Easy Carrots

Week of July 31, 2011:

Bike: Thursday and Saturday

Yoga: Friday

I have a habit of not acknowledging my own success, especially the everyday things I do that keep me on track and moving in the direction of my goals.  Maybe I’m trying to be humble, or maybe I worry that other people will think I’m bragging, but really, I do a lot each day for my health.  It’s a lot of work—the exercise, the homecooked meals, the grocery shopping—but I do it because I believe in investing in my health.

July’s star chart (which you can see completed above) was one of my small victories for the month.  In the middle of a hard and demoralizing summer, the start chart was a way to visualize my goals, a way to recognize my own accomplishments.  It was, to borrow someone else’s phrase, easy carrots to make me feel like I was doing something with my days.  I needed easy carrots to lift my spirits, to help me feel positive about things.  I had planned 35 work-outs over the course of 5 weeks, and I completed 33 of those work-outs.  That’s 94%!  Not too shabby!  You can see that I missed a running work-out during Week 2 and a bike work-out during Week 5.  I can live with those imperfections, especially because I’m feeling so much more optimistic about August and the months to come.  We’re into the home stretch now for summer’s heat: only 25 days left in August, and then things will slowly start to cool down.  I can’t wait.

Onward, August!