Food This Week

Ok, this is what I think my meals will be this week:

Breakfasts:

• Omelet with broccoli and sun-dried tomatoes, toast, fruit
  
• Cereal with soy milk, yogurt, fruit
  

Other meals:

• tacos
  
• soup w/cheese and crackers
  
• pasta w/marinera sauce
  
• dal, Indian carrots, and bread
  

Some of this stuff I already have in my fridge or freezer, which is good. It's going to be a busy work weekend.
The goal now will be to ensure things I don't need stay out of my shopping cart.

Sunday Update

Since I already wrote the dissertation below, this is going to be a quickie. I actually managed to plan and go grocery shopping yesterday. Today, I did some cooking.
For the record, I also started to play a game online, quit after a few minutes, and installed StayFocused to block the game site.

Meals planned for the week:

• French toast, yogurt, fruit for breakfasts
  
• Sauerkraut and veggie sausage, roasted potatoes, broccoli
  
• Pasta w/marinara sauce, sauteed spinach w/garlic
  
• Soup, cheese and crackers
  

French toast is made. Sauerkraut and veggie sausage meal is made. Pasta and sauce are made. I still have leftover soup that I brought back from my parents, and I have the makings for other soup.

Things that came home in my grocery bag that were not on my list:

• Bag of chips and sour cream to make dip
  
• Bag of cheese popcorn
  
• Bag of Reese's miniatures
  
• Hersey's Special Dark chocolate bar
  

Sigh. At least the chips and dip are gone. :(

The Good and the Bad

So the walking thing. Yeah, I'll come back to that.

For now..it's the New Year. Again. (I wonder if there's a spike in the number of blog posts today with folks writing about all their resolutions and all that? Kinda like the spike in gym memberships.)

But that's not quite what I want to talk about. Do I want to be healthier and stronger and happier in the New Year. Absolutely. (And if I'm going to be really honest, I'd like to fit into my old clothes again, as in the clothes I was able to wear last year.) Making a resolution of some sort doesn't seem like the best way to achieve those things. I'll inevitably fail and then just feel bad, which certainly won't help with the happier thing.

So. What?

Perhaps the way to start is with a list of the ways in which I do and don't take care of myself. I've been working on this in my mind already, and I know it's going to be heavily slanted toward the bad.

Ways I do take care of myself, listed in order that they come to mind: 1) I eat food including some fruits and veggies. 2) I pet and love my cats. 3) I continue to interact with online friends and with my family (i.e., I do have some human contact). 4) I try to be self-aware (i.e., even though I'm often not taking care of myself, at least I'm not lying to myself about it). 5) I have become better at monitoring and catching migraines closer to when they start. 6) I removed all games from my phone and asked a friend to impounded my Nintendo DS including all DS games.

Those last two are actually pretty significant. I should give myself a lot of credit for them.

Ways I don't take care of myself, again, listed in the order that they come to mind: 1) I eat way more food than I need for fuel, and included in that is way too much junk. 2) I get virtually no exercise. 3) My sleep cycle is atrocious. 4) I am addicted to video games, and have an extremely hard time not becoming a lump on the couch for weeks on end once I start playing. 5) The self-talk has become very, very negative. 6) I have very little face-to-face social interaction outside of work. 7) I am a hermit most weekends. 8) There's more, but I don't want to list them here.

Also, the depression and anxiety cycle are slowly getting the better of me. Every now and then I'll have a win using the mental tools I've learned over the past years of therapy, but more often than not, I end up curled on the couch at the end of the day, playing a computer game to numb my thoughts.

Clearly all that above is waaay to much to work on all at once. But work on it I will, one thing at a time, because I DO want to feel better (at least I do when the apathy isn't winning).

I'm going to start with food, as I think it will be the easiest. I had a 6-hour drive home from my parents last week to think about this. My goal for January will be to plan my meals every week and go grocery shopping with a list. Hopefully, I will cook, but if things get crazy, it's perfectly ok for my meal planning to consist of frozen, ready-made dinners, baby carrots, and grapes. Just so that I actually take the time to plan and go shopping.

To keep myself accountable, I'm going to blog my meal plans and what I actually end up with in my grocery bags every week. Please come heckle me for being a slacker if I haven't posted anything by the end of the day each Sunday.

