7 Tips to Keep the "New You" Motivated

Keep climbing!

People will be all over the gym the first week of January - spinning, climbing stairs, lifting weights, checking their body fat percentage.  Those new year's resolutions are freshly polished, dusted off from last January - promises to eat better, exercise more, drink more water, eat less sugar, and lose that muffin top before swimsuit season.  But come the end of the month,  there will be a few more parking spaces and treadmills will be standing empty again.

If I ran the gym, I'd post some notes to help the "new you" fend off the "hungry and comfortable you" and stick with those resolutions until December.

- Don't feel intimidated.  When I first started swimming laps, I was swimming one length in about 2 minutes, flailing across the pool, ready to drown, and taking a 5 minute break at the end. I watched the other people swimming about 5 laps in the same time and felt like maybe I was getting in their way. It took some time and work, but now I have a good lap swim workout (and there are still people faster and doing more laps than me) and I love it. Don't worry that you aren't fast enough, strong enough, or have the right clothes.  Keep trying the things you really want to do.

- But at the same time - Know your limitations. Know when to quit, go slower or lighter, or not even attempt something. No matter what my Latin-blooded friend says, she's not getting me into zumba, despite her promise that I won't be the only rhythmically-challenged, uncoordinated person in the room (that's her sales pitch). The first time I went to my now almost-regular strength-training class, the instructor told me to put 10 lbs. on my barbell.  I was almost offended - what, I can lift more than 10 lbs! I thought.  But, could I do it 50 times in a row, I realized was the test.  Whew!  I should have dropped it down to 5 lbs.

- And don't get in the way. In any type of group exercise or when there's multiple people (like on a running track), figure out where the people at your pace or level are - running the same speed, going to pass out from strength-training at the same time, whatever.  Its safer, you'll be more comfortable, and it helps with the "don't be intimidated" thing.

- Give yourself 30 days. The experts on developing habits and such things like that say that it takes 21 to 30 days for your new habit to stick. Seeing as you probably won't be going to the gym every day, allow 30 for this one. Make your plan for January, and no matter what else comes along, stick with it. Go to the gym, meet with a personal trainer, go to zumba, walk to the Metro station - do it without fail.

- Plan and prepare for your exercise to reduce your excuses and possible distractions. Exercise rarely just happens, especially with the busy lives we lead these days. Figure out how exercise will work into your day - early in the morning, lunch-time, at the end of the day, whatever works for you - and write it into your schedule.  Yes, that means you may have to skip happy hour this week.  Sure, coordinate your workout schedule with your hair appointments and your pedicures.  Nope, you can't pass out cupcakes at school this morning.  Put yourself first.

- Pack your bags. Whether you will be heading to work or volunteer at your kids' school or get drinks with friends after your workout, make sure you have everything you need to shower and change clothes. Shower gel/soap, shampoo, hair styling stuff, deodorant, lotion - keep a set in your gym bag so you don't have to remember to grab it off the bathroom counter every time.  And undergarments!  Raise your hand if you've ever been standing in the locker room and realized you forgot to pack your bra.  Keep a spare set of undergarments in your bag.

- Set a goal and commit to it. Register for a race or competition or game or league or whatever - something that requires a commitment at a specific point in time. I registered for a triathlon before I was ready because it forced me to stick to a workout plan, because I knew I had exactly so many months, weeks, days before I would have to be ready.  If I didn't stick with my plan, I could drown and die.  (Okay, maybe that's a bit dramatic, but that's what it takes to keep me on task).

Lastly, something that has nothing to do with fitness, just my own preference for modesty 

- Don't talk to me naked, don't talk on the phone, lotion, put on your make-up or brush your hair while butt-naked. Doesn't matter if you are a size 2 or 22, don't care to have a conversation with you in your birthday suit.  But if that's your thing and you just have to stay naked, at least, while you are moisturizing or whatever else, keep both feet on the ground.

See you at the gym!

