Some Weight Updates from Nov and Dec

 Wow, I'm really doing a bad job of keeping up with this blog! Here are updates from Nov 29, Dec 6, and Dec 17:

Nov 29

weight: 213.2 lbs
fat percentage: 49.9%
hydration: 34.4%
muscle: 24.6%
bone: 11.0%
cal: 2339

Dec 6

weight: 214.6 lbs
fat percentage: 48.5%
hydration: 35.4%
muscle: 25.3%
bone: 11.0%
cal: 2348

Dec 17

weight: 214.6 lbs
fat percentage: 47.6%
hydration: 36.0%
muscle: 265.8%
bone: 11.0%
cal: 2348

September Checkin

Yes, I know, it's almost time for the October checkin :(  September seems so long ago - good thing I have notes to remember what happened!

In terms of activity, I was active for over 150 minutes on three of the four weeks. On that fourth week, I had a day off work, which derailed my regular walking to and from work, and I just never made it up.  That seems to happen every time I've got time off, so I will definitely have to work on being more active during vacations and holidays!

I ended up ordering some more Chef's Plate boxes (they sent me a deal where I got a percentage off three boxes), so I made seven new recipes this month.  And one of those recipes wasn't from Chef's Plate (I needed to make a dessert for a birthday) - I flipped through my cookbooks and found a diabetes-friendly dessert that was really tasty!  That recipe was definitely a keeper! :)

I did restart Karin Dimitrova's Reset in September, but unfortunately didn't get very far.  I got up to the first intuitive movement section (I think that's day 5), then just kind of stopped.  I'm thinking I should restart it again, but just skip the intuitive movement days so I don't get derailed (I wasn't really a fan of them).

One other thing that happened in September: I slowly started seeing friends again.  Thanks to the pandemic, I had been only seeing a very limited social circle.  But now that myself and many of my friends are vaccinated, I felt it was time to start branching out a little more.  I've found that mentally this has been rather hard after being told to keep to yourself for over a year, but once I actually was with some of my friends, I was totally fine.  But I do admit, it's weird actually having plans again outside of my house!

Some Weight Updates from Sept and Oct

Once again I have not kept up with my updates here!  Here are my weights from the last month:

Sept 28

weight: 213.6 lbs
fat percentage: 46.9%
hydration: 36.5%
muscle: 26.1%
bone: 11.0%
cal: 2341

Oct 3

weight: 214.0 lbs
fat percentage: 47.0%
hydration: 36.4%
muscle: 26.0%
bone: 11.0%
cal: 2344

Oct 16

weight: 213.4 lbs
fat percentage: 47.7%
hydration: 35.9%
muscle: 25.7%
bone: 11.0%
cal: 2340

and Oct 27

weight: 213.4 lbs
fat percentage: 46.7%
hydration: 36.6%
muscle: 26.2%
bone: 11.0%
cal: 2340

As you can see, things have remained fairly consistent.

August Checkin

Wow, I can't believe August is over already!  I had a pretty busy (and good!) month though.  I feel like I did a lot. :)

Of the four full weeks in August, I was active for 150 minutes or more on three of them.  The fourth week I was on vacation, and ended up visiting a lot (or otherwise sitting in the car a lot) and just wasn't very active.  I did go swimming a little bit though (in lakes!) which was fantastic!  I love swimming. :)

I only made one new recipe this month: beef bulgogi.  I was talking with a friend of mine about gochujang sauce.  I tried to find it at the Superstore (I spent waaay too much time wandering through the aisles looking for it with no luck) and ended up getting it online.  That friend of mine then sent me a recipe for beef bulgogi to try because it uses gochujang.  I don't think I made it right (I think the heat was too high and the beef didn't turn out saucy) but it was super tasty!

I've also been using the gochujang sauce in mushroom bibimbap (I got that recipe from Chef's Plate awhile ago).  That's become a go-to supper for me. :)

This month I also got new runners!  Because of all the walking I do, I typically wear through a pair every year.  My last pair had big gouges out of the soles, so it was definitely time to replace them!  I got one pair earlier in the month, but didn't like how they fit when I brought them home and wore them around the house.  I took them back and got a different pair and they've been fantastic. :)

The other thing I've been doing is trying to get caught up on some political magazines I have.  I read through a lot of them, and noticed my mood slipping the more of them I read.  I had to take a break for a few days to read something a bit more fun before going back to them just so I felt better!  I wasn't expecting this to happen, so it's really good to know (and be aware of).

