January: How to do better without the pressure of a New Year's Resolution Fest.

 What I learned about myself by not making any Resolutions, building habits instead, kick starting the year with a nutrition challenge, and doing less in my workouts (with bigger gains). And, my mantra for the year: "Just not all at once, and not right away."

I am part of Street Parking, an online fitness (programming) community that has its origins in the CrossFit world (at least, the founders do), but is not a CrossFit affiliate itself. It was designed as a program where if all you have is a pair of dumbbells and some determination, you can follow the program and get yourself fit. There are, of course, options for if you have more or all of the equipment, and options if you're pregnant/postnatal, or just starting out and not fit at all.

Their December mantra was Anti New Year, New Me:

In other words, don't wait for January to start your fitness journey; start / keep going in December. Build your consistency now. 

Of course, it's well past December. Did you make NY Resolutions, and now it's February, and you've already failed? Are you going to wait until next New Year? If you miss starting out in the first week of the month, are you going to wait until the next month starts? Spring? Summer? 

I hope not.

Just start now. If there's one thing I've learned over the years of trying to get fit, it's that I have to let go of my Calendar OCD. I don't have to start a yoga sequence at the beginning of a month, or on a Monday. I don't have to join a program/gym at the beginning of a year. Just start. Start where you are, and work towards your goal.

Street Parking (SP) hosted a Jump Start nutrition challenge for January.

Not going to lie, this felt a bit like a resolution thing, but it was more about learning about yourself and building consistent habits around nutrition.

Points were earned by:

• Hitting your nutrition goals each day. It didn't matter if you chose the 800g Challenge or Paleo etc.
• Drinking a set water target (of your choice).
• Walking 10 minutes/ day or reaching a step target each day.
• Starting each day with a protein and fruits or veggies at your first meal.
• Avoid Alcohol.
• Pay attention each day: 
• How was your sleep?
• How was your energy level?
• And each week, note what your biggest win and what your biggest obstacle was.

How I did on the Challenge:

I didn't choose a specific diet plan. I've been aiming for 800g of fruits and vegetables a day for quite some time now, and I've been trying to increase my protein consumption. But I didn't want to have to do it for a challenge. So I chose to log all food and beverages consumed in Cronometer because I hate logging my food, but I do so much better when I do. Sure, I still have the chocolate and the snacks, but not as much. Logging keeps me accountable, if you will. And after having to do it every single day for four weeks, I've learned that it really doesn't take that long to do (time yourself, you'll see).

Will I keep logging going forward? Yes. Forever? Hell no.

I hit my water target (80oz) every day, and while I thought I drank lots of water before, sometimes tea got in the way. And I do feel better (my bladder likes more water, too. Less UTI irritation). I can't promise myself that I'll do 80oz every day, but I think 2L is doable (64), so somewhere in between. I'm not going to log it, though.

I chose the walking 10 minutes per day option. My dog agreed that this was the good option.

I work a desk job, so hitting step targets over 6k is just so much pressure (but that 10 minute walk can get me over 6k every time), and my psyche can't handle the failure of not hitting 10k steps a day.

We often have protein (eggs and turkey bacon), and often a vegetable or fruit for breakfast, but I made sure that I had it every day, even on weekends when cereal is usually easier. Granola with yogurt and a banana works, though.

Avoiding alcohol was easy enough. Had the challenge been no honey in my tea, we would have had issues. Or no chocolate. That would not have gone over well.

One thing I learned about myself during this challenge was that reading before bed made me have a much better sleep than anything else. I mean sure, walking in -20° can make you sleepy, eating well calms you down, but reading an actual book just does something to my brain, and my sleep score improves every time. Unless it's a smut e-book.

Unrelated to the Jump Start challenge, I made a big decision about my workout plan.

If you look through all the tracks that SP has to offer, you can choose from the daily workouts, several different endurance programs, multitudes of strength programs, bodyweight programs, rucking, and recovery. You could do something every day, multiple times a day. Well, someone infinitely fitter and thirty years younger than I could.

Last Spring I found myself wanting to do it all. Program it all. 

