January challenge: What I learned

I completed my fitness challenge for January - and I learned a few things.

- I can go a whole day without eating meat, but I can't necessarily do it the same day every week
- I need to eat more fish
- Brown rice isn't that bad
- Neither is multi-grain anything
- I can't survive without caffeine
- I need to drink more water

For February, I'm going to modify a few of these challenges. I'm going to try and drink more water everyday - 6-8 glasses is my goal. I'm going to switch to multi-grain wherever possible, including pasta. I'm going to try and eat no meat at last one day a week, and another day where the only meat I'm allowed is fish.

For February, I'll be joining Baking Suit in a challenge inspired by this post. For my part, I'll be setting an NSV (Non-Scale Victory) goal, setting and tracking nutrition parameters and committing to an exercise goal.

- My non-scale victory will be to lose 4 inches (from wherever)*

- My nutrition goal will be to drink 6-8 glasses of water a day, and eat at or below my recommended calories at least 4 out of 7 days a week. I'll track this via My Fitness Pal.

- My exercise goal will be to get to the gym a minimum of 3 times per week. (I'm already doing this, but not with any consistency.)

I have no plans to weigh myself, so I won't be able to report any weight loss numbers, even if they do happen. If, in my mind, going to the gym and eating better are tied to a new weight, and I don't get to that weight, I'll give up on the healthy goals. And, let's face it - drinking more water, eating better and going to the gym are good for me, no matter what I weigh. So, I don't want to do anything to discourage myself.

I can be very complicated sometimes.


*I'm not actually sure if 4 inches is a reasonable goal, or too difficult (or too easy). I tried to find out what made sense, and the best answer I could find was that one inch per week was reasonable.