'It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness' Proverb

Sunday 31 March 2019

Goals for 2019 - Update #1


I can't believe that the first quarter of the year is over already.  Where did the time go?  It hasn't been the best start of the year with a little bit more emotional stuff happening then I was expecting (like we can ever expect that), but I'm trying to see it as a positive.  After all, if the year has a bad start it can only really go up.  So here we go.

Healthy Eating

I'm just going to put it out there - I comfort eat.  In fact it's my main way of dealing with unpleasant emotions and stress.  I can even use it as a warning light that something might be bothering me more than I realise at the time and will probably be rearing it's ugly head in the near future.  So my attempt to healthy eat didn't set of to a good start.

However, I didn't want to let this put my whole year out so I drew a line under it in March and crawled back onto that wagon.  Since then I have made almost all my breakfast, lunch, and dinners from scratch (including sort of making my own gluten free bread) and doing my best to only snack on fruit, nuts, and pop corn.  

I still have my little sugar addition, mainly Coke Cola and ice cream (which has the added minus of containing dairy), but I'm working on that and this will probably be my focus for the next quarter.

I also found out during this time that I was iron deficient.  This is definitely an issue that can happen when you are a vegetarian (or vegan) but the symptoms I've been having started long before I started that journey so there is clearly something very lacking in my diet.  I had thought I was getting all the iron I needed, but I have obviously miscalculated somewhere. I am now off the tablets I was given and have started taking a good hard look at my diet to see where I can make the improvement I need.  This is another good incentive to make my diet as healthy as possible.

Reducing Waste

As I said at the start, reducing my waste is closely connected to eating healthier as my groceries are where most of my waste comes from.  I have noticed this especially when it comes to the unhealthy snacks and ready meals that I have brought when not making my own food.  I have also noticed, in this last month, that as I've improved the health of my food the amount of waste I have produced has reduced dramatically. 

There is still a major issue with plastic being on a lot of the vegetables that I buy, especially as there's not always an option of picking up plastic free fruit and vegetables.  However, I'm going to carry on looking into this so that I can keep improving as the year goes on.  I will also continue to look at other areas of my life to see where I can make improvements there too.

Learning New Skills
Work

I decided at the start of the year that the first thing I wanted to look into was learning drystone walling and, after being in contact with the Drystone Walling Society, I found some training in my area.  I unfortunately missed the training at the beginning of this year (my fault entirely, things got very busy and I let it slip by), but have booked myself on a course in July.  I really can't wait for that to happen.  



I have also been starting to practise my very rusty navigation skills when out on the mountains and this I want to keep developing until I feel very confident out in the wild.  This is definitely a good skill to have based in the amount of time I spend outside.

Home

The British Sign Language (BSL) cause has been brought for a mere £19.99 and I've already started the first few lessons.  It has been as challenging as I was expecting it to be, but I am really enjoying learning this new skill and have been practising whenever I can, even when just pottering around my home.  Hopefully I will start to get the hang of it very soon.

So it has been a little bit of a bumpy start, but it's a start at least and I'm still happy that I managed to get done the amount that I did.  I now have another three month to keep improving.

I hope your goals are going well too. 

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