March Recap

Aaannnnd then it all went to Hell.  As you know, my grandma passed away toward the end of the month so let's see how it all shook out for March.

Food:  Continue with cutting out "extra" snacks/popcorn.  Play around with cutting one thing out of my typical breakfast to see if there is scale movement since exercise will be limited.

How it's going:  (mid-month)  We're doing good on the cutting out extra snacks and I think that demon is pretty much slain.  I have also been cutting out one item for breakfast.  (Typical breakfast would be a banana, 1/2 yogurt, serving of cottage cheese and then either a serving of cereal, English Muffin, eggs, or something along those lines. Any combo basically equaling 400-500 cals)  I've been cutting either the yogurt or cottage cheese depending on the day.  It didn't help for last week's weigh-in so who knows.

How it's going:  (end of month)  The original goal and even mid-month were still on target.  The last 2-3 days of the month, I would pop a fun sized Kit Kat here or a mini Cadbury egg there.  Nothing too insane but yeah, at Grandma's "afterparty" I figured as long as I didn't have 3 plates surrounding me in the corner hissing at people, I did better than expected.

April goal:  Get out of my food rut and make different things.  If you can't friggin' decide where to go on high cal day, then just fix something at home.  If you're really that uninspired, it's not worth the calories.

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Exercise:  Inner thighs are STILL tender so be good to them as they heal.  No kicking workouts for the first part of the month.  Continue with stretching making sure to include the front of the ankle to see if I can exorcise the ankle demon.  Will not up walks to 3 miles until I can do a 2 miler without inner thigh tenderness the next day!  Focus on upper body and one lower body in strength sessions until mid-month when I re-evaluate progress.  NO BAND for PT exercises for now-breaking up scar tissue is more important.  Stand up and stretch with each water reminder.

How it's going:  (mid-month)   This has been frustrating.  I can really only do walking workouts so if we don't want to walk, I'll take his laptop down and do WATP while he does something harder.  I've told him I'm not going to let my injuries continue to derail his progress.  I can walk 3 miles around the neighborhood on flat surfaces but a walk around what I considered a flat lake loop, my legs disagreed.  Too uneven for now.  One more week of flat and then I'll test uneven again.  I think IT band scar tissue may be playing a role in this.  Trying to incorporate different stretches in there and remember to scrape it out with my jade tool.  (affiliate link) 

How it's going:  (end of month)  The legs seem to be progressing and the tightness is considerably less.  I've been able to throw in some old lighter routines like Gilad in Jerusalem, Turbo Jam or the low impact modification of the RIPPED workout the Mr does.  So I'm hoping to be able to test out Turbo Fire and Tae Bo this month.

April goal:  Test the waters with moderate impact exercise and continue with the extensive stretching sessions which are obviously helping.

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Water:  Keep up with current water intake and see if I can push it to another 1/2 bottle.  I'm bad about getting up to refill so I MUST work on that.

How it's going:  (mid-month)   This week I moved my water reminder from every 30 minutes (and I would stop at one bottle (43 oz)) to every 15 minutes.  I am usually able to get in 130 oz by workout time in the evening this week and I must keep this up.  In reading old posts where weight loss was at least more, I don't know the word...possible(?) was when I was drinking that much.  It's still a struggle to get it in on the weekend but I need to get better at matching that amount then as well.

How it's going:  (end of month)  Well, this suffered.  Mid-month, it was harder to get the 3 bottles in and once Grandma died, drinking one bottle (43 oz) was a victory.  I will get back to my 3 bottles a day asap.

April goal: Get back to three bottles of water per day especially on weekends.

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Sleep:  Get to bed by 12:30am.

How it's going:  (mid-month)  I hit it most nights but with the time change it's been close to 1am.  I'll adjust.  Sleep has been really good lately which I need to help my legs get good restorative time.

How it's going:  (end of month)  This literally stopped the day I gave the mid-month progress report.  I was up until 1-2am especially when Grandma died.  The first night, I didn't go to bed until 5:30am, got 4 hours of sleep, then to bed at 2am and 2 am seemed to be the holding bedtime.  I can't let that become a habit.

April goal:  Get back to 12:30am as the goal.  You're out of control with the late nights.

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Mental Health:  When legs show true signs of bouncing back, make the plans you wanted to make with friends.  The Mr needs a night to let go...his work blows so make sure he's taking time to unplug for even 5 minutes.  Mute more and open the back door as weather allows.

How it's going:  (mid-month)  We're getting together with our friends for lunch Saturday and it sounds like we have a lot to catch up on.  I called my "work mom" from my old job and we have a ladies lunch planned for the day after Easter.  I'm hoping to do this more regularly with them like we used to.  They're in their 70's and I know I can't take time for granted.

How it's going:  (end of month)  I am so glad I was able to get together with friends two weeks before Grandma passed and again with other friends two days after her funeral.  I thought about cancelling the ladies lunch after the funeral but I needed something to keep me busy especially if the Mr was going to work that day.  Obviously other than that time with friends, my mental health is in the crapper and I have some work to do and not a lot of time to do it.

April goal:  Video chat with friend once during the month.  Journal all of the emotions you're going through with Grandma's passing and be good to yourself.  You're not even in the thick of the potential worst of the "after."

I would say the first half of the month was pretty much a total success even if the scale urinated all over us.  I just don't have it in me to get all numbers obsessed with tracking right now and I've eaten the same crap for 9 years for the most part so I know what my calories are.  I still measure and everything so it's like I'm eyeballing it like a crazy person.  Since my legs seem to be getting better and warmer weather is attempting to settle in, I would like to actually do what I said I want to do which is get off my big arse more during the day.  I still feel this is the biggest culprit and we've been saying this for 7 years yet...here we are.  So God only knows if I'll ever get serious enough to just do it or continue to sit around and not make my health a priority where movement is concerned.  Working out consistently is nice but not it's nowhere near enough to counteract the sitting.

How was your March?

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