October Wellbeing Update

This post was updated on 24/03/18

My wellbeing post is a little different this month, because of how things have worked recently. Usually I sit down towards the end of the month and review my progress against a few goals and set my intentions for the month ahead. Over the last few weeks I have been doing an awful lot of self-reflection and thinking of new ideas to try. In other words, thinking about my well-being; the importance of rest but also self-development, has been ongoing.  So for that reason, this week I thought it was worth sitting down and capturing what’s new. Let’s see how this goes!

Health and Fitness

My weight hadn’t changed in three weeks, I know I shouldn’t get fixated on what the scales say but it is disheartening. Especially when the classes that I go to use it as an indication of progress. My diet is balanced. I have worked on the principle that if I deprive myself too much I would end up craving that food more. So on the whole I eat healthy things with the odd treat thrown in.

So something had to change. I can’t keep doing the same thing and expecting my results to differ. Just like the fantastic quotation from Albert Einstein.

I’ve never wanted to do any radical diet plan. I’ve always believed that a healthy, well balanced diet and exercise is what you need to do to lose weight. However because I can’t exercise very much, it means the odd deviation seems to really slow down my progress.

My mind was made up to carry out a plan that was a bit more limiting.

I found a three- day smoothie detox online and decided to go for it. The fantastic thing was that I wasn’t hungry.  If I made sure I had at least 2.5 to 3 litres of water a day I was fine. In fact, I felt more than fine. I had the most energy in those three days than I have in weeks. Not only that, I lost nearly 5lbs! I felt so good physically and mentally that I wanted to keep it up. So after Saturday evening off for a rather lovely date night with hubby, Sunday I started researching smoothies for energy, smoothies for improved health etc.

Fitness-or should I say working out- continues to be less than consistent. That is a cause of frustration for me but I am a fighter and am determined to find a way round this. I was reading some articles over the weekend about losing weight and exercising when ill. There is not a huge amount out there about my condition so I search under Chronic Fatigue, especially as my main symptoms are fatigue, including dizziness and brain fog.  The difficulty is as I said above is consistency. As my symptoms vary, I cannot commit to exercising for a certain number of days per week. So many fitness programs specify a certain number of workouts per week and then the food calculated in relation to that. I’ve known for a while that I find these difficult to follow. I’ve followed them on the days/times I can. However, this might mean only completing one of the four workouts per week. But then not surprisingly there would be no change at the end of the month. More on this in a future blog post, as for now I am continuing to research and reflect.

Socialising

Seeing friends very much has been on hold recently. I am reluctant to make too many plans as I don’t know if I’ll be able to stick to them. I do know however that seeing friends and socialising does a lot for wellbeing-but only if I have the energy for it. It is a difficult one to balance and just recently I’ve been focusing more on resting and refuelling.

 

Reading

For some reason, so far in October I have several books on the go at the same time! I know this bothers some people but as long as the books are different, I’m quite happy to do this. The book I pick up depends on my mood and concentration levels. I am enjoying giggling along to Peggy and Me by Miranda Hart. I am gripped by the story in The Postcard by Fern Britton. This is the second book of hers that I’ve read and I’ve grown to really like her writing style. It is written in such a way that I want to turn the page to find out what happens next. Now that’s a compliment for any author isn’t it? As far self development, I’ve been reading The Fitness Mindset by Brian Keane. He had me at the first section of the strap-line “eat for energy.” I am just about to start section two, which is on mindset-I am certainly learning more and more about how important that is.  I may post an update on this; I’ll see how I get on.

So a well-being update with a bit of a difference this month. More of an update as to where I am now, rather than planning for the month ahead. What do you think of the different format?  If you have any comments, I would love to hear from you.