March Wrap Up

Spring is in the air!

This time last month I was scraping ice from the windshield of my car in the morning.  We have made it past the sloppy part of Spring and this week you would think I was living in Cancun with all the shorts, tank tops and flip flops on campus.  The weather hasn’t been this nice in six months.  I love it!

Three months ago I made some resolutions.  After 90 days of 2010, just how well am I doing?

New Years Resolutions

Diet:  “I will no longer treat my mouth like a garbage can and junk food will find its way to the trash where it belongs.  I will learn about healthy eating, teach myself how to prepare healthy meals and reduce the number of times I visit restaurants significantly.”

In February, I began tracking how much money we spent during the month in an effort to quantify our food expenses.  By the end of the month we had spent almost $600 on food ($400 on restaurants and $175 on groceries).  I decided that my goal for March would be to reduce the amount of money spent on restaurants by 50%.

I also pledged to begin monitoring my soda consumption in the same way as I had with my food expenses.

Here are our March food expenses:

Restaurants: $380.40

Groceries: $296.88

It is obvious that we did not even come close to meeting our goal of reducing the amount of money we spent in restaurants.  Why?  As the month went by, I felt great about how little I thought I was spending in restaurants.  I had no idea that nothing was changing, at least financially.  Each Friday, I treat myself to dinner at Chipotle but aside from that, I really thought I was doing great at staying out of restaurants.  Wrong.

This month we are going to try again to reduce our restaurant spending by 50%.

My battle with soda has taken an unexpected turn and I have stumbled yet again at kicking the habit.  At the beginning of March I was doing better than I had expected but ever since my trip to Germany I have drinking soda like it is going out of style.  I am at the point again where I am not ready to stop.  There is just something rewarding and enjoyable about drinking an ice cold Pepsi on a warm day.

Fitness: “In order to refocus my attention on physical fitness, I have purchased a gym membership and have been exercising on a daily basis for the past couple of weeks.”

At the beginning of March I made a commitment to spend an hour in the gym 3-4 days a week.  Aside from the week I spent in Germany (where I spent hours walking around), I have been able to meet this goal and exceed it.  I have been able to do this because I just quit making excuses.  I’ve often said that there are always excuses not to do something and until you quit making excuses, nothing can change.

In April, I want to continue this routine.  It works well with my schedule and allows flexibility if I need it.  April is the first month of the Hundred Goals’ Hundred Dollar Challenge and I hope this will be the motivation others need to begin to improve their health and fitness.  The deadline to enter for a chance to win $100 has passed but that does not mean you can’t participate in the Challenge.  If you are interested in becoming a part of the Challenge, upload a “Before” photo and post a link on the Hundred Dollar Challenge Discussion Forum.

Personal Resolutions

Travel: My goal is to travel 50,000 miles in 2010.  In March I traveled to Germany which added ~9,300 miles for a total of ~14,300 miles.  Only 35,700 miles to go!

Education: I want to maintain a 3.5 GPA and at the beginning of March I was concerned about my grade in Chemistry.  I failed my first exam, which dropped my overall grade to a C.  My second exam proved to be better, 96%.  I completely redeemed myself and in the process, I began to feel much better about myself and my ability to succeed in Chemistry.  In all of my other classes I am earning A’s and I hope I will be able to push through the end of the semester with the same.  Statistics is my newest concern.  Mathematics is my weak point and it will only get more difficult from here on out.

There you have it!  March was a challenge and I hope April will prove to be more of a success.  Only time will tell…stay tuned!

February Wrap Up

Here we are, two months into the New Year and while many people have all but given up hope on their resolutions, I am persisting, even if the progress is slow.  It is my belief that real change does not take place overnight and that lasting lifestyle alterations require a period of evolution in which old habits are broken and forced actions become routine.

New Years Resolutions

Diet:  “I will no longer treat my mouth like a garbage can and junk food will find its way to the trash where it belongs.  I will learn about healthy eating, teach myself how to prepare healthy meals and reduce the number of times I visit restaurants significantly.”

By the end of January I realized that my plan to improve my diet had been almost entirely ignored.  I had no way to quantify any improvements I might have been making so I made a promise to track my spending throughout February in order to establish a baseline which I can use to measure success or failure.

Here are the results (also includes Erin’s spending):

Fast Food: $310.78

Groceries: $174.76

Restaurants: $95.40

Other: $9.25

Total: $590.19

Numbers do not lie and seeing the totals has made us realize that there must be changes, not only for financial reasons but for our health.  Our plan for the month of March is to reduce our Fast Food spending by half, which will result in an increase in our Grocery spending.

Another aspect of my diet that needs to improve is the amount of soda I drink.  I will employ the same approach as I did with tracking my food expenses and track the amount of money I spend on soda in the month of March.  From there I will work towards reducing that amount until I reach a point where I am no longer drinking soda.  This will be a major feat as I have attempted to stop drinking soda in the past and failed.  I have stopped drinking caffeinated beverages since the end of December, so I am past that hurdle.  Now, more than anything, it is about breaking an established habit.

