October is in the books!

Well here we are at the beginning of another month!  It’s crazy how time flies!  I do have to say that the older I get the faster time flies!  It’s nuts!

October was a busy month!   We started our month at the beach!   We were on vacation!   Woohoo!  

 The rest of the month was pretty routine with work...but we still got some bike rides in. 

We got the news that my car was dead and not fixable.
We bought a new car.

And the old car revived itself!

It was crazy! But the real question is...how did I do on my monthly goals?

So here we go!  Here are my monthly goals.  These goals were my October goals and will be my November goals also! (I tweak them when needed but this month they will remain the same!

1.  Track every bite of food!
2.  Put money into my savings. (The tweak for November is to hold steady on savings...I have some expenses I still need to cover in relation to the car issues!)
3.  Weigh less than I do now!  I don't care if it's a measly ounce...I want to weigh less!
4.  Do something active (a walk suffices) at least 3 times a week and aim for at least three sessions of formal activity (bike ride, run, hike) a week!  

5. Keep my eating in check for at least 6 days a week.   

6.  Walk and average of 5000 steps  per day. (total monthly steps divided by the days in the month....bike ride days on the trail are exempt from the 5K step goal...cuz it's hard to get  steps when you are riding)

         My Not so Secret Goal:   Lose 5 pounds!

So how did I did!

1.  I tracked my food every day but two!  Surprisingly the two days were NOT during the vacation week. I tracked religiously during vacation!  They were random days that when I went back to check for this post, that I found were missing information (both weekend days...different weekends)

2. Savings....hmmmmm.   I did put money in savings at the beginning of the month...yes, even with vacation my savings went up at the beginning of the month.....but then I bought a new car and that savings went way down!   So call this one a failure or a victory....some of the savings was earmarked for a car anyway...so it’s not really a failure.  But the end result is that my savings is a couple thousand less, so if you think that’s a failure then so be it. But the fact that I had the savings to use when I needed it and for what I been saving so hard for...that’s a victory!   It’s a wash in my mind!

3.  Weigh less than I did at the beginning of the month...hmmmmm... I recouped my vacation weight gain a week ago...but then had some stress eating and the monthly hormonal water weight gain is upon me...and today I find myself 1.6 pounds up...so in October I officially gained 1.6 pounds!   Grrrrrr

4. Do something active at least three times a week.   The vacation week was super active...hours upon hours of movement each day!   We got home and we rode on the weekends but that was it for the next two week....until the end of the month when I saw my endurance slipping on my bike rides.  So we kicked it into high gear and we rode 4 times that week and I walked every chance I had on my lunch breaks (not when it was rainy though!). 

5.The next was to keep  my eating in check for at least 6 days a week!  So I gained weight on vacation...but my eating was in check.  I was not eating more than mfp (myfitnesspal) was telling me I could eat....when I added all my activity calories.  (even though, I gained four pounds that week!). The rest of the month there were four days I was over the top end of my range.   Two  days I was only over budget by 100 calories ...and two days I was over budget by 400 calories.   

6.  The last real goal was to walk an average of 5000 steps per day for the month.  I struggled with this...for a good portion of the month while at home I was averaging about 4K steps.  What saved me was the week of vacation where I was walking 25k steps a day and the weekends where I was walking 10k steps!   So I nailed this one!

And my not so secret goal to lose 5 pounds...failed! Colossally!

So this month had a lot of ‘failed’ attempts.  But that is ok.  Life happens and we have to accept it and roll with it!   I’m not giving up.  I’m still going strong!!!