Looks like you are making progress. You are correct that the most important part of your “training” at this point is training yourself to get to the exercise room at least three times a week. That in itself is a lifestyle change. And for that reason, it is not necessary to overload yourself with work once you get there. Its more important to succeed at what you are aiming to do. And then to continue to gradually increase the workload. That routine of getting to the exercise room and looking forward to moving to the next level will pay off. I have no doubt of that.
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Doing well seities. I like your approach of habit forming, might have to steal that!
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Thanks Lapka!
On the subject of form, I have been weightlifting on and off for about 20 years now, had a lot of personal training sessions, etc. My squat form is actually pretty good despite all my poor flexibility. The key is usually just getting the right width in your stance and making sure that you “sit back” so that your knees don’t end up coming too far over the front of your feet. If you haven’t done them a lot before, a good trick is to have a chair or bench that you kinda squat back onto so that you can get comfortable finding how much you can sit back without losing balance.
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ty Rexxie Wexxie Bexxie Boo!
Little story - about 5 years ago I was trying to think of some sort of online blog I could start and turn into my full time job. I toyed around with some different ideas, and nothing really stuck. Then I read “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg and really felt like I had found the core of what I would make the blog about. The use of habits as a foundation for living better. I did a little research to see if anyone else was doing this, and then I stumbled across jamesclear.com - and pretty much felt straight away “this guy is just doing it so well…I am just going to follow him and shelve the idea”. He released a book last year called Atomic Habits which you might have heard of as it has been really successful.
Anyway, long story short if you are interested in more info on building habits and some key concepts, I think you could do a lot worse than checking out that website. Also, I use the Habitify app to track everything and find it a simple and useful UI.
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Hrm, I’m actually not sure how I indicated that I hate exercising? Sorry for not being more clear regardless.
I played a lot of sport growing up (particularly soccer/rugby/tennis). When I was 18 I got my first gym membership, and have been training on and off ever since. I actually did a personal trainers course as well, but it was a 12 week course and for a variety of reasons I never pursued a career in it. Part of the reason was because I didn’t have the confidence in the course I had being enough to go out there and instruct people, but there were other issues that came into it as well.
I’ve spent a lot of time reading bodybuilding forums etc in the past, though honestly most of that was wasted since there was a lot of perpetuation of so-called best practices that actually had no backing in science. It still happens all the time now of course, I just know better than to buy into it.
My current situation is that I am probably about 40lbs bigger than I should be taking into account my body type. I like weightlifting, but my weight and age are conspiring against me on that front and I have lower back and flexibility issues that are stopping me from being able to do heavy lifting. So for much of the last 18 months my focus has been more on rehab type exercise to improve core strength, flexibility, etc.
The habits I described in my OP are habits I have been working on for years, with various levels of compliance. So this whole thing isn’t “new” for me, but the blog is partly an attempt to help bring more focus and accountability to it.
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Edit to add: The feeling is mutual. The nice chat we had in the Studs and Spuds thread was one of the reasons I felt comfortable enough to keep posting more.
But ima still whoop yo ass in the RiskyFlush Walrus
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Johnny is such a suck up. You should ban him from your blog!
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Thanks!
About motivation - it’s not really something they taught in any effective way. There was a little bit of teaching about how to work with different personality types based on DISC personality profiling, but not much on how to foster ongoing motivation. It’s a good point though because you find out pretty quickly that the majority of personal training (if you work for yourself, out of a commercial gym) is really a marketing exercise.
I think the ones who make a good career of it though would be people who either have a natural ability to motivate different personality types, or put in the work to learn. I would imagine some people will get the most out of seeing the numbers change/improve (I would be in that category). Others will keep coming back if you joke around with them. Some people routinely go to a personal trainer just to pay for someone to make them the sole focus for an hour out of their day/week.
If you are asking more for yourself specifically, some suggestions I have:
- Try doing what I am - update your blog once a week with how many days you exercised of some sort.
- Track it with an app and try to get a streak going. It’s quite motivating once you have put together X days in a row to continue the streak.
- Environment design is massively under-rated in terms of motivation. What I mean by that is designing your environment to remove as much friction as possible from activities you want to encourage, and add as much friction as possible to activities you want to discourage. A simple example with food would be to put a bowl of fruit in your kitchen where it is very easy to walk by and grab a piece, and put your chocolate up in a shelf in a cupboard that takes more effort to get to. For exercise, maybe you pack your exercise clothes in a bag the night before, and put them by your front door. That way its easy to grab them on your way to work so you can exercise on your way home.
- I also feel like allowing yourself a “pass” for making the minimum required effort is healthy. Sometimes, I get dressed and go to the gym even though I am reeeaaallly not feeling it. As long as I do one exercise there, I give myself permission to leave. But often once you go and do one thing, you are willing to do more.
