I like potatoes? Just like trying to reduce sugar, instead of a blanket ban I started by focusing on limiting problem foods. In February this meant dessert, so this month it meant chips and other salty goodness. Ten days in and I was at a loss. Even without my beloved spuds, my sodium intake stayed above average seven out of nine days. My approach clearly wasn't working. Attempting a more blanket approach limiting all foods that tend to be high in sodium  was intimidating because that list gets looong , but it was worth a shot. By the end of the month, I had tried, believe me, but I exceeded sodium intake fifteen out of thirty days. On the positive side, the...

Goal Post #18 intention: reduce salt intake My family is a salty bunch, literally and figuratively. Early in their relationship my mom actually stopped cooking with salt because of how liberally dad salted everything before tasting. My sweet tooth as a child kept me from identifying with dad's sodium obsession until suddenly in my twenties savory became my favorite flavor. Right now, salt probably isn't hurting my health. After all, dad (who regularly snacked on saltines topped with cheddar cheese) didn't have to start taking blood pressure medication until he was well into his fifties. Plus, I am routinely accused by Nic of not salting enough when I cook. But, according to my fitness app, I often exceed the daily recommended intake. So I'm willing to take a moment to figure out how to reduce my intake.

Goal Post #17 follow up When I chose titles for these two goal posts I had a completely different intention in mind for the month of March (to eat more veggies) and it wasn't clear how the alliterative idiom would relate. When I changed the intention to a workout I hoped the injury part wouldn't happen. Oh well. Ten days into the new HIIT workout routine my right hip started giving me trouble. Aching, popping, generally feeling old, etc., but I kept at it. After all, a slight ache shouldn't block the goal. However, I did start paying better attention to form and slowing down with things like squats to avoid really hurting myself. Seventeen days in it was time to change things up a bit. First, I removed the bent over delt-raises and replaced it with a bear crawl shoulder tap  and moved triceps extension to just after squats. At the literal half-way mark in this five week experiment some results were already apparent. First, my yoga poses felt more stable and I could ...

Goal Post #17 Intention: regular HIIT workout Daily planks and yoga have done wonders for eliminating my back pain and overall muscle tone, but my cardiovascular, bone and joint health could improve if I occasionally did more intense exercise. After all, just saying I'm considering doing more burpees didn't actually translate into more burpees. Additionally, the workout I'm starting includes weight lifting so we're way into uncharted territory now. Also breaking with routine, I started doing this workout the last Friday in February, a full week before March started. The goal is at least three HIIT workouts per week without scrapping daily five minute yoga and 90 second planks on the off days. After getting comfortable with the current rotation of moves I'll see if mixing it up works for me or throws off the whole routine. After all, I am a delicate system who does not handle change easily. HIIT workout with 30 second intervals with 15 second rests burpees  ...

Goal Post #16 follow up This month's goal started a million times better than January's. No candy, cookie, sugary latte, hot chocolate, or otherwise happy thing crossed my lips for a week. Granted, at day seven it was too early to celebrate, but two things: 1- seven days into January's goal I was four days behind, and 2- it already felt like an eternity. After passing the free girl scout cookie test, apparently there was more to come. Seven days in there were teeny tiny Heath bars mocking me from the break room. Teeny. Tiny. Heath bars. My second-favorite candy bar, rarely seen in tiny form, for free, right there, forbidden. Twix are my absolute favorite. For those of you inclined to baking I created recipe that combines the best of both. First you make shortbread, cut into bars, and let cool. Then cover the shortbread with toffee and top with dark chocolate. Yes, this is tricky, expensive, messy and delectable. The toffee has to be just short of cracking candy consis...

Goal Post #16 intention: slaying the sugar monster For the month of February I am cutting out dessert of any kind. No cookies, cakes, candy, ice cream, etc. and for good measure I'm throwing in juice because it's practically straight sugar anyway. My sweet tooth has been out of control since  October and what better month than the shortest to kick the habit? Oh how little we mortals know about our future. Foreseeing this goal, I made sure to finish any remaining treats in our house before February 1st and made it a point not to order girl scout cookies this year. This morning there were six, count 'em, SIX boxes of girl scout cookies open in the breakroom for everyone to share. Turning away from those thin mints took literally all of my self-control today. But I did it, so I guess this is really happening. farewell sweet friends!

Goal Post #15 follow up This month has been instructive and humbling. After a bumbled start, I managed to complete every-other practice the rest of the first week. This wasn't bad- more yoga than in the entire month of December and I felt the difference right away. It still wasn't great. My attitude toward yoga was surprisingly hostile considering exercise outside wasn't an option and how much I miss it when I fall out of practice. I caught myself thinking "I don't wanna" on the regular that first week. How much can I miss yoga? Starting in grad school I've had entire dreams about just doing yoga if it's been awhile. My mind will literally try to make up for something my body isn't doing often enough. This also happens with bike rides - I'll have intricate dreams about riding sections of the  monon  and wake up wishing for spring. The second week was much better. I completed almost every practice on time and Nic even joined us one day. M...

Goal Post #15 intention: yoga, part 3 For the first goal post of 2019 I'd like to set expectations. Unlike the previous fourteen goal posts, from now on each month will have one goal with two corresponding posts - an intention and a follow-up. Each monthly goal will either be about adding a positive habit or subtracting something less positive. For example, January will be about practicing yoga more often while February might be about consuming less processed sugar. For my latest yoga goal, I'm participating in another series with the virtual group from July . Predictably, th is first week has been insane. New Year's day I woke up running low on sleep but thinking I could squeeze in a practice before driving ninety minutes to my aunt's. Yeah, that didn't happen. Then I spent the night at my parents. My sister and her family are in town this week, we didn't have any other time together, and I work the closing shift on Wednesdays so I had extra time to get ...

Goal Post #14 Last summer Nic's mom said “I like how you’ve been doing things gently” and the word dovetailed perfectly with showing myself kindness. Being gentle means listening to my body. Pushing myself, but not so hard I get discouraged. Sometimes it means agonizingly slow visible progress but surprisingly quick achievements in areas I didn’t anticipate. (The day I moved our super heavy coffee table by myself without thinking about it was pretty cool.) Sometime in August, my weight loss stalled and hovered around 30 pounds down for ten weeks. That was more discouraging than expected. After all, this process is about getting healthier and that part was still happening. Maybe I was so close to my goal that failing to see it get any closer week after week seemed like a cruel joke. Speaking of jokes, I was so discouraged I actually took one of those online “metabolism type” tests. With my goal only three pounds away, I wasn’t sure if they could help but thought it was wort...