Welp. I’m jumping on the wagon. Sort of. I’ve heard a fair amount of whispers over the years of people doing this 75 day challenge. I’ve never been interested. Not because it’s not good stuff, but because it’s stuff I already do. Work out? Check. Drink water? Check. Eat healthy? Check? Don’t drink alcohol? Check. Read? Check.
Do I work out twice a day? No. Do I work out 90 minutes a day? No. But I work out nearly every day.
I’ll admit, I come in low on the water intake, but I drink water. I can’t tell you the last time I had alcohol. I rarely drink soda. I like juice for flavor, but often times I just don’t drink that much. So a gallon a day is a definite change.
I read. I’ve read 17 books already this year. I’ve usually got an audiobook, an ebook, and a physical book going all at once. The genres are pretty broad and there’s definitely self development in there so no issue here.
Eat healthy. That’s an over simplification. I do eat healthy but I could do better. In the event of doing the 75 hard, I’d like to focus on paying attention to my macros and getting a more appropriate amount of protein in my diet.
It’s the subsequent stages that have me intrigued. I don’t relish the idea of a 5 minute cold shower every day for 30 days, but I’ll try it. I like the idea of conversations with strangers. The world can always use a little more kindness. There’s an intentionality in doing the entire, year long challenge that is more appealing to me.
I’m thinking it’ll be a little different for me, but everybody’s journey is a little different. The rule is, you can add to but you can’t take away. So the rules already established by Andy Frisella can’t be changed, modified, or removed but I can add to them.
Workouts. He says 2/day for 45 minutes and at least one HAS to be outside. I’m going to add that, if I’m not traveling for work, one of the workouts has to be with my family. My loves are 3 and 1.5 years old. So this will be interesting. But I want to instill health and fitness in them. I want them to know that it’s important and that it pays off. Not just in physical ways either. The commitment to a task and the end results and all the positive side effects along the way. Plus, it’s a nice way to have some good family time.
I think I also want to be a bit more intentional with the book(s) I choose for this. I want to use this exercise to learn something. Maybe it’s doubling down on learning Spanish or maybe it’s learning a skill…or prepping for my new job. I haven’t landed on what this will be just yet, but I’ll get there.
I also want to journal this experience. So I plan on coming up with a template to record the completions of each task every day along with some detail. But then, some reflection. This will pair nicely with the required progress photo that is part of the base requirements.
This cute book tells a story about the innocence of childhood and what is lost as we become adults. The young prince travels from planet to planet meeting various adults. Each of these adults displays a magnified flawed characteristic used to call out many distractions that taint the enjoyment of life.
The author uses a rose to symbolize something that can be lost as common but when cherished, reflects how we should treat each other. The little prince shows love and responsibility during his reflections on his little rose.
Written, on the surface, for children the author uses a casual childish voice. He uses the conversation between a lost pilot and the little prince to teach simple lessons that, when taken to heart, amount to extravagant ways of living. The simple messaging leaves a lot of room for adults to reflect on their own lives, behavior, purpose, etc.
There’s little development of characters as the story is less about the pilot and the prince but more about the passage of time and the beauty we lose sight of as humanity transitions into adulthood.
Themes:
Nature of Childhood vs. Adulthood
Love and Responsibility
Search for Meaning and Purpose
Circle of Life
This book can be simple. You can read it to a child and put it down and walk away without another thought. The lessons are subtle. But pausing for just a moment, you may ponder who you are, who you’ve become, and if you are who you thought you’d be or you who want to be. The message received likely changes each time you read the book. It’s an easy, quick read, so I’d recommend reading it multiple times throughout the years. If you have kids, read it to them, let them tell you what they hear, you may even see something new.
Well, not everybody knows, but most everybody knows so I may as well tell any of you who read this blog.
First, sorry for not updating as frequently as I should. I have no excuse except that I chose to do something or nothing else.
