Lessons from January
The photo above is just a house on one of my morning walks. I wanted to show you how pretty the citrus trees are this time of year. This yard has oranges, tangerines, and lemons. Lovely!
I took on a few challenges in January, and lessons were learned. TL;DR – I crushed my goals and am continuing them into February.
I participated in Dry Damp January, I did Adriene’s 30 Day Yoga Journey, and I did a 30 day Fitness Challenge, that I counted as Strength.
Damp January reminded me that I sleep better without wine. I get into bad habits, like having a glass of wine while I cook dinner, then a glass with dinner, and more often than not, wine while I watch TV. That’s a lot of wine, and it’s not doing me any favors. The thing is, I didn’t really miss it. I slept better, and because I was sleeping better, my skin looks and feels better. I didn’t abstain entirely, though. I had a glass on New Year’s Day, because I had an open bottle in the fridge that was not going to last until the end of the month. I had a glass that same Thursday, because I was going to a local spa for a massage, and it sounded relaxing to me. And I had a glass this last Monday, because I went to lunch with some friends from many years ago at a nice restaurant. That’s why I say ‘Damp January’. I think this is going to be my modus operandi going forward. Have a glass or two if I’m at a party or a restaurant, but not at home, when I tend to drink more mindlessly.
Adriene’s 30 Day Yoga Journey taught me that daily yoga is different than half ass yoga. For the last couple of years, I have been doing her January 30 Day Journeys, streaming them on my TV via YouTube, 3 or 4 mornings a week. I stick with it sometimes, and then for some reason I will take a week, or a month, or whatever off. Last year I tweaked my neck (blow drying my hair, which is ridiculous) and doing yoga really helped. So I decided to do yoga every day this month, instead of 3 or 4 days a week. The videos are short, between 20 and 30 minutes. Know what? I love this part of my day. So I’m going to keep it up. I think I’m going to go back and start with her first year of 30 Day Yoga, which was 2015. Then I will do a different 30 Day Journey every month. Of course, her beautiful dog Benji was a little puppy in 2015, so he won’t be there for at least the first year, which could turn out to be a deal breaker for me. If it is, I will just skip forward to whatever year he starts appearing. I need dog time, even if it’s just virtual, having Benji napping in the background. So far I’m one day in to February, and while I miss Benji in today’s video, I’m going to stick with my plan.
Strength – I don’t remember whose blog had the chart above awhile ago (original source Dancing in the Rain, circa 2014). I thought this might be a good way to incorporate a bit of strength training into my routine. From this I learned that I am capable of doing these exercises every day, and that I can do them with hand weights (3 to 5 lbs, I have both). In addition, once I’ve finished these four exercises, I am motivated, so I do some tricep exercises and so on. I mostly did the 5 lb weights early on, but found that as I added reps, it was just too much, so I backed off to 3 lbs. I can work my way up.
Also, why am I so stubborn? About 1/2 way through the month I started feeling pain when doing pushups and crunches, in my lower right abs. Not any other time, so clearly I strained the muscle a bit. If I hadn’t been trying to complete this challenge, I would have stopped doing the push-ups and crunches until it recovered completely, but no. I wanted to finish, so I kept doing them. I did give up doing full push-ups though, and stuck to my knees, for the last week. I will try those again in a few weeks or whatever, once it is no longer giving me grief.
When I started, my routine was 2 cups of tea, Wordle etc., yoga, then strength, then my morning walk. As the reps increased, I found that I felt weak and couldn’t really complete the reps. So I changed my routine to tea, Wordle etc., yoga, walk, then come home, start work, get situated there, and then have breakfast. Then an hour or so after breakfast, I do the workout. (Benefit of working from home!) That’s been working a lot better for me. It’s too soon, I don’t SEE any difference yet, and maybe this isn’t enough to give me a visible difference anyway. But I feel stronger. I’m going to keep it up going forward.
I enjoyed these challenges, and I enjoyed marking them off in my calendar. I didn’t have any star stickers like Elisabeth, so I marked each day ‘YAS’ for Yoga, Alcohol, Strength. It reminded me of YAS Queen, which made me happy. Damp days, I just wrote ‘YS’, which isn’t as much fun. I guess life is just more fun with vowels, right?
How about you? Did January have any lessons for you? Did you participate in any challenges? Do you enjoy such things, or is that not your bag, baby?
