Fitness Update

I've stayed on top of entering my food into livestrong.com's calorie counter, and that has proven to be a pretty good resource. They also released an application for the iPhone, but it sucks and crashes constantly. Even so, the online calculator is very functional and has been excellent for my needs. Being obsessive and neurotic about what you eat is dangerous, and falling into that trap can be a slippery slope. I notice that having an idea for how much I have left to eat for the day helps me remain mindful of what I'm eating.

I don't hold myself to any particular amount (if I'm hungry and I will go over the number of calories I would normally eat in a day, I say screw it and eat anyhow), but I've noticed that by being aware, I snack less. It's also been interesting to notice how tracking food has caused me to move towards eating healthier foods. When I notice I'm hungry and want to snack, being aware that a bunch of hearty trailmix has the same amount of calories as a chocolate bar makes it a lot easier to choose the one that I know will sustain me longer.

Man, am I keen on biking. My parents bought me a mountain bike as a graduation present when I left UVic, and although I got a lot of use out of it initially, once I moved downtown, we had to store it with them due to space issues. Now that Bay and I have a condo, we've got much more room to store it, and designated areas in our parkade to lock it up. Since my main atheletic pursuit is squash, my main goal for cross-training is something that is low impact and will help develop my cardio. Biking is the optimal choice, since there's no impact on the joints and Victoria is very well suited to the sport.

Beyond all of that though, I've found biking to be very meditative. Even though I don't buy into the spiritual aspect of buddhist and zen philosophies, I'm definitely a believer in the power of reflection, introspection, and meditation. Giving yourself the time to sort out your thoughts, consider how you're feeling, and reflect on your day, week, or year is something I consider essential to happiness and living a relaxed life. Bicycling, if you can find the right route, lets you fall into a comfortable (and sometimes difficult) rhythm of physical activity, and frees your mind to travel whereever it wants.

Okay, so, it's not the best idea, since I'm already putting plenty of wear on my knees on court, but I really do like jogging, and if I balance things out, I figure I'm okay to go for a jog a few times a week. Jogging is also very meditative, and has a lot of the same qualities that biking does. As an added bonus, I can load up podcasts on my iPod and listen to those while I jog (I do it when I bike too, but have to settle for one ear and low volume if I'm biking on roads).

Podcasts are a great way to learn when you're on the go, and you really do yourself double duty having one of them on while you exercise (I like to get a mental sweat as well as a physical one). Bay's a big fan of jogging too, so we can usually get a couple of runs in on the weekdays if we get up early enough. Starting the day off with a good jog is a great feeling, and it makes the day a lot easier to get through.

I started off training with weights because I realized I had a lot of time in between each Virtua Fighter match I was waiting to have start. Lately I've been playing different games, or doing other things, but the training has remained. It's easy to fit a set in between doing things like folding laundry, washing dishes, etc., and not having to devote a specific block of time to it makes it very easy to continue.

Lifting weights is especially good for a squash player, since the sport is very athletic, but mostly utilizes one half of your body. Weight lifting is a good way to help balance out the development, so that I can avoid looking like I an athelete on one side, and polio victim on the other. Lastly, if you need superficial motivation, lifting weights makes you look good and may boost your self-esteem. I'm not above caring about the way I look, and seeing the results of working out definitely doesn't hurt the motivation.

Although my main goal this year is abstract, and to maintain a high level of fitness, I want to see the biggest gains in my squash game. My training partner Brendan and I are making a real effort to consistently hit with our coach, Mike, once a week, and do drills with each other one other day each week. In between that, I play games whenever I can. I'm noticing small improvements in my game, but the fitness regime I've set for myself has definitely made a difference. When we drill with Mike, which is extremely hard work, I'm catching my breath much faster, and can push through the grueling parts of the drill for longer than I previously could.

These are small subtle gains, but they make a big difference in the long run of a squash game, where the person that starts to run out of gas first starts to make poorer shots, then needs to run more as a result, and so on ad infinitum. It's a vicious cycle to break once it gets started. Squash can become a very mental game when you're playing someone at a similar skill level to yourself, and simply knowing that you've trained well and have pushed through being this tired in the past can be a big boon. The player with the discipline to play safer shots that result in longer rallies will usually be the player that ekes out the victory in a close match.

Having goals is an important way to stick with something. The key to setting goals is to set something that is measurable. Simply telling yourself "I'm going to jog every week" is not enough, because that's difficult to track and to stick to. You can put off jogging until the next day. A goal like "I'm going to jog every Monday" is much better, because you have a specific date that you are going to stick to.

Healthy eating should be a fitness goal. Diets are garbage, and an awful idea. Interestingly enough, the vast majority of studies show that dieting, in the long-term, actually contributes towards increasing your weight, rather than decreasing it. You will definitely see short-term weightloss, but once you go off that diet, your body will see it as an indiciation that food is a scarcity, and start packing on fat for the next scarcity.

Just like budgeting properly, before you can even figure out what you need to do, you need to figure out what you're currently doing. Set a goal to track what you are eating for a week, and start using a tool like The Daily Plate over at livestrong.com. Don't make any changes, just track what you're eating. Once you've done this, you'll have an idea of what your daily diet looks like. Maybe you're eating less than you thought, or maybe you're eating more. Once you know, then you can start making decisions as to whether you want to eat more or less.

Once you've figured out what goals you want to attain (and start off with small, easy to achieve goals - you can always increase later), come up with some way to track your progress. I like to blog about it myself, but you can use a journal, blog, online tracker, or any other measure. Just give yourself some way of tracking how you're doing.

At the end of the week, evaluate your progress and determine how you've done. Did you meet your goal? If not, how come? Maybe your goal was too large? If jogging twice a week was too hard to meet, adjust your goal to once a week, and go from there. Above all, don't give up, stick with it.