I always broke them faster than I could write them down, so I stopped. I found goals were much easier to maintain. It may just be a word change, but it really helps me.
If you've been keeping up, you know that for 2016 my exercise goals and competition were ramped up a little. We added a core component in hopes of keeping things new and fun....and to help with some body areas that needed some work.
Things changed.
Even after redoing my living room floor, I hadn't reached the goal before my friend did. In fact, she reached it around the 9th. That was the earliest either of us ever reached the goal. It almost seemed too soon. Her husband stated that since we've been doing this for a year already, dialing all the way back to a 40 mile goal was probably doing us an injustice. He suggested that we add 10 miles to each month's goal. It made sense to us... so we did. A few days later, she officially won.
Here is how my month turned out:
January (goal of 50 miles):
Miles walked: 35.54
Minutes exercised: 1,275 = 42.50
Water intake: 30/31 days = 7.25
Core completed: 9/31 days = -2.60
TOTAL: 82.69 miles
Yes, you see that right. I had negative miles for core. Core hurts.
Remember way back when I was dealing with pain in my sacroiliac joint? Well.. it still likes to rear it's ugly ugly head. The physical therapy I did at the time did help, but not perfectly heal. Some regular day to day activities can have me breathing like I'm having labor pains and looking for a a chair as fast as possible. Those activities include doing dishes, grocery shopping, and laundry. Certain exercises I do are supposed to help, and they do, but in the process they hurt. That includes planks. Tightening and strengthening my core will help the most (partially why we added the core component this year). This is why I had more core fail days more than I successes.
I realized that this wasn't working out well, so I went back to the orthopedic. I also bit the bullet and took a cortisone shot. The blood sugar highs were insane, but with some careful calculations and temp basals, I was able to not soar above 350 for very long, and got them back into normal (for me) range in just a couple days. The shot did seem to wear off after 2 weeks, but the more I walk the better it feels. It may just be the gorgeous sun and beautiful weather we've had, but I bet the cortisone did it's job. I will probably need one more shot before I'm back to physical normalcy. In the meantime, this month I've been completely the core exercises more than I've not been completely them and I consider that a win!
