New Years Resolution 2010 - week 7

I'm making a slight change to the format of my weekly new years resolution blog post. I hate to focus on the negatives but for practical reasons I'll only be highlighting where I went off the rails each week. As the goals add up I'll have lots to keep track of without rehashing the details and I don't really think anyone cares how much water I drank or what time I went to bed. The goals will still be there and I'll write up anything that was other than expected.


So this week I had only one real slip up and overall did okay. Claire was still in season (her last week so next week I have no excuse! LOL) so her training sessions went by the wayside. I did 2 sessions but that fell short of what I wanted to do so I got a red square.


As this week contained Valentine's Day, a day traditionally celebrated with chocolate, I saved my day where I'm "allowed" to have chocolate for that day. So my chocolate-free time came to an end after 4 weeks.




This coming week's goal was going to have sweets (cakes, cookies, or candies) no more than twice a week. However, I had 2 already in the first day LOL! So I changed it to 5 times a week thinking that would be a more reasonable goal that I can attain. It certainly gives me something to reach for but hopefully is more realistic for me. If I choose to have chocolate in the week, that will be separate from these 5 sweets.


Although chocolate wasn't too hard for me to give up, I think sweets, specifically candy, will be very hard to give up. My weakness is caramel candies and gummy candies. I must be strong and resist! :)

New Years Resolution 2010 - week 6

Well, this was rather an unusual week.

1. Water - no problem :)
2. 20 mins exercise X 5 - I did 4 formal exercise sessions plus 4 archery sessions. Given that archery is physical activity but not very strenuous I've decided that I can use only one archery session per week as an "exercise session" for this challenge. So for this week I met my 5 exercise sessions goal.
3. Claire training sessions X 5 - unfortunately Claire was in standing heat this week so no obedience or agility class for her. And as I spent so much time doing archery in the evenings I didn't make the time to train her at home. I did 2 training sessions but that's not enough for a yellow square so I have a red one this week.
4. Chocolate only once - I haven't had any chocolate again this week. It really wasn't that hard to give up chocolate I'm finding. I still have sugar and other desserts but none contain chocolate.
5. Take vitamins twice a day - I had one minor slip up. I missed one evening vitamin but didn't realize it until the next day when it was too late to make it up. So... yellow square.
6. No food after 8pm X 6 - Well, this happened to be one of those weeks where my schedule was not what I expected. With Claire being in season and me unable to take her to class I was free to go to archery shoots in small towns in Southern Alberta. Unfortunately this made for some very late nights and twice I ended up having supper after 8pm. I'm allowed one slip up but two = yellow square.

One side effect of all the late nights this week is I was absolutely shattered by Friday as I hadn't had enough sleep. Thus, the inspiration for this week's challenge. My goal is to be in bed by 10pm most nights. Some forgiveness is allowed on the weekend but I would like to be in bed by 10pm even then, if possible, so 6 nights a week is the goal.

New Years Resolution 2010 - week 5

All things considered, this was a pretty good week. I became sick on Tuesday and it never really let up until the weekend. This made a couple of resolutions quite a challenge.

1. Drink 8 cups of water - I bent the rules just a little on this one while I was sick. On the worst days I drank 4-6 cups of water but drank an additional 4-6 cups of orange juice with club soda (my drink of choice when sick). Normally only pure water is acceptable for my challenge but if I'm sick, I think this substitution is fine.


2. 20 minutes exercise X 5 - I only got in 2 workouts out of 5 (again, because I was sick) which is a 40% success rate.... lower than the 50% necessary for a yellow square so I have to be content with a red. The funny thing was, I tried to do yoga while I was sick so I could still get my resolution workouts in. This worked fine for about 2 minutes until they started asking for "deep yoga breathing" which my lungs and sinuses were not going to let me do LOL. I did my best for the session but never tried it again.


3. Claire training sessions X 5 - Claire and I had 5 sessions where we covered the obedience stand, conformation stacking, and free-stacking. It's surprising how good she has gotten in just 5 sessions of reinforcing the stand commands.


4. Have chocolate only once - I can't believe I've gone 2 whole weeks without chocolate. I know I'm "allowed" to have it but I'm afraid to waste my weekly indulgence on cheap chocolate or an early-in-the-week craving. So the situation just hasn't presented itself yet where partaking in chocolate seems worth it.


5. Take vitamins twice a day - Although my goal was to take them with breakfast and supper, I'm really glad I counted success for just taking them twice a day as the times I took them varied wildly.

This week my goal is to not eat anything after 8pm with one allowance made per week. The goal is because almost every time I eat later in the evening I reach for junk food.... either salty or sweet but rarely with any nutrients. These are needless calories that don't get burned off as I go to bed about 9:30pm. The reason for allowing myself one day off from this rule is because my schedule can often be so crazy that I simply can't eat anything until 8pm or close to it. So this is to allow me the flexibility to deal with weeks were I have crazy days like that.

New Years Resolution 2010 - week 4

Uh oh! My first yellow square happened this week.

1. Drink 8 cups of water - almost missed a day as I got busy running around town on Friday and didn't bring my water bottle with me. But I pulled it together in the evening and got my minimum water amount in :)


2. 20 minutes exercise X 5 - I've developed a habit now of exercising each morning before work. Whether it's teaching my class, doing some yoga, or walking the dogs (weather permitting), if I can get my exercise done in the morning then anything I do later in the day or on the weekends is a bonus.