Well, that was August.  Hopefully September will be good too!  One thing I'm looking forward to are some new meals from Chef's Plate.  I've got a few more boxes coming.  Hopefully the recipes will all be great (and I'll find some new easy weeknight dinners!)

Weight Update from Aug 29

I weighed myself about a week ago:

weight: 212.0 lbs
fat percentage: 47.2%
hydration: 36.3%
muscle: 26.0%
bone: 11.0%
cal: 2332

Those numbers are pretty similar to what I saw in mid-August, so that's great. :)  I do think I've been eating a bit more over the last week or so (and more junk food too), so I'll weigh myself in the next few days and see what that looks like.

July Checkin

 Lol, I got a bit confused when I went to write this because it's almost September and I thought I was writing the August Checkin....but then I looked back wondering where July's was, before realizing that's what I was working on now!  Whoops!

I didn't do as well with exercising this month.  I was only successful in being active for 150+ minutes on two weeks.  The other two weeks, I only hit about 120 minutes (I was a bit sick on one week, and the other week I worked from home a bit and didn't fit in my regular walk to and from work).  

I made just one new recipe this month: some spring rolls with a spicy peanut butter sauce.  I'm not really a fan of spicy foods, but these were really good!  They also used marinated tofu.  I really, really liked the marinated tofu, and ended up snacking on the rest of it, rather than make more spring rolls!  This recipe is definitely a keeper (and I've since made more of the marinated tofu to snack on, too!)

I also had a scary low this month.  I was having trouble bringing my glucose down during the evening.  It was at a safe level when I went to bed.  But then my Dexcom woke me up a few hours later.  Thank goodness the alarms woke me up!  I had a really rough couple of days after that happened thinking I almost died - I was getting low enough that it was possible I may not have woken up! :(  Thankfully I did, and everything is okay.  I haven't had any lows like that since!

Oh, and July was my No Junk Food month!  That went really well.  I think there were maybe two times where I had some junk food (other than what was allowed for treating lows).  I also found myself feeling pretty good by the end of the month - I wasn't craving junk food, I was going out of my way looking for healthier snacks, and I felt that the few times I did end up eating a bit of junk food were no big deal.  I'm going to try to continue this going forward informally. :)

So that was July.  Hopefully I'll get to the August checkin a little sooner, so I don't forget which month I'm working on!

Weight Updates for July and Early Aug

 Yes, I'm bad with keeping up on this blog.  I have four updates since July 11th that I kept forgetting to post:

July 16:

weight: 213.8 lbs
fat percentage: 48.2%
hydration: 35.6%
muscle: 25.5%
bone: 11.0%
cal: 2342

July 29:

weight: 212.6 lbs
fat percentage: 47.7%
hydration: 35.9%
muscle: 25.7%
bone: 11.0%
cal: 2336

Aug 8:

weight: 213.4 lbs
fat percentage: 47.1%
hydration: 36.3%
muscle: 26.0%
bone: 11.0%
cal: 2340

And Aug 13:

weight: 212.0 lbs
fat percentage: 46.8%
hydration: 36.5%
muscle: 26.1%
bone: 11.0%
cal: 2332

What's awesome about these weights is that even after my month of no junk food, I feel like I did really well!  During the first week of August, I was on vacation from work.  That involved some junk food here and there, but overall I turned to healthier snacks rather than junk food!  Even now, at almost the end of August, I'm still turning to healthier snacks overall, rather than looking for junk food to snack on.  So I think my month of no junk food was a success!

Weight Update for July 11

I normally wouldn't be weighing myself so often, but I know my period is coming up in the next week, so I figured I might as well weigh myself now then wait until it is over.  So here are those numbers:

weight: 214.6 lbs
fat percentage: 47.7%
hydration: 35.9%
muscle: 25.7%
bone: 11.0%
cal: 2348

Definitely still continuing the downward trend for weight and fat percentage, and upward trend for muscle, so yay!  I'm continuing to not eat junk food, and I'm actually finding I'm not even really missing it!  I actually feel like over the last few days I ate a little more than I really wanted to, so I need to be more mindful of that in the future (looks like eating lots of fruits and vegetables is actually making me feel fuller and more satisfied!)

