The Diet Cycle

As some of you are probably well aware of by now, getting back on the running wagon is one of my goals for this year. At this point, almost 4 months in, I still haven’t gotten back into running regularly at all, but I am making strides towards getting the ball rolling again. On the exercise side of things, I mentioned in the 100 day update that I was considering doing Orangetheory again as a way to motivate myself, and I have since signed up and gone a couple times. I would’ve gone more, but I’ve been hampered with body problems and other things that ate up my time (excuses, excuses, I know). Of course, the other side of getting healthy is on the eating side of things, so this week’s post is about that.

To say that I have trouble sticking with diets is an understatement. It’s also universal among people in today’s world of food excess. I definitely fall into the camp of finding a diet that looks interesting, trying it out for a while, seeing results, and then slipping back into lazy mode once I’ve reached my goal.

To help give context for this monologue, I’ve provided a nice graph that shows my weekly average weight over the last 6+ years, starting in 2013 when I started taking daily measurements.

I really wish I had measurements all the way back to 2008, after I graduated from college, since it would show an equally impressive dip and climb back up to where the data starts. This post is going to cover essentially three different periods of time where I was able to make big gains, and then immediately fall off the wagon again, concluded with a look at what’s I’m going to be attempting this time around.

Before I start, it is important to note here that according to most estimates I’ve been able to find on the subject, the ideal weight for my size is around 195-200 lbs. That’s for a 6’4” guy, big frame, around 12% body fat.

First Cycle

As mentioned, I don’t have exact data from 2008-2012, but I mostly remember how it went. When I graduated college and moved back home (not having a job yet), I weighed around 215-220 lbs. The exact number isn’t that important, the significant part is that I gained around 30 lbs during those 4 years away from home, partly from time in the gym, but mostly because being a student means a poor lifestyle of ramen, potstickers, mac n’ cheese, chicken nuggets, pizza, and burger patties on toast.

Since I was living at home and had a bunch of time to fix this problem, I was able to undertake a pretty rigorous exercise plan. It’s not around anymore, but back then there was a website called I Want Six Pack Abs or something like that, and my best friend and I decided to give it a go. It consisted of six workouts per week, three days on strength training (for 30-60 min depending on number of exercises) and three days on cardio (30 min or less, focused on sprint intervals), plus some guidelines on what to be eating.

Food wise, the guide wasn’t too far off what many diets recommend these days. Meats and vegetables, some healthy grains, and allowed for desserts that consisted of applesauce or cottage cheese with berries. I also remember eating a lot of nuts between meals since the plan recommended smaller, more frequent meals that is common among athletes.

This strict routine lasted for almost 4 months, basically until I royally messed up my left elbow such that I couldn’t do half of the exercises anymore (and my elbow still has never fully recovered from this). But by the time this happened, I was able to get back under 200 lbs, so it was a success.

What happened after that? It took a while, but without the exercise I couldn’t maintain that weight, and my eating habits slowly got worse after I moved out on my own. I tried to get back into it a few times over the next few years, but it never stuck, so I ballooned back up to my post-college weight and beyond, as you can see from the graph.

Second Cycle

Now that I can use the graph, it is pretty obvious where the second cycle happened. There’s basically a peak around June 2013, then a consistent fall for almost a year into April 2014, holding steady for a few months, then another drastic drop from November 2014 to my ideal weight in the Spring of 2015.

The two main factors for the first drop are both exercise related. One, I started working at Amazon in September 2013, which meant that I started walking to work instead of driving. That alone had a huge impact on my mobility and how I felt. Two, I also started running in June, followed by joining Orangetheory shortly after starting at Amazon. I probably also made some diet adjustments to help fuel the new exercise, but I can’t remember exactly. It really was mostly just getting back into the habit of pushing my body.

The second drop was entirely diet related as I plateaued from exercise alone. November 2014 is when I heard about and immediately started trying the Bulletproof Diet. These days I have my doubts about the full efficacy of this diet since it seems to rely quite heavily on products that they conveniently sell, but at the time I was all in. And while I didn’t do the full Bulletproof Coffee since I generally dislike coffee, I stuck to the rest of it really well.

And the results definitely showed. My weight immediately started going down again and I cut off another 15 lbs in 4 months. However, maintaining the full diet is really difficult because of the limitations, so I didn’t stick with it much longer after I got down to that ideal weight. As I said before, I fall off the wagon quite easily.

