On January 1st, 2014, I published my first set of fitness goals. While a lot has changed over the years, my focus on health and fitness hasn’t. As I’ve done each year since those first fitness goals were published, here’s the plan for 2025.
Continue readingI’m a believer in “you get what you measure.” It’s why I set fitness goals for the year. It provides motivation and something to track my progress against.
I’ve tracked my fitness goals each year since I started blogging back in 2014. This year is no different. Even though it is already February, I’ve been tracking my fitness activities against the goals in this post since the beginning of the year.
I track progress in three areas – working out, physical activity, and diet. Let’s start by looking back at last year, and then look at plans for 2024.
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As part of my regular reading rotation, I make it a point to include books about diet and nutrition. It may be an old adage, but it is so true – we are what we eat. Our diet has a huge impact on our health, In fact, I would contend that it has the biggest impact.
Fortunately, a lot of research is being performed on how we can improve our physical and emotional well-being through diet and nutrition. I’ve also been fortunate that my sister, who is in the health care industry, has also taken an interest in the subject. As part of my wellness reading, she suggested the book Why We Get Sick by Benjamin Bikman, PhD.
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When the local gym closed down for good over the pandemic, I had to look for another way to stay in shape. I decided to take up running (again). While I hate running, it was the best available option, particularly since Courtney would run occasionally while she was living with us last year.
I’ve been running consistently for about a year and a half. When I got an email about this year’s YMCA 5K/10K holiday run for fun, I figured it was time to put my training to the test. I ran in the very same event 6 years ago. At that time, I ran the 10K. I wasn’t up for the long distance this time around. I decided to sign up for the 5K, and Amanda and Courtney agreed to join me.
Continue readingAfter recently reading Tim Spector’s The Diet Myth, it occurred to me that I’ve read a number of informative books on diet and nutrition. They include such books as Wheat Belly, Grain Brain, and The Complete Guide to Fasting. I’ve experimented with the suggestions and advice in these books with varying degrees of success, and failure.
Based on what I’ve read and my personal experiences, I’m going to share 8 lessons I’ve learned about diet and nutrition. Bear in mind that these are general guidelines. This is not a set of diet rules or a list of what to eat, or what not to eat. These are the common diet and nutrition themes that appear in just about everything I read. They are also the themes that I’ve had the most success with in my personal diet experiments.
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One of my primary reading genres is books about health and nutrition. I feel it’s vitally important that we’re aware of what we’re feeding our bodies. I typically make it a point to read at least one book from this group every year, although I wouldn’t mind reading more. Unfortunately, I’d gotten away from reading in this area over the last year or two with the last good book I read about nutrition being The Complete Guide to Fasting by Dr. Jason Fung back in in 2019 (which I would highly recommend, by the way).
One of the challenges with reading health and nutrition books is identifying books based on solid science. There are so many books on the subject that it can be hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. Depending on the quality of the book, suggestions can be life changing for the better, or, if not researched properly and supported by quality data, they can have negative effects on one’s health, potentially even hazardous outcomes in the extreme.
Fortunately, one of my favorite blogs, A Learning a Day, made a strong recommendation for a nutrition book, The Diet Myth by Tim Spector. Given the good experiences I’ve had with previous recommendations from the blog, I added it to my (lengthy) reading list and finally got around to reading it.
Continue readingEach year I like to review my fitness goals for the prior year and set new ones for the upcoming year. Doing these reviews helps to keep me focused and on track. As people like to say, you achieve the results you measure.
My goals for last year were centered around working out, walking, and diet. These have been the areas of focus for the last 3 years, and I plan to continue these into 2021. As you’ll see below, the COVID pandemic impacted my goals for last year, and I’m still figuring out how to adjust my goals for 2021 based on the challenges of the continued lock-downs and closures.
Let’s get into it by looking back on 2020 and then ahead into 2021.
Continue readingEvery year I like to review my fitness goals for the prior year and set new ones for the upcoming year. I’ve found that setting measurable goals and then publishing them keeps me on track and holds me accountable.
In 2019, my goals were focused around three areas – working out, walking, and diet. These were the same 3 areas of focus for 2018, and they will be the same for 2020.
When looking back over the last year, things went well for the most part. There a couple of adjustments I’d like to make. Otherwise, it’s going to be more of the same in the upcoming year. Sometimes it’s best not to fix it if it isn’t broken, if you know what I mean.
Here’s the look back at 2019, and the look ahead at 2020.
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One of my primary reading genres is health and fitness. I have an interest in understanding how diet and exercise affect our physiology. I’ve learned a lot over the last few years that have led to adjustments in my personal eating habits and exercise routines. It’s helped me to control my appetite, maintain a healthy weight, and generally feel better all around.
One area that I’ve been particularly intrigued by is fasting. I’ve been practicing intermittent fasting for the past couple of years and have occasionally mixed in a full 24-hour fast. I even did a 48-hour fast a little over a year ago, which was a great learning experience.
I want to continue fasting and to incorporate longer periods of fasting into my routine. To help me understand more about it, how to prepare, and what to do during a fast, I decided to read The Complete Guide to Fasting: Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day and Extended Fasting by Dr. Jason Fung.
Over the last couple of years, I’ve been doing a lot of experimenting with diet. I’ve done things such as near elimination of refined sugars and reducing my intake of carbohydrates to see what effects it has. I’ve also added intermittent fasting where I go between 12-16 hours, and sometimes longer, between dinner and my first meal of the day.
One item that intrigued me was fasting. A good friend had done 48-hour fasts and talked about the benefits that it offered. 48 hours seemed like a long time to go without eating as I had never gone much beyond a day between meals. After doing some research, and watching an interesting documentary, The Science of Fasting (available on Amazon Prime), I decided to give it a shot. Here’s my experience, what I learned, and whether it is something I’ll attempt again.
Before reading further, be aware that this is not medical advice by any stretch of the imagination. I am not a doctor nor am I a nutritionist. This is just a recounting of my experience and what I learned that should be used purely for your informational purposes.