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.