My approach to new year resolutions (2016)

In January I set myself a challenge...Do 2 exercise classes a week throughout January. I already do one class (Spinning on a Monday with Leanne), but I thought that I could fit in another lunchtime class, and decided that it would be another spinning class on Thursday lunchtime.

Lunchtime classes work for me, and spinning classes are 30mins of high intensity arghhh, and at £3.35 a 30min session, it didn't break the bank either.  Classes would fit in nicely with work and my personal life too.  I stuck to my challenge - and have kept up the 2 classes ever since.

I also managed to nip in a cheeky lunchtime Nordic Walking taster session in January, a full class in February and March and I've another booked for April. These run on Wednesday from The Journey cafe, see: sustrans for details.

In February I decided to set myself a different kind of challenge. January was about doing more, and so February was going to be a "do less" challenge.  I decided that "cake free February" had a nice ring to it, and I'd been eating far too much cake, so it would seem like a challenge to do that.  To be honest I thought it would kill me - that I'd cave in after the first week, but I didn't. I didn't feel like eating cake or baking it. It was actually quite easy. After having continued with my January challenge into February, part of me considered that I should keep up the February challenge into March. And then I remembered that it was my birthday in March, and I was never not going to have cake on my birthday!

What I found hardest was March, when I gave myself permission to eat cake, actually doing it- it felt wrong.  My first cake was half a krispy kreme doughnut (someone brought them into work), and it was actually a very disappointing first cake to eat. It wasn't until my birthday (2nd week in March) when I ate cake, I'd made mini creme egg scotch eggs - and they were much better.

Mini creme egg scotch eggs

My challenge for March was about marching, using the stairs at work, instead of the lift. Marching up the stairs. I work on the 3rd floor, but I've been using the lift as much as possible - out of laziness and grabbing a few minutes to watch the TV which is on in reception.  Doing the stairs is hard work when you've got bags of shopping from town, or have just done a hard spin sesh.  The first week of this challenge was particularly hard, I was slow and it felt like a drag, on reaching floor 3 I was tired, panting and looked like I'd just stepped out of the spin studio. Clearly the spin sessions weren't improving my "running up the stairs" technique.

As the month progressed my technique improved, I was bounding up the stairs like a gazelle, and I wasn't even breaking a sweat. I had also changed exercise classes too, Monday spin and Thursday circuits (which was having a huge impact on my overall fitness - my arms have muscly lumps in them!). At the start of March I was willing the month to pass so I could give up on this stupid challenge, but as I'm nearing the end of the month I'm not considering giving it up at all.  It's a doddle.

I haven't sorted out April's challenge yet, but I'm thinking that it might be blog related. One post a week? I've got things I want to blog about, it's just making time to sit down and do them. Alternatively I could use the spring cleaning idea to do some tidying up/sorting out of my "stuff" - but is that a challenge? I could carry on with the exercise idea and do one of those 30-day things you see on pinterest? I'm still undecided. But I'm going to continue with my monthly challenges - I like to have something to focus on and I'm enjoying them (eventually).