Unfortunately though, I hurt my knees at work the other day, and can't workout at the moment (I don't want to aggravate the tendons until they have a chance to heal a bit).  Luckily walking seems to be okay though.  I just looked up what kind of nutrition can help heal a tendon injury, and it looks like a lot of the things I've been eating lately help, like chicken, cheese, avocado, asparagus, eggs, lentils, tuna, and almonds (from https://www.thephysiorooms.com/our-articles/2017/05/nutrition-recovery-tendon-injury).  So right now it's all about staying the course on the healthy eating, and adding more exercise back in once my knees feel better.

June 2021 Checkin

Well, this checkin is a little more timely than my last one!

In terms of exercise, I met my goal of being active for 150 minutes every week in June!  The majority of that was through walking to and from work, but there was some lawnmowing and gardening thrown in, too.  As I already mentioned in my last post, unfortunately I've pretty much completely stopped doing yoga and stretching though, so that's something I need to make more of an effort to include.  I think the stretching is particularly important, not only to keep my joints limber, but also because my calves are often hurting while walking to work because the walk is slightly uphill the whole way.  Unfortunately I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the things I need to do right now, so it's been hard to find the time to fit that in.  I let a few important things slide over the last few weeks, so until I get back on track with them, I won't feel like I have the time and space to do yoga.  So that's got to be my #1 priority: get those tasks back under control, then start to add some yoga and stretching into my week.

I made two new recipes this month.  One was from Chef's Plate, and the second one was a pistachio cake for Father's Day.  I found the recipe in an old magazine, and thought of my dad right away because he loves pistachio!  Unfortunately neither of them were really healthy.  I'll need to think about making something healthier this month! 

I've kept up fairly well with my gratitude journal practice.  I missed a few days over the weekend, but got back to it, which is the main thing.  I really do feel like it's helping keep me overall in a more positive place mentally. :)

June is also my birthday month, so I spent some time catching up with friends (phone or video/voice chats) and family, which was nice. :)

So yeah, that was my June.  Overall it was really nice, but I did feel like I was eating too much junk food.  So as I said in yesterday's Weight Update post, for the rest of July I'm not going to eat any junk food (with the exception of treating lows).  I'm off to a fairly good start with it, so wish me luck for the remainder of the month!

Weight Update for June 29, July 6 and July 8 and the Start of No Junk Food

 For the last while, I haven't felt very healthy.  I feel like I've been eating a lot of junk food, and I haven't been super active (I'm still walking a lot, but I've completely fallen off the yoga habit) :(

So here were my numbers for June 29:

weight: 215.6 lbs
fat percentage: 48.6%
hydration: 35.3%
muscle: 25.3%
bone: 10.9%
cal: 2353

I had plans for the weekend, but after seeing those numbers (and just generally feeling like I've been unhealthy), I decided that after the weekend, I would cut junk food out for the rest of July.  I'm making allowances for the August long weekend because I'm planning on going camping (which will mean junk food, although I may try to just bring healthy snacks instead, we'll see).  

Because I have diabetes, I decided right off the bat that there would be one exception to the "no junk food" for the rest of July rule: if I go low.  In that case I will eat whatever I need to to get my lucose back up to a safe level.  Otherwise, I went and bought a ton of fruit for snacks (I haven't had kiwi in so long!  They're soooo good!) as well as some trail mix, so those have been my main snacks so far (although I also have some toasted baguette pieces which might technically be junk food because they're packaged and presumably processed, but they're super tasty with Baba Ganoush so I'm okay with eating them.  Plus they aren't tortilla chips, so I'm thinking they're a healthier choice in that regard).  If I feel like baking (and the weather isn't super hot), I'll make some snacks from Fuel Your Day as well, and maybe get some good snacking vegetables like snap peas.  I'm also drinking a lot of water with frozen fruit in it (throwing some strawberries or mangoes in is super good!)

