Challenge Review-2 months in

Hello everyone. How are you doing? I’m doing pretty good. The weather has been really nice and my challenges are going pretty well. The reason behind most of the challenges is to lose weight and get healthy. I weighed in this morning and weighed 310.7 lbs. For the year I’m now down 33.9 lbs. This is a little off my desired goal of 20lbs a month but it’s fine because I never entered into the year expecting to lose it that quick. I guess after I lost 20 in January I was hoping I could do it again. I am hoping to be down at least 10lbs by the end of March. If I can keep that up till May I’d only be about 280 lbs when I run the HM. This would only be about 10-15 lbs heavier than when I ran it the first time in 2007. I think that weight will be manageable and will allow a decent result. Below’s my review of how my challenges went for February.

1. CUT OUT WHITE DEATH: Overall I’ve been doing really well with this but did bend a bit towards the end of the month. I broke down and bought a loaf of bread so I could have tuna sandwiches instead of just the tuna. I also had 2 bottled green teas which I didn’t read the label and there was more sugar in them than I thought. But the biggest culprit has been salt. I’ve craved it every now and then but have still managed to only go over 2300mg 3 times this month so it could have been worse.

2. WALK 1 HOUR/DAY: I didn’t accomplish this but improved greatly over January’s totals. This month I walked or ran 20 days out of 28. The days I did take off were due to injury or for prevention of injury. 3 days I had a bad heel and feet so took it off to make sure I didn’t prolong the length of injury. 2 other days I took a rest day after really pushing myself walking or running. The other 3 were from early in the month when I was still working up my exercise level. So a really good month since I’m now running and I’m getting my exercise in consistently.

I’ve been thinking about this challenge and think it should have been a little different. Based on 2 months of trying this I think I should have either had it 6/days a week or have it 1hr of exercise/day. If it had been exercise I could count the badminton I’ve recently started playing again. I just think that walking everyday is/could lead to over training injuries. So for March I may not make this challenge again. If I don’t I’ll modify the challenge for April.

3. STOP EATING OUT: This was very successful again. Made easier by the fact that I didn’t have any events at restaurants. So I saved money and ate healthy. I did buy 2 meals when work when unusually long and couldn’t make it home to eat. Compared to the last few years though that’s nothing.

4. CLEAN MY HOUSE EVERY WEEK: Ok so this should be one of the easiest of my challenges to accomplish right? Well it’s not for me 🙂 I did get around to cleaning my bathroom this month so it wasn’t a total waste of a month. Think I’ll just take it a room/month so this month’s goal will be to maintain bathroom cleanliness and get the kitchen in order next.

5. START A SAVINGS FUND: With my work truck needing some unanticipated repairs and this being my slow time of year this hasn’t been possible. Looking like May or June before I’ll be able to set some aside now.

6. STOP PLAYING ONLINE POKER: This has not even entered my mind once so it’s been a slam dunk.