The Year of Health

February is more than half over, folks! Can you believe it? Did you have a good Valentine’s Day? Full of love? And chocolate? While mine was happily full of love it was also full of Chocolove. Damn you Chocolove! It’s amazing. So I employed the rock-solid logic that “if I just eat it all now then it will just be gone and then I can’t eat it later”. Yeah, and I have a gold mine to sell you.

So my goal this month is to move more. It’s been interesting to be more cognizant of how much I actually move. (Which, without serious effort, isn’t much). This month is also teaching me about my expectations. You see, I’m a pretty extreme person. If I’m doing something I want it to be full out, all the way, no holds barred. I’ve been like this since childhood… my poor parents. So when I made my goals for this month, I set them pretty high. Unfortunately, I also have the lovely character trait of being all or nothing. If I can’t do something like I envision myself doing it, I tend to not do anything at all. So after assessing my month of movement two weeks in, I’ve realized that given my schedule and life commitments I might need to adjust my goals and expectations. AGH! I hate adjusting.

So goal by goal, let’s see…

Goals:
1. Walk 10,000 steps per day - I had no idea how difficult this was going to be when I set this goal. I also had no idea how much I was actually walking during the work week when I set this goal. Prior to this experiment, I estimate that I was only walking about 3,000-4,000 steps per day during the work week. I’ve started incorporating more walks around my office building a couple times a day, and I’m definitely moving more than I was before this month. In the first two weeks of February, I averaged 6,714 steps per day. Definitely an improvement, but still not at my goal of 10,000. So for the next two weeks, I’m going to be incorporating in morning jogs (or yogs, it might be a soft j) in order to get more steps in. I use the term “jog” pretty loosely. I don’t run fast – at all - so it’s really just a slightly faster walk. But my attachment case in point: this morning I slept too late to get out for a yog, and only had a about 10 minutes to spare, all of which would have been spent layering spandex so I wouldn’t freeze while yogging. I was tempted to just go on with getting ready for the day, forgoing any exercise, but instead I spent those 10 minutes cranking away on the elliptical in the basement. It wasn’t ideal, but it was more movement than I would have otherwise gotten. ADJUSTMENT!

2. Set performance based goals (physical acts I’d like to achieve) - I’m working on this still, but I think I have them nailed down. I’ll be writing about this later this week, but I can tell you one now. This has actually been a goal for a while but it’s time to get real serious about it: a full-on dead hang pull up. Not a kipping pull up. Not an assisted pull up. An honest-to-goodness “everybody-come-see-how-strong-I-look” pull up.

3. Strength train three times per week, and Crossfit two times per week - This has also proven to be much more difficult than I anticipated. I have reassessed the reality of getting to the gym five days a week during the dance season – it’s not realistic. I’m going to drop my goal down to 2 Crossfit workouts and 2 strength training sessions for the time being, and try to incorporate more strength training into my days. This awesome article from Marks Daily Apple talks about how useful the humble push up is at building strength, and obviously it’s handy because all you need is a floor and two working arms. I usually have both of those. So I’m adding push ups to my daily goals. I’m starting with 30 a day and will increase by 10 every few days. I am working to adjust my definition of a “work out” – maybe it doesn’t need to mean an hour in the gym, but instead doing some lunges as I walk around the building (because everyone at work thinks I’m so normal anyway).

4. Convert my desk to a standing desk, and learn to stand at work – OHMIGOSH! You will NOT believe what happened. My wildly thoughtful boyfriend built me a standing desk for my birthday. Hand crafted from wood and stained to match my work desk. It’s gorgeous. I will get it at the office on Tuesday, so accomplishing this goal is just around the corner! Let’s stop for a moment and reflect on how helpful it is to have a supportive partner who just so happens to be an excellent craftsman.

5. Fine-tune my gym movements and further perfect my Olympic lifting technique - I had my first “movement tune up” session with my trainer, and it was really helpful. When you learn how to lift weights in a group setting like Crossfit, you can get a good base. I’ve had awesome Crossfit coaches that have given me a lot of good technique, but I needed some one-on-one time with someone to fine tune the details. So far we worked on my rowing technique, squat technique, and clean and jerk. It was incredibly helpful, and I will be scheduling another session soon to work on my snatch technique. I am feeling much more confident in the gym now with those movements, and it was well worth it. Confidence is key when you’re trying to hoist a heavy barbell from the floor to overhead. I bet Ron Burgundy would have destroyed the clean and jerk – he has a lot of confidence. And a man-stache. Maybe that’s what I need…

So overall – I’m making adjustments. This has been a huge month of learning so far and I am looking forward to finishing out the month strong. That was a double entendre… get it?