Well the end of the month marks the end of the first monthly challenge and I will be 100% honest I am really proud of how I did with this one and how easy I found it to stick to. The challenge for the first month was no alcohol throughout January and I absolutely smashed it. 

To be honest I don't really drink too much normally however, over the course of December I had a fair bit whilst celebrating the festive period and just wanted to cut back again to see if it could help me progress in my fitness & weight loss journey. I previously did this last year and lasted around 8 months without having alcohol so I was hoping I could step straight back into this mindset and it 100% worked and I have gone the full 31 days of January without touching a drop of alcohol. 

I am actually pretty surprised that I wasn't tempted with an alcoholic drink at all even when everyone around me was knocking back pints, I just stuck to soft drinks or alcohol free alternatives and the lack of alcohol didn't bother me at all. I think it really helps that these days the alcohol free drink variety is massively improving and you can feel like you are drinking without all the side effects that come with having alcohol. I am feeling so much better for going alcohol free and I am going to see just how long I can push this for even now the challenge has ended, even if I can just get to summer without having any alcohol I will be happy as if you combine this with other changes I am making it should really help my fitness journey. 

So onto February's challenge, we are going into something a lot more physical and demanding however, I think this challenge might just end up being my favourite of the whole 12 months. I am going to be challenging myself to 30 minutes on the punch bag every day throughout February. 

I used to absolutely love going on our punch bag as much as possible however, the past few months or so I have barely been on it and I am actually missing it which I never thought I was going to say. I am hoping the 30 minutes daily gets me into a good routine and will help me incorporate the bag into my routine once more as at the moment it is just sat gathering dust. Since starting to go to the boxing class I do on a Wednesday I have really fallen in love with boxing so this should be easy to stick to over the course of the 28 days and it is safe to say it is going to be giving my arms a really good workout daily. 

A big thing I am wanting to improve this year is my fitness, at the moment my fitness levels are absolutely shocking and for my football to improve I need to get those fitness levels up and that is a big focus over the course of the year. The 30 minutes daily on this should really help towards building a foundation to improve on and get me some much needed cardio in. If I do stick to this for the 28 days of February by the end of the month I should really be seeing the starts of the benefits of doing this daily and I should also find a way to incorporate more punch bag usage into my routine week in week out over the course of the year.

I am really looking forward to getting started on February's challenge as I am looking forward to putting the gloves on daily and just having 30 minutes of myself and the punchbag working on different combinations and getting my body moving. This might even help me finally see a drop in my measurements which have been at a standstill for a while now and I am hoping that by the end of the month I might be able to see a bit of a difference in my progress pictures too as if I combine this with the rest of my workouts and finally get my diet under control I should have a very good month. 

Check back at the end of the month to see how I got on and if any visible or none visible progress was actually made by doing this challenge. Fingers crossed it is and overall a lot of change is made bring on the 28th of February so I can see the results.