Resolutions and Review of Resolutions from Last Month

Last Months

My resolutions from last month went fairly well.

Food – Recording Food and Fiber

I did manage to record my food choices for seven days. The results were interesting – I tended to do fairly well on protein and fiber, and very well on salt. As per Ali’s suggestion, I was pretty much ignoring my “goal” for fat. I stayed within my recommended calories some days and not other days. For the most part I did well on that front though.

            With regards to making more “high-fiber” choices I’ve done okay. I’ve started eating a lot more beans and lentils which is good. We’re technically not allowed to have rice cookers at school, but I have one anyway. It’s great for cooking beans and lentils – it makes it much easier to cook them. I got “high-fiber” bread, but to be honest I wasn’t impressed with it at all (it was really awkwardly sweet). I’ve gotten back into taking psyllium which is great. I’ve also been trying to eat more high-fiber vegetables. Lastly, I’ve been buying wholewheat pasta, which is pretty good.

            I’m definitely going to keep making high fiber choices. I’m not sure about recording food – in some ways its really useful because it does help me to know where I stand with regards to how much I’m eating. On the other hand, I really don’t want to get obessesive with it.

Exercise – Rotex

            I’ve been spending a lot more time on the rotex at the gym, which is good. I’ve really enjoyed that and I think it’s good to spend time on both the running machine and the rotex. I find it really hard to keep my heart rate high enough on the rotex, but I can’t get it back down quickly enough on the running machine! (I talked to an exercise physiologist and good hooked up to a machine so he was able to determine my “optimum” for exercise. I’m meant to spend half an hour and do two minutes at >190 heart rate and then three minutes in the 160s.)

Exercise – Heart Rate Monitor

            I got a heart rate monitor.  It’s a polar FT60 in pink J. I really like it and I do think it’s helped me to push my exercise to another level. It’s also great because it means that it’s easier to compare my training across different types of exercise.

Other – Sunscreen

            Well, I still hate sunscreen, as predicted. I’ve sort of gotten into the habit of wearing it, or at least I’m doing better than before.  I still don’t like it, but I know that I should and I need to wear it. I’m going to keep trying to wear it throughout the summer.

Resolutions for next Month

Exercise

I need to swim more. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but during my exercise assessment I was told that my “weak point” is gas exchange between my blood and lungs. To improve that, I’m meant to swim or sing. Given that there’s no way I’m singing, I’m meant to be swimming. To that end, for the month of July I’m going to aim to spend one hour a week swimming.

Food

            I did have one, but I don’t remember it! I told my best friend what it was, so I’m going to see if she can remember!

Other

I’m deciding between trying to read four books over the month, going back to learning Chinese (my boyfriend is half Chinese, and it’s important to him that I try to learn it) or go back to doing my ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy). I think I’m going to try to go back to the ACT and see how that works out. I got really anxious about my journey to DC, so I want to try to tackle that!

Ps Thank you to people leaving comments! I love hearing from other people :). (I haven't worked out to comment on comments on my blog yet though :S. Any help on that?)

Journey Home

I actually flew home on Sunday night, but haven't had a chance to write about it yet.

I have a strong dislike of flying, that I've pretty much had forever. I tend to be slightly better when I fly with my boyfriend, so I arranged this flight so I could fly with him, despite the facts that it was on a more expensive airline that I don't really like and that it was a night flight (which I also don't like). Being the anxious person I am I checked with him a gazillion times that this was the right flight, that we could sit next to each other, that we were going to be in the same class etc.

Anyway, come check-in time we realised that he was in business class, and I was in economy (I always travel economy, I don't see the point in wasting money. He pretty much always travels economy too, but sometimes his mum does something weird like this and puts him in business. He has a tonne of air miles so often he can get upgraded for next to nothing). I was not at all pleased about this and got really angry at him. I was also upset that there'd been a last minute change to plans (and I don't like change). I know this is just me being silly, but I did also feel like his mother was playing a "I'm better than you because my family flies business" game with me (she does do that kind of thing).

I was really upset about it, and he was also pretty upset and offered me the business seat a few times. (But, as I pointed out, he would have chosen this plane etc anyway, so it wasn't like he was making a huge sacrifice. I was making a big sacrifice to get to a goal (sitting next to him) which didn't end up happening. He also didn't really think it was his fault because his mum had booked the flight). I talked to my mum about the whole thing on the way to the airport, and she talked some sense into me. I did feel a bit better about it after that, and the plane was also relatively empty (and I had an extra seat next to me), which meant that he was able to come back and sit with me for parts of the flight, which was nice. In some ways, it was almost nicer to have a free seat next to me than to have him there for the whole flight, just because I was asleep for a lot of it, so the extra space was nice. (Still would have preferred him there, but I guess that was a silver lining!)

