2015: The Year of Resolutions?

It’s inevitable. The ball drops, we kiss each other and the calendar flips to a new year. Without fail, my mind begins contemplating what I would ideally like to accomplish in the next 12 months. But here’s the catch: I don’t typically believe in New Year’s resolutions. If you want to change something, I think you should dive into the deep end of the pool and begin your new path immediately. Why wait? Why does January 1 have a perpetual grasp as the impetus of change?

Ironically, this year has been different. 2014 was one of the best years of my life. I traveled abroad multiple times; Will and I got engaged; my little sister got married to a fantastic man; my freelance career progressed and my blog continues to grow; I experienced ridiculous outdoor adventures; and our family business is flourishing. My loved ones are happy and I have an amazing support system in all walks of my life. Truly, I couldn’t ask for more.

But there is always room to grow and I’ve been thinking about a few ways for me to work on self-improvement. Some of my ideas are personal and don’t belong on this site. Others are just plain boring and not something I feel like including in the realm of outdoor adventure and fitness {hello, paying off student loans!} However, there are a few health goals that I’ve targeted for 2015:

Get My Eating in Order

I don’t write a food blog but truthfully, this has gradually become a critical element of my life these days, and not just because I need calories to survive. The way food reacts with my asthma is absurd and I’m making a concerted effort to dial in my eating habits in order to improve my lungs….and quality of life. As I wrote about last month, I won’t die when I eat certain foods; rather, my breathing just gets crazy, I cough a lot, my throat drains, and I develop blisters in my mouth. Even more, with the holiday binge known as sugar for days, I’ve noticed that it also causes my skin to go crazy with breakouts. Definitely not my favorite.

As a result, Will and I are attempting to clean up our diet and eliminate all the foods which seem to adversely react with my suffering lungs. When Whole Foods and Garmin approached me about a partnership, it seemed ideal. I’m desperately in need of clean food right now and Whole Foods offers that up.

More so, I need to continue dialing in my nutrition while I run. Some of the tried-and-true ultra foods exacerbate my inflammation like crazy. And some of my absolutely favorite trail foods are becoming no-no due to my immediate and extreme reactions. Potato chips? I wish. Quesadillas? Only if I want to clear mucous from my throat for a solid 30 minutes. And my beloved Honey Stinger waffles? Love them but they are getting weaned out. This whole process has been annoying and frustrating but it needs to get done.

Move More

This is a different goal for me than the majority of America because I exercise plenty. I always get five workouts in per week and they are never less than an hour with some of the outdoor excursions stretching into 8-10 hour days. However, since Garmin sent me their vívofit, it’s been interesting to watch the regularity of my movement outside of exercise.

As I gain more and more freelance writing assignments, I spend more time at my computer. And when we are in season for work, my job has largely become personnel and HR and designs and client communication. All of this also takes place at a laptop. In short? I have become falsely confident in my level of activity. I know I exercise plenty so I assumed I get enough movement in. However, the vívofit has a feature that tells you when you’ve been sitting for too long, and I’m already slightly embarrassed at how often it starts flashing at me! It’s also been eye-opening to see how many steps I gather during a morning of writing. Some days, it has been abysmally low. It can’t be good for my body to remain sedentary for such long periods of time, so I’m hoping to use this new device as a reminder to move in the middle of my long writing sessions.

Finish the 50k With a Smile

Antelope Canyon is growing closer and every day thrusts my nerves up just a tad! For awhile, I was supremely confident in my abilities to finish all 34 miles. However, as my training days disappear from the calendar, my confidence diminishes a little. I still know I can finish the race, but I’d really like to finish it happy, with a smile, and not deep within the confines of a pain cave!

I think moving more on the daily will help with this, as will sorting out my food stuffs. However, I need to get more back-to-back long runs in during the month of January, and I need to enact this plan now. The holidays are over and there really isn’t that much time left. If I don’t want Heidi to drag my ass through that course, I need to continue training to ensure I finish it under my own esteem!

100k in Elevation Gain

After this post went alive, I immediately thought of another goal I’d like to add on for 2015: I’d like to climb 100k feet in elevation gain! This is a lofty goal, but I totally think it can be done with all of the hiking, backpacking and trail running we do. The downside is that I will need to wear a GPS on all of my activities in order to precisely track this, but I think I’m willing to give it a shot. 100k in 2015!

To Be Continued…

I have a few other adventure-related goals for the year, and one large one in particular. However, some of them focus on wedding adventures and honeymoon journeys, so they need to stay under wraps for the time being. Suffice to say, the above resolutions will help to accomplish even bigger obstacles in the coming months. Stay tuned!

This post is sponsored by Garmin and Whole Foods Market as part of their #PathtoFit program. The views and opinions expressed above are my own. As part of this project, I’ll be writing weekly over the next six weeks on the above goals. If you want to join in on the fun, use the above hashtag on social media to share your upcoming goals!

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Do you believe in resolutions? What’s your biggest goal for 2015?