Saturday, January 1, 2011

Looking back on 2010

I started this blog last January with a post about New Year's resolutions. I mentioned two of them on this blog - how I wanted to reach my goal weight and become a Weight Watchers Lifetime member, and how I wanted to eliminate artificial sweetener in my coffee...

One out of two ain't bad, right??

I used to take three sweeteners in my coffee.... gross!!! I can't imagine how much aspartame my poor body has had to deal with. But I'm very proud to announce that, in a relatively short amount of time, I was able to cut that number from three down to ZERO. So at least I met one health-related goal in 2010!

As for reaching my goal weight: Nope, not even close! I gained weight instead. But instead of dwelling on that fact, I will treat the new year as a fresh start (like I always do).

2010 was a year of changes, including some difficult ones. Some significant events that come to mind are:
  • Trying Booty Camp Fitness, joining the gym, and trying yoga. I'm still not in as much of a routine as I'd like to be, but I definitely put the tools in place to become a fitness machine!
  • Going through a difficult break-up & dating someone new for the first time in years.
  • My father suffering a fairly serious heart attack and being diagnosed with congestive heart failure (he is also a diabetic) - on the bright side, he has quit smoking. :)
  • A fairly stressful job interview process for a full-time teaching job - I didn't get the job, I'm still "just" a contract teacher, but I learned a lot from the interview, and was very proud of myself for getting one in the first place.
As is evident by my weight gain, eating is definitely my number one coping mechanism for stressful situations.

Over the past couple of months, I have also been doing a lot of knitting! I don't think I've mentioned it here on the blog, but I love knitting and fancy myself pretty good. ;) In fact, for my mom's birthday (right before Christmas), I knit her a milkweed shawl that I consider my best work ever. I didn't manage to get a good picture of it yet, but here it is during blocking (I soaked it in water and pinned it in the shape I wanted it to take):


Knitting is definitely something I want to do more of in 2011 - but I will talk about my aspirations for 2011 in a post tomorrow (yes, I'm planning two posts in two days... after a hiatus of over a month...)

So stay tuned for tomorrow's 2011 post, and have a lovely Saturday evening!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congratulations on kicking the aspartame, and that is a beautiful shawl! I look forward to reading about your aspirations.

Andy said...

Happy New Year Katie! I think quitting the aspartame is an AWESOME achievement. I'm still a splenda girl, but I'd like to eventually cut them out. Did you do it gradually?

Also: I totally didn't know you were a knitter! I also am -- working on a pair of fair isle mittens at the moment. We should totally have a knitting date some time! :)

Enz said...

That shawl is gorgeous!!
It has been a long time..hopefully we can all get together soon.

Katie said...

Chezjulie: Thank you so much!

Andrea: Thanks! Happy New Year to you, too! I did cut out the aspartame gradually... I think I cut out half or one pack every few weeks. Once I actually did it, it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Funnily enough, I'm working on some fair isle fingerless mitts right now!

Enz: Thank you! I hope we can all get together soon, too!