More importantly, I also realised that I'm relatively calm (or that I can be relatively calm) when I'm on the plane. I think that my biggest issue with planes is psyching myself out before I get on them, and worrying before I get on them. I'm flying back to the US in a week and a half, so I'm going to see if I can use this new knowledge to make the flight a little more pleasant for myself!

How would other people handle the economy/business class situation?

PS Feel free to leave a comment just to say hi!

Grades

This week and next week are finals week - I have three exams:
Sociology (May 17), Engineering (May 19) and History (May 20).
When I was in high school/senior school, work and exams didn't really
stress me out that much. I was only studying science, which I'm
relatively good at. I generally did well on exams and papers, and if
something was really important to me and I studied hard I could almost
always get a grade I was happy with.
Then I hit college...my first semester was particularly tough (not
just because of academics) and I wound up with some of my worst grades
- C+, B, B, B+. They're certainly not super awful, but I hadn't really
got C's before.... . Anyway, things got marginally better, and I was
averaging somewhere between a B/B+. Last Spring was an awful semester
for me though - I ended up with B-, B-, B-, A-, which didn't make my
GPA happy at all! I was also disappointed because I'd studied *really*
hard (like, done all the problems in the textbook kind of hard).
Last semester I decided to seek help for academics and study skills.
Grades and academic stress were also one of the things that prompted
me to go see the counsellor, as they were really getting me down/
depressed and badly affecting my self-worth (which I later learned/
realised should not be at all linked to grades). Anyway, my University
has pretty good academic support - they run workshops on various
academic skills (studying for finals, procrastination, effective
reading etc) and they also have (free) sessions where you can go talk
to a peer advisor about your study strategies. I was really lucky and
randomly was paired with someone who just seemed to understand where I
was coming from. Two of the most useful things he told me were:
1. Often there's a type of problem or concept underlying problems that
you don't understand. So, what's important is not to do all the
problems in the book and work out where you went wrong in each
individual one, but to work out the trend in where you seem to go
wrong in problems and focus on that.
2. Think of the exam as "point grabbing". Don't imagine starting from
100 and losing points for everything you get wrong. Instead, imagine
starting from 0 and gaining points for everything that you do get right.
I've also learned a lot more about smart studying - predicting exam
questions, tailoring my studying to the kind of questions asked on the
exam (I study different for a essay vs definitions now).
Last semester wound up being my best semester ever and I was really
pleased with my grades (I got my first ever A! And 3/5 of my grades
were A range (A, A-) grades).
I'm hoping that I can keep up the trend this semester. I'm pretty
nervous about my exams, but I'm trying to use all my study methods. At
the moment. I'm really just catching up on the reading I didn't get to
do during the semester though!
Does anyone have any other study tips or ways that they like to study?

Change

So, as we all know, I really don't like change and never have (I used to cry on my birthday every year, because I didn't want to get older).

Anyway, I came across the post "Why Change is Hard", by Hanlie (http://www.hblewett.com/blog/2011/05/03/why-change-is-hard/) and it's awesome! It's a really cool way of looking at the whole issue of change and made me think about how I need to change my attitude towards change.

Go read it!

Fears

So, like I said in one of my earlier posts, I'm (unfortunately) a very anxious person. (I have a feeling that this is going to turn into a "theme" post, as opposed to a diary type one.)

I'm fearful of a lot of things - I hate flying, I don't like change, I worry about things happening to people I love and sometimes I worry about totally irrational things. Anyway, I booked a flight home today, for the summer, and it made me anxious to even book the flight. For some reason I always have unhelpful thoughts about panes crashing/being attacked. I also hate making decisions, and with this kind of decision it seems like an even bigger deal, because what if I make the wrong decision and I'm on the plane where something does go wrong? I know its a ridiculous thing to worry about - planes are, after all, one of the safest forms of transport, but still...

Anyway, I am trying to do things to help me overcome my anxiety - little changes to my daily routine, as well as doing my coherence practice daily/as often as possible. I'm also reading through some ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) books, which are great. I'm not one of those people who can just stop thinking about things that are bothering me, and ACT gives me a way to deal with concerns and problems in my head and recognize them for what they are - random thoughts in my head that may or may not actually bear any resemblance to what's going on in reality.

Anyway, it's 2:30 in the morning now, so probably bed time for me!