Third Cycle

After falling off that diet for a few months, and seeing my weight creep back up again, I tried to find another diet that I felt would be easier to maintain with fewer restrictions. And I did find one that appealed because it was more about cycling through different modes of eating rather than limiting foods, so you would fast one day and then eat a bunch, followed by eating less again, cycling through different ratios of protein versus carbs versus fats, and so on. That also worked for a bit as long as I stuck with it, getting back down to 200 lbs again in early 2016. But again, it ultimately didn’t sync well with my normal life, so it lasted probably the shortest of any diet I’ve tried. I’m also not sure if the diet itself caused the weight loss or if it was just me focusing on healthy foods again.

And from there you can see the slow creep back up to where I’m at right now, hovering around 230 lbs. There are a few spikes along the way there and they are directly correlated with me quitting on my long-distance running due to foot injury, me moving away from downtown Seattle to a more suburb-like area (limiting good food options and walking), and me parting with Orangetheory because it got too inconvenient to attend. But even with all that I did seem to manage keeping the weight under control for a long while until I left Amazon in August 2018, at which point I became even more sedentary than before.

Fourth Cycle

That leads us to today where I’m aiming to start yet another cycle. I have no delusions that I will be able to lose the weight and keep it off forever, that’s just not how I operate. But if I’m going to fluctuate within a range, I’d rather it be around 200-210 instead of 225-235 like I am now.

So here’s what new. As I mentioned at the beginning, Orangetheory is back again, though I’m not planning to be as intense with it as I was before. Previously I would do 3-4 days a week, now I’m aiming for just 2, and try to get in a run on the weekends. Since my goal for the year is to run a half-marathon in under 2 hours, I need to be doing those longer runs at least once a week. Realistically the farthest distance I can get in at an Orangetheory class is about 2 miles, so that doesn’t cut it.

For my diet, I’m trying something pretty new. Not in the food I’m eating, I’m going to be attempting a close-to-keto diet, which is pretty similar to the Bulletproof stuff I did years ago that worked really well. No, what’s new is that I’m taking the super lazy route and having all my meals prepped by someone else. If I look back on my history of diets, the easiest time I had sticking to something was during those months after college when I lived at home. All I had to do was tell my parents what I was trying to do and they helped make it work. As soon as I was on my own, bad habits crept back in.

So this time I’m going to take myself out of the equation as much as possible, just eat pre-made meals with the right keto components and only involve myself when I feel like it. Yes, it is a little more wasteful and more expensive than doing it myself, but overall it’s still going to be a lot cheaper than what I’m doing now, which is going out 90% of the time because I’m lazy.

I don’t think this is something I can keep up long-term, but I’m going to do it for a few months, see how it goes, and then make adjustments if I find myself wanting to cook more. I’ve found over time that it’s easier to make good decisions when you’re already in a good place, hence why I eat so much bad stuff right now.

Hopefully things work out well this time around, and I’m sure I’ll have an update every month or two on how things are going.

Goals Update: 100 Days

As I promised at the 50 day mark, it is time for the 100 day update on how the goals are progressing. I probably won’t take as long to go over them this time around, so this will be short and sweet. This is everything up to April 10.

Run a Half-Marathon in Under 2 Hours

Still the area where I’m behind the most at this point. I have managed to do three runs in the first 100 days, which is pretty bad. My eating habits also haven’t resulted in any significant body change, though it is definitely better than it was. Still eating too much and not cooking at home enough, but getting in more healthy and less bad foods.

The hard part right now isn’t that I don’t have the time, since I do have time. I just don’t think about it most days, so I need to start setting reminders and making sure that I don’t make other obligations for when I get home on the days I should do a run.

One option I’m considering is that there is an Orangetheory Fitness next to our train station, which I used for a several years in Seattle until it became too inconvenient. Positives with this option is that you have to go to the classes or forfeit money, which creates incentive. The workouts also balance cardio and strength training, and I do feel like I need both to make any real progress. Just need to figure out what time works best if I go this route. In any case, I need to do something soon or I won’t have enough time to train up.

Publish a Post Every Week

No real change here, I have managed to have a post for every week, even if they arrive a week or two late. This is week 15, and you can see that there are exactly 15 posts in the column to the right within 2019.

