Hello, I’m on my last day of a daily challenge I started 71 days ago on August 22nd. As I write this I have the rest of the day to get through but I do not have any fear that I will not complete it- I know I will get my daily tasks done… so to all intents and purposes I have completed this challenge! *Update I’m posting this later than I thought so yes I can confirm I went for a nice hour long Halloween walk earlier!
When I started my main aim was to compete 71 days straight of daily exercise but I also I had 7 habits I wanted to try to build/ break and altogether they were:
Daily Exercise
10 minutes meditation
Get outside every day
No Amazon Purchases
2-4 litres of water
Reduce phone use
No sweets/ white carbs
So how did I get on with these?
Mostly positive and consistent but some things I didn’t do so well on.
Daily Exercise/ Getting outside
I always did my daily exercise and often did a daily walk therefore hitting both habits “Daily Exercise” and “Get outside every day”. The reasons behind this were over the summer despite completing a 75 day daily exercise challenge from April-July I dropped the ball and didn’t make daily exercise a priority so I wanted something to get me back on track. I have been guilty in the past of staying in for days at a time (nothing to do with lockdown), I never saw the benefit of getting outside daily, in fact I felt like it broke my concentration when trying to focus on tasks and was completely unnecessary; I dearly wanted to break this habit because I don’t think humans are meant to stay indoors in windowless rooms and travel from place to place without using our legs or looking around us at the wonders of nature. This was a success! I feel like this is something I can carry on now.
10 minutes of mediation
Hmmm not so successful. I started well for the first week but then it became rather intermittent and was dependent on me tacking it onto a particular exercise regime which I did sporadically). I still want to cultivate this habit but I think without hindsight I couldn’t find a consistent place for it in my routine therefore it didn’t get prioritised (or vice versa, however you want to look at it). I probably averaged mediating about once a week overall. More effort required to sustain this habit! I think I’m learning with habits that are hard to instil, it’s about finding the place in your routine with the least resistance, you are in the right environment, the time of day is right and you have the time available. You plan it in like any other appointment in your diary- then it’s just doing it without thinking about it until it’s a part of your routine.
No Amazon Purchases
I am pleased to say I managed to do this one… with caveats. I wanted to break my “see- click- buy” habit. You know an ad pops up and you think ooh I need that, or a friend talks about some new gadget that changed their life and you say where did you get it from and they say “Amazon of course!” so you dutifully have a look and before you know it’s being delivered to your house sometimes even the same day. It’s almost like gambling because you feel a sense of achievement from finding and buying something “that will change your life” (spoiler alert, it won’t). I’ve got so used to this habit that I really struggled at the beginning- the “see it/ think I need it/and look it’s so easy to buy” train of thought and associated actions had become so ingrained in my psyche that I didn’t even bat an eyelid over buying random things I could probably buy on my high street but more importantly I probably didn’t even want or need. Since I stopped buying stuff on Amazon our recycling pile has gone down because I’m just not having so many deliveries come to the house. We are saving a bit of money- although I have to say some of the things I bought on Amazon either get shifted to an online food shop or buying locally. I have made more of an effort to shop locally which is great but most of all I am thinking way more carefully about what I buy and how quickly I need it and most of the time I don’t need things immediately like I thought I did so that’s a definite positive change. It is something I want to carry on with in the future.
The caveats I mentioned are that I still have prime membership (which I pay annually) and as a family we all use my prime video account so although I didn’t buy anything from Amazon we definitely used the prime video service and bought the odd movie. I also have an audible account which I did try to pause but couldn’t (because I’d already recently paused it) so I did have this running as well. We also have some Alexas in our house which we use like walkie talkies as well as using for news and listening/watching Youtube videos so if I wanted to go on a total Amazon ban I’d need to think about what we’d use instead. When my renewal date for prime membership comes up next year and I’d love to think that I could just get rid of it all then… but there is a tipping point between convenience (which Amazon and Apple products are built on) and protecting our privacy and not giving a couple of massive companies (who don’t seem to pay appropriate levels of tax) all our data and money. Maybe the answer is to be completely “off grid” but I know I don’t really want that either so yes, something to ponder further.
