Tomorrow is the last day of February, and to be honest I didn’t do a great job of sticking to my goals this month. Starting off the new month with Covid certainly didn’t help. Although I never got very ill (thank you, vaccines!), I had almost no energy and found myself needing to rest in between meetings and going to bed really early. It also reduced my appetite significantly, which I was honestly happy about because it made it easier to stick to my food goals. But once I started getting better, I found that I was almost always hungry and sticking to my daily calorie goals felt impossible.

I was afraid of prolonging my illness so I was diligent about resting and working back up to exercising normally. For the first week after I tested negative, I limited my activity to walking. By the second week I was a little congested but feeling much stronger, and I was able to return to the gym for my normal workouts. It’s been a month now since I first tested positive and thankfully I feel completely back to normal, but I’m also frustrated that I made zero progress in losing weight this month.

I know I need to re-focus and so my goals for March reflect that. The most frustrating thing for me right now is that I know exactly what I need to do to lose weight – I’m just not doing it. I struggle with letting temptation overpower my determination and I know that the only way to get past that is to put in an honest effort for a month so that I can re-form healthy habits. No matter how much it’s wanted, change is tough!

Average 1,600 calories per day. I really struggled with last month’s goal and so I’m increasing my calories per day slightly to give myself a little more wiggle room and hopefully to help give me some initial success. I can always reduce my calories per day if I plateau, but right now I have to find a goal I can at least stick to!

Work out at least four days per week. Now that I’ve recovered completely from Covid, I want to get back to working out habitually, whether in the gym or at home. I also have a really pretty fitness journal that my friend Amanda gifted to me, and I’m anxious to fill it with entries!

Average 7,500 steps per day. I did hit my step goal in February and I’m proud of myself for that! March’s goal is an increase of 1,500 steps per day and a lot more realistic for me when I’m not sick.

Read three books. This is the same as my goal for January, geared toward keeping me on target to reach my 2023 reading goal. I started multiple books in February, but I didn’t actually finish any of them – so this should get me back on track.

I’m excited to be going into a new month and to keep working toward my 2023 goals! I’m the opposite of excited about the most recent challenge life has thrown my way – on Monday I tested positive for Covid. After making it almost three years without catching it, I guess I can’t be too bummed, but it still sucks to be sick! Thankfully I seem to have an extremely mild case of it and except for a couple of times that I’ve spiked a fever I haven’t felt too horrible. But I’m ready to kick this and get back to normal life!

Because I’m sick, going into February I had to revamp my goals somewhat to take into account the fact that at least for the next few days I’m going to need to continue resting and taking it easy. I know that I need to give myself a lot of grace with my exercise and step goals while I recover, so that’s reflected in my goals.

Average 1,500 calories per day. Since this is the integral part of my weight loss plan, it made sense to me to make it a goal for February. I guess in a way getting sick has helped me get a jump-start on making this a habit, since I can’t go out to eat and when I’m sick dessert and drinks sound very unappealing. I haven’t had a huge appetite so I haven’t felt driven to snack – I’m not sure if that’s related to being ill or if it’s because the foods I’m choosing have kept me feeling satisfied, but either way I’ll take it!

Take measurements once a week. I want to have a log of inches lost, so that I’m not relying on the scale for an indicator of progress.

Average 6,000 steps per day. This is quite a bit lower than what I usually aim for, but I don’t think I’ll be back to taking walks for at least a few more days. I don’t want to put pressure on myself to make up steps later in the month, so I’m just aiming for what I think will be reasonably doable.

Read three books. This is the same as my goal for January, geared toward keeping me on target to reach my 2023 reading goal.