New Ideas to Go with the New Year

It has been a pretty difficult first year of 2013. I have had shoulder pain quickly followed by a sciatic nerve flair up. After a trip to the chiropractor and then getting a much needed massage, I was finally feeling better on Sunday and decided to return to the gym. Once I was finally feeling better my hemorrhoids decided that they were being left out. Even though I woke up feeling like crap this morning, I worked through it and went to work out with my personal trainer. Once I was done working out, I felt much better and had a great day getting tons of things done. I love the endorphins that I get from working out.

On the other side though, I realized that my original goal of walking 20 miles for the month of January was rather on the low side. Instead of meeting my goal during the third week of the month and feeling like I can slack off for the rest of the month, I've decided to increase my goal to 30 miles. In three work out sessions I have already walked 6 miles and it is only 1 week into the new year.

I also found a cute idea on Pinterest earlier this week. It is a "tip" jar. The idea is that every time you work out you tip yourself a dollar. Once the jar is full or you reach a certain point then you are supposed to take the money out and use it to do something fun like buy a new outfit, get a massage or even a pedicure and manicure. I decided to start my own "workout tip" jar and am using the new piggy bank that I got for Christmas from my lovely in-laws. It is a Mr. Potatohead piggy bank. So far I have $3 in the bank and I plan to keep filling it until it is full. Then I will use it for a new outfit for my new much skinnier body.

This is my "workout tip" jar.

New Year, NOT a New Resolution

It has been at least a month since I last wrote anything here, but I'm still chugging along on my weight loss journey. My time has been busy with grad school, teaching, grading papers, writing essays, and dealing with the holidays. December was an extremely busy month, but very rewarding.

I would love to give an update on my weight loss, but I've not stepped on a scale in two weeks due to the holidays, being out of town, and Weight Watchers being closed on my meeting days. I know that I can go on another day, but I'm very attached to my leader. I will step back on the scale on Tuesday, January 8th. I'm a little nervous about it, but I know that I will be fine.

I promised myself that I would not be making an New Year's resolutions this year as they appear to never last past the first month. I started on this weight loss and get healthy journey last summer and I'm continuing on with it in the new year. Nothing has changed because we are now in the year 2013.

I'm still on track to lose 60 pounds before summer. I really really really (yes, I know that was a lot of reallys) want to aim for trying to be healthy enough to return to the doctor and have him give me the green light on trying to get pregnant again. I've wanted this for so long and now that I will be 36 (in two weeks), I'm more motivated than ever.

To help me on this journey, I think that I need to start setting some fun and exciting exercise goals to keep me more motivated to work out in between my weekly sessions with my awesome personal trainer...HI BROOKE!!! For this month, I'm making the goal of walking 20 miles in my workout sessions. It does not matter if I'm on the treadmill, the elliptical, or just hiking around the neighborhood or a park, I will chart my mileage and reach my goal by the end of the month and then I will try a different challenge next month to give me more motivation.

Mileage so far: 1.5 miles (check back next week for my new, hopefully higher update)