Saturday, December 31, 2016

2016 in review

Last day of the year, so time to look back at everything.  Here's the list of goals I set at the start of the year:
  1. Lose an average of one pound a week.  I did not meet this goal, unfortunately.  Just shy of 25 pounds lost for the year, which I must admit, is not too bad.  It's under half of my goal had been, but hey... at least it's over 20 pounds gone, despite the 7 that came back in the last few months of the year. That big drop in the middle of the year was the detox, which I think I should do again in the coming months.
  2. Work out at least 20 times a month.  I killed this goal.  316 workouts during the year.  The best part?  3 of those were U-JAM Fitness classes that I TAUGHT. :)
  3. Cook one new (and healthy!) recipe a month.  I did this, and want to make this a continued focus in the new year.  Need to keep experimenting with new foods too!
  4. Make an effort to eat clean and healthy the majority of the time.  This one is a hard one for me to judge.  I didn't eat out at restaurants as much as I used to, so that's good.  But I can make poor food decisions at friends' houses and even my home too.  Not sure how to balance this one better for next year.
Overall, I'm proud of my accomplishments.  24 pounds gone is good.  316 workouts is great.  Becoming a certified U-JAM Fitness instructor and finding a place to teach is AMAZING.  I also met my informal goal that I mentioned at the first of the year of going to a health spa for a few days, and that was most wonderful.  I need to make sure to keep the good trends going for next year, and let go of some of the bad.

Goals - December report

December is done! Let's review the goals:
  1. Lose an average of one pound a week - fail - up 1.1 pounds during the month.  Ugh.  It was worse in the middle of the month, but what can I say?  It's the holiday season and I failed to lose weight.  At least I only gained 1.1 pounds?  Unfortunately, it's 6.3 pounds up from my lowest in July.  
  2. Work out at least 20 times a month - absolutely smashed!  31 workouts!  Several days with 3 workouts even (which is when the weight trend pulled down).  Good month for moving my body!
  3. Cook one new (and healthy!) recipe a month - met.  Even took a cooking class this month!  Yippee!
  4. Make an effort to eat clean and healthy the majority of the time - fail, due to the holidays and way too many treats at too many social events.  At least the damage wasn't too horrible.
Let's just post this and then take a look at the year as a whole.  Glad I got so much exercise in this month, but wish it had reflected better on the scale.

Sunday, December 11, 2016

25

OK, so we know the weight loss isn't going well these past few months - and it's gotten even worse the past few weeks.  I'm about back where I was six months ago.  UGH.

I looked at my weight tracking app and realized that I'm only down 25 pounds for the past year.  And I was really upset and frustrated about that, mentally beating myself up about it as I drove to the gym to work out this morning.

And then I started realizing, after class... that's obviously really, really stupid to do.  25 pounds is nothing to sneeze at!  So when I got home, I dug up my old post with the big weight graph and then found the spreadsheet to update it.


Yep, it's not good that the number is going back up again, but overall... damn!  Look at that progress!  Each horizontal line is 20 pounds (and that highest point is when I gave birth - not sure why the date isn't matching up perfectly, but I know that number!).  So I need to stop beating myself up on this.  Yes, I am not going to make my goal of losing a pound a week this year, and that's terribly disappointing.  But I will set a new goal for 2017 of 3 pounds a month I think - 36 pounds for the year - which is more realistic than 52 pounds.

It's crazy how easy it is to be hard on yourself, but I need to keep perspective - and to keep working on this, of course.  The next few weeks will for sure be a challenge, but I know that January is going to be a month of rededication.

Thursday, December 1, 2016

Goals - November report

November is done! Let's review the goals:
  1. Lose an average of one pound a week - fail - big super massive fail.  This is so frustrating, but I know it's because my healthy eating is flying out the window these days.  Ugh.  The only good thing to this graph is that the moving average is only up 1.5 pounds for the month.  Unfortunately, that's also 5.2 pounds over the past four months.  No bueno.
  2. Work out at least 20 times a month - met!  24 workouts, but too many days with no workouts unfortunately.  I looked at fitbit.com today and learned that last month I took 338,313 steps and climbed 272 floors.  Neato! ;)  I did take a new class this month too!
  3. Cook one new (and healthy!) recipe a month - met.  Gosh, I think five or six this month?  One of the hits was this roasted pumpkin and sage soup :) with some of the incredible turkey stock I made a day or two earlier.  Yum!
  4. Make an effort to eat clean and healthy the majority of the time - failed.  I felt like I did okay at Thanksgiving, only to completely fall off the wagon at a friend's birthday party (TATER TOTS!).  It's so deeply frustrating at how fast I can gain weigh but how long it takes to lose it.  
OK, so to be brutally honest, I am really frustrated with how the weight loss has been going - since I haven't been losing weight! ;)  Looking at my calendar for December, I know this is not going to be good for the scale.  Too many social events focused around food, and honestly some of them conflict with my workouts - but I need to find balance.  I get lonely at times (being a stay-at-home mom is difficult!), so I will just have to find ways to get in some other exercise!  My goal for December is to not gain weight.  Let's see if that can happen...