Obligatory new year goals

Today's Weigh-In: 215.4 lbs. (no 5-day average since I kind of slacked on weighing myself)

Happy New Year to all the fitness and weight-loss bloggers out there. Since it is a new year I would like to start by laying out some goals, both short and long term, that will get me to where I want to be. I took the time to reflect on the past year, and came up with a few things. First, I gained about 20 pounds; actually, looking back on my post from exactly 1 year ago I gained 17.2 pounds. This has some good and bad sides: I'm much stronger now than I was a year ago, but I'm also a bit fatter. The upside, though, is that I think I can lose the fat without losing strength through my Crossfit training.

I thought also about the habits that I used to have when I was successfully losing weight, versus what I've been doing lately, and came up with a few things. First was that I drink more, and more often, now than I did then. Also I have not been good with calorie counting. Gym attendance has been roughly equivalent, so my weight gain is close to 100% food/drink related. So then I thought "What can I do to remedy this?" and came up with a few simple daily goals that will allow me to lose at least 1 pound a week, but don't put a ton of stress on my mind.

So here they are:

1) Limit drinking to 3 drinks per day through January. 1 drink is one 12oz. beer, 1 shot of 80 proof alcohol, or 5 oz. of wine.

2) Starting February, limit drinking only to 3 days per week, and maintain goal #1 on these days.

3) Count all calories, get no more than 2500/day including alcohol.

4) Take fiber, creatine, fish oil, and vitamin D supplements every day.

5) Workout every day except Thursday and Sunday.

Now, let me explain that I have a very high alcohol tolerance, and 3 drinks does not even begin to affect me. But I averaged my recent intake to be about 6-7 drinks per day, and this has prevented me from dropping weight. Plus, it's just not a good habit to have. The ultimate goal is to take drinking from a habit to an occasional splurge, and I want to do it slowly so as not to cause myself undue stress, and also to allow new, healthy habits to form in the meantime.

Counting calories has been a great tool in the past, and I think it's crucial for me to lose weight. It's not that hard either; once I do it on a daily basis for a week or two it just becomes second nature.

My exercise goal is just to get 5 workouts a week. I can move my rest day from Thursday to Wednesday, so long as I get my 5. I just want to be consistent here.

I have some other goals as well. I know for me that the most motivating success stories are the ones with pictures in them. So I've made plans to take pictures of myself every Saturday morning and post them to the blog so I can see my changes over time. I've also made a goal of adding at least 1 run per week into my workout routine. I feel that running is a weak area of mine, and I would like to shore up that weakness a bit. I might do a 5k, or I might do sprint repeats. I just need to run more.

I think that's it for now. None of these goals are very hard for me, to be honest, and that's the way I like it because that means I can actually achieve them. I like having daily goals as well, because it's really the day-to-day stuff that gives us the results we want, and completing daily goals allows me to feel like I'm actually moving forward. I'm on day 3 right now, and feeling good. I'll keep you posted.