Son left this morning to go back to Texas and has left a sadness behind.
The hard yoga class has been changed to fast- slow "vin-yin" style. I'm checking the new format.
Progress as of today: 49.5 lbs lost so far, only 10 lbs to go!
Happy New Year 2020, everyone!
I have not been as pro-active as I might have been this morning. Slept in, because I stayed up too late, and haven't done anything too ambitious so far. If I may be frank, the sadness that my son will be leaving tomorrow morning is starting to creep up. It's odd - I can almost feel this sadness in my shoulders. BUT I do not want our last hours together to be sad, so we'll just enjoy the time that we do have remaining.
I weighed in this morning, and I do not believe the numbers I saw - have to weigh in 3 times, you know. Each time the number was different, but they averaged out to be 137 (137, 138, 136 - go figure!), so that's what I'll go with. I sure felt a lot heavier than that, from the carbs that I had last night. Maybe this scale is finally dying, I don't know. I did not have the time to weigh in on the better scale (the Ironman scale that weighs to the 0.2 and measures body fat %). I wish I had done so.
As promised, I will share my goals for 2020 - but this morning, I was watching a video on a yoga group that someone shared, who said that setting intentions is better than setting goals, because so many times, we set unrealistic goals for ourselves. Well that's just great - why wasn't this video available a week ago????
My theme this year is CHANGE. Making changes, not being afraid to make changes, embracing the opportunity to change as a chance to grow, learn, improve, experience more in life.
Changes to improve habits
Changes to nuture myself:
Changes to my health:
Changes to my yoga practice:
It's an ambitious plan, but it's more about doing better for myself, which in turn, will help be a better person to everyone around me.
Progress as of today: 49.5 lbs lost so far, only 10 lbs to go!
I really love your goals. They all sound so healthy. Your yoga goals are simply amazing, 3x a week, and i know you can pull it off as the sessions do't have to be that long at home - how long at home would you practice for in a session?
You inspire me to try harder and reach further in my goals. I hope to cook even more, maybe this year i will finally cook fish and meat and chicken and buy less pre-made in that category.
So i see your goals are health / happiness oriented. Thank you for sharing that goals do not have to be career oriented or just for learning purposes. i needed to see that i'm not the only one that enjoys the more "basic" nurturing things in life, if you know what i mean.
sometimes i feel like everyone around me is so technologically orientated...
i have a goal to start being more active cardiovascularly...at least on my exercise bike. i have actually sort of fallen off the wagon in terms of cardio. and my weights ...are easy to maintain as i've limited the exercises to just 3: pushups, chest flies, curls, and triceps.
good job being specific on your goals.
and i'm glad your son is headed back to better himself, too.
Day 100: It's been real.
It's almost midnight here in Chicago, but I wanted to write a recap today, before I start next year. Today, I did celebrate a bit with food and was not as strict. I'm OK with that, because I know that tomorrow, I will get back on track. Life goes on, and I'm rolling with the waves.
The main reason for writing TODAY - specifically TODAY, the end of this decade - is that when I started this decade, I was just starting to get out of a very dark place. I had lost all hope. I was drowning in shame. I lost my job. I lost my friends. I was publically humiliated. I almost lost my kids. I almost lost my freedom. I lost my savings. I lost my credit score. I could have lost my husband, but thank the Good Lord that he (and He) stuck with me throughout this entire ordeal. I didn't want to leave the house, I didn't want to live any more.
Sometimes in one's life, something happens that changes one's life so significantly that it divides one's life. I never thought something so major would happen to me like that, but it did. My life became divided into "Before" and "After", and has been defined in those terms ever since.
However, last week, I had another light bulb moment 
where it really HIT me that this is the end of a decade. And realizing this, I thought back to where I WAS, and looked at where I'm at NOW - and realized that I had actually managed to rebuild a life that I now call mine, in the past 10 years. It's not the same life that I had before, but in some ways, it's a better life, an authentic life.