The biggest struggle has continued to be thinking of topics to write about. This is mostly due to not having as much time to work on things to review as I’d anticipated. I suppose this is also partially due to having ideas for posts I want to write about, but not willing to do so without having enough data/experience to give a worthwhile opinion. Like, I could talk about my time with VR, but I’ve only spent like 5 hours with it, which isn’t much. I really want to talk about some board games, but with only a couple plays I can’t say that I’ve really engaged with them (which is partially why last week’s post happened).

On the plus side, with my schedule more settled and fewer trips coming up, I have time locked down to do the writing, so I have been getting more consistent at being on time.

Listen to 200 New Albums

As of day 100, I have listened to 33 new albums. That means I’ve almost tripled the number since the last update, but still only 1/6 of the total I need. Considering that we’re only a little more than three months in, I’m positive about the trend.

What has been helping is that instead of forcing myself to follow a set list of albums, I’ve been jumping around between different artists and just going through their whole discography, making note of the new stuff. That was always the plan, but I’m okay with going with what I want to hear rather than doing a purely alphabetical journey. On the other hand, what hasn’t been helping is that I still have to try to keep caught up on podcasts, which eats into music time. My office is also not conducive to consistent listening since interruptions are constant.

Since the last update, a couple albums have stood out as worth repeat listening. Rubber Factory by The Black Keys, Favourite Worst Nightmare by The Arctic Monkeys, and Queen II by Queen (duh). I already liked all those bands beforehand, but these albums were new to me and I keep thinking about them.

Aside from those new ones, I’m also still giving Dreams in Space (my band’s album) a lot of listens, plus I’ve re-remembered how much I love the album Origami Eyes from my friends in American Island, so that’s also eating up some time. But, gotta do what you love.

Make a Focusing/Quitting Habit

In the last update I mentioned that I wasn’t sure where I was with this, and I’ve had to make some adjustments to make it work better. I’m still tracking books (should read every day) and audiobooks (should listen every work day) the way I was before. Incidentally, the percentages for focusing on those are currently 65% for books (better) and 65% for audiobooks (slightly worse).

The games have completely fallen off because I realized it wasn’t actually what I should be focusing on. I kept having other things I needed to do, so what I decided to go with instead was simply marking if I got my focus activity done or not. Each day I determine what that activity is going to be, and then do it (or not if I get distracted). Some of these activities are games, but some are writing these posts, learning new skills, and doing things with my wife. It has made it a lot easier to make sure that the activities I want to do get more equal time, as well as making it less frustrating to see myself not getting things done (because I am getting things done!).

Back on the quitting side of things, I still haven’t encountered anything that I’ve wanted to drop yet. The audiobook from last time (Gone Girl, which I ranted on a few weeks ago) was able to survive the axe. There are a couple more things on the block now though, so we’ll see again what happens. The thing is that right now I’m doing enough different things that I haven’t had a chance to get a full experience of anything.

Alright, that’s pretty much it. Obviously I need to keep going in the areas that are going well, and I really need to get the exercise kicked up a notch. Another update will come at the end of June.

Two Months in NYC (vs Seattle)

This is a continuation of my post from a month ago about how my first month in NYC went. At the time I wrote it I wanted to devote some time to talking about how life here has differed from living in Seattle, but didn’t have the time and that post was already getting long. So I’m going to complete that thought this week with a little more experience under my belt.

Just to start off, the biggest difference between the last post and this one is that, since then, everything has been moved here from Seattle, including my wife and cat. So right away I can say that it is a lot less lonely and it is starting to feel like home, though we both still have several moments each week where we have to remind ourselves that we really live here now. The only other comparison I can make is when I moved to Spokane for college, but that was always with the understanding that it was a temporary thing. With this move, we don’t know yet how long it will be. Hopefully it will be a good, long while since we both like it so far, but the future is never set in stone.

Let’s go ahead and start in with the differences between NYC and Seattle. First, the apartment we’re in, since we spend most of our time here. Definitely smaller than our old townhome, it’s somewhere between the sizes of the previous two apartments. But since we got rid of a ton of stuff during the move, it honestly feels more open than it used to be. Due to the design of the townhome we could only host 8 or so before it started to get crowded. The new layout allows for 10-12 easily. Plus, since it’s an apartment building, there are community areas that can fit even more if required.

