I didn't lie in my last post, I really am redoubling my efforts and trying my best to stay with the program. I haven't slept in, haven't gone out to eat, and have only eaten healthy food. I also went to the gym this morning for some strength training. I would have liked to do some running, but I made the stupid mistake of sprinting at school in my DCs and ended up with my first running injury, a rather pronounced case of metatarsalgia (sp?), basically where the ball of your foot gets scrunched together and swells up. I COULD run on it, but I think the smart thing to do is to stay off of it until its fully recovered. Until then I'm going to focus on strength training and spinning. For those of you not in the know, spinning is just a fancy term for doing cardio on an exercise bike. Its supposed to be a good workout comparable to (but not as good as) running, but with zero impact so its better on your joints. Its a good substitute for running when you have an injury that running may exacerbate.
So those are the new problems, but what are the new solutions? Well, the solution is the cure to my enthusiasm problem. Its tough to find motivation to run sometimes, but it helps a lot when you have a goal or something to look forward to. When I was at the gym this morning I saw a flyer for a Valentine's Day 5K. Its on the morning of Saturday, Feb. 12 2011, about 3 months away. Since I can already run 5K no problem (about 3.2 miles) I'm going to try to speed up my pace and focus on running 3.2 miles at a comfortably fast pace. I know that I'm not going to win or anything, but I would like to make a decent time. My first race might also give me a new boost of enthusiasm to help me continue running, and if I enter more 5Ks I will have a time to use as a reference to see how I'm improving!
Friday, December 3, 2010
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Mein Kampf
Phase 1 has stalled, sputtered and died. I want to blame it on Thanksgiving, but thats just an excuse to mask the fact that my enthusiasm for getting healthy has faded, as it always does. This in itself is not a bad thing, because you cannot maintain a beginner's enthusiasm forever. Instead, it is an inevitable part of the process. This is the point where things get tough and most people give up. The few that stick around do so because they learned to replace their enthusiasm with commitment. Its easy to run when you are looking forward to it, but its tough to run when you are sick of it. Tough, but not impossible. As I have said, I have fallen out of love with getting healthy, and my lifestyle shows it. I haven't run in a little over a week, I have been eating fast food quite a bit, I haven't fixed a healthy meal for myself in a few days, and just today I binged on some Mexican food. In addition to all of that, I also have been sleeping in pretty late. I have pretty much ignored every habit that I laid out in my last post.
Here is the difference between this attempt at getting healthy and every other one that I have made: now that my initial enthusiasm has worn off and I have "fallen off the wagon" again, instead of judging myself as weak and pathetic and giving up totally, I will persevere. I accept that I have not followed my plan perfectly, and in acknowledging this I vow to redouble my efforts and come back even stronger. I haven't failed until I give up, and I will not give up on this.
Phase 1 is still in progress, and I am officially back on the wagon.
Here is the difference between this attempt at getting healthy and every other one that I have made: now that my initial enthusiasm has worn off and I have "fallen off the wagon" again, instead of judging myself as weak and pathetic and giving up totally, I will persevere. I accept that I have not followed my plan perfectly, and in acknowledging this I vow to redouble my efforts and come back even stronger. I haven't failed until I give up, and I will not give up on this.
Phase 1 is still in progress, and I am officially back on the wagon.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Starting Point
I am now officially beginning my journey down the Highway 2 Health. I begin my journey at 150 lbs. and 17% body fat according to my electronic scale. I was toying with the idea of posting a "before" photo for posterity's sake, but I the traffic on this blog is low enough as it is and I don't want to scare away potential readers with hi-def pictures of my hairy beer gut.
After much planning, I have decided that my previous efforts with fitness have all shared the same fatal flaw: I tried to do to much all at once. Its a lot harder to try to establish several new habits at the same time than it is to focus on one, and I have kept that in mind when developing my plan of action. Therefore, I have divided my path to health into several phases, with each phase focusing on a different aspect of a healthy lifestyle. During each phase I will try to overcome specific bad habits and replace them with new healthy ones.
