Hello there! I hope you had a wonderful weekend, and for my fellow Canadians, I hope you enjoyed some sort of Canada Day celebrations yesterday! I’m happy to have today off in lieu of yesterday’s holiday. Today’s plan includes a workout, a nap, time on a patio somewhere, and a viewing of Magic Mike.

Anyone else go see it over the weekend? I hope I can get tickets for a showing today

I can’t believe July has begun already! Crazy sauce. We’re already so far into summer, and that makes me a little bit blue. But I’m also pumped for all of the exciting plans I have ahead of me in the next couple of months. Hurray!

At the beginning of last month, I decided to set some goals for the first time. I think I’m going to stick with this process … I enjoyed having something to work toward.

In terms of how I did for the month of June … I would say not bad!

1) Try a new recipe. Success! I made black bean burgers the other day and they were fantastic. I have the ingredients written on my grocery list so I can make another batch again soon!

2) Build up to running a 5K on the treadmill. Done and done! I felt so accomplished after running my first one, that I’ve completed two other treadmill 5Ks since then. That’s a total of 15K for June. Not bad a for a first timer My new trick: renting movies on iTunes and watching them while I run. Except it can get a little bit awkward when people look at you funny because you’re laughing and they don’t know you’re watching a movie. It was 21 Jump Street. So good.

3) Have a wonderful 22nd birthday! I didn’t have much doubt that I would accomplish this one It was a great time – one of the best birthdays I’ve ever had!

4) Continue going to evening spin classes. This was the only goal I didn’t commit to in June. I actually didn’t get to one class, as much as I wanted to. Life got in the way! I still did my regular morning workouts 5 or 6 times a week, but it would have been nice to add these spin classes in to mix up the routine.

I think I did alright for the month of June! Like I mentioned, I’m going to stick with making these little mini goals every month. Sooooo for July:

1) Make more of an effort to do strength training for my back. I rarely work my back … because I hate doing it. But I’m going to try and mix back exercises into upper body days. On those days, I typically just do multiple arm moves, but it will benefit me to work those back muscles too!

2) Drink more water. I tell myself this all the time, and almost never do it. And it’s SO IMPORTANT. I will go through phases where I’ll be really good and drink a whole bunch for several days … and then I’ll get into a terrible habit and rarely touch the H2O. Maybe I’ll buy myself a fancy new water jug? I think that would motivate me. It’s crucial to start drinking more!

3) Run 7K on the treadmill. Can you tell the running bug has bit me? I want to be able to build up to a steady 7K on the treadmill.

There! Those are the three health and fitness goals I want to accomplish this month. Do you have any goals you’re working toward?