Failures, Big Changes and Looking Forward

August Challenge Results

When planning for my August challenges I thought that the hardest part of the challenges would be accomplishing them on my vacation and that things would get easier when I returned to Korea. It actually ended up being the opposite!

The water challenge was never really a problem. I re-downloaded an app that I used to use called Plant Nanny for ios, which encourages you to drink water by way of watering your virtual plant. If I haven't watered your plant (had some water) for a while, the app will send me a message saying it's thirsty, which is a great reminder to drink more water! You raise the plants until they're full grown, then you start over with a new plant! I've also started using a reusable straw cup at my desk. As I said in my previous post, using a straw really helps me drink more water!

Might as well be a cute cup, right?

Now... the jump rope challenge. Upon returning to Korea, I made a pretty strong effort at first but being busy and stress really got the better of me. I've returned to a full work schedule and on top of that I've had a lot on my plate with moving. First, my boyfriend finished his contract with his old place, so we moved him into my place. However, my lease is also up soon so we set to work on finding a new place to live. Moving is stressful. Moving in a country where you don't speak the language fluently is even more stressful! We ended up finding some good real estate agents and found a great place. I'm excited to move. However, now we're dealing with all the logistics of moving! Hiring a moving company... selling off things we don't need anymore... changing billing addresses and car registration information... wah!!! I usually power through stressful times with exercise, but it has been hard. I think I got up to doing 800 jumps and then just stopped. I do regret not finishing... but, I also recognize that there are times you have to give yourself a bit of leeway.

8fit... yeah... that never really happened. Perhaps I'll revisit it at a later date! 

September Challenges

Now for the part I'm really excited about! Despite still being busy with moving logistics, I'm feeling good about September. As the month has already started, I've already been hard at work on them, and so far so good! Next week I will update! I've decided on 3 achievable challenges for September. Here they are:

Eggs!

In the past few months I've been eating a lot of carbs for breakfast. In fact, since I've been back at school, I've gotten into the bad habit of choosing 10 more minutes of sleep over getting up and making breakfast. Rather than preparing my own breakfast, I've been opting to stop at the student store and buy sugar and preservative packed pastries. I'm always hungry soon after and I've felt noticeably more sluggish in the morning.

Back when I was keto-dieting I ate eggs for breakfast most mornings and I loved it! Eggs always keep me full longer than other breakfast options. I also have more energy in my morning when I eat eggs. Unfortunately, eggs have been given a bad reputation in the past. Nutritionists used to say they were too high in fat and would raise your cholesterol, leading to heart disease. However, more modern research says that while eggs do raise cholesterol, they actually raise HDL cholesterol, which is the good kind for you. Eggs also turn dense LDL cholesterol (the bad kind) into large LDL cholesterol, which is benign. In addition to having a positive effect on your cholesterol, eggs are high in antioxidants, as wells as phosphorous, choline, and many vitamins! Another positive for me is that eggs do not raise your insulin levels, while other carb focused breakfasts would! Finally, eggs also rank high on the satiety index, which means that eating eggs will keep you full longer. A study from 2008 concluded that when 2 groups of people were given the same amount of calories for breakfast in the morning, but one group was given eggs and the other a bagel, that the people who ate eggs would eat less throughout the day, which resulted in better weight and fat loss results. No wonder they call eggs a superfood! 

Image courtesy of winnond at freedigitalphotos.net

So, the challenge is simple! Eat an egg-centered breakfast every morning of September!

Walking

Those who know me well, know that I've had a Fitbit for about a year now. Over the year, it has really inspired me to get more walking in during my everyday life. For example, sometimes I get up a little earlier and walk the 4km to work, rather than driving. Or, instead of taking the bus a few stops, I'll walk it. Or... I'll take Bilbo on extra long walks rather than quick bathroom breaks. I started off by setting my goal at 10,000 steps which is what many recommend to lead a healthy active life. After a few months I set my goal to 11,000 steps and it's remained there since then. For my walking challenge I've decided to make a weekly goal of 84,000 steps. This means I should be averaging around 12,000 steps per day. Luckily it's a wonderful time of year in Korea to get walking in! As long as it's not raining, the weather is really pleasant!

