The Joeism Blog

At the beginning of the year, I made two personal resolutions. They were clear, absolute and uncheatable … unfortunately. Here they are:

1. Don’t drink soda (pop for my Ohio brethren)

This went well. I like soda but I avoided it completely for the year. Unfortunately, I discovered a loophole — sweet tea, a popular drink down here in North Carolina. It’s also chock full of sugar and caffeine, but rules are rules and I’ll declare victory where I can.

2. Exercise 200 times.

I didn’t fare as well on this one, although it wasn’t a complete embarrassment (at least by my standards.) I exercised 123 times between running, swimming and working out. Of course, I wouldn’t be an MBA without the adjoining analysis and graphs.

January was the top month with 17 times and really the only time that I was on track to exceed 200 for the year. After January, it went downhill with a deep dive in the fall. Xalvador was born at the end of October so that’s my excuse for the last few months. The rest of it can only be chalked up to work busyness. The best weeks were the last one with 7 runs and Feb 11-17 with 2 workouts and 4 runs. The worst dry spells were October 20 to December 24 with only 3 workouts and 1 run.

The type of exercise wasn’t even. It was heavier on the running and lighter on the swimming. Here’s the breakdown:

Overall, my conclusion is that I’m better at not doing things (drinking soda) than doing things (exercising 200 times). I have my New Year’s resolutions for 2008 already cooked up. More to come on that front.