I think we have developed poor enough habits that reaching this goal will not necessarily require structured meal or training plans. At the end of each month I will evaluate my habits and progress to see if what I’m doing is working or if I need to adjust something to meet my goal. I hope to meet this goal no later than 3/31/13. But to start, here are my specific goals:
No Coca Cola AT ALL until after I reach this goal. We have developed a Coke addiction that has been very difficult to break. If after this goal, I no longer have intense Coke cravings, I may or may not allow myself to go back to having an occasional coke like I used to. But until I have broken the addiction, no coke for me. I am also going to try to cut out most other soda consumption but I can still have an occasional Diet Mountain Dew if I am falling asleep at my desk (note I said “occasional”, not twice a day like before) or if I’m really having a bad soda craving I will maybe let myself have a root beer or something. I would say no Diet Mountain Dew either but I hate coffee and sometimes I really need a little caffeine to get through the morning if I didn’t get enough sleep.
I am going back to freezer cooking to try to minimize our eating out. Eating out is expensive and I have a bad tendency to order the unhealthiest thing on the menu (and we love McDonalds fries…). In fact Carolyn and I just did our cooking session this past weekend and I’ll post pictures and updates about it soon. I did not do any diet cooking or even try to make them healthy – I just made regular meals that I know Ryan and I both like so we won’t be tempted to go out to eat instead of heating up a freezer meal. After the first goal is met I may need to adjust the meals chosen for freezer cooking for improved nutrition but we’ll see…
I need to run at least 4 times per week starting with a minimum of 9 miles per week and building at 10% total mileage increase per week up to a maximum of 28 miles per week (assuming I continue all the way to April 1st before meeting this goal). Towards the end, the mileage will be high enough that I will most likely be running 6 days per week but committing to four instead of six allows me to make up miles if I miss a day. Here’s what my running totals will look like if it takes all three months to meet my first goal:
Week 1 (1/1 – 1/6): 9mi (I didn’t start this one until Thursday of the week so I only ran twice for a total of 5.5 mi but I’ll still keep increasing the miles as shown below.
Week 2 (1/7 – 1/13): 10mi
Week 3 (1/14 – 1/20): 11mi
Week 4 (1/21 – 1/27): 12mi
Week 5 (1/28 – 2/3): 13mi
Week 6 (2/4 – 2/10): 14mi
Week 7 (2/11 – 2/17): 15.5mi
Week 8 (2/18 – 2/24): 17mi
Week 9 (2/25 – 3/3): 19mi
Week 10 (3/4 – 3/10): 21mi
Week 11 (3/11 – 3/17): 23mi
Week 12 (3/18 – 3/24): 25mi
Week 13 (3/25 – 3/31): 28mi
We are doing the “Add One A Day” challenge with some friends where on January 1st you do one sit-up and one push-up. Then each day you add one more and see how many days in a row you can do (ex: on Jan 2 you do two of each, on Jan 15 you should be up to 15 of ea, etc). This should make sure I’m getting in at least a little ab work for now.
