Procrastinators Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from chronic procrastination.
EleanorBE's Losing 7lb and Keeping Fit Project
Right. Time to tackle this one again. Since starting to work properly and intensely on the book project I started ages ago and procrastinated wildly about for years, I've let the diet-and-exercise side of life go a bit. I'm not overweight according to UK govt guidelines for healthy BMIs! But I feel and look a lot better if I walk and swim more regularly and am about 7lb lighter than I am at the moment.
Being on this site has taught me that I can get quite a bit done in short bursts. I don't need to put things off because there Isn't Any Time. There is time. Particularly for walking and pilates, which I don't need to go anywhere special for, change, shower etc. As for eating healthily - that really doesn't take me any extra time at all. I love cooking, always cook from scratch and always have good ingredients around. I mostly do the cooking, my partner mostly does the shopping. It's just a matter of /not/ eating extra rubbish on top of the good stuff. Actually no, one extra thing I do need to do is make myself lunch to take to work. I eat lunch in my office or in our little staff room so if I haven't brought anything with me it ends up being staff-room biscuits for lunch! Last Wednesday that was all I had all day and ended up with a weird shakey sugar rush in my last meeting.
During the first week of November I will be sending the book script to the publishers. (Yes.I.Will.). So for the next three weeks I won't be able to do much extra. But here's my plan -
Mon 22nd - Sun 28th; Mon 29th - Sun 4th: 2 x home pilates sessions per week (pilates teacher is on holiday). 1 x morning swim per week (Tuesday or Wed). 3xhalf hour brisk walks per week in addition to walk to tube. One longer walk if weather ok, Sun 28th
Mon 5th - Sun 11th 1 x home pilates session, 1 x class; 2 x swims; 2 x half hour brisk walks; I longer walk.
When book's finished I can maybe start back at the gym...or not. Not sure if I'm procrastinating on that one or if gyms just aren't for me. Don't like treadmills. Don't like the screens and music. Don't like the smell! Would probably like a really posh one better but can't afford it!
Comments welcome!
E.BEx
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Weekly Report
Well last week was not a good one for exercise /at all/! I've had a cold and just haven't felt up to it - even a little bit of pilates has been beyond me (nothing nastier than lying on the floor with a cold and...yes, well, let's not go there). This week won't be that much better because it's Work Every Minute of Every Day to Finish Book week. But I'll go to my class now the pilates teacher is back and will try to do one swim!
E.BE.
For EleanorBE re cold & fitness
I just wanted to say I still share the same overall objective as you - and well done for doing *anything* when you have a cold. You're doing brilliantly!
"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." (Anais Nin)
Thank you Salamander!
I feel that just posting here once a week, even if I haven't got very far, will stop me from just not thinking about it! Cold's better now so musn't use the book as too much of an excuse.
x
Weekly Report
So, this week didn't end as well as I'd hoped on this front because Friday and yesterday I put off doing pilates at home instead of my usual class (the teacher's away for two weeks). Friday I was tired when I got home, Saturday the work I was doing took longer than I thought - then in the evening I started getting a sore throat which today has blossomed into an unpleasant cold. The annoying thing about Friday is that I'm /always/ tired but I /always/ go to the pilates class as long as I'm well - but I just couldn't motivate myself to do it without the teacher there. Oh well. This cold's come on pretty quickly and I find if they come quickly they go quickly. Let's hope so.
On a more positive note, doing the last bits to my book is now going ok so I should meet my new deadine of two weeks from now. After that it will be full steam ahead on the diet and exercise. Haha, that sounds like I'm putting it off for two weeks. No, I will try to do a gentle programme until then. Next week I'm guessing I might not be quite well enough for a swim on Wednesday, so maybe Friday.
Glad I've at least written here as I rather wanted to ignore it all!
Exercise good...food not so good.
What it it with me and free food?? Haven't done too well on the cake front yesterday or today as I was at work events with Free Cake. How daft. Well, no free cake will be offered me on Friday or over the weekend so I'm back on the straight and narrow.
E.BE.
