Sept 28th - Day 1 ... I went with the "walk around the block" option. It took 11 minutes. I've been consistently feeling sick at around 20-30 minutes into walking, so this length was good. Didn't feel sick at all.
It's a gorgeous day today, so the walk was a real pleasure.
Sept 29th - Day 2 ... Walked in the rain with my snazzy umbrella. No singing.
Sept 30th - Day 3 ... I went with a 10 min cardio/light weights workout. I'm glad I signed up for this challenge bc it's the only reason I moved my butt today.
Oct 1st - Day 4 ... Did my 10 minute cardio/weights workout while watching a travel vid.
Oct 2nd - Day 5 ... I did the same activity as yesterday. I almost forgot all about doing this today! I definitely haven't formed this as a habit yet.
Oct 3rd - Day 6 ... As a travel nut, bribing myself with travel vids while I exercise is proving effective. I learned today that London's Great Fire started in a bakery. Carbs are the source of even more mayhem than I'd realized.
Oct 4th - Day 7 ... Perfect weather today so I took a walk.
COMPLETED THE FIRST THIRD OF THIS CHALLENGE. I'm curious to see at which point this behavior becomes automatic for me and even something I crave doing each day. I'm certainly not there yet.
Oct 5th - Day 8 ... Another glorious day so I walked.
Oct 6th - PAUSE DAY
Oct 7th - Day 9 ... I was able to do a 45 minute walk on a nature trail w/o feeling sick! I am exhausted now though, but I'm happy about the progress.
Oct 8th - 2nd PAUSE DAY
... Bad sign! I need to learn from this. My biggest barrier to forming this habit is lack of routine. I need to develop one and work this activity into it. I'm a full-time grad student. I've decided that I'll start each weekday doing 3 hours of my reading, and at that point always take a break to do this activity. I haven't decided yet how to tackle this on weekends. I think, to reinforce the habit, I'll do the same thing but allow fewer reading hours before the break.
Oct 9th - Day 10 ... I'm actually glad I struggled with this bc I needed to recognize the need for a routine. It helped me out today, and I know it'll keep doing so. What's really great is it makes sure I don't procrastinate with my school work either.
Oct 10th - Day 11
Oct 11th - Day 12 ... Incorporating this habit into my routine was exactly what I needed.
Oct 12th - Day 13
Oct 13th - 3rd PAUSE DAY ... No more pauses left!
I debated whether to let this one slide, but I decided to label it a pause day. My schedule was different this day. I was on campus most of the day, much more than usual. While on campus, I did more walking than I require in my BE, so that's why I considered maybe going ahead and counting it. Ultimately I decided not to count it. My goal is to carve out time specifically for exercise. Incidental daily living exercise is great, and I absolutely want to increase that as well, but that's not my focus with this challenge. So that's why I'm not counting my walking around campus. I got home kinda late and was too tired to exercise at that point. So I'm going to need a strategy for dealing with days like this in the future.
Oct 14th - Day 14 ... I took a 20 minute walk. I think that can be my normal walking length now. Yay, my Baby Exercise has progressed to Toddler Exercise.
(Ha, I just noticed that due to Pause Days, the calendar date now matches the number of my challenge day.)
PART TWO IS COMPLETE! Only 7 days left, but I'm all out of pause days. The suspense!
Oct 15th - Day 15 ... 30 minute walk on a gorgeous day.
Oct 16th - Day 16
Oct 17th - Day 17
Oct 18th - Day 18
Oct 19th - Day 19
Oct 20th - Day 20
Oct 21st - Day 21
I DID IT!