Because I LOVE making lists, I have a 2015 to-do list. As months have passed by, I kinda forgot all about that list... until today. Sam posted this on Facebook. (Now, I know I'm not thirty yet, but it's never to early to start right?) That post made me remember about this 2015 to-do list that I had for myself. My personal goals.

This year, one of my goals was to weigh 150 pounds. (This about to get reeeeeally personal.) October 2014, I weighed 163 pounds. I didn't like myself. I didn't like my body. I felt fat. I felt unhappy. I wasn't being good to it. I had the YOLO diet... every. single. day. So I decided to start making changes.

Eat (a little) better. Exercise more. You know, be the best version of myself that I can be. I wanted to make a change and I was determined to do so.



One of the things I was determined to get better at was my mile time. When I started running (if you could even call it that), my mile on the treadmill was 16 minutes. Yep. My absolute best was going four miles an hour. Although that's not terrible... I knew in my heart that that time was not my absolute best. I can do better. I'm 26 and I'm healthy. I can do better.

I started walking, jogging, and running. More and more each week. Thanks to inspirational people in my life like my sister Liel, my sister-friend Sam, and my godfather Joe, I was doing it. I chipped away at my mile time every month. And like everything, with practice, I got better.

My personal goal was to run a mile in 10 minutes. Prior to Christmas 2014, I was a few seconds over that. I told myself, oh that's good enough... right? And I was okay with that for awhile, but then, I told myself NO! I was going to come in at 10 minutes or less. This meant that I had to run at at least 6 miles an hour for a steady ten minutes. For me, it wasn't easy, but I just kept working at it. After seven months, as of this week, my best mile time is nine minutes and thirty one seconds!

Now, back to my weight. eek. I know they say that the weighing scale is the devil, but personally, I refuse to believe that. For me, it's motivation. Now, before you get CRAZY on me, I KNOW that my worth is not tied to my weight. I just want to be better. I want to feel good about the skin that I'm in. And I KNEW that I wasn't doing the best that I could. If I was doing my absolute best, and weighed 163 pounds, then that'd be okay. But I was barely exercising and eating whatever I wanted, which is not good for me. It's being the best me. So yes, the weighing scale is my motivation.

Like I said, in 2015, I wanted to weigh 150 pounds. After seven months of making little to big changes in my ways, after exercise and making A LOT better choices for most of my meals, (80/20 life, am I right? because everyone knows I'm a foodie.) I now weigh... 143 pounds on a weight lifting day and 141.8 after a cardio day!

Since I know weight will always fluctuate, I don't get crazy when there's a two, even three, pound loss or gain. I don't beat myself up and I don't dwell on it. I weigh in on my RunKeeper app and MyFitnessPal app once a week, and see how my progress is going, and I just try to keep doing better for the sake of being the best me. Now the whole "body by summer" doesn't hurt either, but like all things, it takes time. And progress is progress. I don't down it, but I just keep moving forward. (It prevents me from being stagnant and complacent.)

First weight goal? Check. First running goal? Check.

Second weight goal? 135 pounds and toned. How am I planning on doing that? A combination of cardio, high intensity interval training (HIIT), weight lifting, and pilates. I know some weeks are better than others, (if you have me on RunKeeper, you can see that.) but the best I can do it try and no matter what, to keep trying.

Second running goal? Endurance. I want to be able to run more than two miles without feeling like I'm going to die. My best two-mile time to date is about 23.5 minutes. That's an average of 11.75 per mile. But I've never even tried to run past 2.25 miles. I just burn out. So endurance is my next running goal.

After this weekend, I have seven months left until I turn 27. I want to make the next seven months count. (There's nothing wrong with being a fine wine right? lol.)

So here's to achieving more goals and getting better with age.
-Gardenia Rose