I had to stand back and ask myself, why am I doing this in the first place? To keep up with my kids. Go hiking and biking and swimming with them. And I found myself giving it all in a few workouts a week to the point where I was wrecked on the weekend and couldn't do any of that.

So in late December I decided to back off.

I chose to do the Shift (easier) version of all the Vault workouts (the special Monday workouts that are super fun, but not easy, and if you do all 25 in a year, you get a badge) this year. I am making myself do the Shift version of the Vault this year, at least for the first time through (January - June). Even if I think I can scale the barbell version, I'm doing the Shift version. 

And you know what? It's still hard. But I'm not wrecked on a Monday.

Wednesdays for the first 12 weeks of the year, SP has decided to focus on Strength. I'm enjoying the Strength sessions. They work a lot of the body in 30 minutes, and again, I'm backing off on how hard I push myself through the workout, but in doing so I'm making bigger gains. I can't explain it. I'm not pushing myself to the point of not being able to move the next day, but each week I add a little more weight (if I feel like it), and I've improved so much in just one month. I'm not overloading my overhead movements--those gains take longer or I suffer with arms that fall asleep all night and all day. But I can shoulder-press two pounds more than I could last Fall.

The other days of the week are spent working on one or two of endurance, some Olympic lifts, swimming, stairs, and just getting out and doing things on the weekends.

It's all about building Habits.

My Perfectly OCD Calendar has all my Habit Curator bubbles filled in every day, and I hit 800g every day, and I eat enough protein every day, and I do yoga every day, and I do about five other things every day. And I'll paint my house this year.....

This whole challenge, my biggest wins have been sleeping better and having more energy, and my biggest obstacles have been my own desire to do it all now.

I did start January with the intention of doing yoga every day (mostly because my mobility is tanking), but so far that hasn't happened. And maybe it's the nightly walks, or that I've backed off on the intensity of my workouts a bit, or that I'm actually stretching a tiny bit after workouts, but I'm not as stiff as I usually am if I don't do yoga. 

Don't get me wrong. I still need to work on my mobility. But I can take it slower than every day. 

I've nailed the daily walk habit.

I am good with logging my food every day.

And even though I wasn't actively trying for it, I did reach 800g & protein macros almost every day by the end of the challenge.

I do want to work on Endurance every week. 

I want to hike etc. every week.

I want to paint my house this Spring, and garden this Summer.

But it doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be consistent. And more than nothing. Go Big or Go Home is not going to work here. And you can't have it all, not right away.

And every time I think I'm failing because I'm not doing it all right now, I think of the scene in Supergirl where Cat Grant explains how she does do it all, and I think, this actually is the very best advice:

Kara Danvers : It was very hard. Really, really very hard.... I just don't know how you do it, Ms. Grant. I don't understand how you juggle it all.

Cat Grant : Oh, Kira, you have stumbled upon the most annoying question of the century, and you are so young that you do not even realize it. How do you juggle it all? You learn, that's how. You start with two balls before adding another. I figured out how to be brilliant in business, and then I added being a brilliant mother. Far too many women burn out trying to do too much before they're ready.

Kara Danvers : So you can have it all?

Cat Grant : Of course. Just not all at once, and not right away. And not with that hair. Use conditioner, for god's sake.

The Best Planner Ever - Curation by St. Belford

I have found it. The very best planner. Ever. One that I actually used all year last year, and liked so much that I pre-ordered one. They're not cheap, and this year I splurged on the tabs and more stickers (because you can never have enough stickers), so it was my Christmas gift from Santa. 

It focuses on Self Care, which is excellent, and St. Belford even provides lovely podcasts supporting your self-care.

The Sections:

1. Self-Care Menu: what can you do for 10/30/60 minutes for your mind/body/soul?

2. Bucket List for the year: what fun, satisfying adventures do you want to have?

3. Set your Intentions for the year: how do you want to live your life? What do you want to change, achieve, do?

4. The next section is hefty: Missions: what do you want to accomplish this year? And you don't just write "Paint my house". You also give yourself a target date, tell yourself Why you want to do it, Overcome your fears about doing it, lay out the (manageable) Steps with their individual target dates, note your Milestones, your Rewards upon completion, and you even get a lovely Progress Bar that you can decorate to your heart's desire. It's like a big Project Plan on a two-page spread, in your planner, not in a separate notebook. Awesome.

