Happy December. My progression throughout the second month has been fun to watch and insightful to learn from. My food tracking has become very routine, and with that so have my eating habits. I am almost always reaching healthy goals and allowing myself to consume the things that give me more energy and help me to feel healthier.
A typical daily food routine for me is as follows:
I will start the day with a banana and some oatmeal. Lunch usually consists of a main protein (like a cheese stick and pepperoni slices or nuts). I will accompany that with an apple, celery, or both. Dinners are a lot more inconsistent but I always strive to ensure that there are several different vegetables involved in dinner. Common dinners for us are things such as roasted tomato and zucchini pasta, homemade soup or stew, we will often share a large salad from a local Tex-Mex restaurant. One of the easier things to avoid as I have been trying to eat healthier is white bread and baked goods. I thought it would be more difficult cutting them out but it seems as though they were mostly items I sought out before; not things we naturally had laying around the house to snack on.
My exercise has been much more consistent as well. For more than the last month I have been consistently (3-4 times weekly) attending a local rock climbing gym. The gym also includes typical fitness and weight machines that you might find at a normal gym. The high endurance paired with strength workouts have allowed me to see improvement in overall dexterity and strength rather than just watching the scale tick downwards. This has even included some muscle mass gain which has not really ever been a part of my fitness journey throughout my life. On the days my wife and I aren’t attending the climbing gym we strive to reach our step goals and take a long walk or two.
The largest motivation for continuing the challenge is the awesome support that I have along the way. My wife is extremely supportive and gives the challenge the same effort as I do. Members of my team such as Megan, Jessica, and Ashley have been extremely motivating as they keep me in the loop on their daily progress and encourage me to keep them updated. The accountability makes the little daily decisions much easier. We can only hope that the daily decisions don’t slow down as the holiday season comes to an end with its many parties and causes for caloric celebration. Wish me luck on another great month!”
