Health & Regularity of Schedulin'

Okay so the next two weeks have been very interesting. I’ve learned quite a bit about my little Seanbrain.

First, I think I shouldn’t have decided on FOUR things at once – exercising, eating healthy, waking up early, sticking to normal daily routine. I’m finding it takes a remarkable amount of energy to do several DIFFERENT things. For instance, when I was doing my Machine Learning projects, even though I would spend a few hours at a time on it, I only had to make myself “do one thing.” Technically, cooking healthy or shaving more frequently is less time than jamming on an ML project, but mentally I find it twice as challenging to make myself do the stuff. As a result, I’m feeling like I’m doing whack-a-mole: I’ll exercise and eat healthy, but then sleep in. Or, I’ll wake up early, but won’t quite have the energy to cook a healthy meal. INTRIGUING!

On the positives, I can proudly state I’m sticking super regularly to exercising. I even ran several miles on each of TwitchCon Saturday and Sunday! This is a HUGE milestone for me as I consistently find it VERY difficult to find the time & energy to exercise during conventions but by god I did it. I definitely think that mentally preparing and habitizing the exercise has helped oodles. Also, I told myself I didn’t have to do a FULL workout, but just run a few miles and then stop. The allowance to not push myself TOO hard (do a full 90m weight lift, run, stretch, etc) made it much easier to show up to the gym.

On the negatives, I’m REALLY struggling to reset my sleep schedule and wake up early. I keep getting trapped in the cycle of sleeping in a bit, starting my day late, and then wanting to stay up in the evening to “have some fun time.” My overwhelming preference is to wake up early and do the awesome fun stuff in the morning w/o feeling rushed.

So, I’m going to attempt a bit of a DK30 reset – I’m going to make waking up early (6 to 7am) my #1 goal for the remainder of the project and for the remainder of the year. I’m going to focus ONLY on that until I actually feel comfortable on that schedule, at which point I’m going to reintroduce more of the other health stuff. I frankly don’t think it’ll take super long to get back on the 6am get’up schedule (maybe 1 week tops), but I do think it’ll take ALL my mental focus to make it happen. Once I’m there, it’ll feel great to start exercising since I’ll have all that extra free time in the am :).

Wish my luck as I’m attempting to regain my equilibrium! I’ve regained 10-15lb from when I hit 220lb earlier this year. A good chunk o’ travel + stress eating has packed a nice tummy for the cats to sleep on :P.

I’d like to give a nod of encouragement to anyone feeling “behind” or like they’re “messing up” on their DK30 projects. One of the big goals of a DK30 is to study yourself – what habits are helping? What’s hurting? What’s asking too much or too little of yourself? Once you get that information, you have the opportunity to readjust and try again!

In my case, I presumed getting up early would be the easiest task and the exercise/health would be the hardest. Turns out the exact opposite was true! So, I’m starting over again to become an early bird! If you’re having some significant issues, stopping to re-evaluate will only make it better on the next go :)

So the first week has been HALF successful!

• I’ve gone to the gym for 10 days in a row now! I’m only doing weightlifting 4 days a week and running the rest, but hot damn I’m feeling very in my groove. My mood / anxiety has also been immensely helped by running tons. I even ran 6.5 miles on Sunday!
• My eating habits have been 90% solid. I probably ate a bit too much on Saturday, but whatever they were chicken sandwiches and were delicious :).
• My attempts at getting up at 7am have been BAD LOL. I was having stress issues early in the week so I didn’t sleep much. Rather than try to force everything, I elected to sleep in (sleeping about 10-11 hours each night for 3 nights) in order to guarantee I was properly rested. Today I woke up at 7:30am so I’m slowly nudging towards my final goal
• Healthy routine stuff has been about half good. I’ve been applying my face moisturizer & wash, brushing teeth etc but I’m still not shaving as often as I’d like (for that “wow he doesn’t look scraggly feel”). I’m going to push to commit to 3 shaving days per week (I do like a bit of stubble some days so that’s why it’s not 7 days a week :P).

In non 30 day news, but still pseudo related, I’ve been super on point about taking care of small minor errands – getting more regular household items, cleaning, handling various appointments (dentist, doctor etc) so I’m feeling on my game!

Overall, a solid first week :)

My basic set of goals for EACH day is as follows

1. Get up at 7am every day (including weekends)
2. Before bed, make sure I do all them healthy routines – wash face, brush teeth, etc
3. Exercise every day (4 days are regular workouts, 3 days light running/jogging/walking outside)
4. Eat a healthy diet! (I’m counting calories, so I can have a more decadent dinner if I have a lighter lunch)