I’m pretty satisfied with my progress on eating this month, but I did get stuck within the last few days. Work grabbed more of my free time, but I didn’t realize the impact until this morning. My weight is up a little this week, when I’d expected it to be down a little.
Causes of the scale number change are definitely not drinking my water for 3 days and too many salty foods yesterday, but I don’t believe there’s been any specific overeating.
Eating too many salty foods was just a coincidence of doing the shopping yesterday. I bought several new foods which were in limited availability, so DD and I did a taste test and I ran out and stocked up on the ones we wanted. Unfortunately for the scale reading, they were almost all salty foods: microwave popcorn, nuts, and the like. It’s nice to have them in the house, but I can’t even think of eating any more of them at the moment. Ick. But the kid will enjoy them, and I’ll even have some when I feel like it.
The water was more odd. I worked through some long, tough days, and simply wasn’t very thirsty. Don’t know why. But water keeps my system running smoothly, and I prefer to have close to 3 liters a day. The last few days I was drinking more like 2, sometimes less.
This extra focus on work helped expose my irrational thinking on home activities. On those evenings when I worked a lot, even having late (past 9 p.m.) teleconferences, I found myself aimlessly surfing the internet rather than doing more rewarding activities. A normally fun activity became dull, and the dishes and other household chores were not getting done.
This morning I realized what was missing: I have a clear idea of what my focus is at work: my big project. I have a clear idea of what my focus is in the internet: my blogs and The Daily Show. But my personal and home focus is less clear: sure dishes have to be kept up, but everything else is just a mountain of chores.
So I’m going to focus some goal thinking and positive thinking around improving my personal and home happiness. Some straw goals include:
- Kitchen cleanliness is number one in the house, but after that I prefer to keep the living room orderly and dusted, the bathrooms nice, and my bedroom decluttered.
- Aquajogging is my number one exercise, followed by housework. Anything else is icing on the energy cake.
- Rest is more important than the internet. I slept in this morning, skipped a meal, and never thought twice about either the internet nor eating.
- Personal time includes simple down time, doing nothing. But it also includes doing pet peeve chores, things that I really want to have done, and are driving me a bit crazy.
My positives:
- I’m pleased that I can do things now in 10 or 15 minute chunks.
- It was nice to look at today’s situation as a simple puzzle, rather than a gigantic failure event.
- The best question I’m asking myself at the moment is, “What can I do right now to feel happier?” You’d never expect that “take out the trash” is something that makes me happier sometimes, but it does.
- Shopping for myself as well as my family felt really good on Saturday.
- I’m very satisfied to replace guilt feelings about exercise with choices of exercise that make me happier.
