Hi everyone! I’m just posting this quick update to let you know that beginning this Monday, June 3rd I’ll be posting a three part series on JerseySmarts.com talking about what my next hyperfocus will be after my student loan debt is retired. With the end of these ridiculous student loans coming at some point in the next two or three months I need to gear myself up for something bigger and better to focus my energies on. And, beginning this Monday and continuing through next Friday, I’ll give you a glimpse into what I think the next big hyperfocus will be for me. So stick around for some interesting entries coming up… starting this Monday!
FitBit Tracked An Ironic Success From This Past Saturday
Trust me, I’m not going to constantly post these screenshots up on the blog so don’t start thinking to yourself, “Ugh – here he goes again with this stuff.” Relax. I’m only sharing the FitBit results below with you because there is an interesting irony behind them. If you take a quick glance at the image below and you regularly read my blog, then you may have figured out that these are the best overall FitBit results that I’ve achieved to date with the device.
However, these results weren’t driven by an internal anger over a prior day’s crappy results or because I walked around New York City all day. Nope. These results were driven by something a little more ironic…
Not bad for a day’s worth of activity, huh?
Well, I’m proud of those single-day results, but here’s the irony of the situation: I achieved these results this past Saturday while I was searching for some new clothes to wear during my trip to San Antonio. Don’t see the irony of the situation yet? Well, let me add some clarity – I spent my day hopping from big men’s department to big men’s department trying to find clothes that had a decent fit.
In other words, I burned a bunch of calories by trying to find clothes made for guys who are overweight.
There’s something darkly ironic about achieving these results from that effort. Although, it’s not all dark. Since I’m pretty much an upbeat kind of guy, I’m compelled to note that the search for clothes that fit accounts for only about 60% of these results. The other 40% was generated by playing a new game I bought for my Nintendo Wii which utilizes the Wii Fit Balance Board. That’s right – I stumbled upon my Wii Fit Balance Board about two weeks ago and I managed to intrigue myself into buying some new fitness games for it.
To be more precise, I purchased Walk It Out! and EA Active 2. I’ve played both of these games a few times so far and I like the extra peripherals that come with EA Active 2. They track your movements and, more importantly, they track your heart rate as you exercise. While working out with the video game (which may sound like an oxymoron, but is not), you want to achieve that bell curve-type of result and the heart monitor helps you to determine how you’re doing. I was a little sore after my first EA Active 2 workout, but I wasn’t as sore as I was after I started the Nerd Fitness Level One Rookie Workout (which, by the way, is awesome and one of my favorite, quick workouts).
But the results above were achieved, in part, by playing the Walk It Out! game; a game that is rated E 10+ for everyone above the age of 10. So yes – I played a kid’s game to help me achieve the results above. Go ahead and have your laugh, but I find that game pretty entertaining! I mean, it’s not my favorite type of game (I prefer a Square Enix RPG any day of the week over a workout game), but you know what I mean. The game keeps my interest enough for me to walk a few thousand steps and actually get some use out of the Wii Fit Balance Board. Not a bad outcome for a game that didn’t really cost that much.
Before I end this entry I have to note that my FitBit Ultra has also kept me painfully informed on my horrible sleeping. Since I started using this little tracker a month or so ago I’ve noticed that my average hours slept per night is about six and a half. That’s going to have to change. I’m not sure how my sleep is going to improve, but that’s going to be a focus of mine heading into the fall season.
Just A Quick Update With My Daily FitBit Results For Today
No big message or discussion for today. I’m getting ready to turn in (it’s a late night for me during the work week) and I plugged in my FitBit to see how I did today. Lo and behold, I hit another day where I nailed every one of the goals. So, I’m just sharing with the world the results of today’s efforts – take a look:
Not bad, huh?
I think that was a pretty good result for today. And I know what the big kicker was that helped me achieve these goals today – I had a business meeting in New York City this morning. The meeting was right by the World Trade Center so I not only walked around several different mass transit stations, but I was going up and down different staircases and walking around different buildings, down different blocks, etc.
City life – it’ll get you moving!
Another Difference Between Reading Weight Loss Entries Here Versus Other Blogs
The other day I mentioned that one of the differences between reading a weight loss-related entry here versus other blogs is that I understand reality. In other words, some days you just can’t work out because you’re out of the house from 7am until 9pm and when you get home you’re truly exhausted so you fall down onto the couch or bed and go to sleep. I get it. That’s life sometimes. Well, after reading another well-known blogger who writes about how he lost over 140 pounds, I’ve realized another difference between JerseySmarts.com and the rest of the blogs:
I don’t think you are a bad person.
Too often I read these weight loss blogs and the writers suggest that their former, fat selves are people that they don’t even remember. They refer to their fat selves as existing in a previous or past life. They do everything they can to distance who they’ve become from who they were for, sometimes, decades.
It’s disgusting.
