I can’t believe I completed my sleep challenge!

I did it! Its hard to believe I went from staying up until at least 4am for a month straight, to going to bed progressively earlier all the way to 11pm last night!

I definitely wouldn’t have stuck with this challenge if it weren’t for blogging about it. My pride doesn’t like to see me publicly fail like that.

I knew that if I did fail this challenge, it would be because of mental blocks. Like not wanting to go to bed.  A sleep challenge like this is pretty easy.  In fact, I set it up to be ridiculously easy, because I weaned myself down from 5am to 11am over a week and a half period.

Had this been a physical challenge, I wouldn’t be so hard on myself.  But one of my biggest personal flaws is that I lack self-discipline.  And if I had failed this challenge, it would have been completely because of that.

So successfully completing this challenge has been a deposit into my personal bank account – meaning that its one more time where I have successfully given myself the gift of an improvement in myself.  An investment in myself and my health.  And, another deposit was that I stuck with something for a week and a half!  That might not sound like long, but any little bit helps when you’re someone like me who tends to get bored easily and want to move on to the next thing.  The fact that I was able to stick with a job for almost a year was a big accomplishment.  My others only lasted about 4 months, and I have been to four colleges and dropped out of college three times.

But enough about all that.  Instead I will focus on the present, and how I have done my sleep challenge, made two deposits because of it,  and also bettered myself and improved my health in the process.

The biggest reason for my success with this challenge was waking up early to exercise.  This is two-fold: the first was waking up at a consistent time every morning.  From what I’ve heard, having morning consistency helps one fall asleep more easily at night.  That’s why its counterproductive to sleep in on the weekends, so they say.

Secondly, exercising.  I hadn’t been exercising at all until right around the time I started this challenge.  Its made me feel more awake and energized, and encouraged me to eat a healthy lunch afterwards and even say no to some desserts!  (One day I was offered a brownie by two different people two different times in the same day!  And I said no to both .  …Although I did have one the next day, haha.)  I started making green power smoothies again, and big salads for lunch.  I’ve also had a lot of fun working out because I’m doing it with a buddy and I’m wearing cute outfits.  So I’ve been excited to wake up earlier each morning because I know I get to exercise!  (I can’t believe I’m saying that but I’m so glad I am!!)  And its great because, as some of you may recall a post I wrote a week or two ago, I mentioned that I had trouble waking up because I had nothing to do or look forward to that day.

So what now?

I don’t think I like going to bed at 11.  It just feels too early.  But midnight feels good.  Or even 11:30.  I think that having a general idea that I want to be in before before midnight might work for me as something to actually stick with.  The main thing for me will just to try and not let myself get back into a routine of 1am, 2am, 3am…

What do you do at night to go to sleep early when you’re just not tired?

Hot workout clothes by Zella

I’m well on my way to becoming an expert on women’s athletic apparel.  I have spent more time than I’d care to admit on eBay, Victoria’s Secret, Nordstrom, Target, and Walmart’s websites the past few days.  Most of that was on eBay, because I love a good deal on clothes.  In fact, I pride myself on having bought most of my wardrobe from there.  A lot of people don’t realize that eBay doesn’t just have used things, but a whole variety.  Many things are brand new with tags still attached, and a ton are things that were bought, tags removed, but then never worn.  You can get things like that for like half the price of buying it direct from the store!

Anyway, I figured some of you might benefit from the research I have done, so I’m going to share some of the cute things I have found so far.  I think I’ll do a few more posts on workout apparel, too, as I find more.

Let me introduce you to a brand called Zella.  Zella is sold at Nordstrom and there’s a bit of it on eBay.  I think they have some of the cutest things!  It reminds of Lululemon, which is also super cute, and also pricey.

Zella prices are in the $35 range for bras, $45 for tops, $55 for pants and $100 for zip up jackets.  Some are available on eBay in select sizes for less!

Here are a few of my favorite:

*Note: All these pictures are from listings that were on eBay in the last few days!  Except for the gray spotted bra, which can be found here.

