New year, new challenges

Well, I realised that I have gone over a year without writing on this blog. What a lazy ass for someone writing about health and fitness! As most people will know, the writing may have stopped but the activities never did. I have been doing pole, body pump and running throughout the year and am so much stronger and fitter than ever before. I love doing all my activities and am really happy with where I am but I still have aims and improvements I want to make.

So I decided to make specific fitness and nutrition resolutions for 2015. Here are my fitness resolutions: 

• ·         Get my handspring move at Pole Fitness
• ·         Pass my beginner pole instructor course
• ·         Get to the point where I can hold a handstand
• ·         Improve my splits and flexibility
• ·         Improve my lower abs

Now, I have a head start on most of these. Get my handspring move at pole. I have done my handspring move but I am not at all confident in it and I want to be able to do without hesitation - this is sort of what it would look like but I got into the move a different way: 

Pass my beginner pole instructor course. With the course, I am almost there! I need to finish up my coursework but mostly I need to teach a class and record it in January otherwise I have to pay to do the course again. PRESSURE!

Get to the point where I can hold a handstand. Last year I did ‘Handstand February’ and got to the point where I could hold a handstand for about a second or two. I can’t do that with any confidence now so I have decided to not just do it in February but keep trying every month. This is the end of last February and the best I managed free standing:

Improve my splits and flexibility. Well I am lucky enough to have a good start with flexibility. I can do the splits already but they aren’t fluid and are quite stiff so I want to improve that and I also want to improve my box splits. In addition. I want to be able to get my leg vertical – definitely a challenge.

Improve my lower abs. Now people might throw things at me and call me stupid for this one (please don't) but I have put it in there, not because I think I am fat, but because I think it is based on nutrition as well as exercise. I have always struggled with that area of my abdominals. You can see my top two, and sometimes my top four abs, but you can’t see six. Even though I don’t want to be overly muscley, I would like to see the effects of all the work I do on my abs as well as the rest of my body.

So, nutrition wise:

• ·         Seriously cut down on any dairy produce, especially during the week
• ·         Limit the amount of processed food I eat
• ·         Start taking protein shakes again

Nutrition is a big one for me and I always struggle with it and I definitely suffer for it. Not just because of the abs thing I mentioned above but because I have IBS – like most people probably have! It is the most frustrating thing to get told you have because that’s it; you don’t really get any help after that. I have had tests and everything comes back fine and yet I suffer still. Off my own back I have taken allergy tests, cut wheat out of my diet (for 6 weeks with no change in my symptoms), cut cucumber and broccoli out and now am noticing that dairy is a big contributor to my problems. 

But it isn’t just food, it is emotions. Unfortunately I am a very emotional person so if I get upset or nervous I get tummy pain. That is something that is hard to control so because my stomach is affected by both emotions and nutrition I have decided to focus my efforts to improve on the thing I can control - what goes into my body. That is my aim this year.

So there it is; they are my fitness and nutrition goals for this year. Very short and sweet! I am just hoping that by posting this it will make sure I do them – I hope my pride doesn't let me quit!

Happy New Year everyone. 

For me, it is important that 2015 be a better year so… bring it on!