Something I really like from the James Clear site is “systems beat goals”. So generally for me I try and make systems in my life that are easy to stick to, rather than continually coming up with elaborate distant goals. It has been a big change in mindset that I made about 5 years ago that is significantly more beneficial to me.
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“Not good enough”.
A lot of people with anxiety or self esteem issues have some variant of this trigger embedded in their psyche. Some different therapy techniques involve ascribing a name to this trigger, or a silly song associated with it, or an animal. The goal seems to be to detach this “thought” from “you”. When I think back about 10 years, I didn’t even realise the extent to which I was dealing with (or not dealing with) anxiety issues. Just recognizing that I was feeling anxious was a sort of breakthrough. Going another layer deeper and understanding a bit more about root cause is another breakthrough.
I think maybe I will try making my “not good enough” a raven. So when I realise I am judging myself, or taking an interaction with another person as a reflection of my own value, I will try to break that thought out. It is now a squawking raven "squawk - “not good enough” squawk . And I will not try to fight the raven or get mad at it. It’s a raven. It’s not trying to be mean to me, this is just its “thing”. But I will try to counter it with something like “Thanks for your input Raven, but I’m actually a pretty decent guy doing the best I can. You can fly away now.”
This all probably sounds a bit weird if you have never read about ideas like this before, but it’s all just different therapy/mindfulness techniques. I’d like to try adopting this one and seeing if it helps. The challenge is always that when this trigger is activated, it is harder to be mindful and turn the pervasive negative spiral into a raven that you can wave off.
Weekly review - Week ending Feb 22nd
Weight: 260.00 (was 259.4)
Slightly up on last week but I’ll take it. I’m really not laser focussed on this metric at the moment. Establishing other habits should make getting results here easier. If I can hold steady and slowly move the right way month on month I am happy with that.
Sleep
This week I averaged 8 hours per night. I know that is an amount that a lot of people would be jealous of. It’s an improvement, but it’s really still not enough for me. I spend a lot of time feeling like I am fighting against being tired and trying to focus and be productive. I generally try and avoid all energy drinks these days, but for real there are few times when I feel better than after having a large can of red bull (sugar free). I feel like I can get into flow with my work and I just feel seriously happy. I can’t seem to achieve that same feeling with tea/coffee, even drinking a lot of it to mimic the caffeine levels of red bull.
Deliberate exercise
6/7 - Yay! I am staying pretty consistent here, even if the exercise itself is relatively light.
Stretches
6/7. Yay again!
Meditation
5/7. I broke my streak this week. I had a bad anxiety flare-up on Thursday (which is the day I didn’t do the exercising or stretching as well) and missed Friday as well. Still, I am being pretty consistent and happy enough.
Reading
5/7. Still working my way through A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers Will Rule the Future . So far the book is fine without being compelling. I think I am going to start skipping some chapters that I am less interested in with books like this, but the completionist in me really struggles with doing that, even though I know it makes sense.
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I didn’t really want to write a review today. I’m stressing about a few things and kinda thought this week was pretty poor in terms of completions. I’m glad I wrote it though - as you see from the numbers I did a lot better than the story I was telling myself in the moment.
Weekly review - Week ending Feb 29th
Weight: ¯_(ツ)_/¯ (was 260.00)
I forgot to weigh myself this morning.
Sleep
This week I averaged 7.9 hours per night. On the back of the 8 hour average last week, this is a few good weeks in a row. I am waking up a during the night at least a few nights a week which I am pretty sure is stress-related but at least my total hours is closer to what I need the last few weeks.
Deliberate exercise
5/7 - Pretty good. I can see this dropping away in the coming weeks depending on what news comes regarding COVID19 as using the gym in the apartment complex may be something I choose to avoid. Maybe I can start doing some things in my apartment, but its a small studio. Need to think on this.
Stretches
5/7. I aggravated my upper trap at the beginning of this week and its still bothering me. So now I have some stretches for that to add into the rest of my routine.
Meditation
6/7. I’m really doing well with consistency with this habit. At the moment I am just redoing the 30 day intro to meditation course I worked through in January, but selecting only the meditations that were most useful to me.
Reading
4/7. I finished my previous book, and last night I started reading https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43582733-stillness-is-the-key. This builds on the mindfulness work I am doing, and I think especially at this point in time it is a good book for me.
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You are right, I could do something like that. It is still quite cold though (down around 0 celsius, a bit warmer during the day). I could still do these things in the cold but I won’t. Soon things will be warmer and it might be an option.
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All in all this was not a great week for me, at least not compared to previous weeks. I felt very run down, slept poorly, and stressed a lot about multiple issues. With that said I feel optimistic that this next week will get better. Some of the things stressing me have been handled, and I think as long as I can get some better sleep in the coming week I am going to have more head space to be more proactive.
