Healthy Lifestyle Progress Report - S2E22

About this Episode

This is Season 2, Episode 22 of the Small Scale Life Podcast, and today we are going to check back in and provide a healthy lifestyle progress report. I will be summarizing my work and progress, celebrating the wins and adjusting the plan to address the failures. I am not striving for perfection. After all, I am trying to move from a zero to a two, and then from a two to a four….all on my way to becoming an eight out of ten!

Before we begin....

In case you are new to Small Scale Life, we are dedicated to intentional living through learning, doing and growing. We are focused on:

• Gardening,
• Healthy living, and
• Having adventures along the way.

Focus Areas and the Plan

In Season 2, Episode 20 of the Small Scale Life Podcast, I discussed my four point plan for getting on track with developing a healthy lifestyle. The four main points of the plan are the following:

1. Eating Real Food for every meal with emphasis on planning and preparation
2. Getting great sleep every night with focusing on budgeting and using time wisely
3. Getting mentally strong by journaling and podcasting
4. Working out regularly

I thought I would circle back in this episode and give you an update on how things are going. After all, it is all fine and good to talk about these things, but it helps to document the work and progress, celebrate the wins and adjust to address the failures. Let’s get into each point and go through them one-by-one and as part of this healthy lifestyle progress report.

Eating Real Food for Every Meal -> Planning and Preparation

• I am going to achieve this is by planning and preparing breakfast and lunch ahead of time.
• For dinner, I will need to choose the right foods and eat enough to last until morning.

This is one area that I need to continue to focus on moving forward. We did a great job planning dinners, but I need to work on breakfast and lunch. I think I was taking on a lot with my goals, so I am going to dial it back a bit. I am going to focus on lunch and reboot that meal. Breakfast at times gets sketchy (meaning sometimes I don’t eat at breakfast), but I do eat lunch most days. I am really going to focus on eating real food at lunch and cutting out any snacks. I am going to reread the Rebooted Body information on eating Real Food, and I am going to focus on lunches for the next week. Once I have that under control, I will work on other meals.

My action item going forward is rereading the Rebooted Body information on eating Real Food, and I focusing on eat real food at lunches for the next week.

Getting Great Sleep Every Night -> Budgeting and Using Time Wisely

I have been keeping track of my sleep during the Rebooted Body Walk Challenge. Looking at the data, I have been getting a little over 7.5 hours of sleep per night. It helps when you have a device monitoring your sleep and the quality of sleep. I need to continue getting over 7 hours of quality sleep each night, and I need to get to bed earlier so I can get workouts completed before work. That is the sweet spot because:

• We are usually too tired after a long day at work to workout
• Our lives get busy after work and nights seem to get short
• Days are getting shorter and it is getting dark earlier

If I can adjust my schedule, I can get the workouts done early and have the evening to complete other tasks or hang out with my family and friends without guilt or regrets.
My Sleep Action Item is going to bed earlier, getting up earlier and getting an average of 7 hours of sleep per night.

Getting Mentally Strong ->Journaling and Podcasting

I like listening to podcasts and audio books. I find it is a great way to get a lot of good information while I travel around for my job or do other projects like walking, canning or gardening. That said, there were a couple of podcasts that I was listening to that weren’t that great for various reasons, and I have gone ahead and dropped them. They were just adding to the noise.
Instead, I have been using my Audible subscription to listen to a book by Greg McKeown called “Essentialism.” It is over six hours, and I am trying to really listen closely to this one and take some notes. I would like to complete a review of this one once I am complete.

Also part of getting mentally strong was journaling. In the past, I found that it helps to write something daily because it helped me focus and write what I am thinking and feeling. Over the past week, I just didn’t start writing, so I need to get going on that this week
My action item for this week is that I will journal 5 times over the next week.

Working Out Regularly - >Planning, Developing Stronger Whys and Choosing to do the Work

Over the past 11 days, I have been participating in the Rebooted Body 14-Day Walk Challenge. There were three categories for the Walk Challenge:

• 1-mile per day
• 3-miles per day
• 5-miles per day

I have been having some knee pain, so I decided to choose the 1-mile per day category. I figured if I could get at least a mile done a day, I would be doing better than I was now. Plus, I figured I could get some momentum as the weather is getting colder (winter is coming) and the snow will keep us indoors for six months.

I have tried to walk every day, and I used Map My Walk on my iPhone to track my mileage and my times. If you have been watching the Small Scale Life Instagram account or Small Scale Life Facebook page, you have seen my healthy lifestyle progress report.

