January Recap: A decent Start
It’s Friday, but no Friday Five from me today. wah wah wah…. Instead I bring you the recap that was January.
January was a fairly decent start. I would like to see some improvements. I would like to manage my time well and I would like to sleep enough. Managing my life seems to be a bit of a challenge. I do feel good about all I did this month though especially with my office job, my massage gig, working out, attempting to eat well and even doing the Burpees, Planks and Push-ups challenge (I think it’s the FIRST time I’ve actually completed a challenge, unless you count the Marcothon that happens each December).
Here are the numbers:
Biking – 153,20km (includes biking to work)
Walking – 46km (I used mapmywalk to record my walks)
Running – 21km
Spinning – 7x
Body Balance – 1x
Burpees, Push-ups and Planks Challenge: 520 burpees/ 540 push-ups / 26 minutes
Total Steps for the month: 349,444 which is on average 11,272 steps per day (I did not manage 10K each and every day but I obviously made up for it for the 4 days I was under)
A lot Accomplished, A lot more work to do.
No Junk At Work: I was in the office 17 days this month and only 2 days I had an argument with cookies and lost.
And I wanted to just touch on that subject for a moment, since there were a few (positive I may add) comments from my last blog post. I bring my lunch and snacks with me to work every day. And trust me when I say, I bring loads of food. I do not, pretty much ever, go to a vending machine to buy junk. Every once in a while I have gone to the brasserie on the ground floor and I have bought something, but even that was several months ago. I don’t even buy coffee anymore because I can get free coffee on our floor (which is awful by the way, but so is the stuff downstairs if I just order a black coffee) and I’m not drinking cow’s milk anymore so no cappuccinos. The challenge at work is all the crap that people bring in. There are at least 60 people on my floor so that’s a lot of birthdays that people are celebrating with cake (it’s tradition here – for your birthday you bring and treat everyone with cake). Then depending on the time of year, there’s always some sort of candy or chocolate around. I know that in times of stress I tend to go directly to this junk to solve whatever issue I’m having. Which we all know… doesn’t really work. So, it’s not because I don’t have food with me. I do! I never am without food at work. I will continue this as a goal, basically until it becomes a habit. Like not drinking pop – I just don’t drink it anymore unless I’m out and I don’t want alcohol but still want something besides water. I don’t use alcohol to solve my problems anymore and I don’t use cigarettes to solve my problems anymore, so I would really really REALLY like to stop using food to solve my problems as well.
Logging my food: Still hit or miss but I have been making more of an effort to prepare the right type and right amount of food based on what I think I need during the day. And the key phrase here is “based on what I think I need”, because to be perfectly honest I just still don’t know how much or what I need as far as macros go. Now that I’m training again, I will probably fiddle around with this more in the coming weeks. Biggest food challenge (besides NJAW) is not eating enough on massage evenings since I have to go straight from my office job to my massage job.
And as you know we had a nice weekend away in Naples, which was probably the most fun of January. I feel like I’m way too busy and I don’t have enough time to do everything. Job #1 is super busy, Job #2 I still want to hold on to as long as I can (not for the money but for the experience), running and working out are priorities, so yeah my house is a real tip and pretty much I am only getting the basics done. My To Do list is not getting crossed off. This is something I really want to improve so something is going to have to give. But how to figure that out? I don’t know yet.
I weighed in again on the 31st but to be perfectly honest, I don’t trust my scale as far as I can throw it. And… the cleaning lady at work asked me today if I had lost weight so I’m going with that kind of feedback instead :)
If I were to give my month a grade, it would probably be a B. I did a lot, I’m proud that I completed the challenge, most of the month I ate well and I was able to stay strong for the most part around sweets at work.
February has begun and I seriously hope I can manage my time and all of the stuff going on. Training has started again and that’s a priority. I’m so glad I have a race to look forward to; I’m just not glad there are only 24 hours in a day.
How was your month? If you were to give it a grade, what would it be?
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Your month sounds plenty solid to me. I don’t miss being in an office, 1 because I loathe office politics, and 2 because of the seemingly infinite food temptations. Although I haven’t publicized it, my word for the year is “proactive” and I have to say I stopped procrastinating, set priorities and got some stuff done in January. WTG on the BPP challenge. It was a killer.
I would love to NOT work in an office. Really.
I have been bullet journaling for a while to get stuff done and keep track of my appointments and make time for me, but it’s not been working much lately…
And thanks! It really was!!!
That challenge was tough. I didn’t even attempt it so kudos to you.
ha! I’m hoping the next challenge doesn’t completely break me!
I think you did exceptional, girl!! I hear ya on the junk that others make available to us LOL Last fall, I did a “sugar cleanse”(of sorts), and I swear there were donuts or cookies or extra candy EVERYWHERE that week at work. Granted, I’m not in danger of overindulging, but it’s still junk my body does not need.
I’m so proud of us for both finishing the challenge! I’ve never finished one, either. We kicked serious booty!!
You did really well. That’s a great start to January! In terms of eating I would give myself an F! Had great dreams of starting the year eating healthy and now its February and I still haven’t started. So that will have to be my goal for February. The only thing that saves me at work is that I am gluten intolerant so I can’t eat most of what is brought by others. I just need to be disciplined at home.
That challenge looked really tough with all the burpees! You had a pretty solid month
It’s so hard to pass up temptations at work! Fortunately, my new office doesn’t have treats all over the place. Idk. Maybe some might think that’s a bad thing. For me, it’s a win. Congrats on completing the upper body challenge!
It’s always tough when you have to quickly run from one job (or commitment) to another, like on your massage nights. Those kinds of days are the ones where I end up scarfing down an entire bag of chocolate covered almonds or something just because I’m hangry in the car, lol.
Kudos to you for doing that challenge – it looked so hard! I’m doing Rachel’s challenge for February!
Sounds like a solid month. Great job completely that challenge – I wouldn’t even attempt it because of the burpees! I’m going to give the February challenge a try.
It’s definitely tough to eat healthy at work. I’m with you–I bring everything I need, and I have a coffee maker in my office and make my own. I avoid the break room like the plague–always too many temptations there.
Sounds like a great month! Always hard to avoid treats at work, at least it was for me! Now I work at home so if there’s treats its my own fault!
Getting the victory over cigarettes is a huge life change! Congrats :) Food is hard because it always in our faces. I do great most days but then I have a day like I did earlier…complete train wreck, ate all the treats co workers came with today… it is hard but we have to celebrate what we get right and not beat ourselves up when we have an off day. Your steps were awesome for the month!
A B is a good start for the year. I have no patience for logging my food anymore. I just can’t,
Still a month that you should be proud of! One of my goals is to avoid office snacking, too. Sometimes I succeed and other days I don’t.
I hear you on the temptations at work. A lot of people in my department love to spoil everybody with lots of sweet treats, especially on birthdays. I do my best to say “thanks but no thanks” but it’s definitely easier said than done.
January was definitely a rough start for me, but it ended up pretty good. Life is just like that sometimes. Trick is not to get bogged down and let it affect you later on. You got this!
Way to go lady! You did a lot of activity and got in a lot of steps!
I don’t miss that aspect of office life!
Scales are always crazy! Better to go off how you feel/fit of clothes and compliments from others!
Good luck with your Feb goals and training!