Invest in Myself: Week 23

Welcome to the recap of Invest in Myself, Week 23.

I made it through the last of my crazy weeks at work! I'm glad to put May behind me. June will be busy, but nothing like May was.

Let's review my week...

Motivation & Accountability

I maintained my weight loss this week, hooray!

For week 23 of the Real Appeal program we focused on identifying and addressing our top weight loss problems. My top challenges are stress, time, and emotional eating. Our coach recommended a four step cycle to problem solving: identify the problem, brainstorm solutions, choose a solution and try it, evaluate and rate your progress.

Nutrition

I tracked my food and ate healthily for the week. My big win was bringing a bowl of homegrown strawberries (thanks, Rick!) to the monthly birthday/work anniversary celebration. I was easily able to resist cupcakes since I had such a yummy treat of my own.

Homegrown strawberries & LEGO garden in my office

Exercise

I ran twice, walked once, and did yoga once. I'm slowly acclimating to the heat and humidity and noticed I'm starting to get a little faster in my runs.

During my walk I caught up with friends and paid attention to our surroundings. The three pictures below are from the front yard of a house that I've passed at least a dozen times and never noticed before! Thank you, Mechelle, for making sure I saw it this time. I would love to create something like this at my house.

Self-Care

Our Happiness Project focus for June is play. This is an area where I struggle. I tend to feel so time-crunched that carving out time for play feels frivolous. Some things I find fun include coloring and building with LEGO bricks. I feel resistant to making time for them, but I'm going to make an effort this month to play more.

I learned from our June "Play" materials that there are three kinds of fun:

• challenging fun (learning to golf)
• accommodating fun (going on a family vacation)
• relaxing fun (reading a book)

Gretchen Rubin says challenging fun and accommodating fun bring more happiness, but they do require more effort and accommodation. Relaxing fun is practically effortless, but brings a lower level of happiness.

Looking Ahead

Next week will be a relatively typical week for a change. I'm looking forward to catching up on some things that I've had to de-prioritize and getting back into a routine.

See you next week!