This year, I decided to try a different 30 day challenge each month. Of course I thought of this in mid-January, so I skipped January altogether. Here is how I did:
February - write a love note to Seth everyday for 30 days.
You would think that for someone who has been married for nearly 17 years, this would be easy! Nope. I started missing days within the first week. Sad, I know. By Valentine's Day, I missed about 5 days already. On Valentine's Day, I gave him a card and some chocolate, but that was it. The next 2 weeks....nothing. Part of it was the fact my thyroid started going crazy and I had no energy to think of what to write. If you have hypothyroidism, you understand. By the end of the month, we had sick kiddos, and I had little sleep, which just added to my tiredness. It's very difficult to think of something new to say to the same person for 30 days, especially when my brain is in thyroid fog. I was thinking that instead of writing a note to Seth everyday that next year, I'll write a note to someone. I'm hoping it won't be as difficult to think of something to say if the note is to someone new each day. We shall see.
March - follow one of those 30-day workout challenges.
March was a difficult month. I was fighting tiredness all month and could not stay awake to workout. I was able to squeeze it in a couple days, but I think that's all I was able to accomplish. I also joined a group on Facebook that challenged us to a low sugar, low carb diet. It allowed for one treat day, but other than that, I wasn't allowed to drink pop. I did better with the low sugar than any other challenge I did in March. Carbs are definitely a weakness. I had a couple of pops when I shouldn't have and by week 3, I basically threw the whole low sugar thing out the window. I had just been telling someone that 2 weeks is about the longest I can stick to something, and, well, March just proved that. So, the workout challenge was a complete bust. If I can get my thyroid levels and vitamin levels up and working properly, I might be able to do this next year.
April - play a new song on the piano everyday.
Let's just say that I kinda fell off the wagon at this point. I made it downstairs to the piano only once...and that may have been to practice a song I was playing for Easter while K sang. I was really struggling with my health at this point and was more focused on finding ways to help my thyroid perform better, including seeing an endocrinologist. I realized that spring is always going to be difficult for me. For months I've been waking up at 6:00 almost everyday in order to take kids to school. By the time spring break rolls around in March, I can barely make it through the day. I often return home from dropping off the kids and go right back to sleep on the couch. Then I don't wake up until 10:30, even though my alarm is set for 9:00. I have to listen to my body and not allow things to stress me out. My goal is to be dressed by the time I have to pick up the kids at 2:00. Sometimes, I reach that goal and sometimes I don't. So, anyway, we shall see if this is something I will be able to accomplish in years to come. April may just be my "relax and do nothing" month.
May - do something special for my kids each day.
I completely skipped this month. All I could do was get to the end of school. And when school was finally over, my parents and grandma came to visit, then I crashed. It wasn't until June that I started to pick myself up and start living again. I know spring will be extremely difficult every year. As much as I wanted to do this, I just did not have the energy to put in the effort. It should have been fairly easy and perhaps one of these years, I will do something for my kids this month.
June - drink a green smoothie everyday as a meal replacement.
I think this one is my favorite so far. I found a Vitamix green smoothie list of possible ingredients and how much to put in of each. I mixed and matched and created a recipe for each day. Some smoothies were really good and others were really not. After a couple weeks, I could pick out which ingredients worked and which ones didn't. By the end of the month, I was making all good smoothies...and so so yummy!!! I don't own a scale, but I noticed my face getting thinner. It could be due to drinking these smoothies or it could be other changes I've made. But, this might be a challenge I continue. I didn't get a smoothie in everyday, but I actually kept it going for the entire month! I already have my fridge full of more smoothie supplies and I'm pretty sure they are way more healthier than the canned and processed foods I had been eating for lunch. I would certainly recommend this challenge to anyone. Don't let the "green" scare you! It might look gross, but with the right ingredients, these smoothies can be super delicious!
July - read the Bible everyday.
So, this probably shouldn't really be a challenge. Reading the Bible everyday is something that all Christians should be doing all year round. However, this has always been a struggle for me. I don't like to read. Reading makes me tired. My mind often wanders while I'm reading and I can read several paragraphs before I come back to reality and I will have no idea what I just read. Reading takes a lot of effort for me. And this is any book, article, whatever has a lot of reading, not just the Bible. During the school year, I do fairly well since I attend a Bible study which has reading and questions to do throughout the week. Then, summer hits and suddenly, I have no Bible reading plan. When I was creating this challenge, I chose July for this because I figured that this would be my most difficult month to keep up with my Bible reading and probably the most important month as I am involved in vacation Bible school during this month (this year, anyway). When my Bible study ended, I thought I had a plan. I began reading the book Daniel to prepare for next year's study on Revelation. But discovered it wouldn't last me all summer. So, I started reading Joshua since that is the book that follows what we studied this last year - the life of Moses. For the month of July, I printed off a reading plan to follow in addition to my Joshua reading. When July started, I was doing great. I was following the reading plan I printed out and continued reading the book of Joshua, as well as reading some in Daniel. I was still feeling stale in my walk with Jesus and knew I was substituting TV for my relationship with Him. I had ordered my planner from the same company that I had in previous years. The calendar pages have Bible references on each day. Most are 2-4 chapters long. Quite overwhelming for someone who can't stay focused for long reading sessions. In previous years, I have either failed miserably at keeping up with that reading schedule or didn't even try. This year I looked at it, thought about how I spend time during the day, and thought, "I CAN do this!" So, even though I was a few days behind, I began reading the large portions of scripture from my planner and continued with the reading plan I had printed. Then, my printed reading plan completely disappeared! I was very disappointed. But, I still had my planner. So, I continued reading those passages everyday. I've been able to stay focused and learning and growing in my faith. I read my Bible every day in July without a problem. I made it a priority because I know it is extremely important to my Christian walk. And I continue reading.
