lacking motivation

June 23: Easy does it

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After yesterday’s meltdown of gigglical proportions, I feel better – but not enough to actually do any exercise! Part of me thinks ‘start afresh on July 1’, another says ‘just start now and stop moaning’. I wanted to do more than walk to and from the bus today, but once again, I fell asleep on the couch for an hour this afternoon. I really don’t understand why I’m so tired? Probably because I’m not moving enough!

One thing I have taken on board from all the lovely comments and suggestions (thank you) is to take it easy. Not only with putting the wheels back on the wagon but with myself. Sometimes I can be a hard taskmaster and have to learn how to expect less to achieve more. Or does that sound self-defeating?! What I’m trying to say is baby steps chasing that carrot.

On the walk home from work I saw this wonderful hummingbird hawk-moth. I’ve only seen one twice before, in my garden, in three years. The first time, I was convinced it was a hummingbird! Ha! They’re amazing to watch, and incredibly hard to photograph well on a phone because they’re so fast.

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The best of 15 attempts!

The light had a really nice glow to it this afternoon, after heavy rain overnight and this morning.

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Chickens on the loose in Oberwohlen

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Lovely colours at the farmhouse with the chicken run

Had a productive day today and I’m looking forward to going again tomorrow. Marko is on holidays from Thursday-Tuesday so I’m trying to soak up as much as possible in case orders come in while he’s away.

Kevin Spacey has been on my mind a lot lately, because I’m thoroughly enjoying him in the series House of Cards. Does any current actor have better facial expressions than his? He really conveys emotion so well with just the slightest lift of an eyebrow, a glance, a breath. I find him mesmerising!

It’s nice to immerse yourself in a television series now and then. We seem to be doing it quite a lot lately (to be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever watched so much television in my life!). But at least it’s quality, and without the dreaded commercials! The irony of that comment is I used to make those commercials! Bwahahahahahah.

I’ve fallen behind on my 30-Day Challenge, learning plant names, but I’ve found a new ally. The Dojo is very close to Bern’s Botanical Gardens, so I intend on spending time there tomorrow, pen in hand. But for now, how about some Allium shoenoprasum, or chives as they’re commonly known. I have some planted with the thyme and rosemary and love the purple flowers.

The I Quit Sugar program is going well, but perhaps that’s what’s making me so tired at the moment. I have been pretty good but tonight I couldn’t resist two small chocolates from one of Leo’s birthday presents. They were so small, wafer thin, I possibly couldn’t … say no.

Wishing you a wonderful day.

June 22: The wheels are falling off

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Our house in the morning light

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At long last, the Alps are visible again! Taken on the walk to the bus this morning

Ok, I’m going to be totally honest here. I haven’t done any exercise for a very long time. I’ll say that again, with em-PHA-sis, so I feel bad. A verrrry loooooong tiiiiime.

Walking to the bus and weeding the lawn for four days does not count (although I do think the lawn was the straw that ‘broke my back’, figuratively).

This blog is all about being fitfor15in15. Along with being mentally and nutritionally fit, I want to be physically fit with a minimum 15 minutes of EXERCISE a day. That was my mantra. That IS my mantra, but it’s all gone pear-shaped and I’m trying to work out why.

I’m surrounded by friends who are fit and healthy, who love to run or walk or go to yoga, and I know the benefits, yet I’m suffering from a severe lack of WTFC. Who The F*#$ Cares. I should care! I do care! So why is it so hard to actually get up and do it?

Freda from livesimplysimplylive has been totally succeeding in her 30-Day Challenge to do a ballet class every day for a month – she’s passed day 21! – plus, to top it off, she’s taking swimming lessons. I dip my hat to Freda for really sticking to her guns on this one. Some people love a challenge more than others and I’m in awe. I’m flailing!

Today should be Monday Runday. I came home from work (ahaha, how good does that sound) and had full intentions of putting on my sneakers. But first I sat on the couch. Then I lay on the couch. Then I fell asleep. Then Leo woke me up at 5.30pm. Oops.

Could it be a case of half-way mark burnout? In just over one week, it will be six months of fitfor15in15. I have no problem writing everyday (sorry for all the waffle) but for the past month I have had serious issues with actually exercising. Even for just 15 minutes. My brain says “neh”, which is a cross between “meh” and “nah”, so that just shows you. how. bad. I’ve. got. it.

It’s time to go back to the drawing board. It’s time to start again. There’s no shame in admitting a slight defeat – oh ok, a big defeat – and putting the wheels back on the cart. Or the donkey in front, instead of behind. Or a carrot in front of the donkey.

