Sunday, February 21, 2010

21 days to form a routine, 7 days to break it

Yesterday I had a rather good guitar lesson. At least I enjoyed it more than all the previous ones. Hope it can continue and I can find the inspiration and motivation to practice more dilligently.

I reached home near 4pm. Then either I was lazing around, reading storybooks or online. I was looking through the older entries of this blog, saw many old stuff that I had forgotten almost.

I had my ears pierced in 2004 so it meant I've been wearing the same pair of earrings for more than 5 years.

I had started cutting this hairstyle from Aoi, only in early 2008, so it meant almost 2 years of the same hairstyle.

In the 6 months of unemployment, it was initially tiring and down-right taxing then shifted to happier days then gradually as the job search approached, mood initially up, went down, later found, up again. I had been exercising rather dilligently, but really need to LIMIT this mouth if I wanna lose the weight instead of maintaining...
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Today I couldnt wake up around 8am to go to the gym. My alarm clock did ring but cos I stayed up until insane hours of 4am reading storybook, I decided to go in the later afternoon.

Instead I went with my sister to IKEA. She was somewhat inspired into action after seeing my cleaner room and wanted to buy boxes to store her clothes and make her room less cluttered with clothes. Sat, I had gone with her to buy CD storage.

My first target is the cafe to eat the IKEA food! I was starving, only ate 1 sweet (and that's only cos she said it was sweet from temple) So I let Geoky queue first for her food, she got pasta and 4 chicken wings to share, 2 chicken wings each. Then the voracious me went to queue. Cos the meatballs are pork and beef, so my mom was frowning upon it.

That made me go for the Poached Salmon but I still got a kiddy Meatballs AND a soup, which is Pumpkin soup. VERY VERY GOOD! I thoroughly enjoyed eating the salmon, brocolli, potato, then eat meatballs with jam and sauce, more potatoes, also eat bread with butter dipped in Pumpkin soup and ate 2 delicious chicken wings with ketchup. Yum Yum and also drank 2 cups of soft drinks... cos they didnt have a refillable diet version. Err yah the calories, I know....

We went to buy her stuff later and then took a cab home after she bought 8 boxes. An interesting thing was that a whole bunch of 6 lions dancers came and performed near the cashier. Then each lion took a tub of mandarin oranges and started rolling them down the asle, I stopped 2 and picked up for luck. After the lions left, the oranges were gone, some aunties picked and picked, enough to fill a big bag. There were some leftover near the cashier for those to take home. Something interesting. We were deciding if we wanted to eat Hotdogs but I was really too too full. Was thinking whether to dabao since we were taking cab but didnt in the end.

I reached home, fell asleep rather quickly near 3pm plus, guess its the 2 consecutive nights of reading storybooks late into the twilight hours. I was woken up shortly around 4pm by next door community karaoke singing. Yes not good singers and damn loud, how not to wake. Tried to go back to sleep but couldnt so I changed and headed out to the gym to fulfil my minimum 2 times a week exercise quota.

I did the Epilitical cross-trainer (stepper) for 25mins, then did machines and weights plus stretching cool-down. That took about 1.5hrs plus. Then headed home. Nothing much but while I was on the stepper, it registered 220 calories after 25mins. I was thinking to myself "well that burnt the 2 cups of soft drink I took..." then still have potatoes, salmon, meatball, 2 chicken wings.... Decided I shall eat a lighter dinner, avoiding the calories.

BUT my mom bought a "Micheal Jackson" aka 豆奶加仙草 for me earlier today which I didnt drink. So after drinking a big cup of that, that meant, my 200 calories came flying back... oh well

Tomorrow going to weigh myself to see how I weigh after another week. Into the 17th week of exercising at least 2 times a week. Weight is still yo-yo-ing around but cos the festivities are mostly over after Christmas, New Year, birthday and CNY, hope to make better progress in weight loss.

I am trying very hard NOT to break this routine cos I read somewhere about a research. It takes doing something regularly for 21 days period to set up a routine/habit and just 7 days of not doing to break it. This I have tried on many occassions and it really works in that manner.

Hope to 戒 the sweet drinks I like to drink permanently, also build habit of eating breakfast and no extra meals including snacking or dessert. So far I have been trying consciously to avoid sugar drinks by drinking tea, plain water or even zero sugar alternatives. Will try to work towards less zero-sugar cos those use chemicals.

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