Goodbye September and a New Challenge!

September ended with disappointment.

This weekend was all about rain, lots and lots of rain. I don't usually mind rain, it's nice to sit inside and listen to it falling, but this weekend was supposed to be the Ballunar Liftoff Festival, and the rain canceled it. Rats.

The other disappointment was my car. My trusty Toyota Corolla has started to burn oil. My options are: rebuild the engine, or get a new car.  Rebuilding the engine would cost more than my 11-year old car is worth. So I'm now in the market for a new car. I don't want a new car. I'm still reeling from the amount of debt I'm in for the house. But Houston is car-centric, so I must have a car. Double rats.

Still, according to Dad I can keep the car going for 6 months or so, as long as I keep topping up the oil, so I've got some time to build up a car fund.  Oh, but I hate spending money on cars!

That's enough whining for one day, let's move on.

New month, new 30 day challenge. Starting today:

I am going to take a photograph every day for a month.

I really want to take better photographs, and the only way to do that is to practice. I've created a gallery page, available in the links to the right.  Nothing is in there yet, but I am looking forward to filling it up!

30 Day Exercise Challenge: Summary

It is done. As of last Friday (September 21st) I have exercised 30 minutes a day, every day, for 30 days.

Conclusions:

I sleep better – My problem has never been getting to sleep, it’s been staying asleep. I tend to wake up at 2 in the morning and not be able to get back to sleep, and when I do I wake up again at 4. It hasn’t eliminated the problem, but it doesn’t happen as much.

My complexion is better – not a major issue, but sweating regularly seems to make my complexion a little brighter.

My general mood is better – this is probably related to getting enough sleep.  I’ve always been an 8 hours of sleep a night girl, and I’m cranky when I don’t get it.

Discipline - For some reason, doing this made it much easier to eat healthfully.

Will I keep doing it?

Not every day.  My plan is to hit the gym after work (it’s on the way home).  I’m not going to worry about weekends, I’m more active on weekends anyway. It’s counteracting the 8 hours sitting in front of a computer that I’m worried about.

However, I will not be doing step-ups in my living room at 11:30 pm just so I can get 30 minutes of exercise in before the day is over.  If I miss a day, I miss a day.

Now for the interesting question: what to do for the next challenge? Hmmm….

Are you pondering what I'm pondering?

30 Day Challenge - Additional Motivation

I wasn't completely honest about the 30 Day exercise challenge. I said it was about health and trying new things, but it is also about the charity 5k I signed up to do in November.  I haven't done one in a long time, and I really don't want to be the last person crossing the finish line. 

I know that the purpose is to raise awarness and money for Leukemia research ( a very good cause - and if you want to help, there's a donation widget on the right - thank you) but it's humiliating to be the slowest person out there. Besides if I'm advocating for health, I should try to be healthy, right?

And progress is being made. I am getting a little faster. My legs don't hurt as much now as they did in the beginning. Don't get me wrong: I'm not going to start tracking my shoe mileage and worrying about lactic acid build-up in my legs anytime soon. (I know some serious runners - they keep telling me this stuff.) But I want to finish a 5k without completely embarrassing myself. A modest enough goal, don't you think?

Update: 30 Day Exercise Challenge

Two weeks ago, I said I was going to exercise every day for the next 30 days. I know you are just quivering with anticipation. Did she do it? Did she lose momentum over Labor Day weekend? Did she sit on the couch and watch bad movies instead? And the answer is...

I have exercised for at least half an hour, every day, for the past two weeks. I know, this is only the halfway point, but still. I have exercised every day for two entire weeks. I am committed.

Do I enjoy it? No. Every time the way-too-cheerful guy at the gym wishes me a good workout, I want to kick him. But I still go. Partly because I swore I'd do it and partly because I'm trying to change the way I look at exercise. I've stopped trying to think of exercise as "fun".

Stay with me. The gym I go to, like most gyms, is covered with inspirational pictures of incredibly fit people climbing mountains and running marathons, with slogans like "Find your inner athelete".  The problem with that is I don't want to be an athelete. I just want to not be in a wheelchair when I'm in my seventies.

It's not like I haven't tried. I have taken part in a few of these endurance events over the years (the MS 150 bike ride, a half marathon, a century ride, competitive swimming) and to be completely honest, for me there was no glow of acheivement when I crossed the finish line. My thoughts were more along the lines of "Thank goodness that's over. Where are the showers?" (And can someone bring me a really big margarita?)

  

So I'm trying to mentally reframe exercise as the equivalent of flossing. You don't floss because it's fun, but  because you want to have teeth when you're older.  I find if I think of exercise as good hygiene and not something I'm expected to enjoy, I'm more likely to do it. 

It may not work for anybody else, but that is what gets me in the door. That and the thought of a big frosty drink afterwards (a girl's got to have some fun).

Thirty Day Challenge

I've been thinking about shaking up my life for a few months. Since my last birthday, really. Which makes me a cliche (existential midlife crisis at 40 - am I right on time or what?)

I stumbled on this talk. The premise is to try something, anything, for 30 days. I like the idea. 30 days is a manageable unit of time. It's long enough to give an activity a real try, but not so long that you want to give up before you start. It's also the length of most months, which makes it easy to track.

So as part of my overall goal to "shake up my life", I am going to do some 30 day challenges.

30 Day Challenge #1:  10,000 Steps a Day

This is something I've been meaning to do for a long time. As I mentioned in my last post, all I do most of the time is go to work and go home. That gets me to about 3000 steps. Essentially, we're talking about tripling my activity level.  And there's no way to do this without going outside so I meet two goals: getting more exercise and getting out of the house. I even have a pedometer.