Weekly review - Week ending March 7th
Weight: 261.6 (was 260.00 2 weeks ago)
Im not really surprised about this one. I have been really stressing out the last few weeks, not being very careful with food choices, and this week I felt very run down and cancelled all my physiotherapy and didn’t really exercise out of caution. I’m starting a new job soon and think this will bring an improvement to my mental health and I am thinking about how to change my daily schedule when I start the new job (it will be remote).
Sleep
This week I averaged 7.3 hours per night. Factoring in that I got 9.5 hours sleep on Saturday, my average during the week would have been less than 7 hours. I am sure this goes some way to explaining why I felt so run down all week. I already take measures to improve my sleep hygiene, but for now this issue continues to be a problem for me.
Deliberate exercise
1/7 - Clearly a shit week on this front. As I said earlier I felt crappy all week, and wasn’t sure if I was coming down with something. I also cancelled my physiotherapy appointments which usually accounts for some of my exercise each week. Not going to beat myself up about it though. This next week I will do better.
Stretches
1/7. There is less of an excuse for this than for the lack of exercise. I could have still done stretches in my apartment, for example. This week will be better. I am thinking about doing some Yoga with Adriene sessions in the coming weeks.
Meditation
6/7. Another good week. My compliance with this habit has been really good. Something I found myself doing this last week though was skipping ahead to the end in some of my sessions because I was just completely out of the moment. I still give myself the credit for sticking to the habit on these days, but if I want to see the right benefits from meditating I need to stop bailing out midway through a meditation session because it actually trains the opposite behaviour of what I am trying to achieve.
Reading
6/7. Still reading Stillness Is the Key by Ryan Holiday | Goodreads. I am enjoying it, even if I haven’t really learned anything new so far. I feel pretty sure that like a lot of “self-help” books I am going to get to the end and feel like the whole thing could have been condensed into one blog post, but at the same time I feel like expanding more on concepts in books, even if it is just anecdotes, can help the messages sink in a little further. Something I like is that Ryan Holiday has broken the chapters up into bite-sized pieces which makes reading more enjoyable for me.
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Got back on track with the exercise the last few days. I have gone to the gym in our apartment building and done 20 minutes on the elliptical plus some additional work. My plan is to do 20 mins elliptical every day, then alternate between doing my physiotherapy exercises and stretches or doing some light strength training.
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Wow. That is pretty incredible. Thanks for sharing.
I doubt I will ever reach a level anything close to that, but I hope I can keep on building on things to eventually do something in the realm of hours at a time.
What is your practice like? Is it a daily thing? Do you shoot for a specific time? Have you been doing it for long? Have you noticed benefits?
Thanks for sharing! It’s really helpful to understand more about other peoples experiences.
When you say it was “life changing”, could you describe a little more how, if it’s not too personal? Like, did it help bring you clarity and calm, and you felt that in numerous parts of your life? Did you feel better able to focus/concentrate? etc.
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Wow. Interesting week. Obviously there has been a lot of talk/focus on this forum regarding covid-19. My wife and I have reasons we need to take extra precautions here, so the furtherest I have ventured outside our studio apartment since Wednesday was to the garbage chute on our floor. This will likely be the case for the next 2-4 weeks, depending on how the situation evolves.
I am trying to be very deliberate on how I manage my attention. I have probably 20+ threads muted here, as an example. I am signed up to a few useful covid-19 newsletters, so am trying to get any needed information from there, instead of every 5 minutes there is a thread update on this forum. I want to know what is going on in the world around me, but for my own mental health I need to manage my intakes so I don’t spend my entire day in a state of heightened anxiety/sadness. Fortunately for me I work remotely, so I can continue with that. Other things I am planning to do (but haven’t started yet) are try bumping my meditation to twice a day, and figure out an exercise routine I can do in what is a pretty small apartment. I’m also trying to spend some time each day taking in the view outside our apartment, chatting with/emailing some friends, etc. It’s going to get worse before it gets better, but I’ve worked so damn hard on my mental health and I need to protect it as much as I can. I’m no help to anyone if I don’t.
Weekly review - Week ending March 14th
Weight: 259.8 (was 261.6)
Maybe one beneficial side-effect of this self-imposted quarantine will be weight loss. All our food right now is a result of grocery deliveries. We’ll see if this trend continues.
Sleep
Supposedly I averaged 7.5 hours sleep this week. This is certainly inaccurate. I’ve had trouble getting to sleep, and then inexplicably waking up early and not getting back to sleep. My fitbit doesn’t seem to be catching my “awake” periods as well as it used to. I’m manually editing some of it to get a more accurate number but I know it’s still overstated. I think most likely this is stress-related so it’s another reason I need to be careful with my mental health.
Deliberate exercise
2/7 - I did this on Monday/Tuesday but not since. As I said earlier, I am working out a routine I can do here in the apartment once a day. It’s probably going to alternate between some Yin yoga and then some strength exercises which will likely be comprised of pushups, planks, bodyweight squats and some rows using an exercise band that I fix to something.
