Tag: goals

Habit Tracker

Habit Tracker

by No Makeup Mama ♥ 2 Comments

Last month, I focused on all the health habits that I’ve been developing so far this year:

  • Drink more water
  • Practice yoga
  • Quit late night snacking
  • Meditate
  • And more…

In order to stay motivated and judge how well I’m doing, I decided to use a habit tracker.

When I looked around for printable tracker ideas, I found this design and immediately loved it because it’s so aesthetically pleasing—much better than a simple chart with boxes to check. I assigned each habit a color so it would [hopefully] look like a rainbow at the end.

Unfortunately, I didn’t even get the idea for a tracker until the 4th, so my first few days were…not great.

But check out how it looked at the end of the month!

Not too bad. I missed a few days here and there, but overall I’m happy with how well I maintained these goals. I definitely still need to work on consistency with yoga and eliminating “cheat nights,” but I’ve made good progress.

A caveat about my exercise habit… You might notice that I exercise every day say “don’t you need a rest day?” And the answer is yes, in theory, but no, technically. A “rest day” is a recovery day, but not necessarily a day sitting on the couch. I choose to have “down days” instead of “rest days” because I am a really active person so I don’t take days and just do nothing. I will discuss this in greater detail next week for those who are curious about it.

This month, I’m making a few changes. I’ve added more specific goals [“drink 64oz of water” instead of “drink more water”] and I’ve swapped the goals that I have mastered for new healthy habits I need to work on [“practice Spanish” for “no junk food or sweets” and read” for “floss”].

This month will be different though because I start my new job at the hospital on Monday and I will work 12 hours shifts plus an hour drive to and from work, so I doubt I will be able to get a lot of these things done on those days. We will have to see how it goes.

Does anyone else keep a tracker? Or check list? How do you keep track of goals and habits? Let me know!

✏️ ✏️ ✏️

Karis

Monthly Goals [an update]

Monthly Goals [an update]

by No Makeup Mama ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Well, another school year has begun…

[How adorable as these kiddos??]

And, I’m finally a soccer mom…

[Jojo quit after the first practice and I didn’t even get a picture of Eva playing yet.]

And I’ve been enjoying lots of quality time with my kids and my handsome man [who now works from home!] since I withdrew from grad school [a story for another day]…

So, I’ve been staying busy and not posting, but now I’m ready to update you on my monthly goals.

Starting in January of this year, I chose a new health goal to focus on for each month.

January = no added sugar

February = a salad every day

March = practice more yoga

April = no alcohol

May = no more cheat days

June = drink more water

July = start meditating

I skipped August altogether because I was so stressed over school and so this month I decided to refocus on ALL of the goals. Yep, that’s right, no added sugar, no alcohol, no cheating, more salad, more yoga, more water, and more meditation. And, honestly, it’s been a great month so far. I feel great. I have lots of energy. I’ve been training for a marathon [not sure which marathon at this point]. I’ve been making strength gains. I finally feel like I’m getting back to my old self [the self before I had two surgeries…and almost back to my old self before I had four babies].

So, anyway, I’m not adding any more new goals, but I am taking suggestions for later this year. Anyone making mid-year health resolutions?? Lemme know!

💪 💪 💪

Karis

No More Cheating [my May health goal]

No More Cheating [my May health goal]

by No Makeup Mama ♥ 7 Comments

The concept of a “cheat day” is pretty common in the health and fitness world. As a personal trainer, I would typically recommend that clients follow an 80/20 rule [eating clean 80% of the time and loosening up the other 20%], which basically allowed some wiggle room in the diet for weekends or nights out or their kid’s birthday party. For many people, knowing they can have a “cheat meal” really helps them to maintain a healthier diet the rest of the week.

Not so for me.

Unfortunately, a cheat meal for me turns into a cheat day, then to cheat weekend, then a cheat week…and so on. Just when I get into a good system of not snacking after dinner, only having one drink a week, and no sugary candy, cheat day shows up and throws me off my game. So frustrating!

My food weaknesses are: sour gummy worms, spicy garlic wings, McDonald’s French fries, chips with queso, and ice cream [any kind or flavor will do]. For some reason, when “cheat day” rolls around, I convince myself that I must eat ALL of these things in one day. You would think it was my last meal on earth….

[Of course, I am doing this to myself.]

So, I have decided to get rid of the whole idea of “cheating.”

Last year I read the book, Four Pack Revolution, and in it Chael Sonnen talks about having a “reset meal” once a week [instead of a “cheat meal”]. The difference is really just in the name, but it helps psychologically. I’m not “cheating” on my diet and throwing all of my health goals out the window, but instead I’m “resetting” so I can re-focus on my goals.

We’ll see if this mind trick works.

