I’ll be posting monthly check-ins on my 2023 Goals. This is check-in #7!

Take care of my health

Ha, can you tell I forgot to take my individual photos this month?!

As expected, with all my travel, I didn’t have a weight loss this month – I had a .8% gain. I’m down 19.9% for the year.

I’m not upset. That’s not bad at all, considering how far out of my routine I was in July. Go me!

I was overeating on these trips, but only one instance was to use food in a self soothing way. The rest was just having fun, living my best vacay life. And the strangest thing happened when I got back – I didn’t want to keep eating that way! I was eager and ready to get back to my normal diet! That makes me feel really hopeful that I am making permanent changes. Woo hoo!

I had some exciting non-scale victories in July:

• A lot of my favorite tops became too big and I didn’t have a much to wear (okay, this was actually annoying, but… progress)
• I went up and down the stairs a ton packing for all these trips and had ZERO knee pain! This caused me knee pain before I lost weight.

This was a great workout month. I did a ton of long runs and long bike rides and rode RAGBRAI with my dad and snis. I increased my strength training a bit (until I was gone so much). And I took a complete rest day the day after RAGBRAI – no walking or anything. I felt really good and strong all month!

I had one therapy appointment in July, and have one scheduled for this week. I don’t have a ton on my list to talk about, so that’s a good sign!

Spend less
(mostly tracking my two vices – sending packages and getting Starbucks)

I mailed 1 package ($15.09) – a bunch of yarn I was not going to use to a friend who would use it. Let’s celebrate this victory because there are a lot of August birthdays I will be sending presents out for.

January: $248.76
February: $81
March: $72.54
April: $44.40
May: $37.37
June: $99.47
July: $15.09
Total: $598.63

Last Year: $1,740

I went to Starbucks three times – Steven and I shared an iced chai on July 2, my snis bought drinks for me, Val, and Tiff on the way into Guttenberg on July 19 (thank you snis!), and I got my free birthday drink on July 31.

I received some Starbucks gift cards for my birthday, so I don’t think I’ll spend any more of my money there this year. Yay! (And thank you, friends!)

Continue to purge things I don’t use from the house

I threw out a sentimental pair of running shoes (and Steven’s old slippers, shh). These are the shoes I ran my marathon PR in in 2015. And they’ve just been sitting in our basement for no good reason.

It’s not like they could ever be used again! Look at how worn out they are!

As previously mentioned, I got rid of a bunch of yarn on July 3rd.

And we spent time on July 4th going through Steven’s closet (and mine again!) and getting rid of a lot of old things (both trash and donating). Hmm, I can’t remember when I took all that to Goodwill but know I did because it’s not here anymore. Hmm.

And I threw out one more pair of shoes July 31 for good measure.

Visit a new state with Steven

Still the plan! I need to discuss visiting New Hampshire with Val (and our husbands) when I see her this month.

Hide a rock a day for the year

Still on track!