Stacking it all up, you can see some real progress:

• Day 1 – 2.6 miles; 50 minutes, 38 seconds (9/15/17)
• Day 2 – 1.3 miles; 20 minutes, 14 seconds (9/16/17)
• Day 3 – 1 mile; 19 minutes, 9 seconds (9/17/17)
• Day 4 – 2.6 miles; 49 minutes, 5 seconds (9/18/17)
• Day 5 – 2.6 miles; 52 minutes, 18 seconds (9/19/17)
• Day 6 – 3 miles; 63 minutes, 9 seconds (9/20/17)
• Day 7 – Rest (9/21/17)
• Day 8 – Rest (9/22/17)
• Day 9 - 1 mile; 21 minutes, 22 seconds (9/23/17)
• Day 10 – 2.2 miles; 41 minutes, 8 seconds (9/24/17)
• Day 11 – 3 miles; 60 minutes (9/25/17)
• Day 12 – 1 mile; 21 minutes, 57 seconds (9/26/17)
• Day 13 - Presentations on my feet for 3 hours
• Day 14 - Rail Safety Station Blitz - on my feet for 4 hours

Total mileage to date: 20.3 miles

Walking over 20 miles in 12 days is a pretty cool stat!

In addition, I was looking at the historical workout information, and I have improved my walk times. On 9/11/17, I logged 2.6 miles in 55 minutes, 17 seconds. So, even though I have been having a lot of knee pain due to arthritis, my time per mile has decreased over the past 12 days.
The Walk Challenge has been good for me to get some momentum and get moving again, even with some significant knee pain. The challenge will end on Friday. After the Walk Challenge is complete, I want to get back into the pool and start swimming laps. This will be easier on my joints while I get a great full body workout. I will also try to get some biking in as well.
My action item this week is to keep moving by getting on bikes or getting in the pool and swimming laps for at least 5 days next week.

Going Forward - Healthy Lifestyle Progress Report

In summary, I am going to be completing the following Action Items over the next week and providing another healthy lifestyle progress report:

1. My Eating Action Item going forward is rereading the Rebooted Body information on eating Real Food, and I focusing on eat real food at lunches for the next week.
2. My Sleep Action Item is going to bed earlier, getting up earlier and getting an average of 7 hours of sleep per night.
3. My Mind Action Item for this week is that I will journal 5 times over the next week.
4. My Movement Action Item this week is to keep moving by getting on bikes or getting in the pool and swimming laps for at least 5 days next week.

The bottom line is that I have made some progress on the four parts of the plan, but I am not perfect. In fact, PERFECTION is not the goal.

PERFECTION is actually the enemy.

When we strive to be perfect, we are setting ourselves up for frustration and failure. Kevin Michael Geary talks a lot about perfectionism at Rebooted Body, and this is a topic for a future podcast!

I guess we’ll have to wait for that one. How is that for a podcast tease?

The bottom line is that I want to thank Kevin Michael Geary and Zack Franke at Rebooted Body for organizing and facilitating the 14-Day Walk Challenge. Even though my knee has been pretty sore, this has been a great way to get momentum towards developing the healthy lifestyle. The key now is to keep that momentum going and actually do the work. As Kevin said so eloquently in a livestream to the Walk Challenge Facebook Group:

[tweetthis]“The only thing that will change your life is execution.” – Kevin Michael Geary[/tweetthis]

We can learn and read and think all we want, but it really does come down to execution. We need use that knowledge and do the work. We need to get our offense on the field and execute!
I hope this podcast and healthy lifestyle progress report will inspire you to eat real food, move every day and get better sleep. I hope you will be inspired to do a little bit each day and go for the long haul. I hope you will join me on our journey for a healthier life. The road ahead is not easy (if it was easy, everyone would do it), but we need to start with a single step. Put enough of those steps together, and we will start to get some momentum. Did I think I would walk over 20 miles in two weeks? No, I did not, especially with a sore knee. Guess what? I did it, and I will keep going. Why not join me?

I will do some thinking about where we go from here. Maybe we run a fitness challenge this fall to help keep everyone motivated. Maybe we run micro-challenges. I’ll have to think about it a bit and talk to folks in the Small Scale Life Facebook Group. If you want to provide some input into what comes next, join the conversation there. Remember: you are stronger when you work with a team and a group, so you should join us in the Small Scale Life Facebook Group.

This is where we will end the healthy lifestyle progress report this week. Stay tuned to Small Scale Life for more updates on the Fall Garden, for interesting interviews and more information as we head into Fall. Please share this podcast with others, and feel free to leave a review on iTunes. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to send them to me through the Contact Us form on Smallscalelife.com or leave them as comments to this episode.

Thank you again for tuning into Small Scale Life. We do appreciate each and every one of you. This is Tom from Small Scale Life. Remember to learn, do and grow. See you really soon!