Time for a new challenge!

Okay ladies, it's almost the beginning of a new year . . . and you know what that means, right?! ;)  Yep, it means that I'm all fired up to give myself some new challenges and set some new goals.  Even though Jan 1 isn't till Wednesday, I wanted to give you a heads-up about my healthy living challenge that I'm going to be starting that day.  I'm calling it the "Trim Healthy Me" challenge, because I'm planning to try and follow the principles from the book Trim Healthy Mama as closely as possible.  Now, this particular challenge is a personal one . . . however, if any of you want to join in for the accountability, you are MORE than welcome.  I love the encouragement that comes with numbers! :)  If you want to do your own personal challenge, there is no need to follow the same thing I'm doing, but I'd love it if you want to post a comment with your own goals!

Here is what my own challenge is going to look like:

• It will last for 6 weeks, starting Jan. 1, 2014.
• I plan to do a sugar detox during this time.  NO refined sugar, white or brown.  My sweetener of choice will be xylitol, but I recently ran out of it and haven't gotten more yet, so in the meantime I am giving myself a little grace and plan to use coconut sugar for coffee, and raw honey for tea. :)
• I will be trying to follow the basic principles laid out in THM, but again, I will give myself a little wiggle room with this.  Especially for suppers.  A lot depends on our food budget for the month. :)  So I will plan to stick to the eating plan at least for breakfast, lunch, and snacks, and do the best I can with suppers.  
• I will have a goal of drinking 3 bottles of water every day.  I have gotten away from this lately, but I feel so much better when I am properly hydrated!
• I will exercise at least 3 times a week.  At this point I'm planning to work my way through the C25K or C210K on the treadmill, but I may change that up now and then with other kinds of exercise.  I know 5 days/week would be better, but I'm starting small so I can ease myself back into it, since I have gotten away from exercise over the past couple months, too!

So this is the basic framework for my challenge!  Over the past month, I have gained 4-5 lbs after maintaining within a couple pounds of my original goal weight for the past year.  My jeans are fitting a little snugger and I feel icky after eating too much holiday junk, so I know it is time for a CHANGE! :) I'm very much looking forward to how much better I will feel in 6 weeks!  I want to rebuild these healthy habits, and I'll plan to (hopefully) post about my progress along the way.

If you'd like to come up with your own challenge but need some inspiration, here are a few sites to check out: 

• 40 day fitness challenge from Smartter Each Day
• 8 week weight loss/get healthy challenge with free printables from Six Sisters' Stuff (I've done this one a couple times, and it is great!)
• Sugar Detox Challenge (this is an ebook for Kindle, available for $2.99)
• 42 Days to Fit (another Kindle ebook with a 6 week challenge, available for $4.99)
• Crystal at Money Saving Mom also just mentioned that she will be blogging the 12 Months to a Healthier You challenge; she'll post more about it in 2 days, so I'll try to remember to update this post then with the link!  UPDATE: Here's the link!

I started this post earlier, then helped Jim shovel the deck.  I have decided that if we have a lot of snow this winter (which seems like it will be the case, judging from how much we've got so far!), I'll definitely get some extra workouts with shoveling.  Whew!  And it's so cold out that I think that burned off some extra calories, too. :)

**This post contains Amazon affiliate links. :)