In Which I Keep at Those Pesky Habits
Haven't posted about my goals in a couple of months now, so here's my regular dose of keeping myself accountable:
- Bike to work 2-4 times per week: This has been a rousing success. I learned that until I get a little stronger, my knee really bothers me if I ride more than 3 days a week. I'm soon nearing the time where it will be a little too cold for me, a newbie bike commuter, and I didn't ride at all last week because I hurt my foot. I'm hoping to get in at least one or two more weeks though before I put the bike away for the winter.
- Go to the gym on days that I don't bike to work: Same as above. Two weeks ago was the best week I had, gong every day that I didn't bike. Last week fell apart when I hurt my foot, but I'll get back on track. Winter will be tough, since I won't be riding my bike, so I'll probably need to find some simple and effective exercises I can do at home (that I will actually keep up...I've tried various things that have just fizzled out.
- Learn to play guitar and practice at least 15 minutes every day: Been practicing more chords and strumming patterns just about every day, even if it's just for a few minutes. Picked up a song book, and have been playing the easiest of the easy songs so far. Still in that "training your fingers not to mute other strings" phase on a lot of chords, but definitely feeling the improvement over time. Realized that I don't yet have the mental capacity to play and sing at the same time, which is probably fine, because my singing voice is crap anyway :)
- Eat less crap: Going much, much better -- way back when Caitlin and I tried weight watchers, I discovered that I HATED keeping track of points. But when indigofan was talking about using an app to track calories and having some success with it, I decided to try again. "Lose It!" is working out really well so far -- it's easy to use, has a built in barcode scanner, and it's helping me set goals It also helps that I joined a site called DietBet - pay $30 bucks to try to meet a group weight loss goal. If you don't hit the goal for yourself, you lose the money. If you make it, you split the money in the pot with all the other winners. It's really the perfect motivation for me -- even if everyone wins, you get your $30 back, so it's money on the line that I don't want to lose. I've been eating much better, and have lost about 7 lbs in the past month. Counting calories has also made me realize just how much crap I ate before. There's much less incentive to eat that crap when I'm now making myself accountable by keeping track of it all. Overall, a huge success, and I plan to keep it up, along with going to the gym, to get myself into better shape.