Q3 Non-Resolutions Update!

A little late with my third quarter check-in for my “non-resolutions” but since the nature of this is to focus on positives rather than negatives, we’re just not going to worry about that.  🙂

1 – Weight Loss – Still going strong on this one. I’ve lost 53 pounds and am just seven away from my goal. Maybe. It might be a little more or less than seven because now I am more focused on tightening up some jiggly areas than I am on losing more weight. So it’s more about inches and pants sizes now than it is about pounds. But I am so close to the end game and couldn’t be happier about it.  🙂

2 – Exercise – Still doing well on this, too. I’ve signed up for a 5K road race at the end of this month, and will be signing up for another one at the end of October. And I have set my sights on a half marathon in the spring. I can’t believe I’m even considering something like that, but I know I can do it if I set my mind to it. And I’ve started doing more regular weight workouts.

3 – Yarn busting – Slowly but surely, I am whittling it down. I may allow myself to buy some more soon…..maybe…..

4 – Writing – Still working on the manuscript and happy with the choices I’ve made about it. And I’ve submitted another non-fiction article.

5 – De-cluttering – Thanks to the weight loss, I am getting rid of clothes. And, oh, how I dance with joy as I place them in the donation box, knowing that the reason I am getting rid of them is because they are too big!

So that’s what I’ve been up to. How about you? Feel free to share your accomplishments. Big or small, I’d love to hear about them!

My (non)Resolutions Update

Three months ago I wrote a post about the fact that I didn’t actually make any New Year’s Resolutions this year, instead choosing to focus on my accomplishments as they have happened, whether they were goals I set in January or not. This method has been much more successful for me, so much so that I find myself trying harder to add things to the “done” column. I don’t know why doing it this way works better (I suppose a psychologist would be able to explain it) but I’m just glad that it does. So here’s my updated list of accomplishments:

1 – Weight Loss – I’m still sticking to the Weight Watcher plan and it is still working so well for me. As of my last weigh in, I’ve lost 38 pounds so far this year. I feel great, and I am thrilled to be getting my body back in shape.

2 – Exercise – Now that I’ve lost so much weight, exercise is no longer the ugly, difficult chore it used to be. I won’t say I love doing it, but I definitely don’t hate it like I used to. And I am seeing major improvements in just a short time. For example, just this past Friday I was able to run three miles on the treadmill in just under 29 minutes. No way I could have done that six months ago.

3 – My manuscript – I’ve been working hard on it, applying a storyboard method to help me figure out where it’s going and where the weak points are. It’s been going very well and I think I’ll be ready to tackle the final draft fairly soon.

4 – Yarn busting – I’m still plowing through the stash, although that has stalled a little bit because one of my current projects is a slow and tedious one. But the stash is diminishing, bit by bit.

So how about you? What can you crow about so far this year? Doesn’t matter if it’s a big accomplishment or a small one. They all count here! 🙂

Give Her An Inch….

…and I’ll run a mile.

Let’s back up a little. The “her” in question in the title is the young, perky, but totally fabulous salesgirl, Courtney, at the New Balance running shoe store. I stopped by there yesterday after my Weight Watcher (WW) meeting because I was in desperate need of new sneakers. My old ones were so old they were just about ready to disintegrate off my feet.

Now, I was planning on getting a pair of “walking” shoes because I more or less figured my running days were behind me. I just never do it consistently enough, always talking myself out of it with astonishing ease. But Courtney steered me toward the running shoes, declaring I could wear them for walking as well. I wondered if a hot and heavy sales pitch was coming at me, but seeing as how the above mentioned disintegraters were my old, retired running shoes, I had to concede she had a point.

After completely evaluating my feet and stride, Courtney declared me a neutral pronator and brought me two different shoes to try on.  She carefully checked the fit of each and watched me walk and jog in them to make sure they were working for me. I, in the meantime, was just enjoying the sheer Nirvana of having actual cushioning in my shoes again.

