Now for the true test…book read, got the green lilght from my doctor to proceed and established a “health baseline. Next, I joined my neighborhood gym and met with their counselor. Then I did some of the workbook exercises to find my list of preferred foods and cleaned up my pantry, fridge and freezer. My meal plan for the week was decided, items not on hand were purchased. The weeks’ meals were prepared and stashed away. Now what?
Fortunately for me, the next part was easy as the workout plans had been loaded into my app with instructions and videos. My eating plan was in my app to check off as I ate. As they say, now it was time to “Just Do It?”
What would be harder for me was discipline. Time to think about the suggestion to start journaling. This was not going to be easy. I have a desk job and do a fair amount of writing for that sometimes. It was not something I associated with fun. But the opportunity to make improvements in my life was enticing. I would give it a go.
I had already added gym visits to my calendar with a notification set for thrity minutes before. This allowed me to finish up whatever I was working on and prepare to head out. I also tend to skip meals when I am busy working, so had added reminders to stop for meals as well. Since these had helped, I would do the same for journaling time.
So how has it gone? The easiest and most welcome is meal prep. It takes a lot of stress out of my life that I had not realized was there. And the apps abiliity to look at the items I have loaded in as on hand and suggesting a meal with the recipe was great when time rolled around to think about week 2 meals plans.
Getting to the gym was not only good for my body, but it also gave me a much needed break in my day. After the second day I found I was more focused in the afternoons, especially on days where I had afternoon conference calls.
Now I will force myself to be honest, journaling is a struggle. I don’t enjoy it. And my handwriting stinks after so many decades on a computer. Next week I plan to use the dictate function in Microsoft Word to avoid the actual writing…and the bonus of this is that I will actually be able to read it later!
