90 Day Chris Powell Challenge To Self!

You may remember me whining a while ago about not having any structure to my life. I promised I would post the schedule I came up with today. Well, my last post was SO long, I’m going to skip the schedule posting and just tell you that I did make it. I have it, I’m just not going to bore you with it.

On to more interesting matters! Today is Day One of my 90 Day Chris Powell Challenge To Self! I’ll be writing about this off and on for 90 days but here’s an introduction: Chris Powell, the trainer on the show “Extreme Weight Loss” (a.k.a. “Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition”) wrote a book called “Choose More, Lose More For Life” and I have now read it. And am now doing it. For 90 days… which conveniently coincides with when my in-laws are coming for a visit. They are really, really judge-y so I’m not expecting any praise, more like an interrogation on why it took so long and/or why I was fat in the first place, but it’s nifty to have a marker at the end so this will do.

Chris emphasizes the importance of keeping the promises you make you yourself. That really speaks to me, as I have never kept the promises I make to myself. So it will be weird/hard/new to do so, but it will surely be an improvement!

That’s all for now. My body is reacting badly to suddenly having no massive influx of simple sugars and lard so I’m tired. 🙂

Simplicity

I have struggled for a long time with the idea of a schedule. A routine, a plan for daily living. The idea is abhorrent to me. It seems like a prison sentence, like life and spontaneity will be snuffed out and I shall never be happy again. It has taken years for me to accept that this is a false impression of the thing. Sure, some people are like that, but it’s not the only way to go. I don’t want THAT, but I can still have a schedule. A routine, a plan so that I know if I do the things I’ve laid out at the times I’ve decided, eventually goals will be achieved. Is this the only way to get stuff done? No. Is the way I’ve been trying to get stuff done also perfectly fine? Yes. But have I actually gotten anything done? No. So it’s time to try something new.

I think what made me decide to give it a shot is the idea of simplicity. In a pros and cons list for Routine, on one side you have the risk of turning into a dead-eyed robot, and on the other side you have the idea of simplicity. If I already thought about it at length and know that I don’t have to do everything today, I only have to do some of it, because tomorrow I’ll do some of the other things and so on, then today becomes fairly simple. Because what happens now is that I do nothing for large stretches of time and then in a fit of self-punishment I attempt to do everything in one fell swoop. And when I’m doing nothing, do you think I feel free and unburdened? No, I feel guilty and shameful. “Woohoo, I’m watching Friends instead of cleaning the kitchen! What a wretch I am.”

Hopefully soon I will get either a promotion of sorts or a shift over to something else or even just some added responsibilities, anyway I asked for full time hours and the boss said he’d try to work it out. That means that I won’t have Tuesdays and Thursdays to sit on my butt and daydream. I will have to be even more productive than I am now! Now is hard enough! And I usually do the insanity thing, where you repeat an action to infinity hoping for a different result. “Oh, eating whatever I want 90% of the time and then trying to “fast” or walk 12 miles a day the other 10% doesn’t make me lose weight? OK, well what about THIS time?” So instead, I will change things up. I’ve tried being “free” and “winging it”. If I don’t like schedules, I can always go back to that. Whatever happens in the next few weeks, I know I will learn something, and that is something.

I promise a report: my plan, my proposed routine, my schedule. I will not make it in haste. (I’ve done hasty plans before and abandoned them in less than 12 hours.) I will turn in the report in 1 week. It will not include a meal plan, but that will be next. I want to separate them. Anyway, wish me luck. I’m about to enter the land of freaky soccer moms and thin-lipped business executives with giant planners and a constant need to check their watches.