This post has been marinating for a couple of days, and may have had a few edits.
So, we’ve reached the end of the first month of 2021, or the 13th month of 2020, depending on your perspective. I took stock of my “accomplishments” of January, and the use of quotation marks is deliberate.
We are at the end of the first month of the new year, and my diet and exercise situation is pretty dire. I have gained approximately 12 lbs. of quarantine/stress weight, nearly all of it since I began stress eating in the lead up to the election, followed by boredom/stress eating through my work days, and accompanied by only sporadic exercise.
This situation is now truly dire. This is Florida, and summer pretty much begins in March. NONE of my shorts fit. I haven’t tried on my “office” clothes yet, but the odds are I’ve eaten myself out of them too. Changes must happen.
Here’s the BIG thing: I will not snack all freaking day. I will drink tea all freaking day, but this wandering to the kitchen for a small handful of nuts or maybe a few crackers or WHATEVER must stop. I will track my food with Lose It! and I will get my butt out of my chair and walk daily, not sporadically. I will do some sort of yoga every day, even if it’s just a quickie 15 minute wake-up stretch. I’m back to waking up at 5:30 again, to ensure I have time for a large mug of coffee before I get moving. *Update*: I’m three whole days in, and I’ve done yoga every day for three days in a row. I’m aiming for 100 days. I’m really curious about what it will do for my body if I really do develop a daily practice.
All of this is non-negotiable, because summer will be here for real in about six weeks, give or take, (Punxsutawney Phil does not cover this zone) and all those shorts have to fit. They’re like new, they weren’t cheap, and I’ll be damned if I’ll go buy cheap “until I lose the weight” shorts to “get by”. Experience has taught me that I’ll be wearing the cheap, just for now shorts all summer if I don’t get my shit together NOW.
I will exercise, watch my calories, drink gallons of water and tea, and above all, quit the boredom/stress snacking, because yes, my work days are both boring and stressful. I have a stressful and challenging job, just what a brain aneurysm survivor a few years from retirement really wants! Yet, here I am.
Most days I am truly Lucy in the Chocolate Factory, responding to engineers and others with project updates (chocolates), except that all of the chocolates have to be reviewed and custom wrapped and routed to the proper customers with explanations. It’s Same Shit, Different Day, until someone calls me with their hair on fire about something I’ve never fucking heard of, and their emergency becomes mine. *Update* Today I actually got to give a random emergency to someone else. That has never happened before and it was truly a warm and fuzzy feeling.
So, what’s good? I’m knitting again! I’m knitting an easy-peasy, “TV and wine” skill level shawl, but I’ll take it. I’m also suddenly obsessed with growing succulents, and bought tiny clippings on Etsy and rooted them in this adorable wee planter. It’s a really skinny little thing and I’m using it as a succulent baby nursery, and it’s working out very well. Meanwhile, the original plants my daughter gave me in the owl planters are thriving, and a couple really could use larger pots, so I had to get bigger pots. These are really gorgeous and impressively heavy and well made. I might not be able to grow herbs for shit, but so far, succulents love it here. It’s nice that something does.