Day one

A year from Now you may wish

You had started Today

-Karen Lamb

The Hundred Days Project Infinity

This picture has nothing to do with the fourth of July.  Independence Day is an important holiday for the nation but this is about my project launch.  Starting today July 01, 2015 and ending October 19^th, 2015, I will conscientiously choosing better lifestyle choices, in food, environment and other things. This is the next 100 days project.   A benefit to this lifestyle make-over is a more productive life, I want to spend my time efficiently.  I have other plans for the website blogs and my writing and my personal life.  Family is very important to me.  I wouldn’t have survived ‘til now without family.  To do right for me I have to do right by them. 

My household needs a lifestyle change and we need it like 2 years ago. I can’t change myself and expect others to follow.  We have to be an example to the young.  Studies show that when a family takes up the task of changing lifestyle through eating habits and etc.  It is better for the children overall.   Obesity is a major problem for people in “first world” nations.  It has hampered my family for generations, but it runs deeper than that.  Because even the supposed “skinny” relatives have effed-up lifestyle habits.  I want to be healthy.  I also need to be healthy.  Many of my post might sound like this in the next 100 days.  The method is repetitive.  If I keep typing and reminding myself of the purpose I should be able to reach a goal.  Plan to be reach your goals not the other way around. It worked with twitter and it worked as a writing exercise I gave myself last year.   On Twitter, I began requesting followers and giving reasons why.  I wanted to see how many I can get simply by asking for a whole year.  I mentioned my reasons and the campaign every time I asked for followers.  In a month I have over 200, many of them writers like myself.  Others were artist of a different medium.  I was impressed.  Of course I am not famous enough yet so that my following out numbers those I follow.  But that is okay.  I expect better when I begin publishing, my stories and the Red Mushroom. 

Last year I realized my word count was sickeningly low.  I had lost my creative will to write.  I partly blame listening to audiobooks but they were only 1 part of the problem; the other problem was that I just didn’t have anything to say or I thought there was nothing to say.   My solution was to force myself to write 300 words or more on each entry.  I stated my cause and reasons until it no longer became necessary.   I will be stating my desire to change the bad habits in my lifestyle until I see and report positive sustainable change and benefits.

Specifics

In the next three months and a half, I will be writing about lifestyle change.  The pros the cons.  I will be writing about changing eating habits, healthy choices, and exercise routines and where to find them.  I will do my utter best to trick myself into a better healthier lifestyle.  I will write about the mental, emotional and spiritual sides of these things.  How lifestyle, wellness, health and well-being go together to be an overall better human being.  I will do my best to be entertaining, informative and inspiring. 

Geronimo!

Day 11 - The Core

A year from Now you may wish 

You had started Today

-Karen Lamb

The core is a part of the body exercise instructors, talk about a lot.  The Core have many programs dedicated to it.  Some of them I have watched, some I have attempted to work through.  I have always gotten stumped when the Instructors says, “Make sure your core is … or your core should be ….  I would immediately lose focus especially when they add “you should be feeling it in your core.  And all I felt was uncertainty.  I was doing something wrong. 

Since deciding to add an exercise routine to the lifestyle change, I have searched the internet for an answer to what exactly is the core.  I eventually found the answer.

Google defines the core of the body as this:

Major muscles included are the pelvic floor muscles, transversus abdominis, multifidus, internal and external obliques, rectus abdominis, erector spinae (sacrospinalis) especially the longissimus thoracis, and the diaphragm. Minor core muscles include the latissimus dorsi, gluteus maximus, and trapezius..

Wikipedia defines the core as this:

In anatomy, the core refers, in its most general of definitions, to the body minus the legs and arms.^[1] Functional movements are highly dependent on the core, and lack of core development can result in a predisposition to injury.^[2] The major muscles of the core reside in the area of the belly and the mid and lower back (not the shoulders), and peripherally include the hips, the shoulders and the neck.

In the article ”Do you Know what your core really is and what it does?”, Jeff Kuland, from breakingmuscle.com explains the core as a complex series of muscles, extending far beyond your abs, including everything besides your arms and legs.  It is incorporated in almost every movement of the human body.  

