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A Few Changes in My Approach to Getting Healthy This Time Around

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Yesterday, I wrote about how I wound up so out of shape to the point where I now have Type 2 Diabetes and am required to take at least 6 pills each day. I also wrote about why I think that now is a great time for me to get back into the gym and to start counting calories again. Today, I intend to write about what I plan to do differently this time around as compared to when I first lost over 120 pounds back in 2004 and 2005.

Here are some things that I intend to do differently this time around…

Tracking calories on myFitnessPal

Tracking Calories Online. This is a change for me and one that I’m taking on for a specific reason. When I lost 120+ pounds a few years ago, I didn’t track my calories. Instead, I just ate less and worked out more. In fact, when people would come up to me and say, “Wow! Did you lose weight? How did you do it?” I would say, “It’s easy. Eat less and work out more.” And, in truth, that is the secret to losing weight. However, times change and so do perceptions.

For example, I tracked my calorie intake for a few days last week and I was shocked at the amount of calories I was taking in everyday. Sure, I knew that I was eating too much, but I had no idea that I was taking in that many calories! Without going into the gritty details, it was shocking.

In addition to the mini-experiment I ran last week I decided to track my calories for another reason. I only really lost weight once in the 4 or so years since I gained back the majority of the weight that I lost the first time around. When I dropped a few pounds, it was when I was using a calorie tracking website to track how much food I was eating. If I remember correctly (and I probably don’t), I think I dropped some 20 or so pounds in about a month solely by using that calorie tracking website – there was no working out to compliment the tracking efforts.

So between the mini-experiment last week and my successful use of a calorie tracking website in the past, I decided to sign-up at myFitnessPal.com. Soon, I’ll have a widget on the sidebar of JerseySmarts.com tracking the amount of weight that I’ve lost. I have to get more familiar with their system first and then get myself acclimated to using the tracking website multiple times each day. Be on the lookout for that widget, though!

No Pedometer. I used to always wear a pedometer – up until sometime last year. Using my pedometer, I tracked the amount of steps that I took each week and tried to notice trends over time. What trends did I notice? I walked more steps during the weeks where I was attending major events. Big surprise, right?

Keeping track of the number of steps that I take each day and each week was not a part of my big weight loss the first time around and I’m not including this time around either. Plus, the damn pedometers are prone to getting broken, lost, or just plain busted once in a while!

No Out of the Ordinary Scheduling. When I lost all of that weight a few years ago, I was going to the gym at ridiculous times of the day. I’d go first thing in the morning around 8:00am and then maybe go a second time at 5:00pm or 7:00pm – whenever I felt like my day was over. The reason that I was able to keep that type of crazy gym schedule was because I was working part-time at two different jobs and I was still in graduate school. It’s pretty easy to go to the gym twice a day and work yourself to the bone when you don’t have any large, major commitments that you need to attend to on a daily basis!

But, for all of the reasons that I noted yesterday, I don’t have that type of free and loose schedule any more. So no more going to the gym at random times of the day because there’s nothing better to do!

No Swimming. This change in my approach to working out really is a shame. From winter 2004 through summer 2005 I swam at least 5 times each week and for at least an hour each session (most weeks I swam 7 – 10 times each week for at least an hour each session).

But there are some issues you can do something about and others that you can’t and this one I can’t do anything about – there’s no pool at the new gym. No pool = no opportunity to swim each day after each workout.

And that’s really about it in terms of what I’ll change during my second big attempt at losing weight. The way my life is structured these days, I can’t do what I once did and at least I realize that, you know? I can, however, give this attempt a real effort and do what is within my power to make it succeed.

I guess we’ll see what happens!

Joined a Calorie Counting Website and Put Together a Workout Plan

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A few days ago I wrote about some of the folks that I observed at my new gym. As you might imagine, joining that gym wasn’t just a practice in observing the wild and wacky in a public setting. Nope. Actually, I’ve been saying for a few weeks now (dating back to before the new year, in fact) that I’d like to spend some time in 2011 getting into better condition in terms of my health. Right now I’m taking 10 pills each day (6 required, 4 optional) to combat Type 2 Diabetes and I’m hovering around 355 pounds (usually a few pounds less, but that’s been the ceiling over the last two or three years).

That’s not exactly healthy!

Back in 2004 and for most of 2005 I dropped a bunch of weight. I went from weighing 385 pounds all the way down to about 260 pounds. That’s pretty significant. However, during 2004 and 2005 I was a graduate student working two part-time jobs that really didn’t take up much of my free time. In those days, I would go to the gym twice a day if I was feeling good. Then in August 2006 I was hired by my current company on a full-time basis and things changed.

