The Best Shape of My Life!

A lot of people write brand new resolutions for the new year. Some pledge to lose weight, to gain muscle, to be more active, to eat less junk, and so on. Most resolutions of people that I know deal with weight, fitness, or some health-related aspect of life. Interesting, though, that most end up giving up on their resolutions before even a month is past.

I don’t write new year resolutions. Instead, I’ve adopted a system of birthday resolutions, which is why my main goal deals with year 27 of my life (guess how old I am). This seems to work much better for me, but I’m not necessarily suggesting that everyone do that. Anyway….back to the new year thing. What I do at the new year is re-examine my goals and make sure that I am making adequate progress. It works well for me because my birthday is in June, so January is at the halfway mark.

So how have I progressed over the last six months? Well, I must be honest with myself, and so I admit my progress has been quite slow, if not stagnant. There are a lot of reasons for this, and I’ve addressed quite a few of them in previous blogs, so I won’t mention them in great detail here. Instead, I want to write about the challenges I have ahead and what I plan to do to meet them.

My grad school schedule will be much lighter this spring semester (only 6 hours), so I will be able to plan workouts better. I have found that early morning workouts (5 am) just aren’t that effective, as I’m not totally awake, and I don’t have time to get something to eat either before or afterwards before heading to work. So with a lighter school schedule, I’m hoping to get in some afternoon/evening times that will prove to be really effective.

Family issues will always come up, but I’ve been fairly good at managing them. I was shown last semester that, above everything else, my family should come first. Sure, I need to set aside some "me" time, but when my daughter or wife (or both) needs me, I go. Life changes when a man gets married, and life changes again with a child. I’m finding out more and more every day exactly how my life has changed. Put very bluntly: my daughter and wife don’t care what I look like….they want to know I love them and that I’ll be there for them. This has been truly enlightening for me because it has finally engraved in my heart that what I’ve been trying to achieve the past five years or so (the perfect body type) really isn’t THAT important. Be fit, be healthy, be happy. But there are some things that can be pushed aside, and I’m not afraid or ashamed to tell people that chasing after the six-pack set of abs has been pushed aside.

I don’t really have access to a gym anymore, so all my workouts will be done either at home (with very limited equipment) or at a public park. Both the park and my weight equipment are outside, so doing a major weight workout during the winter isn’t as likely as during the summer. Sure, I could "be a man" and do a workout in the cold. And yeah, I’ll probably do some. But for now it will probably be a mixture of running on the treadmill and a bunch of bodyweight exercises (including the all-too-often neglected flexibility training).

Even through all these things, I’m still aiming at making year 27 the best year of my life. So far I’ve done pretty good, though as far as fitness is concerned it might not seem that way. But I can still achieve the goals I set for myself, and with some faith, dedication, and external motivation, I’ll get there.

Here’s to 2009! Let it be a God-filled year for my family and me, and let it be a great year for everyone!

THE LONGEST, HARDEST, MOST EXHAUSTED SEMESTER OF SCHOOLING IS OVER!

I feel so relieved……no energy, no excitement, no celebration. Just………it’s done.

Taking 9 hours of grad study (intensive grad classes, too) and working full time about killed me! I hope to have to nver do that again. Either go full time grad, or stay full time working. Sure, I liked the challenge, but I know I did not do as well in my classes as I could have or should have because of everything else going on.

Next semester I’m only taking 6 hours of grad study, and I think the courses will be a bit lighter (notice I did NOT say easy). I’m hoping that this will give me some time so that I can pick back up my exercise routine. I probably still will not focus much on lifting weights, but I do want to add in more workouts overall, and probably a lot of bodyweight and small dumbbell work for strength/endurance.

We’ll see. Right now I just want to finish out my work (last day of the semester is today) and then enjoy my break.

Have a merry Christmas and happy New Year everyone! If you don’t celebrate either of those….well, have fun anyway!