Measuring success in increments

This was my March.

I missed my movement/ exercise goals twice. Once because I had too much fun the night before and needed to recover (read sleep a lot). The other was because I was traveling to spend time with my dad for Passover, and once I got there spending time together was more important. Usually we go hiking or cycling, but he's still recovering from a fairly serious injury, so I mostly spent time teaching him how to use his new smart phone, rip CD's to iTunes, and drinking a lot of coffee.

Otherwise each green dot represents going to spin class, swimming, or strength training. I’m down 8lbs in the past 30 days, and 19 since the beginning of the year, which means I'm about 40% of the way of my over all goal to slim down 50 lbs by my 41st birthday in September.

Yesterday I went for my first run in over 2 years since seriously fracturing and spraining my right ankle in January of 2016. It was slow, but I did 5k in 38 minutes. My ankle feels a little tender, but not painful. I'll need to shuffle my schedule a bit if I'm going to start incorporating running more regularly.

I still have a ways to go, but this feels like an important milestone, more that two months of regular exercise, keeping a food journal, meal planning, and not letting small set backs send me veering entirely off track. I'm starting to see better muscle definition in my arms, shoulders, and calves. My 100 yard time in the pool is faster by 10 seconds than it was in January, and I'm making progress on my stretch goal to be able to do a pull up by the end of the year.