For starters, I went from a daily commute of about 5 minutes to a daily commute of about 2 hours and working 8+ hours in between the commutes. For those of you who are reading this and you’re just getting ready to graduate from college or graduate school – beware of your pending commute! I know that the job market is tough and people have to take jobs where they can find them, but if you’re the type of person that absolutely must spend a good deal of time in the gym in order to stay healthy, then please take that into consideration as you apply for jobs. Having a commute that can actually harm your health is one of the many dirty secrets that I found out about the working world once I got out of school (I found out some other really crappy stuff, but that’s for a future entry).

The other thing that changed was my Father being diagnosed with a terminal illness just two months after I started my new job. That diagnosis made me go out of my way to spend any bit of free time in a different part of the state from where I live (and, incidentally, from where I work). In other words, my free time was not spent in the gym – for good and obvious reasons.

The next big change occurred right after my Father passed which happened to be about a year after I was hired at my full-time job. The change this time was me getting hired as an Adjunct Professor at the local college teaching class two nights each week.

We’ll stop for a minute and review the timeline thus far: I went from having all of the free time in the world to taking on a 2 hour daily commute (not to mention going from a part-time employee to a full-time employee) to spending whatever free time I could muster an hour and a half away from both my job and my apartment so I could be with my family to being hired as an Adjunct Professor teaching twice each week at night.

On top of all of that stuff, I was still operating my website company and managing a few websites (including this blog) as well as reorganizing my finances to better prepare myself for the future (i.e. the huge student loan repayment push last year). When I thought I found a balance that allowed me a few hours of free time each week, I was elected to serve on the Board of Trustees for a national foundation which takes up more time than I care to let on about. Once I figured out how to balance the Trustee position with the rest of my life, I wound up getting hired as an online instructor at an all-online college (in addition to being an Adjunct Professor at the local college and my full-time day job with the commute).

I don’t have to tell you all, but this is an exhausting schedule to keep.

And in addition to being exhausting, it’s also not very healthy. So this year I’ve tried to take advantage of a few things that are working in my favor. First, I wasn’t scheduled to teach at the local college this semester. That means that I’m not going to be teaching in a face-to-face setting until next September so I don’t have to worry about that time constraint. Second, I’ve been spending a lot of time spinning off certain website clients that used to take up too much of my free time with silly, unnecessary requests. Sure, I have more clients to spin off, but the ones that I’ve let go thus far have dramatically decreased the amount of time I spend on dealing with my website company. Third, I’m coming to a head on many of the major items that I undertook as a member of the Board of Trustees for the national foundation. Once these major items are completed (likely by April), I’m going to only take on one project at a time for the foundation – and I’m going to make sure that the projects are small and manageable in my free time. Fourth, the all-online college didn’t schedule me to teach in either the January 2011 or February 2011 semester (each month starts a new semester for them which runs some 10 weeks).

And maybe the best change in circumstances of all is that my day job is planning to move its location from about 45 miles away from where I live to about 30 miles from where I live. In addition to the shorter distance, I plan on going to the office a little bit earlier each day and then leaving a little bit earlier to avoid traffic. With this plan, I could net a gain of about forty-five minutes to an hour each day of new free time.

With all of these constraints on my time being reduced, I figure that now is as good a time as any to try to get back into the spirit of 2004 and 2005 as best I can. To that end, I joined a gym, I spent some time doing research online to piece together a really good, low-impact weightlifting and cardio plan, and joined a calorie counting website to monitor the amount of calories that I’m taking in each day.

Tomorrow, I’ll post an entry about things that will be different this time around for my attempt to get a little bit more healthy. For example, back in 2004 and 2005 I was really looking to drop an incredible amount of weight for reasons of health, but also for reasons of vanity (who doesn’t like looking less heavy?). I don’t really care about that this time around. What I really care about this time around is reducing the amount of pills that I have to take everyday. I’ve had enough of these 10 pills each day!

Anyway, more on what will likely be different this time around in tomorrow’s entry.

Observations from My First Few Days at the New Gym

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A few days ago I posted that hilarious Planet Fitness commercial with the big lunk telling everyone that he lifts things up and puts them down. I have to admit that I go back and watch that commercial every once in a while because it really is funny – especially if you’ve ever seen these idiots while at the gym! By the way, I use the term “lunk” because that’s what is plastered on the wall of my Planet Fitness. I can’t remember the exact definition, but a lunk is that idiot that drops weights on the floor, grunts and snorts while lifting weights, and drinks some liquid out of a gallon container.

Come to think of it, I think I might be friends with some lunks…

Anyway, a few years ago (winter 2004 through summer 2005) when I was consistently working out, from time to time I’d post some of my observations while at the gym. Typically, I’d write a few lines about the outlandish activities that I’d see certain people engaging in when they should have been focusing more on working out. You can go back through this blog and find some examples if you want – or you can scroll down to read some early observations from my time at Planet Fitness.