2-4 litres of water- I’ve managed this one apart from a few days where we were travelling and I knew I wouldn’t be able to drink that much water. When you first start trying to drink more water it seems impossible but once you start chugging it does become sort of addictive. I found water replacing a lot of the drinks I would normally have like coffee because it is just hard to drink that volume of liquid plus all your normal hot drinks. I have a 2 litre bottle called “Gym Keg” which helps- so I definitely recommend drinking from a reusable bottle so you can keep track. I also prefer to drink cold water- it just goes down easier so I keep my water bottle in the fridge overnight and/ or take water from a filtered water jug we keep in the fridge. It’s also wise to get the bulk of your water in early in the morning I found. If you’re trying to drink a litre of water at 9pm you’ll be peeing all night. I also found it good whenever you’re doing exercise to chug it down because your body needs it and you want/ need the hydration even more than usual so it’s just a good time to get a lot of the water in. I think I’ve had less spots since I’ve been drinking more water and I often felt dehydrated so I’m glad this has become part of my routine.
Reduced phone use- Over the summer when we went on a little break to Scotland I consciously took a break from using my phone because I was on it constantly, not just using social media but checking the news, emails, texts. social networks and falling down google rabbit holes. The time I was not on my phone was definitely less than the time spent on it. So I took a break, I ignored my phone, I forgot I had one. The initial grief was strong but the gradual relief was immense. When you stop pivoting everything you do towards one (admittedly amazing smart) device your brain re-starts. You have thoughts that you can finish because you haven’t got distracted and fallen down a tangential rabbit hole. You can connect with actual real people and do actual real in person things like play games and do puzzles and try to use your collective intelligence to solve problems rather than reaching for the internet to fill in the blanks. I read 3 (paper!) books and it felt good to switch off. I had also been having an issue with my hand/ wrist/ thumb and it was a bit of shock to realise it was my phone use that was doing it because when I took a break it improved. Obviously back in the real world it is hard to maintain this level of abstinence but I wanted to try to build some restraint in if possible. So I wanted to read more paper books and I wanted to use my computer for internet surfing rather than stress my “phone wrist”. I feel like I have made some progress with this. I don’t have the same rsi type issues- I’ve been trying to use my thumbs more evenly when I am using my phone and to just think about it more and try to stop myself from going down rabbit holes. I’ve read more of paper books and am trying to remember to use my computer instead of phone to use my hands more evenly but also to be aware of that constant need to be connected to something and to reach out to people instead of information/ content consuming. I need to work on this a bit more but I do feel like a change has been made and I’ll try to keep working on this- as much as it is possible working in an interconnected world that relies on using smart phones/the internet!
No sweets- I have done well with this! This is probably the first year I’ve bought sweets for Halloween and haven’t eaten them all before the 31st and had to replace them all! I’ve bought them, thought about it, then moved past the feeling. Even last night I thought about it but decided to do the “delay don’t deny” trick where you say yes sure you can have that, just eat something else (healthier/ more substantial) first and if you still want it after you can have it. 9 times out of 10 if I’m full I don’t want anything else.. so this works quite well for me.
Some of you will remember that I started trying to crack my sweet habit in April, in fact I think I started on 23rd April so it has now been 6 months since I had any sweets/ candy! This is a real achievement for me- there has never been a time in my life when I have not eaten sweets, I might have gone a week at the most. I have a real addiction to soft-hard jelly type sweets (bootlaces, strawbs, fruit gums etc) and it has been with me all my life. When I started going to the gym properly back in April I didn’t want to be working out then counteractively stuffing my face with sweets so I decided it was time. The caveats with this are that I still have a sugar addiction but I have displaced them to “more natural” types of sugar or fruit sugars. It’s not a perfect situation but it’s better than it was in that I am not eating loads of unnatural junk. It is my aim to reduce my sugar consumption over time but this is working for me right now and not eating sweets and loosening the grip they have on me is empowering. I still eat chocolate and cake and I have been allowing myself to eat natural dried fruit snacks to get me through because I didn’t want to fall off the wagon but I feel a bit more ready to make a further change so I’m thinking about trying to kick my cake addiction, chocolate can be healthy in it’s darkest forms and in small amounts so I think that can stay. I do have a cake problem (I eat cake every week) but I’m confident I can kick it like my sweet habit and stick to high protein/ low sugar/ketogenic type snacks if I need them instead. I have endometriosis which is an inflammatory condition and eating sugar does not help so it’s just another reason to try to keep reducing my sugar consumption.
Most of the reasons for doing this challenge were personal but I also wanted to do it because Bristol Women’s Voice were running a campaign to raise awareness of sexual harassment which has happened to 71% of women according to a recent survey. I'm a female who has been sexually harassed in public and anything we can do to raise awareness and stop this happening is a good thing. You can find out more about their campaign here:
https://www.bristolwomensvoice.org.uk/fundraise/
and my just giving page if you're interested
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/J-M-Achallenge71
On to the next challenge!