January Mission Review

January Mission Summary

The Mission has suffered a major setback. January was not as productive as one would have liked. There were a number of missteps and a lot of bad intel. The original plan was to do Yoga in the mornings and cardio in the evenings. That was a complete failure. However, after regrouping and coming up with a new plan things seem to be progressing.

Mission adjustment 1: morning workout of Yoga was not….working out. After much research it was decided that the problem was a morning workout should be more energetic like cardio. Many people, including The Rock, hit the road (or treadmill) early morning and start the day with a good cardio session. This adjustment has been implemented and seems to be working.

Mission adjustment 2: any evening workouts were being impeded by an unstable schedule between myself and my commanding officer. Her schedule is constantly in flux. Here is an example of my weekly maneuvers:

• Monday - pick up the Recruit at daycare, home by 6pm if no complications. I am home with him until well after 7pm. Dinner is usually not before 6:30pm. By the time the Commander gets home it is time to get the toddler ready for bed. By the time all this is over I am too exhausted to work out. 
• Tuesday and Thursday - after school program keeps me at work until 5:30pm, sometimes 6pm. This puts me home around 7pm most of the time. Eating dinner that late makes a workout difficult. 
• Wednesday - I can go straight home and get dinner at a reasonable hour. This is the only day in the week this happens 
• Friday - Similar to Monday. Commander has work obligations that require me to pick up the Recruit, however this is somewhat sporadic so it is hard to plan around. I also have the Junior Agents to pick up from their barracks. 

Since consistency is key to any program like this I have adjusted the maneuvers schedule to hopefully work around these issues. Any evening workouts will now take place as soon as I get home.

Mission adjustment 3: the implementation of Mission adjustment 2 required that diet be adjusted as well. Before my meals increased in size and substance throughout the day with dinner being the heaviest meal. Based on the advice of a certified personal trainer friend and several articles on the subject I am inverting this plan. I will be adjusting my diet as such: breakfast will be much more substantial to help with morning cravings and sustain until lunch. Lunch was already fairly decent but will be slightly improved. Dinner is where the major change will come. I will be working out BEFORE dinner now and will have a light, protein-based meal. This will accommodate eating later in the evening and will help with recovery from the workout.

The 1st major challenge of the overall Mission will be the 1st week of February. I will be at a work conference all week. I will still be able to get my scheduled workouts in but I will have to be extra diligent with my diet. I will update the Mission log after the trip with its success or failure. Below is a full update on Phase I through January.

Phase I Operations - Quarter 1
Fitness 

• Complete DDP Yoga 
• Various starts and stops. Averaging 2 sessions per week out 5. 
• Complete C25K 
• Just completed week 1, doing well
• Get below 300
• See February Accountability Update for current progress on this goal

Diet 

• Track as much food as possible
• I am exploring myfitnesspal as well. I am about 75-80% compliant with this objective.
• Minimal sugar intake (including carbs)
• This is still going well save for the occasional snack size candy bar. I have had only one full Coke this year.
• No bored/stress/travel snacking
• Other than coffee stops this has gone well. There have been many days I have actively NOT stopped despite being very hungry

Life

• Less frivolous spending
• There has been a few slips on this front but nothing over $5-$10
• Improve time management/make better use of time/stay on task
• I am still struggling with this.
• Do something creative just for me for at least 1 hour a week
• I am not sure if it balanced out to 1 hour per week but I did do some creative things. I wired an f/x Disney Infinity 3.0 Yoda figure to light up off the game base. Continuing with Infinity I spent a few hours playing around in the Toy Box, which it very under rated. It is a fully functional game engine. I am interested in exploring this a bit more.

Stay tuned for more updates. Until then may the Force be with you and may the Power protect you

\m/ THERE IS NO TRY \m/