New Year, New Motivation

arendiva

I know New Year's resolutions are a bit cliche but I thought it might be fun to share what it is we are all hoping to accomplish this year.

A few days ago we went to an early New Year's celebration. Most of our friends already have children and there were 8 young children running around at the party. The host and hostess also announced that they are expecting their second child this summer. We are very excited for them, but it also made me impatient for the day we can start trying. My weight loss has stagnated these past 3 months and I know it's because I'm not exercising. Food alone isn't enough. So my New Year's resolution is to become more active, to start actually using my treadmill 5 times/week with the end goal of us starting TTC this fall. If I stay motivated I think 8 months is a reasonable window for me to lose the weight I want to lose. I just need to keep my eye on the prize.

Best of luck to each of you in all of your New Year's resolutions!

WifiresGettingFit

So far my only goal is to lose weight and focusing on the actions that will help achieve that goal.

I listed a few in the January Challenge that I just posted for the spreadsheet but I'll list some here as well.

Getting adequate sleep, insuring proper water intake, making better food choices, being active outside of intentional exercise, but also some things I didn't list in the other thread would be getting back into walking regularly and eventually I'd like to start getting 10,000 steps a day, at least. It's something I'm going to have to work up to as I'm pretty much sedentary which makes keeping a deficit harder which is why becoming more active is necessary.

From the past couple years I've realized that I have to stop expecting perfection from myself and that it's okay to have a bad day but I also realized that I seem to end up getting too lax with myself so I go from one extreme to the other haha and it's for the most part one of the main reasons I always seem to end the year heavier than when I started. I don't want that to be the case this year as well.

Best of luck to you as well! We've got this!!

Do you plan on checking in with your progress/struggles? @arendiva

I linked this thread in the January challenge thread as it seemed appropriate.

If you'd like to share daily/weekly/monthly goals for January, you can also share here January Challenge: Happy 2019!

VeryKatie

Mine is to do the dishes minimum every other day lol.

puffbrat

On Sunday, we officially decided that we want a second kid and want to start TTC late July/early August. I told my husband before we TTC I have to have been at my job for at least one year (late July) and be below 200lbs. I am currently 206, so the second goal should be easy but I keep getting sidetracked and losing really slowly. Ideally I would like to at least be back to my pre-pregnancy weight of 272. That's theoretically doable by August IF I stay on track.

Related and other goals:

• log food daily
• stretch daily
• intentional exercise at least 3 times a week
• meet daily step goal (ideally 10,000 steps/day but right now I struggle hitting 5-6k
• floss daily
• enter spending in family budget at least weekly
• take baby Leo on more outings

I bought myself a new planner and have really enjoyed using it the last 3 days. I'm hoping this will help me stay on track with my goals more. It's cool because it has some year planning pages in the front, monthly calendars, weekly calendars with to-dos and healthy habit tracking, note pages (lined), blank sketch pages, graph paper pages, and coloring pages.

I still need to create some of my bullet journal pages in it, but I'm going to use it to track appointments, mood, to-dos, me time, and the goals listed above.

I also have a weight loss planner that I bought a couple years ago right before getting pregnant and have barely used since then. I'm using that to track food and exercise. I will still log on MFP. The planner is more informal tracking more for motivation and trending than actual calorie counting which I will do here.

WifiresGettingFit

@puffbrat What do you use for your family budget? What kind of planner did you get? (what brand) I got the Recollections Fitness planner and have a Happy planner from 2017 that I also barely used. I started trying to make it into a motivation/vision board type thing with other things but it never happened. I really need to sit down and start planning especially since I keep buying washi tape. haha

arendiva

@WifiresGettingFit I plan to hold myself accountable by tracking religiously. I’ve found in the past that I’m only successful when I accurately track my food and exercise everyday. I’ve let myself slip on documentation these past few months and my plateau is the result. Fortunately I haven’t gained but I’m still mad at myself for 3 months of no progress. Sigh, but that is last year and I have tracked everything this year. I plan to start the treadmill next week (my office needs to be tidied this weekend before I can use it).

WifiresGettingFit

@arendiva I get (and relate) to what you're saying but not gaining IS still progress. Before you started trying to lose weight, was there ever a point where you could have gone 3 months without gaining? I'm guessing probably not but I'm mostly just trying to make a point. Don't beat yourself up because maintaining takes just as much work as losing does.

Awesome job on tracking so far this year!

puffbrat

@WifiresGettingFit Leo and I just use a Google docs sheet for our budget. Leo set it up (I would have made it more colorful ) We track by quarter. Basically all recurring expenses and income are in a section at the top. We then have budgets for several other things determined as a yearly budget and then divided by four for each quarter. The categories are food, misc (toilet paper, batteries, printer ink, prescriptions, etc.), cars (gas and maintenance), pets, baby, Leo fun, Jess fun. We also have separate savings accounts for the house and vacations, so expenses to those may or may not get tracked in the sheet depending on how Leo feels. All non-recurring expenses are added as a line with the amount put in the relevant category column. At the bottom is a basic equation showing how much has been spent against the quarterly allotment. I can take a screenshot at how later today if you would like.

I bought this Bloom Daily Planner. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0747VN1TC/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I can take pictures at home of how I have filled it out so far it anyone wants. So far, besides the planning and weekly pages, I have created a mood tracker on the graph paper and am creating a cleaning schedule tracker on a couple of the sketch pages - both based on Pinterest ideas for bullet journals.

I don't know what brand my fitness planner is, but I got it at Michaels a couple years ago. I think I saw them again this year but don't know if they still have any. The pages look like this but it is a full planner, not just an extension pack. https://www.michaels.com/create-365-the-happy-planner-fitness-extension-pack/10469212.html#q=fitness+planner&start=3

I got myself a few really nice markers from Michaels to use with the planners, and getting to play with them is part of my motivation. They have what I think is called a watercolor tip on one end and a marker tip on the other. I actually want to buy myself a few more colors this weekend.

These are the markers. I only five that bought individually, but I might just buy a package this time. https://www.michaels.com/tombow-dual-brush-pens-primary/10514318.html#start=5

Edit: added link for something related to my fitness planner.

WifiresGettingFit

@puffbrat Yes please, id love to see both the screenshots of the budget and how you set up your planner. Actually if it's something you'd be interested in we can set up an all things planner thread because itd be nice to have someone to show my collection of washi tape and planner related things who would actually appreciate it. Haha plus we could share planner sites. I just found a few sites yesterday that have awesome planner sticker freebies! I'm using my phone right now and the app is being difficult so I have to type this in text and copy it over because it keeps lagging on me so I'll be glad to share the links tomorrow if you'd like. I haven't seen that planner before (the first link you gave) but plan to take a closer look when I get on my laptop. The second planner link you sent is the mambi happy fitness planner. I don't know about your Michael's but ours just had a huge planner and planner accessories sale for 60% off so they should still have planners but Mambi change their designs every year. I had to refrain from the sale as I had splurged while Christmas shopping last month haha. I think my next purchase will be those markers though. My planners need them! Hahaha =P

puffbrat

@WifiresGettingFit I love the idea of a thread for planners so much I already created it. I will post the pictures of the planner and our budget in there.