Make Healthy Memories

We tend to focus on bad habits, but habits can be a very very good thing.  By starting this blog and my healthier lifestyle with my 40 Day Challenges in Exercise and Veggies I really built some good habits that I have managed to maintain for over 5 months and helped get me through the holidays.

Sticking to a gym routine that has organized landmarks in it, like a regularly scheduled class or a repeated block of pool time, allows me to have healthy memories that make planning the next week very easy.  When I think, "what did I do last Tuesday night?" the answer is always the same, I went to Zumba.

Same with food, when I think back about what I ate for the past 5 months, most of it was healthy so coming up with a healthy idea for dinner isn't nearly as hard as it used to be.

You have to find a balance between routine and a rut, you don't want to make everything so predictable you get bored and stop, but a few solid habits will keep you going.  Do you have healthy habits that keep you on track?  Please share them in the comments, thanks!

Holidays 0, Me -7

OK, so technically I have 1 more holiday festivity left to get through, it is tomorrow and I am hosting it.  It involves a good deal of cheese.  For most though, the holidays are over. 

If you remember, I hit a weight loss goal on the Friday before Thanksgiving week and my next goal was to not gain any weight back over the holidays (*NIH estimates the average American gains 1 pound between Thanksgiving and New Years -- I was never average).  I am happy to report that since November 20th I have lost 7 pounds.

I monitored my weight over those 7 weeks and had some ups and downs, but the official weigh in today is 7 pounds down.  I'll take it.

Never once during the holidays did I feel deprived of anything, I ate what I wanted, took part in lots of festivities, exercised when I could and tried to slip in healthy meals whenever possible.

What was most reassuring this week was my ability to get back into a good schedule of eating healthy and working out after a 2 week vacation over Christmas.  It is so easy to fracture good habits and it takes so long to re-cultivate them that often giving up is the path of least resistance.

I don't feel that desire to slack at all right now and it is kind of amazing!

New Year's is Just Another Day

People attach a lot of significance to New Year's Day and while it is certainly a good reminder of the passage of time and an easy day to remember to change the batteries in your smoke detectors, it really is just another day.  Sure you throw out one calendar and hang another, but don't fret over those pesky resolutions.

I am not saying you don't need to have goals and such planned for the year, but you don't miss out on goal setting if you wait until after the holiday hubbub to set them.  And nowhere does it state you have to set them in blood and never adjust them as you go through the year.

I am a firm believer in achievable goals and on reassessing them as you go.  I have plenty of goals for 2015 in my little brain, but I am not going to bore you with them, some of them are silly and some private.

I did complete a goal I had set for the end of 2014 when I swam a mile on December 30th.  I was psyched about that, but I had set that goal in September.  I never would have set that goal way back last January since I didn't have a pool to swim in and I had no idea I would be swimming for fitness.

Lots of people use New Years to jump start a healthy lifestyle and if you are one of them then congratulations, but if you don't get to the gym until April (or August as I did in 2014) that doesn't mean your year is a failure.  New Year's is just another day....

And a Partridge in a Pear Tree

I gave my pool workout a festive shake-up today!  My weekday swim has been 1200 yards for awhile now, the way I challenge myself is by shaving off time and doing more lengths of each stroke before switching strokes.  I started by doing 4 lengths front crawl and 4 lengths back stroke and repeating that set six times.  recently I had upped that to 8 lengths front and 8 back and repeating that set only 3 times for 48 lengths.

On my walk to the gym today I decided I was going to try to increase my lengths again and try 12 front and 12 back twice.  I also decided to use the 12 Days of Christmas to help me, as I am a total nerd.

For the 1st 12 front crawl I just tried to sort all the 12 Days out in my head, turns out I had my birds mixed up in the beginning and had no idea who did what after 8 Maids a Milking.

The second 12 on my back I sang the song in my head as the members of the Muppets, as anyone of my generation would.

The 3rd 12 length set had me remembering various illustrations of the 12 days, which really helped sort out the problem in set #1.

And finally on my 4th 12 length set I replaced all the original values with alcohol, can't wait for 12 Shots of Patron on January 7th!

In the end I did my 48 lengths in 3 minutes less than my previous best time, proved I had endurance for 300 yards of each stroke at a time and had a really enjoyable swim!

Sometimes the Plan is No Plan

No, I haven't forgotten the advantages of planning all of a sudden.  Nor have I gotten soft around the holidays, but I discovered Sunday at the gym that my plan was holding me back a little.

Lately my treadmill work out has been 30 or 45 minutes, either 2 or 3 reps of this:

1. 5 Minutes Slow
2. 5 Minutes Less Slow
3. 5 Minutes Jog (and that is a very generous term for walking faster but actually lifting both feet off the treadmill at once)


I was convinced that 5 minutes was all I could "jog" at this point and I was set in this pattern.  On Sunday I did the same 45 minutes, but I shook up the order and did 2 "jog" blocks back-to-back.  For those of you with math skills like mine, that means I "jogged" for 10 minutes straight.

By challenging my plan I learned I could do a 10 minute "jog" with relative ease.  The other day in the pool I was set on doing 1000 yards, but once in the pool I felt good enough to do 1200.

Planning is crucial for me, but I can't let my plan convince me of limitations I don't have any more.

On the Road Again

So I survived Thanksgiving!  More than survived actually, I had a great week.  I didn't feel I deprived myself of anything and balanced the delicious food with time in the gym and managed to lose a couple pounds over the past 2 weeks.

My next challenge hits on Monday when I head on a short business trip.  I used to travel a ton for work and that frequency has greatly diminished.  I hope my bad travel habits diminished as well.

If you travel for work you know what I am talking about.  Routine goes out the window, food and booze are abundant and ducking out of a gathering to work out is rude or even a bad career move.  Meals are much larger than normal too, who eats dessert with lunch? Hotel gyms are usually small and not motivating.

Add to that the fact that this trip has been touted as "jam-packed with events" and I am nervous. There is no pre-published agenda.  I don't know what I am walking in to.  The best I can do is walk in prepared.

I have already packed my gym clothes and sneakers.  I plan to stock my carry on with protein bars, fruit and almonds. I am going to stick to 1 glass of red wine at the evening events and try to set my alarm early enough to get a work out in at least 2 days.

Anyone else have any travel tips for the health conscious?  Please leave a comment below, thanks!

Dressing Room Victory Dance

Twice a year my mom takes me shopping for clothes, once for my birthday in the summer and once around now for Christmas. We wander the department and each pick up a few things for me to try on and then I trudge to the dreaded dressing room to see what I can squeeze in to.

On Black Friday I happily skipped around the department selecting items in a smaller size and when I met up with my mother I found she had items TWO sizes smaller than what we bought in July.  I was dubious.  And scared.  I didn't want to try something on that didn't fit yet.

She assured me she thought the things she picked would fit.

They did.

Seriously, I almost cried in the dressing room.  Then I danced.