Kobnach Continues To Create Healthy Habits

[Kobnach]

Main Quest: Stop making myself sick.

 

In particular, to improve my diet and fitness to the point where they aren't providing me with risk factors. Getting off the statins would be great too.

 

From where I sit, this amounts to "core fitness", 10K steps/5 miles walked per day (average), at least 5 servings of fruits/veggies per day, serious reduction in consumption of foods with ingredients from a chemistry lab, and a reasonable limit on consumption of caffeine and sugar (excluding fruit).

 

This isn't going to happen in 6 weeks. I've already done one full challenge towards this quest, and one mini-challenge. I'm expecting that the complete quest will take about 4 full challenges, i.e. I'll be ready for a new quest at the start of 2015. 

 

Missions:

1. Exercise:
   1. Maintain an average of 7500 steps walked per day, as measured by my Fitbit Force (up from 7000 at the end of my last challenge). STA
   2. Maintain an average of 3 flights of stairs/equivalent hills climbed per office day - i.e. the only days that count are when I'm at my workplace (on the 4th floor), not days spent primarily at home (no stairs) or other non-climbing locations. Also measured by the Fitbit. new STA
   3. Following exercise program, or equivalent:
      1. hamstring stretches twice a day, 1 minute each  [and if I miss a day, can try to make up with no more than 1 extra per day - ie average at least 2, total on a single day no more than 3] DEX
      2. step-ups onto bosu, at least 12 per leg, per day [and not allowed to use more than 6 extra per day to compensate for a failure - but may do as many extra as I like ;-)] increase DEX
      3. Extra Credit Core strength training - total of 6 days per week.
         1. shoulder/arm exercises, twice per week. STR Currently
            1. 3 sets of 15 lateral raises, 5 lb dumbbells
            2. 3 sets of 15 bicep curls, 5 lb dumbbells
            3. [Hope to add more as the challenge progresses; I've already bought the appropriate dumbbells]
         2. Trainer session weekly, unless one of us is out of town, ill, etc. STA/STR/DEX/CON
         3. Cobras, 3 sets of 20 reps, 3 times a week. I think those don't (ab)use the same muscles in #1, so putting them into the alternate weekdays, leaving only 1 free - but with room to double up if I have a longer-than-one-day block of being unable to exercise. new STA/DEX/CON/STR
2. Food: CON or WIS
   1. average of at least 3 servings of fruit/veggies per day
   2. new no more than 4 servings of chocolate per day, average
   3. new no more than 2 servings of caffeinated tea per day, average (should be <1.5, but I'm going for achievable)
3. Sleep: new CON, STA, or WIS
   1. Unless out late, will get to bed by 0:30 on work nights (exemption primarily for bridge games)
   2. Average at least 8 hours in bed per day. (revised this from "sleep", because trouble falling asleep is a chronic issue for me). Should probably revise down to 7 hours, to make this achievable, even though my ultimate goal is to feel non-tired at least 5 days per week, which probably needs an average of at least 8.5

Life Quest:

 

Get my life back under control ;-)

 

Organization and doing things on time has been a problem, so I'm giving myself points for any of the following: CHA/WIS new

• GTD weekly review performed, personal
• GTD weekly review performed, job
• all incoming mail dealt with by end of week (filed/discarded/acted on/project created etc.)
• all incoming email dealt with by end of the week
• completed any organization project from my GTD project list

My goal for this challenge is to average at least 2 points per week. What I want long term is to reliably perform 4 or more.

[Kobnach]

This space reserved for tabulated results, week by week, for mission 1. Note that I developed a limp towards the end of week 1, and officially modified my mission 1 on Mar 06 (comment 31 in this thread).

 

                           office climb per    steps       ham   full         Low           lat      bicep  floor   trainer cobra Strauss

                           days  office           per          total  step-up  Step-Ups  raise  curl    press  days    days   stretch

                                     day             day                   per day  per day    days   days                                   days

Feb 24-Mar 02     4        11            8101         11*   15           (2.5)            2        2       (0)       1        3         n/a

Mar 3-9                3          3            6463*         0*      0*          (   .8)          1*      1*       1*        1        0*        6(?)

Mar 10-16            5          3.2         6262*         7*     (0)          7.7             2        2        2         1        (0)       7

Mar 17-23            4        (2.7)        7896         11*     (6.4)       7.7             2       2         2        1         (0)       7

Mar 24-30            3         (3)          8424        13**    (4.2)       6.8              2       2        2         1         (0)       6*

Mar 31-Apr 6       5        (2.6)         8456        12**     (0)        7.7              2       2        2         1         (0)       5**

TOTAL                                        45,602

AVG                                               7600

 

 

* excusable miss, e.g. due to the leg injury, change in rules, etc

** miss without excuses

() means not a goal that week, due to mid-challenge retargetting

[Kobnach]

This space also reserved for tabulated results, week by week, for missions 2 and 3 and the life quest.

