Getting better one day at a time
May 24, 2019 Banana-Cinnamon Oatmeal, Apple and Cheese Tuna Salad, and Zesty Orange Chicken This week, I tried to create a more summery menu given that June is fast-approaching. So, the meals are a bit lighter and more fruit-filled! Morning: 1 cup water I always …
I have had a few conversations lately on doubt and struggle. In the end it almost always wraps up with “it’s fine though”. This shows our tendency to diminish our emotions in an attempt to put a positive spin on things, to not worry people. …
The month is more than half over so I figured it’s about time to give a quick update on my progress.
The first couple days of going to the gym I noticed I felt more focused and motivated to tackle the work I had for finals after my workout.
This wasn’t something I was really expecting. But this is one of the benefits of what Charles Duhigg calls “Keystone Habits” in his book The Power of Habit. They’re behaviors that cause positive ripple effects in other areas of your life. For example exercise can make you sleep better, feel better, eat better, and clear your mind. Among other things.
Of course it wasn’t all sunshine and roses though. By the end of the week the high was kind of wearing off and I didn’t feel any extra benefits of focus or clear-mindedness. Although I still felt proud that I finished the week strong.
But by week two, my work for finals and getting ready to move out of university housing got the best of me and I lost momentum. I skipped about a week of working out.
Despite being disappointed in myself for missing those days I’ve been solidly working out this week and am determined to finish strong and not miss any more days for the month.
Although I will have to find and sign up for a new gym in DC where I’ll be for the summer which might be a bit of a bump in the road… So if you have any recommendations near Georgetown, let me know!
I’m still struggling to make going to the gym into a habit and not just a practice. I want this “project fitness” to continue past just this month so I think I need to start going at the same time every day to make it part of my routine. So, that’s what I’ll be trying to work on for the rest of the month.
As humans we have a tendency to conflate status with success. So, we go chasing after symbols of status that we can show off to others. A piece of paper with a big-name institution, a new outfit, a pristine social media feed. I’m coming to …
Avocado Toast, Apple Broccoli Slaw, and Sweet Potato Peanut Stew Welcome to the first Fully Balanced Friday! A full day of meals that meet all your daily values for vitamins and nutrients (macro and micro). They’re also really quick and simple to make and things …
*Disclaimer I am not a dietician or a doctor, I’m just a human trying to eat healthy*
With the disclaimer out of the way, what does eating healthy even mean? So many people have different ideas and opinions about this and diet fads come and go. Over the short span of 21 years that I’ve lived on this planet I’ve tried a bunch of them: The South Beach Diet (low-carb), the vegan diet (high-carb edition), the vegan diet ~raw food~ edition, the vegetarian diet, and of course there’s SAD (the Standard American Diet full of processed foods and sugars). [Granted, veganism and vegetarianism aren’t necessarily “diets” since you can tailor them to your needs and they don’t come with strict guidelines and or meal plans.]
But! through all this I have come to the conclusion that the best way to eat is balanced with lots of vegetables, fruits, grains and proteins. I think we all know this at some core level but ignore it because of convenience or cravings. And it was definitely fun to experiment.
But the best way to eat is to eat balanced. This means meals that meet all of your daily needs for macronutrients: protein, carbohydrates, and fats and also all of your daily requirements for vitamins and nutrients. I believe that if these milestones are what is best for our bodies, we should be able to meet them without the need for a million supplements, we should be able to get it from food. So, I started searching around for daily meal plans that would meet all of these daily needs but I couldn’t find any, not a single one.
So, that led me to create my own! The meal plans will be recipes I have gathered from other blogs and internet sources, or made myself and combined so that all daily vitamins and nutrients are met in addition to macronutrients, etc. (I put them all in cronometer, a website that tracks this to make sure). Like I said earlier, while I’m not a doctor or dietician (and is NOT a substitute for advice, diagnosis, and/or treatment by a qualified medical professional) I believe being more intentional about what we put into our bodies and meeting our bodies’ needs naturally is the best thing we can do. And it doesn’t have to be hard! It just takes a little time to find the right recipes and make sure that no key nutrients are missing. So, I’ve done the legwork for myself (and you if you want).
That’s what Fully Balanced Friday is. Every Friday, I’ll post a day’s worth of meals and snacks that are easy, delicious and fully balanced. The first one to be posted this Friday, May 3.
My goal for this month is pretty simple: exercise. A few things are clear about humans, we need to eat healthy, exercise, and get enough sleep to feel good. We all know this, but I have been consistently bad about these basic things. That’s why …
Negative Feedback Loops Getting stuck in a negative feedback loop is real. And it’s a place that I’ve been trapped in for the past couple of months. For me it looks a little something like this: The worst part about these loops is that they …
Hey, welcome! I’m really glad you clicked whatever link you did to bring you here. Time is valuable so I appreciate you spending some of it here.
Before you get in too deep I want to make a few confessions. I don’t have it all figured out and I don’t know everything. Actually, I think I pretty much know next to nothing. Most of the ideas and inspiration I share here I got from other people who have it a lot more together than I do.
But, that’s kind of the whole point of this. Earlier this moth after tracking my mood since the start of 2019, I started to notice a pattern. I was slipping into a zombie-like state of melancholy. One day just seemed to blend into the next and everything was pointless, as you can see from all of the gray.
So, I decided to do something, anything about it. I had been thinking about creating a website or blog for a while but it just didn’t seem possible. A million other people had already done it and done it way better than I had, so what was the point?
But then I realized maybe that is the point. To produce something unpolished and in progress and show how progress can be made on it just by working a little bit at a time. This idea sparked a little light in me, a little hope. Something I hadn’t really been feeling in a while. Which is why I decided to make Progress Making.
The main idea is to take on a monthly goal and share my progress. (I first got this idea from Matt Cutts’ TedTalk which you should really watch if you haven’t already.) I also explore concepts like healthy eating, productivity, hopelessness, imperfection and not having it all together. I know that I will probably fail at some or even many of the goals that I set at first but that’s also the goal. To show that life is messy but it continues and by picking myself back up and picking up where I left off I can still accomplish things.
I’m also hoping to talk to you! If you’re a student at Georgetown or live in DC I’d love to meet up. If you’re working on a cool project that’s in progress or you want to start a project and don’t know where to begin I’d be really interested to hear about it. Just leave me a comment, connect with me on social media, or sign up to get emails from me about what I’m reading and how to stay motivated.
Thanks again for being here, I hope to hear from you soon.