I've already planned and shopped for this week. And even cooked some! I'll get that post up later today. Next is to get out of my PJs, get cleaned up, and take a walk. The weather's nice, and I find a walk is a great way to start the new year. Especially since what I really want to do is take a nap.

Oh, and I've also given up video games for January. This is something I've done before, whenever my game playing become especially out of control. It's time, again.

Update

So I haven't been streaking. With the walking that is. (Or any other kind of streaking either. :p) However, I HAVE been getting in the occasional 3-miles of walking, probably only about once a week, but still. I haven't given up on this walking streaking thing yet.

I just got back from a brisk 15-minute after dinner walk. Together with walking to work, from work to campus (got a ride back to work from campus), and walking back home, that should add up to at least an hour of walking or about 3 miles. Woot! I've decided that I'm going to break my streak this time, starting today. Yes, yes, my current streak is only 3 days. That just means this is totally doable!

Check back in on Monday to see if I actually break the streak this time.

3 miles

Well it hasn't quite been a year since I last posted...

This evening I went for a 3-mile walk. A bit more than 3 miles, even. It was definitely over an hour of walking, and I was trying to keep up a brisk pace, although there was stopping and waiting for street lights and cars interleaved with the walking.

Once upon a time, when I lived in the land of castles and lochs and a pretty canal complete with towpath 5 minutes from my flat, a 3-mile walk was...well...a stroll in the park. Most days I walked to and from work. I went on frequent walks with a walking group. I loved walking around Edinburgh. An 8 or 9 mile walk through the Scottish countryside was one of my favorite things.

I'm in a different city now, back in the US. This past year, my walking and general physical activity has shrunk to almost nothing. It's a short walk to work -- a bit shorter even than when I lived in Edinburgh. I haven't been walking. I live close to a park and a pretty campus with lots of trees and brick sidewalks. I've gone walking over there maybe twice. There are multiple hiking groups that I've signed up for. I went on one organized hike back in the spring. Sigh.

So what prompted tonight's walk? Yesterday was a Very Bad Day. Nothing horrible happened, it was just a bad day with my mood somewhere in the vicinity of the bottom of a horrible sludgy pool of muck. I desperately wanted to make today a bit better, and it has been better, at least a little bit. Knowing that getting some fresh air and exercise would help, and since I was already wearing my sneakers, I spontaneously decided to go for a walk after I'd finished my dinner. I intentionally picked 3 miles because, darn it, I should be able to walk 3 miles!

As I was walking, I decided I was going to make that my new goal: to walk or run 3 miles every day. Three miles is a decent amount of exercise, enough to feel like I've done something. To add a bit more challenge, I'm going to keep a count of how many days in a row I can keep it going. When I inevitably miss a day, I'll reset the count and see if I can beat my record. A couple months ago, I joined a gym, so I can't use bad weather as an excuse. I will allow myself to substitute spinning or using the elliptical in place of brisk walking (10 min walking = 10 min spinning = 10 minutes elliptical).

So that's the plan: walk 3 miles everyday. Let's see how long I can keep this going.

My Fabulous Orkney Tour

This past spring, looking ahead I was fairly certain that this was going to be my last summer in Scotland -- mine was never intended to be a permanent position, and the latest bit of funding was scheduled to run out at the end of the year. Usually I head back to the US for my holidays to visit family and friends, but I decided to do something different this year. Something like taking advantage of the fact that I'm living in Scotland! Something like trying to see more of this fabulous country, like maybe the Highlands! (I couldn't leave Scotland without seeing the Highlands!) Or, looking at the map, what about going to the very top of Scotland!!

A friend of mine (Hi GP!) had a great experience with Rabbies Tours, so I thought I'd see what they had to offer. I wavered back and forth between a couple of their 5-day tours, but finally I decided on the Orkney and the Far North tour.



I signed up for the tour, and although June was shaping up to be an incredibly busy month, I was so looking forward to the trip. Not that I knew anything about Orkney and I didn't have time to do any reading up. I just knew that it was up there at the top of Scotland, and I was going to get to places that I would probably never go to on my own.

