June

So, it's the end of the month. I definitely feel better. I want to look at my goals individually and talk about how I did and any goals for the future.

Exercise, I definitely exercised more. I run all the time and although my knees hurt, no pain, no gain. My body strength is improving and I feel good about my body. After I get up to a 5k, I plan to train for a half marathon and maybe someday a full marathon.

Eat more greens, I tried and failed on this one. But Rome wasn't built in a day, and not everything I want to fulfill will happen in a month. Like I said, there are ups and downs and this was clearly a down. I don't really like vegetables but I'm still going to try to eat more in upcoming months.

Keep a food diary, I did pretty well on this. I started with an actual diary and then I started tracking on MapMyRun (an awesome app if you have a smartphone). I did better on MapMyRun because I wasn't obligated to log it right then and there and look up the calories. Also, it gave me a budget of calories for the day I had to stay within the limits of and they count carbs, protiens, and fats.

Get more protein, I definitely did this. Most days I went a few grams over my protein, so I think that's an accomplishment, going from almost none to over my daily limit.

Cut back on the carbs, this was hard because carbs are in everything and I'm a carbaholic. Most days I kept within my carb limits and maybe went over, but even though I wasn't always under, I'm proud of myself for just accomplishing not being over by more than 100

Drink more water, this was another one I totally succeeded on. I am now up to three times the amount of water I was drinking before, definitely an accomplishment. I'm not up to the suggested daily amount but someday I will be.

Thanks for reading, tomorrow I'll post about my July goals.
Mackenzie

Bad News

Hey everyone,

I have some bad news. I pushed myself a little too hard and I have injured my knee. It's not a big deal, I should be okay in a week or so, but this is a great time to work on my upper body strength. I'll keep you updated on the injury and I'll work on that upper body strength.
But on the brightside, I had field day today with the 6th graders I'm working with. It was hot, hot, hot outside but we played hard and won almost every event. Even though I wasn't putting all my effort in I still worked up a sweat and got some exercise in for the day.

Thanks for your support!
Mackenzie

Camping

Hey everyone!

Sorry I've been M.I.A. for a few days but I was camping. It was a beautiful weekend for camping (I left Wednesday night) and the only time it rained was last night. Everyday I went running, swimming, or both. Running was difficult because the terrain was rough, but swimming was nice and I definitely worked on my upper body strength. The only bad thing was that I didn't monitor my eating and ate a lot of junk food. When I say a lot I mean A LOT! But this week, I am getting back on track. I have the app MapMyRun and there is a component that tracks your nutrition and calorie intake/calories burned. I'm going to utilize this all week to get back on track. I also got a new bathing suit top today so maybe that will motivate be to eat better. I only have a week left but I'm going to work my hardest to accomplish all my goals. On the 30th, I will give a review of my month and how I felt my happiness increased and how I feel overall.

Talk to you soon,
Mackenzie

My thoughts

Not all of my posts are positive, and there's a reason for that. I feel that in order to be happy you have to have failure as well, and I don't think it's fair to my readers to only be shown the success. I think that you guys should be exposed to everything that happens during my happiness project whether it's positive or negative. Generally, I'm a happy person and a lot of good things happen to me, but I do fail sometimes. Although, it's going to be hard for me to admit my failure, in the end it will make me a happier, honest person. Failing is just as much a part of life as success is, and as Amos Bronson Alcott said, "We climb to heaven most often on the ruins of our cherished plans, finding our failures were successes."

I want to thank you all in advance for reading my blog and watching me succeed and fail.
Mackenzie

Father's Day

I kept my promise and did not run today. Although, I didn't eat too healthy today either. Tomorrow I'm going grocery shopping and I will get more healthy things to eat. On a positive note, I'm drinking more than twice the amount of water than I have before.

Just thought you would want my almost daily update,
Mackenzie

Bad Girl

Hey everyone,

When I said that I wasn't going to run yesterday, I lied again, sorry. I really wasn't going to run but running makes me feel great. I also went running today and there was an exciting story line today. I won't run tomorrow since it's Father's Day and I have to work. Sunday might end up being my real day of rest for running forever. On Monday, I will have finished week 2 of workouts but I've only been running for a week.

I've been very faithful with my food diary, which is surprising for me. I'm not very good with keeping track of things. I've kind of been estimating calories per meal, when I don't have nutrition facts. But these last two days I haven't been very good with eating healthy. I ate an ice cream cookie sandwich and a pack of Scooter Pies yesterday. Today I had a lot of french fries. I'm going to try even harder to stay on track.

If you have any suggestions for healthy foods I should try or how to stay on track, leave me a comment.

Be back soon!
Mackenzie

Day of Rest

Although the Zombie app told me to take a few days off, I ran yesterday. They finally let me out of the "gates" and at the end I was being followed by a "zomb", what an exciting run, although I'm sure it will get more exciting the next run, and this time I'll listen them when the say take a day off of running. So, today is my day of rest and tomorrow I'll start running again. I haven't had time to get any almond butter but I have been keeping a food diary. This really keeps me aware of what I'm putting in to my body and I can compare day to day. On Monday, I'll go get some almond butter and maybe some almond milk. Anyone know if that has protein? If not I need to get some sort of calcium anyway.

Thanks for reading,
Mackenzie

Carb Overload

So I have a tendency to eat a lot of carbs and someone pointed out to me that that's a resolution I should add into my month of health. In the little amount of time left in the month here are my goals:

Exercise
Eat more greens
Keep a food diary
Get more protein
Cut back on the carbs
And a last minute add on...Drink more water

I have started exercising and keeping a food journal. I'm going to go out and get some almond butter later, and also try to have some kind of protein with each meal.

Thanks for the suggestion!
Mackenzie

Day two

Good morning everyone!

So already the exercise has me feeling great! I had so much more energy last night than usual, and although my muscles were in pain, it was the good kind of pain. Whenever my app tells me to take a few days off I find myself feeling a little sad, but it makes for great cross-training days, and I wouldn't want to push myself too much within the first week. Since the app told me to take a few days off, I think I might try to get more protein in my diet and start keeping a food journal. I think almond butter might be a good start. Any other suggestions for how to get more protein in a vegetarian diet and/or any type of cross-training exercises you want to suggest, I'm open to any, so please leave your ideas!

Thank you!
Mackenzie

Hello everyone!

Hey everyone!

So I told my reading blog, after reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, I would start my own Happiness Project blog. I know I started a little late in the month (and the year) but I have already decided and started upholding my resolutions for the month of June. My overall resolution for June is My Health. I have a few mini resolutions to uphold during this month. The first one is to start running. I am not an athletic person at all but I would love to at least run. My last few resolutions have to do with eating. One is to keep a food diary, similarly to what Gretchen Rubin did. And ultimately, watch what I eat. Also, I want to make sure I get more greens into my diet, and since I'm a vegetarian, more protein. Right now, I'm just going to start with the running, because it's a lot to start all at once (and I've already started my running). I downloaded this app called Zombies, Run! 5k, and it is awesome. It definitely keeps me motivated to run because I have a story line to go with it.

I'm hoping to post every few days, if not everyday so keep checking back!
Mackenzie