Goals 2020 - Final Update
Well, this was a weird year, which had a big impact on my resolutions, as seen in my one prior update.
1. Stay Small And Healthy
I was concerned about this when CrossFit was shut down in March. They did reopen in the summer with a number of changes for safety, but I opted not to return anyway, which I still feel was the right choice. Fortunately, all that biking I did made up from it both from a weight perspective and from the health numbers perspective.
As far my weight goes, I was consistently between 200 and 205 pounds up until mid-December when biking shut down and am at 208 this morning. For other numbers, my health screening a few weeks ago showed that my A1C dropped again to 5.5, the fourth consecutive a year it has gone down at least a little bit. Weirdly, my fasting blood sugar is still not great, but the A1C is more important and is in the right range and continues to trend better. The statin they put me on in January dropped my HDL dramatically. My LDL is still terrible despite fish oil pills and a concerted effort to eat more fish, but it's still a big step in the right direction, cholesterol-wise.
I've definitely lost some muscle tone in places that aren't worked as much by biking, but that's the worst thing I can say about my year in this regard.
Grade: A-.
I will not eat food at work that I did not bring to work.
Well, this only mattered through March 13. Since I had to bring all my stuff home, I have my notes and can now tell you that I ate the following food at work in that interval:
- I bought lunch once.
- I bought three slices of pizza over 2.5 months
- I had my coworker Sarah's "cheesecake nuggets" which she served like chicken strips.
- My long-time boss Dan brought in cupcakes for his retirement.
- My coworker Rob makes cookies for two specific holidays, one of which is Casimir Pulaski Day.
- I had a store-bought Paczki for Fat Tuesday, although I don't recall which coworker brought it in.
- As mentioned in my last update, when they sent us home I had two cups of peanut M&Ms, which were the only peanut M&Ms I had at work all year. Special circumstances.
That actually averages out to about break per week, which isn't great. On the other hand, it wasn't a problem after March 13, and only two of those items were store bought.
Grade: C+ before March 13, irrelevant thereafter.
I will not eat store bought desserts. Exception: if I just donated platelets, I can have snacks at the canteen immediately afterward.
Well, at work there was only the Paczki and the Peanut M&Ms mentioned above.
M, who doesn't much like sugar and who rarely orders dessert, dealt with pandemic stress by getting frozen pies for most of the summer, which I definitely enjoyed. Plus there were Cliffs Bars and Pop Tarts that M bought early in the pandemic, which I ended up eating as biking food but which are definitely desserts by any rational accounting.
There was also a whole category that I had not previously considered of store bought desserts that were bought primarily to be used as ingredients in homemade desserts we made. For example, we bought peppermint bark so that M could make a cookie recipe and we used some of the remainder in a home made ice cream, but some were eaten on their own. Ditto for a bag of gingersnaps used with pumpkin dip, or for that matter a bag of chocolate chips used for cookies.
I also drank a lot of Coke in Orlando. I drank a little at home, mostly as alcohol mixers, but for the most part once we ran out of booze we didn't restock it so aside from a little wine for cooking I've mostly not touched alcohol this year.
We also had wedding cupcakes and a wedding Oreo ice cream cake.
Grade: B- feels about right. We made far more desserts than we bought, and other than the frozen pies most of the desserts we bought were used as ingredients rather than eaten directly.
I will not eat restaurant desserts except ice cream. However, I can’t have ice cream from the same location twice in the year.
Grade: A+. This was actually working really well form a restaurant perspective through March 13. Hilariously, we've now made more ice cream this year than we bought.
2. Eating Out
For 2020, I will eat out no more than once a week when not traveling.
Drinks (not food) at concerts or baseball is fine.
The first meal with friends each week does not count against the once a week limit. Subsequent meals do.
Well, that was easy. I was actually doing really well on this through mid-March. There was one " twice in a week resolution breaker" but even that was because we were getting our kitchen painted and had nowhere to cook.
Grade: A before March 13, irrelevant thereafter.
3. Donate More to Charity
I will make at least one charitable donation of at least $X each month.
I made three arts donations to end the year, but that's it unless you count some political donations, which I don't think I do. Those arts donations keep this from being an utter failure, but it wasn't even as good as last year's attempt. I could try to hand wave this by saying M lost her job and nobody knows what the economy will be doing, but that seems like a weak justification. Clearly I need to figure out a system to make this work better.
Grade: D-.
2020 Summary
A-, C+/Irrelevant, B-, A+, A/Irrelevant, D-. Given everything else going on this year, it's actually pretty satisfying that I didn't just eat my emotions for the last nine months.
Do I get extra credit for doing one of my 2019 Resolutions this year? I think I do.
The Ghost of Resolutions Past
Looking back at resolutions from years past, what has stuck?
- Everything from my 2018 declutter resolution plus the items I added in 2019 was completed in 2020. That's great!
- I haven't eaten red meat in 2020.
- Given the pandemic, I didn't make any progress on my bucket lists for travel or music. I did make a ton of progress on the last iteration of the house bucket list, and before everything shut down I did knock off the single highest item on my restaurant list.
- Like many people, I baked a lot of bread in 2020, including my first challah.
- As noted, I've sent birthday cards to everyone I know four of the five last years, and I'm all set for 2021.
- I didn't complete any Shakespeare this year. I did read quite a few of the sonnets, but I just couldn't focus enough to get through a play.
- I wouldn't say that I've 100% stopped chewing my nails, but I'd say I'm about 95% stopped. Not driving anywhere helps, weirdly, as does not being at the office.
