Zeigen

Halfway through the year already! Way past time for report card #6. I had a difficult time finishing this one for some reason.

In terms of exercise, May and June were together the two most active months of my life. Let’s see how I did on my goals.

1. Strive to always pay full attention to those I’m around.

   I worked hard at trying to improve my “presence” in June. It’s still hard for me to be objective about this, but I do think I made some progress, and in particular when I was with my kids tried to really be there for them 100% of the time I was with them. I’d love feedback from friends and family on how I’m doing.

   Status: Let’s say B for June.

2. Read two books a month (including the free book each month for having a Kindle and Amazon Prime).

   Over on FriendFeed, we started our Kindler’s List reading group, and our first book was Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. I enjoyed it just fine, but it didn’t blow me away.

   In addition, I finished NurtureShock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman (which I had been reading on and off for quite a while). I was blown away and recommend it unconditionally to parents with children of any age. Fantastic book.

   1. Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants: Three stars
   2. Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman’s NurtureShock: New Thinking about Children: Five stars

   Status: A- (since I’d read a lot of NurtureShock in previous months).

3. Run three 5k races and one 10k race, spaced throughout the year.

   No update from last month; I still need to select a 10k to be run before September 30, and after that I have a 5k in November lined up with Amanda and Tamara.

   Status: Two down, two to go! Not yet complete, but on track.

4. For the other 8 months, set and accomplish a goal each a month in RunKeeper (total distance, speed, etc.).

   For June, my goal was to run 50 miles. I managed to run 56.1 miles, per my RunKeeper profile. That’s a new record for me.

   

   So far in 2013 (through June 30), I’ve run a total of 243 miles. I am not sure if I can hit 500 miles total for 2013, but that seems like a great stretch goal to aim for.

   Status: A.

5. Keep up with the Fitbit by walking at least 10k steps a day (about 5 miles) — accomplish this 28 days each month.

   

   In June, Fitbit shows that I walked a total of 453,366 steps (down a bit from 491,069 steps in May), with an average of 15,112 steps per day (down from 15,841), a most active day of 21,003 steps, and a least active day of 10,521 steps. I did not miss my 10k step goal at all in June. There were 3 days over 20k steps (down from 8 in May).

   Status: A.

6. Each month, have at least 9 runs, 9 calisthenics/abs workouts, and 9 weightlifting sessions.

   I had 15 runs, but just as in April, I only had 8 sessions of calisthenics and 8 sessions of weightlifting (although I did a better job of spacing them out throughout the month). Just as before, the extra runs offset the missed workouts, but I could have easily done it all.

   As I noted last month, I had originally set this goal to be 2 workouts per week of each type, and then switched to 9 a month, and I pointed out that that structure makes it too easy for me to slack off in the early part of the month. That’s been the case in June as well. I will need to do better at spacing out the workouts.

   Status: B-.

7. After my dental surgery in December, the surgeon commanded me to floss twice daily. Then in April he told me it should be three times a day. So shall I do.

   Per Flossy, I flossed 3.0 times a day on average (between 2 and 4 times each day, with only two days where I didn’t meet my goal of three times a day). I did have a dental checkup in July, and I did well (my gums were in much better shape), so the flossing is having a positive effect. I recently finally got around to buying a waterpik.

   Status: A-.

8. Drink more water, coffee, and tea; continue with the elimination I started last year of soda/diet soda/juice. (One soda or juice drink a week is acceptable.)

   I had three sugar drinks and one diet soda in June, about on par with May. I had one week with two forbidden drinks, so I did not keep to the allowable limits.

   Status: C-.

9. By year’s end, eliminate non-dairy sweeteners (both sugar and artificial) from the coffee I drink.

   Still struggling with this one. I was not good at keeping to the mid-week (Tue-Thu) unsweetened coffee.

   Status: Incomplete, not yet on track, need to do better.

10. Start tracking my spending more closely with Mint.

    Did a bit better in June on this.

11. Start writing again: Write at least one short story this year, and post to this blog at least once a month.

    Two blog posts in June not about resolutions (both mainly images).

    Status: B-.

This entry was posted by Stephen on Saturday, July 27th, 2013 at 11:43 pm and is filed under general. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.