November Countdown Challenge - 10 ways I will improve my life this month and beyond

I recently saw this post by @sorgintxo on Instagram, it really inspired me to make a bit of a plan to make some positive changes and goals to stick to. Most of these are things I was previously doing but have got a bit lazy and lax with. So anyway this is my plan:

10,000 steps per day

something I have no problem achieving on active days, I normally average about 13000 steps per day. On my active rest days, I am usually between 6-8000 steps, so this is something I want to improve on.

90 minutes of strength training per week

I recently had a couple of back issues so had to ditch the strength training again for a couple of weeks, now I am back fighting-fit I want to get back to having at least 3 x 30 min sessions per week.

8 glasses of water per day

I have been feeling under the weather and I know I should have been hydrating better, I normally aim to drink at least a 1.5 litre bottle of water at work, which I haven't been doing, so I am aiming to get back to that and another half litre of fluids over the course of the day.

7 hours of sleep per night

This has been one of the biggest challenges I have faced when I have been trying to lose weight - being well rested. I have zero discipline/self-control when I am tired. My sleep has been a lot better since I started taking magnesium supplements.

60 minute limit of television on weekday nights.

The cold long nights are back in and it's only too easy to go into hibernation with a blanket on the sofa and binge watch all the great tv series that are out over Autumn & Winter. So I am setting a limit of 60 minutes of sitting on the sofa watching TV. I may be a bit flexible with this, as I don't always sit whilst watching TV, for example when I am cooking, ironing, etc BUT I am definitely not going to be sitting on my butt all evening.

5 minutes minimum of yoga or stretching daily.

My recent back problems were most likely a result of not looking after myself properly, I sit at a computer Mon-Fri and was regularly doing yoga before to keep my previous back issues at bay to improve flexibility and mobility. So now I need to get back to it so it doesn't happen again.

40 minutes of electronic free relaxation before sleep.

I have gotten into a terrible habit of playing with my phone about an hour before going to sleep and my sleep time has been slipping further and further. I started out going to sleep around 11pm but have recently been as late as 1am. So it's back to a book or my kindle (the original version has no backlight) to help me switch off.

3 meals on weekdays + snacks

Meal timing and frequencies are a highly individualised preference for weight loss, it's whatever helps us manage our calorie intake, for me I've found over the last couple of weeks that not eating breakfast in work makes me crazy for snacks or bigger lunches for the rest of the day. So I am back to my weekday weetabix.

2 meals on weekends + snacks

Just like skipping breakfast on a weekday doesn't work for me, I find having brunch on a weekend rather than a separate breakfast and lunch helps me to manage my calorie intake for my more indulgent weekends, so I have a bit more room for eating out or having a pint or a couple of glasses of wine.

1 week of maintaining my average calorie deficit

I look at my calories over the week and have been eating at maintenance a lot recently, I have increased my calorie allowance a little (an extra 150 calories) as I have not yet reduced my deficit since I lost the first half of my goal.

I am going to add a challenge page to my site to keep track of my progress. You can find it here.

What will your countdown challenge be? Leave me your ideas in the comments section