Month: August 2017

This has been a rough but interesting week. I’m enjoying the meals I’m eating and man does every dollar go a long way, I still haven’t even cooked with all the food I got for last week. Now you might be asking, how can that be rough, that sounds great? My pallet misses the delicious taste of animals. I caught myself just watching one of my favorite YouTube channels, Binging With Babish, and watching him make delicious burgers, steaks, wings, ribs and so forth.

While I do miss some fantastic food while trying a vegetarian diet, one habit that has gotten much better over the past week has been my breakfast. Previously, I’d grab a Clif bar and hop on my bike. This past week, however, I’m eating a good hearty bowl of oatmeal. Unfortunately, right now the only thing I’m adding to it is some brown sugar and cinnamon, but only because I couldn’t find reasonably priced dried fruit at the store.

I’m curious to see the impact abstaining from meat for a few more weeks will have. I hope this desire for food from a standard diet doesn’t make it seem that the food is gross by any means. I’ve made two soups this past week that were amazing.  I also made this chickpea curry dish served over rice that was really good. All in all, I’m enjoying the new dishes that I’m making. There are just some times that I really wish there was even just a small serving of some chicken or pork or something to compliment the dish as is. In the end, whether I add this to my life beyond this test run or not, I’ll have some different recipe ideas, cooking techniques and grocery budgeting strategies for the long run.

Eight weeks have passed since I started writing this blog. Some days the posts have essentially written themselves, other days it takes some effort. Today is somewhere in between. I feel I have a bit to write about to wrap up trying out a daily journal, but at the same time, there isn’t too much to say. Compared to my final post on my biking habits, which had math break downs and multi sectioned benefits, the trial of the past four weeks has been difficult to measure.

In general, I really enjoy keeping the journal, and I think the method I used the past week has been my favorite. Having a dedicated five minutes of writing really allows me to pour my mind onto the page. As for the benefits of doing a journal at all, sleep is the number one on that list for me. In the past twenty-eight days, I can think of two instances in which I was having a tough time falling asleep, and both of those two involved dogs being obnoxious. Perhaps, going forward I’ll cut out the morning journal, as I’m not sure I’m getting too much of a benefit in the morning. Will need to provide an update if I do so.

As I said there isn’t too much to update you with on this trial, so I’ll get on with what I’m planning for the next few weeks. I plan on trying a diet plan my brother shared with me he thought about giving a try. I’ll have to get a hold of him, maybe we can both try it out at the same time…You can read about it here: http://plantbasedonabudget.com/plant-based-on-a-budget-challenge-1-person-week-1/

Hope your summer has been well, and those of you who’ve returned to school enjoy it! As always, thanks for reading.

Another week down and that means it’s time to give you an update on how things are going. I’ve been journaling each day for the past three weeks, but if I want to continue this long term I really need to get a better schedule down for myself.

I’ve been struggling, especially the past few days to wake up on time to get to work as early as I’d like, or on time at all. Adding to the fire that is my terrible sleep habits of late, has been going to bed late. Because of these two things, I haven’t been able to really get the full benefit from journaling. I’ve just been writing as a chore. I haven’t been treating it as a way to focus in the morning or to wind down at night. All in all, it’s the self-awareness I’m writing here that I hope to strive to be better about my habits in the next week.

I’ve been pretty bad with my other habits as well, I’ve only committed to my daily reading goal once in the past five days.  I plan on trying to better schedule my evenings to have time for things like playing games, watching videos or movies, and spending time with other people, but I still want to give myself the time to effectively accomplish standards I set for myself.

A large problem I’ve had in the past has been commitment. Many of my close friends have known me to gain interest in something, to just as quickly lose that interest. A big part of me starting this blog was because of that problem with commitment. To give something at least a few weeks to settle in, then decide to drop it or not. To make my decision to stop something feel more like an actual decision and not simply distraction by the next big thing.

I know this post has been a bit different in that I’ve hardly discussed the current trial, but the commitment to doing more than a “chore” is something I need to remind myself of here. I have enjoyed journaling thus far, but the past few days I really haven’t given it enough thought to have much to say.For the next week, I will be trying out one last journal technique. Next, I will take parts of each and create a journal of my own.

For the next week, I will be trying out one last journal technique. Next, I will take parts of each I’ve done thus far and create a journal of my own. For both the morning and evening, I will set a timer for five minutes, and for that five minutes, I need to be focused on the journal, nothing else. I can write more if needed, but ten minutes a day seems reasonable, and of course, the amount time can be experimented with. In the morning, I plan on setting a daily goal or focus, something at least partially unique to the day ahead of me. From there I will spend the rest of my time writing whatever is on my mind. Maybe it’s something I’ve been stressed about for the past few days, something coming up later that day, or maybe the weird dream I just had and want to remember. At night, I want to write something that happened that day I am thankful for. Whether it is something I had done or wasn’t even involved in, just something that made the day better. Then, I want to write down one thing I could have done to make the day better than it was. For the remaining time, as with the morning, I would simply write whatever was on my mind and keep writing, either until the timer went off or I ran out of things to write.