Of the three I understand and like Kuland’s definition better. His article was a quick easy read with a self-explanatory title.  He also offered exercise test and a chart to help people that are into dead man lifts.  With some clarity, I was able to go forth and do push-ups free of reluctance.   Wikipedia also gave an extensive explanation of the core of the body, but it is Wikipedia and can’t be anyone’s only source. 

I felt that Google definition required a medical dictionary and chart. 

Now that I know what Instructors are talking about I am able to look at myself and admit my core needs serious work.  Although I am working with the Gym Box.  I am still researching.   There is so much information out there.  The path for an acceptable body is abundant. Then they break up into genders, vegan, meat, weights and cardio etc etc.  I might even have to dedicate a project to the body.  I don’t think that I can be like the writer AJ Jacobs, I won’t be able to do it for a year, three months is my limit.  I will also have to work on conclusions.

                Please leave a comment. Really.

Day 6 - TGIF

A year from Now you may wish 

You had started Today

-Karen Lamb

Reflections of the week.  There has not been as much change as I would have liked.  Which mean progress has not reached expectation.  Actually I really didn’t have any and that might be where I made my mistake.  There are many factors to being a lifestyle change and well-being.  I tried to analyze some of it but I think I just complained about my issues with it and various stages misconduct.   It is amazes me how a person can write the same thing in 300 word or more and it all sound like the same thing over and over again.  I am trying to change the tone of these entries.  The point is to sound more objective and less subjective. Even when writing about myself.  I am actually tired of writing the world ‘I’.  So starting next week I will do my best to stop.  In this post it will sound like a mix bag.  Some paragraph will be subjective and some objective.  There were all written at the same time.  English teachers and professors across the nation just cringed.  This is no way to write an essay.  TG this isn’t the writing website blog.  This is the health and well-being.    

Over the weekend I will be coming up with daily recipes to try and making a schedule.  So the week can be filled with productivity.  Unfortunately for you few readers, it will be put up here for your view.  With hope and true grit I will be making better decisions on the course of this blog and my lifestyle.  Last year I found some website blogs that have been praised for their content, I will look them up again.  I want to see where I am hitting and missing.  I am glad that I was able to post something for the last 4 days and meet the word challenge.  If anyone is interested you might have to look at old posts.  There should be better references and cites of work.  Which will me a well thought out and prepared post.  Not sure I will be there yet but next week I will do better.

 

What does the 100 days project XX{20} at 100daysvi.blogspot.com mean.  When it was started the founder thought it was an original idea and anticipated followers and more.  Achievement, accomplishment, creativity and support.  A circle of friends and family, encouraging each other to meet their goals within the 100 days deadline.  It did not catch on and maybe that made the founder a little depressed.  She too became unable to reach the various goals she places on herself short term and long term went to the toilet.  She regretted it and refused to give up so now we are at #20, strange enough it could be actually the 21^st  or 30^th.  Four years ago stuff got shaky.  Twenty is a nice round number that the founder believes it is best. Of course the next project will be 21 and this may be mentioned again.  The writer plans to prepare better post so that will not be the case. 

In conclusion this entry is all about what I didn’t do and I didn’t go into detail.  The plan is to not give up and make sure that this week is not repeated.  Moving forward is the short term goal.  Observe experts and steal what you can without being sued.  Or revamp it and make it your own.  Be funny, be happy, be content, be well and ……

Please leave a comment. Really. 

Oatmeal, it's what's for breakfast

A Year from Now, you may wish

 You had started Today

-Karen Lamb

One of my worst habits is skipping breakfast.  I don’t know when that particular habit started. I can place several of my missteps in the path of a healthy life.  For example coffee, my obsession with coffee didn’t start until I was in my twenties.  My guess is breakfast became a problem for me in High School.  I could always sleep 30 minutes later if I didn’t have to think about breakfast.  Some of you are like what about your parents.  My mother worked at night.  My father was my dad.  I think he figured I was old enough.  I was a teenager after all, how hard is it to fill a bowl of cereal with milk and eat.  So even though breakfast food was available I didn’t partake of it.  I don’t recall if free breakfast was part of NYC school system for High School students in the 1990’s.  I know it was there for middle and elementary kids.  I know I was already living with the misconception that I was a fat girl barely looking like a human.  The passions of youth can sometimes be an awful thing. It didn’t matter if my parents or someone else told me anything different than what I perceived.  My first meal of the day for to many days in high school was a half pint white milk.  I imposed that crap on myself.  I didn’t have to prove myself to anyone. I was a nerd already interested in writing and humanities. 

