Nia Peters, Feb 2022

Challenge Description: The true goal here is habit building. For me, habit-building centers around three high-level dimensions: mind, body, and soul. For the next 6 months, I will focus on my body. I know that these dimensions depend on one another and work together, but I believe that improving my body will give me the energy and mental capacity to next work towards better mind and soul habits.

Motivation: I have built up a lot of bad habits related to food and exercise over the years. I don’t blame anything or anyone, yet acknowledge I need to engage in activities that will put my body in the optimal state of operation. I would also like to ensure my body gives me the energy I need to spend time with family, contribute to my community, and engage in activities that bring me happiness. Finally, I would like to pass on healthy habits to my children and future generations.

Expectation: I know the Challenge Description and Motivation are a bit vague and high level, but overall I’m going to re-do the 30-Day Vegan Challenge and 30-Day Strength Training Challenge for the next 6-months. I expect that I will want a slice of pizza or a bowl of ice cream from time to time, but overall I will try to stick to a strict vegan diet. Additionally, I will try to find time (even if I am having trouble getting up at 4:30am) to strength train 5 daysa week. Again the goal is habit building and setbacks are a part of that journey. I start Feb 1 and will rep ort at the end of every month.

Feb 2022: Throughout February I am slowly building up better habits. It’s a process. I easily fall back into my old ways so I have to continuously keep the goal of habit building at the forefront of my goals. As per the two challenges for these 6-months, instead of engaging in a strict vegan diet, I engaged in mostly a vegetarian/pescatarian ( just shrimp) diet. When I am able to eat strictly vegan dishes I do (i.e. hummus, pita bread, and veggies). I think for now engaging in a vegetarian diet will get me closer to a vegan diet, but I am not there yet. As for the 30-Day Strength Training Challenge, I think I was able to engage in this challenge about 60% of the time. The most difficult part of the challenge was waking up at 4:30am so I could get to the gym at 5pm and work out. I think to improve on this challenge, I should find other times to strength train. In February I relied strictly on waking up at 4:30am to get to the gym at 5am for an early morning workout. This always felt great, even though waking up this early was extremely challenging. Well on nights I stayed up too late (for whatever reason), waking up this early didn’t pan out. For March I will try two things to improve on these challenges: 1) Try to eat about 75% vegan dishes 2) Increase the amount of strength training time by using additional times (i.e. noon or evening times). Additionally (and this is not a part of either challenge) I am using the Lose It app to track my calories. This helps me avoid overeating. Even as a vegetarian it’s easy to overeat and gain weight so I just wanted to avoid that. The focus is still on building up those two key habits.

March 2022: I mostly stuck to a pescatarian diet, eating before 8pm, and doing 2 hours/ week workout.

April 2022: Same as the previous month. I think I ate chicken a few times, but nothing big. I’m still a Zumba instructor so I workout 2 hours per week. I’m actually really glad I can say I consistently workout, that’s not as easy as I thought. Especially when I’m not feeling motivated to work out teaching is something I feel obligated to do since I don’t want to let down my students. I suspect one of the reasons I haven’t lost any weight is because of my eating and I haven’t gained any weight because I workout. I know on this blog I don’t post pictures or really show progress and I think that is an issue. I hope I don’t disappoint by cutting this 6-month challenge short and starting clean for the summer. See next post…

Score: F

Outcome: Well I didn’t complete the challenge. Better luck next time and hopefully accountability will keep me on task.