Light bulb moment! That’s it! I need a carrot … I’ve lost interest in my goals because they’ve been reached. Now that I’m happy with my weight, I’ve fallen for the age-old trap of becoming complacent. Why keep exercising when I’ve lost the weight I wanted to lose? Why keep going when I’m feeling healthy and more aware of what I eat?

Because it’s too easy to fall back into old habits. I don’t want those old habits returning – too much couch time, not enough active time. I can feel the lethargy creeping in after just one month. If I focus on how bad I felt last year, and how much better I feel this year, then the road to redemption will be much easier to handle.

Have you ever turned a positive into a negative then back into a positive again? Was it hard? Am I on the right track? Do you have any suggestions or handy hints to get the wheels, and body, in motion again? Should I set challenges, when I’m not very good at following them through to completion? Or should I just start with a fresh set of easy to achieve goals, rather than trying to bite off more than I can chew?

Wishing you a wonderful day.

June 17: Possibilities?

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One of my friends from German school, Iva, is married to Marko, who is a karate Dan. He has a karate Dojo and wellness centre on the Aare river in Bern. I’ve mentioned it before, when I did a yoga class there earlier in the year.

Marko has asked me to do some work for him on one of his websites, enso-shop.ch which deals with the selling of karate gear. On Friday, I’ll go in and learn the ins and outs of the website from him, and then eventually, I’ll be responsible for all things to do with the site. Neither of us are sure how much work this will involve, but he wants to push the site more than he’s been able to, because he’s so busy teaching.

This means I’ll be working in the office with Pastora as well, which will be fun. She works there five mornings a week. This could be my chance to get back into the swing of things and help promote his website, which thankfully is mostly in English. I’m very excited and hope I can do enough to make the orders soar! Learning more about how websites work will keep me mentally fit, too. I don’t think it’s really hit me yet, that this could be a job with possibilities.

Being in the city today (to meet Marko) made me realise how much I’m missing sugar. I’m in week two of the I Quit Sugar 8-Week Program, when we can’t eat any fruit either. I was bombarded with people eating ice cream, Berliners and other sweet stuff that normally I wouldn’t think twice about buying. Grocery shopping, and seeing all the lovely bananas and watermelons etc was even harder. They’re healthy! But I’m committed to giving this sugar cleanse a real go. In week six, fruit is reintroduced. It was a dumb time to buy that cherry tomato plant – they’re all looking so ripe and yummy, Leo will have to eat them all!

Here are some other photos from my walk to the bus and time in town.

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More corn growing near us, with my favourite farmhouse on the hill

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This looks like silverbeet perhaps?

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A close up of the silverbeet?

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Healthy geraniums at a house on the way to the bus

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A lovely veggie garden on the way to the bus

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How cool is this bug? Love the colour!

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This is the path I take down to the river on the way to the Dojo

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The building on the right side of the river is where I’ll be doing some work

I use a running app on my phone, called MapMyRun. Today it sent me an email to remind me I haven’t been running in a month. A month! Oops! How did that happen? (Well, um easily – busy in the garden, raining, lack of motivation!) Will try to fix that asap.

The 30-Day Challenge with the plant names has also taken a backseat. I think I had a bit of burnout, searching the web for the plants I have in the garden, not knowing where to begin other than a generic description of what the plant looks like – the images always offered up so many options. I’m learning some Latin herb names now, starting with thyme – Thymus vulgaris.

Rather than searching for three to four each day, I’m going to scale it back to one from now on – I’d bitten off more than I can chew! Hopefully that isn’t the case for the website job with Marko!

Wishing you a wonderful day.

May 26: A nothing kind of day!

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Well, rain and more rain. It seems the more rain that falls, the less motivation I have!

I finished The Goldfinch today (thank goodness! My review is here) and watched some French Open Tennis. I hardly stepped out of the house all day … and ate a lot … not good.

But tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya … it’s going to be sunny apparently. A rip roaring 18 degrees (I’m currently wearing my winter slippers), woo hoo! It better be a long, hot summer when it finally comes around … brrr … or should that be grrr.

Wishing you a wonderful day.

Here’s a photo of a Fire Salamander I saw near the garage in June last year. I wonder if he (or any of his family) will be back in a few weeks’ time.

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A friendly Fire Salamander

May 21: Running around without raising a sweat

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Today was an on-the-go kind of day – I should have worn my running shoes!

My phone died this morning (Leo says from overuse – can’t argue) so I borrowed the neighbours’ car to go to a nearby shopping centre with a phone store, hoping they could fix it. No luck – it’s been sent away for a week, like a naughty kid suspended from school – but at least I have my old phone to use in the meantime.