The other big difference is that this apartment is 100% wood flooring. Living in Seattle we never had a home that wasn’t mostly carpeted. There is one part of me that will always prefer carpet over wood since it’s just nicer to walk on. On the other hand, wood floors are easier to maintain and you get a better sense of how dirty things actually are. Carpets are straight up nasty if you think about it. The wood floor, along with other aspects of the apartment, will lead us to be better at keeping things tidy and clean, so it’s a benefit overall. Just have to be more careful about dropping things.

In terms of other apartment amenities, most of them we’ve seen before. Rooftop deck, courtyard, fitness room, community area, garage, etc. The only real amenity that’s different from Seattle in general is the 24/7 doorman (or woman). It is super common here, particularly for luxury apartments like ours. The hole-in-the-wall apartments don’t have them, but any building that has a front desk of any kind will usually have one. Plenty of apartment buildings in Seattle have leasing offices that handle most of the same functions, but I can’t think of any that were 24/7. Suffice it to say, it’s pretty convenient, and since we see them so often, it quickly becomes a bond like being a familiar at a bar or restaurant.

The next big area for me is working, since that’s a good 50+ hours of my week (including commute). Speaking of the commute, outside of the obvious differences of using a train instead of a bus, there really aren’t that many actual differences. The trains are more frequent and don’t get held up by traffic of course, unless there are delays for one reason or another. I will say that work on the subway is consistent enough that you do always have to be cognizant of what might impact you and how you have to work around it, which never really happened taking the bus in Seattle. There are really only two cultural differences in the commute. One, people rarely shoved to get on the buses in Seattle. It is as common here as it is in any other big city you might visit in Europe or Asia. Two, pedestrians in Seattle definitely do not jaywalk like they do here. I know there is a general stigma because police in Seattle will actually write people up for it, but it’s simply not enforceable here so literally everyone does it.

As for work itself, this is the first job where I’ve had a standard 9(ish)-5(ish) schedule. My first standup of each day is at 9am, so I have to be there by then (I usually get there by 8:45). And I leave sometime in the 5-6pm hour, depending on how long of a lunch break I took and whether something urgent needs to get done. I think the only reason why this actually works for me is because rush hour isn’t that big of a deal here, as long as you don’t drive. Trying to get around Seattle during rush hour was literal hell, so most people I worked with shifted hours to avoid it, including me. It doesn’t seem to be that big a problem here, so most people hold more standard hours.

The culture of the company itself is different in plenty of other ways. I can’t say how much of it is really coast-versus-coast rather than Amazon-versus-literally-everyone-else, so I won’t get into it. I’ll just say that it’s more old school here where people are more interested in protecting their backs than collaborating towards a common goal. What I can say is coast-dependent is that everyone here dresses so well. I feel like a damn slob most days because I haven’t had a chance to update any of my wardrobe yet. About the only piece of clothing I have that isn’t embarrassing is my jeans. Luckily everyone understands that I’m west coast and haven’t transitioned yet, but I feel bad about it. I just want to look good too.

The last area I want to mention is around the food scene. I’m sure there are plenty of other cultural areas I could get into, but since we haven’t had any real time to explore I don’t have any observations there. But when it comes to food, it is a pretty easy statement to say that the quality here is off the charts compared to Seattle. I’d like to think that most of the places I liked frequenting in Seattle would probably do just fine here as well, but there’s a good 90% or so of Seattle restaurants that would be laughed out of town. And it’s not just the flavor either, you can tell that the ingredients are also better. You go to any grocery and the stuff you find is all high quality. The side effect is that none of it is cheap, but that’s just an adjustment you have to make in general.

One of the things that I noticed within the first week of going to work and getting food around the office is that NYC as a whole is a bit behind most cities on the west coast in terms of eco-friendly packaging. Even though it has technically been banned, I’ve been to a few places where everything is still styrofoam. And plastic bags haven’t been banned at all, so they are freaking everywhere. It is legitimately difficult to convince people that you don’t want or need a plastic bag to take something with you. The idea of reusable bags at the grocery story is novel to many cashiers. Seattle hasn’t even had the bans on these things for that long either, but it’s been long enough that it was immediately apparent what a difference it makes.

In terms of the varieties of food, NYC is certainly going to be more diverse, but it’s interesting to see which cuisines get more favor. The biggest thing I miss here so far is a distinct lack of Vietnamese food and teriyaki (sushi and ramen are pretty common though). There is a lower percentage of Asian food across the board here compared to Seattle, for obvious reasons, but those two in particular are things I’ve had trouble finding. Over here what you will find a ton of that Seattle has relatively little of is Mediterranean/Middle Eastern food. It seems like every other food cart on the street serves either bagels or shawarma. Another thing there’s more of in NYC that I never saw in Seattle is South American food. I’ve had a chance to have Venezuelan, Colombian, and Peruvian stuff here and it’s all amazing.