Phase 1, which I am currently struggling with, will probably be the hardest one not only because it is the first, but it focuses on my worst, most high priority habits to break. Habits I will try to get into are:
*WAKING UP EARLY. I am a bit of a night owl, but I have no reason to be. I stay up late all the time, but all I do with that extra time is goof around on the internet watching youtube videos and drooling over music equipment. I will try to go to bed at a reasonable time (before midnight) so that I can start waking up earlier (6-8am). Extra time in the morning would mean that I could go through my morning routine at a comfortable pace instead of rushing through it as fast as possible so I'm not late AGAIN. Waking up early would also give me time to exercise (another part of phase 1). A lot of times I tend to wake up on my own, look at the clock and realize that I still have some time to sleep in, so I go back to sleep. By the time I finally wake up, I am not only running late but I am actually more tired than I was when I woke up the first time. From now on, if I wake up on my own and the sun is already up (light outside my window), then my day has begun. No extra sleepy time.
*EXERCISE. I currently don't exercise much. Or at all for that matter. I walk my dog and climb flights of stairs at school, but I don't actually go out of my way to exert unneccessary effort. The extra time I'll get by waking up early will be used to try to get in some exercise everyday before I go to school or work. My main focus is running (to improve cardiovascular fitness) and lifting (to develop muscle). Both exercises help me to lose weight by ramping up my metabolism. Since running uses mainly lower body muscles, and lifts use mainly upper body muscles, I will alternate between the two exercises each day to give my muscles time to recover. My week will feature running on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, lifts on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings, and Sundays will be my day off. For now I don't have any specific goals in mind for running or lifting other than just doing it. My main concern right now is just developing the habit of running and lifting, so as long as I get out there and jog a bit or do a few pushups when I'm supposed to, I'll be satisfied.
*DIET. No, I don't mean some kind of crazy crash diet where I only eat certain kinds of foods until I lose X amount of pounds and then quit. Any temporary diet will fail as soon as you quit it, so any successful diet must be something you can stick to for the rest of your life. In this sense, I'm not GOING on a diet so much as CHANGING the diet I already have, which is mediocre at best. I don't really plan meals, I just get hungry and eat whatever is available. If nothing is available, I go out for fast food. Not only that, but I also have an overeating problem. I like to eat until I am 100% stuffed, and then have dessert. This wasn't a problem growing up, but now that I'm older, my metabolism just can't handle it. All these habits together are currently taking me down the Highway 2 Diabetes, straight to Early Deathville. The main habit I want to get into is planning my meals properly so my food choices are not limited to whatever is there. I'm going to start buying healthy things from the store that I can take with me to school or work, such as nuts, hardboiled eggs, cans of V8, etc. I will always have a healthy food choice on hand when I get hungry. This should stop me from needing to go out to eat for convenience, so that I only go out to eat once or twice a week as a date night with my fiance. I also will focus on eating appropriate amounts of food, no more overstuffing myself. I will eat a reasonable amount of food and then stop, even if I am still hungry because most likely my hunger is psychological, not physical. Other dietary habits I would like to get into include drinking more water, drinking green tea everyday, taking vitamins and not eating too close to bedtime.
These are not the only habits neccessary for a healthy fit lifestyle, but they are my biggest problems, and I feel I need to focus on them first. As I have said before, the point of phase 1 is not to become perfect by any means, but merely to good habits and stick with them. If I tell myself to get up every morning and run 5 miles, I will most certainly fail, get discouraged and give up, but if I only tell myself to get up and run, then pretty soon I will be able to run 5 miles given enough time. Perhaps most importantly, if I tell myself to just get up and run, I have to learn NOT to get discouraged and quit becuase its too hard and I've already messed it up. The process of becoming a healthier person is taken in baby steps. Rome wasn't built in a day, you know!
Stay tuned for PHASE 2: 4AM VEGAN MARATHON!
After much planning, I have decided that my previous efforts with fitness have all shared the same fatal flaw: I tried to do to much all at once. Its a lot harder to try to establish several new habits at the same time than it is to focus on one, and I have kept that in mind when developing my plan of action. Therefore, I have divided my path to health into several phases, with each phase focusing on a different aspect of a healthy lifestyle. During each phase I will try to overcome specific bad habits and replace them with new healthy ones.
