Well, it’s that time again – time to check in and see how monetizing failure in my diet and exercise regime has been working. June saw my five-and-a-half month streak of workouts come to an end, though for a good reason – we finally moved! Being within a half mile of work means getting two hours of my life back, every day (it’s wonderful). I suppose I could have banked some workouts to get through the actual move, but I didn’t, so the streak is over… Luckily, the apartment building has a small gym, so I can just take the elevator down, hop on the treadmill, and do some weights.
Likewise, I just haven’t been able to fit the sit-ups into a dependable part of my routine, and have missed a couple more sessions for no better reason than that I forgot. It feels like this is an important lesson on the importance of ritual, routine, and so on, but right now it’s just frustrating.
Lastly, I had my first food failure this month. Without even thinking about it, I ate a cookie at home. A cookie! And it wasn’t even a good cookie! Still, frustrating though that is, it says a lot that this is the first time I’ve broken any of the dietary rules in five months. Layering small rules on other small rules over a long period of time works. It may be a little annoying that I can’t have a snack after 8:00, or that I can’t have some of the more less problematic lunches at work, but the strategy is working. In the past, there wouldn’t have been anything to counteract the urge to have a thousand calorie snack, whereas now it’s simply off limits.
Goals and donations to date can be found here.
For July, I’m going to codify something I’ve already been doing, but feel good about making official – no added sugar. I.e., I won’t add sugar, agave, honey, Equal, stevia, etc., to coffee, tea, anything. The only exception being in the case of a recipe that calls for it (e.g., Jacob’s been pining for banana bread). Coffee without sugar makes me a little sad, but there’s no reason to be sucking down six to ten teaspoons of sugar a day.
Lastly, I’m going to try to kick things up a notch by adding two more workouts to the month. So, the rules are that I need to work out every even day of the month, as well as July 15th and 31st. This should keep things challenging.
Long live the new streak!
Dan Dreams of Coding 