Goals: I have a lot of them.
I want to start showing up. Every other Monday, I will be here, pouring my heart out and working toward my health and fitness goals. I hope you will come back and join me each time. It always helps to have others to hold you accountable for your actions. You do that for me, as long as I keep showing up here.
My word of the year? Consistency.
In 2018 my focus is on overall health, physical AND mental. I want to feel good inside and out. I want to decrease my anxiety and depression. I want to find joy in the everyday. I want to decrease stress. I have a plan to slowly add in daily meditation, journaling, and reading. These three activities center me and help me decompress. I am starting out with 1-2 days per week and when that becomes habit increase it slowly until it’s a daily thing. The hardest part for me is finding the 15 minutes to meditate. I work all day and then come home. It’s easier after work when no one else is home but that is a rare occurrence. And then I sometimes doze off while meditating later in the evening. It’s a work in progress.
For journaling, I can easily do that most nights. I just don’t. I have journals and pens, just gotta do it! Same with reading. I usually read on my commute and lunch break, I just need to be more consistent with these times. I want to read a book a week this year. I’ve devised a plan of attack and week one went great. I figured out I needed to read 55 pages for 7 days to finish my book. It was easier to sit down and read knowing I *only* had to read 55 pages. Most days I read more and the last two days I had about 30 pages each day. I also listed out all the books I plan to read this year so I know which one is coming next and when I finish one I can move right on to the next!
I am also focusing on logging my food and hitting my calories and macros. For now, I am working on just logging. I log everything I eat. If I have a great day, I can hit my calorie goal. If I have a bad day, I log and go over but at least I am logging. I am holding myself responsible for my choices, both good and bad. Meal planning and healthy recipes are also a focus. I am trying to find easy, quick recipes with similar ingredients to make it easy to do and stick with.
Finally, the physical. I want to be consistent with all my workouts. I want to be a runner again. I want to gain strength. I want to push myself to workout when I’d rather sit on the couch. It’s so much easier to sit on the couch and listen to that voice in my head than it is to workout. I have signed up for a few short races to help push myself in running and another challenge to help me reach my strength goals.
Part of me is afraid to run more than 3 miles. If I push myself in distances will I have the same reaction I did early in 2017, which caused me to stop running altogether? I’ve had it a few times over winter, but not every run. I plan to discuss this with my physician at my annual appointment. I think it might be blood pressure related, high or low. I test high at the doctor and normal at home but the symptoms read like low blood pressure drops. It could be related to poor nutrition and going out too fast/hard. I need to figure it out though because I get anxiety when a new distance comes up on a training plan and then find out reasons not to go.
I still have plans to get the runs on (not) gluten page up and running, in the meantime go join the Facebook group as it is slowly becoming the place to be!
