TWENTY-TEN - Call to ACTION!

I love the sound of the coming new year - TWENTY-TEN. It sounds decisive, powerful, capable, strong. Two thousand ten...not so much. 2010 is going to be good. I've said that many times already, mostly in comments on others' blogs, and I honestly feel it. Optimistic. Hopeful. Certain and deliberate. Intentional. Yet another piece of good stuff I heard at an AA meeting once was "it's okay to look at the past, but you don't have to stare." I take that to mean that while we can learn from our mistakes and successes in the past, that ain't where we live our lives, and it can be counterproductive to look back too much. It can be easy to get hung up on where we didn't do so well, what went wrong, how we wished we'd been different. On this last day of aught 09 (and in the days preceding) I've reflected a bit on the last year, but more on the one coming and how I want to proceed and continue living my life and striving to be the best Leslie I can.

When I first started blogging in June, I kept seeing blog talk about the Hot 100 challenge, and didn't really know "whaddup wi'dat". I 'spose I could've found out by clicking on someone's link to it, but never did - allowing myself to feel out of the loop, which was a common default setting of mine some years back, and a great excuse to not show up fully for whatever I might allege to be interested in taking on.

Not anymore. I'm in on the ground floor of the Perfect 10 Challenge by South Beach Steve that you can read about here. This is a ten week challenge beginning January 1, 2010, and will be an excellent tool for helping me get back on track with weight loss, exercise, and continuing the journey to my best self. (God, I sound like Oprah=])

I'm going to list my goals below, but before I do, I have to note that a huge goal of mine for 2010 is to get more literate with computer skills that will help me to tighten up my blog a bit. For example, I didn't know how to do a hyperlink until 3 minutes ago, when I Googled how to do it, wasn't able to figure it out, and so had my daughter spoon feed me through it. And now I can (assuming the above link works)! Not a Perfect 10 goal, but the first success of my broader Desires and Goals for 2010 otherwise known as RESOLUTIONS, were I not totally opposed to the term after a lifetime of unresolved resolutions. I'm psyched that I can hyperlink, now. Truth be told, until an hour ago I didn't know the term for that clever little maneuver all of you slipped into countless posts...I only knew I couldn't do whatever the hell it was. Yaaay me! How much better will it feel to get to goal weight, which is gonna happen this year. Mark my word and read my goals for Perfect 10 . Oops, I did it again!

My goals are:

1. Lose 20 pounds by the end of the challenge. This is a 2 pound a week loss, which at my current over-weight is absolutely realistic and achievable.

2. Do minimum of 30 minutes of cardio daily 6 times a week. Due to my knee recovery, I'm not entirely sure when I'll be able to actually power or treadmill walk or use the elliptical trainer again for any substantial period of time, but I know I can use a stationary bike (within PT stated parameters) at the very least for the accomplishment of this goal. When I'm at my peak, I'd ordinarily do 45 minutes to an hour, or even longer if I'm walking the loop at Ridley Creek State Park which is my favorite form of exercise. If I can do that during this challenge, great. But I'm setting the 30 minute goal to be realistic given my current circumstances.

3. Spend at least 15 minutes 5 days a week (or more - unlikely) sitting quietly with no noise, tv, music, or other distraction. Just sitting, and if the spirit moves - meditating. Focusing on my breathing. I put this in because I'm a total noise/activity/music/tv junkie, and I'm aware that I stay in a hyper inner state in my mind as a result. This can result in me feeling chaotic, which will ultimately make me more vulnerable to giving in to cravings or binge-ing thoughts. I strongly desire more peace - from within as well as from outside. This can't happen if I don't program in just a small amount of quiet time each day. If I do more than 15 minutes - great. It will be challenge enough for me to just do the minimum of 15 for 5 days each week. Eventually I'd like to establish a regular meditation practice, and have actually worked on that at times. But my inner "agita" (south Philly term) always gets in the way eventually.

4. Write down my food each day. I've pledged this a thousand times, and have started out strong and then petered out. I believe I can do this for 10 weeks, and if I don't need it after that - fine. But for ten weeks I will do it. When I've done it in the past for a few days, it's been helpful.

5. I will weigh and post my weekly weight on Fridays during this challenge. I may weigh inbetween, but always will on the Fridays for my official reporting. I will start this tomorrow - January 1. Every Friday I will do a Perfect 10 update.

Those are the only goals for me. I wrote recently about how I've basically sucked at keeping my stated goals in the past. I don't want that to continue. I love the idea of weekly accountability, and pledge to follow through. What more can I say? I'm really grateful to Steve for putting out this challenge at this time. I need it to spur me back into ACTION, which was what I talked about in my post yesterday. Talk's cheap. Goal setting is easy. Follow through is a little harder and requires ACTION.

I don't mean to be getting all linky on you guys, but me loves my new skill! I hope they work, because if not I'll have to go back to the drawing board, or at least Blogger 101. I have to remember when I didn't even know how to use a digital camera, much less post pictures. All of that I learned since starting this blog. So there's hope. If you find my links lead nowhere, let me know and though I'll be &%$#@#%'d off, I'll deal with it and figure it out.

I hope everyone has a safe, sane and reasonable New Year's Eve - and even more, a HAPPY NEW YEAR. Please be careful and don't party too hard. And STAY PUT if you do!!