I told Brent this morning that we are going to miss seeing our last day in Disney World Memories on the On This Day Feed because they happened on the 29th. No 29th this year, no flash back memories. Which, in a way, is good I guess. We can use less of this Covid-times time. One day closer to the end of lockdowns and quarantines and no vaccines right? That's how this works isn't it?
Sort of...
So how did my now smaller sized February go as far as my pretend goals? Or real goals that I make up. How does that go? Real Pretend Goals? Pretend Real Goals? Whatever...
It was actually a fairly decent month as far as hitting numbers goes.
This will be the 13th blog which is the exact number I needed to average each month to hit my overarching goal for the year so that's nice.
Reading is a funny one. I read more this month and ended up 4 books behind to the 3 behind I was last month...what? Still fine. I'll catch up at some point with a stretch of quick reads. But I do have a few non-fiction ones that I've been catching up on that are slower paced. Just the nature of non-fiction over fiction.
I did the 20 Daily Calm sessions. Still just not enjoying them. Not sure they are doing me much good either. It's interesting they seem to be geared toward people who suffer from anxiety. Which makes sense, right? People who are stressed out and anxious are the ones that would be most inclined to looking for ways to help with that. For me? I'm just looking for help with a busy brain. Not an anxious one. But I'm just not sure I will ever get there. And I'm starting to think maybe it's not even a destination I should be aiming for. But I'll give it another try before I decide for sure.
POD and Daily Gratitude were all checked off (or will be at the end of the day). Like I said that one for me starts a rhythm and it's hard to just stop so I really am feeling like I've committed myself to a year. We will see. Definitely hard to do when we are at home all the time. But the cats are always up for a photo so that's a help.
The flexibility was a good start. Just a reminder to add it back into my workouts helped start loosening things up. Next month (spoiler alert) I'll actually take some measurements and have an actual goal there.
Actually did the elimination diet that I talked about. And it has made a difference. I think it's part of what helped with flexibility as well. Less pain makes it less difficult to stretch out. The ten days wasn't as hard as I thought. Had a set back with nightshades that was unexpected to me but not to anyone else. I'm not sure why Michael Symon didn't include them in his eliminated foods as they seem to be a trigger for a lot of people. But anyway...the ten days wasn't horrible. I did feel better at the end. Less pain for sure. Less stiffness.
I've been using my pointer finger on my left hand as my main gauge. Though my knees and my feet follow along with it. But when I started I couldn't bend that finger first thing in the morning. It was that stiff and swollen. And it hurt. It hurt all day, even when I worked the stiffness out of it by mid morning the pain was there all day. So as I've added things in that has been my guide. How does my finger feel in the morning? And because it hasn't been a smooth everything is perfect transition back all I've added so far is meat and the first day of dairy. I do two days of an added item, then a day off going back to the base diet, then add again. Chicken, pork and beef and one day of dairy is all I've managed. Chicken I had a slight reaction to. A little swelling and a little pain. Nothing catastrophic for sure, but I was still surprised when it happened. I mean, chicken? Really? Pork was totally fine. The first day of beef was fine the second caused what I'm describing as a warning. I was slightly puffy the next day, and there was like an echo of pain. If that makes sense. It didn't really hurt but it was on the verge of hurting.
So meat is going to be a not two days in a row thing for chicken and beef. But pork is fine. Which is fine, I want to look at a way of keeping the calories lower and the vegetables higher anyway. Because I've lost 8 pounds so far and though I know I'll probably put a few back on in the short term I'd like to keep this trend going and lose the rest of the weight I want to for the year. And eating no meat, dairy, flour, or extra sugar and not drinking alcohol has definitely pushed that along. BUT...I really am not happy eating this way. Or not eating this way. So I need to find a good balance.
But I'm still adding things back in so I don't really know what the end product is going to look like. Tomorrow I'll get the final read out on dairy and take a "clean" day. Then I'll add flour for two days. Then a clean day. Then the slow roll out of the nightshade brigade to see if maybe it was just one or two that caused the issue.
So what am I looking at for March?
Well finishing the elimination test that's clear. And more of a challenge than you would think. As I mentioned, I really don't like eating this way. I love food. It's part of my enjoyment in life. And now that I feel better I have the voice in my head telling me that it wasn't REALLY all that bad...but it was and I need to finish strong so I don't have to start all over again.
Flexibility I'm going to try for an increase in my reach of 1/4". I honestly have no idea if that's a soft or strong goal but it seemed like a good idea when it popped into my head so that's what I'm going for. I'll do baseline measurements tomorrow and go from those. Seated stretches, knee twist to the ground and reaching for my toes.
Reading. I'll just keep plugging along. It's a yearly goal so I'm not sweating it yet.
POD and Daily Gratitude, like I said, I'm pretty sure I'm going to end up in it for the year but I am not holding myself to that firmly. But for now, March is on.
Daily Calm. Hmmm....I'm going to give it one more month but I think three times a week this time. So 15 times in March seems good.
Writing. I mentioned this earlier this week. I'm going to do a fiction push. Forced March Fiction Month! (still makes me laugh) and I've settled on 12 pieces as the goal. I am still looking for prompts and found a website yesterday that does mini-contests with their prompts so I might even knock off one of my submission goals for the year as well. Wouldn't that be nice? Now if I do submit to them that means it counts toward my fiction goal, but you might not see it on the blog until later after they reject me. You'll just have to trust me that I reached the goal even if you've only seen 10 pieces by the end of the month.
The schedule kind of went out the window in February and March it will be a little wonky as well. I'll be honest when all of my will power is going toward what I'm eating there isn't a lot left for rigid planning and I'll have a week where I'm adding in an extra out of the house block of time later in the month and I want flexibility there. So...I'll try that scheduled again in April and see what I feel I need as far as focused time. So far things are still moving along, but just at different times.
So there's February in the books and March laid out.
Three more months until Brent and I are eligible for the vaccine and hopefully everything shifts again. Though only slightly on the hopefully part. As much as it's been a hassle at times, it's also been a lot easier to plan and schedule things like cooking at home with Brent's commute being 3 minutes instead of "who knows? let's guess. don't burn dinner!"
Good luck to us all.
And keep wearing those masks!
No comments:
Post a Comment