Evan C

I've completed three weeks of mostly sticking to my goals! (Didn't get in my posture goal every day because yesterday I wasn't home at all. Can't sit up straight at the computer if you're not sitting at the computer. I think I need an alternate goal for when I'm out and about all day - a friend of mine suggested practicing sitting up straight on public transportation or something similar.) This week's goals: 1. Go to bed by 11:15 every night.2. Make breakfast and coffee and lunch at home, and bring lunch to work, every weekday. 3. Go one day this week without any sugary snacks/drinks. (Today's the day. And I really want a donut. LOL.)4. Drink three bottles of water every day. (I found four to be a little excessive and hard to work in, especially on a really busy day, so I'm going back to three, which is still a lot better than my starting point!)5. Go dancing once this week.6. Spend one hour each day sitting up straight at my computer. I'm finding that boredom and stress are the two biggest things that make me not want to stick to this anymore. Boredom comes in the form of "I thought this healthy living adventure would be a lot more exciting/epic" and is by far the easier voice to shut up. I've been working for the last three years or so on improving my piano skills and I know from that experience that the daily grind of practicing scales and such is not exactly thrilling most days, but that you have to do it anyway, so I'm mostly able to look at this the same way. It's just something that I've got to do now, every day, even when it's boring, because if I don't I won't get the results. Stress is a lot harder. My life is extremely busy right now between school and work, both of which are in the middle of end-of-semester chaos, and even though I'm making a concerted effort to get more sleep and have been meeting all my bedtime goals so far, I'm still pretty tired and stressed out most days. It's very easy for me to slip into thinking "Screw bringing lunch to work today, I've been working my tail off and I'm under a lot of pressure and I DESERVE pizza and a cherry coke for lunch instead of whatever boring thing is in that tupperware!" What I'm trying to tell myself to counter those thoughts is this: "What I DESERVE is to be healthy, have the energy to go about my day, and not feel like garbage all the time. What I DESERVE is to be in shape, look good, and feel good about myself. I don't want to take those things away from myself by not sticking to the plan. I'm going to be good to myself for once and treat my body right." It's difficult (but important) for me to remember that my past extremely poor health habits were a manifestation of NOT caring about myself enough to take care of my health. In the moment, when I'm stressed and I'd rather order takeout instead of cooking dinner, ordering takeout feels like taking a break from life and treating myself. But when I make a choice like that every day, multiple times a day, what I'm really doing is deciding that tasty junk food or staying up late matter more to me than whether I'm going to feel like garbage tomorrow. If I want to really be good to myself, I should take care of my body so that it isn't such a pain to live in. So those are my thoughts today. I'm trying to decide how long to spend on nutrition goals before I start doing the workout quests - I've leveled up my diet to Level 2 (logging everything I eat) and I'm slowly working my way through the other nutrition quests in addition to the goals I listed here, but I'm wondering how far I should level up my diet before I move on. The next few weeks I legitimately will not have time to add in a workout program (or, ahem, it's not a priority for the next few weeks - finishing all my school-related work for the semester and still getting enough sleep is), but after that I should probably think about getting started. How far did you all (if you're in the Academy) level up your diets before you got started with the workout quests?

Thanks! I am rethinking the entire idea of tap dancing until I am in WAY better shape, because my feet were screaming bloody murder at me for 48 hours straight after that adventure. I dragged myself through the last two days (which involved being on my feet a lot, because of teaching and errands and so forth) feeling the whole time like I wanted nothing more than to go to bed for a week. Fortunately, today I have the day off, I've been in bed all morning, and my feet have finally (mostly) stopped tingling and they no longer look red or swollen. But yeah, I should probably avoid doing exercise activities that make me feel so beat up that they zap all my motivation for days afterward. Not much else to report today. I'm going grocery shopping later and probably doing some meal prep for next week (I usually do all of that on Sundays) because my weekend is packed. Still on track with my goals for this week. The rush has worn off and I'm getting bored, but haven't made any stupid decisions out of boredom yet. I'm getting impatient to know if what I'm doing is having any effect. I promised myself that I would not step on a scale again for at least a month, possibly two, because I know that I get unduly swayed by the numbers when I weigh myself frequently, but I'm at about nineteen days in to this new regime and I'm starting to have to resist the urge every morning. How often do you all weigh/measure yourselves? Also, how do you keep your focus when you start to get impatient/bored? I knew this would eventually happen. One of my biggest downfalls in trying to lose weight and get in shape is always impatience and boredom, because I want what I'm doing to feel more epic and I want to see results that feel more epic. I know that that shouldn't be the goal, but it's easy to start feeling meh about the whole thing after a few weeks of following a "boring" healthier routine.

