Update on my 20k/day Challenge

So it’s now been two weeks since I posted that I was challenging myself to walk 20,000 steps per day.  So far, I’m not doing too bad.  Here’s a recap of how it went down:

Step 1: This was the week before I started walking more.  This was the week where I was inspired to work on cleaning up and purging junk out of our house.  That alone was energizing and motivating, but of course, didn’t change a darn thing about my waistline.  But this was such a refreshing task, that I wanted to share it with you all.  I happened upon Allie Casazza’s blog and she had a 3-weeks to Minimalist Motherhood link at the top of her page.  My blog is in no way/shape/form sponsored by anyone, so this is strictly a plug for something that I found useful and wanted to share.  I did not purchase the package when I went through the free class – maybe I will later, but for now, the tips in the webinar were enough to get me rolling.  The thing I loved about it was that it wasn't so much about the stuff.  It didn't tell me that I need 5 shirts and 2 pairs of shoes.  The focus was on thinking about what kind of a mother you wanted to be... what kind of mother you deserved to be.  And for me, that was the ticket.  I’m far from perfect on this minimalism deal… but I’m a lot better than before.  No longer am I trying (and failing) to play catch-up.  This is silly, but one of the best things is that I’ve sworn off laundry all weekend.  Now, if they kids say, “hey, let’s go to the park”, we go to the stinkin’ park and can do so without feeling like I need to be doing something else.   Being able to go to the park or invite someone to stop over without freaking out about the house... that's some serious freedom... and certainly helps me be more of the mom I want to be.  So for me, step 1 was about cleaning up my space.

Step 2:  This is where I started actually USING my desk treadmill.  I wrote about this a bit earlier, but it was really my first week where I cleaned up my routine.  It was nice to add another level on top of my clean space… I’m not at all a person who can adopt 7 new habits at once.  I’ve tried and failed at that many times.  I can start with one new thing, then slowly add more.  Maybe you’re like that, too.  Right now, I keep telling myself that if I keep adding a new layer each week or so, I’ll have all kinds of good habits in place six months from now.  So week 1 of this part was using my treadmill desk – and that week, I averaged between 14,000 and 15,000 steps a day.  Week 2 of this challenge is when I wrote my last post – challenging myself to get in 20,000 steps per day.  This took a considerably larger commitment on my part.  About halfway through that week, Brandon challenged me to drink a gallon of water a day, too.  Eeek!  To recap on these challenges:  I haven’t been perfect – that’s for sure.  I am able to get 20,000+ steps on weekdays because I spend 8+ hours behind my computer… and it takes about 3.5-4 of those hours walking at a slow enough pace that I can still type/write/speak during meetings for me to get in 20k steps.  Not too shabby.  I’m not as great on the weekends – and I’m okay with that.  I did realize that I needed better insoles in my shoes – more arch support, please!  When you add a gallon of water, you get about 4,000 steps in per day just walking from your desk to the bathroom and back – for real!  And I realized that I’m quite the sweaty beast at work now.  It’s a darn good thing I do work from my house.  I’m going through more clothes (because I cannot walk all day in jeans/capris) and when I’m off work, I’m thankful for the freedom of flip flops and to get my feet out of the socks and tennis shoes they’ve been roasting in all day.  Is that TMI?  Ha. 

Here’s the result of this, though:  my resting heart rate is down about 14 beats per minute.  Whoa!  That was a completely unintended benefit.  I don’t check my blood pressure often (because it’s never been a concern), but I can say that my high-strung hubby has greatly reduced his blood pressure by walking with me.  The first week of walking 20k steps/day resulted in a weight loss of 2.4 pounds.  Yahoo!  Remember, I didn’t do more than just that – I was still eating fast food and ice cream.  In fact, I probably ate MORE ice cream that week because I knew I was about to add a diet to the plan and I wanted to pack in all that frozen deliciousness beforehand.  That’s how I roll.  This week ended with a night out with friends – what a way to end my pre-diet week, right?  Awesome!

