Are You Listening To Your Body? You Might Be Surprised At What It’s Telling You

This entry is part 6 of 6 in the series The Long Path To Health

Water = HealthI used to be awful at paying attention.  In college I would sleep through half my classes, probably because I was working 60 hours a week but that’s another story.  When I drive, I tend to zone and not pay attention to the road in front of me or the cars around me (or the screaming of my passengers as I almost hit things).  However, one thing I do pay attention to is my health.  I like noticing what’s going on with my body and then trying to figure out why those things are happening.  It helps me solve problems and improve my health in ways I never imagined.

As an aside, this kind of critical thinking is important in every part of life.  If you want to know why things are happening, pay attention to when they happen and then figure out what happened before, what happened after and what happened during.  Do this enough and you’ll notice patterns that will help you avoid and mitigate problems or take advantage of opportunities.  For example, with enough critical thinking and pattern recognition, you too can figure out everything from when the next recession is due to ways in to increase your sex drive.  Trust me, it’s all a numbers game and you just need to pay attention to the numbers.  However, that aside, let’s get back to the topic of listening to bodies, mine specifically.

Since I’ve changed my diet somewhat over the past few months, I’ve been focusing on what’s going on with my body a bit more than usual.  What I’ve seen ranges from the expected but enlightening to the pleasantly surprising. [Read more...]

Tim Ferriss 4 Hour Body Diet – Maintenance Mode

DinnerAs you can see from the other posts in this series, I’m basically changing my lifestyle to match that of the Tim Ferriss 4 hour body diet (reviewed here).  I’ve made one minor modification to the diet, the addition of slightly more fruit than Tim recommends, but I’m sticking pretty close to it otherwise.  I’m finding the diet to be difficult in some ways but easy in others and I thought I’d detail them here for those people who are thinking about this as a permanent life style. [Read more...]

Week 3 – The Battle Of The Bulge Continues!

This entry is part 2 of 6 in the series The Long Path To Health

I’m writing this on a Saturday afternoon.  I went hiking this morning and I’m about to head out later this afternoon for some outdoor fun at the park.  I weighed myself on Friday and the scale showed 230lbs.  Goal Achieved!  However, what about all my other goals? [Read more...]

Week 1 – And so it begins…

This entry is part 1 of 6 in the series The Long Path To Health

Julie and I arrived home three nights ago after an amazing two weeks in Croatia (which I highly recommend for anyone looking for a beautiful place to go).  I’m tired, I’ve had a miserable weekend because I caught a cold on the flight home but I’m also incredibly happy. The honeymoon showed me just how much I love her and how wonderful our life together will be.  However, since this is a health and fitness blog and not a marriage blog, let me focus on a couple of thoughts that occurred to me while I was gone.

First of all, my choices are no longer mine alone.  In the past, if I wanted to eat poorly and not exercise that was my choice and the consequences were mine and mine alone.  That’s no longer true.  My health is now Julie’s concern as well, especially when we’re talking about kids and a future together.  The consequences of my choices are hers as well as mine.  This is difficult for some people to accept and I can see why.  It’s not easy to take responsibility for another person, to be accountable for what they do and to allow your own actions to be dictated in part by them.  In effect, it means I’ve abdicated some control of my body, my decisions and my choices to her, just as she’s done for me.  That’s a lot to accept but I accept it willingly because it’s part of our commitment. [Read more...]

How To Maintain Weight On The 4 Hour Body Diet

This entry is part 15 of 15 in the series 4 Hour Body Diet

Tim Ferriss Will Take You HigherI got a question from a reader a few days ago in regards to the 4 hour body diet.  He wanted to know how to maintain his weight now that he had reached his goals.  Interestingly enough, it sounded like he was still losing weight, past where he wanted to be, so he was wondering what changes he should make in order to stop the weight loss but not go back up to his previous weight. [Read more...]

All Clear! Life Is Good :)

This update is going to be a little short due to a life that has become increasingly busy over the past two weeks but normal posts should resume next week.

The Finger Update

First, that numb finger I told you about?  Turns out it’s most likely a pinched nerve.  Which brings me to a funny story. [Read more...]

Troubles On The Way To A Smaller Waist Size: 4 Hour Body Update

This entry is part 14 of 15 in the series 4 Hour Body Diet

It’s been a few weeks now since I started on this new path with the 4 Hour Body diet by Tim Ferris and I’m having some issues.  The trouble started a few weeks ago when work went from busy to insanely busy!  We have a big board meeting coming up and a big new strategy to work out.  As a result, my workload essentially tripled.  To give you a rough feel for what it’s been like, for the last few days, my days have been meetings from 8am to 6pm and then 3 to 4 hours of doing actual work which I never get to because I’m in meetings all day.  Add to that my wedding preparations (yay!) and a full social plate and my calendar has never been busier.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, my ability to follow Tim’s strict rules went way downhill.  It’s impossible to get a good lunch when you’re having catered lunch meetings every day.  It’s impossible to get a good dinner when your VP of something or other wants to go out and have a working dinner.  It’s impossible to eat well when you’re COO wants to take a visiting customer out to dinner and drinks.  Actually, I suppose I shouldn’t say impossible because it’s not, but it’s much more difficult than it was before this. [Read more...]