It’s hard to believe that the last quarter of 2021 starts on Friday. Where did this year go? However, I’m not complaining because we’re entering my favorite time of the year and I can’t wait for all of the fun holiday festivities to kick into high gear. Bring on the pumpkins and Thanksgiving and the Christmas decorations. I’m ready for all of it!
Here are a few of the goals I’ll be working on this month:
1) Get my third tattoo. Next Friday (the 8th) will mark 6 years since my grandma passed away, and I would like to honor that day by getting my third tattoo since it’s one I’m getting in her memory. It feels funny to say that because it’s not like my grandma would be all too thrilled for me to get a tattoo, but it’s something I’ve wanted for a while and I just need to book the dang appointment finally!
2) Keep ice water at my desk all day long. One of my yearly goals is to become a regular water drinker and I have not accomplished that goal yet. There are still three months left in 2021, though, so I can try to get closer to the goal than I am right now. The original goal I set for myself back in January to help me form a more regular water-drinking habit was to always keep water nearby while I’m working. I think that’s really how to form a habit like this: finding natural opportunities to add water to my life. So let’s see if I can make this oh-so-simple goal happen. I’m not even asking myself to, like, drink an entire bottle of water during my workday; I just want to have it nearby to sip on when I get thirsty.
3) Log my food every day on My Fitness Pal. I’ve been having a lot of complicated feelings these days about my body, mostly in the stuff I’m realizing it can’t do. It’s something I want to talk about in a blog post, but every time I try to get my thoughts out, it turns into gibberish. It’s hard when I love the body I have and I have made so much progress with my self-esteem to get to this place and I’m all about fat positivity… but I also know that to do the sorts of things I want to do, I need to lose weight because my body physically cannot do it at the size it’s at. Anyway, hopefully, I’ll get my thoughts in order to write about it. But one of the things I want to start doing is being more mindful of what I’m eating and that starts with logging my food, even though it’s tedious and annoying.
4) Clean my goddamn oven. Will this goal ever get done? Sure it will! I’m going to do it in October. I WILL. I PROMISE.
5) Dress up for Halloween. I haven’t dressed up for Halloween in quite some time, and since I’m going to be handing out candy to kiddos at my mom’s house like I did last year, I want to dress up in something fun. Usually, I opt for something “punny” but that’s usually because I’m trying to find a costume at the last minute and those are easy to throw together. We’ll see what I come up with!
Do you have any goals for October? Are you dressing up for Halloween?
I kind of hate Halloween! Ha! I don’t enjoy dressing up but I am maybe getting to a stage where I sort of need to? Even if it’s just cat ears and some make up? Paul asked what we are going to be for Halloween and we just shifted to what him and Will are going to be (Paul will be a dinosaur again; Will is going to be a hedgehog so he can re-use the costume Paul wore as a baby). I also like punny costumes. The last party I went to years ago, I went as a cat burglar – So I work a mask around my eyes and carried a cat around in my purse. The funny story behind it is that I thought that a cat burglar literally stole cats! Phil had to explain that it’s someone who sneaks around to steal things. Whoops. But I am such a literal person!!
My only goals for October are my standard ones of going through past October photos in google photos and purging my September photos. That is it, though. I’m feeling really tired lately between night wakings and some challenging tantrums so I am opting out of setting any other goals!
I’ve been logging food in MFP for about 2 years and it’s really all about the habit. Once you’ve put in a lot of the foods that you eat repeatedly, it becomes easier as you can just pull from the items that are already loaded in there. Most tricky part is “take out food”, because it’s always going to be a rough estimate. I am rooting for you though… it’s a good place to start when you’re trying to figure out what you put in your body every day. And hopefully you find a way to share your thoughts on your body and weight in a new blog posts – I think it’s important to talk about these things and to be open about it. Everybody has different struggles and thoughts around body image that we often don’t see.
I haven’t dressed up for Halloween in AGES and I probably won’t this year either (because I just won’t have an opportunity to do so, as we’ll probably just hang out at home).
Ah, My Fitness Pal — yep, it’s annoying to log everything, but it IS effective! I’m still planning on losing the last 10 pounds or so I put on from my last pregnancy, but I’ll admit that I’m nervous to get back into exercise again since my back injury….basically every time I’ve tried to start the habit again, I re-injure it. Maybe this time will be the time?
I’m the worst at dressing up for Halloween. I’m also the worst at planning my kids’ costumes ahead of time, ha ha — I basically leave it until the last minute every year, hoping it will somehow get easier. It never does. Definition of insanity, or something…
I will not dress up for Halloween, but we did take the time over the weekend to put up our Halloween lights and a few decorations. It feels festive.
I have never really made MFP work for my life. I’m not sure if it’s because the interface isn’t very good on Androids, but I always felt like it was way too much work for someone like me. Good luck with it!
So, how’s the oven? (KIDDING!)
I can’t wait to hear more about the tattoo you chose. I hope you love it, and think of your grandmother every time you look at it.
I second San’s comment on MFP. It’s such a pain to get started, but if you try to repeat foods (not ad nauseum, but at least try to include some of the same foods) it makes it so much easier. And yes, the fast and takeaway options are total guesstimates. For me, it was the mere act of logging and realizing that I was basically eating my weight in Annie’s bunny grahams every day that helped. 😉
That even goal. HAHA I think it is on my list for the better of three month now too. I root for you in getting it done. would be lots of motivation. Also I think I need to start logging my food too…