The original plan was to start on July 5th, but everything got derailed over the weekend.  I ordered a pizza for dinner on the 5th because I just couldn't deal with cooking anything.  I did try to make it a healthier pizza with tomato sauce and lots of veggies - but I did order creamy garlic dipping sauce, which wasn't a good plan in hindsight.  So here's my weight for July 6th:

weight: 218.0 lbs
fat percentage: 49.6%
hydration: 34.6%
muscle: 24.8%
bone: 10.9%
cal: 2367

Yikes!!!!

But thankfully, despite still eating some pizza (but I'm proud to say, not with the dipping sauce after the 5th!) my numbers are improving already (July 8th):

weight: 216.0 lbs
fat percentage: 47.6%
hydration: 36.0%
muscle: 25.8%
bone: 10.9%
cal: 2355

I'm particularly excited to see the fat percentage go down by 2% and the muscle back up by 1%!

It looks like my "no junk food" plan is already working!  

May 2021 Checkin

Wow, I am not doing well with these checkins!  

May feels so long ago, that I'm not even really sure what was happening anymore.  But looking back at my calendar, it was a really good month for activity.  I was active for 150+ minutes for pretty much the whole month - there's one week where it's a bit questionable (I walked for 120 minutes, then gardened - I didn't write down for how long I gardened though, so I don't know for sure that I hit the 150 minute mark, but most likely I did).  

I also did really well on the recipe front: I made 6 new recipes!  This was all thanks to another few Chef's Plate orders (although I did make one salad on my own - the greens were spinach mixed with basil, which I've never thought to do!  That salad also introduced me to boccocini cheese, which I was addicted to for awhile!)

I also started a more consistent gratitude journal practice (I signed up for an app on my phone that I'd heard good things about).  Over time, I noticed that it's been helping me keep a more positive mood, so that's been fantastic, especially as I'm still feeling stressed from the pandemic on top of regular life things.  

So that's about it.  I will *try* to post about June near the beginning of July so it's more fresh in my mind!

Weight Update for June 14

 So it was my birthday recently, and I was concerned about what the numbers would show...

weight: 214.0 lbs
fat percentage: 48.2%
hydration: 35.6%
muscle: 25.5%
bone: 11.0%
cal: 2344

April 2021 Checkin

Whoops! I almost completely forgot to do this for April!

Thanks to Easter being in April, I didn't end up active for 150+ minutes for the first couple of weeks.  Missing a day of walking to and from work means I only walk for 120 minutes over the week (without adding in another walk).  And because I was getting ready for and celebrating Easter, I didn't fit in another workout on either of those two weeks to make up the time.  Luckily I was active for 150+ minutes on the remaining weeks of the month, so overall this was an okay month for exercise.

The one problem I had was that I haven't been doing anything else other than walking.  I've managed to fit a yoga session in here or there, but nothing at all consistent. And this pattern continued into May (but I'll talk more about that in a later post), so I'll have to make more of an effort in June.

I also made three new recipes this week!  I went through a pile of magazines, pulling out recipes that sounded interesting, and ended up making three of those.  One recipe I was particularly excited about was a lentil soup.  It was super easy (crockpot recipe!) and really good!!!

It's a little hard to remember now, but I think my stress level stayed relatively okay through the month of April.  Thankfully nothing super stressful happened at work last month, so that really helped!  

So that's about it.  April went by super quick (and obviously, so did May, since I'm writing this post now!) and was a fairly good month.  I just need to work on adding in more activity, especially during weeks with a long weekend when I can't rely on walking to work on that fifth day of the week!

Weight Update for May 2

 Looks like things are a bit better this week:

weight: 212.2 lbs
fat percentage: 47.3%
hydration: 36.2%
muscle: 25.9%
bone: 11.0%
cal: 2334

Weight Update for Apr 24

Just a quick weight update for yesterday:

weight: 216.0 lbs
fat percentage: 49.5%
hydration: 34.7%
muscle: 24.8%
bone: 10.9%
cal: 2355

I know I haven't been eating the best lately (I ate a whole pile of poutine over a few days), so I guess this isn't that surprising.  But I will need to make an effort to eat a bit better!

