December Sanity Challenge Wrap-up And A Monthly Recap

While I am all about easing into the New Year’s, I wanted to wrap up the December Sanity Challenge today and, since I did not do weekly recaps this month, I am starting with a monthly recap of what I did in my free time:

• 16 flow yoga classes
• 2 restorative yoga classes
• 8 elliptical sessions
• 1 zumba class – this was yesterday and I met a blog reader, which was very exciting!
• 2 long walks (2-3 mile walks) in addition to my normal walking commute
• Christmas Eve at home with dear husband
• Christmas day travel to see part of my husband’s family, return day after Christmas
• Christmas eve and day eats: Vegan Mushroom Stroganoff (amazing!), kale salad, a quinoa-buckwheat pilaf I will be sharing soon, a simple tahini dressing (which I will share soon too), and this Apple Cranberry Sauce
• Shophouse (review coming early 2012, really), Sweetgreen (past visit) and Yola (hmmm, looks like I need to review their berry kale smoothie – I have mine with Amande yogurt) helped me eat healthfully on a few hectic days this month
• Holiday lights and dinner with dear friends at Open City Diner (past visit)
• Art journaling with friends
• Midnight Flow Yoga, Laughing Lotus style – I am so grateful that Flow Yoga here in Washington hosted Dana Flynn as I was never able to go when I lived in New York – Midnight Flow was just as fabulous as I had ever heard it was
• Dinner with Gena at LPQ (see Gena’s recap)
• Met the lovely Olivia of Green Junkie Living and some of her friends – it was so nice to finally meet her in person and she loved Open City Diner too
• Amazing dinner at Elizabeth’s Gone Raw with dear husband last night – best macademia cheese ever.

And now, for the December Sanity Challenge:

• Intro & Week 1: Cheryl at Gluten Free Goodness
• Week 2: Iris at The Daily Dietribe 
• Week 3: My goals
• Week 4: Carrie at Ginger Lemon Girl

Also, do check out JT’s post on joining the challenge over at The Faux Foodie Girl.  I met JT earlier this year and am so excited she joined us on the challenge!

As for my December Sanity Challenge goals and the outcome on each:

• Keep moving in December: The goal was working out 5-6 times a week, a minimum of 30 minutes a time, with a combination of vinyasa/flow yoga classes, the elliptical and lots of walking and, schedule permitting, Zumba. The outcome was good as I worked out or did yoga a total of 26 times this month, and went on a couple of long walks (see above monthly recap).
• Restorative and/or yin yoga classes in December:  The goal was to take a total of 4 restorative and/or yin yoga classes in December in addition to the flow yoga classes that are part of my routine.  The outcome was 50% as I made it to two restorative yoga classes.  Work demands trumped the yin yoga schedule (it is only offered a couple of times a week at the studio where I do yoga) unfortunately, which I realized early on in the month, so I added a yin pose (usually yin butterfly) at the end of many of my regular vinyasa classes,
• Cut back on blogging in December: This was both hard and easy.  Hard because I missed it and definitely wrote parts of several posts, but easy in that work was very busy this month.  It also made me think about how I wanted to blog moving forward and whether I wanted to go back to the daily lunchbox framework – the verdict was no, but I do want to go back to making blogging a near-daily practice.

And there you have it.  December in a nutshell. I am really pleased with how I kept working out and going to yoga all month, despite travelling and work demands.  And I am glad that a semi-hiatus in blogging gave me some clarity on how I wanted to structure posts moving forward – I think it is going to be more a freestyle mixing food, yoga, product reviews (I have several to share with you all), and life.

Have a wonderful New Year’s and I will be back with some best-of / 2011 recap-type posts this next week.  Who said those have to be done by today?