5. Less daunting is the Habit Curator: What habits do you want to incorporate into your life? What are their benefits, the steps to doing the habit, the cues that help trigger you to do it, and a checklist for starting it. In other words, I'm not just listing my habits, I'm setting myself up for success in doing them.

6. Savings Curator: What are you saving for, how can you re-budget or make more money to do so? This section also includes monthly Income and Expenses tables.

7. The Monthly section: All the monthly spreads are in one section, so you can plan your monthly items, write in all your birthdays, see what's going on in your schedule at a glance instead of flipping through pages to find the next month. It should also be noted that every day is a full square. None of those useless diagonal half-squares!

8. Then, and this is the best, the Weekly Spreads: Each week gets two full two-page spreads. 

Pre-Week Planner: The whole month is laid out at the top, and the week you're in is bolded. There is a Gratitude Reflection for the week, a Drawing Board (your mini bullet journal for the week, or for whatever), your week's Priorities / Mission Progress, and a Personal Planner / Tracker (meal planning, workouts, moods, whatever you want). At the very bottom is a prompt for the week - something that will make you feel good.

Weekly Spread: Every day has it's own full block, and each block has an appointment/task section, a checklist section, and a Self-Care line. The spread also includes a space for reminders or notes, and the Habit Tracker for the week.

9. One of the last, and also best, sections, is the Memories section:

Yearly Memory Bank. It's where you write down all the things that you want to remember, like when did you have coffee with that random friend, when and where was your vacation, when did your car go in for service, etc. It has 54 spaces for the things that you don't want to shuffle back through the whole book to find, and it's great. 

Yearly Reflections: prompts help you look back at your year; who/what made you happy/unhappy, and what can you change to make next year better?

10. At the very end are plain lined note pages. Not a lot, but they get the job done. And, new this year is next year's calendar.

That all sounds like a lot.

But the very best part is that St Belford themselves give you permission to not use all the spaces, do all the things, and they even tell you to give yourself permission to not accomplish all the missions etc. that you've set out for yourself. Life happens, and your self-care and mental health are more important than checking all the boxes and doing all the tasks and meeting all the target dates.

I certainly did not do all the things and meet all the dates. Not one of my missions made it off the page last year. I only have one or two habits that I manage to do 50% of the time. I didn't do everything on my Bucket List. And I'm okay with that because I can see what I have accomplished in my general life. Because it was actually a lot.

I finally finished crocheting a dishcloth that I've been working on for a couple of years. Now I want to crochet more.

I exercised a lot more and ate more vegetables this year. I prepped better lunches for work, more often, this year.

I was a better President for a Group this year.

I was less hard on myself for not getting things done this year. And this, right here, is motivation to do even just one more thing this year. And to be okay with not doing it, if it's too much.

Mayhem 30 Hard

I do CrossFit. Not this summer because I'm taking a break (my plantar fasciitis said so). 

I start up again in September, and because my gym is a Mayhem affiliate, the Monthly Mayhem challenge is the Mayhem 30 Hard (based off the 75 Hard challenge, which, if you know nothing about it, Google that shit and then applaud everyone who is determined enough to do it because damn, I could not repeatedly set myself up for that much failure. And my colleague who did it looked exhausted. I'm digressing).

It's a challenge designed to test your resolve and self-discipline. And it's a little easier than 75 Hard. 

But does that mean I'm going to do it? I mean, I could, but does Mayhem not know that people (or their children) start school in September, so it's not just "here are 7 things you need to accomplish everyday to be worthy complete this challenge", it's "here are 7 things you need to accomplish everyday to be worthy complete this challenge and you need to prepare / help your kids prepare lunches, get them to school, drive them to all their extra curriculars (I love having nerdy introverted children), make supper and do laundry on a regular basis. Also have sex with your significant other. Unless you're so exhausted that all you want to do is cry in the shower and maybe sleep there because the bed is way over there and now that you're in the shower do you really need to get out? Because yeah, I need to add to my existing get-up-at-04:30-go-to-bed-at-22:00-but-you-need-8+-hours-of-sleep day.

