Tag: Adulting 101

Pick your Goal

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I don’t have a whole lot to say this morning. Maybe it’s my commitment to this 90 days or maybe it’s a detrimental personality trait that I want to get a blog up today anyway, regardless of the length or quality. Hmm. But this is actually something that’s on my mind a lot…

…So I listen to a lot of podcasts. I really hopped on that pod-trend. And one podcast in particular that I like to listen to while I’m at the gym is the “Let’s Run” Podcast by Pahla B Fitness. (She recently changed the name, so now it’s “Fitness Matters” if you’re looking for it.) Now I feel like her YouTube channel and her podcast is geared more towards the older crowd, 40 years and above, but she is one of the most inspiring podcasters that I’ve found.

The reason I bring her up though is because she has the sweetest voice I’ve ever heard but she is perilously realistic with the advice she chooses to give. One thing that I heard from her at the very beginning of my initial weight loss odyssey was essentially:

If you want many different things, such as to lose weight and gain muscle and run a 5K, you have to pick one at a time or you won’t be able to efficiently or fully accomplish any of them.

(Disclaimer: I know that is in a cool little quote box, but that is not a direct quote from her, it’s just my paraphrasing.)

You can see how alarming this would be to a dabbler such as myself. When she was talking about this she used those three specific goal examples and I happen to actually want all three of those things! At that time in my life I was

  • doing tons of cardio to drop the pounds,
  • weightlifting for an hour 5 days a week to gain those muscles,
  • and incorporating interval running a couple evenings a week to teach myself how to properly run any distance at all.

I’m not saying I took her word as gospel, but I was a teensy bit crushed.

Make no mistake I was definitely seeing results but I was also exhausted. Not just physically but emotionally, too. I knew deep down in my multitasker’s heart that it wasn’t sustainable. So I decided that Pahla was the excuse I would give myself to focus on weight loss instead of a bunch of different things.

I don’t know if I’m seeing better results yet but I do feel like I can sustain this lifestyle now for as long as it takes to be completely satisfied. I don’t feel like all my goals are a race to the finish line anymore (haha, pun!).

And that’s the thing about goals, health goals in particular: I enjoy working towards something! I’ve found that the times my anxiety flares up the most is when I lose my intention for things. (To be fair that’s a chicken and egg situation because I don’t know which of those causes the other.) So why do I feel like all of my fitness goals need to be finished immediately?

Full honesty here:

To wrap up this blog all nice and neatly I was trying to think of other examples of non-health goals that I have that I don’t feel like need to accomplish as quickly as possible and apparently I don’t have any. My brain has informed me that all of my ambitions on a very tight schedule. Cool. No wonder I’m a collection of procrastination and nervous energy wrapped in skin. Love that.

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We’re all works in progress anyway. No one really knows what they’re doing.

A Week of (mostly) Health

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Fun Fact: Did you know that 5:10pm in Abu Dhabi is 8:10am in Kentucky? Does that mean that I can drink while I watch this live F1 race? It’s 5 o’clock somewhere, amirite?

It’s been a whole week! (Yeah, I stopped doing the day numbers in the titles so I had to count. That’s going to get really confusing.)

A week in review:

  • I have acquired a Body Fat percentage scale (thanks Black Friday Amazon deals) so I will update all my numeric data next week sometime. Maybe on day 10, that’s a nice round number.
  • I think my body is now used to waking up early. It’s certainly not happy about it, but it’s used to it for the most part. I woke up naturally at 7am the other day. I mean, I went back to bed because I didn’t have to work that day, but I did wake up for a few minutes! I’d count that.
  • I’m in the routine of blogging every day! Woo!

I’ve worked out 4 of the past 6 days, eaten healthy 3 of the past 6 days (it was Thanksgiving, I have no regrets), and blogged every day! I think that’s a pretty good start.

*brushes off shoulder dramatically*

I’m feeling good about this. I’m feeling strong and committed.

Also, just so you all know, this website / blog won’t be entirely about health and weight loss. Fitness and health happens to be what I’m dabbling in right now and I can’t think about anything else.