I absolutely love the fitted tops in bright colors, and I think the fitted capri pants are a must have. I plan on buying some soon. Even on eBay these things are out of my price range, but I think the solution to that is just to up my price range. These hot workout clothes can’t be missed!

Have you heard of Zella before? What do you think?

Why are workout clothes so expensive?

Now that I’m back in the swing of things with working out and doing the Brazil Butt Lift, I’d like to treat myself to some nice new workout clothes.

The ones I have are pretty basic, so I think its time for an upgrade!  I always find that wearing hot workout clothes makes me that much more interested in working out!  Wearing old baggy workout clothes is like shooting myself in the foot.  I need to look good in the clothes, to make me want to continue to improve my body!

I would love to own the entire collection of Victoria’s Secret VSX sports bras and about fifty pairs of these fitted yoga pants.  But they are a bit more than I can afford right now.  So I’ve been looking on eBay but I still can’t find anything in my price range (ideally around $10 each.)  There’s some nice ones from Danskin that are pretty cheap, so I might settle for those.

I did buy some Abercrombie & Fitch Yoga shorts which I’m pretty excited about.  They are my first purchase from A & F and also my first pair of yoga shorts!  The girls from Brazil Butt Lift wear yoga shorts and they look pretty cute!

I’m also really into bright colors at the moment.  I’m drawn to lime greens, turquoises, and magentas.  Normally I stay away from really bright colors but I don’t know, maybe its the fact that we’re starting to have cold weather that’s making me want to feel summery!

What brands of workout attire do you prefer?  Know of any good deals?

Sleep Challenge day 10

Just a quick update to check in with how I’m doing on my sleep challenge!

In case you didn’t read this post, I decided to do a sleep challenge because I was staying up ridiculously late and my life was lame as a direct result.  My challenge is to go to bed earlier each night, by 30 minute intervals.

I started the Friday before last at 5am, and will complete the challenge this Wednesday by going to bed at 11pm, which was my goal time.

Interestingly enough, I have gone to bed earlier than my allowed time every night so far!  Here were my bedtimes this last week (I’ll put my bedtime “deadline” in parentheses):

• Monday – 2:35am (3:30)
• Tuesday – 12:47 (3:00)
• Wednesday – 12:33 (2:30)
• Thursday – 12:51 (2:00)
• Friday – 11:52 (1:30)
• Saturday – 12:59 (1:00)

As you can see, I have been pretty far under most of them, so I was feeling pretty confident and almost forgot about the challenge.  I am surprised that I’ve been able to naturally be tired that early, but somehow I have been!

But last night I was only under by 1 minute!  This is because I didn’t realize that the deadline had gotten so early, and it is totally by luck that I made it to bed before the deadline!  So now I must actually start paying attention and try to go to bed early.  I might even need to set a reminder on my phone so I don’t accidentally miss it!

Tonight I can stay up no later than 12:30.  And then only four more nights until I’m finished!  Yay!  (I do plan to stay on a good routine even after the challenge.  And I think I’ll be blogging about it now and then because otherwise I doubt I’ll hold myself accountable.)

So how have I been able to go to sleep early(ish) this past week?

Because I have been exercising!  Yes!  I started doing Brazil Butt Lift again.  I didn’t do it for like 4 months.  But I’ve been waking up every morning (by an alarm) at 10:30 or 11, getting dressed, eating a very light breakfast (so I don’t pass out) and then going over to a friend’s house to do it together.  Its been great to have a workout buddy to hold me accountable so I don’t decide to just take a day off to sleep in!  (Which would mess up my whole schedule again!)

Its great to be waking up at a consistent time, and to exercise first thing in the morning.  It really wakes me up and starts my day of healthy and productive.

This weekend we took a break from working out to recover, and I spent pretty much the whole time in my pajamas in bed, on my computer doing nothing.  My weekend has been very blah and I think it is because I haven’t worked out!  Which is awesome, if that’s the case, because it means I am already noticing a difference in how I feel when I work out vs. when I don’t.  So maybe I’ll work out in the mornings permanently?  I am very excited to work out again tomorrow!

How long does it take you to miss working out?

Sleep challenge day 2

I’m doing a new challenge!  A sleep challenge!

