It’s that time of year again…the time of resolutions and goal making. I don’t usually do the whole resolution thing because I’m one of the millions of people who can’t manage to stick by what she says she’s going to do in the new year. So, instead, I like to set reasonable goals, not unlike the reasonable goals that are recommended for successful weight loss.
This year, I lost between 30 and 40 pounds over the entire year. I’m hoping that I can replicate that weight loss and lose another 30 to 40 pounds by this time next year. If I’m diligent, I believe I can succeed.
I got an Xbox 360 with Kinect for Christmas from a really good friend this year. I’ve been using that on my days off from work for an hour a day. I play a dancing game. It keeps me active and I even manage to break a little bit of a sweat doing it.
Yes, I recently posted a blog about doing CrossFit. I haven’t completely abandoned that idea in favor of just using the Xbox and Kinect. I have just postponed it for now. In the late spring/early summer, I will probably do it for a couple months to quickly drop 10-15 pounds and to get myself into the groove of more intense workout sessions. At that point, I may even join a gym again so I can do weight lifting circuit training.
So, my goals for the new year are simply to be more active and eat less junk food. Pretty simple goals, I think. And they should be easy to stick to. Eating less junk just translates into not going out to eat as much or, if I do go out to eat, trying to make the healthier choice available to me. I need to eat more greens and fewer additives. Staying active will be easy with the Xbox and Kinect.
In the February, I plan to take my bicycle to the shop and have them do a tune up and fix whatever needs fixing on it so that I can start riding like once or twice a week when the weather gets better. I just plan to ride around Austin until I get tired and then ride the bus back home. Well, almost home. The nearest bus stop is 5 miles away. But, even tired I can do that last 5 miles without a problem.
Another thing I can do is go for a 2-3 hour walk once or twice a week, which I can do in good weather or even in slightly inclement weather. I have a good golf umbrella that will keep me about 90% dry. I do love to walk. It’s great alone time. A great time to just be by yourself and think…or not think, whatever suits me that day. I just enjoy the music I listen to while I walk and the scenery. It could be the same scenery every day (which for the purpose of my walks usually is the same) and I would still enjoy it. There are always subtle differences.
I believe I can do it. I believe I can lose another 30-40 pounds over the next year. I have faith in myself. I have to. I can’t depend on someone else to have faith in me or, even if they do, for that to make any difference in me reaching my goals. I’m going to be very positive about this.
I want to use Sparkpeople.com to help me out. I used them a couple years ago and it worked out great for me. I was able to accurately track my daily intake of food and control what I ate that way. It’s just so much easier to control what you eat when you see it all laid out in front of you in easy to understand numbers. So much easier to stick to portion sizes that way too.
Something that has made it difficult for me to lose weight is being on 12-hour shifts at work. I didn’t realize just how detrimental a long work day could really be on someone’s body. You can’t eat in any way normally, especially when you never know when your lunch break is going to be. I get my lunch break anytime between 7am and 4pm. Also, we’re not allowed on the internet at work, and that makes it difficult to use Sparkpeople.com on a regular basis. I mean, I guess I could enter my food in the morning before I leave for work in the mornings…but that makes sense. Har de har har! Yea, so I guess I’ll start doing that then. I have about 10-15 minutes in the mornings where I’ve gotten everything ready and I’m just watching the news until it’s time to leave. I supposed that I could use that time to plug in my food that I’ll eat while I’m at work.
I really want to do this right. I want to utilize every tool available to me to help me get the best results possible. And I will make sure that I do it right. When my friend wants to take me out to eat, I’ll pick out a recipe and make him take me to the store to buy ingredients so I can cook for us instead of eating out. It’ll be cheaper too, which I’m sure he’ll like. But, most importantly, it’ll be easier to keep track of what I’m eating and I’ll know exactly what I’m eating…instead of “mystery meat” and mystery preservatives and additives. And that means that my dinning room table will start getting used on some kind of basis, which will be nice, because right now it’s just kind of taking up space. It would also force me to keep my kitchen cleaner so that it would be easier to use.
Something I noticed when I went on vacation for a little over 2 weeks this month was that my work uniform gives me problems with my acid reflux. Where the belt hits my stomach, it squeezes my stomach and it makes my acid reflux act up more. So, that’s another reason to get on the wagon about being serious about losing weight. My acid reflux has gotten to the point where nothing seems to help it. I just need to lose weight, that’s the only thing that I know for a fact will improve it.
Something else I can do is to do the fruit, veggie, and juice 15-day cleanse again. I think I’ll start that in the next couple weeks. Probably at the beginning of next payday, just do it for the last half of the month. That’ll get me started in the right direction. Then, I just have to make the effort to cook my own food all the time after that, staying away from junk food and fast food and restaurant food completely, except for very occasionally. I really think I can do this and succeed at it. I mean, I’ve given myself a whole year to accomplish losing 30-40 pounds. Heck, if I really, really applied myself and did the CrossFit, I could probably do it in 6 months or less. But I want to do this right. I want to do this so that it’s a lasting thing for me. I don’t want to lose the weight and then put it right back on because I didn’t change enough, because I didn’t spend enough time with the new eating habits (which I hear take about 6 months to really cement into you…so, 6 months after I’ve reached my goal weight is when I will be “safe” in my eating habits) and exercise habits.
Another thing I want to set as a goal for this new year is to save money. It’s something I haven’t been able to accomplish in almost 14 years. The first year I was here in Texas, I was a pizza delivery driver and would put aside $20 here and there and managed to save up about $700, but then my work situation changed and that money went away real fast. If I can start saving $100-$150 a month (which is how much I’ve managed to save myself each month by canceling my DSL internet, my gym membership that I wasn’t using, and getting rid of my second storage unit), then I can have a good amount of rainy day fund money saved up before too long. I currently have $100 deductibles on my car insurance. I’d like to get $500 saved up so I can change those amounts and save myself a little bit of money each month on my insurance.
I want to open up a second account, but at a different bank that I currently bank at for the purpose of saving money up. I want an account at Randolph Brooks Federal Credit Union. They have great interest rates on car loans and they don’t look at your actual credit, they just look at your history with them and base your rate off that. So, after about 6 months of saving up money, I want to try to refinance my car through them. If I can, then I will save at least $50 a month on my car payment, which would be very nice. Every little bit helps, that’s for sure.
The only major-ish purchase I have planned for the new year is to buy myself a new iPhone 4S. I got rid of the iPhone I used to have because I thought I would like and Android phone better. Yea, I like my Android phone, but nowhere near as much as I liked my iPhone. But, so buying a new iPhone should only cost me about $400-$500 after warranties and chargers and a case. Other than that, I plan to save money and be generally as responsible as I can be, which is a tall order really.
So, in all, my *goals* for 2012 are to be more active, eat less junk, and save money.