summer 2018, I didn't do anything major, didn't go away to any faraway places, didn't do anything too exciting. with everyone coming back to campus, I was so stressed for the "what did you do this summer?" question.
until,
I adopted a bunch of plants.
all in one go: spent two hours in a hardware story and then a couple hundred on eleven plants, ceramic pots, dirt, and soil treatment solutions. (well worth it.)
I did it for two reasons:
1. improve the space in my office. having plants means there's something pretty to look at; they create a nice, relaxing environment.
2. plants purify the air. the air in my office gets a bit stuffy from time to time. usually entering into the fall, there's an increase in fires in my area, so there's lots of smoke and other particles polluting the air.
after I did this, I became a plant mother to six english ivies, one fancy plant (think: mini palm tree), one aloe vera, one fairy washboard succulent (I call her verona) one golden pothos (I call him filo), and one mojito mint (rip, sweet baby).
since then, I've adopted a spotted succulent (steven), inherited two succulents from a birthday bouquet, gifted a polka dot plant (hello dottie), and picked up a new fairy washboard succulent for at-home (theodora, or theo for short - thanks haunting at hill house).
below is some of my accumulated plant knowledge, which has been requested by a couple of friends since becoming a plant mother. read on to learn a thing, if you so desire.
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PLANT KNOWLEDGE
so first - repotting. you’re gonna wanna get it out of the nursery pot - make sure the new pot has a hole for drainage and a plate to catch overflow / or keep it placed outside. as you're repotting, massage bottom of roots to break away soil & encourage growth in the new home.
there will be a short period of time as the plant adjusts to its new home so some leaves might react - this is normal.
then with watering: with most potting soil, you can water once a week to a week and a half. to check, you press your finger on the soil and there should be a good amount that sticks to the pad of your finger.
be careful not to overwater because it can lead to root rot, which will hurt the plant worse than under-watering. if there’s a splatter pattern in the leaves, then it’s too much water, so the veins are bursting - just adjust by watering less.
if leaves are withering and ultimately, just prune them off. keeping them dilutes the plant's energy too much and hurts new growth.
there a few supplemental liquids you can dilute in water and then feed once a month to your plant. b1 vitamin concentrate helps plants adjust to new pots. seaweed extract helps plants generate new growth.
with sun exposure / placement. go off of what’s indicated on the tag but experiment if you’re noticing it’s not thriving. most plants tolerate high sun exposure well.
watch a Jenna Marbles video where she talks about her houseplants. she drops some major helpful tips too.
"a tour of my plants" by jenna marbles on youtube, published on mar 13, 2019
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most of my information about plants comes from a mix of an enthusiastic dale hardware employee (thank u, joseph, u angel), a bit of google, and a bit of miscellaneous word of mouth.
if you want updates about the plants and which ones make the move, let me know!
when I first heard about intermittent fasting, or if, a few years ago, my knee-jerk reaction was - "no way! I could never." having so many set hours of not eating just sounded way too restrictive
and now that I've had time to sit with it (and actually research it), it doesn't sound so bad. it sounds like a good way to keep eating in check, so not allowing for late night snacking.
Intermittent fasting is any eating diet plan that cycles between a period of fasting and non-fasting over a defined period. Intermittent fasting is under preliminary research to assess if it can produce weight loss comparable to long-term calorie restriction.
sure, I might be trying this out to see what weight loss might happen. (trying to get back on track to what makes me feel better long-term.)
and sure, there are some extreme ways to execute it, as you can do with literally any kind of eating. it depend on the approach, what the balance is. the way that seems to work for me is the 16/8 method (or, how I've been doing it - the 15/9 method, whiiiiich is recommended for women).
The 16/8 Method involves fasting every day for 14-16 hours, and restricting your daily "eating window" to 8-10 hours.
Within the eating window, you can fit in 2, 3 or more meals.
This method is also known as the Leangains protocol, and was popularized by fitness expert Martin Berkhan.
Doing this method of fasting can actually be as simple as not eating anything after dinner, and skipping breakfast.
For example, if you finish your last meal at 8 pm and then don't eat until 12 noon the next day, then you are technically fasting for 16 hours between meals.
It is generally recommended that women only fast 14-15 hours, because they seem to do better with slightly shorter fasts.
For people who get hungry in the morning and like to eat breakfast, then this can be hard to get used to at first. However, many breakfast skippers actually instinctively eat this way.
You can drink water, coffee and other non-caloric beverages during the fast, and this can help reduce hunger levels.
for me, I'm focusing on eating all of my calories within an eating window that starts at 11 am and ends at 8 pm. I've actually started tracking my daily calories to see if I'm meeting, going under, or going over the amount of calories I should be taking in.
in a future post, I'll go over my body image issues and how it's impacted my relationship with food, but it's actually positive that I've been able to see calories for what they are: data points. this is similar to how I was tracking my sleep routines. intake data, compare notes, determine what the impact is.
back to if: I started tracking via the app, fooducate. I input my goals and starting information, and then began tracking both diet and exercise within the app. based on what I put in, fooducate determined that my recommended daily calories at 1710. I began tracking on september 16, 2019.
so with intermittent fasting, I need to eat 1710 calories per day within the 9 hour window, from 11 am to 8 pm.
I am allowing fluctuations to see what works well with my body and schedule, especially now that I've re-introduced gym sessions / heavy workout times for after work.
I plan to do an update by the end of the month to see how things have been going for the last few months of trying it out. measured in hunger levels and mood, not in inches or weight.
I had a much different vision for october posts. the plan was to do a quick blog post every night, many of which were forgotten about until way later and then tons of backtracking posts were made. the posts were rushed and missing content. additionally, I was noticing how my other posts were buried in all of the routine posts.
I made the decision to take down the individual posts and do one summary post.
for reference, this was the format I was following to track my routines.
night routine
was the routine followed: yes/no
how well did I sleep: scale of 1-10
hours slept: x hours
any additional notes:
morning routine
was the routine followed: yes/no
how did I feel throughout the day: scale of 1-10
did I get to work on time: yes/no
any additional notes:
here we go!
so in the original daily posts, I'd answered "no" I hadn't followed the routines - but for the most part, I actually had. the major thing I was counting was whether or not I'd done the stretching (most days I did not). but most days, I was still winding down early, going to bed earlier, getting up earlier, and getting to work on time more regularly. I also got a gym membership again, and just recently started going early in the morning as well as after work.
there were days that I didn't sleep much (one night in particular where I really didn't sleep at all), some days I stayed in bed a little too long or went to sleep so late.
overall, I think I did work on creating better habits, so I deem a success!