Believe me when I say that I would never EVER want to go through what I went through in order to have gotten to this point, nor would I wish it on anyone else - even if it meant ending up in a better place. (No, some things should NOT ever happen, if they can at all be avoided.) Maybe that's why this event happened - so that I could get to this "better place" - or maybe not. What I DO know is I'm done trying to figure out or understand why things happened the way that they did, and have just accepted what happened, has happened.
My point is that, in looking back, I realized that I've managed - ALMOST - to move forward freely. When I took the Self-Love yoga series, that was the first time in 10-11 years that I was finally able to even think about being able to forgive myself, and even that tiny first step is HUGE to me.
Although this entry COULD be about how we should never give up, that's not what this is. This is an acknowledgment of how far I've come in this decade, and that I'm able to be that friend to myself to say, You did it, Donkey, and I'm really proud of you.
Progress as of today: 50 lbs lost so far, only 0 lbs to go!
Day 99: I am open to change.
This is what I repeated to myself on Saturday during the impromptu, "pop-up" yoga class. It helped!
It was startling to me to see that after a week of no yoga, that I felt a little decrease in balance & stability in holding certain poses. Just an interesting observation and motivation for practicing more often.
As I left my goals list at work, I didn't work on it much. I plan to do that today. For my yoga goals, there are a few poses that I would like to improve on. (My initial thought was to "master" these poses, but then realized that's not really the point of a practice. ) So, I have a short list of poses to hold for a minute. It will be fun to challenge myself in this way.
Some of my goals are habits to establish (e.g. using my waterpik daily) and others have a more progressive intention, e.g. weight-training.
So the list is rather long, and I'm wondering if I should pare it down, thanks to insights from Bear and Happy.
Progress as of today: 50 lbs lost so far, only 0 lbs to go!
You motivate me with your progress and goals...i haven't come up with anything yet!
Day 97: Be the change you want to see.
I really wanted to write yesterday, but I refuse to log in at work, because my login gets stored, and I just didn't have the patience to try to write on my phone....
I had an epiphany yesterday (Friday) morning while exercising on my bike:
If I want to SEE changes, I'm going to have to MAKE changes.
How about that? It is such a obvious "duh" thing to say, but it truly felt like a light bulb turned on in my brain.
As you know, I'm very connected with routine, with numbers, with habits. But if I want to see changes - physically, performance-wise, emotionally, spiritually - I'm going to have to change things up. This means stepping outside of my comfort zone to establish new habits. What I'm doing now is fine, but it's time to change.
I'm still working on New Year's goals & resolutions. I started writing down notes in the planner I use at work, that I mentioned a couple of days ago. Not all of my aspirations are diet and exercise, but when it came to establishing some yoga goals for myself, I completely drew a blank. THAT kind of startled me.
I have a "pop-up" yoga class at the studio this morning at 10am. This is "slow yoga" which has a nice combination of standing and floor poses at a slower pace, which is kind of where I'm at right now. I started missing yoga on Thursday, and yesterday, I was like, "I really NEED yoga soon."
It is rainy and gray here today. Tonight my husband and I are going out for our anniversary - 24 years. Then he has something planned for afterwards, which I'm not sure what that is. Hmm... I'd like to go look at snowblowers, but I'm guessing his is a lot more exciting.
Queen Bee stopped in the office yesterday to pick up her bonus check. She wished me a happy New Year - which I thought was really actually kind of nice of her to do. She continues to lose weight and looks good. I secretly admit to you all that I was a little jealous, actually, but not in a negative way -- that is to say, I'm using her progress to help motivate myself to making more positive changes.
Associate Attorney and Nice Lady will be off on Monday. Tuesday is a shortened day for New Years Eve. Then, my boss leaves for Florida until February 12th.
Progress as of today: 50 lbs lost so far, only 0 lbs to go!
