End of Month Report: January

It's that time! Time to check in and see how well I did hitting my goals for the month of January. During this first month of 2016, I have had some successes and some not-so-successes.

Weight Goal: 239 lbs
-Start: 245 lbs
-End: 238 lbs

Woohoo! Goal met!!

Excercise Goal: 3x per week, 2 group classes per month
Week 1: 3 workouts at home
Week 2: 3 workouts at home
Week 3: 2 workouts at home
Week 4: No workouts at home :-(
Group workouts: 0 :-(

So, I didn't do so hot at meeting my exercise goal this month, especially toward the end of the month. I'm going to have to work on that and figure out how to push through the end of the month even when work gets hectic.

Outdoor Activity Goals: Hike/Walk outside twice per month, try one new trail or greenway each month.
Hikes/Walks: 1 @ Pellissippi Greenway
New Trails: 0

I had plans to go hike the Black Mountain Loop in Crab Orchard, TN but the ridiculously cold weather (15 degrees!!) kept me from doing that. Still, I need to make more efforts to complete these goals next month regardless of weather!

Rewards Acheived:
Lost 5 lbs and treated myself to $10 worth of books.

Now, I know there is still one more day to go before the actual end of the month but since I will spend tomorrow working, I doubt I will be able to get any other goals in.

Next month is a new opportunity to kick ass on my monthly/yearly goals!

Get Motivated!

Found this gem on Reddit today. It's full of awesome quotes to help motivate me. I need all the help I can get. I'm reposting some of my favorites below.

A New Head Coach (or How the Titans are Ruining My Life)

It's happened. The Titans may have actually killed me this time. I'm pretty sure I've died and the place I landed is a hellscape in which Mike Mularkey was hired to be the next head coach of my favorite NFL team.

There is no football god to smile down on me in this desolate place. There is only sadness and a future full of 0-16 win-loss records.

Just how fucked up is this decision? I can't even... I'll let Clay tell you.

Take it away Clay Travis.

Titans are the worst. Disaster hire.

Meal Prep like a Boss!

Tomorrow my husband and I will begin the Advocare All-In 24 Day Challenge. Its a nation-wide challenge so we will be joined by more that 200,000 challengers from across the country. We are excited to see our results at the end of 24 days.

Today was meal prep Sunday in our house. We planned out our meals for the week, went grocery shopping, and then began cooking this evening.

One of my favorite parts of meal prep Sunday is prepping lunches for the week. This week my husband is having small salad w/ Balsamic vinaigrette dressing and Salmon for his lunch entree and I am having salad w/ raspberry vinaigrette topped with roasted chicken.

My husband's lunch entree.

My lunch entree. Yum!

Preparation is the key to success!! If you'd like to learn more about the Advocare 24 Day Challenge, check out my microsite here!

Cutting the Cord

My husband and I have been married almost eight years. In that time, we have always had cable or satellite television. Lately, we found that instead of actually using the service we pay so much for to watch our favorite shows or sporting events, we were using the television to provide background noise for other pursuits.

Let's face it. There are dozens of way for the average consumer to connect with media. Streaming services, on-demand watching, etc. With the exception of a few live events (like watching NFL and college football) there really isn't a *need* for us to keep paying for satellite. We have so many other activities we enjoy that don't involve the television at all. I love reading, my husband is a PC gamer, we go out on walks with our dog, and sometimes we just enjoying talking about our day.

We've been tossing around the idea for months. We considered the pros and cons and we finally reached the decision that it was time to cut the cord. We needed to quit wasting money on something that was of no benefit to us. So its done.

Note: Please do not actually do this as depicted. I'm not certain you wouldn't be electrocuted.

We've been without satellite television for a few days now and I have to say, its both amazingly easy and shockingly difficult to do without it. Once it was gone, I realized what a huge crutch its been during our evenings. The absence of the constant stream of content and advertisements is striking. Its hard to get used to but the quiet is also nice in a lot of ways.

I'm looking forward to getting a lot more things done without the distraction of television. I've got a To Be Read pile of books that is growing ever taller.

Unexpectedly Inspiring

So I was browsing Reddit today as I often do (multiple times, every day, as a matter of fact), and I came across a link to a gallery of 'Awe-inspiring photos'. There were nearly a hundred photos in the gallery but one in particular caught my eye.

This man is Vedran Smailović, aka- The Cellist of Sarajevo, famous for playing inside the ruins of buldings in Bosnia during the siege of Sarajevo in the early 1990's. 

I really like this photo because it reminds me of the opening lines of one of my favorite books, Lady Chatterly's Lover by D.H. Lawrence. 

"Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles. We've got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen."

I think its a very inspiring idea. That humanity must carry on in spite of all the ugliness and hatred in the world. D.H. Lawrence lived and wrote long ago but I think the message he intended is still applicable today.

So as I head into the new year of 2016, I think it's important to find the peace amid the ruins of everyday like the man in the photograph.

I never dreamed I would be a badass goal-setter but here I am killing it!

New year's resolutions only work if you keep yourself accountable. This is not something I normally do, however, this year I am trying to grab the bull by the horns and continue the gains I made in the second half of last year. After looking at some inspiration on Pintrest, and seeing all the cool crafty ideas people came up with to keep track of their goal, I decided to make my own 2016 Vision Board.

For those who may not have heard of this before, a vision board is basically a visual way for people to display their goals (for everything from travel to finance to fitness) and keep track of their progress toward their goals. There's no right or wrong way to create a vision board for yourself. As you can see here, vision boards can be as simple or elaborate as you desire. It's your vision, make it work for you!

So, I decided to make a vision board. The first step, of course, is locating a board to stick everything  on. I didn't have one handy that I could reuse for this purpose so I bought a cork bulletin (36'x24'.) at Walmart for less than $10. The next step was making the decision as to what the focus of my vision board should be. I found this quote to be particularly helpful in my goal-setting. 

Since my main objective in 2016 is going to be losing weight, it was easy to pick that as my primary vision to make the focus of my vision board.

There are a TON of fitness and weight-loss vision board ideas on Pintrest! It gave me a good place to start as far as creativity. Once I had my creative juices flowing it was no sweat to set some personal fitness and weight-loss goals for the year. I had already lost 25 lbs in 2015, so I wanted to keep pushing and go ever further in 2016. I noted my goal weight (175 lbs.) and then broke that down into monthly goals. Along with that, I set monthly and weekly goals for exercise and activity. Most importantly, I brainstormed ideas for how I would reward myself for my effort. I made a list of rewards I would treat myself to each time I hit a mini-goal with my weight-loss.

The next important task I set for myself was finding some motivating quotes and pulling together some photos of my inspirations for losing weight (photos of my family).

I broke my board down into easily identifiable sections and used my hoard of scrapbooking supplies to make the board as unique as I could.

It took about 2 days of working at it to finish it completely. Then I hung it up in a prominent place (in my office) where I would see it every day.

As the year goes along, I can add to it and keep track of my progress as I mark off my days exercised, pounds lost, trails hiked, etc. This year, I have no excuses not to hit my goals!!