Currently... A Status Update on My 2015 Plans

Hello February!  It's the day we wait for the Groundhog to see or not see it's shadow; I've never been able to keep straight which means there will be more winter, but looking out of my own window, I'm going with "more winter."

It's also day after the SuperBowl. Oh, we're not talking about that? Okay. Agreed.

We've cleared the first month of the year and did well, or not so well, on those new year's resolutions/ goals/ hopes/ dreams/ targets/ visions - whatever we are calling them this year. How'd you do? 

I'm not much of a resolution kind of person, but I do have some plans and intentions and still have some work to do.  A few I'm currently working on?

Working out.  I admit it, I passed by the treadmill and my sneakers many of times in January. Although, I didn't eat as much cake and pie as in December.  I'm getting back to my marathon/month, plan.  Started today with 2 miles, only 24 more to go in 26 days.

Reading.  According to my Goodreads list, I did not read that much last year! Maybe I've been bad at recording my books, I'm not sure, but I'll do better this year. Right now, I'm reading The Girl Your Left Behind.  Totally picked this up because JoJo Moyes' Me Before You was so popular last year and it was not on the shelf at the library.  I had no idea what it was about, and I do like opening the pages of a book without any idea where its going - this one is in WW1 France, a small town that has been taken over by the German Army.

Book I'm Carrying Around right now

Crocheting.  This is always on my to-do list, but particularly I'm working on baby blankets! I seemed to have gone through a lull of no new friend babies, and then all of a sudden, I've got a bunch of friends with brand new babies!  I've working on blanket number 1 (pink!) during this weekend's swim meet and SuperBowl, and, at current count, I've got three more to go (1 pink, 2 blue.)

Baby blanket in PINK!

Volunteering.  I'm pretty active in PTA and my sorority, and gearing up for the year ahead in both of them.  I hold a leadership role in both, which I enjoy, however I often have to remind myself to make time for the actual hands-on work of the organization, not get weighed down by the administration aspects. That's one thing that I do want to work on this year.

Piddlin'. Of course!

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5 Lessons from Rubber-band Bracelets

How's the new year been so far?  Hopefully, you've been successful in sticking with your New Year's resolutions.  Me? I'm looking around my house for what might be the next million dollar idea.  I'm inspired by my new bracelets, courtesy of my youngest daughter. 

Rubber-band jewelry - why didn't I think of this?!

She spent hours and hours of her Christmas break making these rubber band bracelets.  She made them by hand, literally - wrapping them around her two little fingers and weaving them together with her other little fingers. She got one of the looms from her aunt for Christmas, but she's still figuring that out.   It's amazing to me how this loom and the accompanying little teeny rubber bands have taken off and grown into an "undisclosed amount" (i.e. a bazillion dollars) of sales.  And it all started in a guy's basement, as he messed around with rubbery patterns, bugging his wife to let him sink their whole life savings into this great idea he had (you can read more in this Entrepreneur article.)

The success of the Rainbow Loom highlights a few lessons for all of us as we consider sticking with our resolutions, or not.  Here's five.

Look close - the answer is probably right in front of you.  When my daughter ran out of the rubber bands that were especially colored and packaged for this craft, you know what she used?  The little teeny bands I use for the ends of her hair.  I was sitting on a gold mine and didn't even know it!  Many of us are looking for something - an adventure of some sort because that's so exciting. But the Good Witch told us long ago - we've had it all along.  You can go back to school or be a better mother, the will and determination to do better is inside of you. Look for it.

Prove your idea to the people who love you, then ask for their support.  We want, no, we need, our loved ones' support of our dreams and our hopes. But we've got to let them know we're serious.  Don't go to your spouse or friends with a half-baked idea, then get mad when they won't turn over all their pennies to you.  You want your family to believe you are working to lose weight?  Put down the cookies and get to the gym, then they'll stop offering you pie.