And so far so good!

The night before I decided to do the sleep challenge, I stayed up until 7 in the morning, got two hours of sleep, and woke up at a rather pleasant 9 am.  I really enjoyed being up that early and I’m really glad in retrospect that I chose to only sleep two hours rather than pull an all-nighter or sleep through until the evening.

That night I went to bed at 12:15!  According to my sleep challenge schedule, I had to go to bed before 5 am.  I safely beat that by almost 5 hours!  I did read for about a half an hour first, in the dark with my handy-dandy book light that I bought on eBay for under $5!

I woke up the next day (yesterday) at like 11 am or 12.  Not as great as 9, but seeing as how I’d only gotten 2 hours of sleep the night before, I figured a good 11 hours of sleep was justified.

Went to bed last night at 11:06.  Felt quite tired and I was very happy about it!  (Is it possible that getting only 2 hours of sleep the other night and forcing myself up at 9 am was all I needed to get myself back on a good schedule?)

I didn’t end up falling asleep until about 4 though, hah.  Got a phone call which lasted awhile (although I stayed in bed in the dark!) and then my mind was very busy with thoughts of moving to LA again because the weather here in Iowa has been very LA-like and its been lovely!

Then this morning I woke up at… 9:30 am or something?  I forget.  Because I went back to sleep.  I felt rested enough that I could have gotten up, but one thing I have struggled with for the last little while (since I haven’t had a job, really) is getting up because I have something to do.  Because I don’t.  So I don’t bother getting up.  I guess I need some exciting morning plans or something, because honestly, all these times that I sleep until the afternoon, I have woken up before – I’ve just chosen to go back to sleep because my bed is comfy and what else have I got to do?

So today I didn’t end up getting up until about 2.  Oh well.  The weather is absolutely beautiful today so its made me feel very alive and very energetic.  I’ve eaten lunch and now I’m writing a blog post (my definition of productive) and soon I’m going to go to the reservoir with my friend Heath to lay on a blanket and read books (my definition of a dreamy Sunday.)

So overall, I am so excited that this challenge is going well so far.  I’m really glad I decided to do this.  I have felt more normal and human and alive in the past few days, going to bed and waking up at more normal times.  And I look forward to seeing how the rest of the challenge goes!

What do you do to get yourself up in the morning when you don’t have anywhere you need to be?

New Sleep Challenge?

I put a question mark in the title because I’m not sure if I actually want to do this.

Because this is like my worst nightmare.  (Ba-dum, chhh!)  No but actually.

I have had a bad relationship with sleep for as long as I can remember.  I HATE going to bed.  It ruins the fun, its boring, its lonely, and its lame.  I hate laying there in the dark, bored.  I hate thinking that other people are still up having fun or being productive.  (Yes, the irony is not lost on me that when I stay up late I seldom have fun nor am productive.)

But I have always felt this way.  I have always been a night person.  Not an evening person – a night person.  I have never been a morning person.  (Even though I think mornings are really cool.)  I have always woken up late, and was always late for school and work and everything.  (I’m late for afternoon and evening appointments, too, though, so lateness is just another one of my bad habits.)

I am suspicious as to why I have such a… sleep avoidance complex (that’s what I’m choosing to call it for this post, anyway.)  I mean in the mornings when I’m exhausted I love to sleep in – or rather, I have no choice but to sleep in – so its only at nights that I have this avoidance.  But its really strong.  I will see the clock at 10pm, 12pm, 3am, 4am, 5am… and each time, I’ll think, “Oh, I should really be getting to bed soon,” but it is the LEAST desirable thing in those moments, and so I never do it.

The only thing I can think of that could have caused this is that as a child, I remember being told to go to bed, while my parents got to stay up later and watch tv.  But what child didn’t experience that?  So why would it have affected me so much and not everyone?  Nevertheless, this is the working theory.

Now, staying up late has caused innumerable problems for me.  Constant tardiness at school.  [Almost] sleeping through finals in college.  Being late for work.  Missing out on things because I slept through them.  Constant stress that I would sleep through work.  Depression.  Never eating breakfast.  Messing up my daily routine and circadian rhythm.  Not trusting myself to get up on time, because I know from countless experiences that no matter how many alarms I set, I will turn them off in my half-sleep and go back to sleep and unknowingly skip class or whatever the occasion may be.

