Check-In Month 1 - Complete

Okay! So, for the most part I'd believe myself to have been fairly successful this go-around of trying to be healthier (at VERY least on the exercise side of things). Here is a list of improvements since June 28th through July 31st:

Goals:
Steps -- 10,000 per day
Miles -- 3.0 per day
Active Minutes -- 30 minutes per day

6/28 -- INACCURATE -- this was my first day with the FitBit, so I didn't start wearing it until about two or three o'clock in the afternoon.
Steps: 2,054
Miles: .94
Active Minutes: 0


6/29
Steps: 6,039
Miles: 2.66
Active Minutes: 0

6/30
Steps: 9,185
Miles: 3.94
Active Minutes: 38

7/1
Steps: 8,304
Miles: 3.66
Active Minutes: 36

7/2
Steps: 7,449
Miles: 3.27
Active Minutes: 30

7/3
Steps: 7,326
Miles: 3.1
Active Minutes: 8

7/4
Steps: 12,565
Miles: 5.49
Active Minutes: 49

7/5
Steps: 1,507
Miles: .64
Active Minutes: 0

7/6
Steps: 9,416
Miles: 4.3
Active Minutes: 26

7/7
Steps: 3,693
Miles: 1.56
Active Minutes: 0

7/8
Steps: 4,865
Miles: 2.06
Active Minutes: 0

7/9
Steps: 13,955
Miles: 5.91
Active Minutes: 69

7/10
Steps: 11,219
Miles: 4.88
Active Minutes: 84

7/11
Steps: 19,747
Miles: 8.36
Active Minutes: 167

7/12
Steps: 7,998
Miles: 3.38
Active Minutes: 50

7/13
Steps: 4,686
Miles: 1.98
Active Minutes: 0

7/14
Steps: 3,350
Miles: 1.42
Active Minutes: 0

7/15
Steps: 3,270
Miles: 1.38
Active Minutes: 0

7/16
Steps: 4,878
Miles: 2.06
Active Minutes: 0

7/17
Steps: 8,528
Miles: 3.66
Active Minutes: 47

7/18
Steps: 4,054
Miles: 1.75
Active Minutes: 12

7/19
Steps: 7,719
Miles: 3.32
Active Minutes: 38

7/20
Steps: 3,109
Miles: 1.32
Active Minutes: 0

7/21
Steps: 7,939
Miles: 3.56
Active Minutes: 27

7/22
Steps: 4,452
Miles: 1.88
Active Minutes: 0

7/23
Steps: 9.712
Miles: 4.11
Active Minutes: 49

7/24
Steps: 3,629
Miles:1.54
Active Minutes: 0

7/25
Steps: 7,638
Miles: 3.23
Active Minutes: 16

7/26
Steps: 5,335
Miles: 2.26
Active Minutes: 0

7/27 -- INACCURATE -- My FitBit stopped recording shortly into the day because I forgot to charge it that day. This was actually one of my HIGH activity days because I went to Zumba at Lifetime Fitness with a friend of mine. So these numbers are actually very off.
Steps: 2,535
Miles: 1.07
Active Minutes: 0

7/28
Steps: 2,725
Miles: 1.15
Active Minutes: 0

7/29
Steps: 4,044
Miles: 1.71
Active Minutes: 0

7/30
Steps: 9,463
Miles: 4
Active Minutes: 45

7/31
Steps: 2,288
Miles: .97
Active Minutes: 0

Sleep -- For those who don't know, dark blue means asleep, teal means "restless" and pink means awake.

So, as you can see, I haven't done fantastic. But because of a dramatic cutback in proportions, the additional fitness that I hadn't gotten in previous months, and additional/consistent sleep (usually about 7 hours) schedule, I actually just today hit below 160! So, that means I lost about 5 lbs in just over a month. It's a very slow and irritating process, but there are other successes throughout -- like today: the machine I like to run on at the gym is the Precor elliptical that looks like this:

This, in my opinion, is a very beautiful machine. They have it both at Lifetime Fitness and at the Wellness Center at my college. What it does is you change what level the ramp is at to change what muscles you're targeting (the lower the number, the lower down your body you go -- I like putting mine at either 5 or 6 because it targets all the muscles in the legs) and then you adjust the resistance. My accomplishment not only was that I was put the resistance up to 5 (up from 3 that I used previously cause I'm kind of wimpy), but I also was able to go for 30 whole minutes without needing to take a break! I'm usually about dead by the end of 20 minutes, so I was very proud of myself! This machine can tell you how many strides (steps) you've gone, how many strides you take per minute (average), and the distance you've gone. You can either have time count up or count down. You can adjust how long you'll work out using the up-down arrows on the upper-right part of the screen. You can put in your weight and age for a more accurate reading. It tells you how many calories you burn. It can also tell you your heart rate. It's all together a wonderful machine that I attribute much of my success to.

I should also mention as an after thought that 7/9-7/14 I was visiting my wonderful boyfriend. He is huge into going on walks (which I love), so that's why my numbers were so high because we like to go on long walks late at night. On top of that, we also like to walk around the nature park or Walmart (or, usually, both).