Friday, June 3, 2011

Setting Goals

I'm about a month away from my big vacation to the remote Arctic. I've often used vacations as a motivating device for me. The idea is I will simply have more fun if I'm in better shape for it. I even trained on the Nordic Trak for my first (and only, so far) visit to Disney World, after realizing how much walking could be involved.

Taking sage advice from my friends and commenters, I'm going to only focus on one aspect at a time. Too challenging right now to try to focus on planning all my food and eating, and also to fit more fitness activity in. So I'm focusing on the fitness until after the vacation.

Taking more advice, I'm not just thinking I should do more, but I actually wrote out a schedule of what I want to do on each day for the month of June. The geekiness in me motivated me to create a new google calendar, which displays in a different color on my family calendar I maintain, which has all the complicated comings and goings of the family as school gets out.  I'm also describing it here, and will report back if I get to it.

I've got the gym three times a week, and yoga class. Neither of those is enough aerobic exercise though to get me to really "fit".  I'm adding walk/jogs in the early morning on non-gym days - it is a mile and a quarter around my block and takes about twenty minutes, plus putting on shoes. I'm alternating walking and jogging, and aspire to jog the whole way.  Right now, it is totally delightful, but more on that another time.  I might work in a work gym visit in the morning, but I'm feeling the outdoor thing is so cool right now. I've tentatively scheduled a downtown bike ride for this evening - all depends on when I get out of work. Weekends are walks and/or kayaking.  Sailing isn't vigorous enough to count, though I will be doing that too.

I want to hit my minimum calories and/or steps every single day during the month of June. So far, I've hit THREE.  On gym / work days, I'll have to do either a lunch or evening walk to go over the top, because I am so very inactive during work times.

Off to work!

1 comment:

Liz said...

I agree that if you make a schedule that includes exercise, it is a LOT more likely to happen. And fot for a vacation - yes, good motivator!

Liz