Happy New Year 2012

I've been trying to live a healthier lifestyle lately,

so this year my New Year's Resolutions for 2012 reflect that. 

Here they are:

1. Maintain weight

2. Cook 5x a week (or more)

3. Make sure to drink 8 glasses of water every day

4. Workout 5x a week

5. Run a 10k

6. Run another mud run

7. Make more time for Nick

I feel like if I have them on record here, it'll be harder for me to break them!

Nick & I decided to start to the new year off right by going back on the 17 Day Diet to shed those few extra holiday pounds. One of my major downfalls when I try to get healthy is not wanting to prepare a meal. So Sunday, I went to the grocery store & bought about 25 lbs of chicken breast. I trimmed all the fat off the chicken & then I put 3 breasts in a freezer ziploc bag & dumped a bottle of bbq sauce or marinade on top.

 I had enough chicken for 12 bags! So I have 12 of our first 17 days already taken care of! Each morning, I'm taking a bag of chicken out of the freezer, defrosting it & it's ready to throw in the oven or on the grill in the evening. The other 5 days we'll probably have fish (like we did last night.) Today is Day 4 & I've already lost those 3 lbs I had gained over Christmas! I really don't want to lose any additional weight so I'm only going to do the first 17 days as sort of a cleanser & then I'll go back to maintaining.

As most couples do, Nick & I get caught up in work, the kids, cooking & cleaning & everything else that goes along with being a family & sometimes find that we hardly see or speak to each other throughout the day. So that's why I made a resolution to spend more time together. I saw something on Pinterest that I thought was really cool. A wife made up an envelope for each month of the year & inside it held a little note that told what her & her husband would do on a date that month. I loved this idea so I made it for Nick & I for 2012. I made a list of ideas & wrote down something for each month.  And then Addy decorated the envelopes for me. For January, she drew a cake, party hats & balloons for a New Year's party.

There are a few dinner & a movie dates (January's date), but there are also a few other things that will take us into downtown Houston or maybe even out of town. I 'm not going to reveal the dates just yet because Nick only knows the one for January so far. I'll keep you all updated on here though as we go on our monthly dates. (This doesn't mean we can't go on more dates throughout the month, I just want to make sure that we DO go on AT LEAST ONE MONTHLY!!!)

Running a 10K & a mud run should be no problem! The other resolutions, I'm afraid, might be a little harder to keep long term though. Working out & cooking 5 times a week, am I crazy? And 8 glasses of water EVERY day??? Well, I'm definitley going to try! I ordered a whiteboard calendar for my kitchen. I'm going to tally my cooking & working out for the week & my water every day on it. What I've been doing is drinking 2 bottles of water (which equals 4 glasses) before lunch & then I let myself have a diet dr pepper with lunch. Then I have the rest of the day to finish the other 2 water bottles. Four days in & I've drank all my water each day!

So there you have it... My resolutions to live a healthier 2012! What about you, what are some of your resolutions? Leave me a comment & let me know & maybe we can encourage each other to keep them!