What exactly are my goals?

Why am I getting healthy?  Is there a reason?  What are my goals?

These are questions that I often find me asking myself.  The first two are super easy.  Why am I getting healthy?  Well, after having some medical problems, I realized that I needed to make some big changes.  Did anyone tell me to make these changes?  Nope, not at all.  Maybe they should have - but people can be so PC these days. I figure getting some weight off will help me that's for sure.  Really, more than that I want to feel good about myself.  I am pretty outgoing and I never have a problem making friends or meeting people.  My biggest problem is myself.  I am pretty hard on myself and feel that changing and starting a healthy lifestyle will be something to help me appreciate myself.  It's really amazing how a lot of people can think so highly of you or you can have a bunch of friends, but when it comes down to liking yourself you can fall short.  In fact, I have noticed how it has effected my life.  It also has begun to make some anxiety issues that I have come to the surface more often.  For instance, I don't like crowds or big groups of people.  I know this seems crazy with my job - but its different.  It hasn't really had any effect on that.  However, I can't go to places that have a lot of people.  For instance, we have a Walmart near our house, but this afternoon I wouldn't dream of going there.  Way too many people.  I don't like going to crowded places and will avoid them in fact.  I am hoping that just improving my overall health will start changing this.

The harder question to answer is about my goals.  I don't have a "number" goal or anything like that.  I just want to be more healthy.  It's important to me to reduce my weight - but I try not to set up too big of a goal because I know that will just frustrate me because of my nature to be an overachiever.  However, I have a lot of little goals.  Right now, I want to be able to walk further than I did this week (and will be adding an additional lap to my daily walks), I want to go down a size in my pants (although I am fitting in to a size smaller than I was before already), I want to continue to make healthy food choices (despite having Chipotle for lunch today).  Furthermore, I don't think I ever want to reach a "goal".  I want to make a lifestyle change.  I love the way I feel after a nice, brisk 2 mile walk.  I am so proud that I can make myself do that - I don't need someone to do it with me or make me do it.  My highlight of this week was that I knew I had to be out one night that I needed to make sure I walked so I got up early and did that.  Seriously, I wouldn't normally have done that.  Just getting out there and doing that on my own made me so proud.  I love how it feels to make a healthy food choice instead of falling back on unhealthy food choices.  I know that I will have days where I don't eat right or I over indulge.  It's life.  But what I have learned is that one bad meal doesn't mean the end of trying.  I just log it (like I do everyday) and keep going.  Luckily, I don't usually go over my calorie limit (even if I mess up) so I don't sweat it too much.

So what are your goals?  What spurred your decision to get healthy?

Now Playing - Hey Stephen - Taylor Swift (I'm in a kick!)
Dinner - Probably a salad again.  Or a 1/2 turkey, 1/2 ground beef burger.