Food good BUT
Well done Eleanor for your exercise progress. This feels like a mega achievement to me.
my feet still seem permanently nailed to the floor and while my eating has been healthy I have not done any pilates exercises. I have put one exercise on my list of to dos today and hope it will resolve the impasse.
i am fortunate in having a wheat allergy as it absolves me from seeming rude if birthday cake is passed around. But it can be hard socially. some years ago I was doing research that involved interviewing people I. Their own homes and I would often find they had specially baked something for my visit. I never found a way round this. I couldn't't very well say, when I rang them up to organise the interview, please not to bake for me because it sounded as if I might have expected them to do just that!
Thanks Mole!
I laughed a lot at your story of not being able to tell people not to bake!
Hope you managed some pilates. I did my 30 min walk today. Tomorrow I'm going to try to do 40 mins pilates because tonight I would have had a class if my teacher hadn't been on holiday.
I swam!!
Very happy and relieved that I managed to go swimming before work. And was at my desk for 8.30! Am now completely exhausted! But pleased.
E.EB
WOW!
That's awesome! Impressive!
Thanks Wolke!
It did feel good! Hopefully I can go back next Weds. Then when my book's in I'll try and promote myself to twice a week.
Swimming!
It's 6.24 am in the UK, I'm having breakfast and I've got swimsuit on under clothes! Looks like i'm going!
Fitness on Tuesday
Well, I managed my 30 mins brisk walk. Just under, actually, as the places I was walking between were slightly nearer than I thought!
Tomorrow's the big challenge. A swim before work. Perhaps if I post it it'll make it more likely to happen. When I was on research leave and could work to my own time table I swam twice per week and still got going pretty early with work on swimming days. Now there are 101 things I could/should be doing instead. But it's not just fitness, I really do feel like I need to do stuff that's not about work and that takes enough energy and concentration to take my mind of work things.
So I'll check in tomorrow. After swimming. Yes.
Hello Sal, Mole and Calypso!
Well, I've managed the healthy eating bit of today ok so far. Fruit
only for snacks and healthy breakfast and lunch. Know what I'm cooking
for dinner so all should be well. Home from work now and really sleepy.
My planned half hour's pilates will be hard. But I'm determined to do it
(whilst my veg is roasting).
Salamander...it sounds like you were exhausted! If you'd dropped off for twenty minutes that would have been one thing. But all those hours - sounds like you needed them. When do you next go to the gym? I'm sure it'll go fine second time around!
E.BEx
Good going Eleanor BE!
Great to get your update! Enjoy your pilates, sounds good:) (maybe with some nice music.. energising!)
Oh, well done, EleanorBE!
It's great to see that you managed the healthy eating - I hope the pilates workout went smoothly for you as well.
Don't mind me, I'm used to it taking several goes at things before I can make the first step. I don't know any more whether it's my natural laziness, my procrastination problem, or some flaw in my organisation. And in a sense, the WHY doesn't matter. The keeping on getting up again after falling over is the crucial thing. Tomorrow is another day!
(PS. I slept another two hours this afternoon. I hope it doesn't screw up my sleep tonight, but you can see how it might!) Hay ho.
"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." (Anais Nin)
aha Sal...
...sorry, just read your post again, you're going again tomorrow. Best of luck with it.
Thanks, EleanorBE!
Thank you!
And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." (Anais Nin)
Thanks Salamander and Calypso!
How very encouraging to get your posts!
Well I feel mighty happy that I did my half hour's pilates - as it was the very, very last thing I felt like doing and I so nearly didn't. It helped that I'd told my partner I was going to do it whilst the dinner was cooking. It was really good to reclaim a bit more of the day from work, too and I felt much less wound up for it.
Tomorrow, food goals are the same - three good meals and only fruit for snacks. Exercise is a brisk half hour walk in addition to my usual commute. That shouldn't be too hard as it's a logical thing to do between two places I need to be. Must remember to wear sensible shoes.
E.BEx
Eleanor, calypso and salamander's fitness
Well done the healthy food AND the Pilates. I'm a bit like Salamander in needing a few runs at something before the jump. I am giving myself a couple of days to get over my cough anyway as lying prone seems to exacerbate it!
but I also am thinking about it being so much easier to do exercise if it connects two other things ie commuting. I loved it when I began Pilates and it was a matter of breathing or standing on one leg or turning my head because although I must have looked like a human stork I could do it walking or waiting. Come to think of it, though it would be a VERY good idea if I even just did that.
