Hello world!
This will be my final post of the year. I want to go over a couple of goals more in-depth and get ready for 2020! In the next week I would like to consolidate everything into one place and even prioritize them since not all goals will likely be met.
The thing I wanted to discuss most was diet. I am now back to almost 190 lbs after being at 174 for the marathon in late November (!!!). I honestly can’t believe I put on that much weight that quickly, but here we are.
My fitness/nutrition goals of 2020 will encompass a few things, and they are all interwoven with each other. The goal is to get to 165 lbs (finally) and also run a marathon under four hours. The two are connected since if I get lighter, I will run faster. I also want to focus on better sleep habits and getting 7 hours of sleep a night. Sleeping well will help me recover, which will help me run harder, which will help me lose weight, and so on.
With that in mind, let’s get to the goals:
- Get to 165 lbs by my birthday in August. How I will do this is by having some sub-goals:
- Track calories on MyFitnessPal every day of 2020.
- Bring lunch to work every day of January.
- No soda/sugar/fried foods until Feb 1. I need a month-long detox from the garbage I have been eating. I have gone way overboard to the point where I feel bloated and like crap every day. I don’t know why I do this! After Feb. 1, I will re-assess my goals and get more specific but here’s some ideas: cheat day once every (other?) week with soda/ice cream/fried foods, but limit it to only that day except for special circumstances. I do better with having good guidelines for eating and not so good when I do whatever I like. In my journey so far, I have struggled with an all-or-nothing mentality toward food. When I am on a good path, I do fine, but that leads to a restriction mindset, so when I re-introduce foods, I overindulge and then end up back at square one. The most important thing is I want to build nutrition habits that I will retain for life. I don’t want this to be a short-term ‘diet’. I want to set up something for years. The most important part of my diet/fitness/health right now is eating/nutrition. Exercise always comes relatively easy to me since I love being active, but eating is much harder for me. This improved nutrition isn’t just for losing weight or fitness. I also have a bad stomach (probably IBS) and if I do not eat well, my digestive system goes crazy and I feel sick, sometimes for a couple of days. When I eat well, I can largely hold my issues in check. Symptoms don’t go completely away, but greatly recede. Over the last month I have been eating like garbage. So this leads me to gaining weight, flaring up my symptoms and even interfering with sleep. I am 41 years old so the most important time to get a handle on nutrition is now. I want to have good habits as I get deeper into middle age. So, as it stands now, I will have a January reset, then incorporate one cheat day a week or once every other week for February and then go from there. I want to have a plan that is moderate, sustainable, and healthy.
- Sleep 7 hours a night. Sleep is something I am always fighting to have more of. Just this morning, it was extremely difficult to get out of bed even though I slept 7.5 hours. Why? I was at a sleep deficit after not sleeping much the previous week. I will probably always struggle with getting enough sleep but it is time I created good sleep habits. How will I do this?
- Work nights – no screens after midnight. Books are ok, but no screens/activities after midnight. What is annoying is that I have a second job that goes until 10 pm two nights a week, and it cuts into my free time. I have to cut back on doing things I love like like playing guitar/reading/watching movies. But I have to cut from somewhere if I want to get good sleep. I hope I don’t have to work a second job forever, and I have cut back on hours, but someday I would like to have free time again.
- Weekends – I don’t feel I have to do too much here. I do like to nap on weekends so I will continue to do that.
- Run a marathon in the fall under four hours. This is pretty self-explanatory. I want to do a fall race and get back under four hours. So losing weight and sleeping well will help me get there.
- Work out 15 minutes a day. This is a bit of a novelty goal, but I would like to do a workout for each day of the year. The goal is modest — 15 minutes every day — so it is achievable. I’m going to be pretty open to what a ‘workout’ is in this context. For instance, going out and doing a 15 minute walk would count. It has to be a deliberate 15 minutes of something physical I would not do normally during the day. I really would like to cobble together a bodyweight fitness routine and have that as my default go-to workout. So that’s my goal, 366 days (it’s a leap year!) of 15 minutes a day devoted to exercise is the goal. I do get sick a lot so I don’t know if I will be able to do it, but let’s give it a go.
I do want to do some other things, the foremost among them is getting a new job/career, paying down my student debt even further, and finally earning my blue belt in jiu jitsu. I will post about them in the coming week or two. But I want 2020 to be a fucking awesome year. One of my best years. All it will take is a proper dose of health, fitness, companionship and adventure.
Late Bloomer Chronicles 