Another obvious area where Seattle reigns supreme is in coffee shops. Sure you expect there to be more Dunkin Donuts here versus Starbucks, but there aren’t that many of either compared to Seattle. In my experience most people don’t care that much and will just have the office coffee or get whatever is closest to the office, whether that be Starbucks, Dunkin, Pret, Joe and the Juice, or whatever. I don’t care being a coffee avoider, but my wife will probably miss that aspect of Seattle over time. On the flip side, NYC has pizza everywhere in the same way. And yes, the pizza here is better than any pizza in Seattle, with a couple exceptions.

I think that’s enough bloviating for one post. I’m sure there will be more observations to make in this area, so maybe another update will be due in a few months. Until then, going to try to do as many new things as possible.

Goals Update: 50 Days

I’m sure it’s getting a little tired by now, but since I don’t have any other things to write about this week, I think it’s a good idea to check up on how I’m doing in regards to the goals I set for the year after 50 days. This means looking at my tracking of goals up to February 19, though this post is being written a little later. I can already say that some of these goals are pretty far behind due to the craziness involved with moving, but there’s still plenty of time in the year to catch up. Hopefully.

Run a Half-Marathon in Under 2 Hours

This is probably the one I’m the most behind on. In the first 50 days I didn’t do a single run and my eating habits have been worse than ever thanks to not having any real way to prepare normal food, since all my cookware was in Seattle while I’ve been in New York, and now it’s all on a truck waiting to get here. It’s also really hard to want to eat well when it’s cold all the time and you are traveling around a bunch to try to get things done at opposite ends of the country.

On the plus side, the amount of walking I’ve been having to do has kept my body less stiff than it got during my funemployment. I’m also trying to be more conscious about the amount of food I eat, even if most of it is just meat and carbs. My body didn’t struggle with any of the moving process either, so that’s a good sign that I should be able to ease back into exercise quickly.

Things are getting into a more predictable routine with work, so I’m hoping that in the next week or two I can cut out some time to get in some short jogs to at least get my mind and body back into the idea of doing something after work a couple nights a week. Still need to find a place to do strength training too.

Publish a Post Every Week

Well, you wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t doing this. I haven’t been on time with all of my posts, particularly in the last couple weeks, but I’ve been doing my best to make sure I don’t get too far behind. With this post I’ll be back on track to hit my scheduled time next post.

The biggest struggle here has been getting topics to write about. The idea was to always have a month’s worth of ideas stocked up so this wouldn’t happen. Problem is that I do have a bunch of ideas, I just can’t write about them yet because they are for things I haven’t done yet, but plan to do once I have time. I was relying a lot of having more games and other media to review for most of my posts, and I just haven’t had time to complete much during the last month. A lot of that is my fault for choosing movies and other brainless things over games and books, but you can only do so much when you leave for work at 8am and get back home around 9pm because you have to eat out every night. Not to mention the flying and focusing on getting a new apartment ready to live in.

Needless to say, I can’t wait to get back to some form of normalcy around here. That will help make topics easier to come up with since I will have time to wander, physically and mentally.

Listen to 200 New Albums

As of day 50, I have listened to 12 albums. So 6% of the way there, though almost 14% of the way through the year. That’s not too bad. I don’t have a full list of specific albums to listen to, but I do have a list of artists that I want to visit and see what I’ve missed over the years.

So far all the listening has been done at work. As it turns out, the new workspace is much more chaotic and full of disruptions than any team I had at Amazon, so putting the headphones on has been a must. That being said, I haven’t fully removed all other forms of distraction from my phone yet, so I am still spending more time on there than I should during breaks. I have also been spending a lot of time listening to my own music, which is cutting into time for other new stuff. I’m sure that will eventually lessen once the new album is not so new.

None of the albums I’ve listened to yet have stood out as particularly great (aside from my own band’s, of course!), but I now know some more music from artists I already like.

Make a Focusing/Quitting Habit

I’m not entirely sure where I am with this to be honest. I can say that during this move I haven’t been good at focusing on certain things, but doing okay in others.

