A Great Way to Spend December

I have been SO good this week, except for one day when I went way over my wine limit. As my yoga DVD says, tell yourself one healthful thing to keep in mind for the day. I keep telling myself "Enjoy the discipline!" And I think I am, actually.

My weight today was 143.6, down two pounds from last week. Of course WW goes "tsk,tsk" because they think that's too much to lose in a week. Screw them. I'm eating all my points per day, most days, and going over into my flex points. I used 22 flex points last week. And it is, after all, December, so the shrinking is bound to ease up a little.

I'm feeling pretty good about my food. THE KEY IS to keep that afternoon snack going. Got to have my piece of fruit. If I don't, when I get home I tend to fall upon whatever is most handy and devour it. The cats are starting to keep out of sight when I come in the door.

One other thing: I'm eating no "diet" food. I use regular salad dressing, and regular butter. And of course olive oil, all in moderate quantities.

I've been getting fairly good grades except for that one day (see above) when I got a D+. The hardest thing is to make sure I do enough hand therapy per day. Yesterday I went to the actual hand therapist so I got a good workout. And my hand is so much better! I saw the doctor this morning and she was very impressed!

Exercising is going great! If I don't get to the treadmill or a long walk, I can always fall back on my yoga DVD, which I'm starting to love! I ordered another one this week, and also an aerobic DVD from The Firm. We'll see how that works out.

I'm telling you, this is a great way to spend December. Much better than feeling all apprehensive about how much weight I'm going to put on over the holidays, and looking forward to a January of restraint. I recommend getting a jump on your New Year's fitness resolutions.

P.S. I'm also really excited about a couple of Christmas presents I'm making. More about that later, because I don't want the recipients reading about it in my blog.

Creativity

Remember back when I was trying to get filing done, so I took big stacks of it to work? I decided to take all my tortuous hand therapy equipment to work with me and get some done there. I call that thinking outside the box! And hey!--my hand is really starting to improve!

The apparatus in the picture is my hated neuromuscular stimulator. You hook those electrodes up over the correct tendon and put on the splint, and when it gets going it gives you some low-level but nasty sustained shocks and makes you bend your finger. Actually both the little finger and the fourth finger bend, because they share a tendon. And you have to work really hard to try to bend it a little further. It makes my neck and shoulders really tired because I forget to relax everything else. But I can really tell the improvement!

Next time I'll post a picture of my putty! That'll be interesting, because it's green.

Anyway, my December of Discipline is moving right along. I've discovered that weekends and leisure time in general are the enemies of discipline. I get a lot more done when I've got a lot to do, if that makes any sense. Over the weekend I made a B- and a D+ (ack), but yesterday I got back on track with a good solid A! And I'm still 143.8 lbs.

December of Discipline, Gol-durnit!

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

I had two Thanksgivings, one here at home on Wednesday night and another with my extended family in Kentucky on Saturday afternoon. This is NOT such a good idea if you're trying to lose weight. I gained five pounds. :-P

It's a shame Thanksgiving and Christmas come so close together (not to mention Halloween, though I'm not too big on sweets) because it puts the people trying to pursue fitness at a double-whammy disadvantage. No wonder New Year's diet resolutions are so popular. SO, I decided that on all the days this month that I'm not partying, I'm going to be observing as much discipline as I can. It would be great if I could start the New Year a little better off instead of worse off!

I started WeightWatchers flex program again, because I feel good on it, and I won't drink so much, and it encourages me to exercise (so I get to eat more).

I'm hoping to reach Goal 47 (drink <2 glasses of wine a day for one week) and Goal 96 (practice voice 5 times in one week), and work on 45 (lose weight), 56 (exercise 3 times a week), 57 (hand therapy), and 65 (make Christmas presents).

My Rules: I'm going to grade myself each day on how well I do. I will have to 1) stick to diet, 2) not drink too much, 3) exercise, and 4) hand therapy -- all four in order to get an A for the day. And obviously continue to whack away at what other goals I can manage.

We'll see, I guess, whether I've got the right stuff...

So far so good...

