This was me on New Years my junior year:

“I’m going to get fit and get back to my freshmen weight by the end of 2014!”

Now did that happen? Nope! First of all if I were to get back to my freshmen weight I would look sick which isn’t hot. Second, like most Americans who set their New Year’s resolution to get back into shape it fell short. This year though I am 99.99% (which basically rounds to 100%) sure that I have figured out how to dodge this custom.

Shouldn’t we be setting several goals for ourselves throughout the year and not just one at the beginning? Introducing Ella’s Fitness Monthly Plan! Each month I am going to make it my goal to complete one fitness challenge. Then after that month I will still continue to do whatever it was I was doing so I don’t lose my monthly progress. That way I am getting fit and therefore, completing an implied New Years Resolution.

Here are my challenges so far:

January: 30 day Squat Challenge

February: Walker to Runner (because there are only 28 days in February I made it a goal that doesn’t take 30 days to start into and later on improve throughout the year.)

March: 30 day Plank Challenge

April: 30 day Yoga Challenge

The rest is yet to be decided.

So far I have done a total of 660 squats for the month of January and I have 2,166 more to go. You can find the Squat Challenge (or any other challenge) on Pinterest.

With the Squat Challenge your first day you start out with 50 and then you add five more to that and you are doing squats every three days. Then you have a rest period for your muscles to relax and give them time to tone and build.

The squats aren’t really hard. Going into this I thought that I was going to be in so much pain but it’s honestly not that bad. I’m sure that once I start hitting the 200’s I’ll start to feel some soreness but right now it’s quite very tolerable. The best part is actually watching your results.

Since I have started the Squat Challenge I have seen much more “tonage” of my thigh muscles, hamstrings and of course my butt. A common mistake with squats is that your butt will get bigger. Your butt is lifted by the tightening of the muscles. If you want a big but then I recommend a lot of cake not squats.

The only issue with squats is that it can lead to knee problems. This is why I’m only doing this challenge in my life and whenever I work out at the gym or at home I’m definitely going to continue to do them but not 250 of them at once every other day. More like 45-50 of them every other day or so to keep the progress that I am and will continue to gain throughout the course of this month.