Fitness Fellowship 2025: Check-in 34

[sylvanwitch]

Welcome for another week of fitness successes and challenges, friends!

I hope the week has treated you kindly, but if it has not, please do feel free to vent, kvetch, share, etc., here. This is a safe space for all kinds of letting it all out.

And, as always, if you're feeling up to it, please do share how you're doing on your goals.



Weight: I think I lost a little from last week? I really do have to start recording my weight again. I've been rather lax about it. And I shall be doing so because of [see weekly plan below].

Exercise: I did yoga four times, lifted four times, and walked every day. Yay!

Eating plan: I've been eating pretty healthfully, and in that vein, I made sure to do some food prep yesterday, so I have healthy things to bring for lunches this week.

Meditation: Yes, at least twice.

Hydration: Yes!

Sleep: Yes! I've worked on moving bedtime back because I have to be up at 6:00am now, and that went pretty well, I think.

The week ahead: So, at the beginning of this year, I said I wanted to lose something like 15 or 20 pounds. Here we are almost to September, and I've lost three. (I had, at one point, lost 10, but alas, I am not consistent.) Anyway, my goal now is to lose ten pounds between 1 September and 31 December, which amounts to 2.5 pounds a month and should be doable. I plan to do it by cutting out nighttime snacking, eating less at my evening meal, and trying to get in Dr. Greger's Daily Dozen, or as close to it as I can reasonably come. I'll focus on caloric intake, for sure, but I'm mostly going to focus on getting the items on Dr. Greger's list.

The rest of my goals will remain the same--exercise, meditation, hydration, and sleep.

Here's to a week full of self-care, self-kindness, and self-confidence for us all!

Comments

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

The weather cooled off! :D Recently done:

* Watering, now that the heat isn't so bad I can make more trips with the can.

* We went to the Oddities Market, which was huge, and walked and walked.

* We have a shopping trip planned soon, hence more walking. It's nice not having to hustle from car to air conditioning just trying not to melt.

Re: Thoughts

[sylvanwitch]

I'm so glad to hear that your weather has cooled off and that you've gotten out to walk and enjoy the Oddities Market, which looks fantastic! YAY for shopping trips and watering without melting, too!

It always amazes me how much better I feel once the temperature starts dropping a bit. We've got unseasonable coolness here, and I am reveling in it while colleagues lament the loss of heat. :-)

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> I'm so glad to hear that your weather has cooled off and that you've gotten out to walk and enjoy the Oddities Market, which looks fantastic! <<

It's the second fairy-type market we've caught, so I'm watching for this type now.

>>YAY for shopping trips and watering without melting, too!<<

It was awesome. :D We hit the farmer's market and bought copious amounts of fruit. I abandoned the idea of doing something with vegetables after I saw the ginger gold apples, because I'll be making a pie. \o/ We scoped out Ollie's, a new bargain store, which looks very useful. And hit Costco too; I bought two bags of iris bulbs, so that's 8 new irises. I suspect that we walked well over a mile amongst the various places. I'll make a Today's Adventures post this evening.

>> It always amazes me how much better I feel once the temperature starts dropping a bit. We've got unseasonable coolness here, and I am reveling in it while colleagues lament the loss of heat. :-)

I have low heat tolerance, but I do much better in cold weather. When it's not wet or absolutely frigid, I go out and do yardwork in winter, like bushwhacking or gathering firewood.

[oschun]

I had a quick look into Dr Greger. I know you've talked about him a few times. I really like the idea of the daily dozen and I'm fascinated by the fact that flaxseed is a category by itself. I seriously need to figure out how to get more lignans (and therefore flaxseed) into my diet! His key principles are very similar to those of Zoe, except Zoe focuses on 30 different plants a week, which includes legumes, nuts & seeds, herbs & spices, as well as fruit and vegetables. Variety is everything with Zoe. They sell this seedy, savoury mix that contains 30 plants in it (including flaxseed and EIGHT different kinds of dried mushrooms) which I like but haven't really figured out how to incorporate into my diet. I don't want to sprinkle it on every meal at dinner. It works better sprinkled fresh on avocado or hummus or cottage cheese on bread/crackers for lunch (you know, that pretentiously health-conscious, middle-class kinda lunch, lol). But I can't really eat like that when I'm at school because I have to make my lunch the night before. Also, I don't eat breakfast during term-time so can't mix flaxseeds etc. into oatmeal or overnight oats, which is how a lot of people add seeds to their diet. Oats spike my blood sugar anyway and are not very good for me personally - which is the other key Zoe principle. People's bodies respond differently to different foods.

Anyway, too much nutritional science can give a person a headache. All we can do is try to be better and incorporate small changes. Yay for food as medicine!

[sylvanwitch]

Your last paragraph perfectly encapsulates my feelings, my friend. I also have trouble incorporating flaxseed. While I love oats, I don't usually start eating them until it's cool in the mornings; I'm one of those people who eats salads and smoothies in summer and root veggies and stews and oatmeal in winter. ;-)

And I don't always get the 1/4 cup nuts, either. I'll have lightly salted almonds at my desk for a midday snack or as part of a light lunch, but I get out of the habit in the summer.

And I don't always get 1.5 cups of beans, either, unless I'm eating hummus, beans, and tofu all in the same day.

But, I'll do my best and try to tick off more boxes. There's a free app that I have on my personal iPad, and I do enjoy watching the counter go up showing that I've achieved some of my goal for the Daily Dozen, anyway.

Also, I'll look into Zoe. I love the idea of 30 different plants a week. Sometimes I get into veggie ruts, and being forced out of said ruts would be good for me.

[lenzes]

It's awesome that you exercised so much and walked every day! Congratulations! I hope the food prep paid off, and you enjoyed all the healthy lunches :)

Goal 1 – walking: I walked once, which is still less than I'd like, but at least better than not walking at all.

Goal 2 – push-ups: I'm back to the same amount of reps I managed at the end of July!

[sylvanwitch]

Thank you! It was exciting that on two of the meetings days, the folks in charge of providing us with lunch actually included stuff that I could and would eat--that doesn't always happen. But, I also had lots of good choices of my own, hoorah! :-)

Better than is the best way to look at it, I think. I'm glad you got out for a walk. Yay! :-)

Oh, YAY for returning to your July reps count! That's awesome! Go, you! Wooooo-hoooooo! *\o/*