Saturday, January 12, 2013

12. Recovery #JanBlogaDay

I've mentioned before about how late last year I jumped off the diet wagon with reckless abandon and glee and then turned around and ate the wagon and the horses and then the road we were traveling on. I stopped running, walking weighing myself, and it was as if I wanted to destroy all the progress I had made, like I was seeking out weight gain. As if there was something inside me saying "Too little! Too thin! You must be fatter!" And I reveled in it, sad as that is.

And then came the new year. It wasn't so much a resolution as just an acknowledgement that the debauchery was over, it was time to be responsible again.

And for the most part, I'm happy to report that it wasn't too difficult. I found the road, found the wagon, climbed back on and we're underway again.
I'm not really ready yet to weigh myself, but I'm using Lose-It! most days, staying under my calories and making healthy choices.

The weekends are more difficult, but it's been easier to say no. I may not track as carefully or exercise as much, but I'm at least thinking about it and not in a guilty or negative way.

At work, I've taken to walking around the lake. It's just about 3 miles and I've done it a lot lately. It takes almost my entire lunch break and I see other people from work going the other way, including the CEO and CFO. The attempts at scheduling lunchtime meetings has been more aggressive, but I've just declined them all. One person has said she wants to meet with me and with my busy schedule, she's willing to walk 3 miles if that's what it takes. That's good, the more people that do that walk, the healthier we are as an organization. Two of my direct reports have taken to doing walking 1:1s with me. Not 3 miles, but a decent amount, 1 outdoors if the weather's nice, the other around the second floor where we won't be heard by people from our department. I think we like to think of West Wing as we walk and talk.

This past week, I only made the walk 2 of the 5 days - I went home sick one day, then I did it the next two days but then the next day my through was bugging me and I was congested and figured rain and 30-degree weather would only turn that into a cold and then the next day I did have a lunch meeting - with my family who came to lunch.

But, I am back into the swing of it. It's starting to be light out for the drive to work and before long it'll be light into the evenings and it'll start to warm up and I'll start running again (I did jog part of the walk on Wednesday) and things will pick up. We have another month or so where there's a risk for snow and a little while before it warms up (it's currently 36 and will be 19 overnight) and then there will be a rainy season after that, but I won't wait until it's completely fair weather to start running, I'm sure, but in the meantime, that's a pretty decent walk everyday, so that's good. I've been keeping my exercise kit stocked and in my car so that I can walk (or maybe even jog in the middle of the day) and not worry about the afternoon because it's got changes of clothes, towel, gel, shampoo, etc.

What I haven't been able to do is get up as early as I'd like - I used to be able to get an hour of free step in before leaving for work, but lately, I haven't been able to get out of bed any earlier than absolutely necessary to get to work on time. Maybe as the days get longer I'll find myself able to get up earlier. I've been using this app that measures my sleep. You tell it the latest you need to get up and then you put it facedown on the bed next to your pillow. I don't know how it works (or how well it works considering I share a bed with Lori) but it measures my sleep cycles and shows me how efficient my sleep was the next day (how much I was awake, how much I was in light sleep and how much I was in deep/rem sleep). Since it's measuring my sleep cycles, it's supposed to wake me up when I'm the closest to already awake (with a super-quiet alarm) and I gotta say - it seems to be working - I've been waking up really refreshed and not at all groggy. It's kinda cool. The fact that the rest of the family has had a few great nights of sleep recently has also really helped.

So yay, sleep. I've had a great day and I think it was because of great sleep. We cleaned up the house (which I am happy to say wasn't that bad) and people are on their way over for a game night. It's been a good day. I think it's been that I have had the luxury of time. While there was still an event today, it's low-key, the prep was light and so I haven't felt pressured.

Now to figure out how to feel that way during the holiday season next year.

Day 12 of January Blog a Day.

The whole list:
By at
Labels: , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)