This is what we have to do (and what my inside voice thinks about it all):

For the September monthly challenge, we’re doing a condensed version of the 75 Hard program, which you may have heard of.

To successfully complete this challenge, for the next 30 days, you must do ALL of the following EVERY DAY (the notes on this say that this scores a 7, and that if we don't do all of it, score what you did do. Also, you don't have to "start over" like you do in 75 Hard):

• Complete two 30+ minute workouts (at least one workout MUST be outside) If I do Shavasana for half an hour on the deck and then for half an hour in bed, does that count?
• Drink 2/3 of your body weight in ounces of water
  (For example: if you weigh 200 lbs, you will need to drink a minimum of 133 oz of water each day) Hahahahahahahahahaha. Wait. Didn't someone die from this? I can get about 60% of this one, but I'm pretty sure that I'm not going to get a 7/7 day.
• Read 10+ pages in a nonfiction book Do CRA rulings count? Financial Statements? Lavender's Blue is non-fiction, right? I'm learning how to deal with drunk people and escape weddings so it counts. 
• Consume zero alcohol for the entire 30 days The blueberry apple ciders will stay in my fridge for another 30 days. No problemo.
• Choose any diet and stick with it The notes on this say that even just logging all food everyday, or reaching the goal of no snacks after supper can count. I do actually want to follow the 800g Challenge diet. You do feel amazing on it! But that means that I have to prep salads for work lunches, and not eat just pasta for supper like you do when you answer a kazillion unread emails on your first day back after a holiday whilst putting out Sage fires. Accounting, not brush.
• No cheat meals Someone I know has a birthday in September, so we all know how that one's going to go.
• Take a daily progress picture There may not be publishable words for this one.

I'm going to bed now.

Swimming with Little Old Ladies

Last week I was able to go swimming at the public pool before work. As in, Hubby had the day off, so I didn't have to take the kids to daycare, so I could have slept in, but instead I chose--chose--to be at the pool at 6:15 a.m. On purpose.

There are three four types of people who are at the pool at opening time, and they can easily be identified by the lane or zone of the pool in which they congregate.

1. Dedicated, fit, "Advanced" swimmers who are able to swim an Olympic length over and over and over again without ever looking like it's an effort. These people are actually in the minority, and their zone is the Advanced swimming lane. That's not my group.

2. The Aqua-Fitters. These ladies are rocking the leisure pool with excellent coordination and range of motion, and they never look like they're going to expire at any moment. This isn't my group.

3. The "Intermediate" swimmers. The Advanced swimmers are way too fast, and the Leisure swimmers are way too slow. The Intermediate swimmers set a nice pace that is nothing too strenuous, but at the same time isn't a Sunday Drive. There may be a rest at the end of every lap or two, but the pace is steady and true. I thought this was my group. I was very, very, wrong.

4. The "Leisure" swimmers. These sharks little old ladies--and when I write little old lady, you should be reading Driving Miss Daisy--look like they are out for a Sunday Drive. No, really. They bob along the Olympic length of the pool doing something that is a cross between the doggy paddle and treading water. They are, in fact, quite literally treading water in an upright position, but their arms are paddling just enough that they are actually moving forward. This should be my group.

I walked to the lap pool, looked at the Leisure Lane, saw the bobbing, and thought to myself, too slow. I'll be mowing those poor women down.

Okay, maybe a little back story is in order: I remember being an awesome swimmer. I couldn't run to save my life, Sports Day at school was an embarrassing form of torture, I could maybe fake one push-up if I was on my knees, but put me in a pool and my weak little arms could pull me along faster than all the fit kids could swim. Swimming was easy.

So, I'm thinking, at this point, that just because a (tiny) broken bone in the bottom of my foot has kept me essentially immobile for the last two years, swimming should still be easy. I should be able to do a few front-crawling laps in the Intermediate Lane no problem.