We are expecting our mini to join team awesome January 2022! All the appointments have gone well so far, we are 16 weeks along as of tomorrow (August 9, 2021). We are not finding out the gender, however we think we know, our last physician did a couple of things that we interpreted a certain way, but we will see when they join the team. I’m loving everyone around me guessing, it’s quite entertaining. For the most part I think their guesses are just what they are hoping for. I know every parent says “I just want a happy, healthy baby” and I do want that, but truth be told, I am hoping for a certain gender. I do get torn though. Mainly when I imagine Mike with this little person. Sometimes I hope to see him with a boy and sometimes I hope to see him with a girl, so really, Mike is the wrench in this whole operation.
That answers the main question I get, but I’ll follow up with some more information that people ask about.
I haven’t had any symptoms. Most people view this as a blessing. At the end of the day, I agree. However, having had the troubles we’ve had in the past, it made me very anxious about everything. I constantly wanted a sign, or symptom, letting me know that this really was real. My only luck with that were the appointments and seeing the mini on the screen.
Maybe I’ll just bring you up to speed with some timeline stuff and answer questions that way.
On Sunday, May 9, 2021 we did the embryo transfer. So I got to meet our mini in a Petri dish. Mike wasn’t so fortunate because of stupid ‘rona. Cool thing about that day, it was Mother’s Day this year. That actually kind of messed with my head. Just thinking about the fact that I may or may not have success in becoming a mom from that day on. Scary. But it ended up positive!!
Tuesday, May 18 we returned to Walter Reed for bloodwork, the “official” pregnancy test. No, I did not pee on a stick throughout this whole process. I REALLY REALLY REALLY wanted to, but I also didn’t want false information. The first test was positive, so I had to return two days later to repeat the test and confirm that the HCG levels were trending in the right direction. They were. A little side note here, I was still skeptical. When we miscarried last time, my numbers trended the right way until they didn’t. I had about a two week lead up of getting blood work done every other day that showed my number going down, confirming the pending miscarriage. That was at what was when I was 10 weeks, so this happening at essentially four weeks pregnant, I was nervous.
Mike was out of town the week of June 7, so we had to delay our first ultrasound by a week, so on June 15, we saw the mini for the first time. This was at eight weeks along, and we heard the heart beat!! 169bpm strong and healthy! This was while we were still under the care of the reproductive health section, so it didn’t really count as our first OB appointment.
At 10 weeks, we had our first, official, OB appointment. It was annoyingly anticlimactic. Just a bunch of questions about how I was feeling. I was told I could run, but not too much or too fast or too far. Real specific. I was told I could lift but not too much. Basically, I felt I knew nothing. Now as a physical therapist I have opinions on my level of physical activity, but also as a person who has struggled to get to this place, I’m not knowledgeable and I don’t want to mess it up. I wanted guidance.
At 12 weeks Mike was out of town again and I was bleeding. I bolted out of work and was freaking out. I’ve mentioned before that Mike is amazing. And he is. As I’m calling him, crying and probably very difficult to understand, he figures out what’s going on, finds the number to Walter Reed (no paperwork or anything because he’s in Oklahoma), 3 way calls Walter Reed while I drive there, and he gets me set up with an appointment to get checked out. At this unexpected appointment I got to see our mini again and hear the heart beat – 156 bpm. The doctor commented on how active the mini was and said everything looked great. He said it was likely that I had either a small subchorionic hemorrhage or a little tearing of the uterus due to stretching (in the end he kind of said it was both). But he couldn’t find anything so I was good to go, and the bleeding had stopped before I even saw him. I asked about physical activity again, and was told to maintain my normal level…I wasn’t sure how to interpret that because the weeks prior, during IVF, I wasn’t allowed to work out at all…so….???
We were able to continue with our regular scheduled programming an had a 14 week ultrasound. Everything still looked great and the mini HR was 158 bpm. This provider, yet another, was more specific on what I could and could not do. I could run, but no more than a 5k, I had to maintain my ability to hold a conversation throughout the run as well. I would lift, but not really, nothing more than 20 pounds (I talked her up to 30). No jumping or plyometric activity. While it was more specific, it feels really restrictive. I’m following the rules though.
