2023 Goals

2022 was a challenging year for my health.  Between the back trouble and vertigo, I wasn't as active as I would have liked.  I found myself less interested in tracking things, especially as I got to the end of the year.  I started seeing someone, which is awesome, but that means I've got less time for myself (and I haven't been eating as well either).  And I also have an odd schedule at work at times (I have to work every third Saturday, so that can make it a bit tough to plan something on a weekly basis).  So while thinking about goals for 2023, I knew I needed to keep all of that in mind.

I also knew I wanted to continue to build on what I started in 2022, particularly in terms of bringing my weight (and BMI) down to a healthier level.  

So here are my goals for the new year:

1. Lose (and keep off) 15lbs by the end of the year (be under 197lbs). I thought about trying for 20lbs again, but since I only succeeded in losing 5lbs by the end of 2022, I decided to go for the same goal weight as last year.  I have many of the same obstacles as last year, but with the added one of eating out a lot more than normal now that I'm seeing someone.  I'm going to need to put a plan in place (with his input) on how to navigate this over the coming year.  I'm hoping this will help with my cholesterol, too.

2. Do a workout to help my back twice a week, and do some stretches for my back every day.  Rather than focussing on/tracking my active minutes this year, I want to focus on strengthening my back.  Ideally I'd like to be pain free in the spot where I pulled the muscle by the end of the year.  To make this easy to track, I made myself a checklist using Excel, so all I need to do is check off when I do the workouts.

I will continue to walk to work as much as I can as well. :)

3. Sleep 7 hours or more per night. One of the pillars of health that I often neglect is sleep.  I've really noticed this in particular over the last few months; in the lead up to my getting both my cold and covid, I wasn't sleeping very well.  I know that I'm going to have trouble with this goal, particularly in terms of getting used to sleeping with someone else (I've had trouble already, though I am slowly sleeping a little more with someone else there).  So we'll see how this one goes.

I'll be tracking this on my Excel spreadsheet as well. :)

So that's the plan for 2023.  I'm hoping that my spreadsheet will make tracking things a lot easier. And hopefully I'll be able to continue the momentum I started in 2022 to live a much healthier life!

All About my Back

I realized while writing my 2022 Year in Review post that I hadn't written very much about what happened to my back, other than the little blurb in my 2022 Goals post. So I thought I would remedy that, since that back injury has had a big impact on my activity levels over the last year.

The original injury happened in December 2021.  We got a lot of snow all at once, and shoveling was really, really heavy, especially for the first real snowfall of the year.  The winter of 2022 was especially brutal - pretty much every time it snowed, we had a storm and got a lot.  Plus the snow continued all through April, which is very unusual.

At my mom's suggestion (and by her encouragement), I started seeing a chiropractor (I believe this started in February).  The chiropractor did wonders, and my back slowly started to heal.  I was doing better, and was able to shovel without my back hurting more, as long as I was careful.  Things were looking up!

Then in early April, I reinjured my back again, this time at work! :(  My job, over the years, has slowly become more physical, and I've had a few other injuries from work before this (primarily knee trouble from having to bend down a lot).  As it happened at work, I had to submit paperwork to the WSIB; they were able to cover chiropractor appointments for a little after that to help me get better.

Since that happened, I've had to be (understandably) much more careful with my back.  Overall it's doing better, but the spot does flare up from time to time, depending on what I'm doing.  So I still need to see the chiropractor every few weeks.  

To help though, I found a yoga for your back video on YouTube that I really like.  My mom, who also has back trouble, gave me a list of exercises she does every night, so I've been trying to do them too (this is really helpful for the days I can't fit in a whole video).  And more recently I found a 21 Day Happy Back Challenge that I'm going to do to help as well (I did a few days of it at the beginning of December 2022, but got derailed when I got sick so I am going to restart it). Walking has also been really good - it's low impact on my back, and my chiropractor recommended it as well (particularly on the days when I see her - she said it's good to go for a little walk after having an adjustment done).

2022 Year in Review

Once again, Happy New Year!  I hope you and your family have a happy and healthy 2023!

Now that 2022 is over, it's time to look back at the goals I set for myself and see how I did. 

My 2022 goals were:

1. Lose (and keep off) 20lbs by the end of the year (be under 197lbs).
2. Work out for 150 minutes a week - including non-walking activities (yoga/stretching/workout videos are preferred, but this is open to other activities like shovelling, swimming, or skiing) two times per week.
3. Spend 1 hour every week on something I've been putting off.
4. Make 13 new recipes this year

As per usual, I was successful if I did this for 80% of the year (so about 42 weeks, or 10 months, depending on the goal).

Goal #1, was, as I already mentioned, a failure.  My starting weight was 217.8, and my first weight of 2023 was 212.0 (though I did see a low of 206.6 in October).  But even though I didn't make it to my goal weight, I did manage to lose over 5lbs since January 2022, and that's something I am proud of!  I just checked my BMI, and it's down to 30.4 according to the National Heart, Lungs, and Blood Institute's calculator, down from 31.2 in January 2022!)

This also better positions me to keep up the momentum for 2023. :)

Goal #2 was also a failure.  I started the year off relatively strongly, but then got less active as the year went on (this was not helped by things like my back getting hurt from shoveling (which I mentioned in this post, but it looks like I never wrote more about it on here - whoops!), and my bout with vertigo over the summer).  By September, I'd only logged 13 weeks out of 35 where I did the full 150 minutes of being active.  Then I sort of stopped keeping track (of everything, not just workouts), but I know I wasn't super active every week in the fall, outside of doing some nice hikes and longer walks.

Goal #3 was a failure, but it was a deliberate failure (and it looks like I forgot to write about it here too - whoops!).  Like the exercise goal, I started off the year really strongly, managing to spend some time working on things I'd put off on 13 of the 17 weeks up until May.  But the more I was focussing on doing stuff I'd been putting off, the less I found myself able to do anything for myself for fun.  For example, if I started reading a book for fun, I started feeling anxious that I could be using that time to do something more productive I'd been putting off.  So for my own mental health, I decided to stop working on this goal.  

Goal #4 was one I completely forgot about until I started working on this post.  But it ended up a success anyway! I'd made 20 new recipes by September (and they were a mix of Chef's Plate recipes and things I found in my cookbooks).  And I made a few more recipes from Chef's Plate since then that I didn't write down in my book (I think about 6).  So this one ended up a great success! :D

So that was 2022.  I'm going to take some time to work on my goals for 2023 and post them in the next few days. :)

First Weight Update of 2023

 Happy New Year!  I'm going to write a second post looking back at 2022 and ahead to 2023, but first I wanted to share my weight from earlier today:

weight: 212.0 lbs
fat percentage: 45.9%
hydration: 37.1%
muscle: 26.5%
bone: 11.0%
cal: 2332

I'm a little sad because I was doing better earlier in the year (the lowest weight I saw was 206.6lbs in October, which is awesome!), but this weight is also at the end of the holidays, when I've been eating worse than I normally would (I literally had a heavy dinner of Chinese food last night - not exactly the best choice).  It's also over 5lbs less from my first weight last year, when I was 217.8 after the holidays. So while I know I didn't make my goal weight for the year, I definitely made some progress and am in a much better place to continue losing some weight for 2023. :)