- Plan a menu for 7 days including 5 portions of fruit/veg each day.
- Create a schedule to follow for 7 days
- Do a task around the home each day for 7 days.
*this is not the exact wording of clauses but my interpretation of them*
The first wasn't too bad. I created my meal plan, even wrote down the different components of my meals. Unfortunately I was not as proactive in having what I planned. Meals which required me to just pull the box out of the freezer were fine, but anything else was 'open to interpretation'... The less said about this the better although I will be planning my meals in general each week to try and stop my craving for biscuits and sweet treats. This is one thing that I need to get down properly as what you eat is more effective for losing weight than exercise (I have found), and I need to start losing weight again if I don't want to buy a whole new set of clothes!
For the second, here is my schedule:
6:30am - wake up
7:00am - breakfast
8am - walk
10am - daily task
1pm - lunch
2pm - active dvd
4pm - fun time (games, books etc)
6pm - dinner
7pm - washing up
8pm - relax until sleepy
I decided these sort of times were sensible for me. The early wake up call is to get me ready for whenever I go back to work - when that happens my alarm will probably be back at its old 5:45am wake up call. The early morning walk, again is to set me back up for work. I used to walk to work every day leaving the house at 7am, it's approximately 2 miles from my home to the centre of the city and for almost 6 months it's something I let slide so making sure I go for a walk for a minimum 2 miles. I decided to incorporate the daily task into the schedule to make sure that I did it. If I didn't you can bet that I would just sit on the sofa and say 'meh I'll do it tomorrow'. I need to up my fitness and work on toning up which is why I added the dvd in the afternoon, and giving myself a designated time to do a different activity like reading or playing on my PS2 helps to bring a change of scenery to my usual sofa/TV mix. Well it worked to a certain degree. I should have waited until the Monday before starting as on Friday mornings (currently) I go food shopping and then have to distribute items to my parents and my auntie, Saturday mornings I have a Zoom session for Slimming World, and Sunday mornings my alarm is permanently switched off as it is the only day I ever have a lie in (unless I go to Church, then I have to have the alarm on obvs!). So for 3 days out of 7 I did not follow the routine at all, I did as stated above and then spent the rest of the Saturday and Sunday creating face masks as written in my previous post. Most days I did not do the exercise dvd, sometimes I had an extra walk or I had some other activity to do. To be honest I'm ready to go back to work so I can get into a proper routine that I know I will stick to fully and it will get me back on the right track both mentally and physically.
The third clause of a daily household task was probably the most successful of the three 7 day challenges.
1 - clean the kitchen ☑️
2 - put all clean washing away ☑️
3 - batch cook ☑️
4 - clean the bathroom 〰️
5 - hoover whole house ☑️
6 - wash bedding and towels ☑️
7 - empty all bins ☑️
I didn't do a full clean of the bathroom which is the only reason this part was not a complete success. It did feel good to write down jobs for the house I k ow I need to do but just put off and put off, for example until I put the washing away as per my list I had a pile of clean clothing that had been waiting to be put away for a good 2 weeks. That's me just being lazy, and I really shouldn't be especially as right now I have no excuses for it.
I actually completed another two of the main clauses - do a good turn for someone, and learn how to wash your hands properly and thoroughly (I can't share with my family as we are in different households and they would tell me that they already know how to do it). The good turn was in fact the face masks I created for my family, I had already decided that the food shopping bits I was doing for them wouldn't count as I had started doing that pre-challenge however the face masks were something out of the blue at first and it was a challenge for me to create one for me let alone as many as I did make in the end. As for the washing hands, I already knew how due to posters at work and the videos which were showing everywhere at the beginning of lockdown however I took a moment to go back and re-watch all the information to refresh it in my brain - as more shops open up and you are allowed to visit family members (albeit in the garden) you will need to use the restroom at some point so remembering the right way to wash your hands helps you and everyone around you. The last of the main clauses is to say thank you to a key worker. This is probably the easiest, most awkward, unconscious, polite thing to do. Every time I go to a shop I always say thank you to any member of staff who assisted me or in the case of the supermarket as a way of saying bye. I don't get deliveries of groceries however the couple of parcels I have received, the delivery person has been fantastic so saying thank you to them was no problem. So from that, I have completed this clause of the badge. However if you take it to literally walk up to a key worker and just come out with 'thank you for everything you do', I'm not socially built to do that, I struggled to go outside and join in the clap for key workers - I did it a few times but it didn't feel natural to me. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate everything that has and is being done across all sectors and communities, I just struggle to convey that appreciation to people I don't know without it being an unconscious act that has happened naturally.
Yesterday while sat in the garden I started looking at my list of clauses I can do and decided to make a start on another 4. All of these involve making lists - things that I can/enjoy doing at home, things I would like to do with my unit when we meet again, things that I am grateful for, and 'silver linings'. I am still working on these lists as the instructions ask for a certain number on each and I have not quite reached the targets on a couple of them. These will all be in a post when I have finished writing them!
