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It’s the beginning of a new year and although we can start creating healthy habits at any time it just seems easier in January when most of the people around us are focusing on creating new habits too. It’s like an instant support group!

I have several goals I’m working on this year:

1. Eating more veggies

2. Exercising at least 30 minutes 5 days a week

3. Reading more books

4. Focusing on family time

5. Read my Bible every day

I’ve managed to eat vegetables just about every day; I’ve only missed one day. We’ve been eating a lot of greens. Kale. Collard greens. Mustard greens. Brussel sprouts. Tomatillos. Tomatoes. Bell peppers.

I’m ready for some different veggies now though.

Quick! Send me your easy veggie recipes!

Since I teach fitness classes 3 days a week at my local YMCA you would think that getting at least 30 minutes of exercise 5 days a week wouldn’t be that hard.

But…I haven’t done it yet!

I AM working out and teaching my classes, but it doesn’t all count as exercise on my fitness tracker.

According to my January tracker from my Apple Watch I have closed my 30 minute exercise ring 8 times (out of 19 days). Whomp whomp! If I was meeting my goal I would have at least 15 of those exercise rings closed.

However, those little green circles aren’t easy to close! My heart rate has to get up high enough for my exercise to count as exercise for me and that’s getting harder to do as my aerobic threshold increases. LOL the benefit/downfall of teaching fitness?

I’m doing okay on reading more books. I’ve just about completed the audiobook of Jen Sincero’s You Are a Badass. I’m listening to it for free through my local library using the Libby app. It’s not “family friendly” because Jen drops some F-bombs along the way, so I’m listening to it while I’m alone either at home or in my car. If you aren’t terribly offended by the few random F-bombs she’s got lots of good advice on taking care of yourself and making some personal progress in your life.

You can download the Libby app here to listen to audiobooks or read digital books.

I am also slowly working through the book I received at my Professional Mind-Body Medicine training back in December.

It’s Unstuck by James Gordon. Other than just being busy and having to make myself slow down to read the book has been interesting!

So many of us will deal or have dealt with depression at some time during our lives. I cannot wait to keep reading and learning how to help myself and others understand depression and how to get ourselves “unstuck.”

I feel like I’m doing better on focusing on family time, although I still feel like there just aren’t enough hours in the day.

I have limited my time on social media sites using the Screen Time feature on my iPhone. The first time I looked at the Screen Time feature (about 8 weeks ago) I had spent 14 hours on social media in 7 days!!!

That was two hours a day on Facebook and/or Instagram!

I was shocked!

I’ve been using the Screen Time feature to set limits on myself and each week I’ve been dwindling it down.

It works great for monitoring any of your apps that you use on your phone, not just social media.

Currently I have dwindled my screen time down to about an hour and a half a day for both Facebook and Instagram. I know that still seems WAY too high to me, but I also see how often I’m using Facebook for getting information or communicating with people from church.

So far I’m doing well on reading my Bible daily. I’ve only missed one day and the day I missed reading my Bible was so busy I didn’t even realized I hadn’t read it. I doubled up the next day to stay on track.

I’m trying to complete the Bible in One Year on the Youversion Bible app. You can find the Youversion app here and the plan here.