Alright readers, my friend Liz and I have embarked upon challenging ourselves every month.  Our challenges vary, from improving the quality of our lives at home (cleaning), improving our palates (cooking) to the crap you’re supposed to do, but never seems to get done (procrastinating).

This month, I’m trying a triple-thread attempt, in the hopes that I’m not taking on too much and that trying to keep so many balls in the air, won’t result in splattered balls on a hard floor!

1. Exercising

Originally, my game plan was three hours of exercise per week and I got in to a routine doing that.  Three classes of Body Attack a week for the last few months is a pretty good achievement, and I’m proud of myself for making exercise a regular part of my life, (especially now that my heart rate monitor tells me I burn anywhere from 550 – 725 cals per class!) I’m feeling fitter, my heart rate is returning to normal faster and I’m all round, just a little more chipper and feeling mentally fitter as well.

However, I’ve decided that it’s time to push myself a little further and to increase the burn.  My new aim, is five hours of exercise per week, four hours of cardio (Body Attack, RPM, Water Aerobics) and one hour of toning/strengthening (Body Pump).

I’ve tried Body Pump twice now, and I’ve decided I like it.  It’s harder than I originally thought it’d be (there’s a few times when my arms are burning so much I think they’re going to snap off at the elbow), but I’ll get there.  I have to keep reminding myself that my first few classes of Attack, left me in a pool on the floor!

My only concern with Pump is that the place on the top of your back, where you rest the bar, is exactly on top of my disc/back injury and it gives me some discomfort.  Sally has suggested I put a folded towel along the top of my back to see if that eases the pain.

My only concern with four hours of cardio, is my calf injury.  It’s been injured since mid-July, if I strap my calf up like a mummy and do an Attack class every couple of days, it’s not so bad, I can take it.  However, if I do back to back Attack classes, then my calf screams like crazy.  For example, today I hurt due to my back to back Wednesday/Thursday Attack classes – it’s not fun.

The answer to that, then, I think, is to try for three hours of Attack per week and have one ‘swing’ class, a not-fixed class that I can do to provide some respite for my leg.  At the moment, my only option there is water Aerobics (which I used to do three times a week during my first year or more living here), but hopefully, after a trip to Academy sports for a gel bike seat cover, I’ll add some RPM to my rotation as well.

This is a big deal for me, I’ve gone from never exercising, to a regular three hours a week and increasing it by 75% again is going to be a tough challenge, but, I think I’m ready for it and I know I have my YMCA ‘trainers’ Sally, Jeni, Juli, Vicki and most recently Kirsten right behind me encouraging me every step of the way, (not to mention my cheerleading friends too!)

I’ll check back after four weeks of attempting this, hopefully I’ll hit December in a five hour a week swing and not look back! I’ve even scheduled five hours a week in my diary up until December 18th!

I have weighed in and Col will be taking measurements tonight, hopefully after a month, I’ll have at least changed shape a little!

Wish me luck!

2.  Back on ‘track’ with food

I’ve not fallen off the wagon per-say, but, I have been slacking a bit as far as tracking goes and, the last two months have seen a few too many unscheduled trips to various restaurants.

For this part of my challenge, I’m going back to menu planning (which also helps to save $ cause you only shop for the ingredients you NEED for the week) and to trying one new recipe a week – this has worked well for us in the past and has kept our meal times interesting so neither of us get bored and decide to go pick up a takeaway!

I now just need to make the time to sit down and make meal plans, I also need to take some time to pre-make dinners so they are in the freezer and ready to go.  Lately we’ve been so busy and out so much, that by the time we get home, it’s almost too late for dinner, we’re too exhausted to cook and then we just call something in, being prepared ahead of time is the key – I’ve always believed that, I just ebb and flow on that one!

As a result, I did a bit of a cook-in the other night, so have started a freezer stockpile!

Track, track, track!

I’ve become somewhat of a slacker on this bit, I do track regularly, but sometimes I don’t get the exact foods I’m eating, I guess-timate or whatever and I want to become better at tracking every bite.  I’ve logged in to Myfitnesspal now for 35 days running and I want to continue that good foundation and log all my food, every day!

3. How clean is your house?

My third and final self-set challenge for the month of November, is to get the house in some semblance of an order.  October was my downstairs challenge, and, in my defense, the lower level of our house was lovely in October, however, after the chaos of the last few weeks, it’s kind of gone to pot (aside from my lovely back hall progress!)

The problems with this task are never ending, firstly, our spare bedroom is currently a Christmas present haven, the place is coming down with little piles of presents for people, this is going to be difficult to ‘fix’ properly until January, but things like making the spare bed up, Col putting his ‘halloween costume’ hockey kit away etc are easily fixed.

My craft room/Col’s office hasn’t been re-set-up since Heather’s baby shower, as we said we’d keep it ‘dismantled’ until Thanksgiving when we’ll need the tables again, but that means the room is out of commission, and a like a bomb’s hit it.

Therefore, we both agreed (you know it must be royally peeving Col off if he agreed to change it!) that we’d buy two more folding tables from Walmart and have a semi permanent fixture up in the craft-office.  The tables were ordered this morning.

Our bedroom, I started on the other day, it just needs a polish, dust and a tidy…and, since Col has commandeered the TV from our room for F1, I now need to figure out how to get it back!!!

Both bathrooms upstairs need a good clean and we need some furniture for downstairs to get the piles of things off the floor (where a unit ‘would’ go, if we found the time, cash and inclination to brave an Ikea trip).

I’m going to do what I can, but November is most definitely the month that the McMaster abode is getting a deep clean!!

What are your November challenges?