Phase 1, which I am currently struggling with, will probably be the hardest one not only because it is the first, but it focuses on my worst, most high priority habits to break. Habits I will try to get into are:
*WAKING UP EARLY. I am a bit of a night owl, but I have no reason to be. I stay up late all the time, but all I do with that extra time is goof around on the internet watching youtube videos and drooling over music equipment. I will try to go to bed at a reasonable time (before midnight) so that I can start waking up earlier (6-8am). Extra time in the morning would mean that I could go through my morning routine at a comfortable pace instead of rushing through it as fast as possible so I'm not late AGAIN. Waking up early would also give me time to exercise (another part of phase 1). A lot of times I tend to wake up on my own, look at the clock and realize that I still have some time to sleep in, so I go back to sleep. By the time I finally wake up, I am not only running late but I am actually more tired than I was when I woke up the first time. From now on, if I wake up on my own and the sun is already up (light outside my window), then my day has begun. No extra sleepy time.
*EXERCISE. I currently don't exercise much. Or at all for that matter. I walk my dog and climb flights of stairs at school, but I don't actually go out of my way to exert unneccessary effort. The extra time I'll get by waking up early will be used to try to get in some exercise everyday before I go to school or work. My main focus is running (to improve cardiovascular fitness) and lifting (to develop muscle). Both exercises help me to lose weight by ramping up my metabolism. Since running uses mainly lower body muscles, and lifts use mainly upper body muscles, I will alternate between the two exercises each day to give my muscles time to recover. My week will feature running on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, lifts on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings, and Sundays will be my day off. For now I don't have any specific goals in mind for running or lifting other than just doing it. My main concern right now is just developing the habit of running and lifting, so as long as I get out there and jog a bit or do a few pushups when I'm supposed to, I'll be satisfied.
*DIET. No, I don't mean some kind of crazy crash diet where I only eat certain kinds of foods until I lose X amount of pounds and then quit. Any temporary diet will fail as soon as you quit it, so any successful diet must be something you can stick to for the rest of your life. In this sense, I'm not GOING on a diet so much as CHANGING the diet I already have, which is mediocre at best. I don't really plan meals, I just get hungry and eat whatever is available. If nothing is available, I go out for fast food. Not only that, but I also have an overeating problem. I like to eat until I am 100% stuffed, and then have dessert. This wasn't a problem growing up, but now that I'm older, my metabolism just can't handle it. All these habits together are currently taking me down the Highway 2 Diabetes, straight to Early Deathville. The main habit I want to get into is planning my meals properly so my food choices are not limited to whatever is there. I'm going to start buying healthy things from the store that I can take with me to school or work, such as nuts, hardboiled eggs, cans of V8, etc. I will always have a healthy food choice on hand when I get hungry. This should stop me from needing to go out to eat for convenience, so that I only go out to eat once or twice a week as a date night with my fiance. I also will focus on eating appropriate amounts of food, no more overstuffing myself. I will eat a reasonable amount of food and then stop, even if I am still hungry because most likely my hunger is psychological, not physical. Other dietary habits I would like to get into include drinking more water, drinking green tea everyday, taking vitamins and not eating too close to bedtime.
These are not the only habits neccessary for a healthy fit lifestyle, but they are my biggest problems, and I feel I need to focus on them first. As I have said before, the point of phase 1 is not to become perfect by any means, but merely to good habits and stick with them. If I tell myself to get up every morning and run 5 miles, I will most certainly fail, get discouraged and give up, but if I only tell myself to get up and run, then pretty soon I will be able to run 5 miles given enough time. Perhaps most importantly, if I tell myself to just get up and run, I have to learn NOT to get discouraged and quit becuase its too hard and I've already messed it up. The process of becoming a healthier person is taken in baby steps. Rome wasn't built in a day, you know!
Stay tuned for PHASE 2: 4AM VEGAN MARATHON!
Monday, November 15, 2010
1st Post
Welcome to Highway 2 Health, a blogtastic sequel to my other highly successful (abandoned) blog Highway to Health. Clever, huh? This blog is a journal documenting my progress from semi-fatty with one foot in the grave towards some kind of Brad Pitt/Brock Lesnar nightmare dreamboat hybrid. Behold my fabulous journey that includes topics such as running! Sleeping! Weight lifting! Eating not junk food! Yoga! Even more stuff than that! So follow me, won't you? Follow me across the desolate landscape of self betterment, where plenty have trod before, but where even more start to trod, but then give up because its totally hard and not as much fun as eating frozen pizzas and watching The Office! DARE 2 DREAM!!1
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