Week 6: Challenging Situations

This past week, I went to the gym twice for 60 minutes each day. I did about an hour of walking on Saturday, too. Missed my goal by 1 day.

As far as food goes, my boyfriend and I got 20 piece chicken mcnuggets from McDonald's at 11 PM on Sunday night... not a good choice, but eating McDonald's is a habit that I just can't seem to kick. I also hate the fact that I live really close to Jack In the Box. It makes me crave curly fries and other fried items. But after I eat them, I end up feeling sick from all the oil & greasiness. Eating healthier is definitely more of a challenge for me than getting to the gym.

On the other hand, I got lots of good food from Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, and Ralph's including California mandarins, grapefruit, asparagus, carrots, and multigrain cereal.

It was challenging to achieve my goals this past week because of my schedule. I had a lot of work to do for my classes and residency site (especially from Sunday to Wednesday). So that distracted me from working out and mentally drained me. If I feel like I have a lot of schoolwork to do, it stresses me out and I can't seem to get it off my mind.

I was able to get to the gym on the days I had less work (Thursday and Friday). I usually get some exercise in on Saturday, especially if my boyfriend feels like doing something active (hike, gym, "the stairs" @ Santa Monica).

But my sister came to visit me this Saturday and Sunday, and she is not big on exercising or eating healthy. We did a lot of (unhealthy) eating and hanging out. Its always challenging when family/friends visit because you want to spend as much time with them as possible and then working out/eating healthy kind of takes the backseat.

This is a "Loco Moco" that my sister made for breakfast. It is a popular dish in Hawaii, and is usually served with a hamburger patty (this one is made with a corned-beef hash patty... yes, we like unusual things like that and Spam in Hawaii), eggs, rice, and lots of brown gravy. It is very unhealthy and I don't eat it often, but it helps me understand how culture can be a major influence on eating and physical activity habits. After eating this big and heavy meal, we planted ourselves on the couch for about 2 hours before getting ready to go out.

Week 5: Barriers

First an update... I went to the gym 3 days this past week for 60 minutes each day, and I also walked/jogged my dogs around Santa Monica for 45 minutes 1 day this week. I almost reached my goal! Just missed it by 15 minutes! I still need to work on eating healthier and will attempt to make a positive post about that next week.

Three barriers I face when trying to successfully enact my health behavior changes are 1) time, 2) energy levels, and 3) distractions.

Time is an issue because of school responsibilities. I have 2 graduate classes per week. Each class meets once a week and are each about 3 hours long. Of course, they also require time outside of class to be spent on assignments (article/book readings, writing a business plan, other projects, etc). I also have a residency as part of my OTD program, which is ~20 hrs/week. I work on my OTD project/portfolio during the week, too. All of this leaves me with limited time for non-school activities and leisure activities. Chores and caring for my pets take up a nice chunk of non-school time. While I usually don't cook from scratch, I try choose easy-to-prepare foods (love Trader Joe's) that are a bit healthier than frozen dinners and/or fast food. This saves me some time on cooking, without sacrificing too much health-wise (although, I do have a weakness for Cup'O'Noodles and the like). After all my responsibilities are taken care of, I like to spend the rest of my free-time engaging in more relaxing, restful, and/or fun activities (reading, watching TV, shopping, hanging out with friends). Even though working out has such positive benefits and can be fun, it has not been on my free-time priority list.

Poor energy levels have a lot to do with the above time issue. Right now, when I get done with school for the day, I am unmotivated to exercise or be conscious of preparing a healthy meal. Because so much of my day is spent thinking (mental exertion) and requires some physical exertion (taking public transportation, walking around the hospital, etc), I usually come home exhausted and feel like taking an afternoon/early evening nap. It is a real challenge to stay up and not nap because napping would just ruin my sleep schedule. I have a hard time getting to bed early, but try to get to bed by midnight. I usually never feel refreshed when I wake up before 10 am. I also think my poor eating habits contribute to my poor energy levels. If I eat less sugar and more whole grains, I should have more stable energy levels throughout the day. I also notice that when I eat a late lunch, I tend to eat more and end up getting extra sleepy in the afternoons. I should try eating my biggest meal at breakfast and eat lunch more towards the middle of my day, when possible. Energy levels also contribute to why I tend to choose more relaxing and restful activities during my free-time. Coming from my occupational therapy perspective, I feel that because I spend so much of my day in work/school and self-care (cooking, cleaning, etc) activities, I need these rest/restorative activities for balance and health. What I need to realize is that exercise and eating healthy can be restorative activities that make me feel better and give me more energy! I think this association will come with time and increased, routine engagement in these activities.

Distractions come in many forms. Fatigue and my preference for restful/relaxing activities can be considered a distraction. If my favorite TV show is on (Vampire Diaries, hehe), I feel less strongly about working out. If I am stressing out about school work that needs to be done or an apartment that needs to be cleaned, I am really less likely to get to the gym. Friends and family can also be distracting. If they want to go out to dinner or to a bar/club, I would choose that social interaction over exercise and am more prone to make unhealthier food choices. Distractions aren't considered bad events, but rather, I feel like I should learn how to manage my time and my energy levels so that I can engage in these "distractions" while still making room for exercise and healthy foods.

update

I am in the process of getting ready to go to the gym! Finally! My current motivation: fitting into this dress on Valentine's Day...