As promised, I have awarded myself a goal for breaking a bad habit (leaving my shoes all over the house). Yes I know I said I back-slid a bit last week, but I renewed my efforts, and it's been over a month, so I'm claiming it.

(Hey, these are actually the shoes I bought to wear to my daughter's wedding. They are currently up on the closet shelf in a box. They are a lot sexier in person.)

I also renewed my exercising efforts. Yesterday I had to get on the elliptical because for some reason the treadmills wouldn't start up. I discovered that a lot of my workout mix that hadn't meshed too well with my walking works just fine on the elliptical! I think I'm going to need two mixes, a fast one for walking and a slower one for the elliptical.

And I need HELP with this. I know hardly anything about rock/pop music. The songs I have currently (my daughter AC put a mix together for me) that I really groove to are "Let's Dance" (Bowie) and "Cocaine" (Clapton). I think I'll have much more incentive to exercise if I have some really fabulous, driving, fun-to-listen-to music, preferably not too bubble-gummy. Any suggestions???

ALSO, I have pretty much settled on another virtuous habit: establishing a flossing routine again. I was doing pretty well until a couple of years ago when a series of accidents put a real cramp in my style. At one time I had both hands in braces, from falling down and hurting my wrists. And I also broke a rib. Not that time, another time. And now I have this hand thing going on.

I'm not going to put off developing the habit until after surgery--I'm going to try to cope with dental hygiene right through the recovery period. My dentist sold me a nice Water-Pik, AND I have another new ally in my quest: I only discovered this brand lately because my stepdaughter left it behind when she moved out. What a revelation. My teeth are really close together and really hard to floss. This stuff makes it easy!!! And fast! (Please don't tell me it doesn't do as good a job as the regular floss.) And yes, it is more expensive, but it makes it so much less onerous a task. In fact hardly onerous at all.

My first product review! (*simper*)

The Care and Feeding of Habits: Goals 80 & 81

80. Develop 5 virtuous habits

Five habits may be way ambitious. Whatever, the one I’m currently working on (and to understand why this is a virtuous habit you may have to be a Southern Belle) is to get all my makeup on before I leave the house.

All my life, up until I moved to the NYC area, I have never left the house without being as ready as I was going to be for where I was going. I’ve always had an aversion even to applying lipstick and powder in public.

I do think it’s a little odd to haul out your lipstick at a restaurant table and swab some on. For one thing, I don’t like putting on lipstick unless I’ve brushed my teeth. (I know, I sound OCD, but I’m really not.) For another, I have narrow lips and a not-very-defined lipline, so if I were to apply lipstick blind like that, I’d run the risk of looking like a crazy person afterwards. Putting on lipstick is a complicated matter for me, requiring liner pencil, up to two tubes of lip color, and, of course, a mirror. I’d sure hate to haul all that out in front of God and everybody at a dinner-date. It requires a trip to the powder room.

However, one’s standards tend to relax in the face of New York City's challenges. Time is at a premium here; that’s why everybody looks so stressed and why tourists get dirty looks on the sidewalk. It takes me an hour and fifteen minutes to get to my day job. One way. (Longer if tourists are ambling along four abreast and I have to jump off into the gutter to go around, risking life and limb.) Fifteen minutes that I don’t have to spend making up before I leave the house is fifteen more minutes of sleep.

I have to confess that I once found myself flagging down a bus with my mascara wand. Lately, though, I’ve been confining my cosmetic sessions to the rear of the bus—my concession to Southern Belle propriety. It doesn’t do much for my execution, though. Those buses are not smooth rides.

(I didn’t do so well today—but I did get foundation and eyeshadow on at home. I had to be at work early.)

Okay, it probably is not that virtuous a habit, but I think I need to start small.

81. Get rid of one bad habit.

I had a hard time thinking of bad habits that I hadn’t already covered with the positive goals—like overdoing the Chardonnay—but eventually I settled on not leaving my shoes all over the house. This is actually a good habit for me to break, because I have been really accident-prone the last year or so, and I need to Melissa-proof the house. Stumbling over shoes all the time I do NOT need. Also do not need to be wasting time looking for the pair of shoes I want.