What I have been doing well is keeping the daily tracker of what I spent my time on. At least, as far as keeping track of whether I focused on the game, book, and audiobook I should be doing, that’s been going well. I decided to track those three things because they take up distinct parts of the day. Games only happen during normal after-work time. Books only happen during the hour leading up to sleeping. And audiobooks only happen during my commute. For the interested, my percentages for each of those are: 20%, 58%, and 69%, respectively, the goal being 75% over the course of the year.

Where I’m not sure if my system is working properly is that for days where I know I didn’t have any time or ability to do a focus task, I just counted it as N/A, but every other day where I had even the slimmest chance to do one of those things, I would count it against me if I didn’t do it, even if I didn’t actually get distracted from it. So, for example, I don’t count weekends against audiobooks because I’m not commuting, and I don’t count not playing a game against me if I don’t have the game with me, like when I was packing up things in Seattle to move. But otherwise, if I didn’t play the game, but I was spending the time calling or emailing people about moving, or I was writing one of these posts, it would still go against me. I haven’t been doing a good job of tracking those other things, so I should probably start doing that or at least assess if I truly missed my focus task because I got distracted with something lesser than.

Either way, I’m doing okay on books and audiobooks given the system I have been using. Games are in really bad shape though, I just haven’t played anything in almost a month, basically since I started my job. And most of those days are counted against me because I technically had an hour or two at home where I could’ve done it. Some of those days are valid because I would just watch a video instead, but many of them I had other important things to do, I just don’t remember which days they were at this point. Going forward I will make it a point to put the lack of playing in perspective since I shouldn’t penalize myself for doing something more important.

On the quitting side of things, I haven’t felt the need to drop anything yet, but the audiobook I’m currently working on might be the first one. I’m about 3 hours in and I’m not a fan of the characters or the writing. I will give it the 5 hours I said I would, but if it doesn’t improve significantly by then, I won’t have any problem dropping it and picking up something else.

Looks like I ended up having quite a bit to report on. I’m planning to do this again after 100 days, so shortly into April, and see if things have improved by then. After that it’ll just be at the end of each quarter, so end of June, September, and finally the full year assessment. So look forward to those I guess.

Achieving Greatness: Improving Performance (Part 1)

This is the first of four posts I will be writing about achieving greatness. This is a topic that I’ve been spending more time thinking about in the last few months, mostly thanks to the work of Lewis Howes on his fantastic podcast, The School of Greatness. One of the questions he always asks of his guests is what their definition of greatness is. For me, greatness is fully realizing my potential. In fact, that’s what most of his guests answer with, or something very similar. Greatness is all about just doing the best that you can do at everything you do. It never has anything to do with the final product or what it can get you. If you are truly excelling at what you do, the results will come naturally.

Part of me feels like this is a topic that I shouldn’t be giving advice on, seeing as how I am not even close to realizing my potential. And that is very true. But then again, no truly great person has ever acknowledged they have realized their potential. They just keep aiming higher. So, even though I have not reached my goals, I have learned a lot of things along the way, and I want to help others get down the right path as well.

One of the things I do a lot of is listen to interviews with successful people. And, on occasion, if I really connect with someone, I will read some of their work and try to glean some advice on how to be successful as well. These posts will be about the things that I’ve learned from hundreds of interviews and several books, things that have specifically worked for me. Honestly, a lot of these people tend to just say the same things, or sometimes their claims are rather far-fetched, and other times their advice just doesn’t apply to most people. I’m not a self-help guru, so I am not going to make any claims that these will work for everyone. I do know that they work for me, and I think that they are general enough that most people can apply the principle.

This post is about improving performance and being more productive. When I think about performance, my focus has always been on doing things properly and quickly. Not just in the workplace, but at home as well. Here are three tips to improve your performance.

Put Your Health First

This always sounds cliché since everybody says the put your health first, but yet so few people actually do. I’m just as guilty of this as the next guy. In high school I was in fantastic shape. Then I went to college and gained around 40 pounds by the time I graduated. They just built up over time. When I got out, I went on a diet and exercise regimen and lost almost all of it. Then I hurt myself and couldn’t do the exercise anymore, so I gained it all back over the next four years, which I still carry today.

And this is exactly why I am putting my health first again. I am choosing to sacrifice some of my vices in order to make sure this happens.

