Working Towards Health

It's been awhile since I updated on my Year of Health goals. I actually moved away from my original monthly plan a little bit since starting the Healthy Habits challenge I did in January. That one went so well and I felt like I was really finding a good balance to my life that I found another one for the 8 weeks following.

The second one, Feel Great in 8 (she runs them year round, with a new one starting every month, if you are interested, although the cost did go up since I joined, but I'd still say it's worth it if you need  kick in the pants to get you going), has been a bigger push for me. It has a lot of the same habits to work on, but takes them all a little, or lot, further. Instead of  10 minutes of inspirational reading, this one asked for 20. Instead of 10 minutes of exercise, I had to do 45 minutes a day to get full points.

Once again, the challenge has gone well. It's amazing what a little money on the line and a good spreadsheet to fill out each day will do for my will power. I've planned my weeks to fit in lots of exercise time, spiritual renewal, and healthy eating. I've made sure I found some way to serve each week, have gone to bed early, drunk tons of water, and kept a gratitude journal. And I do feel healthier for it all.

My life is busy, just like anyone else, but I've figured out that finding time to fit all these things in makes me so much happier and everything else still happens. The 7 hours of sleep (or sometimes more when I can swing it) really helps my energy levels, so I can keep going and not slump so bad during the afternoon. And at the end of the day, I've actually see what I've accomplished, which isn't always the case with taking care of kids, cleaning, running errands, and cooking. So many of those things feel like they are undone as fast as they are done. But with my chart, I can mark off each of my habits that day and know I've taken care of myself that day.

The challenge ends this next week and I was debating joining the next one, but have decided to see how I do working on these habits on my own for awhile and looking back to my original monthly plan to see which goals I still need to cover in the next couple months before my Year of Health officially ends.

January Goals

After a slow start to my Year of Health, I decided to do something big for January. Because, you know, if you are failing at the small stuff, you might as well go for broke.

Actually, I had already planned my goal for this month, long before I realized what a struggle it was going to be to make the small changes I aimed for in the fall. And, honestly, it's a lot easier to get excited about something bigger.

So, on January 1, I started my own personal NaNoWriMo. (That's National Novel Writing Month for anyone who hasn't heard of it.)  Chris Baty started this challenge with 21 friends to write a 50,000 word novel in one month back in 1999, and its grown from there. The official challenge takes place in November, but I've never figured out how to make time for that much writing that close to the holidays. Besides, that would also mean that I'd hit the end of the month, frantically trying to finish while everyone else is eating turkey and watching football.

But January, cold, gray, post-holiday fun January, seemed like the perfect month to spend hours inside with a laptop and a cup of peppermint tea. There isn't typically a whole lot going on (although this year has been a little busier than I expected, but I think that's my life these days), and I'm motivated to be productive at the start of the year.

So, 2 weeks in, and I've got 27,121 words written. I'm actually a couple days ahead, which is a nice place to be at this point. It's been easier than I thought, both to find the time to write, and to come up with what to write. I get up by 6 most mornings to get a half hour in before I have to get the kids going for school, write during naptimes, and Peanut's preschool hours, I'm at the Panera a couple miles away, hammering out my highest word counts for the week.

I've still got a long way to go, though, and I'm a little nervous because my ideas for the beginning (and end) were more concrete than for this middle part. I'm kind writing day-to-day, coming up with the next chapter as I go, but I know where I need it all to go, so I'm pretty confident that if I just keep writing, I'll get there.

It's been really fun getting back into writing more than blog posts. I used to write stories all the time and have a dozen or so novels that I started when I was in middle and high school (only ever finished one, when I was about 12). I've been dabbling for the last year, and actually started another novel in September that I hope to come back to once this one is done, but I had to start a fresh one for the challenge of writing the whole first draft in 31 days.

 It may be garbage when it's done--this is a quantity over quality exercise--but I'll be able to say I did it. I'm hoping at least my own kids will like it. They're excited that I picked to write a children's book and keep begging me to tell them about it, but I can't talk about it until it's all done.

On top of the fact that I'm actually staying on target with my big goal for this month, I also decided that I'm tired of the laundry piles in my bedroom. For 15 days, I have folded and put away (or delivered to the correct person to fold and put away) every bit of laundry I've washed that day. Feels pretty good, and I can sit on the chair in our room which comes in handy for the writing.

