July : My awesome toolbox

Better update to come as the triathlon looms near, reflecting back over July and things I have learnt/found again. Going to compile into a *virtual toolbox* for when the going gets rough....

Top 10 Strategies for Success

• Your body is perfect: your eyelashes catch your sweat. This is a lyric from Regina Spektor and reminds me that my body is perfect as it is. Everything else is progress – and you can and love to sweat enough for it to drip down your face  
• When you fall: get back up again. Just keep.on.going. Keep a clean plate, clean slate philosophy. 
• Do something. Anything – go out and pull up a weed - just move. Anything is better than nothing and keeps momentum.
• Make a picture. I love to create – make a vision of what your wellness looks like. Stick it somewhere you will see it.
• Make a tracker. Put stickers on it – this has been a major motivation for me, rewarding myself with a sticker works. You are never too old for a star chart.
• Visualise it. Can’t get out of bed in the morning? Imagine yourself getting up, into your kit and into the pool. Picture it properly. It works.
• Challenge the negative. If you are having an ‘I am crap, I am worthless, I can’t do anything’ day’ challenge it. Try to make one good thought for as many negative thoughts- even if you don’t believe it on that day.
•   If you eat a truckload of sweets and you fancy a grape eat it. Your body will thank you for the nutrients.
• If you need to switch your rest day[s] – take it. Just make sure you make up the session sometime later in the week. 
• Surround yourself with likeminded people. People who share your passion for life, love and making progress. You will feel better for it – if someone doesn’t make you feel good about yourself, you don’t have to make a fuss over it- just be aware how people make you feel and invest your time accordingly.

Just friggin start

Today my pea brain spat out this thought: what would life be like if I stopped thinking so much and started starting?

I am an over thinker, analyser, worrier, in depth picker aparter and an overall spending to much time thinking and less time doing. I can procrastinate for England. I am late for everything.

With running, swimming, jumping, eating, loving, living and doing I just need to START. Less thinking more doing.

Some of the BEST things I have ever done were the result of just starting. Relationships, jobs, life changes. The things I am stuck on right now don't need more time spent thinking. So, from tonight when I *just started* my bike ride, each day I will be not thinking about and just DOING one thing. And I might even report about it here. Let the changing commence............

I saw this and thought of....

Myself. And it's yellow. Best. Thing. Ever.

 

It's in my soddin noggin!

Something clicked for me this week. I had a BLAH week. Kind of angry BLAH kind of meek blah kind of what is my purpose in all of this blah.

I spent the week procrastinating, avoiding working out and making excuses. I got even more worried that I would never finish my sprint triathlon. I whined through two workouts with Mr P basically dragging me like a sad puppy. On sunday, when I finally bust through the procrastination and in a haze ended up on my bike - it all became clear in a disney-esque moment of beauty.

It is all in my head.

If I do or don't finish the run/race/cake. If I get up tomorrow and make that change. The limit of what I can do. It's in my soddin noggin!

I am the one that talked myself down this week. I am the one that made me feel like I can't so this. My body is tell me YES WE CAN and my noggin is telling NO YOU CAN'T. I  figure we have two options to deal with this...

Option 1. In the style of Jens Voight [guess who watched the tour this year] you can say ' shut up brain and do what I tell you'
Option 2. You are only as good as you last thought. Make it a bloody good'un then.

Personally I will be taking a double attacked approach to negative nelly brain cells.

The bank of me

I love a good cheesy metaphor. 

I will start at the start. My other half [not really worse or better] is better than me at sport. All sport. Any sport.
I have been training for a triathlon, swimming twice a week for months. He has been about thrice in the last year. And he is faster than me.
I run for weeks, sticking to a plan. He does no training and completes half marathons around the two hour mark. No training people!!!
In the swimming pool this week, I nearly cried. I got super cross, splashed water in his face and shouted 'ITS NOT FAIR YOU NEVER TRAIN AND I ALWAYS LOSE AND ITS NOT FAIR I TRAIN HARD'.

He was calm, and said he knows, it doesn't seem fair. But we are very different, he spent his childhood and teenage years playing team sports. OFTEN. I did little to no sport or exercise. I used to play goalie so I wouldn't have to run about. He was a healthy weight the majority of his life. My weight has gone up and down like a bleedin yo-yo.

I then started to think about the idea of a health bank account a friend talked about earlier in the week. Your health is like a bank account, you make deposits when you eat good, move and keep well. You withdraw when you eat junk, sit still and beat yourself up. His bank account opened in childhood, and got regular deposits over 15 or so years. Mine has been opened, and closed, and then opened again. I put in deposits in bursts of energy, then withdraw all the money [read nutrients, muscle, self esteem] when I stop binge and sit on the sofa for a few months.

My account is like a baby savings account - it has great intentions but very little in in yet. His is a well established saver, with regular deposits to carry over the slow patches. Time to make some deposits into the bank of me..........

Food

It's been an odd weekend. Lots of emotions.
Looking ahead tp the start of the new week always gets my thinking about one thing. Food.
I have been mustering up the courage to ditch sugar from my diet this last few weeks. Sounds silly, but man is it hard for me. I don't drink, smoke or do much else I shouldn't so sugar is a tough habit for me to crack. You might think that my being on a wheat, dairy, egg free diet means I am healthy. NOT.

