Tag: fitness

“I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life.” – Theodore Roosevelt

Last month, I took a hard look at myself, my habits and the life they produced.  Rather than let that die on the vine, I’ve immediately gotten to work.  Some changes I’ve made have been:

• Becoming single threaded on my hobbies – (1 book at a time, 1 project, etc.)
• Prioritizing meal planning and making healthier choices – I think I’ve had one or two fast food meals in the past month.

One thing that I can’t let slide is ‘Identifying meaningful fitness goals and finding ways to test them.’  I need data on where I’m at and goals I want to reach before I can actually put any kind of a plan together.  One thing that’s helped me spend more time on this was the 12-week Boot Camp at The Strenuous Life, which I finished last week.

‘The Strenuous Life‘ (over at Art of Manliness) offers an experience that I’d call, “Scouts or Freemasonry for the Digital Age.”  For me, it’s offered a framework of one-off, daily and weekly challenges to see where I’m at and help me learn where I’d like to be.   And since membership is for life, I intend for it to continue to be a rewarding and challenging experience.

Since the program values the initiatory appeal of keeping the details of its challenges private, I won’t be sharing much of the details other than to list off some of the goals I’ve identified for the coming year:

• Join a martial arts gym and rediscover my love for fighting
• Continue to encourage my family’s participation in team sports by volunteering as a coach or official for their programs
• Grow stronger and more competent physically

Still a wireframe, but I think this is good foundation to build on.  We’ll see how it goes.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to add them here or address them to john@benedettitech.com.

“The condition I’m in now is completely my fault. I caused this. I chose to slack off. I chose crappy foods. I’m the only one to blame and I’m the only one who can fix it.” – Chris Shugart – T-Nation

Time to pay the piper…

Last year, I made a huge bet on myself. As with most new endeavors, I put together a plan and front loaded it with good intentions and powerful reasons. And… I failed miserably. My scale this morning read 291. And last time I checked, I wasn’t 90’s Shaq. Therefore, I’m still dangerously overweight and deeper in the hole than this time last year.

So, what went wrong? Execution, basically. It’s one thing to try and reach a goal with a plan but you actually have to show up every day and make good choices. I’ve made too many choices to skip out on sleep and exercise. And I’ve made too many choices to hit the drive thru instead of cooking at home. All of these add up, quite literally.

Looking back, it’s been a crazy year with a lot going on and I haven’t learned my lessons from keeping too many open loops. I don’t sleep well. My exercise habits are half-assed to the point of non-existence. I eat like shit. I keep my challenges within my comfort zones. This is just truth. Something to accept and act on.

Now, what am I going to change? My goal hasn’t changed. But any goal without a decent plan is just a dream. So, that means the plan has to change. Here’s what I have in mind:

– Stop starting so much. Horrible grammar aside, I think this captures a model of what I’m trying to accomplish. I prefer to keep my tasks single threaded, which means I need to devote the lions share of my day to grinding on those and not so much time touching a huge backlog of tasks or dailies. I need to say ‘No’ more often, if not most of the time.

– Sleep. A useful comparison I’ve heard recently is that skipping sleep is the equivalent of not charging your phone. I’m not interested in being stuck @ 15% all day.

– Make time for exercise. This seems to be more important than what I’m actually doing. It needs to be daily and it needs to be done first thing. I’m going to be blocking out an hour each morning.

– Better food options. I do love to cook. However, trying to keep up with a crazy schedule means cooking for a family during the work week tends to stress me out. I figure with some better planning and forethought, I can have some better options at hand when I need to eat. This will mean looking up some better takeout options and breaking out the crock pot.

– Have some actual fitness goals – Counting calories and watching a number isn’t enough for good health. I need to establish some actual goals for growing healthier and stronger and it needs to be something that I’ll look forward to doing. More on that later.

– Test myself – Looking at the scale is one way, but I need other milestones. These can be blood or other health markers. More likely they’ll be fitness goals whether reps or times or even some one off events like the Gladiator Dash.

That’s enough for now.  This mission has never been less important and I need to remind myself constantly of that.  Now, it’s time to go to work.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to add them here or address them to john@benedettitech.com.

“Anti-wrinkle cream there may be, but anti-fat-bastard cream there is not.” – The Full Monty

I spend quite a bit of time over at The Art Of Manliness.  Some great tips on health and style as well as a wealth of inspirational writing, mostly in the form of fanboying on Theodore Roosevelt.  In looking for my next big challenge, I’m drawing inspiration from this article on Rites of Passage.

Speaking of TR, I remember being interested in him from a very young age.  The main connection I made was that we both had asthma.  Not like I’d ever stack myself up beside TR.  Where he made a point of seeking out adversity and testing his shortcomings, I’d often take pride in taking the shortest and easiest path possible.  Sometimes this is a virtue, but not when it comes to taking care of the self.  As such, I need to settle a long standing debt.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been at an unhealthy weight for my entire adult life (and longer).  Carrying around what is essentially another person has negatively impacted my activities and general quality of life as well as put me on multiple medications.  Rather than keep this as a ‘Someday’ kind of goal, it’s time to put together a plan and get to work.  By doing so, I intend to improve my own health, extend my life and improve my self-image and self-worth dramatically.

Here is my goal:

Success is : I record a weight of 178 or below on 7/27/2018
Failure is : I record a weight above 178 on 7/27/2018

Here’s my plan:

– Use LiveStrong – Record weight daily and keep a food diary
– I will keep my daily calorie intake 500 below my BMR
– I will supplement my calorie deficit by 500 a day with daily exercise
– The data for the above will be maintained publicly here as a widget

I’ve always known what was required but never really applied myself.  But if I follow this plan, I should be able to lose 100 pounds over the next year at a healthy 2 pound a week rate.  This is perfectly reasonable and attainable.

I’m inviting everyone to encourage me.  Even more so, I invite people to hinder me and try and fuck me up.  For my own health and well being, this may very well be the most difficult and the most important thing I’ve ever attempted.  Bring it on!

As always, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to add them here or address them to john@benedettitech.com.

Thanks for looking in!

And now for something completely different….

In a previous post, I’d mentioned that I’ve struggled with health and fitness for most of my adult life. In response to a co-worker’s call to action, my fat self signed up for the 2017 Wichita Gladiator Dash! It’s a 5k obstacle course in the local county park which includes climbing hills, fording lakes and creeks, falling off things into waist deep mud along with other assorted playground activities.

Now that you’ve (hopefully) stopped laughing, I’m happy to say I actually completed the course. And since I’ve never done anything like this before, I’m allowed to claim I achieved a personal best!

One thing that people in sedentary jobs like mine must watch out for is our health. And it’s a great thing that fitness and good health has seen a resurgence in popularity in recent years. However, we must contrast that with America’s love affair with bacon, food challenges and ridiculous monstrosities in culinary fare such as the Quadruple Bypass Burger making headlines. (Where’s THAT race??)

In either event, I’m proud to have made a choice to try something challenging in the name my own good health and the entertainment of others (like my wife). I’d love to hear any of your stories about your own health and fitness goals.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to add them here or address them to john@benedettitech.com.

Thanks for looking in!