Balance
Do you ever know better, but continue to do things that are ultimately in opposition of your goal? I know it is important to take care of myself - eat right, exercise, balance work and play etc. Yet somehow I get all caught up in the length of my “to-do list” and slowly erode away all the things I actually need to do in order to be able to continue to cross the stuff off the list. I’m guessing those of your who have been around these parts for a while saw a crash coming long before it happened.
Several weeks ago I had a relapse of some issues that landed me in the doctor’s office back in December going through a battery of tests that ultimately turned up nothing. Not wanting to go through those expensive tests again and not have answers yet again, I decided to self-treat. From past experience I knew the real root was stress and the immediate cause was lack of fiber - that is the edible kind. There is of course plenty of non-edible fiber present in our home :-)
Combine this realization with a neat app for my phone that my sister turned me onto, Lose It (you can just use their website if you do not have a smartphone), I started to track my eating. Though I would ultimately like to loose weight, I started out just tracking and not really changing my eating choices. A startling fact came to light when I did this - I was only consuming about 900 calories most days! My frantic work pace and habitual skipping of meals had caused me to effectively shut down my metabolism. I had no clue. I would have guessed I was taking in ~2000 calories a day. At 900 calories you can imagine what my fiber intake was. Abysmal!
Combine that realization with the ability to connect with my sister and her friend who were also using the the app and one of my local friends wanting to tone up and make an exercise pact who decided to use it as well and I had the support system I needed to begin making some changes and start to restore a healthier balance to my life - yet again. I slowly upped my caloric intake to that suggested by my height and weight and for a weight loss of 2 pounds per week. It was work. I know that consuming more calories doesn’t sound like work, but I had to try hard to get up to the level that was suggested. The funny thing? I know the exact day my metabolism turned back on because I started to get hungry between meals!
What did come to light during all this is that taking care of yourself does take time. The only way for me to make the change has been to really make that my top priority and fit work and social engagements around that. It has taken me a bit to get everything fitting back into my days. Making sure you are eating good, nutritious foods takes time. Even if I’m eating out, I have to take time to research the nutrition if it is available and plan what will get me the fiber I need while keeping my carbs in a healthy range. Right now, that is my biggest challenge. My protein is often low most days even though I’m making an effort to consume beans or lentils once a day. My top priority is 30 grams of fiber. I’ll start concerning myself about the other numbers more seriously once the fiber has become habit.
Exercise also takes time. It is very valuable time and somehow I always manage to forget how much it really reduces stress and even depression. I’m taking that step quite slow, mostly taking walks or doing yoga for now. The important thing is that I’m putting down the knitting and walking away from the computer and moving - everyday! A change in health insurance had me without my usual maintenance medication for the last two months. Whether it was a result of that I do not know, but until late last week every rib was misaligned. I hadn’t realized it until I got it fixed with a couple trips to the chiropractor that it was making breathing rather uncomfortable and difficult which in turn makes pain and stress worse and it all snowballs from there.
Well, I’m back in much better form this week. Better able to fit all aspects of my life into each day. Everyday needs to include delicious but nutritious food, movement, some quality time with the dogs, some quality time with DH, lots of water (oddly that is a tough one for me too so I’m tracking that even though there are no calories), and a little pleasure reading in amongst the photoediting, tech editing, paste-up, knitting, pattern and recipe drafting and proofing. I am also trying to unplug at least one day each weekend. I’m still not as productive as I’d like to be, but I need to try stay off of that hamster wheel! I know in the long term my productivity will be better if I take care to balance my life.
How do you maintain balance in your life? Are you using apps or websites to help you? Do you employ timers? How do you keep yourself from hitting a fast food drive through when you feel crunched for time at lunch? I’d love for you to share your experiences at maintaining balance in your life.
As I mentioned earlier, Lose It! is helping me be more aware of the food I’m putting in my body and whether I did or did not exercise. I was also turned onto a new web site this week that kind of turns achieving goals into a game. It’s called Mindbloom and you grow a tree, adding more branches and leaves to the tree as you demonstrate an ability to consistently achieve the existing goals in your life. Each branch can be a different aspect of your life - career, health, lifestyle etc. Then each leaf has actions that you can assign to specific days of the week. As you check in and mark things as achieved and journal about them you earn seeds which can be used to add more branches, leaves and actions. Eliza describes it better than I. I think I’m going to like it because it isn’t as intimidating as my long to-do list and there are concrete actions to take each day. The community support I suspect will prove as helpful as it has on Lose It! too. While there is not a dedicated app for Mindbloom, they have a mobile version of the web site and it works quite well on my phone. If you want to connect with me at either location, please do! The more people supporting each other the better! If you can’t find me on either site just leave a comment or drop me an e-mail and I’ll send a connection request.
