Hey everyone,
I wanted to share some of my positive results this year and a few of the mental tricks I've used to keep myself motivated to continue pursuing my goals.
Diet
Starting the middle of December 2018, I decided to undertake a radical overhaul of my eating habits. This involved a number of changes, including:
-Abstaining from all sweets
-Abstaining from beer consumption as much as possible
-Greatly reducing portions at each meal
-Introducing a variety of fruits and veggies
-Quitting spicy food
-Implementing an interval fasting schedule (only eating between noon-8pm)
The fasting was tough in the beginning since I've always been a big proponent of eating breakfast. It took a week to adjust to the feeling of being hungry upon waking, but not having to act on it right away. My buddy aptly pointed out that my dependence on eating at a certain time had started to affect my mood negatively (grumpy), so I wanted to fix that and have more of a sense of purpose for when and why I was eating. I have noticed a significant improvement in my metabolism, and my digestive issues which gave me unbearably awful gas have subsided almost entirely.
Exercise
I also started an exercise routine which included running a total of 2.5 to 3 miles for 4 days a week, along with a weight lifting routine and pushups/sit ups/crunches. This has provided numerous benefits, most significantly a sense of solitude and focus when I'm honed in on my breathing pattern. I'll start with 5 steps in, 5 steps out and slowly shorten the intervals (like shifting gears) until I'm at 2-in, 2-out for the remainder of the run. I've found this to be an excellent way to improve stamina and track my progress based on how long I can stay in each gear. I also created what I call the "no-quit zone", which is about halfway to any particular goalpost where I know the option for giving up is simply out of the picture. This has helped tremendously with my mental fortitude - which seems to be the main obstacle to overcome more often than any physical limitation. I absolutely love seeing progress being made in real time and noticing how much less winded I get from day to day. This, by itself, is a wonderful motivator. I'm down 19 pounds in 3 months - much faster than I even expected.
Quitting Nicotine
I smoked cigarettes from about 17 until 26, and then I got on the vape craze for 4 years. MY girlfriend has never been a fan of the huge clouds, so that was an immediate reason to quit, but it was really a realization one night that I couldn't just sit there and be myself without any attachment - it was always myself + nicotine, and it had gotten to the point where my natural instinct every couple minutes was to reach for it without even a conscious thought. I really cringed at the lack of self-control and awareness it made me develop, so I gave all my supplies away to a friend and stopped that night. That was about a month ago. The first couple weeks were super stressful and uncomfortable, especially since we had a round of new hires at work and I had two concerts for which I had been hired to play percussion. But I came to find this as a good test of will and an exercise in finding ways to channel the stress into more useful energy. Every time I had a craving, I would do 20 jumping jacks or 10 push-ups. This helped me not see the urges as something to fear, but rather as something to challenge myself by turning it into a physical release. I haven't even thought about nicotine all this week.
Getting Back in School
This was the toughest one, believe it or not. I dropped out of college in my first year back in 2006 and haven't been back since. I convinced myself for many years that I'd make it my mission to prove that I didn't need a degree to make decent money. Well, I ended up at what has turned out to be the single most stressful job of my entire life. It's a sales job, so there's amazing weeks and awful weeks. There's also a bipolar, trump-supporting, self-sabotaging boss to deal with, and he's constantly making things way more stressful than they need to be. This, combined with a really serious conversation with my SO, led me to apply and get myself working towards a degree in computer science. It all kinda hit me at once - the stress and uncertainty of my job, the prospect of starting a family and buying a house, being able to have upward mobility - get your ass out there and study! So I did and it feels like I conquered a long-standing fear. Face them! That's the name of the game this year for me, and man is it gratifying!
So if there's a takeaway from this post, I hope it is this - almost every single limitation you think you have is severely exaggerated by your mind, and you have only yourself to get out of the way before getting the shit done. I am very much an introvert, so I have an added layer of anti-social tendencies to get past as well. But I can mentally and physically feel myself growing as a person with each goal or task that I crush, and my resolve only grows stronger for the next one. You've gotta harness the power of the snowball effect when you set healthy habits in motion - and it all starts with one. The decision to eat better, to start exercising, to put yourself out there a little more, and to take a stab at something that's been holding you back. You can and will do it as soon as you stop negotiating yourself out of it.
I hope everyone is having a happy and healthy 2019, cheers!
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