Working On A Quirky Graph

This journey to find a better healthy space for my brain and body keeps finding stops and starts. I am working hard to keep a positive spin on not being diligent on walking every day or forgiving myself for faceplanting during yoga poses. That is an uphill battle. Working on being positive is a conscious effort, it doesn’t happen naturally at this point. If I’m not fully aware of it, it is so easy to slip into a negative space about missteps or being critical of how I look or what I’m eating.

This week has been better than last for exercise, I was able to close all my rings this week (does that sound pretentious?) on 3 days instead of just 2 the week before. Progress. I feel like I’ve been making strides and finding my way back to healthier, but, at the same time, my clothes keep feeling tighter instead of looser, my exhaustion is reaching new levels and I’m still not having great nights of sleep. Even my watch congratulated me on getting 7 hours of sleep for the first time ever. I could be projecting, but it looked sarcastic to me.

I’ve been trying to supplement my walking exercise with yoga. I’ve determined that yoga is hell on the knees. Also, if you are not fit at all, the getting up and down consistently is difficult. I want to like it. I do.

However, I determined pretty quickly that I would not be able to just jump into this. This isn’t like going out for a walk one day and then the next time being able to walk a bit faster or further. This is more along the lines of practicing, and then practicing again. And still getting the pose wrong or face planting when I’m trying to drag my legs up to do a downward dog. Or trying to stretch into a cobra, but unable to get past my back hurting. It’s easy to make mistakes when you are starting up a new exercise routine, but that doesn’t make me feel any better when I’m laying on the floor panting watching the instructors on screen flowing easily from one pose to another; executing a perfect plank or whatever the hell a lizard is. I know this is good for me, but I fail to do a 30 minute workout all the way through and the failure is gnawing at me.

I’m prepared to make some concessions so I bought a set of yoga blocks and knee pads to help alleviate some of that. The only thing that I cannot immediately fix with a purchase is the lack of muscle definition in my thighs when I have to move from one position to the other. Which is why I’ve been walking more. The muscle won’t build itself by sitting on the couch and I won’t become stronger by sitting in my desk chair. I have to walk and do these yoga workouts to improve my flexibility and the strengthen my muscles so I don’t have the pain. Logically I know that. When I’m laying face down on the mat sweating I have a harder time remembering. When I wake up sore the next morning you can guarantee I’m not feeling motivated. And yet, I’ve got the blocks out of the packaging, I’ve been moving my living room around so I can more easily follow along with the yoga workout that Apple was gifted me for dropping a ton of money on their watch. The knee pads are being flattened so they don’t continually roll up while I’m working on the same routine again tonight. And then I’ll set my alarm for early tomorrow so I can work on talking myself into a walk around the neighborhood.

Have I mentioned I hate sweating? Oh I hate it so much. My walk yesterday wasn’t my best time or the most calories I’ve burned, but I had a sense of accomplishment when I was done. Except when I finally slowed my heartbeat and gulped water, I found I was still sweating. Even after a cold shower. Ulk.

Cooking

I’ve been beginning the nesting process. I can feel the weather getting ready to change and I’m slowly watching the trees start changing colors.

I’ve started randomly cleaning, making dishes in advance, testing new recipes and working to find that chill for the house. If I still worked at my old job I would’ve already bought up a bunch of candles with fall scents for the home. I may still need to do that. I will have to find some time to wander around and fill the house with good smells. Maybe even buy a candle warmer for the office to finally go through all these sort of burnt out candles I have all over.

Hmmm. I have a shopping trip I need to put on the books. And quickly because my cookie scoop busted and I need to get a couple more.

I also tried a new cookie bar recipe because I’m trying to make my life easier this winter when we set up for the great cookie exchange my family participates in. The recipe, I was looking for an apple pie bar, was a failure. Way too sweet and completely unwieldly. I believe I’m going to have to create something from scratch, probably an oatmeal cookie base, with apple pie filling and a crushed graham cracker topping with pats of butter on the top. I think. I’ve been slowly warming butter today so I will be testing soon. Hopefully this won’t be such a colossal failure. To mitigate the possibility, I will only be making a half batch to see how it turns out. Fingers crossed. I’m trying to make my life easier, but I’m not sure if this would make it easier. Although, depending on how many cookies I can get out of a half batch, perhaps I just make up a pan for each person participating?

To make me feel better about the time wasted on the cookie bars, I made a huge (I really need to learn how to half these recipes) batch of baked potato soup. I have containers of it in my freezer, plus several large pyrex bowls of it in my fridge. But on a positive note, I didn’t go out for lunch and waste hard earned money when I have something tasty in my fridge. But I’m starting to crave Indian like you wouldn’t believe. I’m going to have to find some time this week to wander over to Himalayn Yeti and grab some garlic cheese naan and tikka masala. Hmm. When do they open again?