I give some more thought to developing the new habits.
I feel like you are over stressing on the New Year's resolutions. Honestly, I think you work really hard and are too hard on yourself. What if your resolution was just to give yourself a hug every time you fall off track and have more fun?
I'm a big advocate for starting NOW. Don't wait for a Monday, don't wait for January 1st - start today, start now!
What I'm saying is that some of these little habit goals I have for myself could probably start today. It would shorten my list and maybe be kinder too.
So instead of Snow Blowers, you went to see a show,right!? Wonderful.
You sound good and involved in lots of wonderful activities lately and it's wonderful to hear.
Day 95: coasting along until it's done.
Christmas was nice! The kids slept in until around 11a. Opening gifts took about an hour or so. We each take turns opening a gift. Then we all kind of did our own thing. I watched tv with my daughter a little.
I recieved some nice gifts, some related to yoga or relaxing.
Dinner was delicious. I had a serving of lasagna and lots of vegetables. The fruitcake is gone so I enjoyed both apple and pumpkin pies. Later, as we played cards for a couple of hours, we snacked on cookies and crackers. It was a very nice, warm cozy day.
The only downside is coming to work today. I would have liked another day off. And this morning was too busy, I feel. However, life goes on. Daughter is working, so son and husband are out taking care of errands for our son, e.g. renewing driver's license.
I can tell that I'm missing yoga.
Progress as of today: 50 lbs lost so far, only 0 lbs to go!
that's nice your hubby is going with your son to renew his license and everything.
i was thinking how Catholics/Christians must be so busy this time of year - these couple days - and how my office worker also probably hasn't been to the gym (well i know it!) because she's been with family and prepping for Christmas / cooking these few days. I am sure that's how it was for you, too. Did you make the pies or buy them? Playing cards is nice, i have to do that and play scrabble with my parents on NYE coming up!
Day 94: Peace on earth and goodwill towards all... Mantra: Peace be with you.
Spendind some time with my mother in law last night was nice. The food was a little off, for some reason, but it was a good time. She is spending Christmas Day with her other son and his kids.
My kids are still sleeping, LOL, but husband has cinnamon rolls in the oven. It would figure that the one day he prepares something sweet for breakfast, all I really want are eggs. I'm quite the oddball in that I do not care for eggs all that much at any time. This makes me trully an outsider, as everyone at work seems to be eating eggs for breakfast lately.
The eating frenzy is coming to an end soon. We have the following dinners left:
Like Bear, I am formulating some goals for 2020. I will post those on January 1st, since it makes it easier to refer back to them at the end of the year. What MIGHT be helpful is if I also refer to these goals more often, like perhaps at the beginning of each month, as a gentle reminder.
For now, though, I am enjoying the day off. Nice and quiet.
Progress as of today: 50 lbs lost so far, only 0 lbs to go!
Like Bear, you also sound wonderful and i smiled reading your post!
thank you for spreading Peace and for speaking about it today.
You know, i had no idea that you didn't like eggs! though, you don't seem like an outsider to me, although i totally understand your point of view :)
gentle reminders are nice...i sometimes use that exact wording when emailing vendors if they haven't gotten back to me in awhile. do you use the words "gentle reminder" ever in your emails?
enjoy your night and i'd like to know how your Christmas Day was :)
Day 92? 93?
Not much to say. I've been eating way too much fruit cake. It's almost gone, so once it's gone, then I'm done. Left work at 11:30am today. We're taking my mother in law out for dinner tonight, and then a small gift exchange at her studio apartment in assisted living.
We played a 2.5 hour Scrabble game last night. My fellow family members are not really word people. My grandmother was a hawk at Scrabble, so I learned from one of the best.
Progress as of today: 50 lbs lost so far, only 0 lbs to go!