44 Comments
Kyria @ Travel Spot
I think I posted that 30 day challenge on my blog last year and then Elisabeth did it, so you could have also seen it on hers! I actually really enjoyed doing it, but I am NOT good at doing it every day so I ended up doing double days many days… I just could not get into the habit. I have been doing planks a few times per week since mid December and am feeling good about it so far! I used to do daily pushups, but I also had some pain in my lower back and wrist, so I stopped that. However, I had gotten up to about 70 per day before quitting. I would like to get back into that, but maybe after I get some more arm strength from the planks…?
J
Kyria, that sounds right about the challenge! 70 pushups? WOW. That’s very impressive. I can’t imagine getting to 70 full body pushups, but perhaps I could get to 70 on my knees? I’m at 40 now.
Nicole MacPherson
Someone recently told me about Damp January, and I was like…I think I’ve been doing Damp (Insert Month) for years. I do like my wine, but I only have some on Friday and Saturday, and I do notice a difference in my sleep on those days, and not for the better. However, I just love a good glass of red.
I am always amazed at California. I mean, imagine just…having a tree with fruit on it. I guess that happens here in the summer/ fall but it’s just so exotic to me, fruit on a tree in January. What an incredible gift to the world citrus is.
J
Nicole, yes, I love the citrus trees! They’re so pretty. I’ve even seen a few grapefruit trees, and have contemplated swiping one or two, but haven’t felt brave enough.
Kyria @ Travel Spot
I think technically, at least in Oakland, I don’t know about WC, if the fruit hangs over the sidewalk, it is fair game. Obviously you have to be polite, but I have a fig tree that hangs over, and I fully expect people to help themselves to the ones they can reach!! In Oakland, there are often fruits over the sidewalk and I have definitely helped myself to some of them. I would never go into anyone’s yard though!
J
Kyria, I agree. I have no problem helping myself to fruit that does not involve trespassing. Sadly I have not seen any grapefruits on the border of the property line. Sigh. I DID swipe a pomegranate a couple of years ago and felt kind of bad about it, but now am feeling better because it is definitely at the edge of the property, right there on the sidewalk.
Beckett @ Birchwood Pie
Damp January FTW! There’s nothing wrong with taking a dry spell, but it’s much more realistic to be damp.
YAS QUEEN!!!!!!
J
Birchie, I agree! I have enjoyed it, but also liked a little leeway.
nance
Sigh. I’d be a Fruit Thief in California. No tree would be safe on my walk. And with cameras everywhere, I’d probably be fined and jailed. “Yes, officer, that IS me, but look at all the avocados and lemons they’re not even using!”
Thanks to our awful weather, I observed Barely Damp January. I think the only wine I had was when we went to our party in Canada at the start of the month. The rest of the time I was living in fear of migraines, getting over migraines, or having them.
J
Nance, stealing citrus is definitely a THING. There are trees with SO MUCH FRUIT, just sitting there, and then one goes to the grocery store and the price is 80 cents for a lemon or something. We have enough neighbors with trees that I can simply ask, I don’t have to steal. When the Meyer lemons are gifted to me, I juice them and freeze the juice in 1 TBLSP portions, so I can have it all year. I wish Ted could eat sweets, I would sure love a Meyer lemon cheesecake. We’re too far north, I think, for many avocados. I have a tree, and I see other people do as well, but I’ve never seen one with fruit on it. (Though some farmers have them at our local Farmer’s Market, so clearly I’m wrong about it being too far North.)
I’m sorry that migraines (and fear of migraines) kept you from enjoying your beautiful wine. It’s one thing to give it up on purpose, and quite another to have it forced upon you. I hope February weather is kinder to you.
Elisabeth
I WANT TO LIVE SOMEWHERE WHERE CITRUS FRUIT GROWS IN FEBRUARY. (Can you tell I’m tired of snow and cold and winter in Canada?)
I LOVED the 30-day challenge. Adriene is such a good, gentle instructor and seeing Benji is just…the best. I’m planning to keep up with daily yoga moving forward which is a big deal for me because I’ve long wanted to stretch more and never done anything close to this consistently working out.
I learned about that fitness challenge from Kyria, then posted it on my blog, and then she wrote me asking if I wanted to do it together, so we did it last January (though I missed a few days because I had my endometrial ablation, I think? something went awry and I fell short of actually doing the whole thing). I’ll admit I enjoy the yoga a lot more than crunches – haha.
J
Elisabeth, agree…I enjoy the yoga more than the push-ups and so on. But I am sticking with it. I’m at that age where losing muscle mass is a thing (has been a thing for a long time) and I need to do SOMETHING about it.