This is what I’m talking about when I say I jump into the deep end with things; heath has consumed my life for the past couple months.

That novel I am writing? Nah, I gotta go to the gym.

Getting back to charcoal drawing? Nope, need to scour pinterest for healthy recipes.

Picking up my violin? I’ll do it later.

Gaming? Back burner.

I’m not proud of this quality. I’m trying to get better, which is part of the reason I started this blog. It wasn’t really intended for an audience (though I greatly appreciate anyone who gives a hoot about my daily ramblings), but it was a quick and dirty way to get my brain to do something besides obsess over my current obsession. I think it’s working! Finger’s crossed.

Okay, I’m going to watch this race now. Does anyone else watch Formula 1? Go Ricciardo! Woo!

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Lola’s body is far from used to waking up early. 

Black Friday Salad

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Good morning, internet! Anyone else in a food coma?

Thanksgiving was uneventful in the Johnson-Hollon corner of the world, which is the most wonderful thing it could have been. I am the only one who feels like nothing is ever truly “uneventful” anymore? Maybe that’s just part of adulting? I don’t know.

Anyway, I have a very important goal for myself today and I’m not looking forward to it whatsoever. I’ve got to get back on track with my diet.

*whine*

My mother-in-law lost over 100lbs a couple years back and anytime someone asks her how she did it she tells them “when you get off track, which you will or you’ll drive yourself insane, get right back on it the next day.” It works, folks. I’ve tried exactly that and it’s really the best tip I can give you.

Here’s some elaboration that you didn’t ask for:

Accept that you didn’t do the thing, but don’t give yourself an out to keep doing it. “But it’s Thanksgiving…. But it Black Friday…. But it’s the week after Thanksgiving… But it’s almost Christmas… I might as well wait until the new year…”
Don’t fall into that trap! Stop having the “but I already screwed it up” pity party! (No one wants to go to that anyway, there are much better parties to attend.) There are 33 days until the new year! You can make so much progress in 33 days, even if it’s progress in forming a habit of being healthy.

Do a little something extra for yourself that isn’t related to the goal that you fell off of that day. Whatever the reason or cause, you decided to have a not-so-healthy meal. Maybe it was a family holiday like yesterday, or maybe it was because you’re stressed or getting burnt out. Do something that relaxes you, or invite some friends over and play a board game, or go to the mall and try on some really nice dresses that you don’t have any need for but are still fun to try on. Don’t feel guilty for making a decision, but recognize that something was different and treat yourself a little nicer in that moment, and then decide to do better next time.

Also, and this is the most important, don’t overcompensate! Don’t kill yourself at the gym or eat only a rice cake the next day. Go back to your normal routine that you set to reach your goals. If you’ve already fallen off the wagon why on Earth would you try to make it harder for yourself to get back on track? It’s hard enough to choose chicken breast and vegetables over mozzarella sticks and curly fries on a strong day, I’m certainly not going to choose a rice cake on a weak day.

Blogging for the past five days in a row has made me realize that adults are just assholes to themselves, aren’t they? It’s a good thing I choose to be an adult only a couple days a week.

This is a very discombobulated blog, my bad.
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Papa didn’t raise me to forget my poker glasses.

Thanksgiving Grocery Trip

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Good morning, internet! Happy Thanksgiving!

Okay, so I’m stuck in this weird in-between head space where I’m still the youngest in all of my circles but I’m independent to a fault, so I have a hard time deciding what level of adult I want to be on the daily.

Example:

I demanded that my mom and mother-in-law both asked me to bring something for each Thanksgiving dinner today, because “I’m a month away from being 26 years old! I can handle bringing a side dish for Thanksgiving!”

And yet here I sit… two hours before I need to leave the house… staring at store-bought boxes of pasta salad that’s only ingredient needed is mayonnaise… but that I cannot make because I don’t have mayonnaise.

Do you see what I mean?

See, this would be fine if I was normally a hot mess. But I teeter anywhere between the situation above and then making four different pies from scratch (including the crust) from apples and blueberries that I took special trips to an orchard to pick specifically for my pies. Yeah, I don’t know what to say either. 

Anyway, I will make a more coherent post tomorrow because I need to go to Kroger.