Also, since we live parallel lives, i could have left work as early as 11:30am too! but i left around 12:30 because i wasn't rushing.
what happened was, in our queens office the fire alarm went off, and they said just go home! - instead of having everyone leave the building and have to come back in....so, when that word traveled that the main office went home at 11-11:30am, well, everyone in my office decided it was time to go home too, LOL.
i stayed and ate lunch with my coworker...she was so very spirited and into doing work today! i couldn't believe her energy! and then i left her, but she was busy still talking to people on our floor from the other company who works with us but didn't go home yet. she prob left at least 30min after me....lately, she is full of energy, but always i guess, she inspires me as my boss and her capabilities but sometimes i feel in awe/wishing to be 10% even more like her!
I would love to be THAT person that has energy and enthusiasm like that, but I've always been a quieter soul, more introverted. Still, it's nice to have energized people around for inspiration.
Day 91:
Yesterday was a good reset day. Although I had rice at dinner (Chinese), I felt that I did pretty well on food choices and quantities. It feels good to eat right.
Thanks to Bear, I've been thinking about goals for 2020. I confess that I hadn't even really thought about it - that is to say, it didn't register that this was a new year coming up so why not work on new goals? That's how "out of it" I am right now - just coasting along in neutral, not really aware of what's going on around me, but just going through the motions. Not good.
I went back in entries, to see what my goals were for 2019:
LOL - lots of options!
Progress as of today: 50 lbs lost so far, only 0 lbs to go!
Also, the planner I use at work for calculating pro-rations throughout the year has a "Goals" section for each week. (Every time I turn a page, it's a new week.) I just noticed this a couple of weeks ago. Why haven't I been using this before? I pick up that planner almost every day - definitely every day when we're busier - so seeing my goals written out would be a reminder and a motivator.
Of course, you would utilize your planner differently, but I think that planners are excellent tools to help us use our time efficiently.
I tried a recipe similar to yours with the cooked cranberries - and i added a tiny bit of gelatin...then i needed more sweetener!...and it sorta burned my stomach....but i think in the end it will taste good tonight with whipped cream.
Day 89: today I will honor my body and treat myself with kindness.
This conflict with my mother is still eating away at me (literally). Did pretty well with eating at work, but came home and threw myself - once again - into food, after yoga class.
It hurts to be forgotten. It hurts to be ignored. This is a repeat of what it was like growing up. My brother had friends and everyone liked him. I was the fat older sister who stayed home, alone, to take care of the house. Fat and ugly, with glasses, short, big legs. I know that if I could just be thin and athletic, like my brother, people would love me too.
Delusional, with faulty logic, but there you go and here I am.
Second day in a row of waking up with a sour stomach and a tongue that feels like it's been burned. Why am I so mean to myself?
Tried Yin yoga with the teacher that teaches hard yoga, since the hard yoga class is later, and I wanted to get home to watch the debate.
It was a very nice, relaxing session, but... afterwards I was kind of missing the hard yoga experience. I don't mean to sound difficult, but that's exactly what I am right now. It's a learning experience, seeing what works and what doesn't, but I just realized that the hard yoga class is changing to something else in January, so there is no decision to be made.
Today is the office Christmas party. Queen Bee will be there. I plan to sit back and enjoy.
Progress as of today: 50 lbs lost so far, only 0 lbs to go!
BCGG is right...and you aren't the same way now. you've changed yourself, your body..
I project what I think I look like and instruct other people how to treat me.
You say short, thick, legs... Isn't that the stuff of homeboy cartoon porn?
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Change is hard......when will he be able to come back home again?
Maria7 on 01/02/2020:
You have a lot of good goals. As for Son, he will be all right. I know it hurts to see him leave and wonder if he will be happy and all right. But he will and he will make new friends, too. Who said it was easy being a Mama and not worrying about them (even after they are grown???)?
happy-1 on 01/02/2020:
Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugs.
Horn_Of_Plenty on 01/03/2020:
so you must be happy with a slow yoga class in place, you will be comfortable doing it :)