Keeping Your Resolutions – Apps Make All the Difference

I heard that the 15th of January is when most people give up on their New Year’s Resolutions.  I’m feeling the struggle.  It’s definitely harder now than it was 2 weeks ago.  I’m not quite as excited about eating less and moving more.  My body is crying out for a scoop of Blue Bell Rocky Road and a few hours in the recliner.

Making goals is easy.  Achieving them is the hard part.

I set myself a goal to get back in shape and lose weight.  I gained a lot of weight last year and I am determined to get it off again.  So I made a goal, a plan and now comes the hard part….sticking to it.

The plan is vital.  Just saying, “Hmmm…..I think I’ll lose some weight,” doesn’t work.  Well, it doesn’t work for me.  I do have a few friends who think about losing and POOF!  They’re back in their skinny clothes.  I have the opposite result.  Like, when I typed the words, “Blue Bell Rocky Road” in the top paragraph, I gained 3 pounds.

So I have to move.  Eating better is not enough to get the scale moving.

Last spring I got a treadmill and I put it where I swore I never would…in my bedroom.  Yes, it’s ugly.  Yes, I wish it were somewhere else every single day.  But there it sits, staring and me and daring me to use it.  So I do.  Every morning.

Then I made a crazy decision to run in a 5K in April.  I’ve done 5Ks before, but never when I was this out of shape.  It’s helping to motivate me to get back in the saddle.  I decided I needed a little push because if I don’t push myself somehow I will just stroll along on the treadmill at about a 2.4 for 20 minutes then call it done.  So I downloaded an app that is a 5K trainer.

And boy does it push me.  It has me walking and running in intervals.  As I go through the program the walking times will decrease and the running times will increase.  I can do it at my own pace (in other words, I can do Day One several times before moving on to Day Two if I want).  I love that it gets my heart pumping and I feel like I have done more than take a stroll in the park when it’s over.

I’m also still doing my Weight Watcher’s app.  I track my food each day and stick to my allotted points.  I am still doing my diet of no sugar or wheat and I hardly eat any other carbs.  But I stopped losing weight by just doing that so the WW is helping me see that my portions were too big and where I need to cut back.

The last time I did WW was 10 years ago when I had to either write my food down in a notebook or go turn on my computer and log onto the site each time I ate something.  It was a pain so I didn’t like it.  The app makes it so easy that I am not bothered by the tracking.

I am also using my Slique each day which I know is helping with cravings.  The fact that it’s been pretty easy to make the diet changes has been nothing short of amazing.

I had a few other goals too….some with money and some with my business and some with my closet, which never seems to get clean.  I am using some financial apps and business goal apps but so far I haven’t found one that tells me to get the pile of too big clothes off the closet floor yet.

I really just wanted to encourage you to stick to it today.  Don’t be one of the millions of people who stop trying and go back to their old ways.  Let’s be the few.  Use those apps, most of which, are free!

I believe in you!