2013 Healthy Review

I continued with my tradition from last year and made a list of personal goals for 2013.

Reflecting on 2013...

This year I decided I really needed to focus on my health before I allowed some really unhealthy habits to define my adulthood. I didn't have crazy, ambitious goals of losing a lot of weight. I simply wanted to take better care of my body. I didn't go crazy, hippy, health nut or anything (I'm actually currently sitting in the bed in my pajamas eating chocolate covered peanuts), but I did put some practices in place that will allow me to continue to live a healthy lifestyle.

I've read that goals need to be measurable in order to really know if you are accomplishing them. So, I got very specific with these goals. To keep track of them, I noted on the calendar this year every time I worked out, flossed, and had fast food. That helped me stay on top of these three goals and really accomplish them!

Workout 3x/week
This year I worked out
4x/week for 5 weeks,
3x/week for 25 weeks,
2x/week for 13 weeks,
1x/week for 7 weeks, and
0x/week for 2 weeks,
Although it took me much longer to work up to a 5K than it should have, I have been proud of the running progress I've made this year! I've run several 5Ks since October and have actually begun to enjoy it.
I got slack towards the end of the summer and then again in October and November, which is where those 0 and 1 weeks came from. At the end of the summer, I was physically exhausted from working camp and trying to transition immediately back into school AND I had a sketchy guy stalking me when I tried to run early in the morning. It was just too dang hot to run in the afternoons. Then, I seemed to stay sick in October and November.
The Nike Running App helped me a lot because I could see the progress I was making and was able to better push myself. I didn't get an iPhone until the end of August. My running really began to improve in September.

Eat fast food less (avg 4x/month)
This allowed me to have fast food once a week. This goal wasn't as hard as I expected it to be. Yes there were weeks where fast food happened more than once, but I found that was usually me just being lazy and not putting any effort in. There are times where fast food is your only option, but it was not hard for me to keep that at once a week. By the end of the year (I'd say end of Oct-Dec) I was only eating Chick-Fil-A and usually, if not always, getting a salad. So, I'm making progress here.
I was able to stick to
1 time/week for 32 weeks,
2x/week for 12 weeks,
3x/week for one week, and
0x/week 7 weeks!

Be a regular flosser by the end of the year (3x/week)
If you know me, you know I can be a little obsessed with my teeth. It's gotten a lot better, but in high school, I was obsessed with whitening them and was guilty of quickly shooting a guy down if he didn't have nice teeth. As crazy as I was/am about teeth, I have never been a regular flosser. Last June (2012), my dentist told me I was beginning to have gum problems. She said "it's going to be really annoying because you've taken such good care of your teeth, but now you're going to have trouble with your gums." That freaked me out! I knew I had to change something. She never actually fussed at me about my lack of flossing or even said that my gum problems were because of me not flossing, but I'm sure she noticed. I always hated the flossing part of the dentist because I felt like they were jamming that floss to my brain! It hurt so bad and my gums bled a lot!
I knew I was not going to be able to just all of the sudden start flossing. I have heard it takes you doing something 7 times before it's a habit. So, going with the weekly theme again, 7 weeks is pretty close to 2 months. I decided I would floss once a week for Jan and Feb, twice a week for Mar and Apr, three times a week for May and June, and so on...
Once I got to 5 times a week, I stopped with the two month routine because I wasn't quite ready for everyday and was happy with my progress.
I realized flossing really doesn't take that much time. I had it in my mind that I didn't have time in my bed time routine to floss. It seriously takes less than three minutes. Now that I floss regularly, my gums don't bleed and my dentist sang my praises even more when I went back in June 2013. I hadn't been flossing enough yet in January to get those compliments.
I'm averaging 3-4 times per week now and am fine with that! There are still nights I totally skip it, but sometimes you just have a day where getting straight in bed instead of taking an extra 2 minutes to floss is necessary!

Get medical doctor/regular check ups
This has to happen this year along with me going to the eye doctor and the oral surgeon (wisdom teeth). How do you choose a primary care doctor? The task of that has been overwhelming for me and not needed (thankfully) so every time I think about it, I just put it off.


Other Non-Health Related Goals:
Read 12 books for fun
Here's a quick list of all the books I read for fun this year with a very brief review on what I thought:

The Things We do for Love by Kristin Hannah (really good)
On Mystic Lake by Kristin Hannah (quick, cute love story, great for the beach)
In the Sanctuary of Outcasts by Neil White (good, very interesting)
Blame by Huneven (not good)
The Castaways by Elin Hilderbrand (okay)
Nantucket Nights by Elin Hilderbrand (predictable, quick read, good beach reading)
That Old Cape Magic by Russo (couldn't get into, didn't finish)
The Outside Boy by Cummins (okay)
A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah (finished in a weekend, great perspective)
The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb (really long, almost 900 pages, interesting story, took me a long time to read it)
Harvesting the Heart by Jodi Picoult (love this author, great book)
Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult (author hates on evangelical Christians in this book, portraying them as homosexual haters, great story)
Perfect Match by Jodi Picoult (intense plot, really good)
Best Friends by Martha Moody (SLOW. didn't finish, after 200 pages I still wasn't interested, so I put it down to read other things)
The Bride Quartet by Nora Roberts (the first one was really good, typical chick flick, about halfway through the second one you realize what's happening and what's going to happen in the rest of the books, I finished the second and third and started the fourth so I could complete the series, pretty predictable, but the last one sucked me in and probably ended up being my favorite of the four)
Vision in White
Bed of Roses
Savor the Moment
Happy Ever After 

Be a Lifelong Learner by reading 2 books to better my teaching, 2 books to better my marriage, and 2 books to grow spiritually
I completed 1/3 of this goal by reading two marriage books:
This Momentary Marriage by John Piper (my review)
Real Marriage by Mark Driscoll (great book...totally different approach than Piper)
Save a lot of money
I had a high number in mind for this, which I realized really wasn't realistic. You would think with my major emphasis last year on our budget, I would know that. We did save some money this year and will continue to save more intentionally in 2014.

Keep blogging
My blogging got really slack this year. I only blogged more than last year 2 out of the 12 months. Life has been busy and school has been bleh so it's just gotten put on the back burner. Hopefully new blogs will make an appearance in 2014!

Go over seas?
I put a question mark beside this at the beginning of 2013 because I didn't know what would be a realistic expectation. Stephen did get to go over seas! I am going in April. So, this one was 1/2 way completed!