Workout Wednesday

Workout Wednesday – August 2014

2014 08-06 Running and BikingI’m posting this a little later than usual as I wanted to make sure I survived my first bike ride to work! As I mentioned on my other blog, Now Entering Adulthood, I’ve been plagued with injuries and laziness over the past three-to-four months. I’d love to blame it all on the injuries, but I just can’t.

After finally seeing a doctor and getting the okay (with some minor restrictions), I had my first 5k since April at the end of July. It was the Jerry Garcia Memorial 5k, so you know it would be fun and it was, but it showed me two things. The first is that the recovery from my ankle injury is going to take quite a bit of time and the second is that my running has really suffered over the past few months. (The left picture up there makes me look like I’m moving a lot faster than I am, really I was covering my face so Caroline wouldn’t take a picture of me!)

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Personal Project, Willpower

The Willpower Instinct Project – Week 8, 9 & Wrap-Up

McGonigal, Kelly - The Willpower InstinctAs I said two weekends ago I was struggling to finish up the project. I did finish reading the book and the review will post tomorrow, but I just had a couple of rough weekend sin a row and didn’t take the time to blog about the last two chapters. This’ll be a quick recap of those chapters and my final thoughts on the project.

Chapter 8: Infected: Why Willpower is Contagious focused primarily on how your willpower project isn’t just yours alone. We were told to spend time identifying when/if other people affected how we approached challenges. Do the people we identify with or want to be like help or hinder our process? The experiments for the week were to take a few minutes to remind ourselves of the goals every morning, find a positive role model, go public with the our challenge and find others to support you.

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Personal Project, Willpower

The Willpower Instinct Project – Week 7

McGonigal, Kelly - The Willpower InstinctNot sure this brings much to my project, but I needed to keep with the schedule and hold myself accountable.

This week I definitely noticed a change in my habits, but honestly I’ve hit enough road blocks I’m wondering why I’m still doing this. Thankfully, I’m a completionist and will follow through the project. This entire week focused solely on connecting our current self with our future self and finding out if we are undercutting that future self.

We were to reflect on if or how we discount future rewards, whether we’re waiting for a future self to take charge and inversely whether we’re too farsighted for our own good. I find that depending on what I’m looking at there are complete opposite answers. When it comes to money and savings, I’ve made a lot of changes recently where I’ve taken charge and am sorting things out. I do occasionally have to remind myself that it’s okay to have fun and not save every penny to pay things off, so I am too farsighted for my own good.

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Personal Project, Willpower

The Willpower Instinct Project – Week 6

McGonigal, Kelly - The Willpower InstinctAfter last week, I definitely noticed progress on the ridiculous snacking and overeating. That doesn’t mean I was 100% done with it, had a eww what is wrong with me moment on Thursday when I was eating subconsciously and caught myself. Any sort of progress these days is great!

This week McGonigal asked us to really look at how guilt, promise of relief and external circumstances affect our willpower, more specifically: relief when stressed, what terrifies us (news stories for example), how do we respond to setbacks and how we use our feel-good feelings.

In the past my stress release came from reading and eating junk food. I’ve, thankfully, cut back on the junk food and reading remains a stress release, but as I’ve mentioned on my new blog, meditation has really helped a lot with de-stressing and mental clarity recently. I don’t generally get stressed from external factors like the news or media, but I do often get stressed out think about my future and I have spent a lot of time over the past few months trying to stay in the moment and not fret so much about the future.

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Workout Wednesday

Workout Wednesday – April 2014

2014 04-08 Fool's Dual T-Shirt and BibSo remember in May and June of last year when I started Workout Wednesday’s? Remember my passionate statements, in both posts, “I hate running”? Don’t believe me, go to the homepage and search “I hate running,” keep the quotation marks because it’s in there exactly and both of those posts will come up. What’s funny is this entire post is pretty much just about running!

While I wouldn’t put it at the top of my favorite things list, I’ve definitely gotten to the point where I find enjoyment in it. I really must, in April I even read a book about running (What I Talk About When I Talk About Running) and I somehow convinced myself to put both a 10k and a half-marathon on my 30 before 30 list. I’m also overly excited about being able to run outside again and take long walks where Caroline and I plan out our lives now the days are longer and the weather much more cooperative, so clearly there’s been some change of heart…

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