February is the Shortest Month….

Like most people, I am convinced that years from now, the year 2020 will be remembered as a watershed, momentous time in our history. When it began, I was determined to spend it being creative, innovative and positive. Every month, I was going to do something spectacular! Little did I know that my intention would be taken entirely out of my hands, and depend upon the course of Covid-19.

With that in mind, I offer thoughts from a point in time when life was still quite “normal” and we could to a certain extent control how our destiny unfolded. What follows then, now seems quite naive and self absorbed, but nonetheless, I share it with the best of intentions.

Pre Covid-19 Life

January is usually a very slow month for me. I seem to spend the whole month recovering from Christmas, standing around with my hands over my head, pretending I’m a yoga expert, and just generally doing a whole bunch of nothing. Needless to say, nothing spectacular happened during January 2020. This is not a good start.

Because February is the shortest month of the year, it is a good time for a “personal challenge”. Obviously choosing any other month of the year would involve more days and extend the duration of said challenge 🙂 Of course challenges can take many forms, so they deserve careful consideration.

I recently decided that “Doing Everyday Things That I Should be Doing, but I Don’t” would fit the bill nicely and I compiled a comprehensive list. My intention was to complete the list every day for the month of February. Well, the list was so long that I had to take a nap after putting pen to paper. At the risk of sounding like my life is total chaos, the complete unabridged list of Everyday Things was as follows:

• make my bed
• take my meds as directed
• wipe the shower glass with a squeegee
• tidy the kitchen after every meal
• workout every day, even though I am having a good hair day
• wear sunscreen
• eat tons of vegetables and fruits
• drink three 8 ounce glasses of milk
• clean my glasses
• have nothing to eat after 7:00 pm

This was absolute madness! No real, live human being could possibly be expected to change their behavior on such a massive scale…

So, with a skeptical and realistic approach, I eliminated those actions that I deemed simply too much. To increase my chances of success, the list became:

• work out every day ( that’s 28 days, 29 if it’s a leap year!)
• clean my glasses every morning

Workout Every Day

I already work with a trainer three times a week and for a few years now, that has been just fine with me. I have had no ambition to increase the frequency of my workouts, especially since I often seem to have good hair days. My trainer has been very patient with me but when I mentioned my workout challenge (what a dumb move), she jumped onboard and took some pictures which I suspect was a deliberate ploy to keep me on track.

Unfortunately there were some inherent issues with this particular challenge. The main one being that I cannot get on the treadmill unless I have something interesting to watch on TV…..well, I can physically get on the treadmill, its just that I don’t want to without TV. I have virtually no self discipline when it comes to that.

I won’t divulge my starting weight, mostly because I don’t want to but also because losing weight was supposed to be a happy surprise at the end of the challenge, not the main goal.

Clean My Glasses in the Morning

Have you ever noticed that when you put your glasses on, it seems as though you are looking at the world through a haze? Have you ever realized that in the right light, people facing you can probably see that your glasses are dirty? It is the embarrassing equivalent of having food stuck between your teeth. Surely this wouldn’t be hard to remedy. I will commit to starting my day with clean lenses and vision clarity.

Workout Progress Report

Days 1- 7:

I am so motivated, it is almost criminal! On the days I am not working with my trainer, I am on the treadmill for approximately 40 minutes, alternating walking with short spurts of running. My trainer asks me about my challenge at every session and I proudly regale her with more detail than she probably wants, but she always asks anyway.

Days 8-14:

Motivation is waning slightly. I tell myself I don’t always have to go on the treadmill. I can improvise a workout with weights and exercise bands. This type of activity doesn’t lend itself to watching TV so I only improvise once. In my mind it still counts as a workout so I can check it off on the calendar. I cut down the treadmill to 35 minutes. My Trainer is very supportive, so much so that I would feel guilty if I stopped now. I keep going.

Days 15-22:

“Something is better than nothing” becomes my mantra. This justifies my shortened treadmill time and intensity. I am down to 30 minutes keeping a steady pace but only walking. I am putting the treadmill off to late afternoon and watching the news while I walk. Its so depressing, I want to scream. I am at the halfway mark and trying hard to ignore the fact that I am only at the halfway mark. This is hard people!

Days 23-28:

I am dead tired. The body (at least my body) isn’t meant to exercise every single day. It is begging for a day off but I can’t stop now. I get on the treadmill later and later. Its now early evening when I drag myself onto it. I find myself thrilled when I wake up in the morning and it is Monday, Wednesday or Friday. It means that I will be working with my trainer and I have a fixed appointment time. I only have to show up….no thinking required. My Trainer thinks my endurance is improving…..well something darn well better be improving!

Day 29!

My calendar for the month of February is filled with check marks! There is one per completed workout for each day of the month. I feel a sense of undeniable accomplishment and a bit of disbelief that I actually met my goal! As usual, because I am a Type A / obsessive personality, I also feel the need to analyze and record the positives and negatives of this experience.

Workout Analysis

Lets start with the Positives:

• I did lose some weight…. not a lot but remember that wasn’t really a goal
• My trainer decided that since I was doing cardio on the other days of the week, we would concentrate on strength, balance and flexibility during our work outs….no need for much, if any cardio in our sessions. Yay! Double Yay!
• I am feeling proud of myself for sticking to it, when I just wanted to do anything but get on the treadmill.
• I have decided that there are probably many things that I can challenge on a monthly basis. I am currently contemplating meditation for the month of March. There is an alliteration situation there, that I really like…. March Meditation Month has a certain ring to it.

And now the Negatives:

• I had to wash my hair every day. For some of you, that my be a regular occurrence. Not so for me. Remember, I strive for good hair days and when I do get one, I like to keep it going as long as possible. That was not an option for 29 long days.
• I had to buy new sports bras. Previously I got by very nicely with a 3 bra rotation. Not so for the month of February. My original 3 bras were toast due to excessive use and it was necessary to purchase 4 new ones.
• By extension, my washing machine was doing double duty and my detergent use sky rocketed. There was thus a definite financial impact related to this adventure.

And so, it appears the positives outweigh the negatives. What a happy coincidence!

I have almost forgotten about my Glasses Cleaning Challenge. There isn’t really much to report. Since I was spending so much time washing and drying my hair, I simply put the cleaning spray and cloths on the bathroom counter and voila! it was easy to wipe the lenses. Problem solved!

In conclusion, I am hoping that anyone wanting to duplicate this experience will find these observations useful. I am feeling quite smug and “smarty pants” right now, however, March Meditation Month is looming in front of me. If I thought February’s challenge was difficult, for an acknowledged Type A personality, this one will be a mountain to climb…..not to mention the fact that March has 31 days.

I need another nap….. Signing off for now, Big Sister

*Author’s Note: As you can well imagine, much to my disappointment, March Meditation Month didn’t get off the ground 🙁 Hopefully, 2021 will see this challenge completed. I need a whole year to prepare for it anyway. I am not known for my calm, serene demeanour.

We plan to publish a new post every Monday, so stayed tuned for our next one entitled “I Left My Heart in San Francisco”