*sigh*

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See? I did this. Pinterest who? How am I the same person right now as the person who did this. 

I am the elderly. 3 / 90

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Good morning, internet! (I re-read my first two posts and realized that it’s kind of rude to only say good morning to myself and not anyone reading this, so hey hi hello.)

In case it wasn’t glaringly obvious yet: I’ve never daily blogged before.

I watch a lot of vloggers on YouTube so I get the idea, but this is still very foreign to me so I’m not sure what to write about. For now, until I really get into the groove, this 90 day daily blog will serve as more of a journal for me and my weird, incoherent, stream-of-conscious style thoughts. (Welcome to my brain.)

So anyway, when I said yesterday that I was exhausted, I truly was exhausted. I tried to work on my novel a while right after work (Yeah, definitely did NOT write 50,000 words in November) but once that space heater is on in my office I feel like a little cuddled burrito and I had to go to bed lest I fall asleep at my desk.

I went to bed at 7:00pm, y’all. That is not okay.

Going to bed at 7pm is acceptable for three types of people:

  1. infants
  2. elderly
  3. college students who juggle 15 credit hours, a part-time job, and a social life and only have the time to sleep scheduled in their planner for a few non-party hours every two days.

But I digress.

Needless to say, I’m feeling pretty bright eyed here at six in the morning today. I think that if I do go to the gym I’ll take it easier, though. My problem (in life, just my main problem altogether) is that I jump head first into big projects or goals and don’t take the time to adjust for the long term. Does anyone else do that? I get so excited about what I want to do and end up going too hard for about a week and then burning out physically. It’s not my excitement that dies, it’s literally my lack of human function because I’m not used to going to hard! It’s frustrating.

I should do a full break-down of my workouts soon. Hmm… I’ll work on that for an upcoming post.

Typically I do about 3 minutes stretching, a 5 minute aerobic warm-up, 4 to 5 weight training exercises (I use an upper body / lower body split, not individual body part days), and 10 to 15 minutes of cardio depending how long I took doing my weights. I aim for being at the gym an hour maximum. If I do go today I will stick to 10 minutes on the stationary bike and maybe a couple upper body lifts.

As for yesterday, I definitely ate that Mexican food and it was delicious. Hey, I’ve got wiggle room in my “healthy eating” goal, I’m still on track! Let a girl enjoy her chori pollo!

In all seriousness, it is super important to take all things in moderation. If you deprive yourself of everything that you want, even when you’re on a “diet”, then you’ll crave it more and more and you run the risk of letting yourself fall into a binge mindset. Binge sounds like a scary word: It may not be anything dramatic, but when you allow yourself to finally indulge after being too strict it may be at the cost of 2,500 calories of Wendy’s in one sitting. (Can you tell that I’ve been there? It’s not as hard to get that many calories at Wendy’s as you may think.)

I am certainly not an expert, but I lost 40lbs pretty recently after being the chubby kid my entire life it was not by being a hard ass to myself about my diet.

What I’ve learned, really just this year, is that even on a diet and even trying to lose weight if you listen to what your body needs it will be more willing to compromise with you. Does your body crave ice cream? Give it a couple bites of ice cream! Maybe make it a healthier option that’s still tasty and satisfying (I HIGHLY recommend Halo Top, oh my God…), but give it some ice cream. And then when you have broccoli and plain chicken breast planned for your next meal it won’t seem so terrible and your body will be like “Ugh, fine I guess” instead of throwing a temper tantrum about wanting carbs.

All I’m saying is cut your body some slack and your body will cut you some slack back.

Your body is just out here trying to survive, it’s not the enemy, it doesn’t know that you want to fit into a size 8 or run a marathon for funzies (hobby runners my true idols). So be a little nicer to it. Explain your goals to your body kindly and with your actions, because I’ve tried yelling and cursing at mine and I don’t think it speaks English.

*Steps down from soapbox*
*Takes a bow*
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And that’s the tea… Oolong and citrus is actually this tea, but this post was the *tea* because I’m still cool and young and I don’t go to bed at 7pm every night. You get it. Okay.