My 101 in 1001: the process and health + fitness goals

If you know me personally, then you’ll know - I always have a list of goals I want to achieve so writing my 101 in 1001 list only took 1/2 day vs what others will tell you it will take

The process to create the list was simple:

• establish the main categories I want to use to set my goals (health + fitness, marriage, finances etc)
• think about how I feel about each one and the changes I would want to make, new habits I’d like to create, things I’d love to learn and things I want to avoid doing (for example, a lot of people have lists of movies they want to watch but that’s one thing I want to avoid)
• write a list of goals for each one category based on my interest, time + energy capacity, commitment and the eventual probability
• the final step was identify which goals were short, medium and long-term. This gave me a clear idea of whether they were achievable as there’s no point having a list that is completely unrealistic

This is my made up process to creating my own list after researching what others have done. I am yet to find someone who has completely all 101 goals in 1001 days. The closest I saw was a blogger who completed 80 goals which is pretty close

I’m going to be honest and say that I don’t expect myself to complete all 101 goals. To complete all of them, I’d need to tick one off every 10-days or so. There’s two on my list that in particular feel a bit out of stretch but I guess that’s the point of this adventure

Anyways, here is my list of my health + fitness goals

Start date: Friday 1st January 2022

End date: Saturday 28th September 2024

Short term goals: goals that don’t need a lot of time, energy or financial investment and can be done relatively quickly (38 goals in total)

Medium term goals: goals that need some commitment or require some planning + commitment to complete (32 goals in total)

Long term goals: goals that need a lot of time, energy or financial investment + require planning + commitment (31 goals in total)

Health + Fitness (/10)

Continue working on my mental health, get physically fit, improve my menstrual cycle and PCOS symptoms by focusing on healthy eating habits, exercise + better lifestyle choices

• Go vegan for 3-months (medium-term goal)

I was vegan for 6-months in 2014/5 after I had a bad bought of candida in my gut due to antibiotic over-usage and found it really beneficial. While my digestive problems are not as worst as they were, I do want to go back to eating vegan to see what impact it would have on my hormonal health

• Completely cut out gluten for good (long-term goal)

I’ve been working with a nutritionist the last couple of months and we’ve been trying to figure out whether I’m intolerant to gluten or a particular enzyme in wheat that causes a lot of my sensitivities

Unfortunately, as I only have minor reactions (bloating, eczema, inflammation) as opposed to a more severe reaction, I’ve been lax from indulging from time-to-time but it’s a habit I need to change permanently

• Create monthly meal plans + stick to it for 3-months (medium-term goal)

I’ve been creating monthly meal plans for the last 2-months using Gousto’s cookbook meals and it’s going well but I’m not 100% sticking to it

I love cooking especially after a long day at work and not having to worry about what we are eating has been amazing so I need to get back into the habit of doing this regularly and being more consistent

• Work out with a personal trainer to get back into a routine (medium-term goal)

I signed up to work with a personal trainer in the gym in our building but the guy was a bit shit. He just seemed so flaky and kept rescheduling our appointments which meant that I had no consistency in my workouts

When we did have a session together, he would push me so hard that it would take me a minimum of a week to bounce back

It’s been a nearly 4-months since I’m been to the gym as I injured my left knee and the recovery has been taking longer than expected

He has now left so I’m looking forward to getting a new trainer and getting back into a routine

• Have 6-months pain + symptom free periods (long-term goal)

I won’t go into a lot of detail about this but my periods are awful. There’s months where I can’t get off the sofa because I’m in so much pain and have zero energy

I spent September and October focusing on trauma healing, breathwork and meditation and managed to regulate my body to the point that I had normal, symptom free periods so that is my goal again

• Lose 12 kgs (long-term goal)

I want to lose about 12 kgs which is not only my optimal weight from a BMI stand point (yes, I know it’s BS) but also when I felt healthy and energetic in my body

Unfortunately, one of the frustrations with PCOS is that it’s not as easy to leave weight as someone who doesn’t have the syndrome

• Eat regularly to control blood sugar levels (medium-term goal)

Working with the nutritionist this year has been fantastic as she also has PCOS and has helped me understand the syndrome better than the doctor can

Essentially, PCOS is a metabolic disorder and in my case, I have developed insulin resistance so my body doesn’t necessarily process insulin the way it should do

To improve my symptoms, I need to control my blood sugar levels (similar to a diabetic) and make sure that I need regularly to avoid any further complications

• Recover from knee injury (long-term goal)

I can’t believe I’m writing this as one of my 101 goals. It’s been 3-months since I injured my left knee and I still have no idea what happened

The only thing I can think of is I hurt an old injury from my car accident in 2009 when I started working with the new PT earlier in the year

I’m waiting to hear from a consultant about my MRI results to see whether I need surgery and then I can go from there

• Do a full arm handstand with no help (long-term goal)

I have zero upper body strength especially as all my favourite sports growing up were leg heavy (running, football etc). Lack of training plus being heavier than I should be means that I’ve never done a handstand, even against the wall so this is going to be a fun challenge

• Get my teeth fixed (long-term goal)

The irony is not lost on me that I married a dentist’s son lol. I don’t actually know what getting my teeth fixed means right now but I imagine I’ll need some type of braces to get my teeth inline as I have a massive overbite and a missing tooth that is throwing everything out

I’ll be sharing updates on how many I’ve completed ever 100 days and writing detailed recaps on individual goals every Sunday, come back to see how things are progressing