Making Time & Trade-Offs (reflection 10)

As I work on my 3rd sprint, I need to make adjustments and new experiments. Some intended to breaking my pattern in the past 2 sprints.

These more or less covers my non-negotiables for the next sprint.

Identify Priorities

• Read the Bible especially when fasting.
• Explore having "juice-only" meals. These are homemade juices that fruit and vegetables in it.
• Sleep more.
• Reduce rice intake to one meal or none daily.

Identify new habits:

• Drink black coffee or tea to aid in digestion and fasting process. This will replace my 3-in-1 and chocolate drinks.
• Maintain an exercise-at-home routine.
• Drinking more water. I need to increase my intake to at least 4 glasses a day.
• Sleep more to replace TV series watching.

Habits that served me well in the past that led to weight loss are:

• Fasting
• Eating more vegetables to replace rice.
• Exercise
• Drinking black coffee

Habits that were challenging for me are:

• Occasional evening snacks
• Meal size - when I tend to eat more at times.

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Forming my Tribe: "Self-Leadership: Towards Better Health" (reflection 9)

I am currently in the process of improving myself. Thank you for joining me in this series. 

My next step in this journey is to form a community who can support me in this process and I could give the same as well. 

So far, I have informed my family members and peers familiar with this process on what I am doing. 

To take it a higher notch, I decided to also form an FB group (Self-Leadership: Towards Better Health) where those who would like to go through the same process can join and where I can provide moral support.

I hope we can inspire and grow together at the same time. 

In this series, I am also sharing my heart, plans for myself, what I want to accomplish. 

I hope you will also do the same. Let us encourage each other.  

Are you willing to go down this path with me? Let us grow in this area. 

Let go of those that don't serve us well. 

Don't rush. Think through your answers. Talk to people who care for you in order to help you process your emotions and concerns as well.

Establishing a Routine & Rewards (reflection 8)

Getting into a healthy lifestyle can be a challenge if you are not able to stick to your routine. One reason for that is the various changes we go through with our lives.

But getting yourself back into the program requires momentum. I had to start monitoring my progress, daily if possible, and observe where I was good and where I had slacked off.

The more I do this, routines are established and improved. Here are some examples:

1. At Home Exercises - jumping jacks, squats, push-ups, lunges, sit-up, legs, and tummy exercises are usually done in the morning. At times, spread throughout the day.
2. Morning fast - whenever possible.
3. Replacing rice with vegetables like pechay and similar types.
4. Limit beverage drinking from 1 to 2 cups per day (coffee and the likes)
5. Weigh-in regularly.
6. Monitor water intake.

I also had to think about ways of replacing usual activities with new ones. For example, when I am tempted to take a beverage, I can drink water and catch up with work or do standing push-ups.

I am excited with this process as I know that if I will succeed in this, I can share it to others who want to continuously improve their habits on a long term basis.

I embraced this with the mindset that I should not take any form of weight loss supplements. I should be able to do the exercises from home. I want to do this by eating less, move more, and sleep well.

The idea of rewarding myself is something new for achieving my habit formation routine. I want to incentivize myself for successfully establishing habits including:

1. Complete a 4-cycle (2-weeks sprint each) with proper monitoring and updating. 
2. A parameter performed regularly with discipline over time - becoming a habit. 

Rewards can be in the form of something I will get for myself or give to others. I will decide on when the time comes based on practicality.

You might wonder why I did not include a target weight. I actually wanted to but in reality, that number may likely move for one reason or another. I want to establish my own mantra. 

Improve your food and physical activity habits for the better. The weight will follow.

Intentional Improvement Monitoring in 2-Weeks Sprint (reflection 7)

Improving one's health and losing weight, I realized, needs to be a long term objective and has to be monitored consistently from my end - until it becomes a natural habit.

I am strong in recognizing my strengths and weakness in this area. I have set-up monitoring, 2-weeks sprint, to see what I have done effectively and when do I lose momentum.

I started monitoring things on a 2 weeks sprint last May 22.

It is tempting to put too many parameters to monitor. I decided to focus on 5-areas that are tightly related to one another.

My goal is to form new habits and behavioral change (using techniques learned in the various coaching programs I ventured into).

I began working on my nutrition plan as well by adjusting my meal based on what is available around me. This includes replacing or reducing rice consumption by eating uncooked vegetable (Korean style). After more than two weeks, I think I finally figure out what I need to do to start scoring on my "eat moderately" goal.

I have committed not to use any special supplement as what I am after is a long term practical solution.

My first 2-weeks sprint review exposed me to where I fall-off and how challenging it can be to bounce back. I decided to add a new parameter to monitor and see if it will work o neutralize the challenge.

I also accept the fact that I may need to do this for the rest of my days if I don't want to slide back to my old habits.

I will gradually add more items in my sprint tracking worksheet and remove others eventually as time goes by. Focusing on areas where I have not been able to discipline myself on.

Punishment or Adding Value: What emotions do the words "lose weight", "diet", "exercise" stir? (reflection 6)

When I think about lose weight, diet, exercise, these are the emotions that I feel:

• Pressure
  The need to measure up to certain standards.
• Guilt
  For indulging and neglecting myself.
• Shame
  For not being as cool as my previous body shape was.
• Sacrifice
  As exercising and dieting mean letting go of indulgence and the laziness just to focus on what you want to do now.

But definitely, I view exercise and diet as adding value because it can lead to better health if done correctly. There are many testimonies and learning materials pointing to such evidence.

I came up with a system of monitoring my progress and hope to share that soon in this blog.