It has been a month since the beginning of the year and my change in activities and diet to help me loose some weight and become more healthy. I stepped on the scale this morning to find that I lost 2 lbs, which really isn’t that much, it could be due to time of day or how much water is in my body at the time I stepped on the scale. But it is a bit of progress.
I found this month to be more of a challenge than I expected when making my goals as I still dealt with a healing knee and I was sick for a week after a really bad mental health week. Despite this I still managed to do fairly well at keeping on my goals and tracking them.
In the last month I had a few physical targets to reach. Stretching, doing my physio exercises for my knee, and walking a minimum of 3,500 steps every day were ones that were constant. I also wanted to do crunches three days in a row, take a break and then continue on with crunches, slowly increasing the number to do every day. FInally, I wanted to do physical exercise twice a week for half an hour to 45 minutes that would make me sweat.
I managed to get my 10 minutes stretches in 23 days out of the 31. On the 8 days that I did not do a full ten minute stretching I did still do some stretching, it just wasn’t all in one session or full body stretching.
I did my knee exercises every day until the 15th of the month which is when I was supposed to schedule another appointment for the physiotherapist – instead I stopped doing the given stretches, did not go for an appointment, and began doing other stretches and exercises until my knee began to give just a bit. I was able to hang up my cane over the last week and have hardly used it as I can now go up and down flights of stairs (roughly 16 steps) before feeling the need to rest my knee and am able to walk over a kilometer before feeling the need for extra support. I still bring it with me when I know I’ll be standing or walking for a long time (more than 20 minutes) as a just in case but at this point it feels more like a crutch than a help (unless there is rough terrain).
I had 19 days in which reached my minimum 3,500 steps; 10 days in which I did not make my step target, and 2 days in which I walked more than 7,500 but less than 12,500 steps. At least that is what my phone tells me. With my knee feeling much better I plan to walk my kids to and from the bus each day and will be taking a longer path home after dropping them off at the bus-stop. IF the weather continues to be this nice I will probably begin walking around the community again (I just need to buy a new bear spray first – the coyotes have been active lately).
As for the crunches I did not do well at keeping up with the goal. As soon as I became sick I stopped doing them. I did two reps of each of the 12 days I completed. There was scheduled to be 7 rest days throughout the month. I found that I could easily do 55 crunches in a rep before needing to stretch. As I failed so dismally at the crunches I plan on doing one rep of crunches with each of my squats for this month.
For my more intense exercise session, I really didn’t do well. For the first two weeks I didn’t try at all as my knee was still being to difficult – getting up and down off the ground had me needing help, and it would crack every time I tried to stand from a squat position, which was uncomfortably wobbly in the first place. I signed up for a beginners Tai Chi class and missed the first three sessions. Week one due to a snowstorm that I did not feel safe driving in, the second due to being sick and the third was because my children were let out early from school for parent teacher meetings and bringing them to the lesson seemed rude to me. I did re-download my exercise program though and proceeded to do two days dance and yoga activity,
My mental health was a mess over the month of January. I have a lot of time I just cannot remember, my husband says that I seemed to be myself for most of it but my children disagree telling me that I have been switching personalities a lot. My depression and anxiety have been fairly consistent although not terrible, I am not taking any medication for them and don’t think I need to be. I have spent a lot of time in bed or laying on my couch, between being sick and overall feeling run-down. I am hoping that by becoming more active that run-down, constantly tired feeling will disappear, if not I will need to talk to my doctor because it is not normal. My sleep schedule is about the same as normal between four to eight hours of very interrupted sleep most nights and between two to four hours of napping during most days.
Socially I didn’t do much throughout January. I took my kids to an outdoor birthday party at the beginning of the month where we spent four hours outside tobogganing and around a firepit with some amazing people we haven’t seen in months, I drove Zen to see one of my closest friends for an afternoon in which we cuddle a hedgehog and caught up on life, and my brother came over for pizza and a movie that my daughter chose.
So how do I feel this last month went? Not nearly as well as it could have, but decently considering I am working towards change. February has new checklists and a chance to continue working on my goals, I’m excited to see where it leads me.