Designated Date Time/ Family Time
I also have a brother who lives in San Diego and we've made some more time for each other this month. Despite my races and his travel, we managed to have a day we were both in San Diego and he invited me boating with him. It's nice spending more time with him and I like that we can get along as friends as well as siblings.Lastly, of course, I still needed time with Dan. We're still trying to do nighttime family walks with the dog whenever we can and that time is always nice just to chat about our days. I felt like the race weekend was the most connected though. The day after the race, we stopped on the way home for a nice lunch date and some shopping around Downtown Disney. We were still sore and tired so to have just a nice, lazy Sunday together was so nice. Since the dog was at home with the dog sitter, it kind of felt like we didn't have "the kids" for the weekend and it was really pleasant.
Stick to a Regular Fitness Schedule
This was totally THE goal for the month. Of all my monthly habits, this is the one that I always felt like I was failing at. I had my climbing schedule and semi-regular body pump but that was only 3 things a week. My goal was way more than that. I feel like I finally hit it and have set up some ways to make sure I continue to keep it up in the future... but you'll read more on that later.Meal Planning
This goal has been a slow improvement month over month. Since I spent so much of August running to and from gyms, I really needed to set up dinners that would be easy for me to make and would last a few days.
Luckily, I had just received a new cookbook that focused on this kind of meal planning. One of the first recipes I made from it, was called Sunday Gravy. It's a tomato sauce full of vegetables and different meats. I made a ton of it and we were able to make a lot of meals out of it and freeze some too. I also did this with soups and pulled pork and other things that can be made in large quantities. Our dinners were a little less exciting this past month but it happens.I've also gotten so much better at doggy dinners. I had started making 2-3 dinners for Harley at a time so she wouldn't need cooking every night. If I had more than 2 made, I would freeze the extras. That way, when we went out of town, I could just pull her meals out of the freezer for the sitter.
Take an Annual Trip with My Husband
Not even on our radar but we finally finalized all the travel for the 3 weddings in 2 months that we have coming up! It's going to be a busy Fall, but it's nice to have a good reason to use our Southwest points and see friends and family.Read a Book a Week
This went so much better this month. I still felt like I was reading a lot of heavier, slower books, but I finished Alexander Hamilton which was a huge win.
Me Time
There's something really interesting about adding more to your schedule. I knew focusing so much more time on exercise had the potential to overwhelm my schedule. It actually had the opposite effect.
I found myself choosing quiet, me time over going out a lot. The first weekend of the year, Dan was out of town for a bachelor party. I was worried about being really lonely and had thought about making a lot of plans with girlfriends. That Saturday, my friend group had made plans to go to a cheap concert. I wanted to spend time with them but I wasn't excited about the concert itself or driving a long distance at night, in a situation where there was drinking. I was torn over my options and in the end, decided to just stay home. I caught up on work, made an amazing dinner, read, drank a bottle of champagne, and played video games. It felt amazing and it made me realize I don't do it enough. It set a standard for the month of doing less sometimes and really helped me remember why this goal was so important.
Athletic August
This is going to be more of an overall summary of how this month went. The picture above are my pre and post fitness test results and it makes me so happy to see so much improvement. The rest of this post is going to get into some more of the summary and how the month went for me overall. If you want more of a day to day feeling for what I did and how it felt as I was going through it, I also have weekly posts:
- 30 burpees a day - I definitely skimped on this after my race. I think doing a little bit of an exercise doesn't make as much of an impact as doing a whole lot all at once. While my burpees got better, it feels like a side effect more of the boot camp gym. With that said, this might be a good goal to continue in a different vein. Maybe doing 100 burpees every Sunday so it's one big focused push.
- Pull-ups - .You know, I never really attempted an unassisted pull up. I'm sure I could do one now though. With all of the rock climbing, and rope climbing, and assisted pull ups, that area is so much stronger. I did see my assisted pull-up number go up a lot so this is on the right track.
- No days off - I skipped maybe 3 days total and had another 3 where I did something really light that's hardly a work out. I think that's awesome. It's not perfect and I would have preferred 6 light days instead of doing nothing but it's still a solid effort.
- Level up - This one makes me so happy. I definitely was doing harder climbs by the end of the month and I had several AHA moments of using a technique that I'd seen but didn't know how to implement. If you look at the chart above, my fitness test results totally improved across the board too. Except running. I still hate running.