Ahhhhhhhh, I need to figure out how to get notifications when people reply to my posts because I didn't see any of these until now! Thanks for all the welcomes! Also, fellow music nerds AND Star Trek nerds AND Animorphs nerds all in one place? I am excite. I am mostly a choir nerd...formerly a soprano, tenor since going on testosterone, have dabbled on and off in choral conducting/arranging and hope to teach choir in a school after all this certification business is done. I also played the clarinet all through middle and high school (and dabbled non-seriously in some other instruments during marching band season, because why not) and I am currently working on bringing my piano skills from "suck" to "respectable sounding." Re: Trek things - I grew up on TOS and decided last year that it was time I expanded my Trek knowledge, so I've been on a watch-through of ALL THE TREK (thank you Netflix) that is currently on pause until my semester is over. But I watched through both TNG and DS9 and loved them both a lot. I've got to say, DS9 is my favorite so far. Sisko/Kira are my favorite captain/first officer duo, and I have never before been sucked into a show so hard that I tore through seven seasons in two months *while working and in school*, which is definitely what I did with DS9. I've gotta run, but quick question: I got a notification that I have a follower! How do I follow people? I want to follow people! -Evan

I like the points idea! I've just been keeping a checklist in a TextEdit file where I mark "yes" or "no" for each healthy habit I am setting out to do each day. (Still pretty satisfying whenever I get to put a "yes" in.) But points sound even more fun. What are your rewards going to be?

I'm feeling my motivation starting to flag already the last couple of days, probably because it's the end of the semester and even with my commitment to getting more sleep (which I am sticking to), I am exhausted. I didn't want to go to tap last night, and what dragged me out anyway was the knowledge that (1) I'd already paid for it, and (2) it was the only night I had available this week to dance, so if I didn't I would fail to meet my exercise goal of going dancing once this week. It was kind of fun, though not as immediately rewarding (for me) as contra was the first time I tried it. But my feet were absolutely killing me by the end, and they aren't much better today. They've been tingling on and off and the skin on my soles feels almost sunburned. I was out all day, first teaching and then going to my evening class, and I was on my feet for a lot of that time, and when I got home the last thing in the world that I wanted to do was stay on my feet some more while I prepared my lunch and coffee for tomorrow (which involved cooking because I ran out of leftovers on my last dish today). But once again, the thing that made me do it anyway was that one of my goals for this week was to make breakfast, coffee and lunch at home every weekday, so if I skipped one I would have to write down that I failed to meet that goal. I just FINALLY got done and went to my room to lie down, and when I took my socks off my feet looked all red and puffy, which explains why they still hurt. I think the moral of the story is that I'm not in good enough shape yet for tap, and also that I need some decent shoes (both dancing and regular shoes) regardless of what style of dance I ultimately continue with, because my shoes right now are awful and I'm sure that's part of the reason why my feet are in such bad shape after dancing all the time. I'm pretty proud of myself that I prepared all my food tomorrow anyway instead of immediately going to bed. I just keep telling myself: "This is just what I do now. This is the new regime." Hopefully eventually I won't need to force myself to cook meals while whining and complaining the whole time that I'm too tired.