Be dedicated for the long-term. As they say, an overnight success takes a long time.  We hear the encapsulated version of people's success.  "This dude, he figured out how to make bracelets out of rubberbands and just like that, he's selling millions at Michael's." That "overnight" took 3 years.  In the meantime, he was packaging and selling his product himself, with the help of his wife and kids and family, working out of his basement.   I read somewhere that 80% of people give up their new year's resolutions by January 8.  What, that's a week in?  How can you quit on a 365 day promise 8 days in?  Be thoughtful and realistic, and stick with your plan.

You're going to stumble. Get up and keep moving.   Remember when you learned to ride a bike or roller skate?  I bet you fell a few times. And you handled it one of two ways. 1 - You checked the rip in the knee of your jeans, wiped the little pebbles off your palms, and rolled away again. And today you can jump on a bike and go for a breezy ride whenever you'd like. Or 2 - You cried because you scraped your knee, bandaged up your palms, and went inside to watch TV.  And you get left behind when your friends suggest a bike ride and you don't know how to teach your kids to ride their bike, either.  How will you handle you're next fall?

Realize there will be an end and plan for the next step.  Rubber-band bracelets? They're a fad. A lucrative one, but still a fad.  Eventually, kids will get pains of carpal tunnel, moms will tire of vacuuming up rubber bands, and we'll all move on to some other amazing, how-did-that-become-so-popular thing.  What will happen to the inventor then? I would imagine that he's saving and making a plan for that time. What will you do when you've lost the weight, ran the marathon, read 35 books, climbed Mt. Everest? What will be your next step? What will you do to sustain yourself after you've reached your goal?

We use different terms - resolutions, goals, vision boards, improvements, dreams - to identify the things we want to do to be a better us.  But one things similar - it all requires hard work to make them reality.  What are you working towards?  Feel free to answer in the comments.  I'm going figure out what million dollar idea I can come up with using the bread ties and chopsticks in the kitchen.

(I'm collecting ideas for weaving these things for my kids.  See them on my "bored kids" Pinterest board and let me know of any other cool ones to keep them busy.)

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What's on Your Bucket List?

Climb Mt. Everest.  Swim the Amazon.  Ride a camel through the desert.

What's on your bucket list?

I admit, I don't have one.  Since it seems so important to have one - and anybody with any hopes or dreams seems to have one - I feel like I should have a list of all the stuff I want to do before I die.  But I don't.  It's not so much that I don't have hopes for adventures and aspirations and goals for my life.  I think it's partly because I'm constantly at awe at the things that could be on there that I'm nervous about limiting myself to the possibilities of what's in my own head.

I saw a picture the other day of a line of camels crossing the Sahara in National Geographic. All of the sudden, I wanted to see these animals in the hot sand. And I'm not so sure that I even like camels.  Of course, I've seen camels before and I've heard of the desert, but this picture said to me:

There is so much in this world to do and see, you can't even imagine it all.

That made me a little bit excited, thinking of all that's out there yet to be discovered and explored. About the world, but also about ourselves.  We know what we think we want to do or be, but what is there outside of our imaginations?  What would we do or who would we become if we just allowed ourselves to be open to the experiences and opportunities that came our way?  What would we have done with our lives if we knew all the options out there?  How many times have you heard of someone's job - whether in person or on a news program or National Geographic - and thought, "dang! I wish someone would've told me that was a job!"  Like an ice cream flavor tester. Where was this career path in all those brochures at the career development office?  No, they just gave us the options of accountant, lawyer, teacher. All great jobs, but wow, if I had known every option in the world, I don't know that I would have taken semester after semester of economics.

With all this thinking, another thought hit me, too.

There is so much in this world to do and see, you won't ever experience it all.

So I'll admit, that thought depressed me a little bit. It was the reality that my life could pass and I will never see those camels in the Sahara.  And that I may be too old, now, to begin a career as an ice cream flavor tester.  I should keep up my zoo membership and enjoy my scoop of mocha almond fudge.

