January Goals

Here are my goals for January 2011. These are all continuations of the goals from December with additional things added.

Weight: Lose 5 pounds this month

Exercise: Exercise 30 minutes 3x a week and on the workdays I do not go to the gym, start the morning with a 10-15 minute jumpstart (A short DVD or walk on the treadmill).

Eating: Prepare 4 dinners at home every week; focus on water intake; honestly track meals every day

House Management: Fully clean the house once this month; keep the hot-spot where I gather mail/bills/recipes/magazines, etc. cleared and organized 3x a week

Faith: Go to mass twice this month

December Goals Reviewed

I set several goal for myself for December in the hopes of easing back into the "project" and getting a jump-start. Here are the goals and my reflection:

Weight: Lose 5 pounds this month
PARTIAL SUCCESS: I lost 4 pounds this month. Not sure how that happened.

Exercise: 20 minutes 3x a week
FAIL: I only exercised ONE time this entire month. I should say, purposefully exercised.

Eating: Prepare 4 meals at home each week; focus on water intake; clean out pantry
PARTIAL SUCCESS: I did clean out the pantry. I prepared 14 meals of 16 at home this month. I didn't keep track of my water intake, so I have no idea how to rate this goal.

House Management: Full house clean once
COMPLETED! YAY!

Faith: Go to Christmas mass
FAIL: I was not feeling well, so I left my family party early and came home to bed. I did not make it to mass.

2010 in Review

I started the year with the best of intentions. If you look back at this blog, you'll see how THAT went. I started off raring to go, and about 3 weeks in, I fizzled. No excuses. I just gave up. I had little bouts of energy occasionally as the year progressed, but never fully recommitted. I would get the eating together and not exercise. Or I would exercise and eat like crap. overall, not a success.

However, I love the idea of the "project" and I have recently restructured it to include long-term goals and small monthly goals that will help me reach those long-term goals. I am recommitting at the start of 2011 and I will post my January goals tomorrow.

On a positive, and "I-have-no-idea-how-this-happened" note... I did lose 10 pounds over the course of the year.

Return to the Gym

Oh, the sweaty, out-of-breath feeling you get from exercise. I got that today... except mine came from the idea of going back to gym after an 8-month hiatus. I was so worried about what I would wear and look like, if I would find a machine to work on, would I be able to complete my 30 minutes without falling over, what the gym looked like now, would it be crowded, and would I remember my code or have to ask for it thereby admitting my lack of attendance to the front desk.

After all that worrying, it was actually quite uneventful. There were people there, but not so many since I went during the day when most people are working. Not us teachers, us course. :) I remembered my code on the first try! I did find that the gym changed pretty significantly. There was a huge expansion, so equipment had been moved around. There are many more treadmills and ellipticals now. And the fancy ones with the TVs attached, too. The only problem there is that they face mirrors. Not sure I'm ready for that yet, so I grabbed one of the old-fashioned ones. I did a full 30 minutes on the elliptical and then walked the indoor track for another 15. My heart rate got up and I burned 350 calories!

I guess the fear of going was worse than the actual trip there. Maybe I'll try again tomorrow?

December Goals

While setting December goals for myself, I am thinking of all the craziness that happens this month. Since I am entirely starting over, I am going to take things slow this month.

Goals:

Weight: Lose 5 pounds this month

Exercise: 20 minutes 3x a week

Eating: Prepare 4 meals at home each week; focus on water intake; clean out pantry

House Management: Full house clean once

Faith: Go to Christmas mass

The "Best Me " Project v 2.0

The Project: Strive to be the "Best Me" that I can over the next year, ending December 31, 2011

The Project Specifics Revised:


Weight:  Begin my weight loss journey to lose 105 pounds. Track this in 5 pound increments complete with rewards at every 5 pounds. Breaking this into smaller goals will make it seems more manageable. Hopefully by the end of 2011, I'll have made a dent in the overall amount.

Exercise: The ultimate goal is to jog/run a 5K, so my exercise goals over this year will lead up to that. The monthly goals I assign myself will be geared toward training.

Eating: Return to the same goal as last year, to prepare 4 meals a week at home. This would be a total of 224 meals. Monthly goals will focus on eating healthier and recording food to keep track of calories and fat, etc.

House Management: Keep my house neat and tidy by cleaning and organizing. I will not set a goal for how often I will clean my house, but I hope to better keep up with it this year.

Faith: Actually return to church consistently this year.

Return to Blogging... Return to Project?

Every time I get motivated to blog, I forget how much I HATE writing. I really love the idea of blogging, and I always hope that hating to write will not be an issue. It's just my thoughts, after all. No grade on these. No one really reads them except me anyway.

Here's the truth. I got lazy. I did really well with the gym and cooking for awhile, but I got lazy. The trackers started intimidating me since I knew they were either stuck or moving in the wrong direction. So I stopped coming here. But I never stopped thinking about it.

It's time for a new plan, or a refresh of the old one. I liked the project. I thought it was a good idea, and if I had followed through, I surely would have seen some success from it. So I plan to take the next couple of weeks and get the plan together. Restart or remove the trackers and lay out new goals.

I let myself go and the only way to get ME back is to put some focus on myself. Back soon!