New Year's resolution? Each and every year's resolution!

These days many people are talking about their New Year’s resolutions and focusing on self improvement. That’s great, and I wish everyone the best! I want this blog to be a place where people can encourage and motivate each other, so I’d love to see some positive comments about your own resolutions and also comments supporting others in their efforts.

Personally, I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. If you’ve read even a couple of my posts, you probably know that I’m constantly working on self-improvement – setting goals for myself, tracking my progress, and adjusting my goals when I get new information or experiences. It’s a continuous work in progress, so if I were to make New Year’s resolutions, they wouldn’t say anything different than what I’ve already been saying all along. So I guess I could say that my resolution for 2015 is to be MORE genki! I will work on eating healthier, discovering more clearly what foods are or are not good for my body, exercising more, spending my free time in enjoyable ways, reducing work stress, and being in a more positive frame of mind.

And on that note, time to get back in the habit of exercising regularly!

Last Friday evening I did a 30-minute workout that focused of abs while getting a maximum calorie burn, and the next morning I went running. I’m still not running as much as I did before getting shin splints last year, so even though I did 5 miles on Saturday morning, 40 minutes of it was running and 27 minutes was walking while doing arm raises with hand weights (alternating every 9-10 minutes).

After those two workouts, I was starting to feel pretty sore, but joined my friend’s martial arts class on Saturday evening anyway. He teaches Kaju Kenbo, which includes elements of various different styles of martial arts. His classes are always intense, leaving everyone exhausted and beat up, but happy. In this lesson we did a lot of striking drills and sparring. We also did this really awful toughening exercise which involved hitting our partner’s shins with our own shins. My shins are now black & blue and feel just like they did during the worst of my shin splints. As much as I loved everything else, I can do without ever doing that exercise again!

At the end of class we're dripping sweat, aching all over, and feeling amazing!

A quick note for anyone that reads this blog but doesn’t see my Facebook posts, I have some news to share. This year will be a year of change for me, as I am moving to California in April. (Read more about it here). It will be a challenge to stay on track with my goals when I am busy getting ready to move overseas in March, but that will also be the most important time to stay on track so that I feel energetic, not too stressed, and free of headaches & stomachaches! Then in April it will be really interesting to see how I adjust to eating a different assortment of food while still sticking to my food rules. I have a feeling it might actually be easier, given the greater variety available to choose from, but there will also be more temptations! So that’s something to look forward to in 2015.