--edit--

For some reason, I couldn't find my running shoes... I forgot where I put them... that shows how long its been since I actually used them. But I put on another pair of athletic shoes and walked my butt to the gym. I spent 60 minutes in moderate physical activity... it kicked my butt, but I feel so good now! Working out makes me want to eat healthier, too. I always come home craving a salad.

Week 4: Inspiration

I still have not gotten my butt to the gym, but I spent over an hour walking around the Barney's Warehouse Sale... so I guess that could count for 1 out of 4 days of exercise :) I also walked around Santa Monica for at least an hour on Saturday, so that could be day 2 of exercise.

I had a hard time identifying someone who inspires my goal to stay physically active and eat healthy. I think I would say that all older adults (60+) who remain active inspire me.

My mom is pretty active and healthy for being over 60... she takes the bus everywhere, she walks to different markets in Chinatown to shop for vegetables, she carries her groceries while taking public transportation, she will go to the grocery store to fill up 2 gallons of water and also carries this while taking public transportation. It seems like at her age she would ask for more help and rides from family, but she doesn't. She is always willing to get up and go. There is a never a day when she just sits at home and relaxes... she is always up to something, whether its sweeping the floor (yes, with a broom... she refuses to vacuum) or washing clothes (she also loves to hand wash clothes).

My mom is just one example of an active older adult. I have seen many others, even older than my mom, taking the bus and carrying groceries on their own. This amazes me because I've seen young college kids, who are in perfect health, refuse to go to the grocery store without a ride. Occasionally, I complain about taking public transportation, cleaning, doing laundry, carrying groceries, then I start to feel guilty when I see these much older people do it all on their own. This makes me want to get moving and start eating healthy now, so that when I get older, I have a better chance of being as active and healthy as these people!

Week 3: Support

As of today, I still have not been to the gym or specifically designated a time for working out. One thing I can say is that I love shopping and I spent over an hour walking around Melrose on Saturday. I could stand and walk while shopping for hours :) That gives me at least some physical activity.

I also take public transportation to and from school and my residency site. There is quite a bit of walking involved in that... and there are some stairs and slopes I come across during these walks to the Metro. So I don't feel completely inactive, but I do feel that I could still improve in this area.

It is hard to measure the consistency and intensity of the physical activity I participate in when it is spread out and woven into my daily activities. Once I get into the routine of going to the gym, I actually enjoy the structure and noticeable consistency of it.

As far as the second part of my goal, I haven't really been eating healthy. I went to Big Man Bakes on Saturday and ate a handful of mini cupcakes. Very yummy, but that probably negated all the walking I did.

My boyfriend attempts to be supportive of me as I try to change my health behaviors. He used to work out everyday and eat healthy (before he met me, haha) so it is something that he can relate to :) For a few months now, he has started working out about 4 or 5 times a week.

Before I went home for winter break, we would work out at the same time. I say at the same time and not together because he would go for a run outside while I headed straight for our apartment building's gym. I hate running, so I would never join him. But after his run was done, he would meet up with me in the gym and we would finish our workout.

This was a really nice arrangement because even though we weren't heading to the same place at first, we would leave the apartment together and come back together. When I lived on campus during undergrad, I would also go to the gym with friends from my building and this made it a lot easier to get up and go. If you're just waiting on yourself to go, there are a lot of excuses or things that can come up and distract you. But if you've made plans with someone else to go, then you're kind of held accountable and a specific time period is usually designated.

Well, I went home during winter break for 2 weeks and broke my gym routine. While I was gone, my boyfriend moved his workouts to Santa Monica (where he is originally from) and he likes running there a lot better than in Downtown LA... for many different reasons. When he doesn't feel like running, he also has the option of doing "the stairs" at Santa Monica... but he doesn't have that option in Downtown LA.

Since he usually goes straight to Santa Monica after work, I don't have anyone at home convincing me to exercise anymore. This makes it a lot harder to get it back into my routine... My boyfriend tries to verbally remind me to work out, but that doesn't really seem to be helping. It gets the idea into my head more, but hasn't pushed me to actually go to the gym.

This makes me think that verbal moral support isn't always as helpful as someone being there with you. As an occupational therapist, I do a lot of "doing with" clients and I definitely see how at first they may need your physical presence to feel comfortable doing something. Its funny to see this in myself... especially when I don't consider myself to be facing any major barriers.

My boyfriend definitely tries to have me eat healthier (more fruits and vegetables, brown rice vs. white rice, etc.) and since he does a lot of grocery shopping for us, his support there has been fairly successful. One thing he does not have much say in or influence over is my personal preferences. I love sweets, chocolate, and red meat. These are also the things I need to cut back on.

Having support is very helpful and makes these health behavior changes so much easier. But support also can only go so far. Ultimately, I must want to change and need to maintain these changes independently. If I really didn't want to change, I don't think anyone could make me.