Woke up new.

I didn't really mean to start something and so quickly discard it. I do that so often now, don't I? I do have at least one good excuse:

My little niece was born! Clara Mae is adorable upon adorable. And she also lives in Vallejo, which is at minimum a 30-minute drive and can max out at 2 hours. You know traffic, it can be quite lovely and unpredictable! I've spent the last week or so going back and forth, making food for the parents and cuddling the little one. Holding her is completely awesome.

I also recently watched "Julie and Julia" and got a little inspired. I'm not sure if Julie (the modern girl blogger) is a person that lots of people relate to, but I certainly do. Her whole thing of starting things and not finishing them? Ahem...cough, cough. That's pretty much been my M.O. since graduating college. So I thought, what could I do? I could use a project like that. I thought of a few things and this is what I settled on:

Cat's Living Healthy Part Deux Challenge

1. Exercise Every Day for One Year. Okay. That sounds a little crazy and weird, right? I mean, it's smart to take recovery days, especially when you're training for something. But what I really mean by this is to work-out/exercise 4 to 5 days each week, but require myself to do something else active on the other 2 to 3 days. For example, go on a long city bike-ride, take Stella for a 2-mile walk. You know, something that doesn't involve drinking wine on my couch :)
   
2. Only Social Drinking. I realize that I may be airing too much of my dirty laundry on the internets (even though no one is reading this), but honestly it's been a bad year. I've had bad luck piled upon feeling bad for myself piled on top of well, you get the idea!  I've drank my weight and then some in beer and red wine. So here's the rule:  no drinking alone at home and no more than 3 drinks when I'm out, unless it's a seriously SPECIAL OCCASION. Like, perhaps my 29th birthday next May? Eick! I am going to commit to this for a whole year as well. It's obviously for the best for my mental health and also to help decrease my calorie intake.
   
3. Food Log. I am going to wait to start this until January 1st (let's be honest, it will be painful over the next two weeks). And I'm going to commit to doing this for 3 months. So January 1st - March 31st, I will be logging my eats on here:  www.nu4you.net

Oh and one more thing:  I am going to blog about it! I need some motivation, I need some accountability and I also want to track my progress in visual and written form.

To that end, here we are. It is December 21st. I completed 3.75 miles on the elliptical machine at the gym today. I've been policing my eats. And we are off!