How lonely and pathetic must a person’s life be for them to want to distance themselves from… themselves!? And how much internal self-hate must these people harbor for them to despise who they “used to be?” Talk about people who seriously need to see a psychiatrist! For these folks, it’s not about losing pounds – it’s about getting over their own self-loathing and self-hate masked in the rhetoric of weight loss.
Don’t be fooled, people.
Let me talk from experience. After I lost 125 pounds I distinctly remember looking at pictures of my 380+ pound self and thinking, “That’s a fat guy in that picture, but that’s a very, very good guy, too.” I also distinctly remember a feeling of sadness when I looked at those pictures because I remembered all of the times when that 380+ pound guy would get snide looks or overhear exaggerated sighs in the airport and movie theater or have to deal with people look at him from afar. In fact, I remember walking in the store one day and seeing a really big person and thinking, “That poor woman. I bet she’s a saint, but that people judge her without hearing the first word out of her mouth.”
After I lost all of that weight people would ask me about what it’s like to live a new life and shed away my past. I’d immediately think, “New life? What the hell are these people talking about?!” I wasn’t a different person after I lost all of that weight. Not at all! The difference was that the portion of society that wasn’t overweight tried to bring me in to their cabal of divisive comments and unspoken disgust of fat people. It was almost as though they wanted me to say, “Yeah – I couldn’t believe what a worthless piece of trash I used to be!”
That type of drivel will never come out of my mouth because I’m fully aware of my self-worth.
Aside from the religious reasons why I don’t believe that any life is a worthless piece of a trash (least of all my own!), I don’t believe that a person’s weight should determine how society acts towards them. And yet I read people writing on these weight loss blogs about how they’re excited to have a new body and how they hated life before they lost the weight.
That’s not a weight problem, that’s a psychological problem.
The point of this entry is to tell all of you who might be in the midst of battling the bulge that you’re fighting the good fight. And, more importantly, don’t believe the voices of the self-hating people out there who already lost a bunch of weight and are now condemning their former selves. These are people who have a mental issue and are trying to compensate for their long lasting, deep-rooted, self-hatred. Love yourself. God gave you the beautiful body that you have. Treat it as the temple it is expected to be.
Don’t hate yourself – today or tomorrow.
Yesterday’s Update Annoyed Me, So I Did a Little Something About It
After I posted yesterday’s update which showed just how sedentary my lifestyle is mostly forced to be, I got a little annoyed. Well, I was actually annoyed while I wrote it and then a good friend of mine called and he and I bitched to each other about the various pains in the neck that we have to deal with every day. During our bitch session, I cited the fact that I have this ultra sedentary lifestyle and it creates a much less in shape and physically powerful “me” than should exist.
The combination of writing yesterday’s entry and bitching with my buddy pushed me to a point where I had to do something about the week’s worth of results that I posted yesterday. And I did. Here’s the graphic from FitBit showing the statistics that I achieved yesterday:
Yesterday’s results from my FitBit Ultra.
This is what happens when someone gets annoyed at being forced into the proverbial corner. And this proves that I have the physical ability to generate these types of statistics (which I don’t think was ever in question anyway).
I’d like to suggest that I’ll keep this high level of activity going throughout the week, but I’m more realistic and understand that making such claims will ultimately lead to failure. For example, looking at my schedule for Monday I already know that I’ll be spending 13.5 of my 16 waking hours that day either driving, sitting in meetings, or crunching numbers behind a desk. Could I squeeze in a walk or two around the block while I’m at the office? Of course. Could I take the stairs instead of the elevator? Well, I normally do that already. Could I reasonably get the type of statistics that you see in the image above with the planned schedule that I have to navigate on Monday?
No.
And that’s the difference between reading weight loss and health-related stories on this blog versus reading them on other blogs. I’m realistic. If I was to buy-in to the bullshit that we sell elementary, high school, and college athletes, then I’d be panicking and going crazy right now. You know that line of bullshit that we sell those athletes. It takes different forms, but it mostly sounds like: “The only one stopping you is YOU!” or “If you WANT to do it, then you WILL do it.” or “Do or do not. There is no try.”
Alright, that last quote was from Yoda in Star Wars, but you get the picture.
Sometimes, there are legitimate reasons for you not to be able to get to the gym or walk the suggested 10,000 steps in a day. If you believe the bullshit hype (and, unfortunately, I think that most people do), then you’re going to drive yourself nuts trying to find out how you can fit in those 10,000 with almost no free time in your day and without compromising your professional efficiency.
It’s about balance, folks. It’s not about hysteria and it’s not about believing the motivational crud that we sell to people who don’t have any expansive, real world responsibilities. If you use your free time effectively – when you have it – then you might be able to get a day’s worth of work like what’s noted in the graphic above. Much more importantly, though, is realizing that you may not be able to achieve this goal on a daily basis because of other personal and professional commitments… and that’s okay.
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