 

                          Veg  Choc Caff  Bed by     Avg        Org

                          per   per    tea   0:30         sleep      Tasks

                          day  day    avg  (misses)  (hr:min)   (total)

Feb 24-Mar 02  3.5   3.2     0.6     1**           8:52      1**

Mar 3-9             2.9** 2        1        2**          8:06      1**

Mar 10-16         3.1   3.1     1.1     1**          8:27      1**

Mar 17-23         3.5     .7     1        1*           8:43       1**

Mar 24-30         2.8** 1.3    1.7     2**          8:30       1**

Mar 31-Apr 6     2.5** 2       1.9     1**          8:17      0**

TOTAL             18.3  12.3   7.3    8**         50:55      5**

AVG                   3.0    2.1   1.3                    8:29

 

 

* acceptable failure (illness, emergency, whatever)

** no excuse failure

[Fishface]

I bet the organization/concentration thing that you mention at the end gets better once you've sorted your sleep out.  

 

If you think you've put more exercise in than you can do, then perhaps cut down on your goals there? - you've listed lots of things under exercise.  Can you maybe pick one exercise goal that is easily achievable so that you can just maintain exercise levels while working on changing your sleep habits?  

 

Wish you best of luck with the challenge!  

[Blaidd]

Hey Kobnach, welcome back to another challenge.  I have had a look at your challenge quests and my only recommendation is that you put all your goals into a battle log and then choose 2-3 fitness/diet goals and a life goal - you don't even need to have a life goal.  I would choose the ones that are most important to you for 6 weeks.

 

Good luck

AB xx

[Beaucastle]

Falling asleep is a rough issue for me sometimes too.  I have found that if I maintain a specific routine prior to going to bed each night I fall asleep faster.  I also keep a note book near my bed so if I remember something I need to do the next day or had forgotten to complete that day, I write it down thereby ensuring I don't stay awake worried about it and don't forget it.  The daily wind down prepares my body and mind for rest and sleep.  Its like warming up to exercise.  I warm up to sleep.

[Thom Stépan]

My hammer is here for you mate, maybe to smack you in the head to help you sleep.

[Kobnach]

My hammer is here for you mate, maybe to smack you in the head to help you sleep.

 

ROFLMAO. I like it!

[Kobnach]

Well, I don't have the challenge quite settled, but I've worked out my template for recording daily compliance. I put that in my Battle Log last time - 6 copies of it, one per week of the challenge - rather than creating an entry per day there. Then I summarized each weekly table into one line, and put that in the second post of my challenge.

 

Not sure whether that's the most effective method, since it pretty much means people following me don't see my progress - they see the blank template being set up at the start of the week. But it's sure a lot more readable at the end of the challenge.

 

On another note entirely, I had a dentist appointment this morning, and my dentist repeated his suggestion that I get tested for sleep apnea. Apparently with a deviated septum and a classic overbite, I'm high risk, and it would certainly account for feeling tired all the time. On the other hand, I *don't* feel tired after a few days off, suggesting my problem is a combo of too much stress, too little time, and too much caffeine.

 

And on a third note - I'm having trouble maintaining my habits during the in-between week. I forgot to do my stretches this morning before going to the dentist. So instead of stretches before and after work, it's going to be stretches on arriving home from work, and just before bed. *sigh*. And I did all the rest of my routine after work also - rather than in the AM before my shower, as intended. But that was conscious - I couldn't get myself out of bed early enough to exercisre and still get to the dentist by 9 AM. (For those wondering about work days, it's simple - I start work any time between 11 AM and 2 PM generally. Which of course is why I was happy to leave "early" at 19:00 tonight.)

[Countess D'If]

Just tweak your mind set about it a wee bit - "I didn't remember to stretch this morning, so I shall stretch when I gt home and again before bed. NBD, that is still two stretches today! Go me!"

Always ask yourself, tell me what was good about <insert thing here>. At first you say, oh I screwed this up, or I did that wrong. Then ask yourself again, What was GOOD about it? This was a hard hard habit for me to break, but learning how to be proud of what you did do well is such a little life booster!

Also, Hi! I'm Countess :-)

[Kobnach]

Just tweak your mind set about it a wee bit - "I didn't remember to stretch this morning, so I shall stretch when I gt home and again before bed. NBD, that is still two stretches today! Go me!"

Always ask yourself, tell me what was good about <insert thing here>. At first you say, oh I screwed this up, or I did that wrong. Then ask yourself again, What was GOOD about it? This was a hard hard habit for me to break, but learning how to be proud of what you did do well is such a little life booster!

Also, Hi! I'm Countess :-)

 

Hiya Countess,

 

Good to meet ya.

