My third and last HealthMonth rule is walking at least 10,000 steps six days a week.

This one is more difficult than I thought it would be. Optimally, I would like to take over 10,000 steps every day, but although I am enjoying my job and my classes, I am not managing my schedule very well. I really need to be in bed by 22:00 to wake up at 06:00, but instead I get to bed around 23:00 or midnight. A few things factor into this:

  1. FunkyPlaid and I have very different schedules. He goes to work later, comes home much later, and eats his meals later. If I want to spend time with him (and cook/eat dinner with him), I have to cook/eat later and stay up later.
  2. I am still in triage-mode when it comes to homework. There is so much of it, and I sacrifice bedtime for deadlines.
  3. I need playtime, too. If all I have done since I've gotten home is homework, chores, or other maintenance-type tasks, I want to do something fun so I don't feel like I've only worked all day.

With these existing scheduling issues, my main exercise-related issues are:

  1. I am scheduling about half the time I should be exercising each day. During the week, I make sure to at least walk home from the shuttle, which is 1.75 miles. At a leisurely pace, this takes me just about a half-hour. While I love my walk home, it does not provide enough exertion/steps.
  2. There is no way I am waking up at 05:00 to exercise. This means I have to get the other half of my exercise sometime between my arrival home from work and FunkyPlaid's arrival home from work. In other words, prime homework time.
  3. Right about the time I need to get up and moving, my energy runs out. Because I am not sleeping enough, I crash out every day for about an hour, sometimes two, then wake up in a panic because I haven't finished my homework.

Clearly, I need a schedule reboot, so here is my idea: go to bed at 22:00, wake up at 06:00, walk home, do homework for two hours, go for a brisk walk or run, do chores and/or make dinner, spend time with FunkyPlaid, do something fun by myself, and repeat the whole process. Goodness, that sounds boring and stifling all laid out like that, but it is what I will try to do.

In an upcoming HealthMonth post, I will write about adjusting caloric intake for an already-restricted diet without going completely insane.