Some of you may have read over here that I recently had a whirlwind startup/failed business over the past month.  I got into the habit of staying working on it until 3 or 4 in the morning.  Then when it failed, I was depressed and stayed on the routine, except upped it to like 4 or 5.  Or 6.

So for the past month I have not gone to bed before, I don’t know, probably 2 at the earliest. And I have slept in to record times, like 3 in the afternoon, 4 in the afternoon, and even 6:48 pm yesterday.  This has got to stop.

I don’t know if this is hitting bottom or not, but its pretty far down there.

I have tried to adjust my sleep patterns before, and nothing has worked.  I think its because I don’t WANT to go to bed early, because, again, I hate laying there bored or feeling like I could be doing something instead.

In fact, the last week or so I have actually tried getting to bed a bit earlier, because I had quite a bad cold.  But, I had such insomnia because even going to bed at midnight was 5 hours early for me!

I have tried listening to books on tape in the dark.  I finished them.

I tried reading.  It just kept me awake.

I don’t know what else to do.

I could try doing yoga again, because that worked well before.  Sometimes.

Maybe if I got dimmer bulbs for my lamps.  To sort of ease me into a sleep-inducing atmosphere.

I’ve heard that if one wants to push back their bedtime, they should do it at 30 minute intervals each night.  So, I wrote that out and surprisingly, it will only take me about a week and a half to get down to 11pm!

So.  Where does that leave me.  I hate going to sleep; I hate going to sleep early even more; but I hate the negative effects of staying up late maybe just as much.  So.  I think it would be best for me if I started going to sleep earlier.

Note that I didn’t say I want to go to sleep earlier.  I couldn’t bring myself to type that.  *sigh*

So I don’t know if I want to make this like a challenge type thing or not.  I have done well with the challenges in the past, and blogging about them has helped me with the accountability thing.  I guess my hesitation really lies in that if I commit to doing it as a challenge on this blog, then I will actually have to do it, or else I will feel like a failure.  (Hence the whole accountability benefit.)  But the problem is, I still don’t want to do it.

Okay.  Whatever.  I’m doing it.

I’m going to follow my schedule that I wrote out and by next Wednesday I will be down to 11pm.  This means I will be in bed in the dark by those times.  Whether I’m asleep or not.

Ugh.  Not looking forward to this.  Yet kind of curious and optimistic, though.  Hm.

Bread Pizzas with Spinach, Tomato, & Garden Herbs

I was hungry at 11:30 tonight so I made these bread pizzas!

And I broke out the good camera yet again, so you know that means I was proud of them!

 

Ingredients:

7 grain sprouted bread

sliced provolone cheese

raw spinach

tomato sauce

fresh tomato slices

fresh basil (from our garden!)

garlic chives (from our garden!)

shredded mozzarella

salt and pepper

 

Instructions:

First I lightly toasted the bread.  I did this because 1) it had been in the fridge and was therefore cold, and 2) to make it firmer to prevent any potential mushiness because its going in the microwave in a minute!

Then top the bread with all the other ingredients (in the order in which they have been listed.)

Note: I put the tomato sauce on top of the spinach so as to bring some moisture to the spinach to kind of steam it in the microwave so its not so crisp.

Then microwave for 30 seconds.  Normally when I make bread pizzas I microwave them for like 1 to 1.5 minutes so as to really melt the cheese, but it always makes them mushy and just kind of a disaster, so today I thought I’d try just doing 30 seconds and see what happens!  Just enough to melt the cheese a little and make the other ingredients like the tomato, not so cold.  (The verdict: smart.)

And that’s it!

They were pretty messy with all the sauce but hey, that’s half the fun.  Or something.

And they tasted quite good!  I’ve been loving everything I make with fresh herbs from the garden, especially things with tomato sauce and cheese!  Gardening FTW.

Let me know if anyone tries this, and how it turns out!