This is one time I’m glad I haven’t been a minimalist and gotten rid of the old phone as soon as the new one arrived. The old one feels like a brick in comparison, and the photo quality will be pretty average, but I’m contactable, which feels more important than it should be. I’ll carry my compact camera around in case I see Betsy and friends again.

Amazing things, cars. I even managed to do a grocery shop AND go to the nursery for more plants and soil. I wasn’t going to put planter boxes on the upstairs balcony but hey, I needed geraniums. It wouldn’t be a Swiss house without geraniums. I was trying to avoid conforming, because it seems like it’s compulsory to have planter boxes overflowing with red geraniums in Switzerland … so I chose pink ones instead. Still a rebel.

Couldn’t plant them this afternoon because it was raining so much, but hopefully I’ll do it on Saturday … if the weather gets any better. It was five degrees Celsius this morning, and 10 degrees at 3pm. Come back spring, we miss you already.

I really, really, really have lost my exercising mojo. I feel worn out, and I look it too, but really, I’m not worn out, I’m just being lazy. Which is a shame because the fitfor15in15 six-month mark isn’t too far away and I want to look and feel my best. (I blame the mammoth book, The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, that I’m still reading. What a sorry sack that whole story is at the moment – it’s leaching into every pore).

So, banishing the book and with the halfway mark as my motivation, I’m off to do 15 minutes of squats with hand weights, push ups, sit ups, lunges and all that kind of malarkey.

Wishing you a wonderful day.

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Here’s Betsy’s hairy Scottish cousin, Beryl, who lives in the north of Switzerland

February 4: Tomorrow, I’ll be sore!

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Yes, that headline rhymes on purpose 🙂

Wowee, I found a good workout today! My friend Sandra and I were talking yesterday about Jillian Michaels, who’s very popular in America and has also been one of the trainers on The Biggest Loser USA.

I’ve done two of her workouts previously, on January 7 and January 19, and they took roughly 30 minutes each. Today’s workout, “Banish Fat Boost Metabolism Complete Workout”, was about 54 minutes of solid movement and I worked up the ‘best’ sweat I’ve had since beginning fitfor15in15. (No photos. Not pretty.)

These women are machines! If you can ignore the terrible, repetitive warm-up music, the rest of the soundtrack is pretty inoffensive … or maybe all my creaking, crunching and cracking and Jillian’s instructions filled my head. The workout is intense! Every circuit is done twice, which is good because for the first circuit you’re pretty much making sure you’re doing some of the exercises correctly.

When it came to all the jumping moves, I ended up just going with her beginner’s recommendation of squats for the second pass of each circuit. Jumping and coordination were beyond me in the final 10 minutes. As were the full planks. I was on my knees. Begging it to stop.

But I TOTALLY recommend this workout. You don’t need any weights, just a mat for the floor exercises and a full glass of water (how can these three trainers not drink any water in 50 minutes?! Phew!)

Exercising this afternoon really changed the day. When I woke up this morning, I was flat. It was a low day, a slow day, a shallow day, a hollow day. I couldn’t even be bothered to get out of bed to do my morning routine. I did it in bed. How slack is that? It was cold … I was cold … and I felt old.

But I (figuratively) slapped myself a bit and prepared to leave the house for my lunch appointment with a former German teacher, Claudia. Not surprisingly, forcing myself to shower, get dressed, put on some make up, walk to the bus (oh my, was that walk cold!) and talk German and English for three hours really lifted me up. Thanks Claudia!

And on the walk home from the bus, I was positively gagging to start exercising, and not only because the Siberian wind (well it was coming from the north east, so it has to be from Siberia, right?!) had frozen me through. I was keen to move, and sweat … and, ok, feel warm. That’s why I chose something I haven’t done before, and something more than 30 minutes long.

And you know why I think I felt so bad this morning? I couldn’t work it out, but then I thought about what I’d eaten in the past two days – Monday night pesto pasta, Tuesday morning muesli with natural yoghurt and Tuesday dinner leftover pasta … ahhh, not one piece of fruit or a vegetable in sight! All processed foods. I’m no expert but I think that very much had something to do with why I felt so bad this morning. Plus, I probably didn’t drink enough water yesterday …

So the better nutrition plan is gaining legs. And speaking of legs, I need to go rest mine!

Wishing you a wonderful day.

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Love the layers of snow on the pool edge

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This is the road to our house. It was a bit tricky walking on this today, but still better than the shortcut in shin-deep snow. Boy it was cold walking between these frozen fields