Stretches
2/7. Tied in with the above
Meditation
7/7. Holding strong with this. I need to find another course that I connect with since finishing the previous introductory course. I think I am going to start mixing in some unguided meditations to build this equanimity muscle.
Reading
5/7. Still reading Stillness Is the Key by Ryan Holiday | Goodreads.
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I’m going to follow your lead and mute some threads. My 2-week self-ban was useless. I need a different strategy.
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It really does make a difference. It can also make the forum seem a bit more quiet at times, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing since you no longer have something new every time you refresh the page, which makes taking a break from things a bit easier.
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Whelp. Another week down, how many more to go? We’ve been isolating earlier and more than most people, so late this week (especially yesterday) I really started to dwell a bit more on the reality that it’s going to be quite some time before the amount of freedom we have been fortunate to have might return. Of course with that comes recognition that I am very privileged compared to most. There is just a lot to think about right now, and too much thinking generally puts me in a bad place. I’m thankful that I can manage things a lot better than I could say 12 months ago, but very mindful that I need to stay focussed on all the practices that got me to this better place or I risk sliding backwards.
Unfortunately I didn’t implement a few important things that I was planning to do. I didn’t exercise or stretch at all this week, and my meditation stayed at once a day. I hope to do better this week.
Weekly review - Week ending March 21st
Weight: 255.2 (was 259.8)
Wow. I kinda expected to have lost some weight this week, but not 4.6 lbs. I am allowing for a margin of error on the scale, but I have certainly lost a good amount this week. It’s not like I cut out carbs either, so I don’t think it would be much water weight. Going to see what the scale says next week before I get too excited about this number, but looks promising.
Sleep
8.3 hours a night average. My best numbers in a while here. I am still feeling a bit tired through the day, but I switched away from coffee completely this week and drank solely iced tea (home brewed, no sugar). I also wasn’t working this week (between two contracts) so I had more time to relax, which might have helped?
Deliberate exercise
0/7 - I need to address this and the stretching. I think maybe I can just find a good Yin Yoga youtube video I like and do that as a starting point.
Stretches
0/7. Tied in with the above
Meditation
6/7. I did mix in some unguided this week which seems to be a good thing for me. I would still like to raise this to twice a day, so let’s see if I can make it happen some days this week.
Reading
5/7. Still reading Stillness Is the Key by Ryan Holiday | Goodreads.
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Another week goes by. This year feels like it is going very fast.
Highlights - Starting a new contract which I am really enjoying, getting a large grocery order in.
Lowlight - hearing a noise in our bathroom Wednesday and finding out water is dripping (almost streaming) through our bathroom ceiling. Getting some of that water through our apartment in the process of trying to contain the mess. Finding out that water is from a blocked toilet in the unit above. Spending the better part of a day cleaning/disinfecting the apartment. Then having water leaking through again at 1:30am Saturday morning.
Weekly review - Week ending March 28th
Weight: 251.8 (was 255.2)
Well, this is pretty cool. Down another 3.5 lbs this week. I know this sort of rate won’t continue over the long term, but if I can lose say another 10lbs by the end of April I will be very happy. This is coming purely on the back of not having had any takeout food for weeks, and eating a lot more fruit and veggies. That’s because we are prioritizing them since they will spoil soonest. I am also not having any of my usual iced coffee/cold brew drinks, so I am sure that is playing a role too. I try to be conscious of how I have those drinks sweetened as I know they can just be sugar-bombs if you buy say a standard frappucino from Starbucks. Anyway, at least this is a positive to come from being cooped up.
Sleep
8.1 hours a night average. A few weeks in a row that I have averaged above 8 hours, which is very good news for me. Part of this is because I don’t have to be up as early for the new contract, and part I am sure is just things slowing down since I am not leaving the apartment.
Deliberate exercise
1/7 - Well…It’s an improvement over last week at least! One of the interesting things is that the exercise I did do was last Sunday, after I had done this weekly review. It definitely plays a role in keeping me mindful, it’s just getting lost a little more quickly at the moment with other concerns.
Stretches
1/7. Tied in with the above
Meditation
6/7. We are about 3 months into 2020, and I think I can reasonably say I have developed a meditation habit that I am sticking to. I am giving myself kudos for this one. I need to start changing it up a little more now though. While I have a few issues with Sam Harris his meditation app was something that resonated with me previously so I might try alternating between that and the Calm app.
Reading
4/7. Still reading Stillness Is the Key by Ryan Holiday | Goodreads. The chapters in this book are pretty short, but I am trying to stick to 1-2 chapters each night before sleep instead of reading too much at once. Plus…the sooner I finish the reading the sooner I can load up Mario Kart on my phone.
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