What the Research on Habit Formation Reveals about our Willpower and Overall Well-Being | The Buffer blog: productivity, life hacks, writing, user experience, customer happiness and business.The Buffer blog: productivity, life hacks, writing, user experience, customer happiness and business.

What the Research on Habit Formation Reveals about our Willpower and Overall Well-Being | The Buffer blog: productivity, life hacks, writing, user experience, customer happiness and business.The Buffer blog: productivity, life hacks, writing, user experience, customer happiness and business.:

A relevant article for me at the moment as a person who battles with willpower!

'via Blog this'

A Milestone

Today I received this email from Runkeeper:



1,000 kilometers!

Congratulations! You've been crushing your workouts, and your hard work and dedication have paid off. So, how far is 1,000 kilometers?

• 2,487 laps around a track
• 10,000 soccer field lengths
• 20,000 Olympic pool lengths

Impressive, right? We think this achievement is pretty cool, and it's important to celebrate the milestones along the road to your goals. So, why not celebrate with friends?Tell your friends you crossed the 1,000 kilometer mark!

So, there, I've told you. Yay me!  Yay to Paul as well as he did a big chunk of that with me.

Gym Day 1

Well the first session at the gym went ok - apparently I'm "by far not the worst" they've seen - somewhat encouraging.

My level of body fat (they say) is at 28% - it should be max 25, so there's a goal.  They also want to "swap" fat for muscle, which sounds like a good idea, so the program they've put in place for me is a mix of bike, elliptical trainer and followed up with weights.

3x 15 reps of leg presses
3x 15 reps of lateral pull-downs
3x 15 reps of bench presses
3x 15 reps of lateral lifts

The really bad part of this is the very end bit, where I have to do push-ups.  Now here's a not so secret secret from my past - I am complete RUBBISH at push-ups.  Even when I was 18 I had trouble with them.  Now I am a total hopeless case.  After this first workout I could not even manage one proper push-up (embarrassing). I also have to do a "plank", which is basically seeing how long I can keep a straight body off the ground, leaning up on my elbows.  During the test I managed 1 full minute (which was apparently good), but after the first workout I could only do 40 seconds.

Anyway, will see if over time I can improve the numbers....  I will be posting stuff on Runkeeper as well as I progress.  The goal is three time per week to start.

I have told the wife that she will have to learn to cope when I'm all buff.

Broken toe antidote - a month at the gym

Ok so I've taken the plunge and joined the gym.  The inability to do our regular walks is driving me bonkers and I'm going to end up with an eating disorder!  Already my brain is telling me, "Everything you eat will make you fat because you can't walk it off.  You are not exercising therefore the world will sit by watch in disgust as you become a super porker!"

Not good self talk.

Today I get a assessed and have a toe friendly low impact program put into place which I'll try and stick to each day (if I can).  Let's see if we can't turn this around to a positive!

Reports as I progress....

Walking totally on hold for six weeks - here's why...

Broken Toe.

Total Distance so Far 770 kms

Since tracking our walks with RunKeeper (we started in July 2009), it told me today that I've clocked up a total of 769.3 kms.

Not too bad if you ask me.  This week alone has been 14.3 kms so far.

Add the very infrequent cycling and the grand total is 856kms.  Pathetic for cycling I know but better than nothing.

Keep on walking folks.

Lifestyle Update

Well it's been a few weeks now since I did the crazy juice thing and I have to say it's still working for me.  So far I have lost around 8 kilos - slowly but surely, which is probably better than dropping weight really quickly.  The good thing is that I actually feel a lot better than I used to.

So here's the current routine, which hopefully strikes a balance between normal and nutty.

