New Year: New Goals

Like every other person on the planet, I approach the new year as a fresh start. I review my life list, think about the things in my life that I'm not loving and try to find ways to change them. Since starting a new job and saying goodbye to my childhood home as I helped my parents move was enough to be going on with for the first part of this month, I'm just getting started now.

Our Beautiful Home, I miss it already.
Photo: Summer Jean Photography

For those who care, the new job is going great, I definitely made the right decision. I'm being challenged enough to stay motivated, I like the company and the nature of my work and am genuinely excited about my career for the first time in a long while. I will continue to leave my professional life outside the scope of this blog, but I think that our work sets the tone for a lot of other things in our lives. So it's worth addressing that mine is keeping me very busy, but also very happy right now.

2012 was a pretty darn big year for me, so I'm looking forward to 2013 as a chance to focus on all the little stuff that slowly got away from me last year. More specifically: my health. Which isn't to say that I did a bad job last year, I started training for a marathon, I discovered (and promptly fell in love with) yoga, and tried the Clean diet. Unfortunately, somewhere in the mess of moving, marrying, living apart for 2 months, unemployment, and the strain of the Grige's extremely intense first semester, all of that fell apart... without me really noticing.

So healthy goals are taking the lead for 2013. Especially with work being busy, it's important to be realistic. I've divided my approach into three categories: Diet, Exercise and Mental Wellness.

Diet
With realism in mind, I'm not going to try any crazy juice diets this time. I'll be practicing BPP or Balance, Preparation and Portion control. I'll achieve Balance by using a phone application that calculates calories to balance my diet with my exercise. I'll also be aiming for meals that hit all my major food groups. Preparation will likely be the most important part of my plan. I've set my weekly shopping day for very early on Sunday mornings. I'll then dedicate the rest of the morning to preparing meals for the week, so all I have to do is grab them out of the fridge. I'm also spending the extra $ to keep a stash of clif bars and smoothies on hand for quick energy. Keeping our fridge stocked with easy meals will help me stay on track. Portion Control is the tough part, especially after exercising. I've bought smaller tupperware containers for lunches, but I've also bought some small bowls and plates to keep me in the right mind frame when I eat at home too.

Exercise
My exercise goals for this year are all about figuring out what works in real life. Rather than bogging myself down in one big goal (like a marathon) I'm sprinkling things around a little bit. I'm still looking for a yoga home, but I'm hoping to add to my home practice by finding a studio I'd like to attend 2-3 times a week. In addition, I'm planning to fit in cardio 4-5 times a week. I'd like to combine running and swimming to keep things interesting. Finally, I purchased Jillian Michaels 30 day shred for a high impact start to my routine. I know it will keep me motivated to see great results early on, and from what I've heard, this will give me the boost I need to feel strong in my training. Accountability and planning will be the most important parts of my plan. To hit both of these elements, I'm signing up for the Go! St. Louis half marathon in April. I was running 1/2 marathon mileage when I dropped my marathon training last year, so I know it's within my reach.

Mental Health
The whole point of all of my health goals is to feel good about myself. So I'm not going to ignore the mental part. Having a job that I like and health goals to fill my time is a good start, but I think I need to reach a little farther than that. I'd like to make some friends here in STL, which is not something I usually do well. To narrow the scope, I'm hoping to find a running buddy as a start. I also hope to visit my friends a lot this year, I don't want to lose touch just because we've moved.

So those are my big goals for 2013. Certainly, I have metrics to back them all up, but those aren't really important out of context. I'm hoping to review my video series with results in both weight and inches lost, a'la www.healthytippingpoint.com, but we'll see if I have time or not.