Progress report: XBX

Day 3 of XBX. I'm on Chart One, Level 2. There's 4 charts and 48 levels. For my age group, the goal is Chart 3, Level 26.  Will I push past my goal? I don't know. But it would take me until mid-September to do it if I kept up with daily exercise.

Today, I had help from both dogs. It adds extra work. Chloe, the crazy lab mix, was sleeping peacefully. So I took my chance to work out undisturbed. Buster, the old guy, came wiggling over, gave me a couple of pokes while I was lying on the floor. That didn't get the expected response, so he poked the sleeping dog. She can go from dead sleep to full riot in a micro-second. So a dog rumble interrupted the sit-ups portion of the workout. Instead, I got to wave my arms and yell. Does that count?

I also got up at a decent time and made hot cereal for breakfast. Early rising and cooking don't mix. I put pepper in the cereal. Spicy. It took a bit for me to figure out why my hot cereal smelled like pepper, but I was able to put it together enough to scoop the pepper out and put lots of pumpkin pie spice in to mask it. I tried Sunny Boy cereal. It's like a kinder, gentler Red River cereal. And full of fibre.

My other challenge is to get to work earlier so I can leave earlier. Today, I managed to make breakfast, workout, walk the dogs, select a reasonably good-looking outfit and get to work early! Victory in our time.

However, I didn't pack lunch and ended up with repulsive egg salad sandwich from the caf at work. The bagel was stale and the toppings kept sliding off. I broke the pop ban too. Ah well. Can't win them all.

Back to XBX and my co-pilot

Last time I tried XBX, I really screwed it up. Instead of doing the required number of repetitions in 2 minutes, I did as many reps as I possibly could in 2 minutes! No wonder I couldn't walk. The number of reps in the lower levels are really, really low. But that makes sense because the program's designed to ease you in.

I also had help. Here's my gym partner.

Chloe actually tried to contain herself, but by the time I got to the end where you run in place and hop, she couldn't take it anymore. Her little brain exploded. Movement! On the floor! Jumping! So I followed up by wrestling with her for a little bit.

She also helped me re-organize my kitchen cupboards.

A couple summers ago, I tried a gluten-free diet to see if that helped with symptoms from my chronic illness. Not so much and the diet itself is a real pain in the ass. People who must follow this diet have my respect and sympathy. As part of the diet, I had bought different types of flours for making bread. These bins were just taking up space in my hutch. So I dumped them out. Chloe thought that was great. All the flour made a tasty dust in the air.

Later, she helped me with all my bags from the Bulk Barn. I've been lax about labelling things as I buy them there. So I had mysterious bags and jars of powders and seeds. Most I ended up throwing out. Some I poured into jars. Chloe cleaned up any spills. She likes dry red lentils and various spices.

Today's plan: keep going on the kitchen reorganization and keep up the XBX.

Changing scope

I've been thinking about this for awhile. I don't want to just exercise and eat right, I also want to shape up other parts of my life. I procrastinate, a lot. It really interferes with getting things done. And it influences all parts of my life. So, I'd like to work on that. And I want to be neater. I'm so messy, it's embarrassing. How can a grown person live like this? And then there's finishing at least some of the projects I start. Like a book or a novel or a scarf.

 So in this blog, I'm going to write about these challenges. And I'll include pictures. Maybe the Hawthorne Effect will take over and I'll behave well because I'm being watched. Do you need readers for this to work?

As for XBX, I'll get back on that horse tomorrow!  It was 2 weeks before I could walk normally. And why did that happen? Because I didn't read the damn instructions!