Tsk, tsk. I’ve been away for 2 weeks. Time sure does fly when you get distracted.
As you may remember, I’m doing a 12 in 12 challenge (one challenge per month). My challenge for January was do something creative everyday and it was a great success. Not only did I spend at least 20-30 minutes do something creative (or something to help with the creative process), I was a great deal more creative than I have been in years. There were many days where instead of doing useful things like reading my soon to be due library books or posting an update here, I sat at my kitchen table and played with watercolour, sketched ideas, or flipped through quilting books for hours. I have a whole bunch of neat watercolours to post on Flickr. And, I did my first quilt top (it’s very simple, but I am just a beginner).
I had a hard time deciding what to do for February. I’m starting to work with a much more restricted budget, so I thought about doing a budget challenge. I’m also very behind in my needlework projects, so I thought about making myself do an hour of needlework each day. It’s also winter (blah) and despite the usually warm weather I’m in the hibernate mood which means I don’t get much exercise, so I thought about committing to being more active. Decisions, decisions.
I didn’t know what I was going to do until last week when I realized that a whole bunch of my clothes are too big. Much too big. It turns out that, without much effort on my part, I lost about 2 pant sizes in the past year or so. I’m fairly sure this is 80% because I’m not super stressed and unhappy at work (all my major weight gains can be directly attributed to high stress times in my life). Regardless of the reason, finding this out made me want to make crazy big plans for being more active. But, I know myself: too much will lead to failure because I’ll get overwhelmed. So, I decided to start small. I am committing to either getting out of my chair for 15-20 minutes each lunch hour (to walk, stretch, anything) or walking 15-20 minutes during each work day.
The main goal is to start getting used to being more active at lunch (typically I sit and read or play on the internet). Having two options means that I can have success even on days when I have lots of meetings (which usually means walking at least part way) or barely enough time for lunch (on those days I can take lots of mini breaks in between meetings to stretch my legs).
Those paying attention will realize that this does not include weekends. Typically I’m a bit more active on weekends either because I’m running errands (at least partially on foot as I have no car) or doing chores (I take vacuuming very seriously). I do still need to increase my weekend actively level, but my greatest concern is my lethargic work days. Sitting kills. I have a desk job. The likelihood of getting a standing desk is negligible. So, I need to work on using my lunches and breaks to get up and walk. I already use bathroom breaks and trips to the kitchen for more tea as an excuse to stretch a bit or wander, so I think that I need to focus on my lunch hours.
So far, it’s going well. I walked quite a bit yesterday because of meetings and today I not only got up to stretch for about 10 minutes, I also used my white board as an excuse to stand (I doodled on it for a while … long enough for my arm to get tired). But, I know this this will be a hard challenge for me as it’s so easy to just not bother or to claim that I walked part way to work so I don’t need to get up. But, I need to focus on work hours. Anything outside of work hours will be bonus activity.
Anyway, that’s my February challenge. Wish me luck!
