Tag: health and fitness

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Fabulous living

2024 New Year’s Resolutions

Hello All!

Happy New Year and Happy January!

I hope you and your loved ones had a wonderful Christmas and New Years. I thoroughly enjoyed my holidays with my family. We ate lots of food, enjoyed our favorite holiday traditions together and made some wonderful memories. I have no complaints about my holidays, everything was merry and bright and filled with joy.

A look at our New Year’s Eve spread

We are in a new year which means it’s time to start thinking about New Year’s goals and resolutions. I always enjoy the feeling of fresh starts and new beginnings. Get me a new planner, a fresh sheet of paper and pen and I am one happy girl. I am doing the 2024 Simplicity Challenge through Simplified this year again, so be on the lookout for a post on that in the coming weeks. As a new year begins, I also like to take some time to look back on how far I’ve come and what worked from the year before and what didn’t before I start plotting for the year ahead.

As a quick recap, my goals for 2023 were to eat healthier and run a 5K (which I accomplished), take advantage of local spots and parks (I did a good job with this in the spring and summer, but fell off the wagon a bit in the fall and winter), plan to do things on days off (I was really proud of how I used my vacation days and weekends to the fullest by planning things to do with friends and building in down time), and continue to grow in my profession (I accomplished this by tackling new projects and assignments through the year.)

My motto for 2023 was to “Embrace Change”, even though the year didn’t bring all the changes I was anticipating, I still did my best to be flexible and adaptable through the year and embrace whatever came my way.

As far as 2024 goes, my motto or phrase of the year is “Be Open and Aware of Change”. I am someone who loves and craves her routines and rhythms and doesn’t do well with change. This year I want to do better with being open to change and adapting to it and not fearing it. I also hope to be more flexible and not as rigid with a schedule, (we will see how that goes, but I am up for the challenge).

I really liked the routines and hobbies I established last year, and I want to continue and build off them in the new year. For example, I took on the hobby of running and grew to love it. I want to continue to run and work on my speed and distance this year. I also made sleep and self-care by establishing a good morning and evening routines and establishing better boundaries and I was to continue that in 2024 as well.

From 2023 to 2024, I have list of goals and resolutions for the next twelve months, here’s what I hope to accomplish in 2024:

-Donate Blood– I am not a fan of needles, but I have heard so many good stories about donating blood. I also know so many people who donate and who benefit from it. I want to give back more this year and this is one way I can achieve that.  I hope to get over my fear of needles but donating blood to help others and possibly save a life.

–Do an 8K or 10K -This is building off my new hobbies from last year. I want to challenge myself and run an 8K or 10K. I really have grown to love running and I want to challenge myself this year by upping my mileage and doing more races. I have lucked out with fairly nice weather in the fall and winter to continue to run outside and I plan to do that for as long as possible until I have to run on a treadmill indoors. I’m hoping by setting these goals it will challenge me to run farther and faster.

–Re-Learn Piano– Speaking of hobbies, I want to re-learn to play piano. I learned when I was in middle school but didn’t put in the time and practice that I needed to keep up with it. Now, that I’m an adult and I have a bit more freetime, I want to re-learn piano this year as a creative outlet and to challenge myself in a new way. I’m looking forward to seeing how this goes and how quickly I recall things from my earlier lessons.

-Learn how to braid hair-This may seem very silly, but I have never learned how to braid hair and I want to learn this year. This may only take a few YouTube videos and a few hours, but once again, I am looking for a creative outlet with this hobby and I;;m looking to learn a new skill

-Cook a New Recipe a week– I started doing this a few years ago and then I slipped but I want to get back to trying new meals each week and cook for my family. I love being in the kitchen whether it’s for cooking or baking and I want to continue to use my skills and learn new recipes, so when I am out on my own, I have plenty of recipes to cook. I also think cooking is a skill that you can always get better at, and I want to be savvy in the kitchen. 

These are some of my big goals and resolutions for the new year, I have a few others that are a bit more personal, but these are goals that I think are attainable and realistic. 

Tell Me: As we begin a new year, what are some goals or resolutions that you want to achieve? Let me know in the comments below so we all can hold each other accountable and lift each other up. Have a great first week of the new year. 