August - drink water.
I know I need to be drinking more. Anything would be better than how much I drink now. I'm not talking just water. I've never been one to drink much. I rarely feel thirsty. I generally can get through an entire meal without drinking a single drop. If I didn't have to drink in order to take pills, there would probably be days that I wouldn't drink anything at all. I just don't feel the need. And perhaps that's why I don't have a lot of energy and I get sick a lot. That can also be due to my underactive thyroid. But, I really should try to drink more. Water is probably my least favorite thing to drink. However, my options have recently become very limited. I get sick when I drink milk or juice. Almond milk just doesn't taste good by itself. (It goes great on cereal and in smoothies!) And pop is just really bad for you, not to mention causing more thyroid problems than I probably realize. I drink tea sometimes, but with a lot of sugar. Nothing is healthier than water. Different experts, different opinions. 8 8oz glasses a day. Half my body weight in ounces per day. When my body tells me to drink. Or don't worry about it, I'm getting the fluids I need through anything I eat or drink throughout the day. And of course the warning: don't drink too much water, or you'll get water poisoning!!!! I chose to aim for half my body weight in ounces. In other words, if you weigh 100 lbs, you should drink 50 oz a day. I will not tell you what that means for me personally, but you get the idea. I decided to gradually add ounces each day so that by the end of the month, I was drinking the correct amount of water everyday. I started out really well, drinking more than my goal for that day. Sundays I found to be the hardest for some reason. And it was on a Sunday that I first failed to reach my goal. I brushed it off as a lazy Sunday and made another attempt on Monday. Couldn't do it. I made it 22 days and then, I basically quit. I'm still drinking more than I have normally, so I do consider this challenge to be successful in that it is making me healthier.
September - 30 Day ab challenge
This started out great. I was working my way through the calendar, able to complete each day, and feeling good. I could feel the burn in my abs each day. I was on vacation in Iowa when September started. Then, I came home. I did my best to continue, but the tiredness of my everyday life took over. I don't remember how far I had gotten, but it wasn't far. I was hoping to get back to it, but my body just quit on me. I've been battling fatigue ever since and getting dressed is all I can do most days, along with making meals, doing laundry as necessary, and attending school events. I am not complaining, just keeping it real. This was a hard month as the early mornings of school is weighing on my body to the point where I have to accept I can't accomplish everything I would like to in a day. This is my life and I must choose each day what I am able to do. Working out at all just isn't possible at this point because I have more important things to spend my energy on.
October - clean eating challenge
When I started this monthly challenge thing and planned it all out for the year, I had no idea what all this year would hold as far as my health. In July, I discovered that I have a sensitivity to gluten. It is not the allergy, instead it causes gut issues and I'll leave it at that. So, I have been eating gluten free since mid-July. When I looked at the clean eating plan I found that I had planned to use this month, I found a couple problems. One, the meals listed weren't all gluten free. I could probably substitute and adjust some things, but that wasn't the biggest problem. I had just recreated our family's menu plan. We had just gotten about half way through the new menu when October started. Menu planning and grocery shopping are a couple of the top stress-factors of my life. So, to change the eating schedule at this point would have caused some major anxiety. But, that still wasn't the biggest problem. We started a new budget method. By the end of September, we realized that somehow, we had to cut back on our grocery bill. Starting a new eating plan in October not only would have caused major stress in meal planning and shopping, but would have cost even more money than what we were already spending on food. We just couldn't do it. And that was the biggest problem with this challenge. So, I set this one aside. It simply was not doable at this time.
November - tech challenge
This month, I had written out how much time I would spend on certain electronic devices, hoping to limit how much time I spend on each of them. I didn't even try. lol
December - no pop challenge
When I started the year of 2015, I was drinking A LOT of pop. When I realized how much money we were spending on pop alone and how quickly we were going through our stash, I decided to limit everyone's pop intake. (Except for Seth's. He can drink it when he wants to, but he has cut down as well.) By the time December came around, pop consumption was probably once or twice a week at the most and considered more of a treat. So, I decided not to do this challenge.
Well, that's it! I haven't started any new challenges for 2016 and I'm not sure if I'm going to tackle anything like I did in 2015. My journey became more than what I had planned it being as I started to really fight for my own health. But, that's for another blog.
