75 day challenge update
I'm at the 30-day mark of my 75 day health challenge, so thought it would be an appropriate time to do a check-in to see how things are going. I have some additional thoughts about it that I was going to share anyway, the fact that it's 30 days is actually a coincidence.
Overall I'm keeping up with the rules. The bonus rules - I've mostly adhered to journal writing, I haven't done the music listening yet. I'll go through my rule results 1-by-1 at the end, but I thought I'd share my current thoughts about the challenge.
First off, I decided a couple of weeks ago that I'm not going to reset and start the challenge over again if I miss 3 days in a row. I realized - rightfully so - that I would feel demoralized by having to restart, after I would probably already be low about how I'm doing. As it turns out, this was a wise decision, as it turns out that this exact thing has happened.
Over the last week or so I've missed several individual rules in a row (not each one every day, or every week, for example for 3 days I missed weighing myself, and then 4 days in a row I haven't met my exercise targets). Yesterday I was feeling the weight (no pun intended) of this, especially when considering my results in relation to my food logging, and was ready to just give up on the whole challenge.
I did not give up on the challenge, but I'm glad that I made the choice to keep on trucking even if I miss some check marks for consecutive days. What IS working is that as I was about to decide to skip food logging today, I started writing this post and re-committed to logging and I'm going to add my Second Cup muffin & Nanaimo Bar cold brew.
Over the next 45 days I am likely to go through other periods of feeling like I want to give up. That's 100% related to my results. My goal is to get down to 245 pounds at the end of the challenge. So far I've gotten close (I think my lowest weigh-in so far has been 246.0), but it keeps fluctuating. The trend weight is currently 247.9 and it's trending up. And I don't seem to be losing any inches as I take new measurements.
It's clear that I'm not putting a conscious effort into the work I need to do. I will think about this some more over the weekend. I also know I need to include some weekly reviewing of everything, because currently I am just filling out a checkbox each day without really thinking about it.
Here's how my rules are going, with short commentary.
Follow a 2,231 calories per day plan
This one is written as "daily", but realistically I'm treating it as a weekly goal. I've been noting the over & under calories each day, but haven't been tabulating the weekly totals. I will need to look at this over a 7 day period at the end of the week.
At least 30 minutes walking (or 7500 steps) per day, AND additional 30 minutes cardio per week
Similarly I am not tabulating things every week, I am putting a check in the box if I get to 30 minutes of walking OR 7500 steps. However, I haven't been properly measuring the 30 additional minutes of cardio. The only week that I know for sure that I got the 30 additional minutes was last week, when I went on several bike rides.
Floss & brush teeth nightly
The single most consistent goal I've followed. I missed 6 of 29 days (today is day 30, I can't predict that far in the future, but I imagine I will do it again).
Read a few pages from any book each day
This one is mostly consistent. There are weeks I miss 2-3 days in a row, but what I've been doing is making sure I bring my book to work and read a chapter or two at lunch (depending on how long each chapter is). I've found just one or two chapters a day is a nice break, and I'm currently enjoying The Wake.
Take regular measurements
My bar for "measurements" is making sure I weigh myself daily, but also to take waist & neck measurements to estimate body fat %. I don't need daily measurements but I try to get bi-weekly measurements. That's not a problem so far.
Going forward my plan to do better is do weekly reviews of everything. It's fine to check a box to make sure I've done my daily work, but I should also have weekly check marks (especially for the calorie and cardio rules) to see how I'm doing.
I'll get it sorted out but as with the challenge itself it'll take some work.