So I forgot one time this week and left my bum-around shoes in front of the couch, but I’m still motivated.

Goal 31--Get All Papers Filed

Aargh! This isn't even all of it. The dining room table is stacked full too.  And there are about seven or eight boxes of stuff under the table.  Two huge moving boxes of files belong to my mother-in-law who just moved up here in March into an assisted living facility.  I haven't even opened those yet.

How did I get into this mess?

One thing is that I am simply not used to non-academia.  All my life the prevailing rhythm has been nine months of school and/or work, 3 months off to do whatever, year in and year out.  

This business of working every week of the year, with just a few exceptions, has really cramped my style.  I always so looked forward to the end of spring release, when I had a chance to breathe and to get things under control.

I'm now looking at about seven years accumulation.  I quit teaching full-time in the mid-90s but began a full-time work week on the Regular People's Schedule around 1999.  I didn't do so badly keeping things under control until 2001, when 9/11 sort of put us all into a six-month paralysis.  It's been gradually downhill from there.  

Anybody else miss school??

I've been doing pretty well on Goal 31.  It looked worse than this a week ago.  I had a brainwave:  I figured I would take a stack of papers to work in my backpack, and if I had downtime I would sort through.  Best idea I ever had!  I have loaded up my day job waste basket with so much trash.  I brought home a big envelope full of things to be shredded, which I did today.  Other than getting a bad stiff neck from trying to carry too much stuff, things are progressing pretty well.  I filed for two hours this afternoon.  I can't believe it doesn't look any better than this.

(I'm also working on Goals 16 and 57.)

ONE OF THESE DAYS

I knew I’d have to do this sooner or later. After all, on a sudden impulse I set up my blog a year ago; but I had only an incoherent idea of what I wanted to write, so it’s been blank all this time.

After considering various self-improvement projects and sort of kind of deciding I’d just gas away instead (and getting totally sidetracked for several months by breaking my right hand), I happened up on a Project Idea in The Simple Dollar: to wit, “101 Goals in 1001 Days.” It is a winner. You can read about it here: 101 goals in 1001 days

I’m not really a terrible procrastinator any more (though I used to be), but I do have trouble NOT thinking along the “one of these days” line when I look at a pile of stuff to be dealt with, or a sudden urge to do something interesting that I don’t have time for. What days do I think I’m talking about exactly? The really, really neat thing about the 1001 days idea is that you can get the answer to that question! It is: “One of THESE days!”

I think I’m up to 50+ goals now, and I thought of several more on the subway today, so maybe I’ll have my whole list by the end of the week.

Here is a short explanation of the project, excerpted from its origin on the site triplux. There are some good tips for choosing goals and for pursuing them as well. It is apparently okay to fail at reaching a goal, because you might learn something.

The Mission: Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days

The Criteria: Tasks must be specific (i.e. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (i.e. represent some amount of work on my part).

Why 1001 Days? Many people have created lists in the past — frequently simple goals such as New Year’s resolutions. The key to beating procrastination is to set a deadline that is realistic. 1001 Days (about 2.75 years) is a better period of time than a year, because it allows you several seasons to complete the tasks, which is better for organizing and timing some tasks such as overseas trips or outdoor activities.

I am whaling away at my 101 goals list right now—it takes a considerable amount of effort, actually. It is, however, extremely energizing! I’ve thought of a number of things that aren’t so obvious, like: “On a clear night drive out into the country where it’s dark and look at the stars.” (I live in the NYC area, so I never get to see them, and I suddenly realized that it’s important.) Then there’s stuff like: “Clean out the coat closet.” “Take a language class.” “Take a yoga class.” I even put in “Acquire a virtuous habit, TBD”—I realize that’s kind of ambiguous, but I’d like to leave it up to my aspiring self later on, when I might have a sudden motivation. (My definition of “habit” is: something you do way more often than not.)

I really am going to post my entire list, even though it’s rather personal. And I really am going to post updates about how it goes. (“Write a blog” is one of the goals—I’m getting a head start on it.)

Cheers, and wish me luck!