I had a quiet evening at home last night, still recovering
from my head cold. I spent some time
reflecting upon 2012 and journaling about my successes. Once that was done, my thoughts inevitably
turned towards 2013. That’s when the
stat-junkie and project manager in my head began to run amok, crafting all
kinds of lofty goals for me to achieve. “How
many miles would I Trikke? Bike? How many Kettlebell workouts would I do? How often would I walk? How far?
How fast?”
“ENOUGH!!” shouted the voice of reason. “You’ve got to keep it simple or you’ll be
overwhelmed and discouraged.”
So I back-pedaled, dug to the core of my ambitions, and came
up with just three simple resolutions:
- Exercise a minimum of three times a week
- Count calories and stick with my high-protein diet
- Have fun and be Kid-Like
Why these three?
Because if I do these specific things, I will achieve my more elusive
goals of losing weight, having more energy, and being happier. For the sake of clarity, here is how I will
achieve each of these goals.
Each exercise session will be one of the following:
- Trikke 1 hour minimum (approximately 7 miles)
- Bike 1 hour minimum (approximately 11 miles)
- Walk 1 hour minimum (approximately 3.5)
- Kettlebell workout (25 minutes including warm-up and cool-down)
The stat-junkie in me will track and report my progress as
always, but allowing myself this flexibility can better accommodate the
unpredictability of the weather and my otherwise jam-packed schedule. It also allows me the freedom to do what excites
me most on that day.
I had previously used the free Lose-It! app (http://www.loseit.com/) for counting
calories with great success. A few
months ago, I simply got lazy and stopped inputting my data. It was little coincidence that my weight loss
plateaued around the same time, and I’ve gradually let junk food creep back
into my diet. So today I’m going to
recommit to using this app. I’m going to
set it to guide me towards losing one pound a week. That is a very achievable goal, and if I lose
52 pounds this year, I will be very close to my ideal weight. For reference, I lost about 40 pounds last
year, but didn’t start working on that until late February.
My final resolution of having fun and being kid-like is
aimed at restoring some happiness and balance to my life. I may have achieved a lot in 2012, but it
came at the cost of becoming a borderline workaholic who feels guilty about
doing anything that doesn’t have the word “work” in it . . . work, school work,
house work, yard work, workout . . . can you see the problem here?! Over the holidays, I rediscovered the joy of
my sedentary hobbies. For better or
worse, they have always brought me joy and helped me to relax. Yet in 2012, I struggled with the guilt of
knowing they had led me to become an overweight and out of shape sloth. So I avoided them completely, despite the emptiness
that left in my heart. For 2013, I am
giving myself permission to enjoy these things in moderation, maintaining a
balanced approach to the other aspects of my life.
To tie up one final loose end, last week I had set a goal of
doing a 6-week kettlebell workout program.
My plan was derailed after just one workout due to catching a bad
cold. I had said I would publish my new
schedule for it, but in light of my new resolutions I’m not going to. Why?
To allow myself the flexibility to pick an outdoor exercise should
mother-nature gift the Lehigh Valley with some pleasant winter weather. Odds are that most of my upcoming exercise
sessions will have to be indoors, thus meeting the original kettlebell goal
anyway, but I’d rather stay flexible should a Trikke-able day present itself.
I intend to hold myself accountable to my resolutions by
posting about them weekly. I think most
of us have grown cynical of resolutions, because the vast majority of them are
abandoned within weeks. So every Monday
evening, I will share my progress here.
Why Monday evening? Simply
because my “weekend” is Saturday through Monday, and that’s when I have the
most time to exercise and write. Just
knowing I have to keep this public should keep me on course. More so, I hope by sticking with my
resolutions I can prove that it can be done, and can inspire you to stick with
yours too.
What are your New Year’s Resolutions? And how do you plan to stick with them? We’re all in this together, so let us all know
your plans so we can encourage each other.
And by all means, please hold my feet to the fire should I fail to do
what I’ve said I would.
Here’s to wishing you a safe, successful, and prosperous
2013, no matter what your resolutions are!!
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This timely infographic arrived via Twitter right after I posted this article:
ReplyDeletehttp://visual.ly/how-choose-new-years-resolution-and-keep-it
I thought it was worth sharing. If we're going to put so much energy into setting resolutions this week, let's ensure that we are committed to sticking with them all year.