2019 Goals: mid year update

1. Weight Management

I’m scoring this as Mixed. After I was disappointed with my weight gain over the holiday hold ‘em competition at my gym, I decided to try an on-line coaching program recommended by one of the coaches. I like the approach, you follow foods in categories, vegetables don’t “count” (think zero weight watchers points) you eat fewer carbs on your rest days, and you don’t track any calories, which I though was odd, but the coach was very strict about this. I had to weigh in twice a week and they coach would make adjustments to my template. The first issue that I had was that I would do all my meal prep on Sunday and he would tell me to make changes after my weigh in on Monday. Not only do I not have time to re-do my prep, I can’t afford to waste foods. While I did get some helpful tips, and I feel I pay more attention to pre work out fuel and post workout recovery, I didn’t find the coach was that helpful (Definitely not worth the cost, which was really disappointing) I also started gaining weight, which was really frustrating and after my compliance was being questioned, I kept ‘accidentally’ forgetting to weigh myself because I just didn’t want to see the number.

Frustrated, I did a body fat analysis in April and learned that in six months I had gained six pounds of muscle and one and a half pounds of fat. Well, I was pleased with the muscle gains, especially as the previous fat test guy told me that it’s hard for women to gain muscle in general, especially he whispered in a hushed tone when you’re of a certain age. I so wanted to tell him “Dude, I know I’m old. There’s no need to whisper about it” Anyway, I had hit a PR for my lean mass, but what about the fat gain? “Oh,” the guy said casually “You won’t gain that much muscle without gaining some amount of fat.” SAY WHAT. You won’t gain that much much without gaining some fat. It’s almost impossible he repeated for me. SO WHAT IS THE FUCKING POINT?  I screamed inside my head, but came close to saying it out loud.

I recently met up with my original nutrition coach from my gym who confirmed the same thing the body fat test guy said, although he used a bunch of big words and technical terms such as amino acids, so he sounded totally legit. He thought it was an impressive gain of muscle with a relatively minimal gain of fat, which was comforting to hear coming from someone with his experience, but my body fat percentage is the same it was in October. I’ve spent over six plus months, going nowhere… He slowed my some old photos to show that my physique looks the same despite being heavier. My clothes fit the same. Yet, I hate the optics. I hate the fact that if I go to my doctor for a physical, I’ll be ten pounds heavier and she’ll think “Oh, wow. Jane has really let herself go.” When actually I’m working out more and eating better. Ugh, I still haven’t figured it out. Let see where we are at the end of the year.

*update: If you can permit me to be really catty for a minute. While I was disappointed in myself for not being where I wanted to be when I had my Girls Weekend with Myrtle and our mutual friend, I did feel a bit better about where I am after seeing Myrtle, who is rather frumpy. Additionally, Myrtle wore a denim jacket with every single out outfit during our trip (there were a total of five different outfits that involved three different denim jackets) Insert joke about the 80s calling and wanting their look back. I know, meow!

2. Cross-Fit
I’ve modernized from my sticker card. Our gym participates in an app that tracks all your workouts and activity. So far I’ve had 147 work out days and only 47 rest days this year. I’ve been squeezing in some Friday morning classes and I dropped in a four different CrossFit gyms to keep active while I’ve been away from home. Overall, I was pleased with how I did in this year’s CrossFit Open. I did better than expected in some areas, and my glaring weaknesses were once again revealed. I did place 9th overall for females in our gym (out of 39) and I was 3,834th (of 17,762) in the world for my age group

Targets for 2019
Hand stand push-ups *This was bumped for improving my Double Unders
Rope Climbs*I finally learned the technique and can do them, but don’t do often as they tear up your shins
CrossFit Open plus 1-2 more Competitions *done and scheduled to compete next week
Working more on lifting technique *I’m overcoming my insecurities and I have been videoing myself to improve technique

3. Sending cards for birthdays
Mixed. I forgot some this week.  Including Isabelle

4. Work
Mixed Success. There was a difficult situation involving my colleagues at the end of last year and things got really ugly. We’ve made some resolutions to move forward, but I’ve come to accept that things will never be back to the way there were. I can’t remove some of the things that were said from my mind and I can’t get past they way some people were treated by certain people. Many true colors were exposed and you can’t just cover it up. Some friends and family members were asking if I were considering looking for a new job. It didn’t yet come to that. I want to stand my ground as I’ve spent the past ten years establishing myself where I am. Logistically, it’s an easy commute and close to Kate’s school. Realistically, if I went anywhere else, I’d have a brief honeymoon period, the discover it’s the same shit; different venue.

