August was better than July from a goal achievement perspective. Not my best month ever, not even close, but considering the summer doldrums all around, I’m pretty pleased with where I’m at.

Weigh less and move more:

I do weigh less now than I did at the end of July, which means I’m back to where I was at the end of June, which means I pretty much just maintained all summer—up a little, down a little, repeat. This month followed that same pattern; I lost a couple of pounds early this month, but then two unexpected going away parties for people at work and my discovery of that Culver’s nearby took care of that. Still, I did manage to balance those indulgences with more sensible eating the rest of the time instead of just sliding back into bad habits entirely, so I will hold onto that as a positive.

I absolutely moved more this month. My running miles as of today are up from July and just about even with June, and I still plan one more workout over the weekend that will add to the total. I’ll be short of May’s all-time record but not by very much. The big news, though, is I went to the gym. It made me anxious to even call and book the two introductory training sessions that I got as a new member, but I pushed through that and went and got setup on the machines the first Wednesday of the month and was back on Friday to use them myself for the first time. Since then, I’ve gone twice a week and even asked to have one more machine added to my workout program. I also did a non-machine session with a trainer, who was of course trying to sell me more training but it was a soft sell; I picked up a couple tips about working my core and appreciated him complimenting me on my squat form—my form while doing squats, that is; he wasn’t calling me short and thick. Right now I think just getting into the habit of going and working on my own is enough change, but maybe at some point I’ll feel like adding some personal training. Now that I’ve added early morning gym visits two days a week to go with my two early morning runs, Mr. Karen is started to get concerned. “Where is the woman I married?” he asked the other night. I wonder that myself. I would have laughed long and hard if someone had told me a year ago that I’d consistently be able to get up before six o’clock without an alarm clock or even the sunrise to help.

Keep less and organize more: I did weed out my shoe collection, so the overflow onto the floor of the closet is mostly gone. Other than that, I can’t think of anything else I accomplished in this area. Not good. Perhaps I need to establish a decluttering routine the way I’ve done with running and going to the gym. I’ve got no clue when I’ll be able to fit that in. I am sure as heck not getting up any earlier in the morning.