Would you like some cheese with that... (**Warning: cliches abound**)

I have been reading a lot of blogs lately where people have reviewed their year in terms of sewing. I plan to do this also but I have also been thinking about where I stand in terms of health & fitness this year. I think this has been put into my head by a comment one of the instructors made at a class (at the gym) today about the fact that she was considering training to participate in a triathlon next year. It left me wondering what are my goals for next year... and how have I done this year?

I feel I am a bit of a tortoise in terms of tortoises and hares as I have not had made any changes in huge speedy ways. I have been going to gym for a while now (think years) and have been having Personal Training sessions for probably over a year now. However I do believe this year has been a real turning point for me. Even though I have been slowly improving for a while I have been hitting some milestones this year.

From a purely weigh-loss end I probably have lost about 6 kg since the start of the year but I have really dropped size. My wardrobe has had to be totally revamped this year as I don't fit a lot of my of my clothes any more. I never set a goal to loose a certain number of kgs but if I try and think what my goal was this year I would say fitting my clothes better would be one of them and I really feel I have accomplished that - I can't stop shopping or making new clothes as it is so much more fun to shop for clothes when they fit and hang well on the body!

The other goal I had in my head was to get stronger and ...please don't laugh... but I wanted to be able to do a full push-up. Yep, I reached that one and was really proud when I was first able to accomplish my first full push-up (on my toes...yay!)

What are my goals for next year? I am not so sure ... I know that I still want to improve my strength. Maybe increase the number of push-ups and also be able to do a chin-up (not sure If that is the right expression but I m sure you understand what I mean) . A real chin up where you pull your whole body weight up to a bar at the moment I am still doing them reclined on the floor!

My biggest pet peeve this year ... Please don't tell me you want to lose weight when you are not prepared to change...people who tell me that they want to lose weight while they have a mouthful of cheesecake.... "it's just a treat" (sorry not when you eat it all the time!) Yep, just wait a moment while I climb on that soapbox. I read sometime ago in a women's health magazine an article about change. Really it is probably a Dr Phil-ism but if you don't change anything how can you expect change to happen? Yes you will be fit and healthy if you attend gym regularly and eat well but you won't improve unless you push yourself that extra bit. If you continue to work-out to the same level constantly yes you will stay fit but nothing will change - how can it? Go the extra mile... go hard or go home... (yes I read the lorna jane t-shirts!)

Really this year I needed to change my approach to reach my goals. I did it in a couple of ways. There was a big trip planned to visit family OS (and you all know that feeling of wanting to look your best for people you haven't seen in a long time) so to move things along I increased my PT sessions from one a week to two a week for ten weeks - boy did this work for me! I am a big advocate for PT as I don't believe many people are able to push themselves hard enough when they train alone. In those ten weeks I really increased my strength and the weight started to come off! It was a bit weird as it didn't come off until right at the end of the ten weeks and then it just fell off one day!

Then after the trip I did return to my once a week sessions of PT but I added an eating plan. I used the Musashi products and eating plan that the gym suggested. I did not follow it 100% ( I still like the one odd one or three glasses of wine most nights) but did follow it reasonably well and again not a huge kg difference but the body fat seemed to melt away!

Well now it is Christmas time and I am only planning to maintain what I have done this year for now. For next year, I will have to think more about what I should challenge myself with.... I still have a bit of a jiggle around the tummy - I would love to see that go, but maybe I should be setting my sights higher as overall losing weight is not such a big issue for me anymore.... Gwennie's comment about the triathlon has really set me thinking. I am not saying Gwennie needs to become a triathlete next year, but I really like that idea of setting yourself a challenge. I am not really sure what next year's will be... I will have to think on that one a bit longer...