Liza

liza3 said:
yes anxiety's certainly an interesting one to work with...I am currently trying new tools I am learning through ACT where it's a lot of just accepting the anxiety and doing the things along with it...but yes I often find it hard to take it all the way and then succumb to things that make me feel better in the moment...like chocolate :)
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I really love ACT, and how acceptance is one of the driving forces behind why this works. It's so surprising how many layers acceptance has to it. It feels rather magical when I achieve it though! My temptations are mostly carbs, but I do know exactly what you mean. Here's to a lot of bravery in our lives!

Yes, I was trying to ask about recording calories. Glad it's helping you, too. I agree about it not necessarily always being about staying within calories. Sometimes it's the awareness of how much I'm eating, or what I'm eating that is making me crave MORE. So glad your anxiety is improving, and your food and exercise went well! I think it's really wise to be happy with maintenance when things are hard and you are working on stopping the upward creep!
 
Thanks @Cate, @Llama and @Marsia
Yesterday was official weigh-in and I was at 143
Happy with that after my stress-eating week! I haven't counted calories last 2 days so will get back to that again. Yesterday I spent the whole day painting. Was A LOT of work! Wanted to get it all done in a day so it would be finished with. Not sure that was the best plan as I was exhausted afterwards. So much furniture moving back and forth to access the walls....I thought i didn't have much stuff but when you have to move it all in a tiny place, it suddenly seems like tons!

I'm happy with the paint job--it all looks much cleaner and brighter....but now I have lots to do for getting the rest of my place more organized....there's the general cleanup and tidying after yesterday's work, but also I want to buy an entry coat hanger, and storage thingy to get my entry organized...and just odds and ends like that taken care of....
I like things looking sparse and organized and that can be challenging in a tiny space!

But at least the painting's done and now i can have more of a balance to my days as I work to get the rest of my stuff back in place!

Marsia said:
It feels rather magical when I achieve it though!
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I know what you mean. When I finally just accept all the what ifs and fears and sensations and everything that comes with it, it just feels so different than how I normally interact with my experience!
 
liza3 said:
I thought i didn't have much stuff but when you have to move it all in a tiny place, it suddenly seems like tons!
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The only worse thing is moving!
As a fellow shoebox apartment dweller I agree that keeping things as sparse as possible is the only way to keep it livable.
 
Cate said:
This scares me so much. The inside of our house really needs painting, especially the kitchen & bathrooms. The idea of moving our stuff to have someone else do that is daunting, let alone doing it ourselves. Well done, Liza!
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Painting is good practice for moving. And if you use the opportunity to declutter some more you'll save yourself a lot of work later!
 
Thanks @Cate and @Llama !

Yes one of the things about my place is it came furnished so I often like to think of all the stuff I won't have to move if I ever do move out! And yes to the declutter now idea! I did a bunch of decluttering before I painted to make things easier...still hard but nice to have that motivation to get rid of things anyhow.
One benefit of painting myself is I could move things as I went, whereas I guess if someone else was doing it it would have meant moving everything so that it was all accessible right away. And the paint I got was a quick drying one so things could be moved back pretty quickly.
I probably shouldn't have left the painting so long as it was pretty desperate for it, but since I did, the difference is all that more remarkable. Can't believe how much nicer my place looks! But now I also have some leftover paint so can touch things up over the next few years if anything needs it with time, so that will be nice too.
I was very glad the bathroom didn't need painting. That would have been a finicky one for sure.

So I didn't count calories on Sunday again, but got back to it yesterday and did well at a 426 deficit...i'm sure I didn't do as well Sunday...going to try and stay on it again.
 
Yesterday's deficit--60 calories....so over my goal but at least not in a surplus.
Did get a couple of good walks in and ate pretty well...just too many sweets again.
Also bought some new apples, and some lettuce so hopefully that will help me stay in calorie goal...
Ordered some protein powder too so that will also be a good addition (still always way below protein goal!)
 
Wow, congratulations on finishing all that painting in one day! We just do one coat of one room at a time, and our arms are ready to fall off. I am loving the difference of before and after in our house, too. It's so nice sitting back and enjoying it! I need to stick to calorie counting, too, or I'm just snacking too much. Must be in the air! I have noticed that if I eat more protein snacks, it can diminish sugar cravings. I hope the protein powder does the trick for you!
 
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A furnished apartment sounds like a mover's dream! I'd be kind of scared to damage things though.
 
Cate said:
It's good that you got a couple of walks in & stayed in deficit :)
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Thanks Cate :) yes i guess any day I can stay in deficit is a win even if I don't reach my goal!
Marsia said:
Wow, congratulations on finishing all that painting in one day! We just do one coat of one room at a time, and our arms are ready to fall off. I am loving the difference of before and after in our house, too. It's so nice sitting back and enjoying it!
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Haha yes, I do so much sitting back and admiring and I refuse to put any pictures back up because I love it so clean and fresh looking! I didn't have to do the ceiling so that probably helped too. And it only needed one coat since I wasn't painting over dark colors and it was good quality paint...My arms didn't feel it at all....just my poor aching feet!
Llama said:
A furnished apartment sounds like a mover's dream! I'd be kind of scared to damage things though.
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Well none of the furniture is that great that i would worry about damage. The only thing was it came with too much furniture for my liking for such a small space. I was able to get rid of the extras though after the landlords realized I wasn't moving out any time soon. Before me it had been a place where students would just rent for the short-term so it made sense for them to keep it furnished. I guess the only thing is if I do move out i won't have any furniture for a new place!

