Change doesn't happen easily for anyone, especially those who are severely unfit. It's a thing I decided to do to accompany Krustallos on her Inktober journey with poor time management, feeble health and sheer confidence that it would end up pear-shaped.
Here, I record the results of my experience for your entertainment. Grab some popcorn, a soda and enjoy the ride.
Patreons to credit: Dame Butterfly. -This could be you. Join now.-
For starters, I did not post my lifestyle challenge to my normal Instagram account because I didn't want to end up spamming people daily. However, I did post the updates on my less known cosplay Instagram account aka Chibigail.95 and for everyone who kept motivating me whenever I failed, thank you. Calling out specifically to Dame Butterfly for reminding me every morning and encouraging me to continue this challenge for the month of November and December as well. We're now workout buddies and diet friends.
I won't go into details about what I did each day. Instead, here is a summary of my descend to hell.
Preparatory stage:
This was the easiest. I simply designed a few goals I knew I should be working on but never did because I simply had no reason to follow a regular person's healthy habits until now.
These were my main goals and side goals.
I made two different goals because I did not want to overwhelm myself by cornering my desperately destructive self. The top part was the primary goals that I should aim to achieve daily. The bonus part was to make me feel good about myself should I fail to do any of the above. I did however intend to have at least 1 "perfect" day with ticks in all goals within the month.
Early Stages:
The most challenging lifestyle change from the primary goal section had to be the 20 mins exercise a day. In the first week, I struggled to keep up with exercising simply because I was flooded by freelance jobs and a writing deadline.
I was often too exhausted to do any exercises and after I did some of the workouts I talked about in a previous blog, I simply couldn't muster any energy for the next 2 hours to do anything as I slipped into a semi-comatose state.
That's just how poor my health was in the first week.
Middle Stages:
This had to be the easiest stage because I was starting to form some kind of routine in between my chaotic schedule but also because Singapore had a small covid retightening lockdown in this period. While I don't enjoy teaching piano from home, it worked out in my favour, saving me travelling time and waking up too early. For those two weeks, I managed to exercise at least 20 mins more frequently and ambitiously opted to switch the HIIT routines up, extending them to as long as 40mins while walking for an hour on other days while my sore muscles recover.
Sadly, this routine didn't last long. I did however feel a sense of accomplishment when my old yoga mat tore. I ended up asking one of my BFF for advice on what kind of yoga mat I should look for next as this was too thick and made me lose balance easily (it was 20mm thick).
I eventually bought my new yoga mat from Shoppee and it's working out well although I wish the seller had stock or a purple mat instead of blue.
Late Stages:
I have to say that with my writing deadline over and some of my students graduating on me, I had lesser work. Sadly, that only lasted a while until the tutor matching agency told me I had a new job confirmation, removing all idle time to relax and catch up on my new lifestyle.
In addition, I had many life problems in this period when I had a huge argument with my father about my freelancing career and the headache with my mom wanting to buy a house. The interviews that I had to attend to apply for a teaching position at a tuition centre also took a lot of time so exercising because something at the bottom of my priority list.
Call me a workaholic and I would probably agree for this last week of my lifestyle change challenge. Everything I built was starting to fall apart on me and there was nothing I could do to prevent it.
Final results?
18 / 31 Wake up before 9am
18 / 31 20 mins workout
31 / 31 Drink 1 litre of water
26 / 31 Sleep by 1am
Bonus:
29 / 31 1 non-instant / non-fast food meal
19 / 31 No coffee :(
13 / 31 Write / Edit 3 chapters
In conclusion...
For someone who did not have the healthiest track record, I guess it was somewhat ok. I don't know how well I will do with Dame Butterfly but I'm hoping that by the end of 2021, I would become a slightly less physically fragile person.