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Fitness

Leading A Healthier Lifestyle

Hi everyone! Happy Wednesday!!

I hope you are all having a great week!! I don’t know about you, but this summer has flown by! I can’t believe we are getting ready for back to school. It’s certainly different not to be heading back to school when my friends who are younger than me are heading back or when my sibling are getting back in the classroom. 

One of the things that has been on my summer to do list was to live a healthier and balanced lifestyle. This was something I wanted to aim for in 2020, but then the pandemic hit, so things got put on the back burner. This summer, as more things opened up, I wanted to continue to live a healthier lifestyle. Throughout 2020, I have wanted to work out more, eat better and get more fresh air, and this summer I have been doing a great job of accomplishing all that.

Just for a quick recap…in the early months of the year, (January and February)  I was working out five days a week, it felt great to be back in the gym, then during the early time period (March-June) in the pandemic when everything was closed, I would try and get some walks in a few times a week, and tried to eat healthier. 

Finally, in the summer, once the gyms opened up (June!!!) , I was back in the gym five days a week (and I still am!!!), I also try to go for a walk every day, whether it’s a few hours or a few minutes, I love getting a good workout in followed by fresh air outside.

I also have been doing better by being more intentional with what I am eating and when I am eating, not just eating to eat but eating because I am hungry. In my life and schedule right now, it works out better to eat two meals a day, again, it may not work for everyone but in my life and my schedule its better for two health meals and no snacking. I also drink a lot of water, sometimes going through several bottles of water a day. 

My energy levels are been up and I have been feeling more energetic too! 

In life there are a lot of things we can’t control, but the simple things like eating healthier or getting a work out in or more fresh air are easy ways that I can do to make my life a bit smoother. What are things you do to make your life a bit more smoother or peaceful or ways that you promote self care in your life?!

I hope you all have a wonderful week and soak up the last few weeks of summer!!!

Categories
Fitness

Favorite Health and Fitness Apps

No matter how long you have been following my blog, fitness and staying healthy is a huge part of my life. Whether it’s eating healthy or working out several times a week, I make my health a priority. One of the ways that I keep my health in order is with the help of fitness trackers and apps. Last year, I did a review of my Fit Bit, you can find that here.Today, I’m sharing my favorite health and fitness apps. 

Fit Bit App

 I’m going to keep this short and sweet, first, you don’t to have a fit bit to have the app, I used the app before I had the watch. This is by far my favorite fitness app. It tracks your steps, miles walked, calories burned, and how active you are. It also sends you all notifications whether it’s calendar reminders or text messages or phone calls, it’s super helpful. The app also allows you to track your food and water intake, your weight, and then one of my favorites, your sleep. Tracking my sleep is super important to me. When you wear your fit bit to bed, it monitors how long you are asleep for, and how much time you spend in light sleep, deep sleep, REM, and are awake. It gives you a sleep score every night too. I always find it interesting to see how rested I am. If these are all priorities for you, then this is a great investment. 

The Fit Bit home page with all your stats
Here’s the sleep tracker

Health (Apple version)

If you are Apple die-hard fans and like to utilize everything with Apple, then this would be the App for you. You can use it with the Apple Watch, like the fit bit app, it tracks your steps, miles walked, sleep and how active you are. You can still utilize this app without having the apple watch, I did the same but found it wasn’t as accurate without having the watch on you. For example, my fit bit is more accurate with my steps and working out because I always have my watch on, however, since I don’t have an apple watch the health app isn’t always up to date. If you are an apple lover or have an apple watch, this is the route for you.

The Health app through Apple

Sleep Cycle

The sleep tracker through Sleep Cycle

This falls into the health section of apps. Like I said, I am always intrigued about measuring my sleep. This app is great for tracking sleep, you just turn it on before you go to bed and make sure it’s near you when you are sleeping. It will track how awake you are and how restless you sleep. It also doubles as an alarm clock too. This app is free and it’s simple to use. If you don’t care as much about the fitness and want to focus more on sleep, this is the app for you. 

These are my favorite apps for health and fitness, I will admit that I use the Fit Bit app the most since it meets all my needs and I utilize everything it offers. What are your favorite health and fitness apps? 

I hope this post encourages you to get out there and be active. Have a fabulous week!