Wednesday Wellbeing Club | 11 August - 24 November | Week 1: Wednesday 18 August 2021

Welcome!

The Wednesday Wellbeing Club is for anyone who, like me, wants to make some lifestyle changes. It will run every week for fifteen weeks until Wednesday 24 November 2021.

I'm aiming to lose 6kg in that time with the intention of improved health benefits and the opportunity to reduce medication. You might have other health goals - being more active, giving up smoking, getting more sleep.

Each week, we'll check progress against the Rule of Fives I set out in the launch post. You can write your own post each week, or you can just leave a comment on each week's post about how things are going for you.

I've taken the idea from the Saturday Savers Club over on the Hive account@eddie-earner account where a group of savers come together to support each other every Saturday.

The Rule of Fives

I'm using the Rule of Fives as my framework through the time that the Wednesday Wellbeing Club is running. By the end of the fifteen weeks, I am hoping that these will become habits - things I do anyway, without thinking too much about them.

Here is my Rule of Fives for each week:

• Lose 500g.
• Enjoy 5 x 30 minute sessions of physical activity.
• Eat 5 x 80g portions of fruit and vegetables each day.
• Get 5 nights x 8 hours sleep.
• Spend 5 x 30 minute sessions of connecting or creating.

(You'll find more detail in the launch post and the back story).

Let's Check In

1. Achieve a more healthy weight

I'm enjoying the famous water weight loss when you start any kind of intentional eating regime.

Your liver stores a small amount of glucose as glycogen, ready for any short term energy flow short falls. Each gramme of glucose is bound with four grammes of water to create glycogen, so there is an impressive weight loss when the glycogen is used and glucose and water are released - sometimes as much as four or five pounds (two kilos or so).

So this week, I've lost about a kilo (2.2lbs) or about 16% of my weight loss target. I expect things to slow down a little over the next two or three weeks as I get used to the new way of eating.

On target 😍

2. Enjoy physical activity

I'm tracking physical activity using the Hive account@actifit app - I post each day over on the Hive account@susie-saver account, whether I'm eligible for additional rewards through the app or otherwise. One day, I found I used nearly 4,000 steps just moving around the house, tidying up and cleaning. Another day, I recorded about 2,500 steps but the physical activity was a thirty-minute Pilates class.

On target 😍

3. Eat well

I'm tracking what I'm eating using the My Fitness Pal app. There are many apps that allow you to track food and activity plus all kinds of community and motivational features. They all have pros and cons, I find myfitnesspal easy to use.

I've done pretty well on the fruit and vegetables front, eating between five and eight portions of fruit and (mainly) vegetables a day. I'm aiming for two meals a day with a fifteen hour overnight fast - this went a bit wrong this week with two unintentional seventeen hour fasts! I counted twelve hours as ten and then added another five hours until my first meal of the day!

Interestingly, I wasn't very hungry yesterday, I ate a small meal around lunchtime, and then some fruit and yoghurt later in the day. I've also noticed that I'm feeling very full after the meals I'm eating - could it be the vegetables? 🤔.

Mainly on target 😍 😂

4. Sleep more

I'm not really on top of this one! I have been going to bed earlier but I'm not really into my groove yet with sleeping. My idea is that I should fall asleep easily, sleep through seven-eight hours without waking and rise feeling refreshed. I have no problem with the falling asleep easily bit - I can do that any time, any place! The staying asleep, though, and waking refreshed is a different matter.

There are apps like fitbit that track your sleeping - I've had two fitbit gadgets and both ended up going through the washing machine, still attached to my clothes. As they're quite expensive, I'm not investing in another one. Maybe a way of tracking is recording what time I go to bed as part of my daily Hive account@actifit post? Hmm, more thinking needed.

I am aware that changing routines and habits, like we are doing through the Wednesday Wellbeing Club, can use up a lot of energy - thinking about and planning solutions, learning to make the new changes (and we are making quite a lot of changes at the same time with the Rule of Fives), so I would expect to feel (more) tired in these first few weeks, and maybe I need to schedule in some extra sleeping time.

