The Holidays Are Officially Over

My parents have been here for the past several days and I've been on holiday break.  I've been a little loose with my eating and goals (example, didn't track yesterday at all) but today's a new day.

I'm like a little kid in  that I need rewards for everything I do.  So I get a sticker every day that I both track my food and do exercise.  If I earn at least 5 stickers at the end of the week, I can put a puffy sticker on.  I have about a billion puffy stickers, but I don't want to wreck my entire calendar :)


Right now, my exercise is for my back, which has really been hurting.  Once I start to feel a little better, I will incorporate more exercises.

Looking Towards 2017

I've not blogged for over a year.  I'm not sure why. There's something cathartic about logging your thoughts, so I'm definitely going to try to do more of it this year.


It's totally cliche to do a resolutions post, but that's ok, I'm thoroughly unoriginal.

I don't really have resolutions so much as I have a set of goals I'd like to work towards this year.


Nutrition- I've got several bulletpoints here

• Log my food most days.  I'm aiming for at least 25 days per month
• Incorporate more whole foods.  
• Pay more attention to how much sugar I'm consuming
• Drastically reduce the number of restaurant meals we're having.  I'm aiming for one per month 

Fitness-

• Do some form of exercise at least 4 days per week- don't get too caught up on this.  It can be yoga, walking the dog, doing an exercise video, riding a bike, etc.  
• Spend more time doing yoga in general

 Finances

• Track our spending
• make reductions in food budget
• increase our savings

 Home

• Start making small renovations towards making our house the home we want it to be
• Do the UFYH app 20-10s at least 2 per day
• once winter is over, spend one weekend a month in the yard making improvements.  Most of these improvements are just manpower, not expenditure

Education

• spend 1 hour per day working on my coursework.  
• Aim to test for a new class every 8-10 weeks
• BIG GOAL- Finish my ChFC designation

 Knitting

• Reduce my yarn stock by 30%
• Start holiday knitting now, make a spreadsheet and double check it
• reduce stash of remnants by 50% instead of an overflowing basket, half a basket
• finally finish a pretty thing A Pretty Thing
• Make some modifications to my alpaca fingerless mitts so they are a little easier to wear
• Finish fixing the mitt that my dad's dog ate
• Log any new yarn purchases on Ravelry
• Knit an Ease sweater
• knit another Skew sock 
• Knit Tradewinds
• Knit Wink
• Set aside an evening and photograph and log yarn  stash on Ravelry.  Add at least 10 of the existing hanks 
• Do project pages for everything I start in 2017 on Ravelry
• Take a Craftsy class
• Take a knitting class- Maybe a Fair Isle Class?
• Knit at least 8 pair of socks this year.  This will include SKEW
•  I really want to make and wear this Cabled Poncho

Life in general

• Try to be more aware politically.  
• Be the change I want to be
• work on being more positive
• work on getting more and better sleep

I think this list should keep me out of trouble this year.  

Status update

I almost never seem to remember that I have a blog.  So this morning it occurs to me that I blog a lot more when I am doing well.  Clearly I'm not.

Work has been really busy for months and months.  I'm super grateful to have a job, but it really spiked my already high anxiety.  Ultimately, I needed relief, so I bucked up and went to the doctor.  She gave me something for anxiety and something for sleep and so far, I would say I'm at least 50% less anxious.   I'm also sleeping really well for the first time in... really ever.


My weight is terrible.  I'm just shy of my all time not pregnant high.  I'm counting calories and trying so hard to care.  I can and will do this.

So that's it for a quick update!  What are you all up to lately?

March

I haven't really had a lot to say lately, but someone recently reminded me that I have a blog, so I thought I would swing by for a quick update.

So.  Hm.  What have I been up to?  Quite a bit actually.


Home: Ha. Wow.  My house is a disaster, y'all.  I need to go on a spring cleaning extravaganza.   Top to bottom.  We're starting to talk about upgrading our home and in order to do this, we are going to need to SERIOUSLY clean everything, plus downsize a buncha stuff and maybe rent a storage unit for stuff we don't use but can't bear to part with. 

Work.  We had layoffs again a while back.  I was lucky enough to survive, but it's grim, man.  It's really stressful there right now and if you've been reading a while, or if you know me in person you know that I am not great at handling stress.  Walking into work is like a low level panic attack all.damned.day.  I walk in and my stomach cramps up, my heart starts pounding, etc.  I've been walking on lunch and listening to music and that's helping a little.  I need to just suck it up and make an appointment with the doctor because I'm not sure my stress reaction is exactly normal.

Weight.  OH GOD.  I went off the rails in JUNE and I've been strugglefail ever since.  I feel like I am back on track again, but lets just not talk about what the scale says, ok?

Exercise.  Still boxing.  Walking every day on lunch.  Trying to get my 10,000 steps in every day.  I'm really more focused on the weight.  I'm not in the right headspace to tackle one more thing right now.  I'm a damned mess, if I'm being honest.  On the upside, I'm doing Fight for Air this week.  Assuming that I don't die in the stairway, that's likely to be a good spike in my fitness for the week.

Dog.  He's an idiot.

Kid.  He's awesome, naturally.  Silly, funny, smart.  His behavior at school could use some upgrades, but man, I'm super proud of that kid.  He's alright, you know?

Knitting.  I'm not knitting as much lately.  All the stuff from work has me just wanting to be as non-productive as possible sometimes.  I think I will be picking it back up soon. 

That's really all about me.  How 'bout you?

Trying it out

In effort to start 2015 lighter than I started 2014, I've finally committed to counting calories and, you know, actually trying to stay within my calories.

So I'm eating between 1600-1900 per day and I'm *gasp* doing strength training.  Which is for weirdos, y'all.  (I kid, I kid)

A friend loaned me 21 Day Fix and I've done a Fix workout every day in December.  Which, totally sounds more impressive until you realize it's 12/3.  Anyway, it's all no joke.  I'm a little stiff and sore, but I'm feeling pretty proud of myself for doing it.  At least for now.

Because sometimes, getting started and not giving up is enough.  Small victories.

November

It's been a tough month.   I'm still holding steady at my January 2013 weight.  So, you know, months of careful dieting and weight loss flushed down the toilet because I can't switch off celebration mode from June to November. 

If I'm being really honest with myself, I think my problem is that I let Friday, Saturday and Sunday get nuts, too.

I'm not making any big, sweeping changes.  Let's face it.  Those don't work for me. Like at all.

So instead, I'm just going to honestly weigh in on Sunday mornings.  I won't be posting the weight here.  But I will post a picture of my reaction to the results.  I'm not sure why I decided to do that, but I'm doing that.

Also, on Friday, at my pedicure, I got a brow wax.  The guy asked me if  I'd like to do my lip, too.  I was all

I've got a normal amount of blonde hair on my upper lip.  NOT having that ripped out with wax. OUCH.

Struggle

Man, vacation mode.   I've been on vacation mode from June to today.  I've had POCKETS of being on plan, but mostly, eating whatever the hell I want.  This has not been great for my weight.  I'm as heavy as I've ever been right now.  I'm not exercising except for my Saturday morning boxing class.

I've really got to settle into counting and moving and losing again.

I'm so uncomfortable in my skin.  I think saying it out loud is the first step.  For today, my goal is to track all my food, be within my calorie target and get my 10,000 steps.

One day at a time, that's the way to do this.