 

What is it about us that makes seeing everything half empty so compelling? I always figured it was being an engineer - party of my job is to think "how could that break" - but it does seem that the more I walk, the less I do that inappropriately. and it's pretty clear that lots of non-engineers do the same, and have as much trouble changing the habit as I've been having.

[Kobnach]

Phew! I've revised the challenge and produced a "final" version, with some of the less important additions to my previous challenge flagged as "extra credit". That doesn't quite fit the standard nerd fitness paradigm, since I only have 15 points to play with whatever I do - but the basic idea is I can get all 15 without doing any of it - or spend success there, expensively, to replace points I don't get failing somewhere else. What stats I give myself will depend on what I really did - all my potential STR is in there, and I want to earn some ;-)

 

The basic pattern of this Quest is to keep ratcheting important areas to require more and more until I'm happy with my level of healthy behaviour. I added extras at week 4 of my first challenge, and have added more extras (marked new) in creating the current challenge - slightly prematurely, since I really should have waited till I'd been doing the last lot of additions for at least 4 weeks.

[Kobnach]

Started the challenge off wrong by staying up past my bedtime last night, after spending the week in between challenges struggling to meet my veggie goals. Everything else is right though, and tea consumption is way down - thanks to the same IBS that's interfering with the veggies.

 

Bought some vegetable juices that weren't high sugar, and balanced sodium with potassium (I wish I could say they weren't high salt, but that would be false - the juices labelled low sodium had a chemistry lab unloaded in them, so I went with the excess [but balanced] salt.) That won't help with fiber, and I intend eventually to yank juice off my veggie/fruit goal entirely, but it's a stop gap for veggies when the IBS is acting up.

 

Not actually sure it was IBS last week - it was atypical, and yesterday I had a sore throat etc. Perhaps it was some winter virus.

[Everstorm]

Boo winter virii!  Hopefully this week will go better than last week.  Feel better.

[Kobnach]

Woot @ me! 5 veggies, only one being basically soluble fiber, and I did a GTD "weekly" review at the office, knocking 4 or 5 things off my to-do list there. And when I found that my main calendar didn't have cobras, even though I thought I remembered scheduling them for Monday, I doublechecked, fixed the calendar and did the exercise, rather than happily skipping them. Even the virus/IBS seems to be cooperating, in spite of bravely having salad with my dinner. (Salad can trigger IBS for me, but salmon + salad was what was available conveniently.)

 

All I have left for today is the second lot of stretches, and my evening walk. _

 

And my fitbit is somewhat enthusiastically reporting 13 flights of stairs climbed. (I counted 6, but fitbit thinks in terms of house staircases, not commercial buildings, so overage is not at all unusual.)

 

I've even made it to 6899 steps already, almost my quota - though my plan is to do my standard walk of about 2000 steps, not limit it to a mere 600 ;-)

 

I do lose on sleep (time spent in bed, more correctly) - 7hr 25 minutes. But that was last night's foolishness, not today's ;-)

[Everstorm]

An auspicious beginning.  Way to go!  Now, get some sleep.

[Kobnach]

Monday I managed a whole 10,000 steps, my ultimate daily goal. Tuesday, unfortunately, was another story. I spent way too much of the day sitting - at my desk at home. I didn't eat enough vegetables. And today I get my "reward" - a belly full of gas. Joy unbounded.

 

In other news, I feel as if sleeping and walking are competing with each other for the same limited resource. My days feel way too full. The only unprogrammed time in them is after about 11 PM. So I stay up late to enjoy it - or skip a walk because "it's late," like I did yesterday, so as to get into the unprogrammed part of the day before bedtime.

 

This isn't entirely true - the time before work is potentially unprogrammed - but cursed with people and pets who want to interact, generally before I've even turned the kettle on - an aversive stimulus that encourages me to maintain my somewhat topsy turvy schedule. And it's not *completely* unprogrammed - updating NerdFitness is now part of my programmed daily routine :-( It's just that if I'm up early, I can manage to steal some unprogrammed time - if it isn't claimed by someone else's desire for interaction.

[Everstorm]

You need a treadmill desk. 

[Kobnach]

Interesting week so far. I've had some kind of soreness/stiffness in my glutes/left thigh since Tuesday. At first I thought it was some kind of DOMS, but now that it's moving around it's behaving more like my typical back problem - but in the wrong place. And for added delight, it interferes with getting comfortable lying down. Meh.

 

On the other hand (and perhaps because of this), I've had 2 days of more than 10K steps - as well as one that's lower than my target for my first (mini-)challenge, never mind the current challenge. (Fortunately I phrased this challenge in terms of averages ;-))

 

Sleep has been challenging, but other than the first day of my challenge, I've attained both goals - bedtime before 12:30 on work nights, and average of at least 8 hours sleep. I can feel the results too - no days where I'm groggy and only semi-functional, and a major breakthrough on a tough software bug I've been working on off and on since last July. I think that's worth the feeling of having no unplanned time whatsoever, and the reduction in progress on daily non-work activities not part of the challenge.