The morning June 11 finally rolled around, and I made it down the the Royal Mile (only a wee bit late) where Rabbies buses load up. They do small 16-person buses, so the tours are more intimate than most others. There were only 14 on our tour, plus our tour guide, Karen. It was an interesting bunch: three couples from different places in Canada and the US, a couple from Poland on their honeymoon, two woman from Germany, and four woman traveling alone (including myself). Zeitha and Leslie were both from Australia, although both have ties to Scotland. Jane was from Toronto, but she grew up in Scotland. I would really enjoy getting to know these three ladies over the next five days.

I'm going to do a blog post for each day, because there is way, way, way too much to try to squish it all into one post. But here are a few of my favorite pictures below. The tour, by the way, was incredible and fabulous and amazing and really there aren't enough words! It's trite, but Scotland is so very beautiful! More to come...

Our mascot: A Highland Cow (not a cow wearing a viking helmet)

Flowers at the Falls of Dochart

Glencoe

Gorse on a hill

Me in my twee Scottish hat on the ferry to Orkney

Stroma

Broch of Gurness

Brough of Birsay

Skara Brae

Ring of Brodgar

In St. Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall

Flowers at Smoo Cave

Real Highland Cow

Along the northern coast of Scotland

Gorse in the Highlands

Just a picture I liked (near Carr Bridge)

In the woods near the Falls of Bruar

New Friends

Writing in the Dust

Hmm, a bit dusty in here wouldn't you say? I mean it's only been, let's see.. June, July, ... , October, almost 5 months since my last posts. And those were teasers about my trip to Orkney which implied more to come.

Some big things happened in these 5 months, most of which anyone reading my blog already knows about. In June, my parents visited, and we had a great time. I had a job interview back in the US. I went on some fabulous walks and avoided the tourists and the Festival crowds in July and August. I got the job and started planning my move to Baltimore. At the beginning of October, one of my sisters came to visit, and we had a great time. All that was wonderful!

Other stuff hasn't been so great, namely how I've been taking care of myself. Answer: Not very well. Oh, I've limped along (not literally). I've been seeing a terrific massage therapist/osteopath type person, who has helped to unknot some of the long-standing knots in my neck, shoulders, and back. In May I started taking something to help with the anxiety-depression combo that strikes with a killer migraine every period, lasting for approximately 2 weeks, and I think that has helped. I've added a bunch of supplements (B6, Magnesium, Calcium, Vit D, Vit E, Omega 3) that research suggests is good for mood and/or migraine prevention. That's all good.

But those few good-for-me things have been completely overwhelmed by the bad-for-me things. Little or no aerobic exercise. Waaaayyyy to much time sitting immobile in front of the computer playing games. (The computer I play games on is currently taking a time-out under a blanket in the closet.) Little or no meal planning and poor, poor eating habits. Becoming more and more hermity. Plus the mental bashing for not doing all the things I should or have said I was going to do. (Bah, a pox on myself. I'm so sick of my own mental whining.)

And as you might expect, the results of all the above things have wreaked havoc on my mental and physical well-being. The mind-body-spirit trifecta is broken. So, so broken.

So ENOUGH!

Essentially, I have very few good habits. And what few I have are in severe danger of being lost in mire of my many, many bad habits. (Once upon a time, I know I had more good habits. Where, oh where did they go? I ran several 10k races last year, for Bob's sake.) In a nutshell, this is what I need to change. It is the big picture. I can talk about taking better care of myself, blah, blah, blah, blah. But unless I'm actively building up good habits to replace the bad old ones, nothing will change in the long run.

It's a great plan! And simple! Bad habits -> good habits.

But the success of any great plan is in the details.

So let's start with the most egregious. Probably the worst habit I have right now is dragging my feet in the morning to get out the door and into work. (On the surface, this doesn't seem so terrible, but the repercussions of this for me are HUGE. Trust me on this.) See, I don't have any set work schedule, and that's a dangerous thing for me. Sometimes (more and more frequently) I give up and decide to just work from home. This is BAD because I really need the human interaction I get at work for my mental health. Plus I don't get as much done at home.

