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I started writing a reply to a comment on my 9-month update, but it got to be too long. So here’s a brief summary of my fitness routine:

Fitness
I’ve been doing plyometrics twice a week and (lately) lifting 3 days / week. When the weather is nicer (not too hot, not too cold, not too dark) I run about 3.5 miles. Ideally, I’d do plyometrics twice a week, run twice a week and lift twice a week. Oh, and I try to bike to the gym, but I don’t like biking in the dark (almost got hit by a car one day).

Having someone to workout with is key. There’s a group of us that keep each other motivated, and harass one another if someone skips a workout. The trainer we work with pushes us hard, and I wouldn’t be where I am if it weren’t for him. I think his military background helps… I need someone calling me a cheese-puff when I want to quit.

The other key ingredient in getting fit is time. Stick with it. It took me 9 months to do what I did. The first day the weather passes 50 degrees, don’t decide to go to the gym to get fit by summer. If you want to be fit for next summer, you should’ve started last summer.

Dieting
As for dieting, I’m horrible at that. There’s a few reasons why… healthy food is more expensive than processed stuff, I have kids in the house, and my wife loves to bake.

That being said, I do have a few diet tips:

1. Drink lots of water
2. Eat every 3 hours
3. Eat with your left hand. It’ll slow you down. Take a bite, but down your fork, swallow, take a sip of water, repeat
4. Use the small plate. You’ll put less food on your plate, and it’ll look fuller
5. Right after dinner, brush, floss and rinse. If you’re like me and hate the flossing routine, you’ll be far less likely to eat at night

Any of those fad diets or pills or whatever all have fine print: “diet and exercise are recommended”. Save your money, skip the other stuff and just go with diet and exercise.

I’ve followed Weight Watchers before and learned a lot from it. In my opinion, it’s not a diet but rather an education on how to pick the right foods to eat. It also gets you in the habit of writing down everything you eat, which is key when you’re dieting. You don’t have to run out & join the program – look for Weight Watchers Starter Kits on eBay. It’s all you need.

My final tips are to stay off the scale! Get a trainer to measure your body fat and weigh you every 3 months or so. If I only used a scale, I would have been very depressed that I work out very hard, and have only a 1-pound difference to show. However, since I was getting my body fat measured, I now know I replaced 16 pounds of fat with muscle. If you need to, use photos. Since you see yourself in the mirror every day, you won’t notice the difference, but looking back 3 months at a time, you’ll be able to see it.

I once told Steve, “Money doesn’t come easy, or else everyone would be rich“. The same goes for fitness:

Getting in shape doesn’t come easy, or else everyone would have the body of their dreams.

Stick with it, and good luck!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 18th, 2007 at 7:36 pm and is filed under Fitness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.