May 2021 Personal Challenge Update

Sorry for the delay but I wasn’t able to write this in advance of our Memorial Day trip. The trip was more than a week and I didn’t have my laptop with me. It was a long drive to New Jersey and quite tiring. I’m thinking never to do anything more than 5 hours drive. I don’t know how I survived our west to east coast trip early last year. In any case here’s an update of my personal challenges. I’m telling you right now it’s not pretty.

Health:

• I failed in logging food, 10 flights of stairs a day, strength training, planking for 2 minutes for this month. Either I forgot to log them, I’m traveling or I don’t feel like exercising. Usually my motivation is when I see the scales going up.
• Average of 10,000 steps a day: I did hit the 10,000 steps a day during our travels but when I’m at home, I average 3,000 steps a day. I tried to keep it up to more than 3,000 steps a day and I hope I would be able to increase it to an average of 3,500 steps by next month. Slowly but surely. Also, I hope I won’t get sick or feel sick to lower my average.
• Eating fruits and vegetables: It’s strawberry season, so I have at least 1 cup of fruits a day for at least 2 days a week. Towards the latter part of the month, I saute mushroom and spinach with ground turkey (Healthy!)
• Health checkups: I was quite busy with doctor visits this month. On May 5 was my 6th month post op, the surgeon requested for an MRI and it came out clean. I had a mammogram the next day and nothing significant to report. I had my annual physical in the latter part of the month and my A1C is down by 0.1%. I’m not yet out of the pre-diabetes stage but 0.1% down is an achievement already. I’m happy to say that my cholesterol level which the doctors in China were asking me what I’m doing is keeping my doctor here happy.

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March 2021 Personal Challenge Update

Spring has sprung and I would like to thank my readers for being my accountability partners in my personal challenge. For this month, here’s an update on how I’m doing. I know it’s not my usual post but I really need to write it all down to be accountable.

Health:

• Log all food I ate. – Going strong. I’m not sure though if the calories intakes are correct.
• 10 flights of stairs a day – There were three days in March that I missed completing this goal. On one of them, I missed it by 1 flight of stairs. I really thought I completed it but apparently not. On the second missed day, I was sick and my husband forbade me to complete it. On the third missed day, I had a late start and by the time it hit 12mn, I only completed 9 flights.
• Strength training twice a week: This is still going but sometimes I don’t feel like doing it. Getting bored perhaps?
• Plank for 2 mins: I added planking mid-month and started with 30 mins. I will gradually increase it till I hit my goal of 2 mins. Hopefully, I will be able to reach that 2 min goal. I’ve tried it several times before but I wasn’t able to complete it ever. The longest I’ve ever done is 1 min.
• Eat salad once a week: I was able to eat salad once this month. I’ve been eating a lot of crab cakes too. I think I will remove this on my challenge for next month.
• 6 months seizure free!!! I can now go back and drive!!
• COVID-19 vaccine: I got my first dose last March 18 with my second dose scheduled on April 13.

Personal Challenges 2021

I’ve read a lot of blogs about the movie Julie & Julia and how it inspired them to have a personal challenge in their life (mostly cooking). After watching the movie again, my husband suggested that I do a similar type of challenge. From my previous post about WOOP, I was thinking of doing small stuff to improve myself.

Just like Julie, I tend to start things and not completing it. I also lack the motivation to do something and just lie around with my gadgets spending hours and hours with it. My accountability partner (husband) doesn’t have the same goals as I have which means I’m doing something by myself with a little cheering from him. I remember when I was in high school, I was challenged to be better when there are other people to compete with.