Making My Day Map

Today I began taking an inventory of where I am at any given point in the day. I will do this for 4 days in a row in attempt to get a baseline idea of where my circadian rhythms are calibrated, so that I can begin to slowly and gradually change them to be more conducive to long-term, healthy, cancer-reducing living.

This was a suggested activity from Martha Beck's The Four-Day Win. As I suspected, I eat pretty healthy during the first 3/4 of my day when I'm busy with scheduled activities. I get home and have less structure and immediately begin to feed myself. A big key to making the changes I am wanting to make more permanent will be to replace the food splurges that usually occur at certain points of the day with other nourishing activities at that same part of the day. For me, such activities will include things like reading a magazine for 15 minutes or watching a TED talk online or going for a leisurely bike ride around a neighborhood or writing a letter on nice stationary.

In addition to the day maps I will be making for the next four days, I have also chosen to strive to get my water intake to be consistently at at least 64 oz. per day. Today while I was at clinical, I didn't drink near enough water, so I found myself playing catch-up the rest of the day, which was not ideal, since being dehydrated during the main part of the day left me with diminished energy levels.

You will be seeing this concept of 4-day increments for implementing changes since Martha Beck's book The Four-Day Win explains that four days is usually what it takes for your body/mind to get used to something. Then linking 5 four-day wins together for a total of 20 days makes something a habit. (and habits are hard to break!!)

so here's my disclaimer....this blog is in no way attempting to be giving others medical advice, nor is it endorsed by any of the authors or experts that may be mentioned in the text. it simply is an amateur's chronicling of a personal journey to make lifestyle changes to increase the amount of quality years of living using a variety of suggestions and techniques I have stumbled upon in one way or another.


Today I also went in and had a clinical breast exam performed. The results were negative for any worrisome masses/bumps. I took a baseline resting heart rate, bp, weight, and circumference measurements as well. I will be going in on Wednesday to have necessary labs drawn and a fitness assessment and body composition performed to complete my initial baseline assessment.