I didn’t update last week while I was trying out my habit tracking, because I wanted to have time to really look at how the variables interact with each other.  This month, I’m focusing on a number of things that I noticed had changed leading up to my decline in health and mood over the last year.  My increased caffeine intake, my abandoning a meatless diet, and going out to eat frequently due to lack of energy to cook/clean at home.  I had even recently been very lazy about taking my pills, which only compounded the tiredness from the other things.

So I put together this little tracker, complete with mood and makeup, because I feel like those are a pretty good indicator if I’m improving.  Some goals I nailed, others not so much.  I see that meat consumption may not hit me the same day, but it has an impact on the days to follow.  I know that I was feeling fine on Tuesday. Wednesday, I wasn’t aware of feeling bad, but I was starting to put things off.  By Thursday I was pretty tired, and Friday I understood that I was going to have to push myself or I’d go right back to the way things were.  That effort paid off Saturday, and I’m feeling much better.

What went well?

I did great avoiding coffee and energy drinks.  I still allow myself tea, but I don’t start my day with it.  Instead, I drink water in the morning.  I also spent time putting on makeup before work.  Not a lot.  I’m still not back to my old tricks, but I don’t look like quite a potato anymore.

What went wrong?

I start going out to eat, I start feeling like there aren’t veggie options and end up eating meat, and then I feel sluggish the next day and don’t want to cook at home.  Also, shame on me for missing so many pills!  I was off the anxiety meds for a bit to see if I could take some heavy duty decongestants (they had interactions), but since those didn’t help and I need the anxiety meds, I started taking them again.  The problem is that I’m going to have to come up with a different time of day to take them, because now they make me a little sick to my stomach.  I had to leave work early one day last month, because I took them like I used to first thing in the morning.

I’m a pro at life between 8:00am and 11:00am, so if I’m going to pick up a habit, that’s my best time.  After 5:00pm, I’m done with the day; if I haven’t done something by then, it’s probably not getting done.  Problem is, I work from 9:00am to 6:00pm.

It’s small progress, but it is still progress, and a year from now I’ll be glad I started.