Tag Archives: discipline

Working on sleep discipline + an overdue Christmas vlog!

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pray.

I have come to the acceptance that I’m naturally a night owl, but I think it’s less of some hormonal / physiological thing and more of a vice…

People have said that going to sleep is like accepting that the next day is beginning, which can be daunting or undesirable for people who are tired and want to “rest” (i.e., do things besides the thing they are required to do the next day). Which is SO ME.

I know that I stay up too late on weekend nights doing things like learning Kyle Hanagami dances, watching Youtube videos of fitness/food influencers, or talking to friends. Anything but sleep and wind down. And then I complain of not getting enough sleep, at no one’s fault except my own (usually).

I made a resolution a while ago to be silent by 10pm, but I’ve become very lax with that, partially because I became lax with the accountability of it to my friend. Will be reinstating that now. But something that I keep thinking about is taking at least 60 seconds to check in with God when I am really tempted to open up a new tab on my browser at night… to just tell Him what I’m really feeling and what it is that I really want to do with my life at that point. Because no decision is isolated, and my decisions at night definitely affect the next day, and I would prefer to have healthy, productive days.

Working on it.

eat.

My brother and his gf brought over the new Korean chicken sandwiches for us to eat from Shake Shack yesterday, which were very tasty! I air fried some frozen curly fries on the side, which hit the SPOT. Few things beat a crispy, seasoned curly fry.

Made my own special sauce in the ramekin there: light mayo, ketchup, vidalia onion dressing mixed together

I became hypertensive for a short time after this meal, I’m sure.

move.

I did a fun running circuit workout last weekend. That’s right, I said FUN. It was 3 laps of running around the neighborhood (~1/2 to 3/4 mile each), followed by this circuit:

  • 10 pushup burpees
  • 15 pushups
  • 20 v-ups

Repeat with 2 laps + circuit, then 1 lap + circuit.

Was a chilly but lovely time.

groove.

I totally forgot to share this Christmas vlog that I filmed three weeks ago now… But in case you want to join me retroactively on my Christmas day festivities, please do!

https://youtu.be/bFjdzJc-Mq8

I hope your 2021 is going well (or as well as it can be) so far 🙂

So tell me:

Do you have trouble with sleep discipline?

Curly fries, regular fries, sweet potato fries, or tater tots??

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“Discipline equals freedom.”

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pray.

I first saw the above phrase on my new friend @rebecca.rouse ‘s instagram. The idea is that choosing to do what is good, even if it is dang hard in the moment, will ultimately make you free to be the best version of yourself and to be able to serve others well (or at least, that’s my interpretation of the phrase). It can be applied to fitness (Rebecca is an absolute B E A S T) of course, but I’ve actually been praying with the phrase a lot, as I think it can apply to all areas of life — physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual.

Recently, the decision to be more disciplined in several different areas in my life has been brewing in my heart.

  1. Less time on social media. I started this year with a 15 minute time limit on Facebook + Instagram but quickly realized that I kept plowing through that time limit and pressing “ignore time limit for 15 more minutes.” But even a 1 hour time limit went by pretty quickly once I gave myself more leniency… It’s not that social media has been toxic for me (as it may have been in the past), but I still feel attached to it. I thoroughly enjoy sharing my moves and grooves on there, but I felt myself caring a bit too much about the whole shebang. I also found myself browsing through mindlessly at night to drown out my stress from my work day, which is not entirely how I want to fill myself up at the end of the day. Now, I do love that I got to meet my new Kettlebell Gains family through Instagram, and I am very grateful for them. But at this time, I think I will focus my attention on other avenues through which I can connect with loved ones and truly restore myself when I need a break from stress.
  2. More time in silence. I’ve talked about silence on here many a time, and for good reason. Silence is something so uncomfortable but necessary in order to actually be with God and also to confront the messes that are inside of me. For only then can those messes be cleaned up and transformed into new, productive, and fruitful things as I move into the next day. No built up junk in the heart, please!
  3. Morning prayer. UGHHH getting up 20 minutes earlier to pray is so good but also so hard for a night owl like me. But I gotta do it. Praying is my life source.
  4. Awareness of emotions + eating, especially at night. Ooooof stress eating is real. Even if my emotional eating is not severe by any means, I still catch myself snacking quite mindlessly and then being aware that I am stressed and chomping on extra crackers because of it… Again, I am grateful that I can be aware of this and stop at a reasonable point, but it’s something to work on. Working on this couples well with the silence piece ^^^

Hopefully this will all make more space for meaningful conversations, learning, blogging, writing letters, and tbh cleaning the floors and ironing my work shirts.

eat.

I made these pumpkin cookies with brown butter frosting last night for an All Saints’ Day celebratory dessert (also #fall), and they were fantastic. Mine turned out not nearly as pretty as Jess’ cookies because I don’t have an ice cream scooper to make them all uniform.