New Year, New Goals

After partying hard (if you can call playing Scattegories with the kids until 10:30 and then vegging out with the TV until midnight partying), sleeping in, and getting a lazy start to the new year this morning, it was time to write some goals.

As some of you might remember, after my birthday this last year, I decided to spend a year working towards better overall health. Well, overall, it hasn't been my biggest success. The better eating habits of August haven't stuck yet, September's planning did lead to a gym membership and a decent workout schedule until a recent injury has side-lined me temporarily, October's attempts at sleeping got me no where, November didn't really change how I come in contact with germs, and while I did try to slow down in December (and did say "yes" more to the kids, even if they didn't notice), I don't know that I quite found that zen I was hoping to discover.

BUT, I still feel like this is a worthwhile challenge and goal. So I'm plugging away at the rest of the months, with some adaptations, and plan to revisit the ones that didn't go so well at the end of this year. Considering how the last 5 months have gone, I'm probably crazy to have such high hopes for January, except I'm really, really excited about this one and have done some prep work to get ready, so I am hopeful. And it's a new year and all, time for a new leaf. But that goal is too big to get lost in this post, so it will get it's own post soon.

 And, because I love a healthy habit challenge, and am a sucker for checklists, charts, and daily evaluations, I signed up for an 8-week challenge a friend is hosting that should get my year started off strong. It's full of little habits, but they're the kind that have the potential to make every day feel like I actually accomplished something.

I think that other than all the shorter term goals I'm planning to work on this year, the only year long thing I came up with that I really want to work on is folding the laundry every day. I'm done having a pile in my room 6 days a week and then spending a couple hours folding it all at once. I'll keep you posted on how long that habit takes to break. It's been years in the making.

I have high hopes for this year. I don't ever pick a theme or key-word for the year, but this year, I've been feeling like I'm ready to take on my bad habits and try some things I've put off for years, because I feel like this is the year that I can actually do these things. I'm feeling ready to conquer my life. So that would have to be my word--CONQUER!

A Year Towards Good Health

I recently read a book called The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin.  Basically, she spent a year trying out different habits and challenges that research shows to lead towards greater happiness.  She broke it down by month and focused on different smaller goals in each monthly category (i.e., for Neighborhood, she challenged herself to be a tourist without leaving home, perform random acts of kindness, create a secret place, and find her own "Calcutta".)

As interesting as the happiness stuff was, what she kept commenting on is that just the act of filling out her resolution chart each day actually made her happier, as much as the acts she performed that month. I'm a list and chart person, and I agree that setting goals or making resolutions and then following through and tracking my progress makes me happy.

I also like the idea of spending a year working toward some ultimate goal with smaller, specific steps along the way. I'm sure I could benefit from my own happiness project, but because I think any progress in life tends to bring happiness, I decided I want to make this my Year of Health. It tends to be a subject that is on my mind all the time anyway, but I don't always take the actions to support my thoughts. And I don't always treat myself as well as I do my family and have been sadly neglecting some aspects of my health for awhile now.

So, since I just had a birthday, and I'm getting closer and closer to the big 4-0, I figure there is no time like the present to try to make myself a little healthier. I broke down the year into 12 different areas (Eating, Scheduling, Sleep, Germ Control, Slowing Down, Challenge Myself, Nature,  Mental, Relationships, Exercise,  Spiritual, and next July is still open for whatever I decide I still need). I've come up with some specific goals for each, but plan to adapt and change the later ones as I get going.

First up is Eating because even though I generally make and serve good food for my family, I've gotten in some pretty bad habits this summer and have had some not so great long term habits, that all contribute towards me not eating as well as I could. So, starting yesterday, I am spending a month not eating in the car, sitting down for every meal and snack, drinking water first, making sure I get 5 servings of vegetables each day, trying a new vegetable or way of cooking one each week, not eating anything with artificial stuff in it, and stopping eating by 8 p.m. All pretty minor goals, but if I can do all 7 of those for one month, I feel like my eating habits will be back on track.

 Of course, the idea is that they will then be ingrained as habits and I will keep eating that way in the months to come. Then, each month, I will add new good habits or take care of long overdue steps towards taking care of myself (September is when I finally set up a skin check as well as a couple other overdue doctor appointments and get on a regular workout schedule that involves more than my 2 days of running each week). My hope is that I will be at my healthiest and strongest as I head into the last year of my 30's!