the trick is to keep breathing

who doesn't like lists. if you don't like lists you are at the wrong journal.

I've made a "Words and Workouts" pact with justira. Our goals are low, but meaningful: 1500 words per week; 3 workouts per week. We will have lovely charts to share. I mean to stick to this - both of them. Here are some thoughts...

• So, I am in fact wordsing again. The shameful part is that it's Harry Potter fic. HP is like my shame comfort fandom - when I am ill, I browse AO3 and look for fics with high kudos and pairings that I like, no fucking regrets. I was ill for like 93% of last week which meant I read a lot of trash. I am now writing HP trash. I don't even give a fuck. It's words and I will have fun, even if HP fandom is beyond the grave.
• If I can get moving again with the writing, I want to work on original stuff this year, but I also want to get back to dabbling in fandom - prompt memes and the like. I miss the sense of connection that comes with fannish writing. Hang me.
• Right now my workout goals are more about consistency than actual workouts. I want to focus on swimming first - that's my best and favorite sport, and why not do a workout that I actually enjoy? After that, I'd like to go back to yoga, then running and biking. Of course there's weightlifting and punching the bag in there too - I'll make a plan once I've shown that I can stick to 3x/wk for more than, say, one wk.

My other lofty goals for 2016 include:

• Start fucking going to bed on time. I want to get up earlier in the mornings but (a) I am so lazy and (b) I tend to sulk about my life late at night and stay up until, say, 01:00 in a snit of because I can which doesn't work so well when you want to get up at 06:00. If I could get my arse in bed between 22:00-23:00 I could get up earlier and either get to work earlier (to leave earlier) or have some time in the morning just for me. Either one sounds better than the usual snooze-button-festival party-of-one I have going on in my bed for an hour and a half every goddamn morning. That's such a waste of time.
• Half hour of chores every night. This is hard to keep up with because of fibro - some days I come home and crawl into bed and get up 4 hours later to eat a pop tart before returning to blankets. However, this leads to having to spend all of a weekend day catching up on chores that have slipped (dishes, laundry, mail/bills) which is equally exhausting. 30mins is reasonable on all but the worst evenings and should allow me to have more relaxing time on weekends, which is good for fibro.
• Learn to chill about work. I will never not be platonically married to this place or this job, but getting stressed leads to high interaction costs leads to overstimulation leads to me being too exhausted to fucking blink. I'm already working to set this year up as an improvement - more support, more help, less projects overall - so I need to keep to that course.
• Empty my life. I have too much going on, and too many things taking up space (physical and mental). It's time to clean it out.

More specific goals will have to wait until I have brains to deal with them.

I've struggled a lot with working out / staying fit / being healthy in 2012. My biggest problem has been consistency.

On the short term, my mindset looks like this:

• [Sunday] I'm going to be so healthy this week and work out all the time! I go to the gym. I go to the grocery store and buy awesome high-protein breakfast and lunch ingredients, and awesome fresh simple high-protein dinners, and do a lot of cooking.
• [Monday, Tuesday] Still kind of motivated! Hit the gym! cook more.
• [Wednesday, Thursday] I'm getting burnt out and exhausted from my stupid exhausting job!! I don't have the energy to go to the gym today. I'll eat these leftovers. Maybe have some wine. Sit on my ass. Today sucked though.
• [Friday, Saturday] I'm still exhausted! And I deserve a weekend break from life! I'm not going to the freaking gym, these are my days off!
• [Sunday] I'M STILL A CHUBSTER? HOW DO DIET. WHAT ARE RUNNING. Okay. Fine. I'm going to be so healthy this week...

*REPEAT FOR MONTHS*

On the long term, I've been set back by arthritic busted toes, my trusty neck/shoulder knot, a lingering bad ankle, a travel schedule that just won't quit, and the overall underlying sense of exhaustion, fatigue, and hopelessness that you find at the bottom of the barrel of fucks.

Neither of these situations are good for consistency. If I can't get momentum up over a week, I'll never keep it going long-term; if I can't stay healthy and motivated, what's the point of even doing a week.

I can't build up a decent running base because of this -- every time I get up to even 8, 10 miles a week, something happens - either exhaustion, injury, business, or busy-ness - and I'll go a week without running at all. And you can't do any kind of weight training program without a consistent schedule and a consistent base. I'll up my squat load 10lb, but then I won't make it back to the gym for 8 days to do more squats, so I'll stall and gain nothing except pain and more exhaustion.

( Workout weekends )

Not that anyone but me cares about this lololol. But hey. If I spent as much time actually working out as I did reading about fitness and training plans, I'd be an award-winning marathon runner and a certified yoga instructor whooooooooooooooooooooops

I have been so busy I hadn't really realized just how much I would fucking hate the new Google Reader, the fact that I can no longer share posts, and everything balls that they did with the interface.

Screw you.