Problems solved and things to change

 So since I got the Whoop on Tuesday, I've been having trouble with it. Initially it wouldn't sync right. Then when it did sync it started showing no data. Then it seems I lost all the data. It was kind of a nightmare and I was ready to just return it. Then yesterday a support person asked if I was wearing my Whoop over a tattoo. Yes, yes I am. Well that was the whole problem. I moved it to the other wrist and it's been working fine ever since. So instead of asking me 18 times if I had my phone set the right way, someone could have asked if I had a tattoo and cut to the chase very, very quickly. So that problem is solved. Apparently they are working on a fix for the tattoo issue and will push the update to me as soon as they can. Yay!!!!

Sunday is the first of May. The. First. Of. May. I cannot believe that we are going to be 5 months into this year. I also can't believe that I am 6 weeks into a weight loss journey and am still having the same old issues I had before. Full disclosure, I ate some junk yesterday. I was craving junk food and I'm not completely sure why. I know that I should have used my DMSC training to talk myself out of it, but I honestly think I was at a bit of a low point mentally and had a hard time doing that. So, the damage was: 

• a tiny snack pack of peanut M&Ms
• a cotton candy Twinkie (which for the record was disgusting)
• a pack of Grandma's cookies

Now, as a junk food 'binge' that was extremely mild, but I don't want to do that at all. I have not given into my cravings for years and years and yet I did yesterday. Not my proudest moment. 

A couple of things about yesterday though; 

• it's kind of amazing how most people will just eat whatever. A friend brought those Twinkies in for me and another teacher and they just ate them easily. Without any thought at all. I thought that was weird. I took a bite to be polite and then set it aside. Of course, I ate it later after giving it some thought so I guess I'm not any better. 

I don't know what I weigh because I got it in my head that I should only weigh once a week. I don't think I like that. For me, knowledge is power and that daily weighing is a data point every day. For me, weighing myself every day takes the power of the scale away. When I see the scale move a couple of pounds in either direction in one day, that proves to me that the daily fluctuations are not real. But by only doing it once a week, it's easier to get caught up in the fluctuations. So I'm going back to daily weigh-ins. 

I've also been 'working' on getting more steps and not succeeding. That's another struggle that I have. The knee is no longer an issue, while it still tweaks now and then, overall it's great. In fact, I have a PT appointment this morning and I'm hoping to get released because I don't want to go anymore. 

So essentially I am falling back into old patterns, making plans and then not following through, and I don't want to do that. So this week I'm going to focus on making the habits I want to have, stick. I'll start with one or two and then gradually add more as time goes on. I was just noticing this morning that I have over 10,000 minutes of meditation on my app. That does not even count the months and months that I didn't use the app to meditate. So I probably have over 20,000 minutes of meditation under my belt. It was hard to make that a habit, I would forget or cut it short, but finally I got the habit set. I was just watching a video about habits last night. Habits need three things: 

1. a cue - something that indicates you are now going to do this thing. This can be anything; waking up in the morning, coming home from work, an alarm going off, anything. It just has to be something that triggers your mind to think, now I do this habit. For my meditation the cue is that I get up. My meditation is always done first thing in the morning, so my getting up is my cue to meditate. 
2. a routine - so your cue happens and then what? You need to have a routine in place so that you do your habit. If your cue is the alarm in the morning, then maybe the routine is you get out of bed, brush your teeth, drink some coffee, and do your habit. That routine sets you up for doing your habit. So once the cue happens, the routine then kicks in. That is pretty much my routine for meditation. I get up (with or without an alarm), brush my teeth, make my coffee, and go meditate. 
3. a reward - you need to get something good out of the habit or you won't continue to do it. My reward for meditating is that I'm a much calmer person and able to deal with things a whole lot better. It also helps keep me from getting depressed. Before I meditated I would have wild mood swings, total joy one minute and then sinking into depression then next. I still tend towards some depression and will get down, but the meditation helps keep my moods more stable and when I do get down it is easier to pull myself out of it. For me that is the ultimate reward and one that seems to work every single time. 

So what I need to focus on is creating this 3-prong approach for all the habits I want to cultivate. In the Atomic Habit, he talks about linking new habits to existing habits until the new habit can stand on it's own. So I think I'm going to devote a little brain power this weekend to figuring those things out. What are the habits I want and how do I build the habit chain to do them. 

Okay, this post ran very, very long and I need to get moving to get to PT.