 

Veggies continue difficult. There are good days - weighing in at about 5 veggies, without effort - and then there are bad days, where the only way I get 3 fruit/veg servings is to consume lots of juice - which doesn't provide the fiber that's part of the point, and does provide plenty of sugar. It's pretty clear I need to be doing my own cooking - but how I'd find time for that - and sleep - remains a mystery. I need a personal chef ;-) Of course if I could afford that, I could probably also afford to quit my job, retire, and do my own cooking.

 

The life challenge is being a struggle - after my good start, haven't done a thing, and not sure that I'll manage more this week. See complaints about free time above.

 

Today I'm on duty to (a) rescue my housemate from the dentist and ( deliver her books to the library (she's not expected to be functional, with the drugs she'll be on) as well as all my other Saturday activities. And this doesn't count as "organization" no matter how I stretch the term.

[Kobnach]

*sigh* I'm declaring today a sick day, with no exercise goals. The stiffness/soreness that's been bugging me since Tuesday is worse, and didn't shake out when I walked the dogs - instead I arrived home hobbling, having sat down on a convenient object partway, just to get off the leg.

 

I see I am due for a proactive chiropractor appointment on Wednesday - so this probably is the same imbalance that usually shows up as back pain. I'll call her Monday and see whether she can move the appointment 2 days ahead. Meanwhile the most additional exercise I plan for today is hobbling around the grocery store.

 

What a fun weekend. My housemate is having unpleasant side effects from the antibiotics she was given along with her tooth extraction. I'm limping. One of the dogs continues to be ill (he's dying - cancer - but still enjoying life, so still with us). And in a couple of hours I'll be calling my mother - also ill, but greatly cheered up by the phone calls. At least the other dog seems to be healthy. But I'm feeling very middle-aged.

[Everstorm]

Yikes!  I hope all of you recover soon.  It's hard enough to not feel well, but when the people you rely on aren't we'll, either...that's rough.

[Beaucastle]

kobnach... where are you?   You doing ok.. keeping things going with the challenge...

 

hello?

[Kobnach]

kobnach... where are you?   You doing ok.. keeping things going with the challenge...

 

hello?

 

The first week of this challenge has been "challenging." I did something to my left leg that has me limping. When I had trouble walking the dogs on Sunday, I decided that working through it might not be the answer, I gave myself a 3 day break from all exercise goals, including walking. On Monday I took it to the chieropractor, whose treatment and suggestions seem to be working, slowly. So it's hot packs and stretches instead of my regular exercises, and I'm very frustrated.

 

My tabulation for the first week doesn't look too horrible - trying to walk it out gave me two days greater than 10K steps, and I managed to do all my exercises (except Sunday), and (barely) meet sleep and vegetable goals. But I'm mega-frustrated and feeling like "getting in shape is hopeless." This wasn't supposed to happen! And I keep thinking of Phoenix Burning's experience of winding up lame every single challenge - resulting in her doing an eating-focussed challenge this time. Good for her that she's keeping going - but my personal dread is winding up needing a walker - young. Eating and sleeping don't address that issue.

 

*sigh* Enough whining. I need to remind myself that Dr. Strauss' recommendations are working, and I'll be back to walking normally soon.  I'm already a lot less uncomfortable.

[Beaucastle]

give yourself a break.   Injuries are setbacks only if you let them stop you....  I personally simply don't think of them as setbacks... they are more to my frame of mind caution flags as we go along.  We all want to "be fit" and really go beast mode and zip through this, especially seeing all these other people doing such awesome fast track super hero workout things.  I'd be in the ER if I tried even half of it.  Discouraging to be sure but I'm going to keep slowly plodding along.  That's the only speed I have.  Forward even by the teeny tiny steps.. is still forward.  Its not easy.. but don't give up. 

 

I'll meander in the general direction of fitness with you...

[Everstorm]

give yourself a break.   Injuries are setbacks only if you let them stop you....  I personally simply don't think of them as setbacks... they are more to my frame of mind caution flags as we go along.  We all want to "be fit" and really go beast mode and zip through this, especially seeing all these other people doing such awesome fast track super hero workout things.  I'd be in the ER if I tried even half of it.  Discouraging to be sure but I'm going to keep slowly plodding along.  That's the only speed I have.  Forward even by the teeny tiny steps.. is still forward.  Its not easy.. but don't give up. 

 

I'll meander in the general direction of fitness with you...

This.  So much this.  Yes, I've been injured a lot this year, and I'm starting to realize my limitations as a not-20-year-old.  BUT, it doesn't mean I won't get there.  I just need to slow my roll a bit and stop pushing the max.  I plan to be back to physical goals next go round, but with smaller steps to reach my goal.  You do the same.  We can do this!