• Breakfast - fibre rich, usually home made muesli.
• During the morning - hopefully nothing at all, but possible a piece of fruit.  I have found that I can usually make it through to lunch without too much trouble.
• Lunch - I only eat what I bring to work  - usually soup or salad (not usually any bread - I have rice crackers instead) and some extra fruit (just a small amount).  I try and consume the whole lot in one go so I feel fuller.  I have found this to work pretty well and over time I have found that I actually need to eat less to feel full.
• Afternoon - This is where the juice comes in.  I bring one 750ml bottle with me each day which I have at around 3-3.30pm.  This is basically a mixture of mostly vegetables and could contain any of the following - kale, lettuce, cucumber, avocado, cabbage, celery, carrot and usually some pear and banana so it doesn't taste rubbish.  This drink is a like a big vege vitamin pill and easily keeps me going until dinner time.
• Dinner - whatever normal stuff we have.  The only real change here is that I have reduced the meat intake / vege ratio so the veggies dramatically outweigh the meat portion.  The overall portion size is also smaller.  I'm basically eating less dinner and try to stop eating when I feel full (strange concept).
• Evening - cup of tea and basically nothing else.

My philosophy is a simple one.  Form better habits.  I have has so many bad eating habits for so long if I don't fix them I'm going to pay dearly at some stage.  So I'm eating less overall and what I'm eating is better for me.  It's working.

Don;t get me wrong - I still have the odd treat when it's presented.  But a very small amount, no seconds and if I do then I treat it like a "food debt" that I need to work off be eating a smaller lunch, dinner, etc.

Also I'm drinking more water, this seems to help.

What I'm not consuming or consuming less of:

• Sandwiches and bread (less)
• Sugar (much less, virtually gone)
• Alcohol (gone)
• MSG / Sulphates - these things just make me feel crap
• Dairy products - can't tolerate these anyway

Cutting out sugar is the biggest change - almost impossible to do but makes the biggest difference.  If I have anything with sugar (or stuff that makes sugar, like Fructose, honey) then I count that as food debt, because the fruit I'm consuming each day is sweet anyway.

My goal is to lose another 10 kilos.  To do this I'm going to need to exercise more, so more walking!   I'm now getting up half an hour earlier each day to make "juice prep" time- I think I'm going to need to add another half hour dedicated to exercising to supplement the regular lunchtime jaunts.

Onward!

Still Not Dead

Turns out the chest pains I had yesterday were in fact to do with by back muscles - it totally disappeared last night after some carefully placed pressure from my massage therapist wifey.  Did make me feel  like a hypochondriac though!

Feeling good today and eating better so far, must try and keep this up and not fall into old habits.  Had a couple  of people at work tell me I looked a bit skinnier which is very encouraging.  Was a bit tough as there was a rather large supply of cakes to be had this morning......

Didn't get to walk to day but soon will I hope.

Not Dead

My short stint in hospital is finished, seems I'm perfectly healthy. Good.

The chest pain is muscular, probably caused by children. :-)

Day 4 and 5 - food again and a fun night.

I don't want to alarm you, but I'm blogging from hospital, strapped to an ECG machine. I don't believe it's related to the detox, but it's possible.

The basic story is that about lunch time yesterday I started having chest pains in the middle of my chest. Of course I ignored it. Anyway still happening when I went to bed, and woke up at 3.30 this morning with the pain. Also felt dizzy and had trouble breathing - the "heart attack trifecta" I thought.

So off to hospital I drove and have been strapped to machines since. So far heart looks ok, not the issue it seems so now waiting for a chest X-ray. At least they're letting me use my electronic friend (iPad) so I can keep amused writing blog entries!

Hopefully I'll be out of here before too long.

Anyway, started back on food yesterday with a light meal. Never have I enjoyed food so much.

Now will try and find a balance between juicing and eating. Juice between meals and with breakfast and I'm going to try cutting out sugar as its the root cause of my evils.

Just enjoying the hospital atmosphere, especially the drug addict that's been rabbiting on all night. He's now trying to leave but apparently they don't want him to just yet. I want him to leave. It's sad how people can get so messed up.

On another positive note, two of the nurses were talking about meeting up for a walk!

Day 4 - Pink Poo

I've now had so much vegetable juice I'm starting to turn into a vegetable.  In fact the beetroot stuff I had for lunch yesterday has just come to pass - so to speak!

Not feeling too bad but after walking today I felt dizzy - this detox thing is really knocking me around, probably more than I realise.  perhaps I've bottomed out now?  I hope so, only one more day to go and we can start re-introducing some more solid stuff again.  Craving carbs still.