So sorry to hear about you sleepiness. It is some thing that I have had off a couple of decades and has very suddenly left me these last three months. It may just be age but I have found 2 things have contributed. One is having steamed vegetables for lunch and in enough quantity (and not too much root veg) not to leave me hungry. So I am using much less energy to digest. The other is having an after lunch short burst time table after lunch that initially involves something that I have to move about for- but that doesn't make me fee daunted- like taking rubbish out or going to the local shop or even meeting someone.I do hope this isn't out of order. I just know that although I love sleeping, part of me also worried about my life slipping away.
We'll get there!
Exercise motivation
Oh gosh, I'm with you both here if you want another encourager- or could put up with another encouragee, more like. I eat pretty well - especially if I say I will on my check in ( and have eaten no sugar these last six weeks) and I walk quite a lot - not having a car - between 30mins and an hour a day. BUT my Pilates exercises - now you'd think I'd been told to pull out my fingernails or stand on burning coals - I cannot bring myself to even do 10 mins. I know that I feel much better when I do them, that it is in fact essential if I want to preserve myself from relapsing into writing-related injuries. I don't know why this, in particular, is such a bête noir.
To mole re sugar!
That's an incredible achievement by the way, Mole - six weeks without sugar. I'm really impressed.
For Mole
Do you honestly believe you deserve to give yourself 10 minutes of great quality time to do and enjoy your Pilates exercises? For me, I know I struggle to believe that I deserve that time to myself for myself.
"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." (Anais Nin)
Thank you Salamander
I think I have trouble thinking Pilates is enjoyable - perhaps it is a very odd psychological distinction I make between my mind and the rest of my body. If it comes to mental endeavour I can enjoy a challenge for its own sake, but I somehow don't give my body much of a chance unless it is accidentally involved in some other activity - bell-ringing for instance which is a great upper body exercise! But you have made me wonder what it would be like to give my body first choice. thank you Salamander
EleanorBE re weight loss & fitness
I really enjoy being at the gym but I have to get myself there - this has been my worst procrastination of all for several years. I have paid my gym membership during this time and probably been to the gym once or twice in each calendar year. I have the credentials to join you in this!
While my goals won't be exactly the same, and I will have to go out to the gym for my exercise (it's safer for me), I wonder, would you like to know that someone else is working along the same lines?
Like you, I cook from scratch and like healthy food. I just need to avoid eating rubbish in between times and watch portion sizes. I wasn't thinking of anything as formal as being accountability partners, but I suppose that would also work. I would gladly give you a bit of encouragement if you're finding it hard to pay attention to getting this done, even if you didn't want the commitment of giving me some encouragement. I find other people working along similar lines can be very helpful.
Please either reply here or message me privately if you would like to talk about how we could support each other in this kind of task. I wish you good luck and courage to take this forward, EleanorBE!
"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." (Anais Nin)
Thanks Salamander!
I'd definitely like to keep in touch about this, Salamander - I've found the check ins here really useful just because I find the idea that the odd person might read my to-do list very motivating. It would be even better to be sharing a more specific goal with someone doing something similar.
Maybe we could check in here once or twice a week? Of if you'd prefer to private message that would be good too. Only I don't actually know how to do that or where to find any messages anyone's sent me! I suspect it's really obvious...
Along with the exercise I'd like to start the healthy eating thing by bringing lunch to work, having only fruit for snacks and restricting wine consumption to Fridays and Saturdays!
Thanks for the reply - I already feel that this is a bit more possible!
EleanorBE re fitness and staying in touch
Well, EleanorBE, I am definitely willing to commit to "checking in" here with you (or we could email privately if you prefer - that's the way it works here - you can contact someone and they get an email from you).
I will need to check in 3-4 times a week or I won't go to the gym. This is really important. I'm 51 now and need to build stamina to help me deal with a chronic pain problem as well as to make me fit for work!
Reporting in here, in a public place, may just "shame me" into going to the gym. Sooner or later, if you keep on doing what you're doing, you'll keep on getting what you've got - and it's time for a change in me.
I hadn't planned on tackling my biggest procrastination so "soon" in my membership of PA. But in the end, I don't suppose it matters that much, if you use the same techniques to help cope.
