Phase 2

I haven’t blogged for days. I was getting ready to. I would write down “22 minutes walking outside” or “Crunches” or “1st Thessalonians 3 – Philomen”, and plan on blogging, but I would be so tired, and I had gone past the 40 days already, so I let it be.

Well, now I have listened to Conference, and I have thought about what is next, and I did play some video games, and yeah, it’s time to move into the next phase.

There will be more posts, and I will finish the concert series and write other things, but I will not be blogging daily. There are things that have been really good about it, and I have gotten great support, but it is just too time-consuming to keep up. It can always return at another time.

I probably will not post again this week. The producer wants more changes to the screenplay, and originally I thought they were impossible, but I have some ideas on how to carry it out now, and so this week I really want to concentrate on that. Still no money showing up, but I’m still sticking with it. I’m nothing if not tenacious.

I suppose before moving on I should report on the last forty days. Overall, it feels like an accomplishment. I don’t see a trip to Amsterdam in our immediate future, which is okay, and I was disappointed to find that I gained 6 pounds, which would have been a good amount to lose.

I was kind of afraid it would happen, and there is a good chance that it is new muscle, because with the crunches and pushups I went from about 5 at first to 30 now, and that is a pretty fast increase, but still. It did provide a funny moment though, because I was talking to Julie about how if that happened I would be momentarily suicidal and then move on, and she was like, “But you’re so—“ and I don’t remember if the word she used was logical or practical or what, but sure, that’s the end result, but it’s not my initial state.

I do feel more energetic, I am walking faster, and I have stronger abs and arms. Some of my clothes do feel looser, but I wear stretchy things so it is not definitive. I want weight loss, but I’m on a four-year plan, and I do have time to catch up. I should probably take my measurements too, so that weight is not the only available indicator. (For the record, I am 321 now.)

So, what’s next? Well, 20 minutes minimum of scripture study and exercise daily is still the rule, and I am swearing off video games and impure thoughts again, this time through November 24th. This is a 52-day period instead of 40, so one change is that it is longer.

Another change is that I am going to keep up with the rotating toning exercises, but substitute leg lifts for wall sits. I just didn’t feel like I was getting anywhere with them. Part of that is that with your legs and thighs supporting your entire body all the time, they are probably going to always be more developed than other muscles, where it will be harder to see change. Still, there may be better measurability with an exercise that you count instead of time, and at least it mixes things up a bit. I will need something more taxing soon I am sure, but one step at a time. No matter how many times I have gotten into a good routine for aerobic exercises, I have never had a great program for strength training, and fixing that will probably take longer.

Also, I will be keeping a food journal strictly and diligently for the 52 days. This is something that I have tried many times before and failed at, because I will forget things, and fall behind, and just give up, and so giving myself a limited time to focus on it should be helpful. Maybe I will just be trying a different strategy every time for the first few phases, and then I will start combining them. Maybe there won’t even be any weight loss until after the first three years. That would be discouraging, but it would fall within the plan.

I feel like I will eventually need to set some kind of goal about getting better rest, like making myself get to bed earlier, but at this point I would be setting myself up for failure, and I am trying to focus on the achievable.

I will still be working on various tasks and goals that I set for serving others and working on my writing career, but those are not specifically part of the 52 days.

Also, I will be praying for help in loving someone who is difficult for me to love. Well, actually, it’s more the liking her part that is hard, but the point is that I will be working on it.