A Healthier Me: Goal Assessment

It’s been about three and a half weeks since I started my Healthier Me campaign, and I’m pleased to report that I’ve already made some progress. While I’ve not been particularly great about eating more vegetables, and I’m still working to find new healthy recipes for meals, I have made some good progress at the gym.

Since the week of January 3rd, I have made it to the gym five nights a week for three strength training and two cardio workouts each week. Plus, I revisited some old strength training workouts that I had done last spring only to find that they are now too easy! So, I’ve been able to up the weights and increase the repetitions to add new challenges to my old routines.

But the thing that I’m most proud of is my 10-minute mile. Now, I know to those who are avid runners, this is probably not the greatest time. But I am not an avid runner. In fact, prior to April of 2009, I hated running and would never even think about going on a treadmill at the gym. A trainer at the gym encouraged me to give the treadmill a try- first just walking as a warm up before a strength training workout, and then as a cardio workout with run/walk intervals. While I still can’t say that I love to run, I definitely have found more pleasure in my treadmill workouts than I’d ever expected. And lately, I’ve felt so inspired by others (here, here, here, here, and here) who’ve set and or accomplished running goals, that I felt the need to set my own running goal.

So, back at the beginning of January, I decided that I would pay attention and note about how long it took me to run a mile. At that time, it was somewhere around 12-13 minutes. Not terrible for me, but at that point, I made it my goal to get my time down to around 10 minutes. Each workout, I gradually increased the speed I was running, and within about two and a half weeks, I was running a 10 minute mile.

And just last night, I completed my first 5K on the treadmill. I ran the first two miles in 20 minutes, but then ran out of steam and ran/walk the last 1.1 miles. Still, I finished in 34 minutes and 30 seconds, which sounded good to me.

I know I still need to work on the food parts of my healthier me goals, but at this point, I’m really feeling proud of all that I’ve accomplished at the gym. I have more energy, I feel happier, and I even look forward to getting my butt to the gym (whereas before, I was always dragging my heels). And it feels good to celebrate these little successes.