🤞

Oh, but I WILL be having a small dessert on Mother’s Day [a mini chocolate raspberry tart that I intend to make for myself] and a slice of cake for my birthday [which I will also make because I love baking cakes, so happy birthday to me].

Oh wait, there’s more!

I’m also going to save movie candy for the movies ONLY. I have a real problem with eating family size bags of chewy, sugary, preferably sour candy. This started a decade ago when I was running 45 miles a week and putting in six hours of cardio at the gym on top of that…and gosh darn it, my body needed those carbs! [Well, truthfully, it needed healthy carbs, but back then I was nutritionally illiterate.] So today I am still struggling with that same bad habit I developed all those years ago.

That habit has got to go! 👋 Bub-bye!

So, I’ll save my bag of candy for when I go to the movie theater [which is very rare now that I have to drive 45 MINUTES TO THE NEAREST THEATER!!].

Sheesh…it’s going to be a long month…

Vamos al cine! 🍿 🎥

🍟 🍟 🍟

Karis

2020 Resolutions [Mid-Year Update]

2020 Resolutions [Mid-Year Update]

by No Makeup Mama ♥ 2 Comments

On January 1st, I posted my list of resolutions for 2020 here. Time for my mid-year update.

As everyone already knows, this has been the strangest year EVER. When COVID first hit, I thought I would have to throw all of my resolutions out of the window [and I did for most of them], but as time has gone on, I’ve realized that some may require some tweaking and some may have to be postponed until next year, others I can still accomplish.

I love going back to review my goals and check my progress. It is a review of all the dreams I had for this year and a reminder to keep working toward them, even if there is a world-wide pandemic trying to derail them.

[And its fun along the way to provide a bunch of motivational quotes!]

New Skill: learn Spanish Estudio Espanol de Duolingo todos los dias. I study Spanish on Duolingo every day. I currently have a 170 [ciento setenta] day streak going, which I fully intend to continue [seguir] until I complete the entire Spanish course [curso de espanol]. Despite being a free app and probably not as rigorous as other options, yo aprendi mucho espanol de seis meses de duolingo.

Health: run a marathon, swim regularly, improve flexibility

  • Marathon: I won’t be running a marathon since all races are on hold indefinitely [I could do a virtual run, but they are not very motivating for me] but I am still running regularly and building up my miles.
  • Swimming: I couldn’t swim since my gym [and all public pools] have been closed. Hopefully they will reopen and I can swim again. This is definitely something to work on in the second half of the year.
  • Flexibility: On the bright side, I’ve been able to do a lot more yoga and stretching and my flexibility has already improved.

Personal: go back to school for nursing, pursue kidney donation, volunteer regularly Check, Check, and check. Well, sorta.

  • Nursing school: I have applied to my community college in order to get started on my pre-requisites for a nursing program. I don’t know how I will pay for it, but I am confident that it will all work out. We have a commitment to give 50% of our extra money away, so going back to school is last on our priority list, but I should be able to at least take a class or two each semester.
  • Kidney donation: In February, I submitted my living kidney donor health questionnaire and was “pre-approved,” but now I am waiting on some issues with the recipient. Now that transplants are once again happening, I hope that I will hear from them soon.
  • Volunteering: I have [finally] signed up to volunteer at the local food bank once a week for the month of July. So long as I am able, I hope to continue volunteering and maybe even adding an additional volunteer position with an organization that supports underprivileged kids.

Blog: improve blog design and function, organize and categorize posts I am still working on this. I am not blog-savvy so this is tough for me to sit and dedicate my time to, but I do have a redesign in mind, including a logo that I created myself. I will try to get this done in the second half of the year.

Family: establish family mealtime routine and guidelines, take international trip with Brett Well, the international trip is definitely out, but all this extra family time has allowed us to create a simple and functional mealtime routine AND begin teaching our kids mealtime manners. I was planning to write about this area of simplifying this past month, but I felt the urgent need to address the racism issues I wrote about.

Minimalism: minimalist game in January, remove 30 unused items per month, log all [non-consumable] purchases Check, check, and check. I am still logging purchases and removing stuff from my home. Next week I will post my June Shopping Audit.

Environmentalism: buy milk in glass, switch to safety razor, wooden dish brushes, straw broom We have been buying milk in glass bottles [other than a brief COVID freakout/stock-up] this year and – SURPRISE! – we haven’t gone broke. I haven’t switched to safety razors, wooden dish brushes, or a straw broom yet because what we have right now still functions perfectly and I don’t think I will continue to use what we have until it needs to be replace and then I will choose a more environmentally friendly option.

Humanitarianism: donate more money this year, sponsor another child, commission quilts for donation We have definitely donated more money this year – mostly because we gave away half of our government relief check and half of my unemployment checks. We also began sponsoring a third child [I plan to write about child sponsorship in the future] and doubled our monthly donation to the organization Charity:Water. In past years, we have purchased quilts from a friend of mine to donate to the organization Quilts Beyond Borders, however, this year she has struggled with health problems and so we made a monetary donation instead.

