Goals: Week 1

So, now that I’ve explained Baby Steps, where do I start?

I am going to start out with goals in two areas: Exercise and Diet.  Ha! Yes, that’s Ric’s secret to loosing weight, diet & exercise.  Shhh!  Don’t tell anyone. 

Diet: No sugar based sodas

Yeah, I let the Dr. Pepper and Coca-Cola slip in and become a part of my daily routine – that late afternoon pick-me-up.  These are just the poster child for “Empty Calories”, plus they cause a sugar rush in the body that throws off the rest of your chemistry to try to deal with them.

Some people will do anything for a Dr. Pepper!

 

I think it’s important to have a good substitute when something is removed from the diet.  So, in their place I will still have diet sodas to fall back on.  (But wait until the caffeine challenge comes around!) Also I am drinking glasses of half fruit juice / half cold water. 

Exercise: In the gym three times a week

I went to the gym by my house last Friday for the first time in many months and found that they had remodeled and added a whole new floor!  What do you know!  The key with this goal is to make the gym a regular part of my life again.  I know many of you know the feeling that just making the commitment to get out of the house and into the gym can be difficult. There are so many other things to do! But you feel better after you go, don’t you!  So that’s the purpose of this goal – to get me there and get my body moving and stretching.  Not too hard, but just get it used to being active again.  Later on, I can up the intensity and variety of exercise.

If you are thinking of setting your own exercise goal, remember the point is to get yourself out of a sedentary lifestyle and start moving, breathing hard, and sweating.  You don’t need a gym to do that.  You can walk, climb stairs, run, bike, play tennis, – there are so many options.  Pick something that works for you and you like (or at least can live with).

The gym works for me because it’s a commitment to be in a certain place at a certain time. They also have equipment there that allows me to maximize my exercise time and easily add weight training into the mix later.  And, for me, it’s convenient.  My main gym is about a half mile from my house – an easy walk.  And they also have a branch that is about a five minute drive from my office.

So, those are the goals I am working with this week.  Note the Baby Step benefits in these goals:

• They are specific and doable.
• Even if I stop at these goals, I will be so much better off than I was before.
• They begin to tackle two of my worst bad habits – uncontrolled sugar consumption and zero exercise.

So far, so good. I’ll report back on progress at the end of the week.