Well, I am (so far) falling into the groove of these new habits pretty well, but one habit I'm NOT keeping very well is posting here! Maybe I will make that a quest on its own. I am not very good at adding a new habit/behavior to my daily routine unless I put it on a checklist that I look at constantly. The rest of last week went pretty well. The only goal I didn't *quite* meet was the bedtimes, although I was close...5 out of 7 nights, I got to bed by 11:45, and the other two, I still got to bed by midnight. Even though I was mostly in bed on time, with lights, computers, etc, off, I was still lying awake for a fairly long time before falling asleep. I can tell that the sleep thing is going to be my most major struggle. I have historically been TERRIBLE at going to sleep on time, and I have a hard time falling asleep unless I am particularly exhausted that day or got very little sleep the night before. (Both of those were true for a long time and I was falling asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow in the past, but that was often at 2am and I'd have to wake up again at 5:30 for student teaching.) So lying in bed with the lights out every night when I'm NOT completely exhausted yet, and my body is fully convinced that it's not bedtime yet, is a weird experience. Is there anyone out there who worked on adjusting their sleep schedule/habits as part of this process? How long did your body take to get on board with the new schedule? Anyway, my goals for this week are: 1. Go to bed by 11:30 every night. 2. Make breakfast and coffee and lunch at home, and bring lunch to work, every weekday. 3. Drink four bottles of water every day. (I'm working on the "Now That's What I Call High Quality H20" quest this week.) 4. Go dancing once this week. 5. Spend 45 minutes each day sitting up straight at my computer. I have been going contra dancing on Saturdays for my once-a-week dancing goal, but I have a choir concert this weekend and I can't go, so I used my 20 seconds of courage and signed up for an uber-beginner tap class, which is something I've always thought looked fun but never tried. I'll be doing that tonight, so here's hoping I don't fall on my face!

Yesterday was my first real test of my resolve to prioritize always getting to bed by my predetermined bedtime no matter what. I taught a lesson this morning that was being observed by one of my professors, and last night when it was getting close to bedtime I wasn't anywhere near as far along in my preparation as I would have preferred. The old me would have plowed through until it was done, even if that meant staying up until 3am. I really really don't like going to bed with work unfinished. But this time I looked at the amount of time I would have to work in the morning (I had one prep period before my observation was scheduled to take place), decided I would finish it in the morning, and went to bed on time. And then I learned something very important - because I was able to speed through the remaining work much quicker in the morning, when I was well-rested, than I would have been able to if I'd tried to stay up late and finish it while exhausted. When I signed up for this I didn't anticipate that it was going to immediately force me to get better at time management, learning to stop procrastinating, and making responsible decisions in areas of my life other than food and exercise. Developing better time management skills and less chaotic work habits has seemed like a pipe dream for me for a really, really long time. But if getting enough sleep is my first priority no matter what, some other things have to give. It's funny, because I first decided to do this because I wanted to lose weight, and I still hope that that will be the end result, but my focus isn't really on that. It's on checking off everything on my to-do list of new healthy behaviors every day. I guess that's an improvement? It's definitely different. And I definitely feel a lot less like a zombie mainlining coffee already, just with these (so far) minor adjustments to my sleep schedule and water consumption.

