A (wo)man, a plan, a canal: Panam(ow)a? Crazy talk.

Okay, boys and girls.  I talked about my Whole Life Challenge experience, briefly. The next cycle starts tomorrow. I am not participating. The rest of my family is.

I want to do something, but I'm not sure what exactly is sustainable. So here is a place to try to outline my personal challenge. Let's see if I can do it without the overarching structure.

So here are things that will happen throughout the entire time:

Water - let's try to do 50 ounces of water a day. The proxy for this will be 4-5 glasses of water daily (no need to measure this out.. do what feels right). Other drinks don't count. One week of success = one bonus point.

Exercise - at least 15 minutes daily. At least 10,000 steps. I can pick one or the other, but both are better. Three times a week should be a structured workout (Class? FitStar? Anything that isn't running). Three times a week I should 5K train (any sort of running). Serious hikes can stand in for structure or running exp. Sports and similar outdoor activities count for strength? One week with 3 and 3 is a bonus point.

Stretching - 5-10 minutes daily. Yoga counts here.  One week of success = one bonus point.

Food

I can eat out a total of 7 times per week (once a day seems fair). Other meals must be homemade. If I can get it down to 5, then I get an extra point for that week. Coop fresh-made food totally doesn't count as eating out. If someone makes/brings me food, that's "homemade" too.  I may readjust this to make it harder for the 2nd half.

Here are the food-type rules:

• Replace potato products with an alternative (starting week 3)
• Replace white bread, rice, and pasta with a brown alternative. 
• Nothing deep-fried (pan fried is A-OK)
• No bacon. 
• No red meat (starting week 2)
• No candy or desserts (starting week 2).
• No alcohol on even weeks (steer towards wine and away from other alcohol?). 
• No dairy on odd weeks (starting week 3. Plain yogurt doesn't count).
• Stay away from artificial sweeteners. 
• Stay away from super-processed stuff. 
• Eat something fruit-ish and something veggie-ish each day. 
• Drinks allowed = coffee, tea, coconut water (alcohol being the exception...)
• The only tea or coffee sweetener allowed is honey. 

Indulgences that are built in:

• One morning pastry per week. 
• If someone else makes me food, I don't get all weird about it and make do with whatever it is, trying my best to conform without being annoying. 
• One coconut milk latte per week.
• One dessert per week IF it's a special occasion.
• Pizza up to once a week.

If I don't miss any points on food, I definitely get a bonus point.

Track it! Food and exercise should make it into the MyFitnessPal/Fitbit complex. I don't lose points for this, but, if I do this for a week straight without messing up, I get an extra point.

Weekly Lifestyle Challenges (here's where I'm most likely to lose points)

Week 1: 10 daily minutes of meditation/mindfulness
Week 2: Daily to-do listing (1 thing you must accomplish, 2 that you should accomplish, 3 that it'd be nice to accomplish)
Week 3: Get up! (Don't sit for more than two hours without a brisk walk or at least a good stretch)
Week 4: Be a vegetarian! (Suck it up and try it for one whole week)
Week 5: Clean up (10 daily minutes devoted to cleaning some aspect of my home/car/desk/self)
Week 6: Sleep at least 7 hours each night. (can be accomplished via napping)
Week 7: List three good things per day/
Week 8: Don't complain. (If I complain, I need to immediately restructure my words so that they are positive)

I can get a point back for never messing this up.

Daily Reflection - Since I don't have anywhere else to record my progress, a daily reflection on this blog will include my progress on the other metrics and a short recap of my day. No bonus points here, because that'd be too easy.

I'm gonna start myself at a completely random 100 points, and then count down/up from there. So I'm aiming at ending with 100.

Ho-boy. It's a lot. Let's see how it goes?