1. Stay Small And Healthy
I was concerned about this when CrossFit was shut down in March. They did reopen in the summer with a number of changes for safety, but I opted not to return anyway, which I still feel was the right choice. Fortunately, all that biking I did made up from it both from a weight perspective and from the health numbers perspective.
As far my weight goes, I was consistently between 200 and 205 pounds up until mid-December when biking shut down and am at 208 this morning. For other numbers, my health screening a few weeks ago showed that my A1C dropped again to 5.5, the fourth consecutive a year it has gone down at least a little bit. Weirdly, my fasting blood sugar is still not great, but the A1C is more important and is in the right range and continues to trend better. The statin they put me on in January dropped my HDL dramatically. My LDL is still terrible despite fish oil pills and a concerted effort to eat more fish, but it's still a big step in the right direction, cholesterol-wise.
I've definitely lost some muscle tone in places that aren't worked as much by biking, but that's the worst thing I can say about my year in this regard.
Grade: A-.
I will not eat food at work that I did not bring to work.
Well, this only mattered through March 13. Since I had to bring all my stuff home, I have my notes and can now tell you that I ate the following food at work in that interval:
- I bought lunch once.
- I bought three slices of pizza over 2.5 months
- I had my coworker Sarah's "cheesecake nuggets" which she served like chicken strips.
- My long-time boss Dan brought in cupcakes for his retirement.
- My coworker Rob makes cookies for two specific holidays, one of which is Casimir Pulaski Day.
- I had a store-bought Paczki for Fat Tuesday, although I don't recall which coworker brought it in.
- As mentioned in my last update, when they sent us home I had two cups of peanut M&Ms, which were the only peanut M&Ms I had at work all year. Special circumstances.
That actually averages out to about break per week, which isn't great. On the other hand, it wasn't a problem after March 13, and only two of those items were store bought.
Grade: C+ before March 13, irrelevant thereafter.
I will not eat store bought desserts. Exception: if I just donated platelets, I can have snacks at the canteen immediately afterward.
Well, at work there was only the Paczki and the Peanut M&Ms mentioned above.
M, who doesn't much like sugar and who rarely orders dessert, dealt with pandemic stress by getting frozen pies for most of the summer, which I definitely enjoyed. Plus there were Cliffs Bars and Pop Tarts that M bought early in the pandemic, which I ended up eating as biking food but which are definitely desserts by any rational accounting.
There was also a whole category that I had not previously considered of store bought desserts that were bought primarily to be used as ingredients in homemade desserts we made. For example, we bought peppermint bark so that M could make a cookie recipe and we used some of the remainder in a home made ice cream, but some were eaten on their own. Ditto for a bag of gingersnaps used with pumpkin dip, or for that matter a bag of chocolate chips used for cookies.
I also drank a lot of Coke in Orlando. I drank a little at home, mostly as alcohol mixers, but for the most part once we ran out of booze we didn't restock it so aside from a little wine for cooking I've mostly not touched alcohol this year.
We also had wedding cupcakes and a wedding Oreo ice cream cake.
Grade: B- feels about right. We made far more desserts than we bought, and other than the frozen pies most of the desserts we bought were used as ingredients rather than eaten directly.
I will not eat restaurant desserts except ice cream. However, I can’t have ice cream from the same location twice in the year.
Grade: A+. This was actually working really well form a restaurant perspective through March 13. Hilariously, we've now made more ice cream this year than we bought.
2. Eating Out
For 2020, I will eat out no more than once a week when not traveling.
Drinks (not food) at concerts or baseball is fine.
The first meal with friends each week does not count against the once a week limit. Subsequent meals do.
Well, that was easy. I was actually doing really well on this through mid-March. There was one " twice in a week resolution breaker" but even that was because we were getting our kitchen painted and had nowhere to cook.
Grade: A before March 13, irrelevant thereafter.
3. Donate More to Charity
I will make at least one charitable donation of at least $X each month.
I made three arts donations to end the year, but that's it unless you count some political donations, which I don't think I do. Those arts donations keep this from being an utter failure, but it wasn't even as good as last year's attempt. I could try to hand wave this by saying M lost her job and nobody knows what the economy will be doing, but that seems like a weak justification. Clearly I need to figure out a system to make this work better.
Grade: D-.
2020 Summary
A-, C+/Irrelevant, B-, A+, A/Irrelevant, D-. Given everything else going on this year, it's actually pretty satisfying that I didn't just eat my emotions for the last nine months.
Do I get extra credit for doing one of my 2019 Resolutions this year? I think I do.
The Ghost of Resolutions Past
Looking back at resolutions from years past, what has stuck?
- Everything from my 2018 declutter resolution plus the items I added in 2019 was completed in 2020. That's great!
- I haven't eaten red meat in 2020.
- Given the pandemic, I didn't make any progress on my bucket lists for travel or music. I did make a ton of progress on the last iteration of the house bucket list, and before everything shut down I did knock off the single highest item on my restaurant list.
- Like many people, I baked a lot of bread in 2020, including my first challah.
- As noted, I've sent birthday cards to everyone I know four of the five last years, and I'm all set for 2021.
- I didn't complete any Shakespeare this year. I did read quite a few of the sonnets, but I just couldn't focus enough to get through a play.
- I wouldn't say that I've 100% stopped chewing my nails, but I'd say I'm about 95% stopped. Not driving anywhere helps, weirdly, as does not being at the office.