Progress

What I'm trying to do:

Keep up with the idea of routines, as opposed to 'keep my house immaculate' or 'keep my body super awesome.'

So far? I like this a LOT. It's not perfect. In fact, after just a few days I can down with a nasty cold which has knocked me for such a loop I wasn't able to do anything for a couple days.

But I WAS able to do my little routines even when pretty miserable.

Including some new ones, like eating more carefully!

1. sweep kitchen floor - not great sweeping, just doing it.
2. do a dish when I have some free time.
3. walk once a day
4. Take a dish out of my room when I leave, or look around for one, at least.

I added two more:
5. Walk through bathroom once a day and tidy up a little. I'd like to make this 'tidy up,' but for now, sometimes my energy level isn't up to tidying completely, so I'm just 'tidying' in general, for at least a couple minutes.
6. Keep track of my calories. I've been using http://www.myfitnesspal.com. It's convenient for me. I've used excel before in the past. I am not trying to keep my calories below a certain level...or rather, i am, but that's not part of my routine. Just keeping track of them is my routine, which means I tend to eat more carefully as a result.

And I'm managing this, too.

The thing is, these are mostly small things. I would like to spend more time on some of them, like the walking, but to keep to my routine, I just have to DO it, just a little bit.

This has taken away the guilt I feel when I fail, because unlike trying to keep my house clean, I'm just trying to keep to the routine leading to my house being clean.

So instead of seeing a dirty floor and feeling bad or overwhelmed about how much I'll have to do to get it clean, I just take two minutes to sweep and bam, I'm back in my routine. There is no 'catching up' to do. There's just starting up the routine again as I'm feeling healthier.

My house is far, FAR from clean yet. I have more routines to add in for that to happen. But I'm feeling less upset about it, and more motivated to keep working on it after illness, so I'm counting this as a big win so far!

And as for my walking, and trying to lose weight, I'm feeling pretty good about this too. I've lost 5 pounds in a couple weeks, now. So that's kind of awesome. I'm sure it'll level out, but for now, it makes me quite happy.