Okay, here goes! (I'm Evan, I'm new. You can find my intro here, but the super tl;dr version is: music teacher, sci-fi nerd, FTM transgender, trying to lose weight before top surgery. And also just because I'm tired of being overweight.) I am posting weekly general updates on my FB page so my in-person friends can know what I'm up to, and also because I have a bad habit of being secretive about my fitness/weight loss efforts, and I think I'm more likely to stick to it this time if I've publicly announced to the world that I'm trying to stop making terrible unhealthy life choices. But I don't think they really want the daily play-by-play, so that's gonna go here. April 24 Weight and Measurements Height - 5'9" Starting weight - 222 lbs Neck - 16” Chest - 43” Bicep - 12.5” (left) and 13” (right) Waist - 43” Hips - 45” Thigh - 23” (both) Calf - 17” (both) My goal breakdown from the mindset module looked like this: 1. I’m somebody who goes to bed early, wakes up early, and gets at least seven hours of sleep per night. 2. I’m somebody who cooks healthy meals at home and takes them to work, and who doesn’t eat takeout, fast food, or vending machine snacks. 3. I’m somebody who drinks less coffee, less alcohol, no sugary drinks, and plenty of water. 4. I’m somebody who is more flexible, agile, and coordinated. 5. I’m somebody with good posture who doesn’t have back or knee pain. My corresponding goals for last week, which I completed pretty easily as I was on spring break, were: 1. Go to bed by midnight every night. 2. Make breakfast and coffee at home Monday through Friday. 3. Drink one big glass or bottle of water every day. 4. Go dancing once this week. (I've recently gotten into contra dancing, so I've made a commitment to go every Saturday.) 5. Spend 15 minutes each day sitting up straight at my computer. (I spend a lot of time hunched over the computer or lying down in bed typing on my laptop. No bueno.) This week's goals are: 1. Go to bed by 11:45 every night. 2. Make breakfast and coffee at home Monday through Friday. (repeating this one to make sure I still stay on top of it with school back in session.) 3. Drink two big glasses or bottles of water every day. 4. Go dancing once this week. 5. Spend 30 minutes each day sitting up straight at my computer. I'm also working on leveling up my diet to Level 2, by keeping my food log. I'm on track so far! The biggest revelation that has come out of all this so far is that my biggest stumbling block is not sugar cravings or laziness or boredom eating or lack of willpower/motivation/discipline or any of the things that I assumed it would be, but my terrible terrible sleep habits. I am really bad at going to bed at a decent hour--I either stay up late getting work done that I'm behind on for whatever reason, or I stay up late screwing around on the internet. For the last few months I've been having to get up extremely early in the morning because I'm student teaching this semester (I'm getting my public school music ed certification), and I can't ever seem to get myself to bed as early as I need to for my new early wake-up time, so I'm chronically sleep deprived and chugging coffee to get through my days. This state of affairs has been going on for so long that it feels normal to me at this point, and it wasn't until I finally got enough sleep for a week during spring break that I realized just how badly the sleep deprivation had been affecting me. It's difficult to summon up the motivation to make any kind of healthy or productive choices when you're constantly so exhausted and fuzzy. So, even though I'm obviously aiming to meet all of my goals, getting to where I'm getting enough sleep on a regular basis definitely needs to be my first order of business. Speaking of which, it's 11:05 where I am and I'm yawning already. Maybe I'll be an overachiever and go to bed half an hour earlier than my goal time. More later!

Hey everyone, just thought I’d stop by and say hello. My name’s Evan, I’m 30 years old, and I’m a music teacher and shameless nerd (in particular, I’m a Trekkie and an Animorphs nut) living in New York. I just joined the Academy a few days ago and I’m really excited. I’ve been overweight since I was nine or so, and most of my preferred hobbies and activities are pretty sedentary. I’ve always hated sports in particular and physical activity in general. The only exercise I’ve done in my life that I liked enough to outweigh my hatred of getting sweaty and out of breath has been dancing and high school marching band. (Don’t laugh, marching band is an intense workout.) I’ve tried to lose weight repeatedly since high school, but I’ve always fallen victim to that thing where I throw myself really intensely into it and then quit after a month or two because I’m hungry, tired, burned out, or injured. I finally looked up Nerd Fitness last week after hearing about it a few times before and filing it away in the “that sounds interesting” part of my brain, and I’m hooked already. Besides just loving the idea of a fitness community full of people who also like nerdy things, I feel like this program specifically addresses the parts about getting healthy that I typically fail the most at—changing habits gradually over time without getting impatient/bored and overdoing it, having a specific plan/structure to follow instead of just doing things impulsively that don’t last, etc. I’m transgender (FTM/female-to-male) and I’ve been taking testosterone for about 4 and a half years, but have not had any surgery yet. I mention this because one of my goals is to get in better shape before I have top surgery. I also mention it because my journey with my transition is one of the main factors that has driven me to finally decide that I’m really serious this time and that I’m going to do this the right way. I decided that if I wasn’t willing to accept a body I was unhappy with with respect to gender, why should I accept it with respect to health/fitness/looking good? I imagined that transition was going to finally make me happy with my body, and I’m certainly happier than I was, but being a chubby balding guy at 30 was definitely not the endpoint I had in mind when I started my transition. (Disclaimer: I’m aware that Nerd Fitness will do nothing for my hairline.) I also just don’t like to fail at things. I’m very driven to improve myself and I could probably stand to dial it down sometimes, but the fact is that it really annoys me that I keep failing so hard at this one thing. Most of my family is overweight and sometimes I think I should give in, stop bashing my head against the wall, and accept the inevitable, but I’m too stubborn for that. Anyway, that’s me. I don’t usually bring other people into my fitness efforts, but that’s another thing I decided I should probably do differently this time, so here I am! Looking forward to getting to know everyone!