Day 10 No Soda

It's day 10 of the "No Soda" challenge and I'm still haven't caved. Sure--I really, really, really want a soda and I would love nothing more than to indulge, but I also want to reach my goal. One big plus from the challenge so far is that I'm less tired overall and I'm eating less fast food. It's just less enticing for me to think about eating fries and a burger without the cold diet soda to wash it all down. 

20 days left! What should I do for my next 30 day challenge?

Day 4 of No Soda

Day 1 was by far the easiest day. The only temptation came at the end of the day when I decided to do some last minute Costco shopping. I was coming home from dog class and had Percy with me, but just needed to grab a couple of things so we could eat for the week. I was in and out in under 10 minutes, and on my way out I grabbed a hot dog combo. Those darn things come with a fountain drink so I simply grabbed a regular Coke (ew) for Spencer and then wolfed the hot dog down much to the disappointment of Percy. It was tempting to just grab a diet soda like I normally do, but I wanted to remain committed to this challenge. I had posted it here AND told my coworkers. I couldn't just quit one day in, could I?

Day 2 was the hardest. I woke up completely drained after a less than restful night of sleep. I was tossing and turning and the dog was whining to get out of his kennel for most of the night. Needless to say, I was extremely tired. On top of that, I had physical therapy around lunch time and my habit has been to swing through a drive through on my way back to work. This time, however, I decided to skip the fast food and the accompanying diet cola and ate at home instead. I was tired all day and had a hard time focusing and staying on task, but my body felt better. I was less swollen/bloated and more comfortable in my clothes. I hadn't realized all the caffeine and fake sugar was making me feel that way, but if it really is then it's worth avoiding the temporary pleasure of a nice cold diet soda.

Yesterday was Day 3. I'm was tired again that morning, but only because Percy woke me around 4AM to use the facilities. That's pretty good considering I put him in his kennel around 9PM the night before. Spencer was up for work about an hour later and then I had to get up as well. I was craving McDonald's breakfast but I made sure to leave late enough to make that stop impossible if I was going to make it to work on time.

Today is Day 4 and besides the McDonald's craving again this morning, I really didn't think about it. So far this challenge has been pretty doable. It's hard, but not so hard that I don't think I can't complete it.

4 days down--26 to go!

30 Days

I have a friend who does "30 Days Without" challenges just about every month. For instance, one month is was "30 days without sugar" and another was "30 days without bread." She's using it as motivation to lose weight, but I think it also helps her work on being more disciplined on an area of nutrition where it's harder to be "good." I suppose this makes sense. After all, they say you  need something like 21-30 days to form a habit. Being the food-lover that I am, I never jumped on the bandwagon, but since I started working full time I've developed a habit of having at least one can if not more of diet cola per day to help keep me alert. There's tons of chemicals in diet soda that are bad for your body, teeth, etc. and I'd like to break the habit. And so, with my friend's example in mind, I'm embarking on an attempt of "30 Days with NO soda." I'll post at least a weekly update to let you know how it's going and if I slip (or I guess you could say sip, haha) up.

Here's to day #1.

A Year [2012] In Review

This past year I slacked a lot in the blog department. We were busy having fun, but it was mostly the same so I didn't really feel I had a lot to blog about. In no particular order we did the following:

• I started training Percy in agility and obedience. This consumed most of the first half of the year.
• We made numerous trips to Disneyland and the beach.
• I had a girls day at Glen Ivy and then another at Wrightwood.
• We traveled to Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam with Spencer's mom and brother.
• Spencer finished up his intern year and started the anesthesia part of his training. He also got his medical license.
• We took a cruise down the coast of Alaska and finished it up by visiting Canada for a little under a couple of hours.
• We visited family in Utah and Portland, OR for the holidays.
• I got a new job.
• We had numerous house guests including friends, family, and several hopeful LLU residents.

We also spent time working on our new home. We are slowly getting it organized and just starting to decorate. Maybe it will be done by 2014, but maybe not. In observing my parent's and Spencer's parents more closely, it appears that a home is never "done," but rather a continuous work in progress.

In looking back a my goals for 2012 I can say I can close to meeting most of them but fell short on a few. I tripled the number of books I read and almost doubled the number of knitting projects I completed. I keep the house reasonably clean and I tried to be a little nicer and more forgiving. I'm not sure if I actually succeeded in that, but I tried to be more cognizant of it so I'm counting it. 