- Kick it! I've been really loving kickball. I've felt my athleticism improve because of my other fitness pushes. I'm still not amazing. I started kicking fly balls instead of foul balls though. I learned that I can catch the ball. I'm really fast the rare times I get on base. It's cool to feel ok at sports.
- 31 days of fitness - We totally loved going to the boot camp gym (Which is called NXPT btw). I'm not going to lie, I could have done a trial there 100 other times, but I was afraid. I've seen their team at races and I was intimidated that I would be the worst in the class. 1) I wasn't. 2) It wouldn't have mattered if I was. The gym isn't about competing with your class. It's about competing with yourself. I think the trainers do a good job of knowing when you can push harder and when you're trying your best and motivate you appropriately. I'm excited that we have another 6 months there and ever since we extended our membership I've been trying to make it more of a community.
I also feel like I learned a lot about myself through this goal. Prioritizing fitness and exercise rippled through so many other areas of my life:
- Drinking Less - I love a good of wine. A lot. Sometimes this has been a reward for getting through a tough day of work or another challenging situation. Through this goal, I was going to the gym after work. Even after a workout or my race, I felt so tired and dehydrated that I just wanted a lot of water before anything. After other races, I'd go get bottomless mimosas. This time I had one light beer and then just wanted all the water. I definitely still had a few fun weekend days but I can see my focus changing and that's big.
- Less Stress - The first two weeks of the month, my boss was in Europe so I had many more responsibilities in his absence. I was still juggling this with my exercise, real estate job, and all of the above goals. Things that would have normally stressed me out, just really disapated. Even when I dealt with some drama, it just didn't bother me as much as it would have. I think when you're physically tired, you don't really have enough energy to be emotionally tired as well. The only thing I'd have capacity for were mental challenges which is way better.
- Weight - I ended up gaining about 6-8 pounds this month. It's definitely due to muscle tone. I'm pretty much the same size but you can see my ab and arm muscles much more clearly. It's definitely conflicting seeing a higher number but I know that it's a good change. Do I still have areas that I'm sensitive about and would like to tone up? Totally. However, you can't target specific areas of your body to shrink through fitness. You need to do that through diet. I eat super clean already and there's not a lot left to cut out. The changes I would need to make in my lifestyle aren't really worth the tiny change in my thighs so I think weight gain is going to continue as long as I keep building muscle.
- Laundry - omg, when you work out like this, you are changing clothes and showering several times a day. We had to do laundry so much more often. It wasn't even about going through the clothes - Dan was just worried about the smell building up in our laundry basket. Definitely an unexpected side effect.
- Sleep & Time Management - I'm not a great sleeper. Now that it's been a month, I'm noticing that I'm so tired by the end of the day, that I fall asleep quickly and sleep through the night. That also means that I'm naturally waking up earlier and with more energy. What that also means is that the time I'm getting in the morning from sleeping better makes up for the gym time. I also just feel more focused through out the day and I'm going into September with a better mindset.
All in all, this whole month felt like such a win for me. Of all the goals I've had, this was the most quantifiable. You can't look at me or the numbers and not know that it went really really well. I feel great and I have so much enthusiasm to keep this up. I love it.This month also really felt like my Whole30 month. It was a similar idea - 30ish days of a personal challenge that required hard work and sacrifices everyday. Some days were hard. Even though it was a win at the end of the month, many times along the way I felt like giving up or that I just didn't want to do it. I think that's a very normal part of any long term, consistent goal. It takes time for you to mentally and physically adjust to a change, even if it's positive. A lot of the beneficial feelings I had, didn't really start to come about until the very end of the month. The point is - be patient and believe in yourself whenever you're trying to build a new habit. Push through the hard days to get to the good ones.
Steady September
Now that I finally feel like I've had a month where I nailed the monthly habits, I don't really feel the need to build on it. Athletic August went so great. I did well in my other goals, but really nailing the workout habit took from other areas. Now that regular gym time is a solid part of my life, I want to make sure everything else with work and family and life is fitting in together well. It's not about adding any new goals, it's just about making things work.The beginning of the month has already been filled with some wins and losses. We started September off with a weekend out of town for a friend's wedding. We got to see a lot of people and do a lot of fun things. We then came home to an extremely full schedule where we had plans just about every waking hour. We had to take a step back and realize that's not manageable. I remember how much I liked having that day off to myself in August and I'd like to make sure I have some of those this month as well.
So yea, September is all about finding balance. It's about making real estate and exercise and time off all work together. It's about doing it all and then taking some time to breathe.