But that doesn't make me not think of things that could go in my bucket.  I also am excited to see what just happens to fall into my bucket, without me ever expecting it.

What's on your bucket list?

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With 2012 in the horizon

It seemed not so long ago when we were being warned that we were going to lose all of our money and investments, our clocks would go haywire, and traffic was going to be a mad melee because the millennium was only hours away.  We held our collective breathe, with Prince's "1999" as the soundtrack, in the last moments the song would be relevant, waiting for the world-wide confusion that would happen when the clock struck 12:00 a.m. on January 1, 2000.

Somehow, the world survived.  And here we are, 11 years later, going into another new year.  Many will make new year's resolutions and plans.  The stuff they are going to do or not going to do.  The goals they are striving for.  The who they will be by this time next year.  I don't make alot of "resolutions".  Not because I think I've got it all together, but, for me, its too much pressure.  But there are some things I'd like to do, in no particular order (and feel free to share your own):

- finish reading the Bible - its not as if this is terribly hard, I can read afterall, its just a matter of making it a priority

- finish some of my un-finished projects - I'm kinda bad at finishing craft-y type projects, like my scrapbook from my trip to Seoul 2 years ago, the dollhouse in my basement, the countless sweaters/scarves/shawls/gloves piled up in my yarn basket. If I could just finish some of them, that would be good

- use more cash than credit - okay, so this one is really more of a strong suggestion from my loving spouse, but it's still a good idea

- participate in another triathlon/duathlon and/or a couple 5Ks - notice, I said "participate", not "compete" inferring, I just would like to finish with a decent time, no dreams of winning, that would require too much work and a lot less chocolate

- do more stuff with my kids - it has occurred to me that now that they are all in school, most of our time together is spent grabbing dinner as we rush to the car, driving to this practice or that game, or fussing over homework.  I don't know when we would squeeze in anything else, but you can always make time for what's important to you and they are my most important anything.  I'm inspired that my son still wants to read with me.

- commit to "just us" time with my husband - I know a few friends who have regular in-house date nights, after the kids are put to bed, they pour a glass of wine, maybe even dinner or dessert, and spend some time together, just husband and wife. I like that.  Some time, because he works from home often, we make space for lunch, either out or at home. It's important to be able to have a conversation and share a laugh without censoring or being interrupted.

- read some good books - between my e-books virtual shelves and the physical piles around my house, I have plenty, but I'm always open to suggestions (especially books about daughters, animals, or circuses - and anything that combines two or more of those things definitely goes on the list)

- a whole bunch more stuff I'll think of as the year goes on.

But my most important goal for every day of the new year, has been the same for years - 

"Begin and end each day with one husband and 4 kids - no more, no less".

May God bless you and may you recognize His blessings in the new year!
Happy 2012

My birthday list

My birthday has come and gone. My husband, sister-in-law’s, and my birthday are within a week of each other, so each year, we have a week bookended by birthday celebrations, with Christmas in between. This year, we threw ourselves a party with a bunch of friends and had a great time. Now that most of the cake has been eaten and the house is starting to resemble its pre-party, household of six self again, I’m looking at my list for this year.

Here’s some of the things I managed to check off:

· Say “no!” – yeah, that’s a big one. I admit I didn’t say it all the time, but I think enough so that I’m not totally jam-packed with other folks priorities.

· Visit 4 states with the family – this took the shape of a 2-week, 1700 mile road trip with the kids this summer that took us through Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.

· Get to a size * and !!! pounds – I am wearing the size that I want and on a good day, I am actually the weight on my driver’s license.

· Read 10 good books – I’ve lost track of how many, but I have read some good ones. A few of my favorites this year: Little Bee, Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, The Help, Girl With the Dragon Tattoo & Girl Who Played with Fire, and Mermaid Sister (this is a children’s book but after reading it no less than 100 times, I’m adding it my list).

· Wear a bikini – related to weight/size goal as much as confidence in body image. And realizing that at my age and after 4 children, this is about the best we can hope for.

