Goal updates and changes

(source)

SERIOUSLY?! Last month of 2011 already?!  Guess it's time to look back at my November goals and set some new ones for December.

Last month my goals were:

• K.I.L.L. my upper body with weights
• jump rope for 20 minutes straight
• increase max push-ups from 17 to 20
• limit eating out to 2x/week

Of those 4, I hit 2 of them.  I spent 3 days/week focusing on upper body strength training and over the last month, increased the weights I used for all exercises.  I also passed my goal of maxing out my standard push-ups to 21!  As a refresher, here is the circuit I did last month:

As for the other two goals I had for November, I actually "forgot" about them and didn't even attempt them.  Jump roping is still part of my cardio workout, but I just didn't remember to work on this goal.  As for eating out only 2x/week... yeah, who was I kidding?  I probably only ate in 2x/week during November... moving on!

December Goals

1. K.I.L.L. my upper body with weights (same routine as above)
2. limit eating out to 2x/week
3. reevaluate why I'm on this healthy journey
4. train for the Great Aloha Run
5. lose 5 pounds

 As a repeat of last month, here are the detailed versions of my goals.

4.)  Train for the Great Aloha Run (Yup, I'm jumping to goal #4 first!)

•  I didn't mention it on the blog yet, but I signed up for an 8-mile run during President's Day weekend 2012.  It's called the Great Aloha Run and I did it one other time back in 2009. Although somewhat successful (13-minute miles) the last time, I want to improve by a T.O.N.  This time around I'm in better shape, over 10 lbs. lighter (hopefully even lighter by race day), and I have more time to train.  Just hope my sore knee holds up to the running.

1.)  K.I.L.L. my upper body with weights (cont. from November)

• A lot of times my full-body weight workouts are very lower body focused.  For example, I usually run through a circuit of alternating lower-body and upper-body movements, but a lot of times my upper-body movements also involve my lower body, ie. squat curl to presses, squat and dumbbell swing, etc. I focus on my lower body on purpose because it's the first place I see muscle definition so I love to work it out.  This month I'm going to dominate my upper body with a killer circuit workout 2x a week (third day of lifting will be full body). My lower body will get enough of a workout from HIIT/plyo/hiking/cardio.  

2.) Limit eating out to 2x/week

• Pretty straight forward.  Losing weight and getting healthy is 20% exercise and 80% nutrition.

3.) Reevaluate why I'm on this healthy journey

• Recently I've been really focused on the short term goals so reevaluating why I'm doing this makes me look at the long term goals as well.  Every day in the month of December I'll be posting one reason why I'm getting healthy... I'm calling it my 

5.) Lose 5 pounds

• I don't normally like to put a scale/weight goal, however this month I am.  I'm not gonna go into details about why my current weight of 139 is way too much for 5'0" me, instead you can read these posts.  Long-story short, I'm still overweight. My birthday is the end of next month and my goal is to be in the 120's by then.