During January and February, having hit a slight stalemate in some areas of my life, I’m hoping things will pick up in March. As I’m noticing throughout the Spark community, people are taking time to reassess, begin anew, revamp and re-energize, all positive ways to start off any month! Now that I’ve reached one goal (weight loss), I must zero in on more specific ways to improve my exercise and eating.

First of all, I want to be better “organized” in my workouts and have a more effective exercise program. For instance, should I be doing all my strength training before cardio? I’ve read this on different threads and never gave it a second thought. Secondly, I want to take full advantage of weight resistance equipment at the gym, instead of my current 50% usage. Certain pieces of weight resistance equipment still intimidate me, so I need to get over that and just do it.

My ab workouts continue to be a very strong focus for me and I’m really proud of the progress I’ve made in this area by keeping up with crunching, some pilates and other core exercises. I can actually see some definition, which will give me a little extra confidence when beach weather rolls around. Woohoo!

Cardio will most likely stay the same, hitting the elliptical, treadmill and recumbent bike regularly, but upping the level of intensity. The activity that continues to elude me is running…until I figure out what the problem is with my right knee “giving out” off and on, I’m going to play it safe and continue walking my way to good health.

I also keep promising myself that I’ll take advantage of the pool at the Y and sign up for a water aerobics class or get into swimming laps, so we’ll see if this month I keep the promise! Whether or not I do, it’s nice to know that there are so many options available to anyone who wants to use the resources available.

In order to keep this journey interesting in the food department, I have recently pulled out various books that were purchased along the way…an old Weight Watcher’s Cookbook, a couple on South Beach Diet, Dean Ornish’s the Spectrum, Dr. Weil…not to mention bookmarking like crazy many Internet web sites for perusing at my leisure. Oh, and of course going through Sparkpeople’s expansive library of members’ recipes.

I finally tried quinoa after reading about it on another Sparker’s page and really liked it! Even got my DH and DD2 to enjoy it. There are many other food items that I want to open my eyes to. After almost a year of eating the same old same old (for the most part… I’m not a total bore in the kitchen; I have picked up many pointers since joining Spark), it’s time to liven up meal times and be more adventurous.

Just had a really wonderful revelation (it takes me a little longer to wake up and smell the coffee sometimes. LOL)!!! Reaching a goal does not mean reaching an END to anything. It just means finding a NEW STARTING POINT from which to branch out, making surprising discoveries about the person I am becoming, taking small detours to try fun and different things, but always staying the course to a healthier and better me.