Saturdays food....... Four [yes four] flapjacks, three cups of juice, one bag of crisps, beans on toast, sausages, waffles and corn for my dinner. HOLY COW.

I know what needs done, I just need to do it. Here comes lots of honesty and even more talking about food......

Change

Hello song. Were you made for me?

I took my love and I took it down

I climbed a mountain and I turned around
And I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills
'Til the landslide brought me down

Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail thru the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

Mmm Mmm... I don't know... Mmm Mmm... Mmm Mmm...

Well, I've been afraid of changing
'Cause I've built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Children get older

I'm getting older too

Today I've been thinking about change, moving forwards and getting out of the same old loops. I feel like my only sensible thought on the matter sits directly in the quote above. You just have to leap [do things]. Thinking, planning and talking are all fine. I need to leap.

I am late for everything.

I am late for everything. I am never, ever on time. I regularly fly by the seat of my pants to meetings, appointments, all life events really. This problem came to a bit of a head today.... I was 30 minutes late for a meeting and I .... told a big fib to cover my lateness.

Uh oh. Hold the pony. This is a problem.

This has gone beyond 'ah jess, always running late' to actually lying because I am embarassed. Right. Plan to solve this?
First port of call - my tardis time. I call it tardis time for this reason. I am lying in bed thinking, I need to swim, eat my cornflakes and feed my five pets before work. That will take oh.... about a hour.
WRONG. This is tardis time, swimming alone takes an hour.


How I will now attempt to tackle tardiness

First step - Accept how long things actually take.  I take an hour to get ready. Minimum. It takes 15 minutes to feed my zoo. 20 mintues to get to work [yes I know is is extra shameful that I am so late with such a short commute]

Second step - Go to bed on time. Silly but essential. The lateness cycle starts when I sleep for an extra hour/15mins/whatever and then spend the day playing catch up.

Third step - Prepare ahead of time to eliminate time suckers and faffing*. Pack lunch the night before, sort out gym bag, locate the essential passport/phone/animal/person ahead of the moment I urgently need it.

Fourth step - linking in with above BE TIDY. If I put the glue back where it lives, I won't waste 20 minutes looking for it. If I put my washing away after folding, I won't cause hurricane jessica when looking for that purple dress.

Now for action.... how long does dinner take to cook.............

Images from Pinterest

* Faffing - british word meaning to waste time doing something that can wait until later.

July is going to be BRILLIANT!

My training, my life and my energy have be mega flagging. I know an awesome person who pushed me to make this month new, better and just brilliant. July plan of attack......Dan dan daaaaaaa..........

Enivision
In my best month yet I have LOADS of energy, feel alive, fresh and confident.

Decide
I will devote time and energy 6 times a week into making my body stronger
I will feed my body and mind with nutritious food and WATER
I will work on accepting myself and feeling confident that I AM a strong woman

Commit
Physical:
*Write out my plan and stick in on the fridge each week – go to bed knowing what the next day’s workout is
*Get to bed by 11 and up by 7 [only one hour swing each way even on weekends]
*Get my kit ready the night before. Sleep in it if I have to.
*Cycle to work 2 days a week
*Push harder in each workout. One more rep, lap, length or mile.  Just PUSH!

Nutrition
*Drink 2 cups of water at each meal
*Eat three meals each day
*Eat 5 fruit/veg each day
*Measure treats in the correct serving size before nomming
*Take multivitamin and calcium

Spiritual
*Complete daily maintenance plan [more on this later]
*Start reflection/acceptance journal
*Do something creative every day
*Do one thing that is just for my pleasure/happiness each day
*Have 5 minutes quiet time each day

Share
Via facebook, blog, dailymile.

Celebrate
Virtual party on August 4th
Spa treatment as a reward

Sunny...yesterday my life was filled with... sun.

This weekend was filled with sun.

Lovely, warm,glowing sun.

I put my sun cream on, got outside and chilled the heck out. Perfect. Read a book, went swimming, did some creative stuff, spent time in the country, went swimming.Ate a super yumtastic lasagne. Just good old fashioned fun.

As I am learning more and more about myself, I am finding out that sometimes the silliest things give me the happiest feelings. I am quite nervous about putting my head under the water in the swimming pool. This weekend I swam two lengths face down [and then out obviously] and jumped into the deep end. 

You are never ever too old to find out just how much fun that is.

The actual sun is meant to be disappearing tomorrow, but I feel all stocked up with warm yellowness.

Woop woop weekend...

It is friday. Phew. One hellofa week done! So looking forward to some down time.... Going to be feeling as chilled out as this outfit looks....

Planning to do some swimming and biking, arty stuff and working on some wellness projects  I have going for myself. Friday night is going to be simple, cleaning to make sure that I can say;

Tidy house =Tidy mind.

New linkydinks for me and you [well just me really since noone reads this!]

My fashion put togethers........ http://www.shopstyle.co.uk/action/viewLook?id=3413302&pid=uid2564-1743742-40
Pinterest.............http://pinterest.com/lovelyyellow/

Happy weekend!