Happy Wednesday friends! I hope you’re all wrapping up January 2019 nicely – maybe you’re crushing some goals? Or maybe you’re wishing you never set any goals this year? Either way – I hope you’re having a great day!
January has been a month of CHALLENGES – thankfully I don’t mean the challenges that life may throw your way! I mean that I personally set a lot of goals & jumped in a lot of 30 day challenges for the start of 2019. Before the month wraps up, I want to share with you what my challenges were, how they’re going, and my honest opinion on them.
Challenge #1: #DontLetTheSunCatchYouSleeping + Daily Habits!
The first challenge I committed to was through work. I know you’ve heard me talk about the Mile a Day challenge before, but basically, the amazing company I work for does a monthly challenge to better ourselves. Our Founder, Chris Carneal, has a saying that he uses often – Don’t let the sun catch you sleeping! For the month of January, our challenge was to wake up before the sun & commit to a daily habit each morning. I had recently gone to the Chiropractor and asked him about my hips popping. He mentioned that it was my hip flexor snapping and that I could improve that with stretching. The daily habit I chose: incorporate 7 daily stretches each morning to improve my hip flexor flexibility! I’m so glad I committed to this because I was able to find stretches that I truly enjoy. I don’t think that first thing in the morning is the best time to do them because my body isn’t warmed up yet, but moving forward, I’ll start using these stretches to continue improvement on my hip flexors!
Overall Review: Loved this challenge! I only missed one day of waking up before the sun and did my daily stretches each day! This made me feel more empowered to give my body what it needs.
Challenge #2: 100 Ab Challenge with Cassey Ho!
First off – Have you ever heard of Blogilates!?!? If not, You need to check her out STAT! She’s become one of my favorite people to follow. Her workouts are hard, let me just put that out there, but she’s so positive & engaging! The workouts are SHORT, which is perfect for busy people. You can squeeze in 1 video or 2-3 if you have time. She does a monthly workout calendar which I enjoy because it’s a no-brainer for what I need to do that day. It’s also FREE, hellO!?! She’s just adorable & you should check her out if you need some fitness inspiration or want to mix things up.
So moving on……. She issued a 100 Ab Challenge for the month of January! My abs have always been the weakest part of me. I was nervous about this challenge, but I’m delighted at how much I truly enjoyed it! I slacked off a little near the end of the month & I’m going to end the month with about 3-4 days that I missed. I’m so happy that I decided to do this challenge though. For one, I can confidently say that there are definitely some abs under there! I was never really sure before. I could feel and see myself getting stronger as the days went on though and that’s exciting stuff right there!
Overall Review: AMAZING! I loved this challenge. She did daily videos to keep you engaged & excited with special guest stars which I adored. I plan on re-doing this challenge for February and depending on how crazy I want to be…. maybe all year?!
Challenge #3: No eating Out!
Wow, this was a toughy, but oh my stars – another one that I absolutely LOVED! Nick and I decided to say NO to eating out this month. First, here’s the WHY behind it… We recently updated our budget numbers and realized that we spent way too much on eating out. Hundreds of dollars too much. I know that sounds shocking, but I dare you to go and add up how much money you spend eating out. You’ll probably be shocked as well. We had no clue. We knew that there were areas we could improve in & we both agreed that we wanted this challenge to teach us, not hurt us. What do I mean by that? We wanted to be mindful of when/where we ate out and we didn’t want to eat out because we were too lazy or didn’t plan well. We also didn’t want to restrict ourselves so much that we missed out on quality time with friends/family. When we sat down to make the “rules” for this challenge, here’s what we came up with:
- I have my monthly Bookclub & Nick has the occasional guys night. I value my bookclub nights deeply and Nick has a small group of very close friends and he works a lot. We agreed that we would not say no to these events each month that keep us grounded & filled with joy.
- We wanted to be more mindful of Nick’s lunch. He had been eating out a lot for lunch and I was slacking on making him lunch every day. It’s something I truly enjoy doing because Nick’s love language is acts of service and that’s one way I can show him I love him, but I was just getting lazy at the same time and not preparing ahead of time. Also, fast food is not as cheap as they want you to think. The exception we made here was if there were dyer circumstances that kept us from making a lunch, Nick could eat out, but he had to go to the local grocery store & eat at the “country buffet”. It’s cheaper & maybe just slightly healthier, but mostly cheaper.
- Special Offers were the final category we made an exception on. This only happened once all month, but Nick’s sister wanted to meet us out for food/drinks one night. We don’t get to see her that often (even though she lives a short 15 minutes away!) and we were luckily free that night! We all decided to just eat dinner at our house and meet for drinks later. It was perfect!
The overall goal of this challenge: Put a stop to the meaningless eating out without sacrificing quality time with people. We wanted people to be first priority and so we made some rules around that, but we wanted our pocket book & discipline to be second priority.
Overall Review: I’m so incredibly proud of us! We weren’t perfect, but we learned a lot. This kept me from going to Starbucks all the time or stopping for a quick snack when I’m out & about. This kept Nick from grabbing a soda at work or running to get fast food. We did a better job prepping for the week, meal planning, and grocery shopping. Of course, the biggest win – We saved money & were able to pay off one of my student loans!
Wow – that took a lot to recap the three challenges I did this month, but being able to see all the work I put in to bettering myself, my family, my future, my career, etc…. It literally fills me with JOY!
What’s Next? I’m continuing the Ab challenge for next month & I’m looking at possible Half-Marathons. I have a super busy month with work in February so I don’t want to over-commit myself. I am brain-storming one more small challenge/daily habit that I want to incorporate so stay tuned.
- Which habit do you think would be the hardest for YOU!?
- What were your 2019 goals? How they going so far?
- Do you enjoy short 30 day challenges like this? What are some of your favorites that you’ve done in the past?