In the previous posts, I have mentioned oatmeal.  I don’t the tone I used could be viewed as

positive.  I think it had a resigned feel to it.  I wondered about that.  I don’t have a good or bad feeling about oatmeal.  Breakfast meals in general are meh for me.  In the last 2 weeks I have only eaten eggs once and I have only drunk milk in my coffee. I wince when I think of cold cereal and that is another lost feeling. I used to love cold cereal.  What happened to me?  I guess that is another post to explore relationships with food.  When analyzed I noticed mixed feeling about the whole things.  This will take so much time.  I hope I can do it justice. 

Oatmeal is a great whole grain, there are many health benefits to add it to your diet.  Every time that word is typed I fight the urge to explain further.  If anyone is confused when I use that word.  Leave a comment.  I will explain. Back to oatmeal which is low calorie and low in fat, high in fiber and protein.  It also removes bad cholesterol, stabilizes blood sugar, protects again heart disease, heart failure cancer and reduces risk of diabetes. It enhances immunity and full of antioxidants and of course it is gluten free. 

Thank you care2.com for easy to read facts. 

Some of you may think that oatmeal is the same where ever you go.  Health and well-being nuts and those of us who are new converts to the health and wellness path know that there are two kind of oats used in hot cereal.  I am sure are most likely more kinds of oats but I am only working with the two that have been most popular.  Which is steel cut aka Irish oats and rolled oats, what I used to just call Quakers. There might be a little competition on which is better.  According to Prevention.com, the differences are negligible.  ¼ cup of dry Steel cut oats is 20 calories less than ¼ cup of rolled oats.  Steel cut has no sugar and rolled has only 1g. Both are of course gluten free.  The difference is the processing rolled oat has a longer method than steel cut.  I do know that steel cut takes a little longer to cook.  So weigh that against the choice you to make. 

In the meantime here are two odd and two even oatmeal suggestions made by Real simple magazine, pictures were elegantly taken by Danny Kim.  I will be trying each  one I featured here and give the results over the next couple of weeks.  I will try to also ascertain if the health bennies are enhanced or diminished.  

Odd

Oatmeal cheddar cheese and scallions 

Oatmeal bacon and maple syrup 

in my case it will be 2 strip of turkey bacon 

  

Even

Oatmeal with banana and molasses

Oatmeal with dried fruit and pistachios

This one is a little more traditional

Day 3

A Year from Now, you may wish

 You had started Today

-Karen Lamb

It is difficult to keep to your word when you know you suck at it.  I know the problems are disorganization and motivation. Working on them is big challenge. 

Honestly I didn't prepare well for the beginning of the first week of the project.  I let some things slide pass unchecked and I didn't place enough importance on sleep schedules.  I focused on what I needed to do while I was awake. And yes I protested too damn much.  In my defense I was following the saying fake it ‘til you make it.  Although it is ironic to delve into pretense to bring about action and permanent positive change.

Here are my misdeeds; I didn't meet my daily post deadline.  I didn't record any calories; I didn't wake up early enough.  As a result I haven’t started the exercise routine.   My good deeds were that I started the 100 days on schedule.  I did eat oatmeal with fruit for breakfast.  I did drink more water and eat more fiber in the form of nut and berries. 

