Life is all about setting goals for yourself. Even something as small as rolling out of bed at 6:40 to get to work on time is a goal. So if I'm going to take the time and energy to work out, plan healthy meals and say no to pizzas, I must have a goal in mind, right? Right! My goal is to lose weight and be healthy! However many theories state that specific and harder-to-obtain goals are easier to stick to than something vague like mine. I mean, I've already lost about 2 pounds over the past month, so technically I've lost weight and can stop trying to be healthy. But that won't help me down the road, and I'll be right back in the same position I was in after eating Thanksgiving dinner last year.
So - what are my goals? Personally, I want to loose 25-30 pounds by mid-summer. Yes, I believe that's obtainable, since that's about 1 pound per week overall. But it will be difficult because I have to steer clear of the candy isle when I go grocery shopping, and actually work out. I came up with this number because that is about 5 pounds more than I weighed at the beginning of college. I think that's much more realistic that losing 40-45 pounds to get to where I was in high school! I also have a goal to fit into the same jeans I wore 3 years ago before summer begins. Also a realistic goal!
Next Goal - be able to button said jeans from 3 years ago
(photo courtesy of Michelle Meiklejohn)
My husband (who will be making some guest appearances in this blog with a few posts) has a taken a different direction with his goals. He's going through this healthy lifestyle change with me. He's scrawny though, so he actually wants to gain some muscle mass instead of losing weight like I am. His goals revolve around an active lifestyle. We live in Colorado and spend our free time indoors instead of enjoying the beauty that is waiting right outside the door! Not that I'll give up my video games (come on, giving up a nightly binge of pizza and beer is bad enough) but we want to get out hiking and biking during the summer, skiing and snowboarding in the winter, and sprinkle in some camping on top of everything! When you ask him about his goals, he spouts off about climbing a fourteener and other crazy achievements! So we slimmed that down a bit:
On the day of our one year wedding anniversary last September, we drove up to Idaho Springs to go for a hike and have a few beers and dinner at Tommy Knocker Brewery. We wandered around town a bit then drove to the trail head. It wasn't a tough trail, and only eight miles long. It's not like we were running it, and I didn't even have on a backpack! Well....I doubt we even made it the first quarter mile before we took a break to rest, out of breath. Talk about being out of shape! We are Coloradans and we can't even make it a mile into a trail before turning back to seek out the comfort of a bar? How lame!
So that is our goal - to be able to hike that 8 mile trail in September for our anniversary, camp for the night, then hike back down the next morning. Definitely do-able. Definitely challenging. Definitely means that I can't have donuts for breakfast tomorrow morning...
But they're so pretty!
(photo courtesy of Witthaya Phonsawat)
I feel that if we meet and achieve that goal, we will have been living a healthy lifestyle for a good nine months straight, which means it will be a habit! I'm hoping that when we hike that trail, we'll feel so proud of our achievement and want to set another, harder goal for ourselves, that there is no way that we'll leave this fit and healthy path that we've been traveling! In fact, I'm hoping we're so far down that path that I won't even be able to see the path that contains downing a family-sized bag of cheese puffs while watching a sy-fy marathon!
There's always a light at the end of the tunnel while traveling in warp-speed!
(photo courtesy of Tungphoto)
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