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So, pulling out the ol' list and the calendar...
My Goals for 2010
Get at least 7 hours of sleep for at least 3 weeknights per week by the end of January. Uh... yeah - it wasn't long before I realized that I have little control over when I actually fall asleep and even less over how often I wake up throughout the night (and it's more than I realized!) My tracking calendar quickly degraded to three colours - red for "I went to bed less than 7 hours before I had to get up", yellow for "I went to bed at least 7 hours before I had to get up, but clearly didn't sleep for 7 hours (because I didn't fall asleep right away, or because I woke up through the night)" and green for "I slept for at least 7 hours." On the last week of the month I had to add another colour, blue, for "I really want these to be green but I actually have no idea when I fell asleep." To top it off, I didn't even have three green nights for the whole month, let alone for a week! To make matters worse, I definitely did not "set controls to limit my computer access" - the hours I said I would shut off my computer access came and went, and that's where most of the red nights come from. But, even though I didn't achieve this goal all the way, I know I have been getting to bed earlier than before, so that's good. But for next month, something that's a little more in my control: Lights out between 10:30-10:45 on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays and between 11:30-11:45 on Sundays and Tuesdays for at least three of those nights per week by the end of February. Wish me luck.
Have scheduled snacks (particularly an afternoon snack on Mondays and Wednesdays) every weekday by the end of January. Success! Save for a few days here and there, I have maintained a habit of including a morning and afternoon snack every weekday. I did slack off and not "set appointments" on my calendar, causing me to take some snacks later than I should've towards the end of the month. The snacks have really made a difference in terms of my hunger and energy - about two weeks in, my kickboxing instructor actually complimented me on "randomly" getting better. This month I'm upping the ante - Each snack must contain a vegetable or a fruit by the end of February.
Be able to do 100 full, proper pushups without stopping by December 2010. My New Year's Resolution has turned into an Office Challenge! I told the kinesiologist that I was doing the hundred pushups challenge/program and asked if he could watch me do my initial test to make sure I had good form, then he got interested in doing it and started asking other people at work if they'd be interested too. Word got to my boss, who organized a pool and whoever has the greatest percentage improvement wins. I tried to do proper pushups at first but it was a bust - I didn't bring myself low enough, so I decided I'd try to finish the program with "modified" pushups (aka from the knees/girlie pushups/granny pushups) first before moving on to full ones. (The office pool is also split into "modified" and "full" divisions.) As you can see on the graph on top, I'm doing pretty good! I do "exhaustion tests" every two weeks and my next one is this Thursday.
Buy a house/condo within walking distance from my work by fall 2010. So I hadn't really done very much for this goal until my financial advisor called me about starting an RRSP. I then told her my goal and we decided that I could probably hold out on getting an RRSP for now and save up for a home instead. Unfortunately because of the timeframe in which I want to achieve this goal, I don't really have a lot of options in terms of investment. But I saved more than ⅓ of my paycheque this month, despite paying for a course that my company still hasn't reimbursed me for!
I'm adding a new one - my body often tells me that I don't drink enough water (and/or eat enough fibre, thus the changing of the snack goal.) But the idea that people need to drink 8 glasses of water a day is a myth! A simple way to calculate your water needs are 1 mL per calorie need; the average woman needs about 1800 calories a day, while the average man needs about 2100 - that's how they come up with 2000 calorie overall average. So yes, that does work out to about 8 cups of water, but your water needs aren't just pure water; they include all water that you get from your food and drink. Coffee, tea, milk, even the water that's inherent in the vegetables and fruit you eat count towards the total. So where does that leave me? I know I drink a cup of milk every morning with breakfast, a 12 oz tea most days at work and two bowls of a Chinese broth-based soup whenever we have dinner at home. The amount of water I drink during the day is variable, and virtually non-existent on weekends, which could be messing me up for the rest of the week. So to start, I will keep track of my water intake every day - including weekends! until the end of February, which will make me more conscious of how much I'm drinking and thus motivate me to drink more, and then we'll see where I should take it from there.
My Wishes for 2010 (could eventually be moved up to goals):
Do a thorough "room purge". I'd forgotten I'd done a semi-purge of my washroom in the fall, so when I told myself to just start with "one side" of the washroom, that basically completed the purge. I managed to get rid of a lot of ponytail holders and barrettes from my childhood. I also cleared out the drawer on my nightstand, but my nightstand itself still has stacks of books, boxes and knick-knacks lurking on it. I think it'd be easy to tackle that next... not looking forward to moving to the shelves :S
Recipes/Techniques I wanted to try this year: I didn't do anything on this list (and I probably added more... in my head.)
Blog Stuff
Continue upward trajectory of posts per year.
I have posted more in January than I have in any other January so far, so that's good.
Include nutrition information to recipes whenever possible.
I have been including nutrition info for new recipes, but haven't spent any time going back in the archives.
Reorganize blog tags (particular those that fit in the "other" category)
I added another "Seen Elsewhere" section as part of the "Other" category and there's really not much else I can think of doing... also I don't really like the "ingredient cloud". I'll say this is done for now, but it's more "on hold" until I decide what would be best.
Link up all restaurant reviews to Urbanspoon.
Haven't started this.
Rewards
I decided the fact that I've been really good about snacks this past month (plus the progress I've made on my other goals/wishes) is certainly worth rewarding. I know I mentioned some books that I wanted (and the list is growing), but toward the end of the month it came to my attention that I don't have a good shoulder bag - bigger than a purse but smaller than a backpack. Matt & Nat and its sister company Samsara had sales of up to 40% off on their Fall and Holiday collections so I went to take a look. I bought Rory. (Love the pink detailing on the zippers.) I also wanted the Ayaan but the red belt was out of stock.
Judging by my progress with the push-ups I think that will probably be the goal that I will have to work hardest for and will take me the longest. So I've decided that once I achieve that I'm buying myself a DSLR. And a sweet macro lens. Haven't decided what yet though, but I'm sure my favourite food bloggers will have a say...
And in between? I think my wallet (and intellect) will appreciate going back to the books, but we'll see :)
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1 comment:
You was tempted to start a brand new blog for tracking your progress on your New Year's resolutions,this is interesting blog Infect your blogs are always good and interesting.
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