Jan in Rearview, Feb up Ahead

Wow!  Can you all believe it's February already?!?!  I certainly can't!  It's been such a long yet short month!  It's been interesting with its ups and downs, tears and cheers, love and hate, accomplishments and weak moments.

Let's start out with the Shrinking Jeans Challenges I participated in!

*Bootcamp - This is the one I had to completely give up due to a knee injury but I made it through week 2 day 2 and loved every minute of it!  I might revisit it once I'm up to it!

*Jan Calendar Challenge - I rocked this!  I have never gotten to the end of one of their monthly calendars!  While I had to omit the squats at the end (again, because of my knee issue) I stayed strong and knocked out the pushups in creative ways.  Since I could no longer do them on my knees, I alternated real push ups with tricep dips to help strengthen my arms for the "pushing back up" motion.

*Sisterhood Shots - I did not make it every day.  I skipped 2 pictures but again, this is the most I've ever accomplished on this type of challenge as well!

Here's my Before and After pictures :)

Before right at midnight on the 1st.  With the help of Zach, I took about 16 pictures and this is the best of them all :)  At this point in time, I was walking a few miles a week, mostly at work and not really striving to do more.  We were eating out a lot due to it being my last semester/graduation/holidays!  I was also at the heaviest I've ever been at just over 200lbs.









Yesterday, I chose to ride in the nice, chilly overcast weather for a 10.6 mile bike ride to get my cardio in.  I am doing REAL pushups.  While I can't do a lot, I'm still getting in at least 20 real ones a day during my every hour goal at work.  At the last Wed Weigh in, I was down 10.8 pounds for the month of January.  It seems my weight loss has started to even out to the 1-2lb range every week which is fine with me.  It's a journey, not a race.  Due to my knee issues, I started biking very actively and continue to walk 2 miles every day at work. :)



On to my personal January Goals:

• #1 goal was pushups.  I've mentioned several times above that I have graduated to real pushups (kinda by force not choice) but hey, I'll take it!!!  They're really hard and I struggle with every set and some days I don't feel like I get nearly enough of a burn versus the girly pushups where I could bust out 20 an hour no problem...  But it's all about progress :)
• Walking 5 days a week - This one was a no brainer.  Super easy for me to accomplish because I sacrifice my break and my 30 min lunch to walk in circles around the parking lot totaling 2 miles 5 days a week!  I do some walking on weekends too but now that I'm biking, I prefer to do that on weekends so Zach can come with me.
• Motivation - I must say that my level of motivation has stayed pretty consistent this time around.  I never felt burnt out but there were days I struggled.  The support I've received has been tremendous and makes such a huge difference!  I'm looking forward to another active and productive month!
• Last but not least, Eating at Home! - I set a goal to eat at home 5 days a week.  No matter what meal, if it wasn't from my kitchen it counted as eating out.  The only exception to this rule was Jamba Juice.  I did not count it as eating out because I feel it's a legit healthy meal that doesn't need to be avoided or altered to meet my dietary needs.  It was a huge success!  Now that school is over, I have a lot more time to get back in the kitchen to do what I love, cook.  :)  Zach has been a lot happier with the spread of food in the fridge too!!

 My Overall Goals:

• Bathing suit - still not going to happen yet.  I have a confession.  After losing my 11lbs, I saw myself for the changed person I am for about 2 days.  I have now started to see myself as overweight again because this is close to the weight I was last year when I started my challenges.  I know I've done an amazing job and I'm sticking to everything and I'm staying strong.  But we all have our weaknesses and I guess mine is still recognition of hard work.
• Loving myself - I want to be comfortable in my own skin.  Again, let's just read above : /  I did, I felt super amazing and fabulous for a few days.  But that gut just creeps into my head and makes me second guess all that I've done.  I'm working on this and slowly learning to love me.  Love me inside and out.  It's hard, but worth my time and effort.
• 10% - As a pre-diabetic, it's recommended to lose AT LEAST 10% of your current weight if you're in an unhealthy weight range.  I'm super happy to say that I've lost  5.5% of my overall weight!  That puts me over half of that goal and that makes me closer to being healthy and not at risk to develop full blow diabetes!
• 5k - This plan is still on hold.  I'd like to find and develop a few more muscles before I attempt the couch25k training again.  Don't want another hip flexor flare up again because it prevented me from working out at all for almost a month!  I am currently signed up for 2 (soon to be 3) 5ks all before June and will most likely walk all of them.  I hope to start the c25k in march if not a little later.  It's all up to my body and how it responds to certain workouts!
• My workout jar! - This one is what I'm most proud of right now.  I only missed 2 days of working out 30 mins or more in the month of January!  That means I'm sitting on 29 smackaroons!  WOOOO!  What a great start!
• Yoga - I put this on the back burner since I have a workout buddy and we are active 3 days a week after work.  I try to workout with Zach both weekend days, so I try to take it a little easy on myself on my off days (but still workout).  I will still hopefully pursue, but it's not a major priority right now.

And that's January in a nutshell!  On to February and what it will bring!

The Sisterhood has put up another new calendar challenge as well as a second month of sisterhood shots!  I look forward to both!!

I am also currently taking part in a 50 Miles in February challenge.  I have chosen to shoot for 100 as a personal goal!  They have a Facebook page as well as a FB group where you can post your miles every day for encouragement!  Here's my calendar to keep track:

I've also started tracking my measurements on the first of every month.  I took January's late, but from here on out, it will be super fun to see the numbers change!

So my February goals:

• 100 miles - I can walk, run, jog, swim, bike, crawl, or anything else!  As long as I'm putting it in as exercise, not just day to day steps.
• Bike 4 times a week - I'm not sure how feasible this is but I feel it's a fun goal to shoot for!  I'm really enjoying my time on the bike.  It's just SO much faster than walking so I get to see more scenery while I'm out and about.  It's really good for my knees and my muscles are screaming at me currently but man it's an amazing cardio workout!  I hope it improves my breathing for when I do get around to the c25k!
• Planks - I know for a fact my core muscles are super weak so I'd like to work on that.  I know this month's calendar has side planks, but I will be doing last years Planksgiving calendar.  This will help me with my pushups as well!

• I'm continuing my hourly pushups/tricep dips.  I will slowly increase the numbers as I'm able to.  I'm currently alternating 5 real pushups and 10 tricep dips.

Well I think I've talked your eyeballs off so I'll wrap it up!  Here's me on Feb 1st, sick as a dog from biking in yesterday's weather, but ready to take on the month!  I wish all of you luck on your goals and congrats on all the changes and accomplishments in January!  This is THE YEAR!  There are so many people in my life making these life changes and I'm blessed to be able to participate.