2012 Goals

Seems like everyone else in the blogword is posting goals or resolutions for 2012 so I thought I'd play along. Y'all (I can say that since I live in the South) will need to keep me honest against the list. I'll do periodic updates.

1. Run a 10K. I already have one in mind for mid April. Now I just need to get back on the wagon for training. Fortunately I received a lot of cold weather running gear for Christmas.

2. Have family dinners. This must happen. I have the pickiest eater in the world and am hopeful that family dinners and a wider variety of food will help.

3. Take (and post!) more pictures. And try to be included in more pictures. I always seem to be the person on the other side of the lens.

4. Live in the moment (at least during vacations/trips). As a Type A person I'm always planning. Even when I'm on vacation I'm thinking about what needs to get done at work. I'm already stressing about being away during MLK weekend when work will be crazy. We are also going to Disney in late May and I need to be able to take deep breaths and just enjoy the trip for what it is, not necessarily what was planned.

5. Enroll Cameron in an activity. She will be 3 in late March so she can do ballet or karate at that age. I'm leaning towards karate since her BFF, Holden, would be up for that.

6. Do some small scale home improvement projects. Things like rearranging furniture or changing out pictures or planting new gardens.

7. Dip my toe in the broader job market to identify other opportunities. Despite giving me a promotion BigFinance continues to struggle with providing compensation increases and bonuses. It's time to throw off the fear of the unknown and see what opportunities are out there now that I have a total of 10 years of experience under my belt.

8. Have a yard sale. I am not 100% fully committed yet but it appears as though Cameron is destined to be an only child. Yes, I need to blog an entire post about how I feel about that. But I plan on being fully resigned post Disney and will then need to clean out all old baby stuff.

9. Create an estate plan and execute necessary paperwork. This would include a living will.

10. Read more non fiction books. I am an avid fiction reader but want to expand my horizons. Especially since raising a "bossy" kid is hard and I need to learn how to be a better parent.

I think my goals are doable, what do you think?

My first 5K race

I'm marking it in my milestone book. Friday, April 8, 2011 is the date of my first ever race. And a 5K race to boot!

It was a great evening for a run. Not too much of it required running into the sun and there was a nice breeze. It was a little warmer than I expected for early April so I ended up sweating quite a bit. We were kind of a mess when we went to Loco Lime for dinner after. My two friends, KT and Amanda ran with me.

My official race time was 40:56 and I was happy to beat the 41 minute mark. I didn't run the entire 5K (although I did run about 90% of it) which was OK with me. My goal for the next 5K is to run the whole thing, not matter how slow I am jogging and I'll try to shave a minute off my time.

We are already planning our next 5K. Amanda suggest a trail run at the Carolinas White Water Center in July and the Weight Watchers 5K is in late May.

A kick ass year

Today is my birthday. Happy 34th birthday to me! And A. and Mommy, Esq., of course. It has been a pleasure sharing a birthday with my sisters over the past 3 plus decades. Not that I felt that way when I was younger!

I am struggling to see how this upcoming year will top the previous one. Over the past year I lost more than 50 pounds, started exercising regularly, got a new job and celebrated many milestones with my loving husband and darling daughter.

What are my goals this year?

• I plan on running several 5Ks and continuing to make exercise a regular part of my routine.
• Along with several other real life and Internet friends, I will participate in the Charlotte Warrior Dash.
• I will use all of my vacation time.
• I will have a girls' weekend with my longtime friends.
• I will commit to carving out more "me" time and "we" time with DH.
• And if I'm really lucky and work hard I will top it all off with a job promotion.

Wish me luck!

GOOOOOAAAAALLLLL!!!!!!

It took 51 weeks and 53 pounds but tonight at my WW meeting I hit my goal weight. If you do the math (what self respecting MBA wouldn't?) that works out to be just over a pound lost per week.

Here are some other stats if you've been playing along at home with my weight loss journey:

• I went from a size 18 to a size 8/10 (brand depending)
• I only missed 4 WW meetings due to travel
• I went up 6 times and maintained twice
• The most I ever lost in one week was 4.4 and I have no freaking idea how I pulled those Biggest Loser numbers

I have very few "before" pictures because who wants to get their picture taken when fat? But here are some photos to demonstrate how far I've come.