But something else was happening to me, too. My buddy, Carla Kempert (aka “God”), has been posting regularly on her blog about her running goals and accomplishments and I was thinking of her as I was heading into the store. And as I was jogging around the showroom in these lighter than air shoes, I was thinking “Why not run again? Carla and I can cyber-cheer each other on.”

So I bought a pair of running shoes and got into my car ready to take on the running world. But as I drove home, I got to thinking about how I always do things like this – make lofty goals and then not follow through.  But as luck would have it, the topic of the WW meeting had been all about breaking big goals down into smaller, much more manageable goals. So I promised myself that today I would run for a minimum of five minutes. Anything more than that would be gravy and I was not allowed to beat myself up if that’s all I did.

Sure enough, first thing this morning, the devil on my shoulder was whispering all sorts of excuses in my ear not to run. Surprisingly, though, the angel on my other shoulder showed up fairly quickly, marched across the back of my neck and drop-kicked the devil into oblivion. Running shoes donned, I headed out the door.

And boy, was I glad I did! I won’t say it was easy as pie, but I have lost 36 pounds since the last time I went running, and what a difference that makes. I wound up running one mile round trip in ten minutes, six seconds. More importantly, I wanted to keep going. I made myself stop, though, because I wanted to end on a high note rather than push too much and wind up sore.

I can’t remember the last time I ran a solid mile without stopping to walk. I feel so good and so proud of myself that I am daring to set one of those lofty goals now. By Autumn, I want to complete a 5K without walking. There’s a fun one held in the neighboring town around Halloween, so that’s the one I’m shooting for. A secondary goal would be to do it in under 30 minutes. If I take small steps along the way, I’m confident I can do it.

So, Courtney may have taken more than an inch when she nudged me into running shoes…but I’m the one who took the mile. 🙂

New Year’s Resolutions?

Huh? Kind of an odd title for a March 30th entry, wouldn’t you say? Well, not really. I was all set to do a New Year’s Resolution post back on January 1st, but then I thought better of it. I’ve done them before on now-defunct blogs and they have always come back to haunt me. Those lofty lists that are written up with such enthusiasm almost always wind up making me feel like a failure come February or March.

I figured the game of life hands out enough obstacles without any help from me, so what’s the point of purposely setting myself up for a good psyche bashing? So no New Year’s Resolution post for me. I felt a little guilty about it, but I also felt relieved.

Now, this is not to say I didn’t have any goals for the year. I had actually written up a list in my journal back in October. More of a “bucket” list, really, that included places I’d love to visit, and new things I’d like to try before I kick. But some of the things on the list could have easily been converted to a resolutions list. But I held fast, and refused to make them official resolutions.

In all honesty, I didn’t think this was going to make any difference to achieving my goals or not. Surprisingly though, it did. The third week of January, after the obligatory procrastinating, I joined Weight Watchers©. I also pulled out the manuscript I’d allowed to collect dust for the last two months and started working on it again. Happily, the WW plan works for me, and the time away from my manuscript allowed me to see it in a whole new light. At last! Some good stuff to blog about – something else I had let fall by the wayside. I began looking forward to racking up a list of things I’d done.

Well, it’s still taken me a while to get back to the blog, and I hope today’s post is the start of posting on a regular basis. In the meantime, I’m going to take some pride in sharing what I’ve accomplished so far this year. Believe me, this feels so much better than looking back at a list that would only remind me of things I hadn’t done.

So here are my accomplishments so far in 2012, both personal and professional, and in no particular order:

1 – I’ve lost 18.2 pounds. I’ve still got a ways to go, but I am so happy with my success so far.
2 – Reviewed my current manuscript, and was able to objectively cut scenes that weren’t working and inject some new ideas into it.
3 – Re-connected with my writer’s support group. (Go La Las!)
4 – Cleaned out a couple of drawers and my china cabinet, donating whatever I could to Goodwill and tossing the junk.
5 – Sold a non-fiction essay to Sasee Magazine – my first professional writing sale!
6 – Made headway in using up my yarn stash instead of buying more.

So how about you? What successes can you share? Stay focused on the positive and you will be surprised how it motivates you to keep going.

Oh, and Happy New Year. 🙂