Third Challenge: Week 2

I made it through the first week of exercise! YAY! Ok, that being said, the reason I didn't do an update last week is because my arms hurt too much to lift them, and my fingers were swollen up like wee sausages. I did a mix of gardening (HA! More like waging war against the flora in my yard. But, the kind of war in which you try to pull roots out for hours on end, then whack at them frantically with a shovel until finally your husband comes out and tells you that he just bought you a hatchet on Amazon and can you please stop until it comes because he's getting a little concerned...) and bodyweight exercises on my yoga swing.  I ended up digging up and yanking on parts of my stupid yard for eight hours over three days, and did 15-20 minutes of bodyweight exercise each day on the other three days. Sunday, I rested, because damn. I hurt. I hurt in places I didn't know had muscles.  For the first three days, it felt like I had a fever because my muscles were running so hot and swollen.  There was whining. There was so. much. whining.  There was also falling asleep at 9:30-10 most nights from sheer exhaustion.  In case you couldn't tell, I detested this challenge.  But then, something weird happened.  The pain finally backed off, and I stopped dropping off to sleep like a nonagenarian every time I sat still for more than five minutes at a time.  Do I feel stronger? Not really, and whereas I could do four hours of yardwork the first day, I became completely drained about two hours in on subsequent days. There also isn't any improvement in the measurement area.  But hey! At least I no longer feel like a particularly bruised banana, so there's that.
For week two, I'll probably do more of the same, but add in 50 jumping jacks every day, and work on my old physical therapy leg exercises too. I'll let you know how it goes.

Updates and Third Challenge

I'm back.  Sigh.  The last challenge went great for the first week, and then I got some kind of upper-respiratory infection that kept going for two weeks.  TWO WEEKS of continuous coughing!  Ugh.  I'm still coughing a bit, but fortunately, last weekend the coughing fits finally leveled off so that I could sleep again.  All this is a long way to say that I did great on the first week of the challenge, and then coughed so hard I couldn't take pictures for the next two weeks. I've spent this past week trying to catch up on everything I got behind on while I was sick.

Fortunately, I think I've finally dug myself out of the pile of laundry, caught up on grading, and cleaning, and can at last focus on the project again.  I know that I love photography, and even just a week of it was enough to light the fire under me again, so I'll continue working on pictures, and move on to the next challenge.

I spent about four hours today fighting with the plants and vines that have overgrown portions of my yard, and realized that being sick (and hating exercise with the kind of energy Inigo Montoya reserves for those who killed his father) has really led to me being in what medical professionals refer to as "crap shape".  I have muscles I didn't even know existed screaming at me to find something stronger than Advil and wine.  (Look, muscles, I'm sorry I screwed you up.  Please don't cripple me the day before I start a new challenge.)  I'm still walking fairly regularly, now that I don't scare small children with my consumptive hacking, but dayum, mah strongs are GONE.  Part of this really is being sick and in bed for the better part of two weeks, but part of it is that I really hate how crappy I feel when I work out.  Basically, my muscles just feel torn and sad the entire time that I'm doing stuff and then never heal.  SO!  I'm going to start the cycle of muscle abuse again!  But, this time, I'm not going to get up at 5:30 AM so that I can weight lift for an hour and then drag my damaged body home.  (Yes, this was a thing I did.  No, I don't think I was having an "episode". Yes, I actually did cripple myself for over a week with my first weight session.  No, I still have no clue why I thought this was a good idea. Even though I was eating healthily and working out like this, I ended up gaining 10 pounds and multiple inches, rather than gaining muscle but slimming down. The fat-o-meter scale indicated that I was somehow adding both muscle and fat, rather than burning fat.)

I want to start slowly, which will hopefully make for a less dramatic bathroom experience (turns out you need your quads to, uh, sit down.  Since sitting down is part of bathroom usage, I didn't quite make it all the way down and fell about half-way to the seat the last time I did heavy working out.  Quads are also necessary for stairs.  Thank goodness the kids can do laundry now!) I have a yoga swing that can also be used for bodyweight exercises, so I'll do that for 15 minutes a day.  I don't have a scale, but I will take body measurements and post any shrinkage here.

I'm hoping that I can figure out how to do this so that I don't hate exercise.  I actually enjoy the sensation of strong that comes when lifting weights (or trying to uproot trees), but the aftermath is so bad that I have really psyched myself out of challenging my muscles anymore.  Ok, I can do this.  It's only 21 days after all!

Second Challenge: Week One Update

This is the best challenge ever! I've actually taken pictures for four days now, and I'm happy with at least one from each day.  The rain on Monday gave me the opportunity to try out the fast motion capture on my camera, which resulted in about 100 bad, and 4 good photos.  Thank goodness for digital photography!  

Realizing that I've become lazy in my photography, I tried to take pictures that weren't "easy", the last few days.  Raindrops, cooking food, children in motion, I've tried for all of them.  I think in week two I'll try to stage a few shots, since that's something I haven't worked with before.

I hope that some of you reading this will try out some things you've been putting off too!

21 Day Challenge: A Picture (or 3) a Day

Look! A profile picture! Ever so slowly, I'm transforming this into a real blog.

