Thursday 28 February 2013

Monthly Goals: Assessment of February 2013

How did this month fly by so fast!?

It's been pretty intense, although I had reading week to recharge a bit, it was midterms and assignments galore before and afterwards.

Fitness-wise, I didn't attain my goals 100%. I got into the squat challenge pretty hardcore for 15 days, took 8 off then started again. It's amazing how just 100 squats a day makes a difference! My legs are so much stronger and my butt is looking pretty good if I do say so myself! I'm probably going to continue with the trend, but giving myself one day off from them because I did feel like a recovery day would do me some good at some points.

As for the push up challenge, I finished week 1 and part of week 2 of it. At that point I was feeling actual pain doing them and needed to reassess doing them. My form might be less than perfect or my shoulders are too tight are the conclusions I've come to. I will be trying it again, but just starting at a lower level and making sure my form is correct.

Have I said I love rock climbing??? I stayed true to my goal of a minimum of once a week, even going 4 times during reading week. I've improved a lot too! Gone up a few levels and attempted a few really difficult climbs. The running I wasn't as motivated for.

Raw has been going very well! I've fine tuned as I wanted to and am feeling amaazing. Hitting 60 days tomorrow is almost surreal with the struggle I've had in the past. I am still eating overts basically every day, but have taken out most nuts, seeds and spices other than for special meals. This surprized me the most cause it really just happened organically, where I didn't even set a specific intention for it, it just happened that I didn't want it anymore. There are still some things that aren't perfect, like I have been having issues getting good quality fruit, so I'm not eating as much as I should be. But with mangoes coming into season, that should sort itself out soon!!

Spiritually, I have explored a few new ways to dig deep and connect through various methods, including meditation. Although it hasn't been consistent enough for my liking, I think that the balance I've managed in other parts this past month will enable me to concentrate a bit more on it now. Yoga is going to be more of a priority as well.

Emotionally, I'm still going through a few roller-coasters. I'm still going with the flow and dealing with issues as they come up. I've had a lot of body image stuff come up lately, stuff that's been deeply ingrained for a very long time that I feel needs to be purged and figured out so that I can move on. I've come to realize that although I don't regret anything about my life path because it has led me to where I am today and I am very grateful for that, I am still holding a grudge towards myself for having compromised my health as much as I have. Learning to forgive myself is going to be a process. One that I need to undertake to move forward.

My vivid dreams still come and go, but they are less and less attached to people of my past and more towards vague experiences that aren't quite clear.

So it's been a pretty good month I'll say. I'll be writing about my goals for the next one in the next few days!

Much fruit and love! <3




Sunday 3 February 2013

Monthly Goals: February 2013

In keeping with my New Years resolution to blogging more consistently, I thought that having a beginning of the month post to lay out what my goals are for the following 30 days. Some of them will be related to my NYR's (which can be found here), some will be improvements to what I'm currently doing and steps towards achieving other personal goals of mine. .

First off this month, fitness-wise I'm going to be starting two new challenges. The first one is a 100 squats a day challenge, pretty straight forward and simple. I'll be doing my 100 squats in one set and I have a goal of being able to accomplish them in under 2 mins by the end of the month. Right now I'm sitting at just about 3 minutes to finish them up with a few short breaks of a couple seconds to shake out my legs. Last night, after I did them, my legs were dead, since on top of them I went rock climbing for 2 and a half hours!

The second fitness challenge that I've started is the training regiment to complete the 100 push-up challenge. All the details for that one can be found here. My initial test results was 15 military style push-ups, which to me was a bit of a disappointment really, since I was so sure I could do 20! So, it's probably a good thing that I've finally decided to start the challenge, not to mention all the perks of regularly doing push-ups and other chest exercises. The program usually takes about 6 weeks to complete and is really easy to follow with training 3 times a week and taking all of about 10 minutes or less to do.

I'm going to continue going to rock climbing at least once a week, striving for 2 times and running 3 times a week. I think that concentrating more on fun activities and challenges is really helping keep up with a healthy fitness regiment. Changing it up often keeps me interested and motivated.

Diet-wise I am doing really well with staying raw and low fat, I'm at day 34 today (which is the longest I had been previously) and am well on my way to accomplishing the 90 days (min) that I set out to do in the New Year (Yayyyy!). This month I'm going to fine tune a few things that I feel will help me gain more out of being raw, I'm going to try to eradicate all added salt from daily use and reduce my overt fats to a couple times a week max instead of everyday, just to see how that feels. My salt addiction has seriously been one of the hardest things for me to break, so I'm trying to find alternatives to get me through the initial cravings and the rebuilding of my taste buds (which I believe takes 7 days?).

Spiritually, I want to be consistent with my Meditation and Yoga practices. I always feel at my best when I practice them both for a minimum of 20 minutes a day, if not more. Not only does it seriously help with recovery from rock climbing and running, I find it therapeutic to just take deep deep breaths and concentrate on bliss for those few moments every day. It even helps me the stay in that state for more of my regular day.

The biggest challenge I've had in the past few days is emotional. I've been a bit of an emotional roller coaster to the point that I barely understand myself whereas other moments are so crystal clear it's almost scary. It hasn't been easy and its quite the adventure. I feel like it's something of an emotional purging or something that'a happening, where I'm going through some motions that are damn uncomfortable to get to the other side where I can achieve better balance and clarity (or something, I'm not there yet). I'm basically trying to go with the flow and determine what exactly this all means at this point without attaching expectations.

I've been having incredibly vivid dreams about my past. People and places that I used to be attached to in no specific way. There are some recurring dreams, or themes really and it's been difficult to really determine where they're coming from or really if it has any meaning at all. I guess time will tell.

All in all, it's been a pretty intense month and I'm looking forward to seeing how this one turns out.

Here's to another month of discovery and challenges!