Please, Eleanor, do check in here with me as often as you like - just a line or two each time would be enough unless there was a problem - and I would like to think that other people could check in here too - but would you mind that, EleanorBE? I know it's really your own thread and perhaps you might welcome one "supporter" doing the same thing, but maybe not more...? So I think you should decide about whether other people can comment and encourage or gain support for themselves...
"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." (Anais Nin)
re fitness plans
Hi Salamander,
The mix of cameraderie and shame that comes from posting publicly works for me, I think! So let's post here, with the proviso that if we fancy rambling for a bit longer we could message eachother. I'll put my fitness tasks on my daily check-in too but think it'll be good to have a separate area here for this diet/fitness project.
In the past, I've got over-anxious and obsessive about diet and fitness, which is quite silly given I've never actually been medically overweight. So I guess that once I'm where I really want to be, 7lb lighter and exercising regularly, I'd like to post less frequently than every time I do some exercise. But for now I'd like to post most days, before or after I've done my regular check-in.
As for others looking to sort themselves out diet and fitness-wise - all welcome, I'd say!
I'm so sorry to hear about your chronic pain. I do hope this will help you. I just get really sluggish if I don't exercise and simply don't like feeling flabby - but I have family histories of cardio-vascular problems so I really want to get fit and stay there as I approach 50 (I'm 47).
Thanks again for responding. I think we are on to a good thing!
Sal's Fitness Plans: The First Hurdle!
OK, so I thought I was well prepared - and I was part prepared, to be fair to myself - but I fell down at one of the hurdles. There are two problems for me:
So I had my gym bag ready, although I needed to have a shower before I went out, and I did not have my clean clothes ready for after the shower after the workout. I had what I thought was an adequate routine in place to get me there this morning. It wasn't adequate. I made the desperately stupid mistake (because things were going so swimmingly!) of getting horizontal on the sofa with one of the cats for a little play and woke up 3, maybe 4 hours later! I need to be able to get up, eat breakfast and go out without having a shower first at this end.
I can hear a virtual chorus of your voices telling me what a stupid, first-grade mistake that was! But I ask you, is it really procrastination when you fall asleep? (I think it still is. I don't know how to handle that. Suggestions welcome!)
So with the help of Flylady's fitness writer, I have found the following two links containing a short routine for the night before going to the gym, and a short routine for the morning before you go. I am going to print these out, combine them with my own routine, and use these from this evening.This guy is obviously used to ALL sorts of excuses and reasons why people have failed to do what they need and want to do.
http://bit.ly/tBxYMN
http://bit.ly/x8MWYf
I have concluded that I was allowing myself to sabotage myself by getting horizontal with the cats and needing to have a shower first. I will follow a combination of my own morning routine and the fitness writer's routine for the morning, and not allow ANY deviance from it, however pretty the cats are being.
I will put everything into this because I want to do it. I LOVE the gym when I get there and start walking on the treadmill. Everyone remarks on how happy I am when I get those endorphins into my system - and it helps regulate my sleep and reduce my pain! Win-win, surely? Tomorrow must be successful.
And now I am going to focus on other goals so that today doesn't feel such a failure when it comes to the end of the day and I look back on what I have done today...
"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." (Anais Nin)
Day 2 for Sal: Thoughts
I've realised, while planning for success tomorrow, that tomorrow isn't the right day for me to start again in my efforts to go to the gym. I have a meeting I cannot reschedule at lunchtime and if I can't get up early tomorrow, I won't be able to get to the gym then either, and after today's enormous feeling of failure, I want to prepare for success. So Wednesday is the next day when I have nothing else planned that could interfere with the gym.
I'm also emailing EleanorBE because I can tell I need to check in a lot more and I tend to write more as well. I think it would be a kindness to her for me to start my own thread so my posts don't end up swamping hers!
"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." (Anais Nin)
Count Calypso in for fitness plans
HI
Count me in for fitness plans. I do yoga every morning at home, and go to yoga lessons, sometimes go to the gym, and sometimes go running, and would love to make this more of a plan. it is all a bit adhoc, apart from the yoga. Moreover I would like to get my condition up.
Calypso
Go you,
Go you, Calypso!
"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." (Anais Nin)