Now we are here, a day before week 16. I feel safe. It feels real. Mike says I’m starting to show. I think I just look bloated. I also feel like I’m feeling a little something something…mainly at night, but it’s something. Oh, and sleeping positions are already getting a little uncomfortable. And sometimes I have a little discomfort at my lower right ribs.
Long post, thanks for reading and thanks for your support. Whether we are actively talking or if you’re just watching from the outside. I appreciate it.
Last fall the WHO (World Health Organization) came out with some updated guidelines. I now we’ve been getting a lot of conflicting messaging from random big organizations trying to tell us how to live our lives, but this one may be worth considering. The WHO is trying to prevent you from sitting yourself to death, and so they’ve redescribed physical activity and it’s requirements.
Bottom line up front? Our standards are moveable and if you look into, we’ve altered our normative values and standard several times for pretty much everything. Because these things are dependent on societal choice and buy-in, it typically doesn’t work. If you think about it, our weight standards have really shifted and are likely to continue moving to the right. It only makes sense, as all of our numbers go up, the average shifts to the right and it’s only reasonable to base guidelines relative to the bell curve. I’m not saying it’s a good thing, but it’s what’s happening. So let’s dive into physical activity.
The WHO has changed their guidelines to suggest you perform moderate exercise for 150-300 minutes per week. 30-60 minutes per day, 5 days a week. They’ve also taken away the minimums. Previously, they suggested you needed to do at least this much work consecutively in order for it to be productive. They’re so desperate for you to do something, they took away that minimum amount. So really, you can do about 3 minutes of moderate physical activity every hour for 7 hours, 7 days a week and meet the minimum standard. It might be more work than just knocking a large chunk out at once, but some people really don’t think they can leave their chairs for that long.
Now what’s moderate physical activity? I think they messed up here in guiding you because moderate and vigorous overlap. Moderate is effort of 5-6/10 while vigorous is 5+/10. I’d consider dividing a scale of 10 into thirds and going from there. That being said, I’d suggest that moderate activity is 4-6/10 and vigorous is 7+/10 of perceived effort. Minor details, but really they’re important when you do the math. If you think a 5/10 is vigorous and then you do only 75 minutes of activity for the week, you’ve fallen short by 50%.
They’ve also broadened their exercises. It’s no longer heavily focused on aerobic activity but now includes more anaerobic activity such as strength training. Aerobic work is still very important and you should keep doing it, but you can’t leave out strength training. Did you know some research has suggested that there is a correlation between your grip strength and your mortality? You might want to think about that. Also, if you’re trying to lose weight, it’s FACT that you will lose more, and lose more effectively, if you perform strength training. The calorie burn lasts longer after the work out than it does with cardio work. Have you heard anything about bone density? This is most commonly heard in relation to osteoporosis. This is when your bone is no longer solid and is weakened due to a multitude of things. But strength training can help. The weight bearing nature and the force through the bones stimulates the cells to do their natural job and breakdown to build up better and stronger. So lift those weights!
My comments are just a start. Think critically about the above information because there’s a lot I didn’t touch on. Consider that these guidelines are a blanket statement meant to target the average person with no other health concerns. Is that you? Really? Do you think that your weight might have play here and could require some adjustments on the time requirement? How about your goals – are you trying to get toned, lose weight, increase strength, increase muscle bulk, reduce cardiovascular stress, eliminate hypertension, get rid of diabetes? What are you trying to do? That’s going to effect what is required of you, that and so much more. If you don’t take the time to consider what it is you are trying to achieve and put in some thoughtful effort on what that requires of you, this information is useless. Remember, it’s a GUIDELINE, not a personalized prescription for you. All I want is for you to have a good quality of life and maintain your independence for as long as you can, but I’d love to take you even further if you’re willing.
So, for my birthday a friend bought me a book of writing prompts – 300 to be exact. So Mike and I decided it would be fun to go through and do these together. There are a few rules: 1. It’s time restrained – 7 minutes 2. You can’t look at the prompt until you’re ready to type 3. You have to stop, even mid-sentence, when the timer goes off 4. No edits after the timer
Prompt: How do you soothe yourself when you are upset?
