Thursday, October 8, 2015

Breaking the chain


A little post before I fall asleep.

A normal person would take someone's writing log/system and actually use it for writing. I used it for planking.

Not the weird internet meme that was going on a while back, but literally doing planks and push-ups. My knee still doesn't feel "normal" --- as in, not reminding me it is there, like most of my other body parts --- and I was trying to increase my every-other-day walks. But if all I am doing is walking, then all my other muscles will melt and dislodge and fall off my body. Or something. Yoga would of course cover the whole body, but it pushes and stretches the knees and my knee still constantly reminds me that I should be careful of it and I should baby it. So I pulled out a link I saved long ago for a plank challenge to work your core.

You find your max time you hold it in good form and then keep it up for a month without breaking your chain. At my start I could only do about 30 seconds and was doing push-ups on my knees. And I  know that is way out of shape but the point is to improve. So I was increasing it a couple seconds every day and tracking my walks at about 4 miles every few days and really liking the accumulation of days in my tracker.

Then the first essays hit.

I hate that 2 classes can swamp me under just as much as 4 but there it is. More worrisome is that I have broken my chain of applying out to jobs and need to get back into things. I managed to wrangle another informational interview but the emotional build-up and then release of it all also contributed to my lackluster progress.

I will get another set of essays pretty soon so this weekend is all about figuring out what we're doing in essay 3. And I need to plan more in this new job siege strategy of interviews.

And, hopefully, fit in the time for another walk.

I dunno about the planking, though. Once you break a chain of that type it's like extra tough to motivate yourself to actually get back into it. Like the extra momentum from before has become extra resistance.


Fie upon this quiet life! said...

I know what you mean about the habit of exercise or planking or whatever. I was doing great at this time last year -- lost about 40 lbs. For some reason, summer got me out of the habit of exercising and I gained 20 lbs back. I've only exercised a handful of times this semester. I know I need to start again but damn I am unmotivated. Ugh.

Notorious Ph.D. said...

jesus, yes. Work, sleep, exercise: choose two.