Room for improvement 🙂

5. Connect and create

Again, not really sure what's been happening here, partly because I haven't devised a way for tracking what I'm doing (I also don't have a plan - that would help). I've definitely done stuff:

• lovely impromptu meal with my sister and her daughter.
• yarn haul from a summer sale for two new clothing items.
• swatching, designing and starting a new topper.
• chatting with my neighbour while I was washing the car.
• knitting in the Botanic Garden on Sunday.

Okay, hit the target one way or another, but not really in control of what I'm doing.

Room for improvement 🙂

How's your week been?

Where are you up to in your wellbeing journey? Just starting? On your way? Achieving lots or wondering how to change things? Let us know in the comments.

Showing up is where it starts - everything else follows 🙂

2. Hot Wellbeing Tip

Each week we'll explore an aspect of the Rule of Fives. Last week, we talked about setting specific targets or goals. The more precise and thoughtful your target or goal is, the more it helps you to achieve it.

We talked about using the SMART formula to help define your goals:

• S - specific - like aiming to lose a certain weight by a certain time. This can often be the tricky one - for example, if you want to give up smoking, that isn't always about reducing the number of cigarettes over a period of time - but it can be about how you build other habits over time to replace smoking.
• M - measurable - if you've set a goal to lose 6kgs, like me, you'll be able to easily measure when you have reached it, as well as progress along the way.
• A - achievable - this is about setting something that is possible to do (that is, something that doesn't depend on winning the lottery or Hive mooning). However, you can also use it to set smaller goals along the way. One of the recommendations for weight loss is to set a small goal to start - maybe 5% of your current weight. When you've achieved and celebrated that, you can set the next achievable goal. Similarly, when I was training to run 5k and injured myself, the osteopath recommended halving my starting targets (if I was aiming to run for 10 minutes, reduce that to five ... or even one minute) to allow time to build the necessary supporting muscles.
• R - relevant - this is about choosing a target that is really centred on you: who you are, the time and other resources available to you, what you want to achieve. It might be running for one minute, if that's where you're at, never mind people who are twenty years younger and have been running for years.
• T - timebound - set a (realistic) time period or deadline for when you want to have reached your target by. Conventional wisdom is that it is reasonable to lose about half a kilo a week - in my case, that would be a deadline of twelve weeks. However, I know, from long experience, that is takes me a week or two to get into the groove, and then there are the weeks where it all goes Pete Tong, or just nothing happens even though you are eating well and getting lots of activity and sleep.

It really helps, when you want to achieve anything, to have a specific SMART target or goal. More than that, it helps to be clear about the benefits of achieving your target or goal. For me, there are huge health benefits of losing even a few more kilogrammes.

Okay, let's look at this week's Hot Wellbeing Tip:

Track your progress!
It can be a simple pencil and paper exercise or you can use apps to help you record how you are doing. There is a lot to recommend pencil and paper and keeping a journal or diary. There is something about the physical act of writing that helps the accommodation and assimilation of new ideas and habits.
There are lots of free apps out there to help you, too, including Hive's own Hive account@actifit. You could also post your results weekly in the Hive account@actifit community or in another supportive community like Natural Medicine or Silver Bloggers.

As we say about saving in the Saturday Savers Club - start small and start today. I've chosen a Rule of Fives that set out my plan and will help me - but you might have a Rule of One or any number up to Five. The only thing you need to do is to show up, the rest will follow.

I'll be back next week with my check-in. See you then!

EDS for Comments

Each week there'll be an opportunity to win EDS tokens for comments. I like EDS income tokens, they're a great way to build an extra pay-day for yourself each week.

Last week, we had comments from Hive account@erikah, Hive account@old-guy-photos. Hive account@raj808, Hive account@justclickindiva and Hive account@bearmol.

This week's winners are Hive account@raj808 and Hive account@old-guy-photos - check your wallets!

^{Wednesday Wellbeing Club
Back Story}

^{Saturday Savers Club
I run a savings club every Saturday over on the Hive account@eddie-earner account. We're aiming to save £670 ($800) by the end of the year using the 365 day savings challenge. You can join any time of the year and set your own goals and plans (some people are saving Hive, others Bitcoin, some their local currency). We share savings tips and there's a free giveaway every week.}

^{Three things newbies should do in their first week and, for most things, forever afterwards!}