Week #1 in Review

Well, today marks the end of the my first week with my resolutions. Looking back i've had some failures and some successes and I've also learned a few things. Usually when I fail at something I get discouraged and quit but for some reason I'm not seeing these small failures as failures, I'm seeing them as experiences to learn from. The surprising thing is this wasn't a conscious effort... it just happened. Not only do I not feel discouraged, but I feel empowered this time! What made me change my view/outlook? I have no idea.

Here's my week in bullet points:

ACCOMPLISHMENTS
• Jogged 1 mile on Friday! (At speed 5.5) - My goal was to take it easy and slowly work my way up to a mile by the end of February and I did it by the end of my first week! I guess i under estimated myself. The funny thing is I wasn't even trying to jog a mile. I had walked .5 of a mile and wasn't really feeling challenged and was feeling good so i decided to jog a little. I was listening to my music, watching the TVs and looking around and before i knew it I had jogged half a mile and wasn't feeling tired at all so i kept going! at about .75 it started getting a little rough but i pushed on through to the end! I was so shocked that I actually tweeted a picture of the treadmill to make sure i was reading it correctly! So I guess I will bump my goal for February up to 2 miles!
• Mostly avoided fast food - Only had fast food twice this week and I normally wouldn't count that as an accomplishment except that one time was for breakfast and I don't really count that. James and I ate at Firehouse Subs when he met me for lunch on Tuesday. What I chose to eat there is a different story and you will find that under the Failure heading...
• I exercised 4 out of 7 days - Technically my goal is to exercise a minimum of 5 days a week but since this is the first week that I was getting back in the gym I am counting 4 as an accomplishment! Going forward if i only make it 4 it will go in the Failure category, dont worry.
• Water intake! - I know it is important to drink lots of water but I hadn't actually planned to work it into my route yet but 2 days this week i drank 8 cups of water and 1 day i had 6 cups! It is funny though because one day i can be thirsty all day no matter how much i drink but then the next day I can't seem to make myself drink anything. I'm sure I will have more "thirsty" days as I work out more.
• 1 time snooze - A few posts ago I re-evaluated my snooze button policy and decided that I couldn't stop using snooze cold turkey so I decided to allow myself 1 snooze. I successfully only pressed snooze once this week....except one day (in which i almost over slept!) which leads us to...

FAILURES
• I pressed snooze twice on Wednesday and almost overslept. - When i decided to stop pressing snooze i was able to move my alarm forward from 6:30 to 7:00 but then i decided to press it once so now my alarm is set for 6:50 to allow for the snooze. 7 is the absolute latest I can get up and still make it to work on-time. Well on Wednesday I hit snooze twice and therefore it was 7:08 by the time i got out of bed and as a result i clocked in at work at 8:04. Being 4 minutes late to work doesn't really bother me that much but what does is that i let myself down by breaking my 1 snooze rule.
• Slept in - For my quest to become a morning person to be successful i read that i need to wake up at the same time every day for 2 weeks. After those 2 weeks I could vary the wake times a little but basically i need to train my body first. Well i slept in on both Friday and Saturday!! Saturday was a little understandable because my friend Andrew had his birthday party on Friday night so we ended up staying out until 2am! But regardless Friday was unacceptable! On top of voiding my "morning person training" the YMCA has a Zumba class on Friday mornings at 10:15 and I want to give it a try but I couldn't because i slept too late! (i did still workout just didn't go to Zumba).
• Calories - I only met my calorie goal 3 out of 7 days this week and that is subtracting my calories burned during exercise from my calories intake! Also I don't mean that I missed them by like 50 or a 100! On Tuesday I missed my goal by 490 (after exercise subtracted) and on Thursday I missed it by 514 (no exercise)!! AHHHHHH! I'm trying to only take in 1300 calories and that is ridiculously low in my opinion but still that is totally disregarding even the idea of a goal. I think it is best if i just move on...
• Coffee calories! - This whole week i have been using a flavored coffee creamer and didn't even think to check the calories! Normal creamer has a pretty small amount so i didn't even think about it. Then this afternoon James asked me if i included my coffee calories so i went to check the info and it was 50 calories!! Luckily I only drink 1 cup of coffee but still! ack! that really adds up!!
• Firehouse - When we went to Firehouse I thought I was making a good decision by choosing wheat bread and leaving off the mayo but turns out it was still a horrible choice at 740 calories! Then on top of that I had a lapse in will power and picked regular potato chips for 240 calories! This just reiterates my point that a lot of my bad food choices stems from lack of knowledge. That is the reason for my Resolution to research better eating. I need to get on it! Which leads us to...