March 2021 Checkin

As I mentioned in my February 2021 Checkin, my March started off rough.  Someone at my work ended up having close contact with a confirmed case of Covid-19, so the building was closed and we all started working from home. I was so stressed out because my immediate reaction was "what if I die from having gone to work????" even though I knew that realistically, my chances of getting Covid from work were very, very slim (we have really good physical distancing and cleaning practices in place).  But I had a really hard time getting my questions answered about what happens from here and what that means for us who are now working from home (am I supposed to self isolate? What about appointments and stuff that I've booked?), which added to the stress all the more.  All of this stress was made worse because now I wasn't walking to work like I normally do; I lost my easy activity and a big stress reliever in one fell swoop.

Once again, thank goodness for Karin Dimitrova's Reset program!  While my stress was still through the roof, the program helped me claw some sort of control back, and gave me some tools that helped (even if just during the time I was trying them out).  One journal prompt that really helped was the first day's "What brought you joy over the last 24 hours?"  As I mentioned in the checkin last month, February 28th was a super bad day, but looking back over it for the good that happened too really helped me; I'll have to remember this for other bad days!

While my stress hasn't been great, I still managed to meet my exercise goal every week this month!  I'm especially proud of being active for 150 minutes on the two weeks that I worked from home (which has always been a struggle before because I lose my easy 30 minutes a day walking to and from work).

One thing that I did a lot of this month was cook new recipes, thanks to Chef's Plate.  A friend and I ordered the same recipes a few times in March so we could cook together over a video chat, which was super fun!  I made 7 new recipes over the month, which is fantastic. :)

I did decide to take a break from Chef's Plate for a bit though.  I wanted to go back and do my own thing for awhile; I missed some of my favourite go-to meals.  I'll just have to remember to go and find something new to make in the middle of all my favourites!

Weight Update for Apr 2

 I feel like I've been eating really badly lately (because I keep buying Easter goodies), so I was a little afraid to see what the scale might tell me.  But I've been fairly active (I finished Karin Dimitrova's Reset last week), so I wasn't too worried about everything.

weight: 211.6 lbs
fat percentage: 46.4%
hydration: 36.8%
muscle: 26.3%
bone: 11.0%
cal: 2330

Nothing really out of the ordinary. I seem to be maintaining around these numbers, so that's alright. :)

February 2021 Checkin

It's a little hard to remember, because the beginning of March hasn't been great, but February was a pretty good month!  

I hit the exercise goal every week. :) Most of that was through walking and Beyond Flexibility.  Unfortunately very little skiing though - we had a cold snap through about two weeks of February, then it warmed up too much and everything started melting.  But I was able to get out one afternoon with my mom, so that was great. :)

In terms of recipes, I tried a simple stovetop carrots recipe earlier in the month (while I was happy to try something new, I wasn't a huge fan of it).  Then at the end of February, a friend of mine gave me a coupon to try Chef's Plate for really cheap, with no strings attached to buy more.  I made two recipes from that box, with the third one saved until March.  They were really tasty!  I don't know if I'll be buying much more from them though - I know how to cook (and enjoy cooking), and find that their recipes seem pretty straightforward.  But they also have some new flavours and cooking combinations I'm interested in trying, so at this point I plan to keep checking their menu to see if anything else appeals to me (and that's also why I ordered a second box for this week - there were two recipes I wanted to try, and a third one that just sounded good!)

At the end of February, Karin Dimitrova announced Reset, a 21 day program which is all about reconnecting with and grounding yourself.  The last year has been hard for everyone, so once she announced the new program has forever access, I decided I was in.  At the time, I thought that any tools she could offer for helping keep my mental health in a better place right now was a good enough reason for joining.  But then at the end of the month, my work started dealing with an at the time (now confirmed) possible exposure to Covid.  My mental health took a major hit literally a few days before the course started on March 1st (also, February 28th was just a super bad day unrelated to Covid), and since that time I've been so thankful that I decided to join!  My mental health has taken a real beating over the last week, and while it's still not great, I don't know what I would have done without it, and the Community that was created especially for the program (so everyone can be doing the program together).

So that's where I'm at right now.  February was good (if cold!) overall, and hopefully things will get better as March progresses!

Weight Update for Feb 19, Mar 2 and Mar 6

 Here's a quick weight update from the last few weeks!

