I wish that I could say that I completely turned around my goal achievements this quarter and am now on the road to completing all my goals by the end of 2019. This is, of course, completely untrue. 😂 To say that I've been a little preoccupied would be an understatement and some of the goals I had set for myself have drifted off to do their own thing. Needless to say, the outcome hasn't been particularly healthy or good for me and I now have one more quarter to finally get them on track.
Healthy Eating
On the whole my eating has gotten healthier this quarter, with me putting even more vegetable into my diet and, overall, reducing the amount of gluten I've been consuming. I've actually lost a little bit more fat and, more importantly, my body feels much stronger than it did before. This is most definitely helped by the work I do, but a good diet is really important to keeping your body healthy when working it hard.
Where I've fallen down on the healthy eating is with my usual nemesis, sugar. I haven't really been paying attention, but when I actually started keeping an eye on what I was eating this last month I realised that I had definitely fallen back onto having quite a few sugary treats. Not just that but it was happening more often and the amount of sugar each time was increasing. You might think that, with the very physical job I do, this extra sugar wouldn't really matter too much, especially as I'm still losing fat. But sugar does more bad things than just help you put on weight and I know how important reducing my sugar is to increase my bodies general well-being. So, I'm going to give reducing it yet another go again this quarter (if at first you don't succeed and all that), but might need to bring in some helpers again in the form of fizzy water (totally ridiculous I know) and crunchy snacks.
I'm going to let myself be a little bit more relaxed about it over the weekend, but I don't want to slip too far the other way and just binge on sugar for two days a week. Time to start showing some real restraint. I know I can, I've just been being lazy and let the little sugar monsters reign in my brain.
So, I failed on my mini goal for this quarter, but I'm going to roll it on to the next. Sugary treats only on two occasions a week.
Reducing Waste
On the whole I have managed to reduce my waste quite a bit these last few months, and that's predominantly due to me doing even less shopping than before (if that's actually possible). The one place in which I am still struggling, which surprises me a little, is food shopping. My diet is predominantly plant based and you would have thought that that would have meant that there would be almost no packaging at all in my basket. However, in a number of shops I've been to there is plastic wrapped around every vegetable. I don't really understand why this has now become the case and I really don't understand the hygiene argument a lot of shops give seeing as you wash your veg before you eat them anyway.
Co Op seems to be the worst offenders of this at the moment, which is frustrating as it's one of the shops I end up having to go to most often. I have been keeping an eye out for farm shops as I travel around, but these mainly seem to only sell meat and eggs with not a lot of vegetables, so they haven't been the help I was hoping they were going to be.
Whilst I did try to carry out my mini goal for this quarter there is definitely more work needed as it didn't exactly work out. I'm going to keep looking for other options and possible solutions to help reduce the amount of waste I produce, but if you have any suggestions please let me know. They would be greatly appreciated.
Learning New Skills
Work
I took the dry stone walling course in July and have already written a post about it, which you can find here. It was really interesting and gave me a good insight into a different way of using stones to build structures. It is definitely a future job I would like to look more into, but as it requires a lot more training than I have time for at the moment it'll probably be something I come back to later on.
As before, trying to learn the names of different flowers is something I keep coming back to whilst at work. This is a slow process, especially as it can only take place during breaks or the walks to and from the work sites, and will probably take a while before I feel really confident about it.
I have also found someone who may be able to help me with having a refresher on my navigation skills, and I'm going to contact them and see what they say. I figured this was a much better option than just winging it on my own in case I'm making some very serious mistakes that might need rectifying.
Mini goals is definitely a tick for this quarter and I'm planning on getting the navigation skills sorted for the next. Then this goal at least will have been a success.
Home
I now have a new, well second hand, laptop which means that I now have the software I need to carry on doing my BSL learning. It's been great getting back to learning this again and I've been enjoying it, despite the fact that we've now moved onto more complex, scary stuff like stringing a sentence together. This does mean that I am having to learn a new form of grammar, which I have to admit is freaking my brain out a little. But it's all part of keeping your brain active and healthy.
My mini goal here was to try and do one BSL learning section a week, but I've actually managed do more than that and have noticed a difference in the amount I've managed to take in. My mini goal for the upcoming quarter is to finish this course and I've put a timetable in place, as if I was back at school, which makes it pretty likely I will achieve that my the end of the year.
So, the learning new skills goal has gone pretty well so far, but the other two not so much. I'm trying not to be negative about this as it won't help and I still have three more months to ensure that I get back on track. Whilst the sugar goal is probably going to be the most difficult personally, the reducing packaging goal is probably going to be the most frustrating as it is the one least under my control. However, my aim is to end this year on a high note and I'm now more determined than before to do that. Onwards and upwards.
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