November was a rough month, with lots to deal with. Daylight savings ended and darkness started coming way too early. I picked up running again, just in time for the northeast cold. I deleted social media off my phone. My company had layoffs (I survived, thankfully). I exercised 18 days out of the month. I went home and took nearly a week off work just to chill and rejuvenate. I hit just over a year of not drinking coffee.
I also nearly quit climbing. Between stress from work, frustration from lack of progress, and mild seasonal depression from the shorter days, I was not having a fun time when I did drag myself to the gym. I even went and froze my membership for December. But I reassessed the situation and ended up changing my mind. Going after work on weekdays was too depressing, so I decided to just not go after work. Instead, I plan to go in the mornings or even just stick to weekend afternoons. And despite not seeing much progress myself, I’ve had friends tell me they can see an improvement. In fact just this week I ended up getting a V4 for the first time in a while (it wasn’t at my home gym, but still). So I’m back, membership unfrozen and everything. I’ll really be trying to keep things in perspective this time around. The reality is that I want to improve at this and the only way for that to happen is really to keep climbing.
On the other hand, I’ve decided to quit something somewhat related — protein shakes. For almost a year now, I’ve been having one daily, and in the last few months, I’ve upped it to two. And I really do appreciate them for the convenience, especially as far as hitting macros goes. But recently I’ve been feeling bloated and heavy and I haven’t been so sure that the shakes have been helping. Maybe two a day is too much. I’m not sure. I’ve decided to use them more as a supplement to my diet rather than a core staple of it. So I might still have one here and there after a run or a workout, but I won’t have one for breakfast unless I really want to. I’m especially excited about this since the cold weather has had me craving hot breakfasts and forcing down a shake just wasn’t the ideal start to the morning.
So yes. A bunch of highs and lows for the month, and two decisions to improve my day to day. We’ve just got another month to the year. I wonder what this last thirty or so days of 2024 will bring.