Margaret
I get too obsessive if I set challenges so I shoot for daily exercise, generally walking. I have a light to moderate alcohol intake, drink lots of water and try not to tweak anything. Why is it so easy to do that now? Turn my head too quickly to the side and ouch! Some day I would like to go to a spa.
J
Oh, interesting about getting too obsessive. It’s good that you know yourself so you don’t get stuck in that trap. And I agree, why is it so easy to tweak ourselves now? I dislike it.
Sarah
I need to do a yoga challenge to jump start my practice. I, too, get out of whack and end up doing half assed yoga, too. SAME with strength. Blergh.
J
Sarah, I really like Adriene, but there are plenty of other yoga teachers on YouTube. 🙂 The challenge Elisabeth and I did was called ‘Flow’, she has a different theme every year. So you could do a search for Yoga with Adriene Flow and it would pop up.
Lisa's Yarns
I try to have a “damp” month most months except around the holidays. My general rule is that I will only drink wine if I am out for dinner, at a friend’s house for a social gathering or if we have people over. Otherwise I should not be drinking wine. I can mindlessly consume 3 glasses in the same sort of fashion as you otherwise and it does impact sleep. I did drink this week when I was at the sales conference as it’s kind of ‘greases the wheels’ if you will, especially for someone like me who is not an extrovert naturally.
I don’t typically join in on challenges… they just don’t seem to attract me? Besides doing wordle, spelling bee and duolingo every day, there isn’t anything I tend to do daily besides reading. I have a really long streak going on my kindle and I kind of hate it because now I only want to read books on my kindle so I don’t break the streak (696 days!!).
I’m envious of your citrus trees! They are so pretty and how wonderful to see produce growing! We have had odd spring-like weather so I won’t be surprised if the trees start to bud soon. I just hope the weather doesn’t reverse course and hurt things that start to bud!
J
Lisa, your drinking plan is exactly what we’re doing. I think it will be healthier for us both. I wish I could just have a glass with dinner or while cooking, but that doesn’t seem to be how it works. Better to keep it out of the house for the most part.
coco
I’m not very good with doing daily challenges. I do track habits everyday, those that I want to do daily ideally, such as meditation, be present, take my supplement, write my 5 years journal in the morning quiet time. I don’t get to do them everyday but daily reminding myself helps.
Good job with your yoga challenge and strength workout. Doing slowly and gently helps to make it more sustainable.
J
Coco, I’ve not really been one to track such things, but am finding that it really motivates me, so I think I’m going to stick with it.
San
Way to go, Julie. You had a great month with some great new routines.
As you probably know, I am the queen of trackers/challenges and they’re absolutely my thing. I love crossing things off and I love to earn badges as rewards. I am a school kid in this regard 🙂
J
Thanks San! I’m 3 days in to February at this point and sticking with it. I’m surprising myself with the satisfaction I am getting from writing YAS in my calendar, so maybe I’m more of a school kid than I realized.
Tobia | craftaliciousme
I applaud you Julie. You are doing exactly what I am hoping to do soon. Yoga and some strength dayily. Well I’ll settle for once, twice and finally three times a week. But I am lightyears from that.
But reading your account has been motivating and just what I needed. Thank you.
J
Good luck Tobia, I hope you find the perfect balance for you!
Ally Bean
I don’t do challenges preferring to dance to the beat of my own drummer. I drank less wine in January, not because of Dry January but because the stuff is so expensive now. What did I learn in January? Some months aren’t worth remembering! I cannot think of a longer, grayer, sloggy month than this last January.
J
Ally, the money saved is a great motivator for sure! I’m sorry it has been so gloomy there. It’s been lovely here, which I try to enjoy and not worry about not enough water/snowpack etc.
Tierney
YAS QWEEN! I love that so much. I would definitely be motivated to write YAS! instead of ys. It’s funny what can be motivating. I’m going to start using this.
I have started more strength training and really liking it. I’ve been doing Rebecca Kennedy’s 5 day split on Peloton and it’s really good. She has an “unofficial” split coming up so I’ll switch over to that after a few more weeks. For yoga, I’m a huge fan of Anna and Kristin on Peloton but I also love Tim Senesi on YouTube and his Conscious Movement webpage if you need more Tim. He’s a great instructor. My husband says I only like Tim because he’s hot, but that’s not true! Finally, I need more dampness in my life because any more alcohol than that is bad for my sleep and waistline.
J
Tierney, I guess I am clueless, I really didn’t know you could do Peloton workouts that are not on the Peloton bike. Consider me informed! I’ve never heard of Tim Senesi, a quick google search shows a guy without a shirt most of the time, which might be distracting. 🙂
I agree on the alcohol…too much is bad for sleep, waistline, and wallet.
