Apparently, with the exception of my previous post, this is turning out to be my week to share things related to the second quarter of this year (the first being about taking some time off of social media).
Earlier this year, I talked a bit more about why I think it’s important for we, as developers who spend so much time at a desk, to focus on our health as well. Granted, this is has been compeltely focused on my own goals.
Specifically, I said:
The purpose of this post is to go a bit further into what my goals have been first the first quarter of the year, what I’m aiming to do in the second phase of the year, and some additional thoughts on the devices I’ve been using.
But this doesn’t mean it can’t translate into your own life in some capacity, right? I’m the last to say that “what works for me will work for you” because I think our body composition plays a massive role and we’re all different.
Anyway, if you’ve not read what I’ve written thus far, check out these posts first (if you have the time):
- Developer Fitness: Getting & Staying in Shape
- Developer Fitness: More Progress, My Devices, Apps, and What’s Next
- Developer Fitness in 2018: Quarter 1
Even though I’m a bit later than planning for writing my second quarter retrospective, here it is, nonetheless.
Fitness in 2018: Quarter 2
In trying to keep with the same model as I have in the previous post (because I like way the data was broken down), I thought I’d do the same here and then elaborate a bit more:
- This quarter has been predominately a combination of running and intermittent fasting.
- I incorporate a bit of HIIT MMA at the beginning of the quarter, but primarily because it was the end of the first program I’ve done it.
- In the last six months, I’ve lost 10.8 pounds and am at the lowest weight I’ve been since college. I’ll discuss this more later in this post.
So, just as I did in my last post, I’m going to proceed with listing the ‘programs’ I’ve been doing, the status of any injuries that have occurred, and any tips that I’d add to my growing list.
The Programs
Right now, my program is quite simple:
- There’s a certain set of routes that I choose to run each day of the week (I’ll discuss weekends in a moment) depending on the amount of time that I have available because of work and other obligations,
- I practice IF but mostly because it fits with my schedule. I’m not a breakfast person and we don’t eat really late unless Meghan and I are out on a date. And if that’s the case, then I adjust the schedule for when I can eat again.
At the time of this post, I’ve run 45.81 miles for the month of July. Next month, arguably the hottest month in Georgia, I’m aiming to run 65 miles in the month.
It’s certainly not the most I’ve done (or that many of my friends do), but I’m in a different phase of like and it’s going to be 15 – 20 miles more than where I stand now so it’s an attainable, but not easy goal.
Small goals make it much easier to attain them than setting yourself up for failire.
Any Injuries?
The last time I wrote, I was regularly seeing a chriopractor because of a problem with my L5.
Sometime late last year, I began to feel some lower back pain. The short version of it is that my L5 was out of alignment due to something from roughly five years ago (as best as the chiropractor could estimate) and then my workouts were exacerbating it.
In short, I’ve had to cut back on any plyometric exercises and I generally try not to do anything more than a 10k as that’s evidently more likely to exacerabate the problem.
But I’ve completed the treatment (it was right around 11 months) and all of my X-rays came back great. I’m also a fan of the work that was done because I definitely felt a variety of different systems responding to the spinal realignment.
That is, anything from the way I was carrrying myself to the quality of the sleep that I was having.
But, after all of that, I’m good. I’ve currently no injuries at the time of this writing.
Currently: Preparing For an August Challenge
Though I’ve returned to running for sometime, I’m getting ready for a slightly more ambitious challenge than I’ve done in sometime. And this time, I’m not alone. My dad and I are going to be competing with one another.
Sure, we each have different goals in mind, but to keep one another honest, we have “rules” in place that will allow us to make sure each of us don’t fall behind. And if we do, we have a bonus exercise to make up for that.
Anyway, for the coming month, I’m breaking everything down into three particular components:
- Apple Rings should be closed daily.
- the move goal will be 550,
- the exercise goal will be 40 minutes a day,
- the stand goal will be set for 12 (or standing for an adequate amount of time for 12 hours) each day.
- Diet
- Continue to drink only coffee and water.
- Log all meals into MyFitnessPal
- Exercises
- Run at least 65 miles the entire month
- Only running will count as my fitness. This means that if I opt to do an hour of, say stretching, that’s fine but it doesn’t count towards the mileage goal. It’s just a bonus.
On top of that:
- If my dad attains his goal before the end of the month, I have to run two additional miles that week and for each week he happens to maintain his goal.
Needless to say, it’s going to be a fun August.
My Current Status
As of right now, I’m sitting at 179 pounds. A year ago, I was at 200 lbs (though I was also focused on muscle mass more than anything else), so that’s a total change of 20 pounds. In April of last year, I was also slightly above 210 pounds which means I’ve lost a total of 31 pounds since then.
This is important to me because I realized that no matter what your goals are or what you’re aiming for, you might find it easier to play to your body type and your body composition more than trying to to achieve something that’s outside of your genetics.
For example: I’ve always averaged around the 6′ side and hovered between mid-to-lean. I wanted, though, to dedicate at least one year to adding sheer muscle mass.
The thing is, I didn’t end up with definition like I thought I would. Instead, I just walked around like a rectangle and my frame was having to support the additional weight.
Furthermore, this cut down on my flexibility, my ability run (which is my de-facto workout), and I obviously had to buy new clothes.
I wasn’t happy.
But swinging it around back to trying to focus my workouts that are geared towards my genetics has proved be to much more beneficial to my own health (and mental health, for what it’s worth) than anything else.
Resources
The resources that I have to share don’t differ much from what I shared in the previous post about this topic. The abridged version of that (if you opt not to read it) is this:
- Calendar Everything
- Write It Down
- Smart Small
- Aim For Five a Week
- Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff
But to that, I’d add three more things:
- Working to your body type. That is, determine what type of body you have (from your frame to your genetics) and then focus on workouts that cater to that. I’m not physician but in my experience, this yields far greater results than not.
- Relax. Don’t forget to take some downtime. Work hard at work, work hard at fitness, but have fun doing the latter, and remember to get rest. If your body says it’s tired on a given day, then listen to it. Don’t force it to do what it’s telling you it can’t do.
- If it’s not fun or not working, stop. If you’re not enjoying whatever it is you’re doing to work out, then stop. There’s no need to complete a program “just because.” You’ll learn to hate working out. You’ll learn to hate the challenges. You’ll learn to hate fitness. That’s completely the opposite of what it should be like. Instead, it should be about looking forward to what you’re going to be doing. Otherwise, why do it? (At least when it comes to fitness.)
That said, I have next to nothing on new software, blog, or hardware recommendations. They are still the same as they were earlier this year (shared in brief form below):
Software
Blogs
Hardware
What About Social Media?
Earlier this week, I said that I am going to be taking some time off of social media. I still plan to do that, but I’m still working out how that might look.
- Right now, the plan is to continue sharing content to Twitter via Buffer,
- I’m considering what Facebook and Instagram may look like.
I’ve continued to slightly incorporate some of my day-to-day fitness stuff into my Instagram stories. It’s fun and I find Instagram to be far more positive than any other social network of which I’ve participated. I digress on that front, though.
Though I’m likely to be off of social media for the coming month, I’m thinking I may just mark Instagram as private and keep it rolling as-is. We’ll see.
To Quarter 3
So that’s the plan for the upcoming quarter. I’m sitting at 179 right now and I’d love to hover around 180 – 185 so if I can stay in that range, I’ll be happy.
I’m extremely interested to see how next month’s challenge pans out. And I’m eager, for those of you who are working to work out, to share your stories, posts, reflections, etc. on your blog, via email, or via Instagram.
With that said, here we go with 65 miles and counting.