New Year, New Start, New Goals

No time is better to kick off another round of healthy habits than the New Year. I’m very optimistic that I’m going to be successful for several reasons:
1) I have the best partner, my husband, who motivates me and is trying to meet goals along with me.
2) I have realistic, attainable goals.
3) I have two huge motivations – the first is a cruise that my husband and I will go on to reward ourselves if we attain and maintain our goals as of June 30th. The second and most important is that we are considering trying to start a family sometime next year (2008) and I want to be as healthy as possible at that time.

My goal is to maintain a healthy lifestyle throughout 2008. In order to do that I will:
1) Lose a total of 22-25 pounds. I’m currently at 170, so that will put me between 145-148. I’m 5’9”, so this is a healthy weight for me. I also think it’s something that I can maintain. I’d love to be 140 again (my lowest adult weight, which lasted for all of two months or so), but I’m not sure that would be realistic and maintainable. I’m giving myself a range because fluctuations happen and I don’t want to be obsessed about every pound.
2) Exercise 4 times a week. Our plan is to go to the gym 3 mornings a week and do some exercise (gym, hike, tennis, etc) on the weekend. If we miss a morning, we’ll have to go that night – no excuses! We’re starting at 30 minutes of cardio each workout, but I’d like to increase that to at least 45 minutes of cardio and add in weight training.
3) Train to run a 5K. Even when I was working out regularly, I could never run more than a mile and a half without stopping to walk. I’d like to be able to run a whole 5K without walking. I don’t have any ambitions of being a marathon runner, but this seems like a good goal and one I would enjoy accomplishing. To help us, my husband and I each got a Nike+ kit for our ipods. It keeps track of all kinds of statistics about our running (each individual session and total).
4) Keep track of my diet and exercise through this blog. I’d like to blog every day, but at a minimum I want to post daily results even if I don’t do it on daily basis. This means I will keep track of everything I eat and each workout I do. I’ll also add mini goals each week to keep me on track and motivated.

I’m excited about being healthy. I know I can do it and with the motivation and support I have, I have no doubt I will succeed!