HabitForge, My New Gold Star System?!

This Past Week's Results

The scale reads: 148 lbs. Goal: 127 lbs.

Reaching-for-the-Gold Goals
I thought I was maintaining a cool 146 lbs. Nope, I gained some weight. On a different, brighter note, the fitness highlights of this past week were:

1. Clocking in at least 10 minutes of physical activity on 3 days of the week
2. Reaching 15k steps on a single day

I'm slowly easing my way back to fitness gold.

Habits
After all the glory of fulfilling the PALA challenge, I did not keep up with the walking. I was hoping the challenge instilled the habit of walking at least 8k steps for 5 days out of the week to help me maintain weight. Nope, once the gold star system was out of sight and out of mind, the weight was out of bounds once again. Although I was successful in reaching my goal of completing the program, I can officially file PALA under the "(Mis)Adventure" category in the developing healthy habits aspect of the endeavor.

Did you really make it a habit?

I am guessing PALA did not work in making walking at least 8k steps a day a daily habit because I did not hold myself accountable for each day. There are conflicting numbers out there on the number of consecutive days it takes to establish a habit. However, due to the setup of HabitForge, I should will successfully cement a habit in 21 days. HabitForge does not use gold stars, but it has a vexing ring of unfilled circles (which resembles a package of birth control) that is begging you to fill 'er up.

What I like about HabitForge is that it doesn't give up on you if you fail to establish the daily habit. If you miss a day, the clock resets itself to "Day 1" and makes you try the 21-day endeavor all over again to really drill this habit into your daily routine. If you decide to put this habit on hold, it won't go easy on you and let you resume where you left off. Your history will be deleted and you really have to invest the effort in doing it for 21 consecutive days.

It's time to be a big girl and make it count daily. There's no shame. My progress is shared publicly to hold myself accountable.

PALA: Completed

Last Month's Results

The scale reads: 145 lbs. Goal: 127 lbs.

I can't believe 8 weeks has passed already! Look what I have accomplished within that time:

I've earned the Presidential Active Lifestyle Award!

See, I earned myself some golden stars!

I could've technically had 7 shiny, golden badges of accomplishment, but I had forgotten to keep track of my steps while I was in Southern CA (The first week of the challenge). I think I actually did more walking during that trip compared to the last 7 weeks of this endeavor. I guess it was silly of me to initiate the challenge before going on the trip.

Regardless, I'm content with the results because:

• I was able to reach my goal.
• I was dedicated to this endeavor and a positive result came of it.
• I got the award electronically. I wasn't going to dish out 6 buckos and some change to get the paper one with stickers and a badge.
• There were many stressful periods during the weeks, but I walked off most of the anxiety (as you can see with the completed stars).
• I was able to tackle this challenge while starting a new full-time position and a new school term.
• I have greater motivation to be more active from this experience because it was actually too easy to accomplish.
• I did not gain weight. I'm still at the mid-140 range, but this will change once I adapt to the my new daily work routine and can incorporate more exercise into my day. It's a wonder how I can get over 4000 steps in a single work day!