Highway 2 Health: November 2010

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!

Highway 2 Health

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Starting Point

Monday, November 15, 2010

1st Post