February Report

February has been a busy month. It's also been a little bit of a struggle for me. I've been so busy and the energy had been a little low. I didn't really feel the motivation to exercise. However I did accomplish the following:

• I did barely squeak by to my exercise goal. I exercised 16 times in February for an average of 58 minutes. The average time is down from last month, but considering where my motivation level was this month, I'm glad I pushed through. Besides the time goal was 40 minutes average, so I still beat that.
• eating....I'm not sure what to say here. It was probably a mediocre. I didn't eat horribly, but it wasn't fabulous. I did however actually eat fish this month. Anyone in my family who reads this will probably drop over dead reading that. I also actually enjoyed it. I'll still a little skeptical, but I'm working on that. I also ate a vegetarian meal and enjoyed it. So eating was pretty much a wash.
• I did 495 minutes of strength training (including pilates) and 448 minutes of cardio. This is not as uneven as I thought it would be, but I think I need to work on getting in some more cardio minutes as this probably resulted in....
• ...My weight remained steady. I was up and down with in a 3 lb range. I didn't lose any weight, but I maintained, which is pretty good for me. This is also impressive as I ate an entire box of Trefoils cookies in 3 days.
  
• I'm also very proud of the fact that I managed to do my first running without stopping workout this month. I did another one this week. I had to stop briefly for about a minute in the middle because I had an awful stitch in my side. But it's also taking about 10 minutes of running before I even break a sweat. I also came very close to breaking the 4 mph average. I also got to 2.32 miles in 30 minutes which is much better. I'm not sure I'm going to run the 5K on St. Pat's Day, I'm not sure I'm ready. I only have 2 more weeks to get in another whole mile. I'm not sure my cardio endurance is there yet.

In what seemed like a month of downs, I feel like I did pretty well and I'm also very proud that I stuck with it. Onto month three....

End (almost) of January summary

My husband has been on me for not updating. Unfortunately I've been buried in a federal grant which left me not wanting to write much. All I've wanted at the end of the day is to come home and watch tv or read. The grant is done and in the mail now so, I am much in need of updating. I have some very excellent things to report for January.

• Most importantly, I exercised 17 times in January, which is the top end of my range, which is very good, especially considering how busy I've been this month. Also, I said that would be 30 minutes at a session, and my average was 61 minutes.

• I stuck with the 30 day plan completely.

• I only had fast food once the entire month, one chinese meal. I had chinese once, and I spent all day eating the meal and felt awful. I'm not likely to eat it again, at least the fast food kind.

• I've definitely gained strength. I did some ab exercises with the medicine ball that I used to do. I used to only be able to do 2 sets of 15, I was able to do 3 sets of 20 today and could definitely have kept going. Pilates has definitely helped with my core strength and I feel like I could hold a downward dog for ages now.

• I've definitely gained cardio endurance. I've gone from doing my run at an average of 3.33 mph to 3.97 mph. Today during my run I beat my previous time for 2 miles by 3 minutes (sadly this is now 27 minutes, but going down). I also never spiked a heartbeat over 165 during the regular run and never spiked a heartbeat over 180 (like I used to) after my sprint at the end of the run. Today was the first time I actually feel like a 5K is a doable thing for me in less than an hour. I still have a long way to go, but I have a whole month and a half to pick up speed and endurance.
  

• My pants fit again and I've lost 9 lbs, and am darn near having lost 10. This is of course not the focus, and a nice side effect. I really just happy with the transformation my body has made, much stronger and I feel like more flexible.

All in all I'm very proud of my performance and feel pretty great. Pretty good way to go into February.