Sure, we have two days left in February, but I’m sure it’ll be a minute before I get back here, so let’s recap.

I can show you some lunch… tender, juicy and taaaasty (sing it with me)

Goal #1 – be 184.2 by March 1st. CHECK! My trendweight as of today is 184.1

This is what a proper month should look like. At this point, I’ve now officially shed the lbs I put on in 2021 and 2022. My trendweight is 8 lbs down from the highest it reached in October, and from the tippy top to the lowest lowest low recorded on the scale in that time, I’ve lost 14 lbs. They’re tight, but the jeans I was wearing in 2019 button again. The pants I bought in 2022 are downright roomy. All of this is very encouraging, and to say I feel better is an understatement. My body is starting to feel like MINE again, instead of this foreign meatbag it became during the pandemic.

This may be how I feel about step ups but they’re working.

I’m not really doing anything outside of just following the routine I’ve established since October. I eat primarily snap kitchen and factor meals, which makes things easy. I keep snacking to a minimum. When I do go out to eat, I stick to things that aren’t completely awful calorie-wise or consciously make them into two meals. If I decide to have some drinks, I cut my food intake (or make sure it’s on a high activity day when I can accommodate both).

My goal intake in My Fitness Pal set to 1200 calories + exercise calories. This last week, I was 717 under that, just by virtue of two longer workout days, eating about 1500-1700 calories per day. I’ll probably eat… pardon my pun… into this deficit a bit today, tbh, and probably finish about 500 calories under for the week. Last week, I finished 169 calories over, which was close enough, by doing largely the same thing (with one 2000+ calorie day because of two social events on the same day, one with amazing homebrewed beer #worthit).

So, I can now revise this goal to – Be 180.2 lbs by April 1st. I’m very much looking forward to my first weigh in at 170-something. I should get there regularly by the end of this next month unless I screw things up!

#2 Strength over Stamina

Here is a place I am both here and not here.

I’m still continuing to lift 3 days a week and increase my weights/reps. This week I’ve had to squeeeeeze it in due to life stuffs, and lift two days in a row (Monday, Saturday, Sunday) which I don’t prefer but we’re getting it done.

The last two weeks, I haven’t been running quite as much. Life got busy and I got stressed out about some stuff, and my sleep sucked and the runs I did do were tough and slower. I lost a tiny bit of fitness per my garmin (the equivalent of 3 seconds on my 5k time). Not great, but I think I can get back on track this next week.

I will lift today, I promise! (and walk, but those don’t count here)

Holding to a schedule is sort of laughable at the moment. I do need to get there, but I think it will take locking my race schedule in and feeling some impending pressure. And maybe that will get me to the pool once a week. Or a month. At least sometime!

I did do an FTP test, and it was pretty abysmal. In 2019, it was 192 Watts. I set it for 150, figuring that was something I could meet and surpass. I ended the test at 139W. I think part of the problem was a misconfiguration thing, and also, I just can’t remember how to work hard on the bike. Cycling is for the days I can’t bring myself to run right now, and I use it as recovery while watching Bloodbowl games. I suppose I need to change that if I want to change that number.

Need to wrap my head around it being time for this stuff again

In the next month, I need to start changing over from winter base training to pre-season for triathlon. This means:

  • Try to figure out how to swim once a week
  • Do some sort of speedwork on the bike
  • Weekly bricks
  • Keep up with strength (normally I’d start tapering this but this year I’m not)
  • FTP test again before the end of March
  • Pick my races and sign up for the ones I know I’m doing

I’m doing *okay* with recovery – I fit in at least 2 things each day, sometimes all 4. I need to make sure I don’t completely ditch stretching and rolling, but I think I can probably back off and do those every other day instead of daily now.

#3 Ignoring my surroundings

Not as much progress here as I’d like, but not nothing. We took a lot of stuff to goodwill and the office, but I still have things in the home office to deal with (not as many but still stuff). I haven’t had a weekend without a bunch of other stuff to do yet this month, and one full week of this short month was eaten up by losing power. All excuses, sure. But that’s how it’s been. I hate doing this stuff with a passion, so… yeah. Difficult to make time for it when I’m already busy. Let’s try again next month.

March goals:

  • Actually do the rest of the office stuff
  • Clean out the office closet
  • Clean out the guest room closet

#4 Relaxing Hobbies

I’ve been pretty consistent with meditation (skipping 1-2 days a week), so I’m cool with it. We also just got a massage chair (happy birthday to us!) so I’m going to see if I can move some mediation there for full zen factor. February has been a very Bloodbowl-y month. I made it to the final game in KIBBL, then lost (we #2!!!), then Bloodbowl 3 launched, and I drafted a new team I haven’t played much (Amazons) in our Bloodbowl 2 league, so this is where a lot of my hobby time has gone. And it probably will through March. However, Bloodbowl is not a relaxing hobby so I need a little more creation in my life to counterbalance the destruction. 🙂

Poor Goudafellas, destined for greatness, stomped to death by murder Orcs.

March Goals:

  • Continue meditation 5x+ a week
  • Finish the fish pictures from May 2022’s cruise and decide whether I start the next cruise or Paris. Maybe alternate between the two.
  • Get some paint on a canvas before the end of the month
  • Finish friends’ D&D minis I promised to paint
  • Play guitar 3x week
  • Write a post on Hamburg (I have really slacked on EU travel blogging and I’d like to do it for posterity)

It’s a lot, I’ll be happy if I get some of this done.

#5 Write a book

Well… yeah. Goose egg here. This is not the thing I can knock out between other things or while socializing or watching TV. I need some dedicated time to do this where the house is quiet and I’m not locking myself in my office while Joel’s waiting for me to be social or do stuff, and I don’t have that right now. Sucks that I got such a strong start, and I was really enjoying it, and now I’m kinda stuck. I feel it becoming something that I used to do, not that I am doing now. I can see why authors go escape somewhere alone for a month so they can write their books. I don’t want to do that. So, what instead?

I need to schedule time to work on it. My goal is to make myself four two-hour appointments in March, and the time is for my book, and my book alone (shut down everrrrrything else, no discord chat, no work, no web surfing except for research, no social media, etc).

Sometimes the sky apologizes nicely for leaving us without power for a week, and I have to accept

So, my to do list for March besides continuing to do the normal stuff (in the order of importance):

  • Figure out race schedule and commit
  • Add a few swims and bike speedwork this month
  • Retest FTP at the end of the month
  • Four two-hour appointments with my book (either editing or taking notes on sessions)
  • Dealing with the office closet and the handful of boxes that are left
  • Guest room closet cleanout
  • Relaxing hobbies
    • Finish the D&D minis
    • Get paint on a canvas
    • Play guitar 3x week
    • Photo editing
    • Hamburg Blog

Does it feel like a lot? Yep. But let’s give it a go. First priority is just to keep going with the strength and weight loss and should that be the only thing I can do this month, I can’t be too mad. Becoming more of an athlete gets easier when I’m smaller and stronger, I can wing it early season if needed. The house is in better shape than it’s been for a while, I just need to keep the momentum going. This is the year of momentum, after all!