The diet is going well, too. I think I’m probably eating a little bit more since Kristen got back. We’re cooking a good bit, so I don’t have perfectly-portioned meals every night. I’m definitely still dieting, though, so I’m not too worried about it, as long as the fat keeps coming off.

That’s pretty much all I’ve got as far as getting healthy goes.

The more I work on my budget, the more sure I am that I can set good goals and reach them. However, I’m also learning the difference between good goals and unrealistic goals. It’s looking like my initial savings goals are going to be a bit too far reaching. I can still save a good bit, but not as much as I’d initially hoped. Of course, the amount I can save will go up after the student loans are gone, but that will be at least 3 years, I’m pretty certain.

—

I love running. That’s still the official party line. I tell myself this over and over again when I run. I say it in my head while I’m huffing from the exertion. And it seems to be helping. I ran 2 miles total tonight, including 1 straight mile with no breaks, 2 quarter miles, and 1 half mile. Counting the warmup, cooldown, and breaks in between runs, I also walked another mile, covering 3 miles total again tonight. Progress is going quite well.

The whole watching what I eat thing is going well, too, I suppose. It’s less fun to cut back on calories, but I’m convinced it’s a necessary evil. I need to lose the pudge I’ve picked up, and the fastest way to do that is to diet and exercise. It seems to be working, which is good. I’ve lost a bit of weight, and I think I’m starting to see the fat thinning. It’s too soon to really see much, though. I’ve still got a bit to lose. Hopefully in another month I’ll be pretty close to my target fitness. After that I might consider lifting weights again. One thing at a time for now, though.

1. The bank will not cash 29 savings bonds at closing time.

   As part of my whole financial improvement resolution, I plan to cash all my savings bonds and deposit them into my recently opened money market account. I’m pretty sure that I’ll be getting better interest there than I will with the money tied up in bonds. I took them all to my bank today about 15 minutes before closing, and they basically said, “no, I’m not going to do these now.” Fair enough. I should have gotten there earlier.

2. I love running.

   That’s what I’m telling myself, at least. I was supposed to run yesterday, but didn’t, so I made myself go run today. It was the first time in a long time. Turns out that no, I’m not magically still in good shape after being sedentary for the last year. However, I did cover three full miles, including time spent both running and walking.

   Since I just started, I did a warm up, a cool down, and in between those two, I did 8 sets of a 2 minute run followed by a 2 minute walk. Next time I run, I’ll push myself a bit harder. Either I’ll shorten the walks, or increase the length of the runs, or both.

3. Skipping dinner is not an appropriate way to get in shape.

   I did that yesterday, kind of on accident. I pretty much just completely forgot about dinner until it was about 9:30, and by then it was almost bedtime. I thought about eating something, but I wasn’t actually hungry, so I figured it’d be better to just skip it than shove down a bunch of calories right before bed. Bad idea. This morning I felt terrible. My blood sugar must have completely bottomed out. I was shaky and weak. So I ate one of those breakfast bar things. It was actually pretty good, I assume primarily because I was starving. It helped a little, but not enough, so I had a snack at work. And my lunch was too big.

   Skipping dinner last night encouraged me to eat poorly all day. I ended up cutting my dinner down quite a bit to kind of restore order. But I definitely had a dinner tonight.

4. Bonus: WordPress hates me.

   WordPress simply would not let me edit this post to look the way I wanted. It kept taking my perfectly normal code and perverting it. I actually completely changed the style because WordPress was fiddling with the source even if I used the direct HTML editor. Even with all my tweaking, I had to edit this post half a dozen times to get it to display correctly. WordPress also managed to add the lovely <strong /> tag, which isn’t even a real tag (which caused it to screw up the rest of my blog).

1. Get in shape. I’m going to start running again. I’m not going to pretend that I’m going to start running every day. I’m just going to set aside the time to run about 30 minutes twice a week.
2. Get in shape, financially. I don’t really carry any credit card debt anymore, but I still have financial issues I need to work on. I spend more than I should, and I intend to get better at following a budget. I don’t want to track every penny, so I probably won’t, but I will make two payments per month on my student loans, and put a bit of money into savings every month as well. I’m also going to spend some time every month with my credit card and checking account statements and figure out where my money went. I’m not interested in being penny-exact, but hopefully seeing where it went will help me to refine my expenses.
3. Do something constructive. I want to do something constructive this year. I’m not sure exactly what yet, but I don’t feel that my time outside work is typically spent in the most constructive manner. I want to pick up some kind of side project that will be beneficial to me, to others, or both.

Do you have any resolutions?