february monthly challenge: sit-ups.

This year, I decided to expand my capabilities and embark on little monthly challenges. Some of them are financed-based, some are fitness-based and some are just for fun. I really have no rhyme or reason for the challenges, I just wanted something to focus on for each month.

The challenge:
For February, the challenge was to do 50 sit-ups each day.

The parameters:
I didn’t specify what kind of sit-ups or crunches I was challenging myself to do, but I ended up trying to do 50 bicycle twist crunches, so 25 on each side. And then, if I felt like doing more, I added on some additional crunches at the end. I really was just trying to add another level of exercise to my day and I thought I could do the sit-ups at any time, either in the morning, or the evening, or whenever I was thinking about it. I also knew that I would be traveling during February so I wanted a challenge that I could “take on the road” and I didn’t have to bring anything with me to complete it.

How did I do?
Not good! If I added up all the days during the month that I did my bicycle crunches, it came out to about 15 days. So I only did them for about half the days in the month.

Despite me thinking I would do sit-ups when I was on vacation, I didn’t do any. And then, a lot of the time I would forget to do them, especially if I hadn’t gone to the gym that day. I was really good at tacking on the crunches at the end of my gym workouts, but I don’t go to the gym every day so I found myself forgetting on those off days.

Lessons learned:
This challenge was different than my January challenge because it required me to do something every day, which was difficult. It was super hard for me to remember to do the sit-ups. By the end of the month, I had resorted to writing it down in my planner every day so that I could check it off when I was done. And even then I would still forget.

Also, I had not done sit-ups in a very long time so at the beginning of the month, my stomach muscles would cramp up when I was finished. If you saw all the ways I contorted myself trying to stretch out my muscles to ease the cramping, you would laugh. But by the end of the month, the cramping was gone so I guess something good came out of it.

I’d like to say that I’m going to continue to try to do sit-ups or crunches every day, but let’s be real – I know I’ll forget half the time again.

I’ll be back next month with a new challenge.

2025 Monthly challenges:
January: Food budgeting
February: Sit-ups