Goal 1: lollygagging in morning -> getting up and moving out the door to work by 9am

I have tried to change this bad habit so many times, you wouldn't believe it. This time, what I've done is made a basic morning check list that I'm putting on my door, and I will reward myself with stars for each thing as I do them. Here it is.

Ok, so it's a bit hard to read. It starts off with get out of bed. Yes, I'm giving myself a star just for getting out of bed in the morning! I said it was basic. I also get a star if I get out the door right away and do some exercise, even if it is just walking around the block. I guess I figure that if it's a challenge at the moment for me just to step out of the door to my flat, then that's where I need to start. I'm also giving myself stars for showering, eating breakfast, getting dressed, and going to work, etc. Go ahead, laugh. It's not that I don't do these things now, it's more that I do them at 10 or 11 or *cough* sometimes after lunch. The point here is to change my morning routing from one of puttering around and wasting time to one where I get up and start moving and get out the door.

Aside from this first goal, I figure that I also have to start blogging more. I need some accountability. So, I'm also committing to blogging twice a week. One update post on how the habit changes are going, and a second post on anything else. My immediate goal here is to blog and post pictures about my Orkney trip before I leave Scotland. After that, well, I'll be in a new city. Surely there will be places to explore and blog about there!

So, working on changing my morning slothfulness and more blogging. Stay tuned.

Teaser: The Highlands

Teaser: Highland sea loch

Teaser: On the road in Orkney

Teaser: Welcome to Orkney

Just off the ferry in St. Margaret's Hope on South Ronaldsay in the Orkney archipelago:

Teaser: On the road

Teaser

I just got back from a great 5-day adventure up to Orkney. Along the way, I saw quite a bit of Scotland that I'd never seen before and it was FABULOUS!! I'm not going to have time to write actual posts about my trip until probably July, as the next couple weeks are insanely busy. But I really want to share, because it was FABULOUS!!!

So instead, I'm going to try to find time every couple days to post a teaser picture, with no commentary.

This was my view upon leaving Edinburgh :+). (Ok, maybe a little commentary.)

Parade!

Help! Best Marathon Cheering Sign?

This is a plea for help. My friend Xenia is coming up to Edinburgh to run in the Edinburgh Marathon on Sunday. I've never spectated or cheered at a marathon before and I'd like to do it properly. Of course I can come up with an unimaginative sign that says something like, "Go Xenia!! Go!" But I want to do better.

Ideas? Suggestions? Please, please, please, bring them on!!

On Dishwashing

As my family and friends all know, I'm not the best housekeeper. And my least favorite household chore is probably dishwashing. No, it's definitely dishwashing. Something about icky dishes and icky dish water and getting my hands wet. So, the dirty dishes have a tendency to build up.

What in the world does this have to do with anything? A while back, I noticed a correlation between dishwashing and self-care. No really, it's like the dirty dishes are the canary in the coal mine. Danger! Danger! Theresa is falling off the self-care wagon! Proper sleep has probably ceased happening. Healthy eating likely is taking a slide, too, because when the dishes aren't being washed, cooking is not happening either. And exercise? Let's not even talk about exercise.

(Wow, the bad metaphors in that last paragraph, let me count them.)

And as typically happens when the self-care goes down hill, headaches ensue. The last few weeks have been a very good example of all of this. (Although, one thing that I have been doing better, for the most part is sleep. I'm giving myself credit for that. However, I must get my blackout curtains up again, because the sun coming up at 5 o'clock isn't helping the cause.)

In reality, I know that it is all much, much more complicated than that. But these things are all connected -- mood, headaches, sleep, exercise, and doing the dishes. When my dishes are done and my kitchen is clean, everything else seems much more...possible. Also, these smaller things are easier to quantify than the mental health stuff. Did I get to sleep at a good time? Did I eat my 5 servings of fruit and vegetables? Did I get 20-30 minutes of aerobic exercise? Did I do the dishes?

I think, before I slide not just down the hill but all the way down to the bottom of the ravine, it's time to get back to the self-care basics. I've done this before, and I'm sure I'll need to do it again. For me, this means lots and lots of tracking. Which means that it's back to Joe's Goals!

These are the goals that I've set up. All the key self-care things are there: proper sleep, eating right as represented by the fruits and veggies, exercise, minimizing caffeine, and dishwashing. And I've added a few other things in there for good measure. I know that if I can stick to this and take care of myself, I will feel better in both mind and body.