My friend said my unfrosted cookies looked like fried chicken and he is 100% accurate LOL. And then my brown butter frosting just looked like mashed potato schmeared on the fried chicken.

BUT THEY TASTED GREAT.

move.

I get < 10,000 steps per day during the work week because a) there is limited time to go on longer walks because of work; b) it’s cold and dark for most of the time when I can go on walks; c) I choose to not devote my energies just to hit that step count these days. I miss the days when I could easily get 15K+ every day in Boston, but ’tis the season of life. I am uber grateful that I get to be on my feet and moving all day at work though, so that is a blessing.

Otherwise, workouts have been short, sweet (or not), and as efficient as possible. Despite that, I feel stronger than ever, mostly thanks to the kettlebell crew! Up until yesterday, I have been posting my workouts on my Instagram stories (which are now on my highlights!), so you can see what’s been going down on there. I’m also up to 7 consecutive wide grip pull-ups now! Goal is 10 by the end of 2020.

groove.

It was so heartwarming to see all the ways my neighbors made halloween happen for the kiddos in a COVID-safe way. Many people put out individual baggies of candy on a table outside, but I also saw one neighbor stick candies on their garage door with masking tape so people could just pull the candy right off.

Creativity amidst the challenges.

For my PT clinic’s team costume, we dressed up as the Cobra Kai cast. I wore a blonde wig because I somehow chose to be Johnny from the show/movie… People loved it but also couldn’t recognize me. It’s the most I’ve ever committed to a Halloween costume.

Thanks for stopping by, as always! Hope you all have a wonderful week ahead. Happy All Souls’ Day, and happy nOvEmBeR whaaaaat!?

So tell me:

Do you like the phrase, “Discipline equals freedom”? Why or why not?

Have you made any pumpkin things yet this fall?

Did your neighborhood participate in any halloween festivities?

A Different Kind of Discipline

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My moves yesterday: 45 minutes of yoga, attempting headstands (are they supposed to be harder than handstands?!), 8 minutes of abs, walking.

So basically, yoga and walking. That sounds like a nice active rest day doesn’t it? A few months— or even weeks— ago, I would say so. Now though, that’s a lot for me.

I mentioned yesterday that slower workouts need to happen right now…but didn’t I say that a couple times on the blog already? Yeah, I did. I said I wanted to slow down my workouts to help me increase body fat so that I can get my woman processes all sorted out. Then I said I wasn’t doing a good job of actually giving my body rest, so I put even more restrictions on my exercise. But I still exercised a good amount because I still had a gym membership, dance, and opportunities to work out with my friends.

To be honest, when I wrote that second post about how I wasn’t really resting correctly, I sort of gave up on the rest thing until the end of the school year. I was involved in so many activities that working out became…automatic? (For lack of a better term.)

Well now that it’s summertime, I ended my gym membership, and I’m done with dance, I’m buckling down and really (REALLY REALLY REALLY) trying to rest more. Just more, not totally. I know what you’re thinking— sure you are, girl who cried wolf. 

As someone who had an eating disorder in the past, increasing the amount of food I consume has actually been the easier part of recovery. Decreasing exercise, on the other hand, has proven to be so difficult, and I honestly think that has been preventing my body from doing what it needs to do (ladies…ya know).

Why is it so difficult to not work out? For one, I simply love to move (hence the blog name). But there is also a huge culture of “discipline” in the fitness world, which can help motivate people to exercise…

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…However, I feel like these kinds of messages are also guilt-trips. If I intentionally don’t work out for a couple days in a row, and I see a photo of a sweaty, flexing person on Instagram with the caption, “get it done” (or something similar), I can’t help but feel like I should get up and do burpees right then and there.

This kind of advocacy for workout discipline is great, don’t get me wrong. These “fitspiration” messages help prevent me from being a veg on the couch watching Giada and Ina on Food Network all day.

But right now, I need a sort of opposite discipline. I need the discipline to say:

No to burpees.

No to pistol squats.

No to tons of push ups.

No to running (yeah, RUNNING— the thing I don’t even like that much).

No to being out of breath.

No to pushing myself.

And I have been doing this for the past week or so. I’m not saying I’m completely resting, because I’m obviously not. I never did. It has just come to the right time for me to finally take this more seriously. Again, no doctor ever told me to stop exercising, and my doctor just told me last week that I should still be doing some sort of exercise, and I am. {I even said a few days ago that I could do a single dead hang pull-up now, but I’m pretty sure that’s mostly because of muscle memory. I use the door frame pull-up bar every time I walk by it.} Any movement right now is for my sanity— my mental health. I’m being mindful and careful all the while though.

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Am I sure a decrease in working out will help out my situation? Nope. But I think my body needs the rest either way. I’ve also been eating even more.

Foooooooood.

So maybe this is just going through one ear and out the other for some of you at this point, but I’m still figuring out what the heck is happening too. Whatever it may be, for now, I’m practicing a different kind of discipline in telling myself to NOT go hard. Hold me accountable.