Step 3: Last week was my first week jumping back on the Keto bandwagon.  I know this will come with mixed reviews, but trust me, with an exercise physiology background, I’ve had more than my share of classes on nutrition.  I understand how my metabolism works… and no, not just from hokey websites and such.  I researched ketogenic diets for about a year before I tried it for myself.  I tried it in March this year – but only made it about two weeks before I lost motivation.  At that time, it was just me… without much accountability… and dang it, social gatherings made it hard and I just gave up.  I will say that my family loved the meals I was making and I felt pretty darn good after the first three days, so I knew that when I added the diet layer to my new routine, keto was my go-to.  As someone who’s had a weight complex (with either real or perceived concern) since high school, I’m certain I’ve tried just about everything.  This time, my husband was on board to try this with me.  I pulled a ton of recipes from dietdoctors.com and continued to read and absorb as much about this lifestyle from others I could.  If you have Netflix and totally dig documentaries, watch “The Magic Pill”.  This is the film that solidified this diet for me.  The results for brain function and development were incredible.  We have one kiddo with crazy ADHD and if we can stabilize some of that with diet, I’m in.  And Buggy – if we can give her brain the clarity it needs to function at its highest possible level, of course I’ll do it.  Now – Brandon and I are on a strict ketogenic diet right now – the kids still have some grains and fruits in their diets, but we’ve eliminated some of the processed yuck they were eating before.  So far, no complaints.  I take that back… the boys complained that we didn’t have Pop Tarts.  I said, “Sorry, I’m not buying Pop Tarts anymore.”  And that was the end of it.  After the first week of keto, I was down an additional 4.4 pounds.  That’s 6.8 pounds in the two weeks that I’ve been tracking weight.  That alone is enough motivation to keep me going.  The fact that I’m not hungry all the time and have freedom to function at full capacity without really thinking about food much – that’s incredible!  Clearly, step 3 is all about cleaning up my diet – I imagine I’ll be on this step of the journey for several weeks before I add anything else.  I’ll keep you posted.

I feel pretty great (although my legs are sore some days from walking so much), my house is clean – for the most part, I have more energy, I am not hungry, and I’m sleeping great.  Those are the biggest benefits for me – I’ll take any weight loss as a result, though!  So who wants to hit me up with their best Keto family recipe?  Fat bombs that are to die for?  I have some that I’m sure I’ll share, too.  Yum.

Here’s to feeling better and jumping into the craziness that is summer with a few new habits.  Here’s to staying accountable.  Here’s to taking care of myself and my family!  Here’s to being a little more like the mom and wife I WANT to be each day.

What happened when I started a 20k/day step challenge?

Okay, so let’s take you back a few years for some background info.  Two years ago, I was on track – working out, reducing portion sizes… getting my act together and trying to finally stop taking my able body for granted.  It worked.  I dropped 42 pounds in nine months and could run – really run – without wanting to kill over.  What a wonderful feeling.  I managed to keep that weight within just a few pounds for about six months after I stopped the weight loss challenges (about a year total).  At that point, I changed birth control.  We knew we weren’t having more kids and I felt okay going with a 5-year plan that I didn’t have to think about at all. 

Well, that backfired big time.  I hadn’t changed much else about my new eating habits, but packed on about 35 pounds in six months!  Holy Hell!  I was working on portions and trying to keep up on some kind of exercise plan, but the scale kept climbing and I was overwhelmed.  I gave up.  Needless to say, two years later, those 42 pounds came back and brought 5 of their friends to the party.  Ugh.  I got rid of that birth control and now I’m out to try to gain back the freedom of feeling like I look okay in my clothes and can endlessly play with my kids without having an asthma attack.  So here I am, with a whole lot of weight to lose… and a plan set up… with you as my accountability partners. 

About two weeks ago, I was reading about and watching YouTube videos on minimalism and I had a new spark for that.  We’d worked on this before, but it was mostly Brandon’s baby and I was just along for the ride.  When I dove into what minimalism meant for a mom… I was sold.  So I spent some time purging my closet of the clothes that didn’t make me feel pretty (ummm… I was left with nearly nothing) and started changing up how I handled household chores.  I’m not going into that all here… I’ll save it for another day, but the feeling of having a house that’s clean enough for surprise guests is unbelievable, y’all.  It’s still not perfect, but it’s drop-in-guest-ready, and that’s incredible.  Maybe you’re always in that position – but that’s never been my reality – not even in college when I lived in a 10x10 box.  I suddenly had more energy because the stress of living in a mess was gone.  I had my evenings to do fun things with the kids because I wasn’t trying to play catch-up on the house.  My weekends were beautiful because I wasn’t drowning in a week’s worth of laundry and a house that had just gotten worse each day.  And the best part about it… my bedroom/office was finally clean enough that it didn’t stress me out being in it all day.

