The Devil is in the Details

Thanks to my friend Paul who sent me this link after reading my last blog.  Good call ;)

But no more !!  I completed my self-appointed homework assignment and detailed a to-do list for myself. Actually I created two lists; one for daily tasks to push myself out of this laziness rut, and another to help me along the path of enlightenment as I persue my dreams.

My daily tasks include studying for each of my courses for 1 to 1 1/2 hours per day, so a total of 2 to 3 hours of hitting the books. Also on this list is gym time and meal preparation. This may sound selfish, but I don't want this pursuit to take over my life to the effect that my diet and workouts suffer. It took me a very long time to get to this place, and it took a lot of hard work and dedication on my part. When I've yo-yo'd with my weight in the past and been on the upper end of the weight roller coaster, I got seriously depressed and angry with myself for my failures. This time I vowed never to put the weight back on and get back to that ugly place in my life.  And I’ve seen the downward spiral more times than I’d like to admit; when you start to feel down about a certain aspect of your life, everything else seems to suffer as a consequence, so I need to keep motivated and feeling good about myself in order to accomplish all of my planned tasks.

It always seems when people are crunched for time in their lives and need to sacrifice something in order to free up precious minutes or hours, exercise and/or diet are the first to go. The number one excuse for not exercising is "I don't have the time". Okay, I made up that little statistic just now, but I'm willing to bet it's true.  

So ... my daily list includes both meal prep and exercise, in addition to studying. I'm still on that workout program I got from Phat Camp that requires nearly two hours of exercise daily, but I have just one week left and then I'm done. At that point I will cut back some, although I still plan to exercise at least an hour a day, 5-6 days a week :)  The meal prep stuff is easy and I really enjoy it. I got a couple of recipe apps for my iPad, including one called 20 Minute Meals, by famed British chef Jamie Oliver, and the recipes in it are fantastic !!  This is not "diet" chow by any means, but I truly believe a homemade meal can help control your weight over take out any day of the week, assuming of course you watch your portion sizes. Everything in moderation ... right?

Speaking of everything in moderation, you may have read a news article this week about a man who embarked on what they are dubbing "The Twinkie Diet".  A Professor of Nutrition went on a special diet to prove the theory that weight loss is not about cutting out certain types of foods, but rather it's all about calories in vs. calories out. Take in less calories than you expend and you will lose weight, plain and simple. To prove his theory however, he went to extremes. His diet consisted of Oreos, Hostess cakes, Little Debbie snacks, sugary cereals, Doritos and of course Twinkies, and he lost 27 pounds over a two month period.

The website where I record my daily calorie intake followed up this story with their own article, comparing his experiment to one conducted a few years earlier. Two college students, both studying nutrition, ate nothing but junk food for one month, however they watched their portions sizes while doing so, making sure not to go over their required caloric needs. The male and female subjects started out healthy and fit and remained so after 30 days of nothing but fast food; their experiment and subsequent film was called Portion-Size Me but nicknamed The Junk Food Diet, and was a follow up to the infamous documentary Super Size Me.

Both these experiments back up my own personal theory that you really can eat anything you want, as long as you control your portions, and still lose weight. Of course there are other things to consider, such as fat and cholesterol levels and all those other nasty side effects of high fat, high sugary diets, but these tests were done simply to prove the cause of the increasing obesity epidemic .... people are simply eating too much !!!  Not too much carbs or too much fat or too much junk, just too much of everything.

How cool would it be to be the guinea pig in those experiments ??  Hmmm, maybe it's something I could try ... just for the purpose of properly advising my clients of course ;)

But back to my lists.  The second list was more for the bigger, one time tasks. Like prepping my house to sell, researching new jobs and places to live, putting together a functional resume etc. I prioritized these tasks and gave them each deadlines.  Top priority of course is getting everything in my house ready to list. No point in researching new places to live until I have my house sold. I also delayed the resume, new job/home research and budget until after this first task was completed.

I'm happy to say that after a lot of hard work, mostly physical labour on my part, I completed all the duties for my first big task, and listed my house this weekend :)  It officially went on the MLS today and I have my first showing tomorrow. Yippie !!!  I'm very excited about this, as it's the first step in actually making my dream a reality.  I'm still scared to death; all those unanswered questions continue to linger, but at the same time I'm excited to move forward with this new phase of my life. I only hope I sell quickly. As soon as I have a confirmed offer in hand I'll start on the next items on my big to-do list; figuring out my new budget and therefore where I want to work and live.

Oh ya, and I did well in my daily to-do list also. I didn't quite reach my goal of 2-3 hours of studying daily, but I did some every day; at least an hour, sometimes two. Like the baby steps mantra claims, I felt much better having done something rather than nothing and this makes me feel more positive and driven to get results.

It seems I’ve finally gotten my new life underway.  I guess you can say, the devil made me do it.