And that’s it! Not too bad!

Looking forward to a productive [and less crazy] second half of the year!

🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻

Karis

January Shopping Audit [and the Minimalism Game]

January Shopping Audit [and the Minimalism Game]

by No Makeup Mama

One of my 2020 goals is to focus on minimalism. In the past two years we have made great progress toward living a [nearly] zero waste lifestyle, but now I want to circle back and focus on cutting out unnecessary spending and eliminate all the clutter from our home and our life.

My new motto:

So, as a part of that goal, I am tracking all of our spending for the entire year and will share it with you monthly. I am not promising to stop spend money altogether but I am tracking it so that we can see where we need to improve.

Just as it is helpful to do a “trash audit” at the start of a zero waste journey, a “shopping audit” is helpful if I am trying to stop bringing junk into my home.

January Shopping Audit

Some clarifications before I begin: My audit only includes physical items [not doctor co-pays, museum entry fees, and school activity costs] and does NOT include consumables, which include food, pet food, toilet paper, and salt blocks for our water softener.

[Toiletries and laundry supplies are consumables, but I am going to share those purchases because I am trying to reduce our waste – and spending – in these areas.]

What We Bought:

So here is everything we bought this month:

Bracelet for Brett for $35 – For Christmas, I gave my partner a leather bracelet with our kids’ names engraved on little beads but the bracelet didn’t fit [oh the joys of shopping on Amazon]. So he used his Christmas money to buy a new bracelet for the beads.

Seven used puzzles for $7 – my partner and I have started doing puzzles together instead of spending all of our alone time watching Netflix.

Medications for the kids for $20 – We ran out of children’s Tylenol [and this is a necessity when you have four kids under six] and my daughter got an infection and needed an expensive OTC cream.

Used ballet slippers for $2 – My daughter outgrew her ballet slippers for ballet class to the point where she couldn’t even put them on without being in pain, so we needed to get her a bigger pair. [We donated the old pair to her dance class instructor].

Toiletries for $20 – Brett bought another shampoo bar from Lush for $9 and also needed more deodorant and hair cream.

Total spent: $84

Over budget: $0

What We Are Going to Do With It:

The most important reason to stop bringing stuff into the home is that eventually I will [most likely] have to get rid of it. I mean, nothing lasts forever. So, I don’t want to bring anything into my home that I won’t be able to responsibly dispose of when I am done with it.

I’d like to think that Brett will keep the bracelet forever, but that is unrealistic. When he no longer wants to wear it, we will have to throw away the beads and donate the bracelet. Looking back on it, this was not the wisest gift choice on my part. In the future I will give him experience gifts like a brewery tour or something like that.

The ballet slippers and puzzles we will donate or give away to anyone who would like them. We actually only do a puzzle once, so we will be getting rid of them as we finish them. Maybe we can find a friend to swap with so that we all get new puzzles.

The medicine and toiletries will be consumed and then the bottles will be recycled. I haven’t found a way to eliminate the plastic medicine bottles from our lives – sometimes we just need medicine and I am okay with this exception to our zero waste rule until there is a better way.

The Minimalism Game

This month, I played the 30-Day Minimalism Game [which you can read about here].

If you’ve been following me on Instagram, you’ve probably already seen all the stuff that I got rid of – over 500 items!

Day 1-9

Day 10-18

Day 19-27

Day 28-31 [combined into two photos]

Through this process I learned so much about being responsible for where something goes when I am done with it. I tried SO HARD to not have anything go into the trash. I listed stuff for free on OfferUp. I researched how to recycle unusual things. I even went back and forth with Contigo to try to figure out how to responsibly get rid of the kids’ chewed up water bottles [hint: there is no good way so I will never buy bottles like this again].

In a perfect world every manufacturer would be responsible for the product it is creating – either taking it back to be recycled into new products, or at the very least providing helpful information about how to best recycle a product. In a perfect world, companies wouldn’t be allowed to mass produce plastic crap that will still be on this earth when my great great great grandkids are here without at the very least having a plan for the end of its life. But, I can only do my best to avoid products like these. If I cannot responsibly rehome an item, if it cannot be recycled or repurposed or reused, then I simply should not be buying it.

Thankfully, nowadays, there are so many wonderful, easy [even FREE] alternatives for the typical plastic crap.

This month, only a handful of items [the lids to those plastic water bottles, a bag of plastic junk, and some expired vitamins] went into the trash. Everything else was donated or given to friends or recycled or repurposed.

What’s Next

For the rest of the year, I will be getting rid of 30 items from the house each month and continuing to report our shopping habits monthly.

👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Karis

2020 Resolutions [or goals, or whatever you want to call them so long as you actually ACCOMPLISH them]

2020 Resolutions [or goals, or whatever you want to call them so long as you actually ACCOMPLISH them]

by No Makeup Mama ♥ 5 Comments

In 2019, I read 40 books, I fell in love with yoga, I learned to knit, I spent more time outside with my kids, I visited the dentist TWICE, I made my own cleaning products, and I gave birth to a beautiful, healthy baby.

All-in-all, it was a great year.

This, my friends, is what New Years resolutions are all about. They are NOT just to set and forget. They are supposed to change you. And when they are effective, they are AWESOME.

This year, I have goals that are BIG. They are so big, they are a little scary. I’m almost afraid to state them – but these are things I truly want to accomplish, so I’m going to go for it anyway.

New skill: learn Spanish

Health: run a marathon, swim regularly, improve flexibility

Personal: go back to school for nursing, pursue kidney donation, volunteer regularly

Blog: improve blog design and function, organize and categorize posts

Family: establish family mealtime routine and guidelines, take international trip with Brett

Minimalism: minimalist game in January, remove 30 unused items per month, log all [non-consumable] purchases

Environmentalism: buy milk in glass, switch to safety razor, wooden dish brushes, and straw broom.

Humanitarianism: donate more money this year, sponsor another child, commission quilts for donation

As I’ve said before, I LOVE making resolutions [or goals] because it is so helpful for me to focus on specific things I want to change or improve or learn or accomplish in the new year. Maybe you hate them, maybe you’re indifferent, or maybe you have your own way of goal-setting. Whatever the case, I hope that 2020 is a year of tremendous personal growth and accomplishments for you.

Happy New Year!

🥳 🥳 🥳

Karis

Resolutions Update Q1

Resolutions Update Q1

by No Makeup Mama ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

We are officially a fourth of the way through 2019! So, I thought I’d share how my resolutions are holding up.

I posted about my original goals for the year here.

Health-wise, I want to practice yoga. I have been faithfully practicing prenatal yoga at least once a week – the only exceptions being when we have been on vacation. I have even bumped up my practice from 15 minutes [yeah, I really don’t like yoga] to 45 minutes! It’s almost growing on me! It’s actually a nice break from my typical workouts which are getting harder and harder as I get further along in this pregnancy.

Oh, and floss daily. I have been flossing [nearly] every day using my water flosser, which I love. This is also a nice zero waste option – though unsightly and taking up a lot of space on my bathroom counter.

New skill this year is knitting. In January, I knitted three blankets as gifts for family and friends, but I cheated and did “finger knitting” using Loop-It yarn.

BUT the experience did help me to understand knitting better. Since then I haven’t done ANY knitting because I haven’t made it a priority to go buy some yarn and pick out a pattern. But I intend to make this a focus of Q2 so I can make that baby blanket for my baby girl arriving in TWO MONTHS! Ahhh!

At home, I want to start making my own cleaning products. I still haven’t run out of any cleaning products. We had quite a collection and a huge selection. But I am ready with my vinegar and essential oils for when the time is right.

I hope to reduce our trash [and recycling] even more. We are improving in the trash and recycling area. I now empty the three trash cans in our home once every other week. We didn’t put the cans out on the curb at all for the entire month of March because they were never full. Truthfully, they weren’t full when we finally did put them out last week, but we might as well let the truck stop at our place.

Some weeks we have more trash, some weeks less. But overall, we are definitely continuing to reduce the waste.

Personally, I would like to read two books a month: one fiction and one non-fiction. I have been reading WAY more than two books a month. In Q1, I read a total of twelve books and I’ve already finished two for this month. I have a lot more time to read a) because Brett has been working a lot of late nights lately and b) I barely spend any time on my phone or watching tv anymore. I’ve read some fiction classics that I hadn’t gotten around to yet, plus some religious books, some feminist books [I’m currently working on Emma Watson’s book club list], a biography, a book on posture alignment, and three books on poverty and how to put an end to it. So I’ve been busy…

For my family, I want to spend more time outside. We didn’t do great during the cold months, but now that it’s warmer we’ve been spending lots of time outdoors. In order to make it a priority, I’ve added “outside” time to my daily habits list on my chalkboard planner. On rainy days, it’s my first inclination to keep them indoors, but I have been reminding myself that it’s not harmful and sending them out with raincoats and boots. It’s a muddy mess, but they are still getting time outside.

And for this pregnancy, I want eat well and enjoy it as much as I can, because it will [hopefully] be my last. Well, I’ve definitely been enjoying it – if by “enjoy it” I was referring to lots of ice cream and bacon cheese fries at midnight. Hey, I’m only human…

How are your 2019 goals doing?

Karis