See, I work from home (if you didn’t already know this).  I’ve worked from a home office for nearly seven years now.  As we’ve moved homes, the structure of my office has changed dramatically.  When we moved into the farmhouse in August 2016, I bought a standing desk.  It’s really just an Ikea desktop ($10, I think) with extendable legs ($120 for 4).  It was a cheap way to get me off my butt.  It worked sometimes… but I’d end up piling papers all over my desk and eventually, I’d move my laptop out to the kitchen table where I’d sit for my work day.  Do you know how ergonomically awful it is to work from your kitchen table on a laptop?  Let’s just say that my neck and shoulders were an absolute mess because of this – which lead to severe headaches.  But I could never keep my room/office clean enough to feel refreshed in it, so the kitchen became my office.

About this time last year, I cleaned off that desk again and purchased a desk treadmill to go under my desk.  This made the whole set-up a lot more expensive, but doing it this way was still at least $1,000 cheaper than buying an actual treadmill desk.  I raised my desk up a few more inches to account for the height of the treadmill, and I went to work on it… for a few days.  I’d spend a few hours a day walking (slowly) on my treadmill while I worked, but my legs would get tired and I’d again move out to the table – or over to Brandon’s desk to relax a bit.  Last week, after my fury of cleaning and organizing and purging, I had a clean space again and a new found energy.  I was getting back on that treadmill.  I was challenged to a Workweek Hustle with Fitbit friends, and I nailed that challenge with just under 80,000 steps in five days. 

My Fitbit reading as I am writing this.

 This is my desk set-up.  I love it.  The control panel for the treadmill is the little bar on the right side of my desk.  And for those of you with a keen eye, yes, those are spare G-tubes tucked in there behind the ream of paper.  We have a lot of spare medical supplies, y'all.

This was a HUGE improvement from the activity level I’d had before, and after the first 3-4 days, I wasn’t so sore.  I started sleeping better and waking up before my alarm went off (WHAT?) even if I didn’t jump out of bed right away.  When I rested, I rested well – and again, had more energy than the week before.  I was onto something!  I was averaging about 4,500 steps/day two weeks ago (bleh) and about 15,000 steps/day last week.

That brings me to this week:  stepping up my goal for steps… and trying to clean up my diet some (I’ll post about that later, too).  I’m also starting a very low-end daily workout to get my muscles back into some semblance of shape.  I have a long way to go, folks… but I am literally taking the first steps.  My goal this week is to get at least 20,000 steps a day (I was inspired by a friend of mine to try this).  I killed it on Monday – even after spending some time taking Ellie to a GI appointment in the morning.  Let’s see how I end up today with ½ day of PTO to take Ellie to Genetics – appointment days always mean lots of time in the car and sitting in waiting rooms… and we have a lot of appointment days.  I’m also going grocery shopping later this week to make sure we clean up our diet.  I’m hoping that with these changes, I can start seeing some progress… start feeling like me again.  I’m not using any fancy supplements… no magic pills or potions… just me, some movement, and a meal plan that is very practical and lasting for our family of five.  I’m no short order cook, here, so if I’m making something, we’re all eating the same thing.  I’m not going to sip on a special drink while my family eats.  We eat together, around the table… and that’s not changing.  And a funny little observation if you want to do a similar challenge:  if you’re the owner of a negative thigh gap (like yours truly), do yourself a favor and make sure you’re wearing comfy yoga pants for your stepping adventures.  Jeans and shorts are not friction’s friends.  On that note, wish me luck, y’all.  I’ll update here and there to keep you all posted on how things are going.

Today’s weight: X

[Yes, we’re doing it algebra style because I’m not telling a soul what my actual weight is.  As I lose some weight, I’ll post it as “x-5” because I’m a giant nerd like that and math is my friend (again, friction is not… I hated physics).]

So this is what Day 1 looked like for me... not too shabby.