3. Claire training sessions X 5 - Here's where I messed up and only got 4 sessions in. I had 5 sessions planned but life had other plans this week. 4 is still good and I'm giving myself a yellow square :)


4. Have chocolate only once - I actually didn't have any chocolate at all. So I get a big ol' green square for that :) Having a goal and some accountability (this blog) really helped. To be honest, I didn't even miss it. Last week it seemed like an overwhelming goal but it turned out to be one of the easiest so far... for one week at least LOL!

This week's goal is also aimed at improving my health. I take a multi-vitamin twice a day. Well, I'm SUPPOSED to take it twice a day LOL. But all too often I forget the evening one. I'm supposed to take it with food but that never happens... if I remember at all it's usually the last thing I do before bedtime. So the goal is to take the vitamin twice a day with food (breakfast and supper) but if I take it twice, even if it's not with food, then that will still count as success. It's just a matter of making it a habit.

Wish me luck :)

New Years Resolution 2010 - week 3

3 resolutions this week and doing fine. :D

1. Drinking water - never an issue. Getting in 10 cups or more most days. :)
   


2. 20 minutes exercise, 5 times - I started teaching my step classes again which took care of 2 sessions. Then one day I used an exercise DVD, one time I jumped on the treadmill, and one time I went with Vince to take the dogs for a walk. Last weekend I found a bunch of cheap exercise DVD's at Walmart (featuring people I recognized so I'm not worried about the quality of instruction). So I can't say I'm bored with my exercise routine now that I have 8 new 60 minute workouts to choose from :)
   


3. Training Claire 5 times - This was the most challenging resolution as it was a new activity in my routine but one I really needed to do. I worked with Claire in each of obedience, agility, and conformation for at least one session in the week. My lowest priority is agility as I imagine it'll be 6-12 months before she'll be ready to compete but Claire will be competing in conformation and obedience (rally, to be specific) in about 10 weeks so any extra training sessions have been and will continue to be devoted to those pursuits.

For my fourth resolution this year I've decided to correct a very bad habit I picked up before Christmas and have stuck to with great enthusiasm. I've been eating way way WAY too much chocolate. Really, it's all sweets but chocolate, something I didn't even like that much, is something I've gotten a taste for and have been eating far too much of.... sometimes daily and occasionally more than once a day. That's crazy when I used to rarely eat chocolate.

So, with that in mind, I've decided to limit my chocolate intake to one time a week. It can be a "chocolate trio" dessert at Moxie's, a bag of M&M's at the movie theater, or I could waste it on a chocolate chip cookie in the break room at work LOL. I expect this to be the first step for a later resolution that is more restrictive in my sugar consumption but I need baby steps :)

New Years Resolution 2010 - week 2

Week 2 had some challenges. The goal was to do 20 minutes of cardio activity 5 days of the week. I made a minor change from cardio to 20 minutes of any kind of exercise... cardio, weights, yoga, etc. Unfortunately I was sick for 2 of the days early in the week so those were automatically the 2 days off. I really didn't want to mess up the resolutions so early in the year so I had to be really vigilant in getting the required 20 minutes in all of the other days. But I did it :D

The week 1 challenge of drinking 8 cups or more of water wasn't a problem at all. So I get a green square for that too.

As you can see on the chart below, I'm keeping track of my weeks and resolutions. Each week, for every resolution, past and current, I will either get a green square (100% followed), yellow square (mostly followed), or red square (followed 50% or less of the time). Of course I would like to have a pure green chart at the end of the year but I'm sure as the resolutions pile up I will slip up here and there so in the end the chart will look less like a pure green triangle than a Christmas Tree LOL!!

Two resolutions down.... fifty to go. It sounds daunting but I'm looking forward to the next one.

The goal for Week 3 is to do some kind of training (obedience, agility, or conformation) with Claire at least 5 days a week. I'm hoping to enter her first obedience (rally novice) competition at the end of March and although I know she has the basic skills to qualify, she needs to work around more distractions to help with her confidence in the ring. She'll also be in her first conformation show that weekend so although she doesn't need a lot of conformation training, per se, she needs a bit of work with free stacking and practice moving out on the show lead.

Check back next week to see how I did with the new resolution plus the previous 2 weeks. :)

2010... A New Year's Resolution - week 1

My new year's resolutions in the past, like so many other people's, haven't had much staying power. So for 2010 I decided to do something a little bit different. I'm going to have a new resolution each week. They will be small things.... things that a perfect person would be doing anyways... but hopefully I'll be able to stick to them and by the end of the year I'll have 52 new good habits.

For this personal challenge I decided to make the week run from Monday - Sunday. I'll blog about each week's success or failure at the end of the week.

The first week of 2010 was an abbreviated week.... Friday January 1st - Sunday January 3rd. The goal was to drink at least 8 cups of water each day. Drinking enough water hasn't been much of an issue for me but over the Christmas break I noticed I wasn't drinking as much as usual so I used the first few days to get back on track.

I'm happy to report that week 1 was a success. I drank 8 or more cups of water each day and felt better for it :) I think part of the reason I felt better was because I was better hydrated but the other part is because I was getting control over an aspect of my health that I had let slide over the Christmas break. It felt good to have a goal/plan/schedule after some time without one.

The goal for week 2 is to do 20 minutes of cardio 5 times over the course of the week. It has to be done on 5 different days and has to be outside of my normal routine. I start teaching step classes again next week so this is partly to help me gear back up for them after taking a month off. Check back next week to see if I met that goal and was able to keep up with the week 1 goal.