Every new day is a beginning.  I love mucky junk like that.  I could be Mary Jane Paul of Being Mary Jane except I think I am shorter than Gabrielle Union and I use my post-its for story notes.  I tried putting one or two up and ignored them completely.  Enough digression, what I will be doing to rectify my small lapses is work at doing a better job, starting today.  I now that posting every day is difficult especially if nothing particularly interesting is going on.  Trying to hammer out 300+ words without mentioning the 300+word challenge has become more problematic since it has now become a daily write.   I look up to the quote on the corner of this post.  Because that feeling of “I should have” has been hampering my well-being for longer than I would like.

In conclusion, I will go to bed at a reasonable hour with the intention of sleeping.  I will listen to my alarm clock.  I will wake up, cringe and do an exercise routine, write the morning pages, tweak the post for tomorrow, eat a healthy breakfast. I will make up for day two by having a healthy and full day four. 

Motivation

The online services and apps I mention are not endorsements.

I am only talking about them as they affect me.

Despite my grand declarations I still haven’t gotten the kinks out of the plan yet. So we are still on blocks.  This is one of the many problems of lifestyle change.   One problem is the scheduling.  When to do what and how? Another problem for me is the chronicling here on this blog.  I am attempting to write and post daily so when project 20 starts officially I will be in the habit. This is process is frustrating because I am also attempting to keep to a word count challenge.  I have been able to successfully post two entries, one that was timed.  I am especially happy about that one, because it give me time to work.  I always knew that a post could be scheduled but I just didn’t us the app.  I don’t have any excuse except I didn’t think I would ever need it.   There is a lesson in that, I haven’t found it yet but maybe I will later, stay tuned for that post.

I typed that I will be joining the daily challenge (DC) by MeYou health and the Gym Box.   In the daily challenge I am part of the balanced diet track; for the next month or 28 challenges will be about healthy food choices.   I just realized I typed the hated d-word. I don’t know any other word to explain what I will be doing with my food.  I not planning on only losing weight although that is a part of the lifestyle change.  I am thinking about my overall well-being.  That means my body, my mind, my spirit, my family, my environment; all these aspects that makes up my life.  All these aspects affect me for good and bad. I make decision good and bad because of these aspects.  So I need to approach each one at a given time. DC gives me fun, simple challenges and the sense of accomplishment once achieved.  A positive action to bolster the day.

I joined the Gym Box for convenience. I don’t have time or money for a gym and I know that I need to add exercise into my lifestyle change.  The Gym Box offers the exercise classes along with an exercise routine plan that is easy to follow.  All these actions are getting four week-trial.  I don’t know what will work and what won’t; putting out the effort is important.  I know I have the bad habit of being a quitter.  I am attempting to curb that.  I know it won’t be easy.   That leads up to my title, Motivation. 

The Bing dictionary defines motivation in these terms: 

•  The  act of giving somebody a reason or incentive to do something
•  ·         A feeling of enthusiasm, interest, or commitment that makes somebody want to do something, or something that causes such a feeling

I agree with both of them.  I struggle with motivation all the time and will be looking for ways to keep it up.  Anything to keep me from copying that top picture.  One of my favorites because it clearly describes me.  It is one of the many factors that has my life in the downward spiral.  Now  I think I am in what some people may call a holding pattern.  I believe that if I keep  talking and typing about these changes and mini epiphanies I will be able to achieve a positive lifestyle change.  

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22 - The 30 day challenge

I am trying to re-organize again. One of my problems is I don't get 6-8 hours at night.  I don't think I'm insomniac either.  Which is an extra frustration.   I live an unhealthy life and my meager attempts and changing my lifestyle are not working.  I get discouraged, distracted and upset that I am not meeting any positive goals.    I even hate whining about it.   There are many posts are about me not reaching the goals, I have set out for myself.   That ripple hits every aspect of my life and the consequences are boundless.   I haven't posted a blog here in a while.  This was supposed to be my life changing healthy blog.  I was supposed to post new things here everyday.

I don't know if I will be able to keep up.  One thing I know is that I give myself to much rope to hang myself with.  So instead of 100 days.  I declared myself 30 days for significant change, starting today July 7th on a Monday and ending  on August 7th on a Thursday.  My goal is to eat healthier meals and stick to a meal plan.  It may cost more than I will like to admit but I have to do something.  I can't wait for the blessing of change without making an effort.