Health & Fitness and Misc. Goals Update

Last week I did an update on both my financial goals and my professional goals.  I had planned to have this post written to publish on Monday this week, but then I got sick… and all I managed to do all weekend was sit on my couch and watch Netflix.  Not super productive, but that’s about all my brain and body could handle.  Now that I’m all back to normal (or mostly), I figured I should finish up my goals review and update with my health & fitness goals and my miscellaneous goals.

Health & Fitness Goals

I had 6 goals originally when I made them back in December.  The first was to lose 15lbs by my wedding.  Well, my wedding has come and gone… and I definitely wasn’t down 15lbs from my post-Christmas weight, so that was a FAIL!  However, I did manage to get almost 10lbs down before the summer festivities started up… I don’t really want to put emphasis on weight, as I am constantly reminded that it is about feeling good and being healthy, not about the numbers on the scale, but I want to make myself a new goal of being back down to that 10lbs below post-Christmas 2014 before the end of this year.  I realize that means that I am putting my deadline right after one of the worst times for weight gain… but so be it.

My second goal was to run 10k in under 60 minutes.  I did not do that in my 10k race in April, but I did manage to run the first 10k of my half marathon in May in about that time… so I’m going to give myself a pass on this one.  Mostly because I don’t think I’ll be running any 10k races before the end of the year.  There is a small chance I could run one in November, but with my work schedule the way it is in the next couple months, I doubt I’ll get good training time in, so I’m not going to hold on for that.

My third goal was to run a half marathon in 2 hours.  Despite my good first 10k in the half marathon, I did not end up with a final time under 2 hours, or even all that close really… (You can see all my running times here.)  And there is no way that I’m training for and running a half marathon before the end of the year… so this is a FAIL.  However, I’m going to be running the 8k race at a marathon event in October, so I’ll just change this goal to be for that one…  So, if I were to run a half marathon at a 2 hour pace, I would be running at around 5m40s per km.  At that pace, the 8k race should only take me 45 minutes.  So that’s my goal.  45 minutes for 8k at the race in October.  I have just over a month to train.

The fourth fitness goal in my list was fitness 3 times per week.  I have to say that this was super easy for the first 7 months of the year.  There were a few weeks with only 2, but mostly I was averaging 4 or 5 times a week.  My August did a bit of a number on this goal though… I totally stopped marking down my fitness and so I have zero idea of what I have done… but generally, this is still a pass.  I’m going to keep working on this goal for the rest of the year.  With my work schedule, this might be a little tough, but that will be the challenge that I need to keep my fitness up while away for work.

My fifth goal was meal planning.  Create and stick to a weekly meal plan.  There has definitely been improvement in this, but I’m not super consistent or successful all the time.  Often I’ll plan for the first half of the week, and then mid-week my plans get derailed and it just falls apart… ending with a take-out order on Thursday or Friday night… Not the best.  I’ll give myself a “so-so” on this goal.  I’m going to try and keep this up as best I can for the fall.  It’ll be hard with my work schedule (since I’m away a lot), but I want to also try to support my husband while I am away by providing him with some easy meal plans (maybe delve in to some freezer meals) so that he has easy homemade food to keep him from resorting to ordering in and eating out.  It’s really hard to bother cooking when you are one person eating alone…

My sixth and final goal on my original health & fitness goals post was to limit my alcohol consumption to 7 drinks per week.  This was a tough one.  I picked the number 7 sort of randomly, and assumed that was quite a bit.  I underestimated my normal drinking habits though… So it was a struggle on more than one occasion so stay within the limit (and I went over a lot too).  When summer came along, and with it all the fun and festivities of bridal showers, bachelorettes, the women’s world cup, weddings, concerts, camping trips… needless to say, this goal was forgotten for the sake of loads of social fun.  Now that summer is coming to an end, I want to step up this goal again and get back to it.  I’d say winter/spring was a pass, summer was a fail, and I’d really like to make it a pass for the fall, so wish me luck (and try to keep me accountable).

  
From this list, if you’ve been reading along this summer, you’ll notice one thing is missing.  Remember that fitness challenge that I made myself back in July?  I did an update 12 days in, but then I didn’t really mention it again… Did you want to know how that all turned out?  Here’s a current picture of my sheet.  You can see that I pretty much just stopped the weekend before my wedding… but I think I did pretty well, I definitely felt stronger, especially in my arms and abs.  And if we include my rest weekends as successful days (I wasn’t meant to do anything, and I didn’t = success), I managed to complete 23 out of 39 days.  58%.  Maybe not a pass in some scales, but I’m going with a pass!  I’m thinking I might try a new fitness challenge for the fall, so stay tuned for that.

Miscellaneous Goals

Back in December, I made myself 3 random personal goals.  The first was my weekly decluttering goal.  I wanted to set up a weekly task to declutter my house and my stuff.  I have too much, and it’s causing me unneeded grief and clutter.  I did really good for the first couple weeks… and then things got a bit behind… but I kept plugging along… and then it just stopped.  I tried to rekindle my decluttering fire with a 31 day challenge… I did one update post, but then things got busy again… I have a few more tasks actually completed, but I haven’t finished the post for them… Hopefully I can get that written up this weekend.  As for future tasks… I would like to finish the 31 day challenge.  With my work schedule this fall, it will be a struggle to find time, but I’ll try and get some small things done here and there… So, we’ll call my original goal as a FAIL, but my new goal is to finish the 31 day challenge before Christmas.  I know it sounds like a lot of time, but if I can only really do a challenge every weekend, then it will take me that long to get them all done.

My second miscellaneous goal was to plan and plant a garden in my backyard.  I’m going to give myself a PASS on this one.  I didn’t get as much planted as I originally wanted, but I put together a plan, planted my seeds (in June I shared a photo of my garden growing…) and I’ve had a few good harvests so far, and I’ve still got some more to harvest.  Once I get all that harvested, I want to plan and plant some winter crops.  So that is my new goal.  I realize I am already a little late for some typical winter crops, but I’m going to give it a go anyway, and see what I can grow.  I’ll do my harvesting and preparing this weekend, and then next weekend I’ll get my winter crops and plant them.

My final goal was to make a task list and schedule for planning my wedding… I posted one update during the spring, but I didn’t actually make a list until July… And I promised to make a follow-up post that never happened… So, this goal is kind of a FAIL… but my wedding happened and it was awesome, and so in the end, even if my process wasn’t ideal, I did it.  PASS!  For a new goal that is still sort of wedding related, I need to get my thank you cards written and sent out.  My deadline for that, September 15th.  (1 month after my wedding.)

So there, you have it… all of my 2015 goals have been reviewed with some updates… I still have lots to accomplish in 2015.  Do you have any tips to help me stay on track for the last four months of the year?

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