January Check-in and Mindful February

As I look back on January, I did pretty well for my challenge to do something active every day.  There were a few days that I failed to do something, however.  The days that I wasn’t able to do something active was mostly work related;  meaning that I had planned on doing something after work and either got home too late, or was too tired from work to do anything.  Going forward, I am going to keep up my goal to do something active every day in February, but I am going to make a bigger effort to do my activity in the morning before work.  That is the only time of day that I have control over my schedule, the only protected time I have.

For my February challenge I thought I would change it up and do something for my mind instead of something for my physical being.  So this month, I will try to practice more mindfulness in my life.  The way that I am going to go about that is to either meditate or to do a yoga workout each and every day.  Being more mindful can be useful in every part of your life, both work and home life, and so I feel like this is a good focus for February.  I downloaded the excellent meditation app called Headspace, and I will use that for guided meditation.  They have so many categories to chose from, but I think I am going to focus on mindful eating and sleep.  These are 2 areas I think I could improve on, and so hopefully this month I will make some progress in these areas.

Also, as an aside, I found another benefit to the intermittent fasting when I went to the dentist today.  I have had a few cleanings since I started IF, and they have all been the easiest, most painless, and quickest cleanings I have ever had.  So do your teeth a favor and do some fasting!  Have a great February, go out there and accomplish all your goals!

New Years Resolution Time – January Challenge

Happy New Year 2019! Hope everyone had a great holiday season, and I hope that you are all ready to get back to it now!

It’s that time of year when I swear off all my bad habits, and promise to turn over a new leaf.  And this time I mean it, this time it’s going to stick!  Right, right, I’ve been there and done that for more than a few years now.

As I was trying to decide what to do this year I had a new idea.  Well, kind of a new idea, but this time it involves everyone reading this too.  A couple years ago, a good friend and myself decided that we would make one change every month, and stick with that change for at least the whole month.  If it was a good, sustainable change then I would keep it up, if not then I would only do it for a month.  Either way, at the end of 2019, I will have made some significant changes, and done so without having to change everything at once.  That is always my goal, to get better every year.  I’m hoping that some of you will join in and let me know how things are going with your change.  Also, I am sure I will be looking for some ideas of changes to make, especially as the year goes on.  I am more likely to stick to things if I am accountable to someone, so for this nest year I am going to be accountable to you all.

For January, I am going to start with something very basic and I plan to keep it up all year.  My January change is to do something active every day.  It doesn’t have to be an epic ride, it can be walking my dog, doing a little yoga practice, lifting some weights, etc.. The goal is just TO DO something active every day.  Sounds pretty easy and straightforward, right? I will post an update sometime during this month, and I hope to hear from some of you.  And as always, thanks for reading!