2016 Goals Part II: Pushing Forward on Health

My 2016 goals aren’t written in order of importance, but instead, written in order of coherence.  Basically, the things I can articulate reasonable are the things I’m writing about first.

I had some pretty solid workout / health goals for 2015, and I failed to meet them.  Now, that’s not to say I didn’t improve.  I did.  In fact, for a while, I was going pretty good.

Problem is, I keep having issues with injuries (two bad shoulders means I have to be extremely careful what I’m doing), and towards the end of 2015, I caught a cold or virus, and took a break for that to get over with.  Though, I aggravated the situation considerably:  I had gotten to the point I was vaping all the time, and might have a cigarette or two per week.  Basically, down to being a social smoker.  About the same time I developed a cold, someone stressed me the hell out about finances, and well… I started smoking again.  (There’s also an association, I think:  I seem to have an easier time sticking with vaping when I work out consistently.  I can’t say why I think the association exists, or even if it does, but my belief in it is there… 😉

Now, that’s not to say 2015’s health goals were a complete fail – far from it.  I bought a new belt in July – I had reached the last usable notch in the previous belt.  Then at one point in September, I was already down to the fourth notch on the belt (I started at the first, duh), and could put it on the last notch (but, I felt it was still a little too tight.)  I’m on the third notch of that same belt at the moment – yeah, I gained some back.  Overall, though, it was a win:  I don’t need the much larger belt from earlier in the year, and I’m not in danger of ending up on the first notch of this one again anytime soon.

I like the idea that while I might not have gotten where I wanted to, I’m still much better of than I was.  Plus, I haven’t lost any strength in 2015 – I gained it.

For 2016, I’m going to keep pushing forward with this.  Lose more weight, gain more strength, get close to a flat stomach (I still really want to achieve 6-pack abs for a short bit, just to say I’ve done it.)  I’ll be starting in on the workouts again here shortly.

There’s also a couple of other health things.  I still haven’t gotten new glasses – the last ones were stolen out of my car (along with an iPhone cable, and they seem to have gotten interrupted before taking the stereo.  Somehow the glasses were a priority for them, I guess.).  Need to fix that.  Need to get health insurance (yes, I’m still without), which is expensive.  I still need to get my teeth fixed (I shudder to think how expensive this is going to really be).  And, I need to make a habit of checking in with my doctor that I spend $50 / mo. on more often (I still haven’t had this piece of pre-cancerous tissue looked at again.  I had two spots frozen – one worked, the other didn’t.)

But, there’s something that bugs me:  my feet are cold quite frequently, even when it’s not cold out.  That can be a sign of heart issues down the line.  I’ve been checked before, and everything came out fine, but I want to move towards some preventative maintenance.  In general, I’m fairly healthy.  I’d like to keep it that way, and improve upon it. 🙂  (And, here’s hoping that in 2016, I really do see 6-pack abs 😉