Hello All!
Dusting off the ole blog for yet another 30 day challenge. This one is a little special as the 30 day countdown is a build up to my first and only 30th birthday. For those of you following along on FB, I asked for suggestions for challenges – up to 30 challenges to do simultaneously over the next 30 days. We settled at a meager (ha!) 10, which are:
1) Vegan – Eating the vegan lifestyle for 30 days, with one meat-cheat per week and an overall 90% vegan food lifestyle (10% because I live in outback Australia and let’s face it.. butter just might happen)
2) Eat breakfast every day – and take a photo of it! Self explanatory. I fear it will be redundant as I know this week it’s oatmeal every morning. So we may adjust this to a vegan meal photo or something related to the challenge photo per day. But definitely brekkie.
3) Greet each day with the Sun Salutation yoga pose.
4) Spend some time meditating every day.
5) Do 20 push ups a day
6) Write about my family every day.
7) Work on a language every day. The challenge is German, but because I don’t have in person tutor I will cross learn German with Sinhalese, a Sri Lankan language as I am surrounded by Sri Lankans.
8) Read an article on PHYS.ORG every day.
9) Quit smoking
and… 10) Blog about it!
So we’re at 7pm on Day 1, and I’ve eaten all my meals for the day. So far I have to say that vegan is INCREDIBLY easier than the paleo lifestyle I challenged myself to a few years ago. I still have the paranoia from paleo, where I check the labels of everything, just in case. But so far, no surprises.
Vegans do have the luxury of being able to grab things off the shelf and eat them whereas paleo was a little more difficult in that it was a meat heavy diet which required a lot of time in the kitchen prepping and cooking.
I love doing 30 day challenges. I honestly believe that there will not be a challenge harder than the 30 day of Bikram yoga. Which is why I encouraged the multiple challenges for this year. The chef at work had fun today offering me Chicken Tandoori and other meat and dairy products. What will get me through this challenge is remembering my first day of Bikram and how scared and nervous I was and then throughout the 30 days the roller coaster of complete highs and complete OHMYGOD ANYTHING BUT THE HEAT CHAMBERs.
Living in this very isolated, outback, desert town I am going through a lot of emotions. I have never lived in this small of town, this kind of climate or so far away from “civilization” … ever. I go back and forth between just wanting to drop everything and leave and finding happiness is small moments or peace.
So this challenge, which also happens to coincide with my last 30 or so days in this podunk. I hope to honestly challenge myself in being mindful of my actions within one day. The amount of challenges keeps me alert so as I schedule my day accordingly.
I’m not sure my co-workers understand what or why I’m doing this. One even said yesterday to me “I don’t think you’ll do 30 days.” It barely phased me, as I flipped him off, I was thinking “oh sweetheart, you have no idea what I’m capable of.” And it’s true. It may not be a conscious effort to live a sedentary life, but rather a negative result of not making a conscious effort to NOT live a sedentary lifestyle.
Complacent. Comfortable. The bubble, these are the things I veer from. These are the reasons I find 30 day challenges riveting – to mix things up and to ultimately challenge myself to continue my broadening awareness of how powerful, incredible, strong, flexible and adjustable I am.
Oh yeah… Staff quarters here are a joke. They give us a kitchen to cook in but nothing to cook and eat with except for the left over bistro stuff… and the stuff I steal from work. So I was all excited to wake up and be Vegan and have my porridge with soy milk and stuff… and then I realized we didn’t have any bowls. So my first vegan meal was in a pint glass. Which made me laugh because I spent most of my early 20s having meals out of a pint glass. 😉
Adventures of the untoward 