Establishing Habits (for now this is enough)

So, here we are. Week 1 down of being a reasonable hoo-man, and honestly it was pretty great.

I’ve got a new routine, one that I quite like. My alarm goes off at 8am, I snooze it once while my brain wakes up, and then I do this 10 minute meditation thing I came up with. Half the time, I start the process with crazy brain work or life thoughts, but by the end, my mind is calm, clear, and awake. Then I go over what I’d like to accomplish, setting my intentions for the day. If I’m nervous or excited about something, I acknowledge the butterflies in my stomach, and give them a pep talk. This week I’ve woken up feeling more relaxed and energized than I have in months. Maybe years.

Each day at lunch I’ve made time to either bike 20 minutes or run 1 mile. I’m keeping the feelings of “wow, this is pathetic” at bay and being grateful that my back is holding up so I can actually do some daily activity. I’m also prioritizing 10-15 mins of stretching and rolling each day, and some very light strength 3x week.

I mean… very light.

• 3×10 knee pushups
• 3×20 crunches
• 3×20 side crunches
• 3×10 supermans
• 3×10 sec boat pose
• 3×10 single leg calf raises

If you look back at my history, this is nothing. Laughable. Why even bother? But for now, it is enough.

I’ve been tracking my calories, trying to stay around 1500 per day. For the level of activity I’m doing, I can certainly safely go lower, but I don’t want to drive myself crazy. This should reasonably be a 3500-ish calorie deficit for the week, taking off 1 lb. One nice thing about being SO far gone for SO long? I’m about 5 lbs down already. It’s all water/inflammation weight certainly, but it was nice to see the OMG number go away pretty quickly. My plan is about 1/3 Snap Kitchen meal delivery, 1/3 batch cooked healthy meals, and 1/3 making shit up like this greek chicken meal we threw together today. Homemade hummus is best hummus.

I’ve also been trying to chill on the pressure to DO ALL THE HOBBIES. Between all manner of games, writing, photography/editing, reading, painting, and guitar, there’s always more I want to be doing with my spare time. This weekend, I’ve been meaning to paint and crack back open a video game I started Friday and also another I started last week and haven’t even touched my guitar but I also spent all day yesterday reading two books in a really fun RPG lit series snuggled under my blanket next to a roaring fire and then spent today playing outside in the once-every-10-years snow Austin gets. It is okay sometimes not to be productive with my spare time and just relax.

There are some interesting things brewing professionally right now for me as well, but they are all in “wait and see” mode. I’m eager to see which of two (both favorable and exciting) paths will lay out for me in 2021. In the meantime, I’m appreciative of the fresh start on this year’s to do list. For the first time in forever, I didn’t start a work week behind the eight ball. I was adequately prepared for every meeting I had, and there was this moment where I was working my way down my to do list for the day and I found myself doing something 45 minutes ahead of schedule. I finished my work for the week on Friday without anything hanging over my head.

I realize it’s not always going to be this way, but it nice to have a moment in time where things were really and truly under control.

For the next week, for the rest of January, really, I plan to just continue to keep all these nascent habits going. I’d like to add a little bit to the bike and run each week, but ONLY if it’s good for me to do so. I’m not who I was, I’m not who I want to be yet, but I see a path there now, and that is enough.