Feb 19:

weight: 211.8 lbs
fat percentage: 46.4%
hydration: 36.8%
muscle: 26.3%
bone: 11.0%
cal: 2331

Mar 2:

weight: 210.4 lbs
fat percentage: 45.6%
hydration: 37.4%
muscle: 26.7%
bone: 11.0%
cal: 2323

And because I forgot I checked my weight a few days ago, today:

weight: 212.2 lbs
fat percentage: 46.2%
hydration: 36.9%
muscle: 26.4%
bone: 11.0%
cal: 2334

January 2021 Check In

 I kept forgetting to write a monthly check in for January, but better late than never, right?

Well, let's see.  There were four full weeks in January.  I was active for 150 minutes + during two of those weeks.  :(

On the plus side, on those two weeks that I didn't quite make 150 minutes, I didn't really slack either.  On one of them I was active for 142 minutes.  That was also a week I had to completely work from home, so I hit 142 minutes without my daily walking commute to and from work!  The other week I was active for 128 minutes plus shovelling; this was another week where I was working from home (although only for three of the 5 work days).  I don't know how long shoveling took this week either, so I may have actually hit the 150 minute mark, but decided not to count it because it also might have only been like 10 or 15 minutes that I was out (and so not enough).

In terms of recipes, I actually made two new ones during the month of January. :)  One was a new salad, the other was a new bean dip with artichokes.

I feel like my mental health has been a bit all over the place this month.  Work has been busy, but not in a good way. There's too much to do and not enough people; everyone's feeling overworked right now.  At this point I'm trying to stay positive, and basically just do what I can without beating myself up for not doing more.  

One really good thing I did this month though was buy myself Karin Dimitrova's Beyond Flexibility and Core Strength programs.  I decided to only focus on Beyond Flexibility right now because I am not and have never been flexible (and I read that people with Diabetes lose flexibility in their joints so it's important to work on this).  I've only done a few weeks of the program so far (and under the "I'm a Complete Beginner" program because I've never really done much flexibility work beyond trying to work on my hip flexibility after discovering I couldn't sit cross-legged at all) so I haven't seen much in the way of improvements yet.  We'll see how things are going by the end of February I guess. :)

Weight Update for Jan 24

I wanted to check my weight today to see how I'm doing.  Last week I was fighting a lot of lows, and so was eating a lot more than normal to deal with them.  But the lows are slowly coming under control, so I thought now was a good time to check my weight:

weight: 213.6 lbs
fat percentage: 46.7%
hydration: 36.6%
muscle: 26.2%
bone: 11.0%
cal: 2341

So this is a bit up from earlier in January but not horribly so.  Hopefully I won't be having many more lows!

Weight Update for Jan 6

This is from yesterday, a quick weight update after the holidays:

weight: 211.8 lbs
fat percentage: 46.2%
hydration: 36.9%
muscle: 26.4%
bone: 11.0%
cal: 2331

Looks like I made it through the holidays alright. :)  My weight is slightly down from Dec 29.

2021 Goals

Well, here we are (albeit a little late): time to set goals for the new year.  Thanks to the covid-19 pandemic, which is still ongoing (although vaccines are starting to roll out), the future is still a little uncertain.  So with that in mind, I don't want to set super ambitious goals for myself; I don't want to be needlessly stressing myself out should yet another lockdown happen, or worse.  So 2021 is going to be mostly more of the same:

1. Workout for 150 minutes a week.  This felt like a doable number, especially while walking to work.  And in the last month or so, I've started trying to fit in some workout videos (mainly for stretching, which I think is super important and I don't do enough of).  Like I said last year, this number seems very doable, especially with walking, so let's see if I can hit it this time!

2. Make a new recipe every month.  I liked this goal, and I was so close to succeeding last year!  I found that it got me out of my cooking comfort zone a little bit, plus I discovered some new favourite dishes that I now make all the time.  So let's see if I can succeed in making a new recipe every month this year - I'd love to hit a 100% success rate on this one, not just 80%, but we'll see!

I also bought myself The Complete Plant-Based Cookbook by America's Test Kitchen for Christmas. I flipped through it and the pictures looked AMAZING! I can't wait to try some stuff out!!!

3. Do a monthly check-in on this blog.  Looking back, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, I was doing a monthly update on how I was doing on my goals.  I don't know if I'll specifically just look at goal progress, or if I'll do a more general health check-in (like how things are going, how I'm feeling, etc); I'll probably try a few things and see what I like.  But whatever that check-in looks like, I think it's important that I take some time to stop and see how things are going, rather than just winging it (and totally forgetting about goals that I set for myself, like the no junk food at work one from 2020!)

