Goals.

I have been rather lazy in my health goals over the last couple of weeks. I have been slowly losing weight but I would say that my attempts have been half-hearted at best. I decided at the end of last week that I had approached this latest attempt wrong. Yesterday I ramped up my efforts and made new goals for myself. So far, so good.

One of the things that I felt was amiss was that I was thinking of this as a “diet” rather than “eating healthier”. Quite frankly I’m sick of dieting. Then again, who isn’t sick of dieting? It seems like since I lost that first bunch of weight back in the beginning of the oughts that I’ve been dieting ever since. I never learned new habits, instead I denied myself food (at times) so that I wouldn’t gain the weight back. This approach isn’t working. It won’t work for the long term and the result is a constant battle of the bulge.

So what am I doing differently? For starters I stopped weighing myself. I don’t care how much I weigh, as long as it’s a good weight. I often mention that I drop kick my scale from time to time. I could easily lose weight by starving myself but then I’d be losing muscle mass, not fat. I need to lose fat. Therefore I’m gauging my success by my BMI (body mass index) and I’m striving to cut that in half by the end of the year. It’s an ambitious goal. I’m looking forward to the challenge.

I didn’t want to admit it when I talked about this before but I need to just give up beer and all alcohol for that matter. I don’t know if I want to do this permanently but at the very least I need to do it to get things under control. A lite beer once a month isn’t going to kill me but I’ve been chugging down the cheap stuff with the best of them this summer and quite frankly all that beer has parallel parked itself over my abs. Does that mean I’ll skip Saranac Thursday for the remaining two weeks? No. I’ll just be the designated driver and drink water.

I want to be able to take a punch in the gut without having things swing or bounce around after I take the punch. You never know when you’re going to have to take a punch in the gut but I figure it’s good to be prepared. I was never a boy scout but I certainly know the importance of some of the things that they teach and being prepared is one of them.

And lastly I am going to stick to the cycling and such until my feet freeze to the ground from the cold temperatures. Autumn is my favorite season and a beautiful time for exercise and I plan on embracing all that Mother Nature has to offer. I am allowing myself ONE day without outdoor exercise a week. It’s a shame I don’t deliver mail because I’ll be out there doing something for an hour a day six days a week. This exercise will be complimented with the various crunches, squeezes, lifts and whatnot that I do inside.

I’ve never measured health success by BMI before so this will be a new experience for me. I believe I’ve set myself up for success and I am confident that I will achieve it. At the very least, I’ll feel quite confident in my Blue Marvel costume at Halloween.