I also came to terms with the fact that as I am of a certain age (43) I don’t need to be friends with any of my colleagues. I don’t have anything else in common outside of work. Having a job with an easy commute allows me to pursue my other passions (swimming, CrossFit) where I see people I actually enjoy. I go in, do my work and go home leaving my work at work. There’s my success: the subtle art of not giving a fuck.


5. Send my In-laws photos on a monthly basis
Total Fail. Husband set up a chat with his parents on WhatsApp. I sent them videos from Kate’s school concert. My FIL replied a month later “Hello Jane. Sorry I am a bit late thanking you for the pictures of Kate scool consrrt. [new message] there I have made a mess of sending you this message. Sod it part2” I’m thinking WhatsApp might be a little too much for them to handle

6. Run some 5K races with Kate
Kate “ran” a 5K with my parents on New Year’s Day while Husband and I ran the 10K. My Dad was a little miffed about placing last in his age group and he any my mom were delayed by Kate’s potty stop. I informed him that the guy who won his (70-75) age group would beat my 5K time. I did a 10K in February, but we’ve been away or busy during other runs. I’ll do one in August, but then probably not until Thanksgiving

7. More FaceTime with Husband
Getting better, but still need to work on this. We made our Valentine’s Day baby sitter night a double date with some friends, which was super fun, but defeated the purpose of us connecting more. My parents let us have a date night while we were in Myrtle Beach, but we were distracted playing BINGO. We’ve been doing more projects on our back (and front) yards, which has forced us to sit down together to discuss plans and even make trips to look at plants.

8. Swim Times
One of my goals was to avoid any long and unnecessary breaks, but our pool was closed until Mid February and then when it was re-opened, there were still issues with the water’s chemical balance, so we had to practice in the 2.5 feet shallow kiddie pool with 6-7 people per lane. So my training took a hit and I didn’t get any PRs, but I did swim a full program on 7 individual events and 5 relays in the SCY Championships. Oh, and I’ve only swam once in the past two weeks, so yeah, need to work on that avoiding long and unnecessary breaks.

9. Parenting
As I detailed in Kate’s Four Year Old update, we are realizing that we are in trouble. One of my biggest criticisms of my cousins is that they tuned a blind eye to the warning signs that their children were struggling. My second criticism is that the ignored the advice and suggestions they received from my aunt (a pediatric nurse) and older cousin (a speech and language pathologist). So we have been resolute that we will not be the proverbial ostrich with its head buried in the sand and we will listen to any helpful suggestions. I was a little offended when our friend of the gym gave us a copy of The Difficult Child as Kate was behaving well at the time and I had considered her to be a relatively easy child, but as I try to teach her; you should always appreciate it when someone goes out of their way to do something nice for you. Secondly, I recognized that just because I didn’t need the book now, it didn’t mean I wouldn’t need it in the future.

Some of the suggestions I’m going to try to put into place include having calm, planned discussions about the expectations for her behavior prior to the actual event. We’re going to get a battery operated digital clock especially for her to help with transition times, such as time to leave for school and bath and bed times. We’ll introduce some rewards for exemplary actions, such as getting dressed for school without being prompted to do so. I’m also going to set up her own snack box in the fridge so she can feel herself and hopefully will have less hunger related meltdowns. We’ll see how all this goes. Hopefully by the end of the year, I won’t fear that my child is heading down the path toward becoming a juvenile delinquent.

10. Miscellaneous
Last Christmas, I asked for some gift cards to a local framing shops so I can finally display our pictures from Hawaii and update photos in out bathroom that we have been looking at for the last ten years. I went as far as ordering the photos, now I have to get in gear to get the mats and frames and then the next challenge is actually hanging them on the wall. I hoping that by writing this task as one of my goals, it will actually get done.

Finish the bluestone and plant one planter box in our back yard. We did a bit of a renovation in our backyard last year. After getting new siding and windows for the house, we ripped out of old deck, installed a newer smaller one, created a patio area with pavers and put in fake grass. We started putting blue stone around the house, but discovered that we (read:Husband) did the math wrong and miscalculated how much stone will needed and we ended up being short and ran out of time to finish last year. Husband also discovered there were roots within our new planter box that needed to be dug up and has spent many weekends digging roots and then complaining about how sore he is after he digs. The back garden is still on a bit of a delay as we’ve received three letters from our HOA about the unsightly front garden, but we’re ordered the stone (although not set a date for delivery) and we’ve started looking a plants for the planter box. Again, I’m hoping that by writing this goal in here; it will get done.