Running

When weighing positives and negatives about different neighborhoods in Seoul to live in, one major positive for staying in my current neighborhood was all of the parks and places to run I have near me. Ultimately, we chose a different neighborhood, which will have new and exciting running places to discover... but I'm still going to miss my usual running spots! So, my final challenge is, before the big move (in 9 days!) I'm going to run in each of my 3 favorite running spots one last time.

The End of the July Challenge and What's up for August

Final Thoughts on July

Splits

I'm going to be honest. It didn't go well. I know I said last week that I was going to get back into the splits stretches but it just didn't happen. When I look back on it, I think I had 2 problems. The first one is, like I said, I have never really enjoyed stretching. So, finding the motivation to do it was a lot more difficult. The 2nd thing is, I would always leave the stretches until the evening, but towards the end of the month I started to get really busy and by the time I was home and had time to do the stretches, I was tired. Not really good excuses, but there you have it! Even though I sorta dropped the ball on the stretches towards the end, my flexibility has improved a lot! I can touch the ground from a standing position, which I could never do before. I can also kick up a lot higher in my cardio workouts than I used to be able to. So, I'm going to call it a small victory!

Ripped in 30

I finished week 4 of "Ripped" strong! I managed to get 6 workouts in in my last week. I started out pretty strong, and finished stronger so I was pretty happy about that! Week 3 was difficult. Really difficult. And fun, in a challenging way! However, even though Week 4 was also challenging, the step up from Week 3 to Week 4 was far easier than the step up from Week 2 to Week 3. All in all, I really enjoyed Week 4! You can really see everything that you worked for paying! My squats were lower and stronger. I could use heavier weights for a lot of the exercises. Also, my stamina for cardio was a lot better!

Also! The night before my last workout, I got less than 2 hours of sleep. Despite that, the fact that I  worked out in the morning, I was able to hit my last workout pretty hard! But, Bilbo was less into it than usual...

One final thought about 'Ripped in 30.' I know a lot of people are concerned about the space needed to do a workout at home. This workout series is a great one if you only have a limited amount of space.

This is where I workout!

August Challenge

Hello from Texas! It's layover time here in Dallas. I'm on route to Charleston, S. Carolina, which is where my epic 2 week road trip begins! I'm going to be in 6 states (not including the ones that are just driven through) in the next 2 weeks. I'm also going to be spending a lot of time in a car and a lot of time eating delicious local food. While traveling, it's tempting to disregard all exercise and diet projects... at least, I've always done it that way in the past! But, this time, I was determined to think of things I could do while traveling. So... for August, 3 challenges!

Challenge 1: Drink Water! I'm terrible at drinking water! So terrible in fact, that friend in the past have questioned how I'm still alive. There was a point in my life when I would only drink about a dixie-sized cup of water a day. I have improved from that, but I still don't drink enough. My water challenge is going to be, to drink at least 2 liters of water every day!

Challenge 2: Jump Rope Challenge! I'm going to do a 30 day jump rope challenge. Jump ropes are easily transportable, and I don't need a lot of room to jump rope. Jumping rope is also a crazy good cardio exercise. 

This is the jump rope challenge I've decided to do!

And, this is the jump rope I bought!

Challenge 3: 8fit! I downloaded an app called 8fit last month at the recommendation of a friend. Some days, last month when I was feeling a bit more ambitious, I did an 8fit workout along with the Jillian workouts I was doing. Most of the workouts are under 15 minutes and you can choose the level that you workout at. I know that I'm going to be traveling and moving around a lot. So, I'm going to start doing 8fit only 3 days a week, and when I return to Korea, I'll increase that to 5 days a week!

Until next time!