The result of the first challenge is that I'm going to keep drinking my 64 oz of water a day, but I'll stick primarily to biking for my cardio. Even though I noticed that I can walk much faster now than before, it's still a very time-consuming way to burn very few calories. I think I'll definitely walk more than I did before, but it isn't going to be a daily exercise for me.

For the second challenge, I wanted to do something that pushed me creatively. I'm an amateur photographer, but I rarely make the time to take pictures. And although I love so many of the pictures I've taken, I've printed almost none of them out. So, I'm pledging to take 3 pictures with my good camera every day. (Meaning cellphone pictures don't count.) In anticipation of this challenge, I bought a good photo printer, so at the end of each week I'll print out the best picture and frame it. (I also stocked up on Ikea frames. Shut up, they were on clearance. Yes, I realize this is the second time I've mentioned Ikea on this blog. No, I don't have an Ikea problem. I'm not even sure who I'm arguing with at this point. Huh, maybe I do have an Ikea problem...)

Aaaaaanyway, my ultimate goal is to make money from my art (said every artist ever), so at the end, hopefully I'll have enough to go to a shop down the street that only sells art by local artists. Also, I'm hoping that treating this like an actual job helps my confidence, because dayum, I cannot sell myself when it's something I'm emotionally invested in.

Oh, crap. I have to go take some pictures now!

Final Week of Water and Walking Challenge

This is the final week of my first challenge! I'm fairly certain that I'll continue the water, as that seems to have made the biggest difference in how I feel and look. My skin has been really soft and clear, and I haven't been overly hungry or tired, which has been nice.
The walking hasn't done much except cause bruises on my legs. (I get those from exercise, which is annoying, but not abnormal.) Walking has never been my favorite form of exercise, but I figured I'd give it a real shot by doing it for 21 days consistently.
I'll figure out what exercise I want to try next by the end of this week, but I know it won't be walking.

Week Two Challenge Update

This week I can honestly say that I've started noticing a difference and that I'm enjoying the challenge. I'm slightly less sloshy, my energy levels are higher, and I've (mostly) felt less testy when the children are being feral children.
(Interestingly, salty food has started tasting, well, salty to me, which is supposed to be an indicator of dehydration???)
Now, the increase in energy and lowering of stress could also be cyclical, which is why having three weeks for this is important, so we'll see if the benefits continue through next week.
(On a possibly unrelated note, my hair looks GREAT! Just thought I'd throw that out there. 😊)

First Week Finished: Water and Walking Challenge

The first week of challenge number one is finished. Aside from a bad moment stuck in traffic with no bathroom in sight, (thank you, Google Maps, for talking me down!) I think the water challenge is going...ok? I certainly feel less sloshy, so that's good. I'm still colder than the ninth circle of hell here, but that could be because of our recent cold snap, the adjustment of my thyroid medication, poor circulation, Mercury being in retrograde, climate change... Aaaaaanyway, the point is that other than the unpleasant initial side effects, I haven't really noticed a change from the water intake. Maybe it takes more than a week to show the effects?
My skin looks good, but my skin looked good before this because I finally started cleansing and moisturizing on a daily basis. I'll finish out the next two weeks, but if angels don't start singing the Hallelujah Chorus when I wake up every morning, I'm going to assume that this is not that big a deal for me.
The walking also hasn't done much yet. I'm not sure what I expected, but if you'd asked me if I thought the result would be my pants getting tighter, I probably would have said no. I did have to skip Saturday and cut the time to ten minutes on Sunday because I had some kind of stomach thing, but why are my pants tighter from moving more? Maybe it's the water still. (As you can tell, I'm really not loving the water part of this.)
And that's the update on week one! Like and subscribe! (Is that a thing you do on blogger? I have no idea, which is why my page still isn't pretty.)

Update on Water and Walking

My first 21 day challenge is going well so far. Except. So. Much. Peeing. In case you couldn't tell, drinking 64 ounces of water a day seems to be taking its toll on my kidneys and bladder. I also seem to be getting kind of sloshy when I walk? It's weird. 

On the other hand, the walking isn't too bad, although it could get expensive since I've discovered that the Ulta near my house is exactly a ten minute walk away. :) 

Hopefully the walking and the sloshing eventually cancel each other out. Only 18 more days to go!

The First 21 Days

Happy New Year, everyone! I've decided to try something different this year in an attempt to improve body, mind, and soul. Yes, yes, it sounds trite and like any other new year's resolution, _but_ (and this is important), whatever I decide to do, I only have to stick it out for 21 days. Conventional wisdom has it that a habit can be formed after only 21 days of consistency, and while I know that theory was undermined by a more recent study  which claims the magic number is closer to 70 days (http://jamesclear.com/new-habit), it seems as though 3 weeks should be enough time to decide whether or not an activity or behavior is worth the time and effort to you to pursue it.
I'm going to embark on a series of three-week trials to see if/how they improve my life. I'm assuming that some things I'm going to be glad to give up after 21 days, while some things I'll find interesting/important enough to set aside the time each day to do them.
I'm going to start with easy stuff, and work my way into more difficult challenges too, since I'm pretty sure if I cripple myself within the first 3 days, I'll feel actively hostile towards the experiment and won't want to continue it.
So. To start off, I'm going super basic. My first challenge is to drink 64 oz of water and walk for 20 minutes each day.
I'll document how each week goes with pictures and probably (lots of) bitching.
2017, let's make it different!