· Finish my tenure as PTA President – if you’ve ever been PTA President, you understand. Though I’ve moved on to County PTA and its like jumping from the pan to the fire.

Here’s some of the things to move to next year’s list:

· Finish reading the entire Bible – I didn’t get anywhere near done, in fact, I’m still in the Old Testament.

· Learn to knit – Its not that I don’t have the ability to knit, but I don’t have the patience to learn to do it well. By the time I knit a square, I could be done crocheting a sweater.

· Send birthday cards on time – I did pretty good this year, I think.

· Bake more cookies & cakes – my husband doesn’t think this is possible, but I’m going to try.

· Become a volunteer at the National Zoo – I particularly want to work in the Ape House.

And the best one:

Make it to my next birthday! This had nothing to do with my ability or determination, but all to do with God’s grace and omnipotence, and for that, I’m eternally blessed.

Happy birthday – whether you celebrate your birthday or not, with a party or a cupcake and a candle, with friends or by yourself – I hope that you honor another year of life and all the possibilities it holds.

Another item from my birthday list - Get to 3.0 rating in tennis - done!

At the end of last year, I moved up from a 2.5. As far as tennis goes, this is still at an advanced-beginner level, I’m not going after Serena or Venus anytime soon. The point was that to advance, I had to keep practicing, keep playing, and eventually start winning consistently. And in the meantime, I was getting in some great exercise. Of course, now I’m a new 3.0 and getting beat left and right by the more advanced players at my level, and the process begins again – learn, practice, play, repeat.

“Becoming a better player” is subjective and as with many non-tangible things, hard to qualify. In these instances, we need some type of measurement of progress. For sports, it could be a win-loss ratio or the distance ran/walked/swam/jumped in a certain amount of time. For those who play an instrument, perhaps its playing a piece with x number of mistakes, reducing down to zero.

As the year comes to a close, we will go about the tradition of writing up a list of resolutions or goals for the new year. January 1, we get to start all over. This year, don’t just say you are going to “exercise more” or “work less”, add some numbers, a quantifiable, measurable target.

What’s going to count in the new year for you?

It's December!

Although summer is my favorite season (sandals and the beach, why else?), winter gets some points because it’s a great excuse to buy new boots, make and wear new scarves, sit inside and drink Kahlua & coffee. But December is my favorite month of the year – its Christmas and my birthday (and my mom’s, husband’s, sister-in-law’s, and several lovable friends’).

I’m a bit excited this year because it’s a big birthday. In preparation for this birthday, I wrote a list last year of all the things I was going to get done within the next 365 days.

Item #1 was to finish writing the list – you can’t imagine how significant an accomplishment that in itself was, actually finishing something. I pulled the list out over Thanksgiving and was grateful for item #38: Realize that all of this might not get done this year! But, I did get some stuff done. Over the next few weeks, I’ll revisit my list, reflect on the things I did get to and see which of the remaining I can get done real quick.

Done: Dinner out by myself – I know some people cannot imagine going into a restaurant and asking for a table for 1, but as a mom of a busy household, this is one of my small pleasures. Our family dinner plans range from everyone at the table eating at one time to each person grabbing a sandwich and carrot sticks as they pass through the kitchen on their way to their activity. Either way, it’s a harried, noisy, busy event. Contrast that to sitting at a quiet, clothed table, enjoying a glass of wine, getting to eat all the bread in the basket, not having to get up in the middle of the meal to take someone to the bathroom, and reading a good book. This one is going on the list for next year, too.

To do: Regular lunch with parents – My parents moved nearby a few years ago and although I see them often, we don’t get together on a regular basis because of schedule conflicts. Some of those have disappeared this year with all my little people in school, but then my days have filled up with laundry, grocery shopping, housecleaning, bookclub, school volunteering, exercise, and other stuff. We do get together, but I need to do this more often. I’ll keep this on next year’s list, too.