Tierney
Yes, Tim seems allergic to shirts. And he’s not ugly. But I’m serious, he’s a very good teacher!
He is not allergic to his cute dog Ollie who makes an appearance every now and then.
J
I love a good dog cameo!
NGS
Look at you go! So much consistency. You should be so very proud of yourself. If you keep this up for the rest of the year, imagine all the good, quality sleep you’ll get!
J
I know! Imagine!
Ernie
I do not do any challenges in January – or any other month. I guess I feel like life is full of enough challenges. 😉
I’m trying to stay on top of the housework a bit more. I still need to make a master list so that the kids participate more. Your yoga, strength, work, tea, etc. sounds awesome. I do workout daily and rarely skip. I agree this is a beneift of working from home and also my favorite pandemic perk. The woman who teaches amazing classes at our health club posted her workouts on FB and I still go back and do my fav classes. I still send her money. Not having to go to the health club has been life changing.
J
Oh goodness, my mom was the queen of the chores. She made housework/chore binders, and clearly wrote out exactly what was expected of us on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. There was one binder for kitchen, and one for living room/bathrooms. She used those plastic binder sleeves so she didn’t have to replace them. She was extremely organized and liked to do such things, and with specific lists, there was no saying, “I didn’t know I was expected to wipe down the counters every day” or any such nonsense. I’d like to say I carried that forward for my daughter, but I didn’t.
It doesn’t sound like you NEED any challanges, you are already doing the work. If I make this a habit and keep it up for the year, I doubt that I will take a new fitness challenge on. I used to participate in a lot of reading challenges, back in the day. Those were fun.
Suzanne
Late to the party, but I LOVE this. You totally crushed your January goals! Your description of the mindless wine drinking is very familiar to me — it’s so easy to have a glass of wine while cooking and then the second glass is easier. Love your transition to “damp.”
I have just never enjoyed yoga that much, but I do like Adriene and I agree that having her dog in the videos makes my day better, so perhaps I will try to incorporate some yoga on days I don’t do strength routines???
I’m excited for your monthly 30 Days of Yoga — what a great way to extend your practice all year!
J
Thanks Suzanne! I think it helped on yoga that I wasn’t going 0-60. I was already doing YWA several days a week, but then when I tried making it every day, I was happy about the results I got. Meaning, I enjoyed that part of my day, and my neck and back feel better.
Stephany
I tried that strength challenge and it got so difficult at the halfway mark, lol. So many squats! I gave up.
I didn’t know there was a doggo to watch for with the YWA videos. Consider me interested.
I like the idea of a Damp January. I typically only drink when I’m at a restaurant – I don’t keep alcohol in the house because I just won’t drink it and it’ll go to waste, lol. I’m glad it was a successful month for you!
J
It DID get hard! I wanted to say I could do 40 full body pushups by the end, but that was NOT happening. We all have to know our limits I suppose.
Regarding YWA, Benji is in almost every video, but he’s not usually RUGHT under her like that. That was a treat that made me take a picture. He’s a sweetheart, I think.
Melissa
I have been having a damp month too. Just trying to keep feeling good, and am pretty much doing the same as you. I am very bad at 30-day challenges. Usually I just do the weekdays because I’m all over the place on the weekends, but even then I can’t remember the last time I was successful. Maybe one day I’ll get there.
J
Melissa, I needed the extra push of a couple of challanges, I think. I don’t usually do them. This year I really wanted to start some new habits, break some bad ones, so this was an easy way to do it for me.
Anne
Oh just ignore me, over here, booking my trip to CA.
So. Envious. Please enjoy the fruit trees and beautiful surroundings for all of us. 🙂
J
I do love the citrus trees everywhere, they are so pretty. A lot of the scenery here isn’t really scenic, just apartment buildings and freeways and so on. But there are definitely some views to be had. Come on out, we’ll show you around.
Daria
This is so wonderful. I did not do any challenges but wonder if they can motivate me. I saved the strength training image and will try. I need the exercise manily for my mental health. Wine… I go through waves, sometimes I like it, sometimes not… Also, depends on the type of wine, bought a bottle a while back- it was sour as all heck! I also noticed that anything over two glassess makes me sleepy but then gives me insomnia in the night.
J
Daria, yes on the wine…it helps you go to sleep, but then you don’t sleep through the night. No bueno.
I’m staying motivated by writing in my calendar. Who knew that would work? Not me.