I also got away from doing the weight-updates in a timely fashion, so hopefully while doing these monthly check-ins I'll be able to keep up with them a bit better, too!

I know that things happen during the year (I don't mean like the pandemic, but like heat waves and stuff where working out might not be reasonable for a week), so a success for all of these goals means meeting them through 80% of the year (although I will strive to meet them for 100% of the year!)

2020 Year in Review

 My 2020 goals for the year were: 

1. Workout for 150 minutes a week.
2. No eating chips, chocolate, and other treats at work (with the caveat that I can eat some sweets if I go low).
3. Make a new recipe every month.

Remember, for the purposes of these goals, a success means I met the goal 80% of the time.  So let's see how I did:

Goal #1 was a fail.  I started out really strong last winter (I went snowshoeing and skiing every weekend, often skiing both Friday and Sunday, with snowshoeing on Saturday!) But then the Covid-19 pandemic hit and derailed this completely.  I spent about 4 months basically staying home with very little activity (except gardening and the occasional walk).  I picked up my activity by the end of the year (walking to and from work, on a week where I work all 5 days, nets me the 150 minutes right there).  So thanks to the pandemic, I only hit this goal 52% of the year.  

I honestly forgot that Goal #2 was a thing.  But thanks to the Pandemic, this was successful.  I wasn't at work for a few months, and when I got back, for the most part I had no intention of touching anything people brought in.  I even grabbed a donut one time, walked home with it, thought about it, and threw it out.  I felt bad for wasting the donut, but I still stand by my choice.  The only time I ate a few things was around the Christmas season, where I ate a few things that were individually wrapped and thought it was okay.  I also tried to make a point of bringing good snacks with me (this fell apart near Christmas though because I wasn't taking the time to bake anymore - I'll have to get back into making healthier muffins again!)  

Goal #3 was technically a failure, because I only made a new recipe in 9 months out of 12 (75% of the time).  But I actually made a total of 19 new recipes throughout the year, so it doesn't really feel like a failure at all (and I'm going to call it a partial success). :)  

I also can't blame covid-19 for this partial success because the months I didn't make anything new were scattered throughout the year (May, July, and October).

So that was 2020.  Tomorrow I'll set some new goals for 2021. :)

Final Weight Updates of 2020

Here are the remaining weight updates I missed posting for 2020:

October 30:

weight: 211.4 lbs
fat percentage: 48.3%
hydration: 35.5%
muscle: 25.4%
bone: 11.0%
cal: 2329

November 19:

weight: 210.2 lbs
fat percentage: 45.5%
hydration: 37.4%
muscle: 26.7%
bone: 11.1%
cal: 2322

December 1:

weight: 210.2 lbs
fat percentage: 45.8%
hydration: 37.2%
muscle: 26.6%
bone: 11.1%
cal: 2322

December 12:

weight only: 209.6 lbs

December 29:

weight: 212.0 lbs
fat percentage: 45.7%
hydration: 37.3%
muscle: 26.7%
bone: 11.0%
cal: 2332

I credit the slow decrease of my weight since October mainly to walking to and from work every day (although I'm sure healthy eating was also part of that).  I also credit the slight gain at the end of December due to the smorgasbord that was Christmas, even during the Covid-19 pandemic!  I'm interested to see what my weight will be like by the end of the month, especially if I'm able to fit in more snowshoeing and hopefully some cross country skiing!

Goodbye 2020!

Happy New Year!  2020 was a bit of a wild ride.  I haven't done a good job of keeping up with this blog at all.  So over the next few days I'm going to do another big weight update for the remainder of 2020, plus look at goals for 2021.

But for today, I just wanted to make a note, mostly for myself, about snowshoeing.  I went snowshoeing today with a temporary basal of I believe 65%, starting two hours before I went out.  When I started snowshoeing, my glucose was 5.7 mmol/L.  It hovered around there just fine (went up to 5.8, then stayed at 5.7) until we started doing some bigger hills, at which point I went low.  So I think next time I'm going to need to do a smaller temp basal (maybe 60% or 55%?) and try to start off a little higher so I have more of a cushion in case my glucose suddenly drops like today.