That’s all I have for this week. I need to hop off the computer now and get to reading before it gets too late. Let me know in the comments below what I should think about doing next!

As the week has gone on, doing a journal each morning and night has become nearly automatic. Trying out the five-minute journal has been nice. I really enjoy trying to think of things that I am grateful for and things that I think will make the day great right off the bat in the morning. Then, at night, reflecting on the day and thinking about what actually made the day awesome, and comparing it to my earlier “predictions.”

While I do enjoy the method I’m using, I sometimes struggle to just put something on paper. I’m the type of person to overthink things, and often I find myself digging too deep to try and fulfill the sections of the five-minute journal.But regardless of how long it may take me to jot down a few things from my head, I always get it done.

Ensuring I get my journal written each day took quite a bit of thought when I was starting, but with the help of a little app called Habits, things have gotten significantly easier. I am unsure for you Apple users, and does anyone even use Windows phone, are they still a thing? But the app I am using is on Android. There are a ton of habit building apps out there, but what I love about this app is that there’s no unnecessary fluff. When installing it, I saw something I don’t think I’ve ever seen before when trying out an app. On the screen listing any required permissions for the app, i.e. Contacts, Location, Files, etc., a message popped up that said, “This app requires no additional permissions.” I knew that I would enjoy it. As of right now, I use the app to notify me and track if I’ve written my journal and accomplished a daily reading goal I’ve decided to set for myself. The evening journal is also a good notification as a sort of nudge to get ready for bed.

Overall, I’m enjoying the idea of journaling each day. Helps just add some structure to the morning and night, as well as helps at least a bit with the spiral of madness that is one’s own thoughts. As mentioned before, I want to try different journaling methods, so tonight will be my last five-minute journal. For the next week, I will be trying out a combination of two methods. In the morning I will be writing morning pages, go figure. The idea behind morning pages is to simply write what comes to mind. My evening journal will be done in what I’ve found referred to as proprioceptive writing. The concept being, to simply let the pen follow your thoughts, not only following but also taking note of what runs thru the mind.

Hope your week is going well! I know mine has been!

This has been an interesting week. In the sense that it hasn’t really been all that interesting. I guess not all things will have as clear of an impact on my day to day as biking did in my last trial run. All in all, I feel that forcing myself to journal every morning and every night has really driven me to develop an actual routine other than roll in or out of bed and start or end my day.

For anyone unsure of what I might mean by a journal, it’s not so much a diary or long form reflection of the day or anything. As of right now, I start by jotting down how I’m feeling on a scale from one to ten, my mornings are more often than not on the lower part of the scale. From there I just sort of write what’s on my mind. For those more familiar with the idea, I’ve decided to not to follow a particular form of journaling.  I want to take this opportunity to try a few different styles of getting my mind on paper.

In terms of the impact that this has made, other than my routine building already mentioned, I think it’s helped me focus in the morning and wind down at night.

Every morning, I try to jot down a couple things I’d like to get done on that day in particular. More than “go to work” but any additional goals I need to get done that day. Whether it be something that feels more like a chore, getting groceries for example. Or something that is more general, like going to the library to grab some books I want to read. Just having written something down in the morning one, reminds me to do it, and two, makes me actively think about it. It probably would have been good for me to write that I needed to write this post this morning.

At night, I think just mentally spewing out all the junk running thru my mind helps to shut off my brain when I close my eyes to sleep. This was one of the biggest things that drew me to try this over other suggestions I had gotten. I’m sure I’m not alone when I get into bed close my eyes, then suddenly a slew of topics run thru my head from the mundane such as what will I have for dinner tomorrow to cosmic ideas like life, death, etc. In the past, there was nothing to do but try and force myself to stop thinking. To quote Jerry Smith from the hit series Rick and Morty, “Have you ever tried to relax. It’s a paradox!”

Overall, I’m really enjoying journaling. It’s not having the instant impact that my last trial, but I think in the grand scheme of things, this will pay off big time. For the next week, I’m going to try using the Five Minute Journal style, though I may still just jot down some loose thoughts down as they come. This style has you quickly jot down three things in a few categories in the morning and at night. The morning categories are things I am grateful for, things that will make today great, and a third section that is not so much a list, but a daily affirmation. The affirmation is a statement about myself that I want to drive into my mind. As for the evening, the categories are amazing things that happened that day and how could I have made the day even better. I think having this preparation and reflection period at the beginning and end of a day drives productivity and self-improvement, which are essentially the foundations of me starting this blog.

Let me know what you think in the comments below, or if you have any recommendations for a journaling style I can try out!