August Check-in

Well! That went by quick! Here we are in August.


Here's my progress report:

1. No more than one piece of bread or one sandwich at a meal.

Uh... yeah. About that. I'm not sure that this one is a good one for me. I've been making sourdough bread that's around 1/2 wheat, 1/2 white. Sometimes it pushes toward 2/3 wheat, but if I go past that, then it's not tasty; I really want to find a recipe for whole wheat sourdough, but oddly enough, that's been difficult. But I've had my biscuits 1/2 wheat, and the muffins -- did you know that you can use sourdough instead of baking powder? Sourdough's cool. Though it's really tough to keep in the summer if I'm not using it every single day. Whatever. I'm growing new skills, and I'm discovering some things, using this much wheat flour.

When I eat wheat like this, fresh ground and usually sourdough, my cravings back waaaay off. I've known for a while that I'm typically low on magnesium. Actually, most women are -- which is at the root of the stereotypical chocolate cravings (among other things): chocolate has magnesium, though not enough to satisfy the need. So I was taking magnesium supplements for a while. But when I started eating the whole wheat sourdough stuff, the cravings backed way off. Turns out, wheat has a lot of magnesium, too. Other things are also good when I'm eating whole wheat. I feel good. Go figure: "wheat [is] for man". So I'm amending this goal: Find a whole wheat sourdough recipe by September 1. There's plenty of time for practice in getting it right!


 2. If I have dessert, it will be only one helping in a day.

As long as we don't count the chocolate chips, I'm doing well here. I keep the chips to a reasonable quantity, and if I do them near daily, it's not much on any day, so I don't feel bad. This one, I'm doing well with.


3. Drink 2 quarts of water - every day.

 I don't know why this one is so tough. I'm great at being a sedentary water drinker -- used to actually do a gallon, when I spent more time at my computer. But now that I'm up and around more, and having tons less computer time than I used to, getting my water in is very, very difficult. I don't know what to do about this, other than just keep trying.


4. Weekly bike rides.

This one is going well, now that we've got Dragon up to speed without his training wheels. We're actually doing two rides a lot of weeks. At least for the summer and into the fall, I'm feeling pretty good about my activity level. Yoga most days, gardening and yard work, and regular bike rides.


5. Notebook tracking.

I've (mostly) been doing this, but I haven't got any huge insights,  yet. It does, however, keep me thinking about this stuff. I do better, overall, when I'm tracking. I eat more veggies, I move more, I get more water, and generally make more healthy choices. So even if it's not showing me how to fix things in an obvious sort of way, it is definitely helping. And the data is accumulating, so hopefullly I can put it to good use at some point. I definitely have a hormonal element to my weight, still, and I'm determined to ferret it out.


 I've been pondering what Emma had to say about her thin friend's family customs around food and health, and I'm thinking that I want to talk to some of my friends, and see if I can find out more about this, and discover if there are any common threads in what people do, what the family culture is, where people are successful at this stuff. If I can learn from people who are being successful, then maybe I can have that kind of success for both myself and for my kids. I'd like that.

August Update

Well, here we are, in August. Whee! This summer is flying by. Though, if I'm honest, I'm ok with it being Fall (and not 90° every stinking day).

Anyway, here's my update on my goals for the last month.

Eat a salad every day.
So, I've decided to alter this one slightly; turns out, salads get boring. Instead of specifically going for salad, I'm going to say "Eat veggies every day." This month I've been expanding my veggie intake - I remembered I *really* like roasted broccoli and cauliflower! Even still do! Mmmmm. We even had some roasted carrots too.

I can't say I've eaten veggies *every* day, but there has been a definite improvement this month. So, I'll give myself a B+ for eating veggies.

Don't eat dessert every day.
The first two weeks of July I did not do well with this goal. I was only sort of half trying.. but by the end of the month, I determined to get a hold of myself; I'm in charge of me. I really appreciate Emmily's post about being aware of what food one has in the house. I very often feel like I don't have time to do any self-care and may or may not use indulging in yummy foods as my self-care, but this is quite possibly the worst choice for that. It's not even that I always eat "dessert" per se, but snacks. Oh, the snacks. And while I consciously strive to not talk about gaining or losing weight or "fat" and stuff in front of my kids, I'd like to pass on better eating habits to them.

So, Hubby and I chatted and we're going to stop bringing in the Costco sized packages of ALL THE THINGS and focus on finding more healthy snacks. Also, I gotta find a more healthy outlet for my 3-in-the-afternoon-and-i'm-stuck-in-the-house-cuz-babies-cabin-fever cuz right now I frequently find solace in baking sweet sweet things and then eating way too many of them.

Here I'd say this month I earned a D+ with a hopeful outlook moving forward.

Get up and move every day.
Ugh. So, I slacked off with this the first half of the month. Seriously, it's rough to motivate myself to go for a walk when I'll be pushing a stroller and/or carrying a baby on my chest and it's 90°+ outside. And it's a serious struggle to find time to actually get on the treadmill before 10pm cuz sleep wins out every time (driven by knowing that Moon will be up at least twice before 6am).

However, the 2nd half of the month I got more determined and the frequency improved. So, overall, I'd say a solid C here.

I tell myself this is a process.. two months feels like a long time but, really, it's not. This is me striving for long-term change, so not being perfect in two months is ok. I'm making adjustments and learning and that's what is important for now.