Category: Fitness

Dedicate

I haven’t been taking enough care of myself this year, despite having chosen “Balance” as my word theme. It took until very late in the year to find a way to gain outer accountability for this obliger, but I finally got there. Along the way I took an Obliger Vacation that looked a bit like rebellion at the time, and a lot more like it as time went on.

So today I decided to give myself a final gift of self-care for 2018.

From the start of January I’ll be making an effort to spend the full month taking time out to do yoga every day.
I’m no yogi so I’ll be following along with Adriene from Yoga with Adriene on YouTube. She is doing a month long series called ‘Dedicate’.
It’s my attempt to nudge myself towards more self-care and further away from imbalance – literally and figuratively.

If you think you would enjoy doing this too I’ve added a link to the invitation on the image below. And if you would like to chat with me about it as we go along, you can always join the newly created Oh Waily Waily Discord server*.

In the meantime, I’d like to wish you all a Happy Holidays. I hope you enjoy time with family and friends, as well as taking time out for yourself too.

And I will see you all next year!

*if you already use Discord just drop me a comment asking for the invite link and I will email it to your comment email address. If you aren’t familiar with Discord but would like to know more this article from Lifewire is a good rundown.

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September Self-Improvement Month

After something of an hiatus, I’m back.    Which may be a good thing, or may be a bad thing, depending on your perspective on my wild and unpredictable plan being revealed today.

For the upcoming month of September I plan to do a post at the end of each day.  I’m hoping that it will fulfill a number of different things for me over the length of the month, nearly all to do with setting patterns of behaviour.  I will be trying to bed in newly begun behaviours and re-establish some habits that have recently slipped away.
Unfortunately this may make for some fairly boring reading on your part.  However, if you feel the urge to join in with any self-improvements of your own, drop a link in to each daily post and we can support each other in our efforts.

In my usual way, I am going to cram as many things in to this month-long adventure in habit-forming as I can.  I’m well aware that it is normally frowned upon in those circles who know how human brains work.  I totally get that on an intellectual level, but since I currently have the patience of a gnat I’m going to ignore it.  I want to see improvements across the board over the month and I’m simply not willing to wait until some time next year to work my way through each of them one at a time.
Yes, I’m unrealistically gung ho about it.  Yes, I may lament it at month end.
But in the (theatrical) words of the late, great Robin Williams – carpe diem.    And I certainly plan to seize my diem.  Firmly.

By way of working myself up and in to a regular posting pattern, I will start a little early in order to allow for some stretching of long dormant and possibly forgotten skills.
The areas will be highly recognisable to anyone who’s ever thought of self-improvement:

  • fitness goals
  • financial goals
  • personal development goals
  • realigning personal priorities

Specific efforts in each area will become clear from tomorrow night when I start my trek towards a month of focusing on making positive changes.  I’m looking forward to the challenge of lining up what’s in my head with what I’m actually doing each and every day.  I’ve been finding that the gap between the two has been widening for some time and it’s time to stop the unintentional creep towards the unwanted life.

Wish me luck and feel free to throw out the occasional encouragement if you have the time.

Primal rumblings

primalHave I mentioned lately that I’ve decided to go a bit Primal?

No?

Well I have.

Clean eating here I have come.  Mostly.  When I’m not feeling ill or dodgy (thanks Master Oh Waily for the iffy stomach ailment the other week).
It’s cool.  It’s real food.  It doesn’t come out of a box or a packet (for the most part).  It involves quite a bit of coconut, which it turns out is pretty darn good.  Red wine is given the thumbs up – whoop!  Even some very dark chocolate is acceptable in moderation.  Can’t really go wrong then, can you?

Other than breaking a lifetime habit of eating bread products and sugar, it really isn’t that darn hard.  The key for me, so far, has been in the planning.  If I have a range of meals to choose from and the stuff in the house to make it, then I can make it happen.

On the upside it seems to be using my extra, unnecessary stores of body fat – yay for me!  And when I can scrape together a bit of enthusiasm and energy I will start adding in some bodyweight exercises.  The key ones to start me off being the plank, squats, push-ups and maybe some lunges too.

In the meantime, if you’re interested in learning about things primal your first stop should be Mark’s Daily Apple and then head off around the interweb to read about all of the variations known as paleo.  Find what works for you – strict, loose or somewhere in between.  There are plenty of great meal resource websites and blogs for inspiration if it is a drastic change in eating style for you, places like Stupid Easy Paleo where I got inspiration for last night’s dinner for instance.
There are plenty of other great sites like Nom Nom Paleo, paleOMG or Eat Drink Paleo to browse too.  There’s no requirement to be paleo/primal in order to like and enjoy the recipes after all.   🙂

Grok on, folks!

Resolved… or not

Every year we hit this speed bump – New Year’s resolutions.

Aaaargh.  To resolve or not to resolve, it is always such a quandary.

Living in the southern hemisphere it’s so much of a ‘Spring-time’ feeling when 1 January rolls around, even when the weather doesn’t co-operate for a few days, that it is hard to resist the urge to embark on a jag of personal change.

So, as the Borg would have me believe, I have decided that resistance is futile.   Resolutions, of a sort, I am going to make.  Last year was pretty mediocre on many fronts in my world.  No need to rehash it in the sunlight of a new year, but suffice to say that the year dragged on longer and with less enjoyment than I would have liked.  No major dramas, but a certain degree of ennui settled in for the duration and then wouldn’t leave despite attempts to remove it.

For 2014 I am hoping to shut the door on that listlessness and dissatisfaction (far too many Esses in those words, seriously) by making some changes in approach, a bit of forward planning and some effort.

Here are my personal goals* in a nutshell.

  • migrate to a Primal lifestyle.
    • at least one long walk a week
    • change over to a whole-food style of eating & ditch grains
    • work on some basic core strength exercises**
    • get better sleep routines in place
  • read at least a book a week.
  • write a blog post at least once a week.
  • go to some sort of cultural event once a month.
  • continue with our fortnightly date night.
  • work on implementing plans for my other longer-term goals.

And there, I have succumbed to the Borg, er, the New Year’s resolution disease.  Let’s see how well I manage those.

How about you, did you resolve or not this year?

—
* as opposed to goals that relate to family and work – those, they shall remain privé.
** when I get a minute I’ll set up my fitness page and that will include some details of the goals.