This is probably not going to become a thing. I tried doing weekly updates once before, but they got redundant and annoying and blah. To me, anyway. No one else ever said as much.

But right now, I’m in a really good place mentally, and it’s a huge turn for me, and so I wanted to talk about where I’m at before the Monthly Monster drags me down into the bottomless pit of despair like it always does. I can already feel it tugging at the edges of my mind, trying to make me question myself, so I gotta make this fast!

Of the last 10 days, I’ve missed 4 days of exercise. All of them intentional.

I refuse to apologize for the first three because it was the last Friday of 2016, New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s Day. My excuse is boooooooooooooooze. Plus, I wasn’t really planning on hitting it hard until the new year, anyway. New year, new start, and all that jazz.

I know a lot of people have been bashing the fuck out of the “new year, new start” crowd, lately, but I don’t give a fuck. It’s becoming a really helpful coping mechanism for me, especially in light of 2016 being such a Shit year. I’ve made some bad decisions. I’ve done some fucked up shit. I don’t even know who all I hurt/owe apologies to.

But that was the old me. That was 2016 me. 2017 me will be better.

I’m still at 15 minutes on the elliptical being the maximum I can take. But the fucked up thing is it’s because of my feet. I wasn’t expecting the Foot Cramps to be this bad. I mean, I knew I’d get them. I get them every time I start doing the elliptical again after a prolonged period of not using it. This time, though, they’re pretty intense. And I’m actually wearing the correct footwear for once, so that makes it even more bizarre (in my mind).

Though I suppose it could have a lot to do with the fact that I spend most of my time barefoot. As some hippy once told me while explaining the process of switching to barefoot-style shoes, when you spend most of your time barefoot, your feet have to acclimate to shoes, and vice versa.

If the foot cramps get better, I’ll probably be able to up it to 20 minutes by the end of next week. If not, I’ve decided not to beat myself up too much if I don’t manage to get back to 30 minutes this month.

You can only do what you can do, ya know? If I’m doing my best (which I am), and I don’t make it, it doesn’t mean I’ve failed. It means I set an unrealistic goal.

But I’m already feeling the benefits of exercising regularly. My joints and spine aren’t as tight, and my arms and legs feel stronger. I’m already walking straighter, and feeling more steady on my feet. Anyone who says exercise doesn’t help with those things is lying.

One of my yearly goals is to eat better. I made it a yearly goal because I don’t want to kid myself into thinking I can suddenly stop being an emotional/compulsive eater in a month. That’s just setting myself up for failure.

I’m taking a giant L for that this week, though. I haven’t been doing much meal planning, so my shopping has been pretty aimless. What do we need? What do we want? No real worry about whether or not those things match up so we have actual meals. Plus, I ate a ton of garbage yesterday and the day before, and had a few beers yesterday, and I’m not even sorry for it. It was so worth it.

I’m experimenting with our diet. Most of the time, as long as dinner’s got Meat, M doesn’t care what else is in it. There are exceptions, of course, like when he makes vegetable curry, and when I make eggplant parm. I’d like to find some other plant based recipes that we both like because I would rather not eat most meat. While some of it is because of how raising animals for meat affects the environment, and the way we treat animals bred for our food, it’s also partly because I just don’t really like most meat. And while I know I’ll never convince him to go off meat completely, he’s okay with the idea of finding new plant based recipes. (Suggestions welcome!)

Breakfast and lunch are often (bad) carb (as opposed to good carbs) loads, so I’m trying to figure out how to curb that a little bit without M feeling like he’s eating super duper healthy all the time. Neither of us wants to completely do away with our comfort foods, but reducing them is obviously a must if we want to be healthier. Yesterday, our cart was half full of brightly colored natural foods, and that made me really happy.

I’m not as far along as I wanted to be on my site goals.

I have to keep reminding myself that it’s only the first week of January so I don’t get down on myself and scrap the whole thing. I’m really good at getting down on myself and scrapping the whole thing.

Hope you’re having a spectacular Friday. Do something fun this weekend!

P.S.!

If you made it this far, I wanted to let you know that if you’re using AdBlock on my site, you’re missing some great sex toy sales. Except around the holidays, I don’t generally do sale posts because…well, frankly, I hate them. I hate making them. I hate reading them. I hate when they’re shared 1000 times on each of a person’s social media timelines. They’re just annoying. (But rest assured, I understand the point, and I don’t hold them against the people who make a living with them. Do you, boo!)

I do, however, put banners for sales in my sidebar. So if you’d turn off AdBlock, you’ll be doing both of us a huge favor. And in return, I promise to never put video ads in my sidebar (because they annoy the shit out of me), and to do my best to avoid flashy graphics that slow down load time (because they also annoy the shit out of me). Thanks!