Finance: ”I will establish a savings plan to compliment my debt repayment plan.  In doing so, I will create a balance in my finances which will help accomplish both goals simultaneously.”

At the end of January I still had not found balance in my finances and made it my goal for February to establish a formal savings and debt repayment plan.  Two weeks ago I created a formal budget and began following the guidelines I established.  A consequence of creating this budget is that I am not able to focus my full attention on debt or savings.  Instead, I am working towards both goals simultaneously, which slows progress on both.

My goal for March is to further refine the categorical details and continue following the savings and debt repayment plan that I established within the budget.

Fitness: “In order to refocus my attention on physical fitness, I have purchased a gym membership and have been exercising on a daily basis for the past couple of weeks.”

My fitness goal for February included establishing a regular schedule in which to exercise.  I created an hour a day in my schedule for exercising but regret to say that I have not been following that schedule and that I have not been to the gym for the past couple of weeks.  I could blame it on a plethora of things such as my school schedule, tests and homework…but it really just boils down to not taking initiative.

March will be different.  I may not make it to the gym 6 days a week like I was at the beginning of the year but I want to exercise a minimum of 3 or 4 days a week for an hour each day.

Personal Resolutions

Travel: My goal is to travel 50,000 miles in 2010.  In February I did not do any traveling however I was able to finalize plans to visit Hawaii this summer, roundtrip is approximately 9,400 miles.  In March I am spending a week in Germany to visit a friend; ~9,300 miles roundtrip.  In May I will accomplish my goal of traveling to Iceland; ~6,100 miles.  With the traveling I did in January (~5,000 miles), I will be left with approximately 20,000 miles.  That is a huge distance, and though I have a couple of plans in mind, none of them will come close to closing that gap.  It is still early in the year and it is impossible to say what might transpire over the course of the year, so I will remain optimistic!

Education: Classes this semester are proving more difficult than the last.  I am struggling with Chemistry and almost failed my first test.  I can still pass the class with an A, though it will be a monumental challenge.  I will work as hard as I can to keep my GPA above 3.5 for the semester.

Student Loans: February was the first month with my new budget and I made my first budgeted payment to my Student Loan account, $350.

February was an opportunity to take an honest look at the progress I am making on my resolutions and realize the failures in a quantifiable way.  March is sure to bring about its own set of challenges but opportunity and success will follow.

January Wrap Up

As so many people do on New Years, I set out to rectify a handful of my many faults.  Where do I stand after one month?

New Years Resolutions

Diet:  “I will no longer treat my mouth like a garbage can and junk food will find its way to the trash where it belongs.  I will learn about healthy eating, teach myself how to prepare healthy meals and reduce the number of times I visit restaurants significantly.”

By and large, my effort to improve my diet this month has been a flop and the reason why is simple, laziness.  More times than not, it is far more convenient to go out to eat than it is to cook meals at home.  I did make a couple of attempts at trying new recipes including a Belizean dish and Chicken Gnocchi Soup from Olive Garden.  The Belizean meal was a complete failure while the Chicken Gnocchi Soup turned out just okay.

In February, I will begin tracking how often I eat out and how much I am spending.  By doing this I will be able to track my progress rather than making qualitative assumptions.

Finance: ”I will establish a savings plan to compliment my debt repayment plan.  In doing so, I will create a balance in my finances which will help accomplish both goals simultaneously.”

I have not established any formal savings plan to compliment my debt repayment plan.  Instead, I have been focusing on generally building up my savings account and have temporarily held off on debt repayment.  Since the beginning of January I have saved approximately $650, a solid start.  This has come at the cost of reducing my debt and ignoring a couple of personal obligations.

In February, I will establish a formal savings and debt repayment plan that will help accomplish both goals rather than further perpetuating this imbalance in my finances.

Fitness: “In order to refocus my attention on physical fitness, I have purchased a gym membership and have been exercising on a daily basis for the past couple of weeks.”

I have not continued my daily exercise routine as systematically as I had envisioned, though I continue to exercise regularly.  Now that school is back in session, my motivation to exercise has declined and it is easy to tell myself that there is no time in the day to go to the gym.

In February, in order to combat the excuse of time constraints, I will establish a regular exercise schedule that works with my school schedule.

Health:  “In an effort to correct my back problems, I have decided to begin seeing a chiropractor.  I will also schedule an appointment with a doctor to determine what might be wrong with my knee and learn what my options are to correct the problem.  I will also use this appointment as an opportunity for an annual physical examination…”

I have continued seeing my chiropractor regularly and am pleased to say that I have noticed significant improvement in my back pain.  I also made an appointment to have a physical exam.  My blood pressure was at the lowest level I can remember it ever being.  Before being laid off from my job, my blood pressure was consistently at pre-hypertension levels, at 25 and 26 years old!  I also asked about my knee problems and was given some simple stretches to help reduce or eliminate the cause of my pain.