I'll be doing other tracking things as well. I need to get a new calendar up on the kitchen door so that I can start giving myself sparkly stars for exercising. It's also time to start tracking food, because crisps and chocolate are not major food groups. I don't aim to do these things forever, just a month or so to hopefully build back up the healthy habits.

I've added the Joe's goals widget to the sidebar. Please come harass me if it starts dipping down into the red.

An excellent day for a walk

It was cloudy to start, with a bit of chill in the air, but eventually the sun emerged making yesterday a very fine day for a long walk. The walking group headed over to East Linton for a walk to Hailes Castle and Traprain Law.

We started off walking along the River Tyne, making our way to Hailes Castle. The birds were singing madly, and the wild garlic and few-flowered leeks were rampant, scenting the air with the smell the garlic. The gorse was also in full vibrant yellow bloom, giving off its coconut fragrance as we walked past.





At Hailes Castle, we stopped for a wee break. The castle overlooks the River Tyne. As with most castles left in Scotland, it's a bit of a fixer-upper. Presumably it was in a better shape when Mary, Queen of Scots, stayed there with her kidnapper/soon-to-be-husband, James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell.

Leaving Hailes Castle, we made our way via country roads to Traprain Law, where we stopped for lunch. Afterward, about 1/2 the group decided to climb to the top. It's not a big hill as far as hills go, but it looked intimidating from a distance. I was mentally dithering about whether to climb up, but finally just told myself to stuff it, and went. It got my heart rate up, that's for sure, but I only had to stop once or twice for a quick breather. And the views, of course, were spectacular. By now the sun decided to join the party, and we could see the coast and Bass Rock and North Berwick Law, which I'd climbed with Little Sis last summer. (And I just now realized that I'd brought my binoculars and forgot to use them. Drat.)



The climb down is always much quicker than going up, and before long we were on our way back to East Linton via country roads and the path along the Tyne River. Our last stop was the beer garden at The Crown.



A terrific walk with great company made for an excellent, excellent day.

The boring this week's goals post

Hmmm, looks awfully familiar:

• Run 3 WEEKDAYS for a total of 3 miles
  
• Yoga class hell or maybe pilates on my own on Wednesday
  
• Dance class Thursday
  
• Pilates class Friday
  
• 10 minutes stretching each WEEKDAY
  
• Walk to or from work each day
  

I'm in a bit of a quandary about what to do about the yoga class. At the least, I need to talk to the instructor and tell her I will be taking it down a notch. She also has Hatha yoga class before the beginners Ashtanga class that might be gentler. Unfortunately, last week killed any warm fuzzies I felt toward the idea of doing yoga. Worrying about whether I will do something that will trigger a migraine does not make for a relaxing time.

Carrot:

Yoga Hell

I hate when I attempt to do something good for my body and mind, and it backfires. Like the beginning yoga class I took Wednesday evening. Oh we'll just start with learning the sun salutation, and then build on to that every week, says the instructor, as if it will be easy.

Hah! Downward dog, you are the devil. Thank you for killing my shoulders and triggering the migraine that wiped out my Thursday, including my evening dance class. Today wasn't a picnic, either, but taking it easy in lunchtime pilates seemed to help.

I am finally feeling better, thanks to a enjoyable evening listening to storytelling, songs, and poems at the Waverley Bar. Of course, the last batch of pain killers has yet to wear off, so we'll see. At the moment, at least, I'm looking forward to tomorrow's 8-mile walk in the Pentlands with my new camera! Here's hoping we don't get too wet.

Oh yes, I forgot

Plan for this next week:

• Run 3 WEEKDAYS for a total of 3 miles
  
• Yoga class Wednesday
  
• Dance class Thursday
  
• Pilates class Friday
  
• Stretching 3 days for 10 minutes each
  
• Walk to or from work each day
  

Carrot I get to buy this book:

I actually had this book in hand at one point this past week, but I made myself put it back. By the way, the odds of me walking out of the bookstore without a book I've identified as one I want is about 1 in 10,000. I showed fortitude, because I told myself I could use the book as a carrot for this week.