Project Perfection Report: Day 7

Today is my li’l sister’s birthday! Yay!

Secondly: As I’m a week into my project, I am taking this opportunity to look back on what has worked, what hasn’t and what I’m going to do about it.

Getting up early – it’s all worked out rather well – I’ve only had one problem with it, but overall everything’s been nice. This morning I consciously decided that my best decision was to sleep in for a while longer (to avoid schedule conflicts), but my habits told me to get up offa that thing (but not to dance; I didn’t feel well).

Record stats – Everything’s been relatively consistent and for the past three days, my body fat has seemed to stabilize at 9.3, which could mean the scale is more accurate (they usually have up to a + or – 3% error range) than I thought or it’s just a coincidence.

Snack and water right away – not working out so well. More days than not, I haven’t had anything to snack on and I usually don’t even drink the water. This may be because Day 2 was a Fast Sunday and I wasn’t able to build momentum along with the rest of the habits. What I’ve also found is surprising lack of snack foods in my house – we’re really more or a put-together-ingredients-and-cook-something family than a MRE family. I’m not entirely sure what I can do about this, but it isn’t harming anything else, so I may just let it be.

Exercise weekday mornings – This has been going rather well, especially since I added a partial minute rest between sets this morning (changing it from a circuit to a routine, which works better). I’d been having trouble with the overhead squats (best upper body lift I’ve found), but this should stabilize my results, allowing me to progress.

Saturday morning running – It was amazing last week and I expect it’ll be just as amazing tomorrow.

Brushing – it seems like a pain sometimes, but really doesn’t take that much time out.

Pushups – Forty seems to be a good number here. I know precisely the level of fatigue I want to achieve and I’ve been reaching that just after thirty, so forty works rather well.

Scripture reading – I’d actually forgotten that was a part of this project, because I do it anyway.

Isaiah on Sundays – This works really well! Last Sunday, I read some and felt good until I got to chapter five and all the vines and stuff. That’ll probably exhaust me this Sunday, but it’s still doing the trick!

Food log – It’s a lot more basic than my past food logs, so it’s almost too easy to forget about. It’s really made me wonder about how much (or how little) I eat each day.

No spending – On Wednesday, I spent two hundred dollars at the eye doctor and Monday I intend to spend three hundred dollars at the dentist. On Fridays, I find the simplest way to get my tithing money is to get a bottle of water and take cash back. The appointments are mission prep, but I might be able to get my tithing money simply by visiting the bank.

Running home – my legs are so sore and so tired – almost all the time, from all the running and lifting and standing. It’s not overwhelming, so I think it’s something that I’ll just get used to.

Book of Mormon reading – it’s been going rather well, but I often forget to pray beforehand. I’m working on it, though and it’s going to pick up.

Journaling – I often don’t seem to have anything to write, so it’s often a rambling jumble of rubbish.

Fiction reading – I love it! I’ve been reading the Redwall series again, by Brian Jacques. I haven’t read them since I was a kid and it’s so amazing to rediscover how truly wonderful these books are. Yesterday, I finished Martin the Warrior, which is probably the saddest book I’ve ever read. Online, I read that it’s not uncommon for readers to cry along with the characters at the end.

Recording – it hasn’t been having the same effect it once did, so I’m going to look over my past daily records and find out what I was doing then that I’m not doing now and re-apply it to achieve better results.

Thanksgiving prayer – has been going terrible. I haven’t been reverent enough and, as a result, haven’t received the guidance the whole thing was about. Last night was a distinct improvement, however, and I imagine that will become a trend.

Actually, the biggest problem I’ve come across is my supporters. Too many of them put so much focus on the word “perfection” and seem to think that I’m trying to live a flawless, unattainable ideal – I’m not. I’m simply trying to live, for a month, the life that I would be living if my life were perfect. In fact, it’s not even that – really, I’m trying to live at my highest potential and, until this report, the only place the word “perfect” or any form thereof has appeared has been in the project title. Ergo, I could reasonably assume that my supporters care enough only to read the title and not to read the actual content, but I’m not going to. Instead, I’m going to pull a Sun Tzu and decide the problem is first with me and not with the officers or soldiers.

Also a small personal report: yesterday, two small fragments of food lodged themselves on my left tonsil and were uncomfortable throughout the rest of the day. Over the night, my immune system began freaking out, bringing me to wake swimming in sweat (thank you Tim Ferriss for teaching me how to swim, or I’d have drowned), with a throat somebody’d sandpapered and a freaking gallon of mucus pumping out of my nose. Thankfully, while brushing, I noticed the li’l beastie and managed to get off one with a spoon. The second one was behind the back of my mouth (like having a contact up behind your eyelid) and the chocolate I was using to celebrate the first one’s removal loosened it up and moved it out to the same position as the first. A simple repeat maneuver removed the second fragment and my immune system began to chill. That’s probably the weirdest false alarm I’ve ever had – I seriously thought I was actually sick there for a moment.