Actually, I only have one observation of a weird type of person at the new gym and in the grand scheme of things, this observation is minor. Maybe there will be more examples of insanity as I go along at this place, but until then, enjoy!

The Person with Too Much Perfume/Cologne
I just don’t get the thought that goes behind this one. One week ago today I went to the new gym for my first workout session. The goal was to focus solely on acquainting myself with the different cardio machines. It was a pretty successful trip until the last 5 – 10 minutes. Here’s what happened…

After I spent about an hour on the treadmill, I went to ride the bike for a little bit. By the way, the stationary bike is a piece of cardio equipment which I typically try to avoid – something about peddling and getting nowhere bothers me. But I’m committing myself to trying and using new pieces of equipment at the gym and last Monday I wanted to get on the bike for a little bit.

Don't over scent yourself when going to the gym!

My intent was to spend about 15 minutes on the bike and then move on to another piece of equipment that I typically wouldn’t use. About 5 minutes into my bike ride a little old lady (she had to be in her late 70’s) hobbled on to the bike next to me with what had to be her daughter on the bike next to her. Now, I don’t care who works out next to me or what they do, etc. But this little old lady, God bless her, was drenched in that little old lady perfume. You know the perfume – that stuff you can smell a mile away? And she was about a foot away from me. Not good.

After a few huge inhales filled with whatever that little old lady perfume is made of, I had to get up. The end result was that instead of 15 minutes on the bike, I did about 10 minutes and I wound up a little lightheaded. I thought to myself, “I’ll go hang out in the locker room for a minute and clear my head and then get back to work.”

So I get up off of the bike and walk to the locker room and some kid had just walked into the locker room ahead of me. This kid was DRENCHED in cologne. I mean DRENCHED! I’m not one to play the ethnic stereotype game, but this kid was of a certain ethnicity that is frequently associated with wearing too much cologne and boy did he fit the bill. It was intense.

As you might imagine, after getting lightheaded from the little old lady and then getting smacked in the face with enough cologne to scent 50 men, I had to call it a day.

I’ve been back to the new gym twice since last Monday and I didn’t encounter the over-scented problem again so hopefully it was a one-time, rare occurrence!

Book Review: The 8th Habit

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Generally, I’m not one of these people who read the personal empowerment series of books that you can find littered throughout the business section of your local Barnes & Noble. However, Stephen R. Covey’s The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness happened to be on sale for a dollar and a half because the book was damaged, so I made the purchase. And it was a decent purchase, too, as the book was a good read while I was on the treadmill at the gym. This is a book that focuses on positive leadership strategies to both life and the business world – a good book to read while sweating away the calories.

First things first – I didn’t read Covey’s related book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People so I cannot really offer much in the way of comparing one book to the other. I have the 7 Habits audio book, but I haven’t had the chance to sit down and listen to it yet.

The first book aside, though, I definitely recommend The 8th Habit for the young professional who may have little prior leadership experience and is trying to find a way to break through to the next level in his or her career. For those who are already overflowing with leadership experience, this book might be a nice refresher course and serve to remind you of some aspects of success that you might have overlooked. In either event, using the link above you can purchase this book for only a few bucks so if you’re interested, it’s definitely worth the purchase.

Covey breaks this book into a variety of sections and makes excellent use of charts and graphs throughout. He also intersperses the text with quotes from famous leaders, which I found very enjoyable (I’ll be lifting some of those quotes for the random quote generator located on the right hand side of this page). Chapters include topics like finding your voice, empowering those around you (which is essentially the “core” of the 8th Habit), and aligning basic strategies. One theme that is consistently brought up in the book is the idea that we – as a society – are leaving the industrial age and entering an information age.

Or, as Covey calls it, the Age of Wisdom. This is an interesting and yet obvious insight to those in the working world. The Age of Wisdom presents a fundamental change to employers and employees as the contributions of the masses will no longer be blood, sweat, and tears, but instead information. In other words, where the economy once thrived off of the backs of industrial age workers, the new economy is being built off of the minds of wisdom age workers. Interesting insight once you start to study the job market and notice how many highly physical jobs are being taken over by automated processes.

And the introduction of automated processes isn’t a bad thing at all! In fact, it’s great because it will force many people to begin studying and researching new ways to contribute to their employer. Sure, it won’t happen on a mass scale, but I agree with Covey that one day we’ll look around and find ourselves immersed in an information age society. Could be faster than you think…

For those of you who are into these types of books, I suggest picking up (an inexpensive copy of) this book and giving it a read. You’ll find it to be a fast read with nice messages that you can take away throughout. Enjoy!