April is almost over and I feel pretty “meh” about my fitness and health goals for the month. Sure I walked the dog, way more than I have in months and I went without meat about 80% of the month and I got outdoors and most days met my fit bit goals. But I also haven’t been to Zumba in weeks and I completely skipped my weight work outs last week and I’ve only ran once and I had to bail on a 5K I wanted to do.
And I feel like the failings out weight the progress. I feel like all I see are the things that I didn’t do. The fact is I’m not good at making exercise a priority and that the things that worked for me were the things I really really enjoy like walking the dog. And while I love Zumba we were so busy this month that I couldn’t give up the few hours to myself on Tues / Thurs to go to Zumba due to other commitments on those days like doctors appointments and work.
I’ve learned that the more things I try to change about my life for my happiness, the harder I have time fitting them in. If I’m going to exercise more, how will I have time to organize and clean, if I’m devoting more time to making new friends how am I supposed to spend time relaxing. I have so little free time and my free time is sacred, how do I make the most of it? How do I not squander those hours? This was one of the reasons that I started this project to make better use of my free time.
I gave up meat because I have a digestive disorder where my body doesn’t digest food the way it should. Red meat has always been a problem for me and I wanted to see if I felt better not eating meat. At first I really missed meat and then after a few weeks I didn’t and I definitely don’t miss cooking meat. But giving up meat was a bit uncomfortable. When going out it was hard to find things I liked on the menu, or when dining with friends I wasn’t going to turn down a meal and I had trouble finding lunch items that were filling. And for the first few weeks I felt hungry a lot, which meant I snacked on not so great things. But now that I’ve grown used to not choosing meat, it has gotten easier and I’m debating whether I bring meat back to our household diet or if I save it for when we are out and special occasions.
And I’ve realized that I need to work harder to be healthier and that I need to develop better routines in order to do that. I’ve realized that I need to not feel bad about what I didn’t accomplish and instead take what I did well and improve on it.
May is a new month.
document.write(”);
I feel that way too about sacred time for ourself. Seems like there is always so much that needs to be done and even when we're focusing on quality time for ourselves, it's a battle as to what would be the BEST thing to invest in during our quality time. Do we organize the closet because it would make us feel accomplished? Do we go for a run because it'd make us feel healthier? Do we just sit on our asses and drink a glass of wine because it's a good way to destress in an already hectic existence?
Sometimes I feel like saying to hell with it all and just shutting down my blog, social media, forgetting the closet organization and just focusing on quiet and calm for awhile. But then I itch to come back. So, we win some and we lose some. It's a good idea to focus on our achievements rather than all of the things we're not doing. It will drive us crazy otherwise!
Oh Jen I have been feeling the same way. Like why bother with the blog and all of the other stuff and just do what I want but then I get back to blogging and remember that I love writing and I can't stand a mess for too long.
Hm. I'm sorry that you're feeling this way. But I get it- I totally do. And I hate the part where we guilt ourselves over things we want to do- because we're doing something else that we're 'supposed' to want to do. The past two years or so, I just started saying to hell with it. I'm going to do what I want to do and that's it. We budgeted in a cleaning lady (it's pretty inexpensive here) to come once a week and do the cleaning. This way- I don't mind the 'straightening' post-tornado pickup.
I don't indulge in retail therapy very often, but I found that buying myself something new because my clothes are so old and outdated is indeed a pick me up. Even when it's a simple pair of shoes!
I don't exercise. I only did briefly before my wedding because I didn't have a job and had nothing else to do. It was fun. But no, I don't want to do that right now with the few hours a week I do have to myself. Meanwhile, I put off language learning until the fall when things are supposedly more free? Meh.
Life is short. You don't want to think back and remember these days saying wow- I really wasted all that energy on x. Why was I so worried? At least that's how I look at it 🙂
I love this comment Farrah. I agree I don't want to look back thinking I wasted so much energy on something and that's a great outlook to have. Thanks for this : )
I am proud of your for trying the "no meat" thing. I'm not sure I could live without it. I would be eating a lot of pasta! ha! And I love Zumba too, it's just such a fun way to exercise. I hope you can make it back to class soon.
The meat thing was so tough. Tonight I broke down and made chicken for the first time, there are times when I love meat and times when I could totally go without it but it was really hard once i decided not to eat it…cause of course then I wanted it.