New Year’s Day. A time for reflection and resolution. I’ve had my share of resolutions, and big, sweeping changes usually fall by the wayside pretty quickly. So, late last fall I started with a series of small changes in an attempt to get some traction and help them stick. I’ve become a big fan of Tim Ferriss, and his idea of setting easily attainable goals and then grossly exceeding them does wonders for one’s motivation. Work on one small thing for a month or so (until it really sticks), then add another small thing, instead of changing a bunch of stuff all at once. I’ve been doing the 5-minute journal since the beginning of September, October brought the elimination of soft drinks, in November I started Slow-carb, and for December I just tried to keep everything together through the holidays.
First, starting the day right. Just noting things I’m grateful for each morning has done wonders for my daily outlook. I’m not as consistent with getting the “What would make today great?” top-3 done each day, but I’m working on it. However, after the first 5 days, it feels weird on mornings that I don’t bring my journal out of the bedroom (I write at my desk in the morning so as to not wake Kelly up…), so I think the action has stuck pretty well. After letting that catch, “For my next trick…” no soda. Not the switch to diet drinks I did a number of years back, but no sweetened soda of any kind. I’ll still drink seltzer water (or just straight carbonated water from our Sodastream), but cutting out useless calories (and their Aspartame replacements) did a couple of things for me: 1) I drink more water now. 2) Water tastes better now. 3) FOOD tastes better now. I didn’t expect that third one, but without the overpowering syrupy sludge masking everything, I actually taste more of my food now.
After going about a month with no soda, I rolled in the Slow-carb / low-carb diet. It’s not so much a ‘diet’ in the way that one does Atkins, or Paleo, or any of the other prescriptive things, but a choice to avoid the stuff I know isn’t good for me. Avoiding ‘white’ carbs is pretty easy, and I haven’t really missed bread when switching to salad at lunch. I still eat plenty of protein and fats, I just have it with lettuce and veggies instead of white bread. Rule 2 (eat the same meals over and over) is harder, since Kelly really isn’t wired that way. But she’s been kind enough to split carbs out into side dishes so I can just eat the rest of the meal. Breakfast is almost always 4 eggs and 2 slices of bacon, which helps cover rule 2. Not drinking calories is much easier now that I’m off soda, though I do still hammer full glasses of milk on cheat days. Not eating fruit is harder, but limiting myself to the occasional orange or lemon helps to minimize those cravings. Lastly, CHEAT DAY: using a system where it’s not only okay, but encouraged to go nuts one day a week has been immeasurably helpful. I realize that I’m only achieving 75-80% accuracy since I do eat the ‘wrong stuff’ occasionally during the week, but as Ferriss notes, a mediocre diet one sticks to is far better than a perfect diet where you fall off the wagon too often.
So where has this gotten me?
That was this morning, after a cheat day yesterday. I was 199-dead yesterday morning before cheat day, so I could probably have stood to eat MORE yesterday.
At some point last summer I tipped the scales at 231, the highest (read: fattest) I’ve ever been. When I actually started measuring daily (Halloween), I was back down to 221.7, but my waist measurement was out of spec. Despite having passed tape in the spring, I was not sure I would have in the fall, and for the first time in my life I actually felt fat. Running the numbers with yesterday’s pre-cheat-day weight and measurements, I’m down to 199, at 19% bodyfat. The idea that I don’t have to eliminate items from my palate completely, but just restrict them to my single cheat day each week just clicked with me. So, without significant exercise (I haven’t been lifting like I want to), in 2 months, I’ve lost 22.7lbs, 3″ off my navel measurement, have gone down 3 belt holes (which jives with the 3″ ‘waist’ change), and have dropped over 19lbs of fat. It’s easier to put my socks on in the morning without a gut getting in the way of lifting my legs, and I’m back in pants I haven’t even been able to put on in years. Best of all: I don’t feel hungry. The goal for now is 185lbs, at which point I’ll probably run a bulk cycle (add carbs back timed after workouts to encourage muscle growth). Ideally I’d like to be around 195lbs, with sub-15% bodyfat. I don’t really feel the need to get back down to the sub-10% range I was at in HS and college, because it was EASY then, and is WORK now.
So what’s next? Oh yeah: motorcycles. Since my registration expired at the end of November and I haven’t made time to get the bike in for re-inspection, my riding is currently curtailed. Also, since I didn’t do one of these posts last year, the best estimate I’ve got on annual mileage is from looking at two years ago, then when the bike hit 40k and interpolating. At least I’ve got good mileage data on the little bike, since all of those miles came on the track last fall.
Ceto:
Beaker:
First up, the numbers I KNOW: Beaker is at 14,113, up from 14,012, for 101 track miles. Not too bad for 4 sessions, considering the first was cut short by the bike’s unscheduled asphalt nap. Next, the big bike: 48,271. Last hard date I have was 9 December ’15, when the bike rolled 40k on the way to work. I rode the last 2 days of that week, but was then off and out of town for the remainder of 2015, which would have put my odometer at ~40,158 at the end of the year. Using this number, we get 10,573 for 2015, and 8,113 miles for 2016. Considering I spent 6 weeks driving the car back and forth to the NICU this spring, and have logged zero miles since the end of November, I get ~881 miles/month for 2015 and ~782 miles / month* for 2016. Last year was down a little bit from my ~10k/yr average, but was still respectable.
2016 is over. There will be some additional reflection on that year’s activities as event anniversaries etc roll around, but for now, 2nd star to the right, straight on ’til morning!
Nota Bene: This post is being published on 2 Jan, backdated for 1 Jan, because my WordPress install got corrupted, and wouldn’t allow image uploads. The auto-updater in my dashboard was broken, so I had to go through my hosting site, which did a 4.1 to 4.1.1 to 4.3 to… to 4.7 upgrade path that took a couple of hours to complete. Luckily, when I got up this morning, I could upload through the blog dashboard, and while the plugin is also currently adding a ‘blank’ .jpg with the same name as the picture, the Lightroom publisher is also ‘working’.
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