The first component is to not eat crap. Duh! “Eating right” is a very dumb phrase since there are hundreds of ways to do it. Just look at the shelves of books on diets that “work” at bookstores. So instead of saying “eat right”, my phrase is “don’t eat crap.” And it’s really easy to tell what crap is. All sweets, fried foods, sodas, alcohols, and most carbs fall under “crap”. Avoiding those will do most of the work. Not eating crap is pretty easy for me, but I still struggle a lot with eating enough fruits and vegetables, so I am focusing more on getting those in my meals. I am still constantly amazed at how much better I feel eating good foods versus crap foods.

The second component is to control portions. This is really, really hard in America since most restaurants serve way too much food, especially at dinner when you should be eating the least. I am the worst at controlling portions, always have been. When I see food in front of me, my instincts are to finish all of it. But I still work at it because I want to be better. For best results, I will eat a small breakfast when I get up, just to take the edge off, then eat another small portion two hours later, have my biggest meal at lunch, and finish with a smaller dinner. Often I won’t even eat enough at dinner to feel full. I take half of what I think I should have, and then eat again before bed if I get hungry enough. Having significant food in my stomach when I go to bed is the surest way to see the scale go up in the morning rather than down.

The third component is to exercise regularly, daily if possible, but I have yet to reach that point. Again, it’s really hard to find the time to do it. Any decent workout is going to take an hour. And then stretching and showering takes another 30 minutes. Put in the time it takes to get to the gym and back, and my workouts end up taking two hours out of my day. But it’s worth it to me, so I sacrifice by getting up early to make time for it. I have found that going to the gym at lunch break works best for me, but doing it before or after work is just fine too. Figure out when you like it best.

The fourth and last component is sleep. One of the most universal truths I’ve heard from the successful people I mentioned earlier is that getting enough sleep is critical to success. Just as universal, the recommended amount is 8-9 hours. Growing up as a borderline insomniac in school, it has taken me a long time to get to where I can do that consistently, and it really does make a huge difference. When I get the full amount, I have much more energy than I would with only 6 hours (which I did fine with for years). Don’t overindulge though, as going over the recommended amount will result in feeling groggy again earlier in the day than you should. When I get 8 hours, I find it hard to stay in bed anyway, my body just wants to get going.

Read Every Day

This is one that I picked up from James Altucher’s Choose Yourself. After college, it took me about four years to get back into reading regularly. However, I would read when I felt like it, preferring to play games or watch movies instead. But then I read James’ book, and he said that you should read at least two hours a day, it is that important. I admit that I don’t always read two hours a day, but I do get at least one, and I’m happy that I do.

I have found that reading has two major benefits. The first is that reading keeps me sharp and focused. I tend to be more productive at work when I read for an hour before I start than otherwise. I also find that I get a lot more from reading than any other medium, things that I can use in my own works.

The second benefit is that reading is very good at getting my brain to relax. This is especially useful at bedtime. I tend to fall asleep much faster when I read before bed over when I watch a movie or play a game. Tim Ferriss also recommends reading an hour before bed for this very reason.

Seriously, reading is good! I find that the more I read, the more I want to read. And it doesn’t have to be all serious stuff like biographies (I don’t read those at all) or other non-fiction. I mostly read fantasy and sci-fi novels, with some graphic novels thrown in for good measure. In fact I just got The Contract With God Trilogy by Will Eisner in the mail yesterday, and I’m looking forward to that one.

Monitor Your Progress

Another thing that most successful people will tell you is that recording your progress is the best thing to keep your motivation high, especially among athletes. I agree with them, for the most part. They will often take things to an extreme level. I like to simply focus on a few things that will show that my efforts are not in vain.

Two of the main things I record are my weight (daily) and what I do during my workouts. I really like seeing both of these improve over time, especially on the workouts. I am definitely getting stronger faster than I am losing weight, but that could easily be written off as muscle weight replacing fat weight.

Another thing I have started recording are my daily goals and how well I do on them. I will discuss this more next week.

Most people have poor memories about where they used to be compared to where they are now. Obviously if you lose 100 pounds, you will notice the difference there, but that’s over the course of months. You barely notice the daily changes, which is why recording those things is useful. Everyday you know that you are progressing in something, even if it’s not something that useful (I record my progress in the video games I play, for example). No matter how you do it, either using a notepad or a spreadsheet (I use both!) or a bunch of sticky notes on a board, monitoring your progress will make it easier to stay on path.

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Next week, three more tips on improving performance. Look forward to it!