I was wrong. I was wrong like a four-year-old is wrong when he thinks it's okay to teach his younger brother that it's okay to flush toilet paper rolls down the toilet (full or empty--either way). I was wrong like the Church was wrong when it excommunicated people for thinking that the Earth was round.

I was wrong like a fat, 40 year old woman who had two kids in her late thirties and whose life just kept getting more and more sedentary for various reasons is wrong when she thinks, hey, I used to ride my bike to the recreation centre, work out in the gym for an hour, then swim a few laps, then ride my bike home to do yoga on the lawn for half an hour or so, then maybe go horseback riding for a few hours, so how hard can this be?

I front-crawled for half a lap before my brain realized that I may actually drown in this really freaking big pool. There's a bit of a feeling of safety when your laps aren't Olympic length. When they are, and the "shallow" end is still over your head? The edges are so very far away. I had to back-stroke for most of my swim just so that I could breath!

I did manage two full laps (one lap being there-and-back), but I'm pretty sure that the little old ladies out-lapped me. The old men in my lane most certainly did.

I'm going again this week.

Just How Bad Is Sugar, Anyway?

I just finished watching The Fifth Estate's episode on sugar. I have to confess that I haven't watched it entirely--I didn't start recording it until a few minutes in, and I cut it off because of child-related noise levels, but I'm still going to sum it up for you.

Sugar has two molecules: glucose, which feeds you, and fructose, which kills you. A ton of processed foods have added sugars; and a lot of those are sweetened with fructose, which kills you. Sugar makes you fat, gives you Alzheimer's, diabetes, Alzheimer's, heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's, diabetes, Alzheimer's, and it makes you fat.

The food industry wants you to eat more of their food, so they're adding sugar which makes it taste great, but it also makes you want to eat more. You never feel full from sugar. The associations dealing with most of the above diseases aren't standing up to the big foodies. They need more research. More people have to get fat, I guess. And slip into diabetic comas. And talk about--what were we talking about, anyway?

The American Heart Association is taking notice (the Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation hasn't come back from their coffee break at Tim Horton's yet). They believe people like Stanhope when they say that sugar--fructose in particular--will give you heart disease. So, the AHA is putting limits on how much sugar you should consume. Are you ready for it?

Women: 6 teaspoons/day.
Men: 9 teaspoons/day.

They aren't talking heaping, either. They're talking level measured.

Okay, I say, but the labels measure sugar in grams. How the many grams of sugar is a teaspoon? Four. That's right. A teaspoon of sugar is four grams. So the tablespoon of Kirkland chocolate chips I measured out right now has seven grams, or 1.75 (let's call it two) teaspoons of sugar in it.

How many chocolate chips are in a tablespoon? Twenty-six. 26. Twenty-fucking-six. That doesn't even cover the bottom of a glass prep bowl! I'd like to say that I put the chocolate chips back in the bag, but I don't want to lie to you. I probably sprinkled three teaspoons or more of coconut sugar on my oatmeal this morning. I get one more teaspoon of sugar today. It's not even ten a.m. I'm so fucked.

I'm going to have to start drinking my coffee with cream only, again.

Which, to be honest, if you do that for a long enough time (like while you're pregnant), when you can have sugar again, your husband's coffee, which was never sweet enough, is now really disgusting. You do get used to unsweetened foods.

Try it.

That's right, I said I'm challenging you to cut out some sugar.

Pick one thing that you eat or drink every day, and make it sugar free. I'm not talking about substituting one sugar for another--sugar is sugar is sugar (although fructose will kill you faster)--or about substituting sugar with a sweetener like aspartame or sucralose or even agave because those aren't any better for you (that's a topic for another day, but you can check out Food Babe and 100 Days of Real Food for more fun reading).

I'm challenging you to drink your coffee or tea black or creamy, but not sweet. I'm challenging you to eat an apple instead of drinking fruit punch. I'm challenging you to give up your favourite chocolate bar for a piece of fruit (I know, I know).

I'm challenging someone to find a food at Tim Horton's that doesn't have more than three teaspoons of sugar in it. That's twelve grams.

Hmmm. What gets culled....