February Progress

It's been a few weeks since I reported but all in all, things are still going well. I was upping my strength training, but that resulted in a decrease in my cardio. 

I'm taking a small step back from strength this week to try to incorporate cardio back in. I know the cardio is good for my heart so it's important to keep in the mix. The small walks I do daily with the dogs do not get my heart beating in the way that it needs to so the bike or walks without dogs is what is needed. 

I went for a walk with an old friend on Saturday. We walked for over an hour and a half and it was fantastic.  We ended up walking over 9 KM and my legs were getting jiggly by the end. We vowed to try to keep that up once a week with each other as it felt so good and was a nice way to get outside, catch up and get some steps in. 

My weight has been bouncing up and down but I'm not going to report any gains/losses until the end of the month, which is just around the corner. I'm truly hoping to see some good numbers next week though as I've been doing the right things. 

It's starting to warm up here in Vancouver and the bulbs are starting to poke out of the ground.  We've had a couple frosty mornings but the afternoons are wonderful. Not quite warm enough for no jacket, but enjoyable and hopefully a sign of warmer weather to come. It's time to start planning the outdoor projects for the spring. 

We spend most of our days in the spring/summer outside and I'm really happy with the improvements that we made to our backyard last summer. There is still lots to be done, but the bulk of the work (ie. new concrete pad, new overhang, new furniture etc) is all done. Now we can focus on foliage and other decorations around the yard to make it even more enjoyable. 

That's it for now. I'm going to do some checking on blood pressure numbers this week to see how they are looking, but I'm hopeful all will look amazing! 

January Recap - what worked, what didn't work

January was a success! 

I managed to get my groove back and have made some serious strides to improving my health. 

I lost 5.8 lbs in January which I'm thrilled about.  Finished off the month at 180.8, so so close to the 170s. I have not seen the 170s in some time, but I can smell it, taste it, feel it! It's there for the grabbing! 

I did well with my eating.  I drastically reduced my snacking and as it was dry January, I did not have any alcohol, except for the one planned night, on January 28th. 

Apart from the food choices, this is what I'm most proud of below.... that is my activity calendar from my Peloton account. Look at all them blue dots!! Yes, the first week was a bit of a bust, but as of the 8th, I would say I killed it. The blue dots represent rides, strength and stretching activities. I told myself at the start of January I wanted to commit to doing 4 physical activities, other than walking the dog 2x daily, a week.  And I did it. 

I'm very very proud of myself. 

So what worked? EVERY THING ABOVE!!! 

What didn't work? Actually nothing, didn't work. I didn't have any point in the month where I thought, "man I screwed up". I did have the one evening on the 28th where my food choices were not ideal, but who cares? It was one day, I planned it, I survived it, I moved on. 

I'm so excited for February.... let's do this!