Yesterday was a win....excellent long run through trails....I hadn't been in almost a week and when I've missed the runs i feel like a happy dog that's been missing his runs! I've been running on trails more often with the heat. It's really nice to get the shade from the trees.

yesterday deficit 580
 
Well done on getting the run in & having a 580 deficit for the day. That's excellent! I'm looking forward to seeing some of our rooms repainted. I'm sure it would smarten them up. Your landlord must be really happy to have you there, Liza :)
 
Thanks @Cate and @Llama
yesterday not so great calorie-wise. Lots of sweets...felt depressed...still do...now depressed and tired after a crappy nights sleep.
so it goes
Just having difficulty finding places to connect with people...my old sense of community never returned since the pandemic hit...looking for ways to bring that back into my life....keeping my eyes and ears open for opportunities.
I did do some nice gardening (and turned compost which might be one of my favorite garden things--i love seeing a healthy compost at work!) got about 30-40 minutes walking in, got a couple of healthy meals in, went to a uke drop in which was fun...so all was not lost...
calories: 300 calories over goal
 
Hi Liza, I'm relatively new here--as in my very first post was just a little over a month ago. I'm picking up your thread to follow as most of the other ones feel really hard to catch up on because they're so long (which is a good thing!) ;) This one is new enough that I could catch up and read every post.

I, too, am an avid gardener and runner. Can definitely relate to both of those! A couple of comments on running stuff I saw.

liza3 said:
Yes! I'm going to have to either extend the training schedule so it builds up closer to the full distance beforehand or scale back more in the week leading up. The schedule I was following had it go up to 10 miles, then the week before go 9 miles,and then after that to go the full distance. Runner friends say the schedule should have tapered more the week before the full distance...I could feel my ankle giving me some issues the few days before the run too. But yeah I think i just wanted to get it done and checked off. Now my goal is to just run that distance more regularly and more comfortably.
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Yes, you definitely want to taper before you try to do the full race distance. Also, if you do decide to do the slow build to HM distance, I've read in many places that it's a good idea to stick to the 10% rule--don't go up in mileage more than 10% per week. (I also like to take a "recovery week" of reducing distance by 20-30% once every 4-6 weeks.)

liza3 said:
So funny with running for me--when I started out i felt there was no way I would be able to run. My legs felt heavy, my mental energy was low but then 10 minutes into the run, both mental and physical energy kicked in and I just felt that joy of the run again.
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This still happens to me from time to time, too! I have to remind myself to keep going so long as I don't feel pain, and yeah, that enjoyment shows up after a bit. So weird!

Looking forward to continuing to follow.
 
Hi @Ben_In_NC :) Thanks for coming by! I will have to have a look at your diary as well.
Ben_In_NC said:
I'm picking up your thread to follow as most of the other ones feel really hard to catch up on because they're so long (which is a good thing!) ;) This one is new enough that I could catch up and read every post.
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haha yes--some very long ones out there...though you can usually just read the last couple of pages to get a sense of things and jump in without reading peoples whole entries--that's what I do...
Ben_In_NC said:
Yes, you definitely want to taper before you try to do the full race distance. Also, if you do decide to do the slow build to HM distance, I've read in many places that it's a good idea to stick to the 10% rule--don't go up in mileage more than 10% per week. (I also like to take a "recovery week" of reducing distance by 20-30% once every 4-6 weeks.)
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Thanks for that--will keep that in mind. My running has been less methodical this last month as there's been heat and I've been working on my place a bit...but hopefully by the time the weather cools I can get back into more of a regular schedule. I'd really like to be able to run the HM distance regularly and comfortably. What distances do you like to do?
Ben_In_NC said:
This still happens to me from time to time, too! I have to remind myself to keep going so long as I don't feel pain, and yeah, that enjoyment shows up after a bit. So weird!
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Yes! So interesting how sluggish I can feel in that warm up time and then just feel the energy and joy increase with the run!

Cate said:
Hope you can recharge your batteries & have a better day :grouphug:
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Thanks Cate. I did have a better day yesterday....connected with the community I still do have and felt my heart lift :) Still hoping to find more ways to get back that sense of community that I lost to the pandemic...so will keep my eyes open for that...

Today is official weigh in and I'm still at 143...so no drop but no increase either...
I did body fat measurement too and it's at 32.2...so hopefully that is slowly going down as well.

Still having trouble making myself track regularly so this weeks goals:
  • track every day even if it's done imperfectly with some guesses
  • run 3 times
  • do strength training once
  • walk or garden for at least 40 min every day that I'm not running or strength training
 
liza3 said:
Thanks for that--will keep that in mind. My running has been less methodical this last month as there's been heat and I've been working on my place a bit...but hopefully by the time the weather cools I can get back into more of a regular schedule. I'd really like to be able to run the HM distance regularly and comfortably. What distances do you like to do?
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I LOVE the 10 to 15 mile range. There have probably been fewer than five Saturdays in 2022 where I haven't done a run in that range.
 
liza3 said:
  • track every day even if it's done imperfectly with some guesses
  • run 3 times
  • do strength training once
  • walk or garden for at least 40 min every day that I'm not running or strength training
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These look like GREAT goals for your week. You got this!
 
liza3 said:
Still having trouble making myself track regularly so this weeks goals:
  • track every day even if it's done imperfectly with some guesses
  • run 3 times
  • do strength training once
  • walk or garden for at least 40 min every day that I'm not running or strength training
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These look like excellent goals, Liza. I think I'll set weekly goals every Sunday from now on. We can do this :grouphug:
 
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