Week 1: 30 Minutes of Activity Everyday

Well here we are, it's finally 2014! Today marks the official start to my 52 Things Challenge. I decided to start with a traditional New Year's Resolution: workout. That's right, being really original, huh? I figured I would make all of my January things health centered, giving me the best chance for the "health bug" in me to stick around. Hopefully this cold weather doesn't scare him off.

I bought an elliptical a few months ago, and after a few uses, it became just another dust catcher in my living room. This bad boy will start to see a lot of use in the next week GUARANTEED, and hopefully mild usage at a minimum in the near-to-extended future *fingers crossed*. I certainly won't be doing anything active outside as the forecast here in Iowa is looking a bit chilly (a HIGH of -4 on Monday, wtf?)

I already did my 30 minutes of activity on the elliptical earlier... and then ate some left over pizza - it was already purchased and was just going to go to waste, I couldn't let that happen! We can go ahead and blame New Year's Eve.. I had to get one last pizza out of the way before starting my challenge. To be completely honest, I was going to start this challenge off with a "no fast food" week, but decided that'd be cheating since I knew I would have left over pizza, so I decided that will be Week 2.

I really plan on holding steady to this plan and not cheating, not even a little bit! If I know myself, if I cheat a little, I'll cheat a lot - especially when it comes to food. You don't get to being 285 lbs by sticking to a healthy diet... To help start the year off right, I've joined several groups with a focus on activity and weight loss. One of those groups is through an initiative at work called Living Healthy. The group I joined has decided to track activity (the other option was weight loss) so we have a chance of winning prizes if our group is more active than the others. I figured this would be helpful since if I start slacking, my coworkers will get on my case. The other group I joined is a Biggest Loser type challenge a friend invited me to join. It is taking place over Facebook with a handful of friends of friends. With a $25 entry fee, that isn't nearly enough incentive to keep me interested if I go off track, but worst case scenario is my $25 goes to whoever is successful in losing the most weight.

Hopefully with all of these items set in motion, I can finally start shedding some pounds and start my year off with a bang. At a minimum I will update this blog once a week involving a recap of the previous week, and a summary of what the next week will entail, but if something exciting happens, I will post a mid-week update. Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a great 2014!