december_goal epitome of incomprehensibility I didn't have any sort of themed_November, so I decided to set a December goal. Measurable. But its shape was nebulous at first, not even fitting into the constraints of December. As the days of November subsided, I told Dad I wanted to lose 7 pounds before the play. He didn't think that was the right sort of goal. "Why not? It's not like I have anorexia all of a sudden. I just want to get back to 110 pounds, then..." I waved my arms, trying to think of a word. "Homeostasis." Homeostasis indeed. But he said it was better to focus on a specific amount of activity rather than weight. "It isn't just me," he insisted. "It's what the experts say." Off topic, but once he insisted that email was only good for yes-or-no questions. "Polar questions" he called them. According to what he heard from experts. But this sounds oddly specific and too narrow. So sometimes I doubt Dad's experts. But here it seemed sensible. So I revised my goal: Each day of December, I will walk for at least an hour. So far I've kept to it, although it required going for an extra late-night ramble tonight (just me; the dog is asleep). What I've discovered: -It's fun to draw a little walking-legs symbol on my calendar when I complete the walking. It reminds me of the stars of grade-school days. -60 minutes of walking is something I'd normally do some days without even thinking about it. But not every day. So if I hadn't had this goal, I'd still meet its requirements maybe 3-4 out of 7 days a week. -The first couple of days, I woke up at night, still hungry. I told myself, "You can be a little bit hungry," and didn't get anything to eat. In the back of my mind, I still wanted to lose the weight I'd planned to before. -I lost about 3-4 pounds and then gained it back. This might have nothing to do with the walking. -I DID start my period on the same day as last month. This was another sort of goal: I wanted to see if more physical activity would put them 30 days apart instead of 26 as they had been the last few times (which makes it feel like time is moving too fast). Weirdly, this worked, but I don't know what I'm trying to accomplish. Delay menopause because I don't want to feel old? Now that I write it, it sounds silly. It's a perfectly normal thing and I'll get old anyway. It's not like I want to give birth either. But if my healthier body puts them 30 days apart, that's better, right? Maybe? -More minor aches and pains. Not so much this week, more the two weeks before that, when I'd just walk more with whatever I was carrying. -A "healthy" goal doesn't stop me from eating junk food. Should it? Not consciously, since that's not what I'm focusing on. -But if I put ALL my exercise near the end of the day, I'm more likely to get to sleep late. Especially now, that I don't have more (tutoring) work for the holidays. So I need to fix up my sleep schedule a little to be the optimal High-Powered Still-ADHD-But-More-Alert Epitome. 241219 ... e_o_i My other goal is to submit the poetry_chapbook. Why write a lot about the more prosaic thing? Dunno. I think I'm more afraid (and ergo, avoidant) of poetry than of walking every day. It's one of humanity's common fears. Death, public speaking, dying while public speaking... and poetry. 241219 ... raze apologies for being redundant if you already know this, but i might have an explanation for the weight fluctuation. it's possible that you haven't actually gained back what you lost at all. when i started losing weight, i noticed that things would be up and down sometimes, though never by more than a few pounds. turns out this often has a lot to do with how much water your body chooses to retain at any given time. you might wake up one day weighing two pounds less (or more) than you did the day before, but it isn't necessarily your true weight. which makes determining what that *is* a little tricky sometimes. i'm told the best time to step on the scale is first thing in the morning, before you've eaten anything. that's when our bodies tend to be at their most honest. anyway. i wish you many more bunny sightings and other such lovely happenings on your walking adventures. the decision to start walking regularly with my padre about five years ago was one of the best things i ever did — not only because it led to getting healthy for maybe the first time in my life, but because if i hadn't done that, i wouldn't have met newsom, and nuts_to_you never would have happened. and i can't imagine what kind of shape i would be in right now without my furry friends to keep me going. 241220 ... e_o_i I had a vague idea of weight going up and down but I didn't know much about it, so what you wrote isn't redundant. It's just that "lose 7 pounds" probably wasn't the right goal because it isn't very important...I was just curious if it could be a desired side effect. I haven't quite stuck to the walking: Dec. 20 and Dec. 22, yesterday, had me NOT meeting that goal. And now I have a cold. Which probably isn't connected. You can do things "right" and still get sick. There's my friend J. with some kind of long COVID - she got the virus most lately in September and still gets tired super easily. The gym trainer she was seeing wasn't being flexible about that, so pah to him, but before that she was exercising organizedly. ... On the non-exercise front, I *have* finished the poetry_chapbook! I just have to edit my little bio and write a cover_letter before sending it. 241223 ... e_o_i Oh, and to raze - I didn't respond to the last part, sorry, but I meant to say that I'm glad the walking opened up all those new experiences. Plus it's always a reading treat when you put those walking observations into writing, whether they're descriptions, squirrel stories, people stories, or more. 241223 what's it to you? who go blather from