To the First Month of Happiness!

     It is here already. Today marks the start of my happiness project. As I sit here, I am nervous. I am excited. I am already a little overwhelmed.

     Research states that some of the happiest people are the ones that are healthy. Exercise has been shown to cure, or at least relieve some of the symptoms of depression, sleep apnea, poor sleep quality, and of course diabetes and heart problems. It has also been linked to lower stress, decreased heart rates, and lower risk of breast cancer. 

       As my happiness project goes on, much of it will purely be educating myself using books to read some of the research about why each aspect is so important. This month I will be reading The Exercise Cure, Lose Weight without Dieting, Drop Dead Healthy and maybe some other books.

• I am going to set up a great workout plan that I can actually stick to.
• I am going to spend time doing some research about getting a better nights sleep. 
• I am going to pass my PT test the 2nd weekend in April (Coming up sooo fast)
• I am going to start an awesome clean eating diet. With 2 cheat meals per week. This means for two meals a week I can have something that is processed, but the rest of it will be clean eating. It's only for a month, and who knows maybe I will like it. 
• I am going to do push ups and sit ups at least 3 times a day. (probably during study breaks, for 30 seconds at a time)
• I am going to get a pedometer and find someone to compete with for who can take the most steps in a day. This makes it a little more fun than just walking. Plus, I walk so much on campus that it isnt even funny.
• I am going to take the steps instead of the elevator unless I am carrying a ton of stuff (bags/ laundry basket upstairs)

     There. These are my goals. this is all the things I am going to be doing. I am also going to keep an excel spreadsheet of my resolutions to track which ones I keep regularly and which ones I struggle with so I can work on those more. I am going to print it out and put star stickers on it as a reward to myself, but also as a way to track the things that I am doing in order to make myself happy, but to see if it makes me happier or not. 

My goal is to post about once a week if not more to let everyone know how I am doing with my progress, but also how I am doing workout wise.

I started off my morning by arguing with myself to get out of bed at 7:10, but once I decided that I was going to weigh myself this morning, I was up and outta bed. I needed to figure out the damage that spring break had done to my weight loss. If you haven't read about my spring break you can do it here. You could see how that would easily ruin my weight loss progress.  We weren't getting a lot of sleep, and we were eating a lot of fast food. I was guessing that I had gained about 10 pounds over spring break.

This morning when I got on the scale, I was scared for the results. As the numbers flashed, I prayed that it wasn't as bad as I was thinking it was. When the numbers came up, I saw that I had lost 1.5 lbs. I was shocked. I was certain that I had gained a few, but instead I lost! 

11 days til my PT test! Woo!

Today, I made my check sheet to mark my resolutions and track how well I am doing with my resolutions.  I would say that so far today I am doing good. Half a day down. 29 and a half to go!!

If you have missed any of the other posts about my happiness project, you can read them all here.

Question for the day:
What is your favorite, non processed, healthy snack?

Let me know about your snack by sending me pictures, emailing me, or commenting on my blog post or link!

Thanks for reading!