 

In looking forward to 2013 I'm hoping to accomplish many of the same goals from last year and few new ones as well. They say that setting really broad goals ensures that won't reach them, so I have tried to make them as specific as possible. This year I'd like to:

• Paint my kitchen, living room, guest room, and master bedroom
• Finish the backyard (this will mostly be Spencer's project)
• Read even more books--4 per month would put me up to 48 next year
• Finish all my pending knitting projects and also make a few more--20 seems like a good goal
• Lose the weight I gained last year and then some
• Train for and run a half marathon by June or July

63 Days Unitl Christmas

Well, it's almost November which means 3 things:

1. My birthday is in about 2 weeks and I will only have 2 years left in my 20's.
2. Thanksgiving is about a month away.
3. Christmas is a mere 63 days away!

These 3 things have caused me to have the following revelations:

1. Holy crap I only have 2 years left until I turn 30!! That's old!! That's when people know what they want to DO with their lives and I still don't know what I'm doing with mine!
2. Mmmmm....turkey...stuffing...cranberry sauce...pumpkin pie...mashed potatoes...gravy...food coma...
3. I am really, really behind on my knitting goals.

And those 3 revelations have caused me to produce the following task list:

1. Figure out what I want to do with my life and find a way to do it.
2. I need to invite people over for turkey day so I can make a boat load of food and not feel bad about it.
3. Knit 4 beanies, 2 cowls, 1 pair of hand warmers, and a scarf by December 25th. Oh and wash them, block them, and wrap them.

Image taken from here.

April-May-June-July--August???

How has it been FIVE MONTHS since I last posted??

Oh wait. I know! Every time I sit down to post something something far more interesting (like a trip to the beach or a project at work with a surprise-it's-due-tomorrow deadline) comes up. So that means my posting has been few and far between. What have I been doing with my time aside from that?

Reading.
Book-clubbing.
Knitting.
Beaching.
Disneylanding.
Vacationing.
Cooking.
Video gaming.
Craft-clubbing.
Dog walking.
Running.
Dancing.
Baking.
Cleaning.
Ant-killing.

Phew. Who has time to blog when there's so many more exciting things to do?

I Work Out

I have been trying to get back into working out a little more frequently for the past few month or so. I kept putting it off and putting it off because I was too busy or we had just moved or we had a house guest that came to stay with us for 2 weeks unexpectedly. Before I knew it though, January was over and I knew my excuses were, too. I signed up for a free 5k mid March so I knew I had to do something or that race would be torture. With February looming in the not-so-far distance, I made a commitment to myself to get some form of physical activity for 30 minutes a day with ideally an hour of activity for at least 6 days a week.

With that, I started running again. I started slowly. I find that I (and most people, by the way), burn out if I try to take on too much at once. Every month our schedule changes and every month I have to adjust what I'm doing to work better around what Spencer's crazy residency is making him do. It's exhausting. I began doing the couch to 5k program again, but only intermittently. Soon, it was time for the 5k and even though I wasn't totally ready, I decided to give it a go anyway.

The 5k went pretty well for where I was in my training. Up to about a week before the race, I was only going at most 2.5 miles and that was about half walking and half running. I did a trial 5k a few days before the race and finished in about 40 minutes. On race day, I only walked at the water station and for about 1 minute going up a steep hill. I finished in about 38 minutes. My shoe chip was 37:53 and the clock showed 38:23--pretty good for where I was. I came in 650th out of 1956 finishers (there were walkers in there) and the results just made me want to try harder. A friend of mine had posted about the Disneyland 1/2 marathon and so with that as a goal, I started training yesterday for my first half marathon.

I am following Hal Higdon's novice 2 program. He has a plan for every day of the week. I started yesterday with the 3 mile run. Today, it's another 3 mile run. It is my intent to follow his plan as scheduled with a brief adjustment for a vacation at the end of April/beginning of May. Part of his plan involved signing up for a 5k at the 6 week mark which for me would be April 21st. I plan on running the 5k out in palm springs. It's my goal to get my overall time down around 30 minutes, and I think with consistent training I can do that. I don't ever stop because I'm out of breath. I usually only stop because my legs or feet or ankles are so tired and sore that they feel like lead. My muscles just aren't used to this but I guess that's the point. You have to train at whatever you are doing to get to where you feel comfortable and it becomes easy, then you push past that point and keep going. It's the only way you can ever have any growth.