MIKE: When I am upset I have a few options to make myself feel better. Some are productive, some are not… Productive: go for bike or run. I need to make sure I do not have music. Listening to the gears grind or my feet hit the ground opens the space in my brain to get away from my counterproductive thoughts.
Counter productive methods: I really like to to eat… Ice cream, chips, trail mix, fries, left overs and then some more left overs. If eating is filling the hole in my feelings, I turn to having a few beers. This never really turns out great, but luckily hasn’t turned out tragic. The last few years I’ve implemented a rule not to drink when I am really mad or sad. Just sets me back to far in the whole thing.
Prayer is the best way I’ve found to soothe myself when it comes down to it. When I stop relying on myself to meet the needs of this world and start looking to God I find real peace in every situation. Sometimes I have to take the edge of my emotions with a run or frosty before I come up for air and get real peace through the Holy Spirit.
Another question is if I will even acknowledge I am upset or why I am upset. To do that I might open notability and just start dumping my thoughts in a note. No outline, no deletes (maybe some autocorrects), no real plan. It takes a few minutes to get the juices flowing. But in about 10 minutes I normally have a better idea what I am dwelling on and what is probably
KANDACE: I go to bed. Ha. I’m kidding, I do that when I’m scared. Seriously.
When I’m upset, I do a few things, it depends on how/why I’m upset I guess. Most of it comes down to distraction.
I like to clean when I’m upset. Mostly in an organizing fashion. It makes me feel like I have control over something when everything else seems to be spiraling. This means digging into the closets full….
I also like to run. There was one time, Mike and I were out of town somewhere and I just felt like everything was going wrong and I couldn’t do right by any standard. We went for a run and we were talking about everything, I was just trying to make sense of it all, and according to Mike, when I do that I run really fast. So he was struggling to keep up with me and I’m out in front of him with tears rolling down my face when we come up to a park with families and kids everywhere. A few people looked at us questioningly, which is fair, I likely looked like I was running from Mike and that he was the reason I was crying. I just broke down and sobbed. I turned around to Mike, who was clueless that I had been crying at all, and he just held me in the middle of this park. Once the cry was out, I was good to go.
That’s another soothing thing – crying in the shower. I don’t know why I like it but I do. I don’t know if it’s the feeling of tears all around me or that you can’t tell the tears from the water droplets.
Of course I also like jamming out when I’m upset. The music definitely ranges depending on why I’m upset though. It always has to be something I can sing along with though. It could be B*tch by Meredith Brooks or it could be pretty much anything by Lauren Daigle. It’s really all over the place.
With my “rigorous” telework schedule and Ace usually not getting home until 7, I usually handle preparing dinner. I am not pretending I do it alone or with no guidance. Our subscription to Centr helps with meal planning and shopping, I highly recommend it. But, last week I was not in the mood to cook. So we had to figure something out…
Ace was home around 5, so it wasn’t going to be a late night dinner situation. I was hungry, but I didn’t want to make anything. Ace knew she wanted dinner, but wanted something healthy. The one time she has an opinion on dinner and she wants health food! Tonight I wanted something NOT healthy. We were at a stalemate until I came up.with a plan. We will use our American Express Uber credits on Uber Eats and have takeout. The challenge will be to keep it under $15.
Ace wanted Sweet Green. We had a salad from them the week before and it was pretty good. I searched in the Uber Eats app, found it, and away we went! When we arrived to pick up her food I realized, it was actually Sweet Leaf… Whoops.
I was going all in an my bad for you food. I ordered a large fry through the Uber Eats app at Five Guys. I love their food and the employees are great. When we got home, I went rouge and turned their fries into chili cheese fries with the leftover lentil chili.
Ace’s dinnerMike’s Dinner!
So I guess I did a little cooking, but we both had what we wanted with minimal work. It goes without saying, Ace’s food left her ready for the world, where mine left me ready for a nap!
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