End of day 3

While I am doing OK, this doesn't seem sustainable. It's a pain in the butt to do so much juicing and I still feel hungry all the time. Wife is struggling with energy levels.

Will see how tomorrow goes, hoping I can break through this pain barrier soon.


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Day 1&2

I must really need a detox. It's day 2 and I can say it's hard going. Did ok yesterday, but since last night I have felt dizzy and unwell. Didn't sleep well last night either and have struggled somewhat with the urge to eat solid food - especially having to make food for the kids!!

Still, I feel that I'm actually getting enough good stuff into me; it's just that my body is so used to eating certain food that it's craving what it's missing and I am suffering for it.

The worst part is the constant headache, like an addict getting off the hard stuff!

I'm hoping that by tomorrow I won't be feeling so bad, I think it's my brain telling me I'm hungry not my stomach.

We soldier on, just had a pretty good vegetable smoothie for lunch, hope it carries me for a while. All I want to do is crawl into a cave until this feeling passes......



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Reboot Time

A couple of days ago I watched a very interesting film called , "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead".  It follows the story of an Australian guy, Joe Cross, who after a life of business success and excess reaches crisis point with his health and goes on a "juice only" diet for 60 days while travelling across America (he can afford it).

The results and experiences he has along the way are fascinating and the film has now inspired a new industry of "rebooters" to try something similar.  While the cynic in me says that this "industry" was his plan all along (for example it's obvious the film was made for an American market and he has commercialised most aspects of the reboot), the results can't really be questioned.  Good luck to him, I say.

So my lovely wife and I are giving it a try for a paltry 5 days to see what happens.  If we survive that long we may extend it.

If you've been following this blog (let's face it, nobody has) you'll see it's been going for over two years and I have racked up well over 700kms of walking along with Paul, my colleague and partner in crime on this blog.  I personally have gained much from the walking and would highly recommend it - and yet although I walk I still struggle to lose weight for the simple reason that I have trouble controlling what I put in my mouth.  This innate lack of will power is the key problem that I (and I am sure many people) face.  Joe himself talks about this as his experience in the film.  What is even more extraordinary is the story of Phil the truck driver who weighed in at around 200kgs before trying the reboot in desperation and turned his life around.

Now let's put this into perspective - I am not and never have been morbidly obese.  I currently am 178cm (5'11") tall and weigh approx 95kgs (have weighed as much as 100) - not morbid, but I need to lose at least 10kgs, and I feel fat.  I desperately want to feel better and be "normal" but need to get myself out of the habit of eating bad food and retrain my body to accept what's good for it.

If people like Joe and Phil the truck driver can do it than surely I can?  We shall see.

I am at the start of day one and had a liquid breakfast and have my lunch (a dark blue drink bottle with some "Mean Green" like substance in it) sitting on my desk.  I am already fighting the urge to make a cup of tea, which I have every day (habit).  Sitting at a desk does not help one's willpower I can tell you that!

So here we go - I will try and post daily over the next few days to track progress, let's hope I can stick to the plan and get a successful reboot happening.

In the meantime, you should consider watching the film, it's really worth a look.

www.fatsickandnearlydead.com

http://www.jointhereboot.com

or there are some links to the actual film here.

How to use a Pedometer

Now I have to say up front that we don't use one on our walks because we track our walks with Runkeeper, but here's a link to a well written article which explains them for those of you who are interested in using one.

http://www.healthyexerciseworld.com/walking-pedometer.html

Too Hot to Walk?

Was the title of the email I received from Paul today.  My reply...

"I asked the ladies the same question and they all told me to take a hike."

We went walking.

Wife Beating

My wife said to me on Friday, "Did four walks this week, how many did you do?".  This question was asked with the full knowledge that I managed less that that.

This challenge cannot go unanswered!  Must try to all five days this week, so I can be a wife beater.

I'm easily motivated, just like a five year old.

Walk Faster and Live Longer

This is why we stick to more than 5kms/hr !

http://m.theage.com.au/national/health/walk-faster-and-live-longer-20120118-1q65h.html



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