Excuse me while I go have a big fat glass of wine to celebrate.

Setting personal goals

First, my apologies for the crazy header. I'm having troubling resizing images down in Adobe Photoshop so if anyone wants to email me with advice, I would appreciate it. It's supposed to be picture of me with Cameron but as you can see, I didn't make the cut. Second, this is my 400 post! It’s crazy to think how my life has changed since I started with my first post on September 23, 2008. I’ve lived through home renovation projects, job changes and the biggest impact of all, my wonderful daughter, Cameron. But this post won’t be about looking back, it’s focused on evaluating where I would like to be personally. Professionally is a whole other post.

I’ve been trying to make some life changes over the past 6 months. At the end of March I re-joined Weight Watchers. I was fairly successful the first go around when I planned on getting pregnant. My doctor and I agreed that I should lose some weight before getting pregnant. In 4 months I managed to drop 20 pounds, left the WW program and got pregnant. As I mentioned before, I gave myself a year to lose the baby weight. The first 15 pounds came off pretty easily (thanks, breastfeeding!) but that remaining 15 pounds clung. And to be frank, it clung because I didn’t make healthy choices. I can blame it on sleep deprivation but Cameron was sleeping through the night by six months old. I can blame it on the craziness of juggling parenting and work but that’s just an excuse. I found that I needed the structure of a weight loss program. So back to WW I went.

To date, I have lost 31 pounds. Not too shabby. More importantly I have regained the clothes size I was prior to business school. Free lunches coupled with crazy hours and too much drinking meant that I wasn’t exactly healthy in business school so the weight climb started then. The problem is that it is too easy for me to slip back into bad habits. Swing by McDonald’s on the weekend for lunch? Why not? Take Cameron to Dairy Queen for a treat? Sure. Have more drinks than I probably should on the weekend? Of course. The challenge is that even after 5 months in Weight Watchers I know that I still have more weight to lose and I still think of it as a diet rather than a lifestyle choice.

Over the past two weeks I have lost nothing. In fact I went up a little bit one week. One week I can consider a fluke. But two? No, something else needs to be done to get me over the hump and start focusing on my health long term. The first thing I’m trying to do is track my points religiously. I’ll admit it: for the past month I’ve really been mentally tracking my points rather than on the iPhone. It’s easy to fudge things when I’m not recording my food intake. I’ve been starting off really well each day and somehow lose my motivation in the evenings and of course, on the weekends.

The second thing I’m trying to do is incorporate exercise into my regular routine. As many of you know, I loathe exercise. Intellectually I understand that it will give me more energy, will improve my overall heath and help with weight loss. But I hate doing it. A few weeks ago I was ready to leave the JCC and try to just walk in the evenings. With the cooler weather and a daughter who is in bed at 6:30 PM (jealous?) it’s doable. I was getting bored with my swimming routine and usually only made it to the gym once a week. But on Sunday I took Cameron to the gym daycare and hit the actual gym vs. the pool. I enjoyed my own personal TV screen and it was a much faster process because I came right from home in my workout clothes and didn’t have to shower and change right after.

Last night I surprised myself (and DH) by going back. I haven't worked out during the week once since I joined. I am a little concerned because I didn’t feel like I got a lot of “down time” last evening and I don't want that to affect my motivation. I am an early to bed type of person (usually no later than 9:30 PM) so between dinner, working out, a little TV with DH and bed it just wasn’t a relaxing evening. With that written, I’m still really glad I went and want to be able to incorporate it into my routine more regularly. I’d love to be able to go during the work day but that’s not feasible. Instead I have to rely on DH to make and clean up dinner so I can hit the gym. I usually put Cameron down for bed and DH cooks and I clean up. Of course this means he has an hour of uninterrupted time to watch his beloved Yankees so I’m sure DH won’t complain too much about shouldering the cooking/cleaning during the week.

So my goals for the next three months? Lose another 10-15 pounds. Exercise regularly. Drink more water (I'm trying those Chrystal Light individual packages since water is boring for me).Try new foods. And KEEP TRACK OF POINTS!! Any advice or empathy from my readers? If the gym routine goes well should I look into a personal training for a few sessions?