In February, I will continue working with my chiropractor to further improve my spinal health.

Personal Resolutions

Travel: My recent trip to the Caribbean knocked off almost 5,000 miles of my goal to travel 50,000 miles in 2010.  In March I will be traveling to Germany (~10,000 miles) for a week to visit a friend and in May I will be landing in Reykjavik, Iceland (~6,000 miles) for a week of exploration.  After these trips, in order to meet my 50,000 mile goal, I will have to travel an additional 29,000 miles.  That is a large distance to cover but I have some thoughts in mind for Summer travel.  It is still early in the year!

Education: Last week I received a letter in the mail informing me that I had made the Dean’s List for the Fall semester.  This is the first time I have ever succeeded at this level.

Student Loans: I finished the semester with a 3.8 GPA and in doing so, earned a $2,000 SMART Grant for the Spring semester.  If I am able to keep my GPA above 3.0, I will maintain my eligibility for this grant for the next year.  My personal goal of maintaining a 3.5 GPA is now more than a personal goal.  It is a way for me to minimize my Student Loan debt.

A month in review, some wins and some struggles.  February brings 28 days of possibility!

Goal Update October 29, 2009

The last time I wrote a Goal Update was in May.  That means that I have five months to account for.  No doubt so much has happened since then & I have accomplished much.

Here are the goals that I knocked off my list since the last update:

Finish Associate Degree, Visit Meteor Crater, Climb Mount Saint Helens, Shoot a Machine Gun, Bungee Jump, Solve the Rubik’s Cube, Skydive, Go Backpacking & Sleep Under the Stars.

Reviewing this list helps me realize just how much I have done in the past five months, it is really quite amazing in my opinion.  It also helps underscore the importance of having goals in life and what a person can accomplish when they have a focal point to work with.

What about the goals that I am currently working on?  How are they going?  How is the 100 in 25 Challenge turning out?

Right now I am working on a couple of major lifestyle changes; eating healthy & exercising regularly.

I’ve really kicked things up a notch recently with eating healthy.  When I first decided that I wanted to change my diet I thought I could do it slowly, eating the food that was already in the apartment and replacing it over time with more healthy options.  What I found was that this approach wasn’t working.  It wasn’t working because I didn’t have a plan.  I was not doing any meal planning or shopping for specific items to make healthy meals.  While I would try to make better choices, it didn’t take long for old habits to return and by the time we left the grocery store we almost always had a lot of Stuff that we shouldn’t have.

I am working to create a more extensive list of meals which I can prepare at home.  Finding recipes that both myself and my girlfriend will enjoy is somewhat of a challenge but slowly but surely we are adding things to our menu.  Most recently I made Bacon Wrapped Chicken with Blue Cheese and Pecans.  We really enjoyed this dish & despite the extra effort that is required to prepare it, we’ll definitely be having it again in the future.

I’ve also started posting photos of my meals on my Fan Page for the readers to see and comment on.  I find that this provides some incentive to eat healthy; when I feel the eyes of world on me, so to speak.  For now, this external motivation is what I need to help encourage me to make smart food choices.  No doubt there will be pizza nights in the future but so long as I am making good decisions more frequently I am okay with that.  We all should indulge once in a while or else we’ll find ourselves bingeing and regretting it later.

Exercising has been difficult for me.  As I mentioned in my 100 in 25 Days Challenge post, I am either really pushing hard or not at all.  I made it my goal to be able to do 100 push ups in 25 days in order to prompt myself into the exercising mentality once again.  How is it going?  I think things are going very well.  I did fail to do push ups on Wednesday.  I was tired and didn’t feel like doing them after being on campus for 9 hours.  I moved past my transgression and am looking forward to the future.  I’m halfway through this challenge and things are actually going better than I thought they would by this point.  After the challenge I really hope to find the motivation to start exercising more frequently.  My goal is 3-4 times a week for an hour each day.  I can get there again!

Another goal that I am working on is to earn my Bachelor Degree.  I am halfway through my first semester at the University and am doing very well.  My lowest grade in any of my classes is a B, otherwise I am earning A’s in all of my other classes.  I have an appointment today to meet with my advisor to schedule classes for next semester and I am concerned about a couple of classes; Statistics, Chemistry & Technical Writing.  They all sound challenging and I will have to work my ass off.

What about the future?  What is next?

I highlighted 7 more goals that I hope to accomplish by May 18, 2010.  None of them seem overly difficult, though sleeping on a park bench in a big city will be a rather uncomfortable goal to accomplish.  I still have some lingering goals from my last effort to meet a deadline such as paying off my car and visiting Eldon, Iowa.  Some of these goals will unfortunately not be met by the deadline I set, while others will be.  Stay tuned!