Joggling into the new year

I always like the new year because I get to reset all my goals. Last year my joggling goals consisted of keeping my streak alive (I did), joggling 1400 miles (only managed 1260 miles) and joggling a marathon (I did). I got busy with other things in my life and joggling didn’t get much of my focus. In fact, my health in general didn’t get much of my attention. I ate too much, drank too much, and didn’t exercise enough. But this year, I’m going to change all that. This year I’m going to eat less, drink less, and exercise more. 

While writing down my intentions is a helpful first step goals aren’t terribly useful if you don’t quantify them. How else are you going to know whether you’ve achieved them or not? So to give myself a better chance at succeeding with my new joggling goals, I’ll need to quantify them.

Eat less

Since I didn’t keep track of everything I ate last year I have no way of directly quantifying this goal. It’s also a little too difficult to write down everything I eat. I know I did it for nearly 5 years but that just got too cumbersome. However, maybe I should try it again this year. hmmm. I wish there was a good phone app for that.

Anyway, even without writing down everything I eat I can get an indirect measure of whether I’m eating less or not…my weight. Last year I started the year at 208 pounds. This year I start the year at 211 pounds. My target goal weight by the end of the year is 180.

Health goal #1 – Weigh less than 181 pounds by August

The way to achieve this will be the following…

1. Limit my french fry intake to one day a month.
2. Limit candy bar intake to one candy bar a month.
3. Limit donut intake to one donut a month

I also got a book called The Diet Fix which is a scientific approach to dieting which I’ll read and see if I can get any tips. I know there is a simple formula for losing weight

Eat less, exercise more because if you take in less calories than you burn you’ll lose weight.

But perhaps the book will give me some new ideas on how to achieve that.

Drink less

Another huge source of calories for me last year was alcohol. I drank way too much for someone who wanted to lose weight. I’m not sure why but I lifted all my usual drinking restrictions. This did not bode well for my weight loss, my training, or my life in general. I didn’t have any drunken cringe worthy nights but I did feel bad a few times due to too much alcohol. Drinking less would be better for me.

Although I don’t want to quit drinking all together. Going to bars and drinking with friends is a large part of my socialization and when you don’t drink it’s just not the same. Anyway, so instead of trying to limit myself to 365 beers as I have in past years, this year I’m going to limit myself to a set number of days when I’m allowed to drink. During this year I will only drink on 30 days, just over two times a month. This will pretty much guarantee that I drink less than I did last year. It will also allow me to still drink on occasion.

Health goal #2 – Drink only 30 times this year.

Speaking of drinking less, I also drank way too much diet soda this year. I didn’t have my usual restrictions and certainly made up for mostly abstaining from soda in 2013. I think it was the cause of some significant heart burn that I felt last year. Or maybe there was no problem with it, I don’t know. What I do know is that this year I’m going to drink a lot less soda. I’m going to go back to what was successful for me in 2013 and limit myself to one soda day a month. On that day I can drink as much as I like but can’t have any on days outside of soda day.

Health goal #3 – Drink soda only once a month this year.

Exercise more

It seems strange that a person who has exercised every day for more than 6 years is setting a goal to exercise more, but that’s what I’m doing. Last year I logged my lowest number of running miles since 2003 clocking it at only 1260 miles. In 2013, I did over 1300 miles and in 2012 I did over 1400 miles. One of the reasons was that I only did one marathon so I didn’t have much motivation to do more than that. Well, to fix that I’m going to do at least 2 and up to 4 marathons this year. That will certainly require me to run more miles. I’m also considering finally doing the 100 miler this year. I’ll have to think about that a little more however.

I’ll also add more fitness activities including biking and swimming. Last year I biked 183 miles which was short of my goal of 300 miles. But this year I’m going to get that goal of 300 miles! Doing a triathlon will help increase the chances of me completing that goal. Speaking of that I’ll also add swimming to my exercise routine. I meant to do that last year but just never got around to doing it. This year will be different. There is a public pool close to my house which I will have to check out. It’s not a huge pool but I certainly could do some laps there. I’ll commit to swimming 50 times this year.

Health goal #4 – Complete 2 to 4 marathons this year

Then I’ll also have these goals to get me to exercise more.

1. Joggling every day
2. Joggling 1400 miles
3. Biking 300 miles
4. Swimming 50 times this year
5. Complete the push-up challenge
6. Complete the sit-up challenge
7. Finish a 5K, 8K, 10K, 10 miler, and half marathon
8. Complete the 100 miler while juggling?

I also want to incorporate more yoga into my exercising. Last year I probably did yoga a dozen times. This year I need to get back to once a week.

There you have it

So that’s it. My fitness goals for 2015. Hopefully, this nagging shin injury doesn’t dampen my ability to achieve all of these goals.

Oh yes, and I’m also committed to writing on JYAJ again. After I lost all my data in November of 2013 I didn’t have the inspiration to get back to writing. And the truth it I think that hurt my joggling. This year, I’m going to bring back the joggling blog.