GOALS
• Research - My main goal over all is to research smart food choices in general (i.e. wheat or whole grain, reducing acid reflux, etc) but I also want to research smart food choices at specific restaurants or basically plan ahead. James and I had decided ahead of time to go to O'Charley's so I was able to look up their nutritional information and get an idea of what I wanted before we went. As a result I felt confident about my food choice and felt good about myself. Firehouse was a last minute decision and you see what it cost me.
• Snooze - Mondays are rough.... okay?! So I am allowing 1 snooze on Monday but for the rest of the week there will be no snooze allowed! NO SNOOZE FOR YOU!
• Zumba - If nothing comes up on Friday I would like to try the Zumba class (dance/aerobic) at the YMCA.
• Blog! - I still need to blog about Resolutions 6, 7, and 8. I just think it is important that I finish that. Especially if I am going to talk about their success or failures.
• New Toy! (long term) - I never really saw the point of the Heart Rate Monitor Watches until now. First, i didn't realize it kept track of calories burned. Secondly, I usually like to do my own thing on treadmills and as a result the estimated calories burned is not accurate because they are not based on my weight (some let you enter your weight but not all). Third, I rarely put my hands on the monitors. I think it would be really cool to be able to accurately monitor my calories. Lucky for me my birthday is just around the corner. I am going to try to drop the bug in James' mom's ear. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

LEARNED
• Grilled chicken has way more calories than i thought! I realize your meat portions are suppose to be small but a 6oz grilled skinless chicken breast has 450 calories! that is like a whole meal!! That just really surprised me.
• Serving size, serving size, serving size!! Twice this week I blew my calories because i didn't pay attention to serving size. I HAVE to learn to look at that FIRST not after the fact!
• I took Yoga in college and really like it but that was about 4 years ago. Some of our friends have a Wii Fit and it has Yoga on there. They were showing it to us and let me do some of the Yoga. I instantly remembered how much fun it was and how good it made me feel so now plan to incorporate it into my workout twice a week. Which is great because I think that will really help me not get burned out so quickly. Also I have some back issues and Yoga will be great for that. I <3 Yoga!
• Even if you don't follow the Slim Fast diet, the website (slimfast.com) has a great tool for planning out meals and some really amazing recipes. You can plan out your week or even whole month if you want! And as a bonus it gives you a complete grocery list after you have picked your meals!! Another great website that has gotten be through this past week is Kraft.com. They have a healthy living section where most of the entrees are around 350 and they even have a "healthy living on a budget" section for healthy AND cheap ideas! Can't beat that!!

Well, I think that sums up my first glorious week with my 2010 Resolutions. It was pretty eventful and challenging, I must say. You know, now that I think about it, I think blogging may be the key to my change in the way i view my progress this week. With every mistake I made I found myself thinking "I can't wait to tell people what i learned". It seems my blog has inspired at least 2 people and that makes me proud and drives me even more. I want to keep it up. I feel useful. I want to help other people that may have struggles where I have struggled in the past. I want to find mistakes before others do to maybe prevent them from encountering that pitfall. Even if their goals in life are different I want my motivation to motivate them. These resolutions are very much for personal benefit and if at the end if I'm the only person that gains anything from this whole experience then so be it and I would still call it a success. But honestly, I think it is the thought of helping others along the way, even if just one person that keeps me going.

What it comes down to is - I'm motivated by you being motivated by me.