Setting Long-Term Goals

I will start off by admitting that I did manage to fulfill my 30-day challenge. We had an unexpected trip out of town right and then having visitors stay with us a few days after that affected things more than I had anticipated! We are going to be gone camping soon, too, which will really make my Pain Free routine impossible!

I have, however, started thinking about long-term goals for myself. As in, what I would like to accomplish in the next year and how can I make sure I work on it. We are going to Hawaii next summer and I have some desires for my state of health and fitness by the time we leave:

• IT band problems gone or under control: This requires a commitment to Pain Free and yoga, as well as strengthening necessary muscles (like the glutes).
  
• Improved fitness: I know I need to work out specific goals for this but only have general ideas at the moment. I want to be able to hike a long time, run on the beach without feeling immediately winded and my daughter and I would like to learn to surf, if possible, which means the IT band problems above need to be taken care of, but I'd also like to explore what other kinds of exercise would be helpful. I'm thinking things at the moment like running 5K as a goal and a certain number of crunches or burpees or something.
  
• New bathing suit: This is a combined goal because I want my new bathing suit to be a smaller size :), which means not only improved fitness, but getting a handle on my food and food sensitivities and lose these extra pounds once and for all. Target? 10 lbs minimum to a maximum weight loss of 15 lbs. This is another area where I need to have specific goals, or perhaps actions, to work on. Things like raw food intake and perhaps even having a look at how many calories I'm actually consuming in a day! My ideal goal would be that 80-90% of the time, I'm eating as healthily as I can with vegan, whole foods, and that portion being mostly raw fruits and vegetables. Doing this will also help my environmental allergies, which means I will feel pretty much allergy-free.

In essence, I want to look great and more importantly, feel great. I would actually prefer to be IT band problem-free and be stronger and more fit than I would to still be in the same fitness shape but 10 lbs lighter! I want to be able to do things.

The big question is how to make sure I monitor my progress. And what am I monitoring? I might have to figure this out as I go along because if I have to figure it all out first, I might never get started!

At the moment, though, we appear to have a leak somewhere. Could be plumbing, could be roof. In The Sims 3, there is an option of using points to make your house fireproof; I wish there were a way to make realy houses leakproof!