Tag Archives: Losing Weight

Establishing routines

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The above screenshot has nothing to do with the topic of my post. But I thought it was pretty so I put it as top image. This post will not be very much gaming related but more personal and real life rooted.

I realise that I kind of skipped over the whole “getting to know you” week in Blaugust. I’ve seen some posts here and there telling people’s “life stories” and gaming history. I don’t really feel the need to regale about my life on here dating all the way back to my childhood. Mostly because my childhood was pretty rough and I don’t really enjoy talking about it so yeah. Instead I want to focus on the me of the present and a few big crossroads that are coming up in my life right now.
So where do I begin…

I think the biggest part is that I’m trying to teach myself new habits. Over the last 6-7 years my physical health has been slowly declining. Back in 2012 I was pretty active at University and I was in a dedicated relationship and happy. I had a sidejob that consisted of me being a mail(wo)man which expanded during the summer as I picked up the areas for people that were going on vacation. During that time I was very healthy and very happy with who I was. I wasn’t overweight and I was happy with how I looked as a whole. Fast forward to now and I’m around 30kg overweight (about 66lbs for my US based readers) and it’s weight that I need to shed. It’s bothering me because I can’t wear the clothes that I like, it’s causing me all sorts of minor aches and most importantly I just don’t feel like my normal self. So I’ve been trying to break some old unhealthy habits and replacing them with newer healthier ones. For instance I make sure to go on a brisk 30-40min walk every day after dinner. This helps me digest better and makes sure I don’t become a couch potato for the entire evening after I’ve already had a day of sitting down at work. As added bonus I’m slowly building up stamina in preparation for my Japan trip next year and I can feel the burn in especially my legs when I come home. Next to this I’ve banned sweets and savory snacks from my home during the week aswell as soda pops. I have a weakness for Diet Coke and Coke Zero and even though they are without sugar they’re still bad for you. Because I’m only human after all I indulge myself with a liter of Coke of choice and a snack that I can drink/eat during the weekend. Anything that is left over will go under lock and key untill the next weekend and I have to say it’s surprisingly easy to just not touch anything food related after I eat dinner.
Another thing that I’ve picked up is doing around 10 minutes of yoga in the morning to wake up and stretch all my muscles. It’s just a quick way of getting centered and prepped for the day and I notice that I arrive at work much more awake than normally. Both of these things mean that I’ve had to adjust my morning and after work routines which now look something like this:
Morning: Get up > yoga > breakfast > wash up > dress > do hair and make-up > leave the house
Evening: Come home > cook & eat > walk > do dishes > shower > blog > game/hobby till 22.45 > go to bed
I’ve only started this routine last week but I hope to be able to keep this up for as long as possible. It’s still nice weather out for evening walks and in the weekends I tend to go during the day on Saturday and Sunday is my “lazy rest day” where I skip both the walk and yoga.

Another thing that I need to start thinking about and start making decisions on is where I want to head career wise. I’ve applied for a senior function within my department a few weeks back and I will hear back about it next week. I’m fully taking into consideration that I won’t get the job and then I really need to do some soul searching on what I do want to do then. I’ve been a bit stuck in my department on a job that is becoming less fulfilling over time for a while now. I have my Psychology degree but I don’t really want to pursue a career in that field. Alternatively I can just sit out my time here since I have a steady contract with the company and maybe do some courses or evening school for things that I enjoy. The big question is what is it that I enjoy. As with games I tend to get bored fast of jobs in real life. Once I learn how to do something and am at peak efficiency for said task I get bored and need a new challenge. I’m noticing that I’m just not really having fun showing up at work anymore… And that’s not really a state anyone should be in.

Finally after I lose some weight in the coming months I may want to dive headfirst back into the dating game. Being alone isn’t everything and although I don’t really seek anything serious or long-time right now it would be nice to have someone to share certain things with. I’ve been putting this off since I’m just so unhappy with how I feel right now that I don’t want to burden anyone else with it.

The coming few weeks/months will be crucial for my physical and mental wellbeing and I can only hope everything turns out for the best. If not, it won’t be because I didn’t give it my all!

Flipping The Switch

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As I went to the gym last Thursday I felt like I needed to change up my life. I visit the gym every so often, really not enough to produce a nice result and most of my weight loss from the past few months has actually come from changing my eating habits. Getting more health problems and just not being happy with myself in general I decided to get in touch with a Personal Trainer via the gym I workout at. Lo and behold he returned my email yesterday and we have made an appointment for next Thursday. I really hope he can get me on track with my weight loss goal, because I’m just really sick and tired about how I feel and look for a very long time now.
Being only 1.60m tall and weighing 72 kg is a lot. For a healthy BMI my maximum weight should be 60 kg and ideally I need to be around 55. So as you can see I’m already 12kg above what I should weigh as maximum and 17 kg above my ideal weight. So I set my goal to lose 15kg over the summer, boiling down to about 5kg a month. Seeing as I’ve been able to lose 7kg in one month the moment I started my job working for the mail I’m positive I can reach 5kg a month with daily workouts, provided I do them right. It’s a really big step for me to take. I have the motivation this time around and with someone helping me out I’m sure I can do it. I’ll keep you guys updated!

Breakdown
In other news, work has been awful. With our team coordinator gone I’ve had to step up a lot seeing as I’m the person with the most knowledge besides her in the team. Monday was a real bitch with lots of issues that needed to be solved, so I was happy when I was mostly off the hook on Tuesday and Wednesday. Yesterday however, we were already with less people than normal. An hour into our regular workday one of my coworkers started experiencing extreme chestpains. We rushed her to the resident company doctor who contacted her own GP. Although her symptoms weren’t bad enough for her to be taken to the hospital, we did have to take her home with a prescription for heavy painkillers. So off she went and suddenly I was alone and the entire planning of the day got turned upside down. I’m pretty sure we didn’t do a lot of things we should have done, but with a medical emergency I can’t really blame myself or anyone else that our day was more or less in shambles. This did result into me just collapsing into bed after dinner (I hadn’t been sleeping well at all the night before due to my room being 25 degrees) and waking up at 00.30 feeling very confused as to where I was.
It’s not really healthy to be this tired and needing this much sleep, but yesterday kind of broke me. Although I love my job and I hope to stay there for a long time and slowly work my way up in the company, I notice that I just need vacation and relax. Luckily it’s only 3 more weeks untill I have two weeks off, so really looking forward to that.

Tieing in with this work fatigue is that my desire to game has been reduced to nearly zero. I’m just really too tired to pick up anything and having to think. Thus I’ve spent most of my free time watching game streams or just resting, hoping that the permanent tiredness will go away. The fact that I have a three day weekend now might just encourage me enough to put atleast some time into a game, seeing as I have a bit more time to spend.

The Good
Now not to be a negative nancy throughout this blogpost, I do have some good news to share. Well good for me atleast.
Ever since I got my driver’s license about 6.5 years ago I’ve been driving around in my father’s car. I had one small accident where I scraped the nose of the car across the wall, damaging the paint, but other than that I’ve been accident free. Now he and his girlfriend have bought a new car for themselves, to drive in, meaning that I will more or less have our old car for myself. Of course there are restrictions, but knowing I can just take the car whenever I want without having to ask first is really nice. It shaves off a lot of time when it comes to visiting some of my friends (45 mins drive vs 1.5 hours with public transport) and it gives me some freedom to pick people up myself, instead of always waiting to be chauffeured.
So yeah, some more mobility is very welcome and I’ll definately make use of it!

All in all I hope I can use this weekend to get some desperately needed rest and relaxation and find my gaming vibe again. There’s many things I still want to do and it helps if I can get myself to just log in and go.