Healthy Living For Smart People
I talked a bit about 2011 in my last post. This post is going to be devoted to 2012.
I will consider this a very successful year if by the end of the year I will have:
Now how the heck am I going to accomplish this? [Read more...]
This is week five of my project to get back to a healthier lifestyle. If you recall from a couple of weeks ago, my goals at this point were:
And The Goals Were:
How am I doing? [Read more...]
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...]
It’s been two days now since I started on this new plan and there’s good and bad news.
Bad News
Good News
Things To Try Out This Week
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Overall, I’m liking this new way of living. Of course, it’s only been two days…
I’ve decided to go back to these monthly updates as a way of keeping myself centered on my goals. So here’s my update for May along with my goals for June.
May
No more caffeine – I managed to really reduce my intake of caffeine to almost zero. That’s an amazing improvement over where it was and I’m feeling much better about my energy levels. The withdrawal was a bit painful (2 day headache) but I’m over that now.
Better sleep – I bought a very comfortable bed and rearranged my bedroom so it’s no longer a work area. That should help along with the reduced caffeine. I am trying to get to bed at a reasonable time which is also helping. Combine this with the lack of caffeine highs / crashes, and I’m no longer falling asleep randomly through the day.
Sugar - I reduced but did not eliminate my sugar consumption this month. Good progress but still not quite where I want to be. This will remain a goal for June.
I didn’t have any other goals in May so nothing else to report. Overall, it was a good month and I’m quite happy with how I’m doing.
June
Eating routine – This is what I would like my eating routine to look like Sunday to Friday:
On Saturdays, I can eat whatever I want
Weight - My goal is to get to 215. I think I’m pretty close to there already but this month is sort of a calibration month for me so I’m not setting particularly high goals.
Hiking - I want to hike Mission Peak and see how fast I do it. Again, this will be a calibration for future hikes to see if I can improve.
Exercise - No particular goals here. My routine is already good and I’m pretty happy with how my body is performing.
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I’m also conducting a new 30 day experiment but since it’s not specifically fitness related, I’m going to post about it on my personal blog and not here.
NOTE – Our body image series will continue on Friday.
In 2003, I started eating healthy and exercising. I saw improvement really fast. I dropped weight and I felt a lot better. I went from 280lbs to 220 in about 3 years, hence the name 60 in 3. I also added a lot of muscle mass and improved all the numbers by which health is measured. Then I hit a plataue. Although I wanted to get to 180lbs, I found myself running up against the problem of my eating. For a variety of reasons, my eating habits reverted back to some of the old bad habits.
It wasn’t quite as bad as the days of large pizzas and a gallon of coke for dinner, but it wasn’t good either, and I’ve been strugglin for years to figure out a way to break these habits yet again. I kept having small successes and then I would relapse back to binge eating. I go a week and do really well but then I would ruin it all in a weekend of overeating. It was frustrating and I thought I would never reach my goal weight.
Lately though, I’m seeing a nice amount of progress. I’m getting the binge eating under control and the candy / caffeine habits are slowly being broken. I wanted to share with you what’s been working and what hasn’t.
What Hasn’t Worked
Guilt - I should have known this one wouldn’t have worked but guilt is a hard habit to break. Guilting myself into eating less never works, it just makes me feel bad. Neither does beating myself up afterward.
Daily Weigh Ins – I thought measuring my weight every day would give me incentive to keep going. It didn’t. It just made me feel bad about the overeating from yesterday.
What Has Worked
Eliminating Temptation At Home – I no longer buy cookies and chocolates and so on for the house. I always told myself I would eat them in moderation but that never really happened.
Getting More Sleep – It’s true, lack of sleep leads to overeating. Ever since I started focusing on a better night’s sleep, I’ve found myself eating less.
Cutting Out The Caffeine – This could be related to the better sleep thing, but cutting out caffeine seems to have made me less prone to cravings. My metabolism is more steady rather than peaking and crashing every two hours.
Support - Thanks to a special someone who’s making me walk the walk and not just talk the talk, I’m eating more healthy meals at home.
One Day At A Time – I told myself I wanted to eat healthy for just one day and then I ate unhealthy the next day. Then I ate healthy for two days and then went back to unhealthy for a day. Each time, I extended the number of days I was eating healthy by just a little bit more. These days I’m eating healthy for an entire week and then giving myself a pass on Saturdays. It’s been working really well.
Motivation
And of course, I needed to find the motivation to make this change. I think I was stuck in this rut where I couldn’t see the benefit of losing more weight. It wasn’t as clear to me what these additional 40lbs would do for me whereas the first 60 had a very clear benefit. These days I have a goal in mind. I want to sleep better and I think losing the weight will help me with that. I also have a goal of having a noticeable 6pack by next summer. Sound shallow? Maybe so, and there’s a part of me which wonders how this connects back to the topic of body image which has been on my mind for the past few weeks.
Am I going for too much weightloss? Am I giving in to some manufactured ideal of what a man should look like? I don’t know the answer to that but I do know that I intend to lose this weight slowly, gradually and in a healthy manner. I’m not going on any crash diets, I’m just going to continue eating healthy and work out. We’ll see where my equilibrium weight eventually settles and at that point I’ll decide if more changes are warranted.
I also want to make my weight goals and progress public again. I stopped that last year when I was going through a rough personal patch and needed to focus on other things. From now on, it’s back to the monthly updates which will hopefully be full of good news 
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Hope everyone is having a good day. As for me, it’s time to go to sleep!
You may recall that I was trying to get rid of chocolate and caffeine from my diet in April. Well, the plan almost worked perfectly. Caffeine is virtually gone and chocolate is greatly reduced. I wasn’t 100% on target but I made enough progress that I feel really good about things. Now I’ve had a week off from working out and I’m feeling great.
So for the month of May, my plan is as follows:
ZERO Chocolate and Caffeine
I want to see if I can cut these things out completely, just for a month, to see if I really need them in my life. I’m guessing that I’ll find caffeine to be unnecessary but I’ll probably never get rid of chocolate completely. Still, it’s worth a 30 day trial to see if this is truly an indulgence worth having. Actually, when it comes to the chocolate bit, I’m going to remove all processed sugar from my diet this month. We’ll see how that goes.
Better Sleep
I’m going to focus this month on improving my sleep. That means going to be on time, buying a new bed and trying out a few new sleeping positions. I’ve been reading up on sleep apnea a bit more and I’m going try sleeping on my back but with my head raised. I’ll see if that improves the quality of my sleep. I’m also going to invest a bit more time in shopping for a comfortable bed as opposed to my last few bed purchase decisions which consisted primarily of “hey, this feels bouncy!” in the store.
Less Binge Eating
My one remaining eating problem is binge eating. I sometimes get in this mood where I crave food. Even worse, if I get into this mood when there’s a lot of food around me, I tend to overeat way too much. Even though I’m aware of this, I will occasionally put myself into situations which make the problem worse, such as when I suggest going to a buffet. So for the month of May, no buffets at all!
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Next month I’m planning to make some changes to my exercise routine but I’d like to think them through this month.
That’s it, those are my goals for this month. What about you? Anything special planned? Working on any 30 day trials?
