My Journey to Get More Healthy

I am taking a break from my normal gaming blog, to talk about something a little more personal. I decided to try and get more healthy during this quarantine, and this has been my journey so far. I am not a personal trainer, nor do I have one. I am not being paid to do this, and I'm not advertising anything. I am simply an average dad, unhappy with my physical health, and I wanted to make it better. I haven't been perfect, but I think I have made forward progression in general, and that's something. Always moving forward, even if that means I take it slow, or that I'm not always perfect. I also hope this little quarantine workout could maybe inspire someone else to try their own. I wish you luck, you can do it! And thanks for reading! For those of who want to see my (spoiler warning) 20-pound-loss-results before reading a tome, check out the bottom of the page first for pics. :)

Goals

For a while now, I have been unhappy with my physical health. Here are 10 little things that bothered me that I wanted to change. These are in no particular order:

1. I was always tired.

2. I didn't like the way I looked. I hated being so out of shape. I felt as though I was just helping the "gamer-bod" stereotype.

3. My wife told me I should do some exercise and try to get more healthy. Plus, I want to be more desirable for my wife as well.

4. I wanted to be a better role model for my boys.

5. My doctor told me to lose weight, and looking at any health chart I was considered "obese".

6. I have stomach issues. I have seen doctors about it, but they have never been able to diagnose me. I do know it is tied to what I eat though, and I knew that the more I eat, the worse it gets.

7. I ate way too much bad stuff. I was always eating snacks. I noticed how hypocritical of me it was when I would criticize my young sons for wanting and eating treats as often as they did, when I ate way more, frequently after they were in bed sleeping.

8. I am supposed to be an image bearer for Christ. The Bible talks about taking care of yourself, and I couldn't honestly say I was doing that. If anything, I was being self destructive.

9. I have issues with depression, and adding body issues only helped me stay in ruts longer.

10. I wanted to get back into sports, but I was in no shape to even start.

Routine

So I finally decided to try to get back in shape and hopefully lose some weight, feel healthier, and look better. I knew the most basic thing about getting healthy is simply to exercise more, and eat less. So that's where I decided to start. I was not interested in going to a gym, or spending exorbitant amounts of money. I wanted some small, simple life changes that could improve my life. I also figured that if I started small, it would be easier to get going and to continue to do it. I was inspired by those "Do 100 pushups a day" workouts I've seen around. That seemed possible to do. I decided I wanted to do 100 pushups a day and a good amount of crunches/situps as well as my bare minimum, and go from there. As my gym teachers could tell you, pushups were never my forte. That was always one of the hardest things for me to do for the Presidential Fitness Tests we had in school. I struggled to even do 10. So although 100 pushups sounds like a lot, if I can do them, starting slow and with few reps at a time, anyone can.

But first, let me tell you what my old routine was:

1. Exercise - I would play with the kids, but that would be it. And what I did, I hardly ran around, and mainly sat in a chair or on the ground and played little games that required no movement. I didn't play any sports anymore, partly because I recently had shoulder surgery, partly because money is tight, but also partly because I was lazy. Also the quarantine didn't help.

2. Eating - My diet was in the air and it consisted of anything and everything.

a. Breakfast -In the mornings I would eat a big bowl of cereal, with half the time it being some sugar infused kids cereal, so not very healthy. I would also frequently have coffee with a lot of creamer in it.

b. Lunch - I would usually eat some leftovers, and lots of them. I followed that frequently with a little sugar treat

c. Dinner - I would eat what my wife prepared for the family, but I would have huge portions and frequently go for seconds.

d. After dinner - At night after the kids went to bed, I would usually snack. Sometimes it was chips and cheese/salsa, almost always it was accompanied with sugar treats like candy left over from Halloween/Christmas/Easter/Guilt purchases, etc. I would eat a lot. I'm talking several candy bars or gummies, or a big bowl of ice cream.

e. Randomly throughout the day I would snack here and there. It wasn't consistent, but the little snack was always sugary.

d. All of this adds up to me getting tired when I brought groceries up the stairs for example. Well, getting tired when I did anything physical, really. I was 230 pounds, with most of it being unhealthy fat. I had no muscle tone, with the generic, dad-bod gut.

New Routine 
This workout and regimen would be adhered to for 5 days a week, with me being "off" on weekends. No counting calories, no going to a gym, just keep it simple. I use 10 pound weights and a treadmill, but that's the extent of my collection that I use, lol:

1. 100 push-ups a day. I started out with sets of 10 because I didn't think I could do more.

2. 50 crunches per set of pushups, because building your core is healthy, and a good way to lose weight.

3. Curl 10 pound weights in sets of 10, after my push-ups.

4. Eat less - In general I wanted to cut back on the amount of food I ate, but also replace it with better food, and cut way down on the amount of treats I ate. Also, I wanted to drink more water.

a. Breakfast - A spoonful of peanut butter (for the protein) and a glass of water.

b. Lunch - Vegetables and fruit. It would vary as to the type                                                      carrots/broccoli/cauliflower/strawberries/apples/grapes), and I even allowed myself to have                  salad dressing with the veggies. Or, I would have scrambled eggs. More recently, instead of                eggs, I decided on some oatmeal with flax seed (to help with stomach issues), cooked with                  vanilla protein powder mixed with water (to help with taste and to give some protein), and then          sprinkle blueberries/raisins/dried cherries. Also, a glass of water.

c. Dinner - The dinner I didn't really change. My wife has tried to cook more healthy for us, and        to do something other than what the rest of the family did would be too disruptive, so I just try            to control my portions. I would have less food, not go for seconds, and also drink a glass of                  water with the meal.

d. Randomly throughout the day I would make sure I drank more water. I also chewed a lot of          sugar-free gum. It was something my doctor told me to do, as it can help a lot with stomach                issues. But it also helps curb an appetite in a pinch.

e. After I did my workout of push-ups and crunches, I would have a protein drink that was                simply 2 cups of protein powder mixed in a glass of water. I really don't mind the taste,                        personally, and it helped keep my protein up which in turn would help my muscles recover, help          with weight loss, and help curb my appetite.

f. Really cut out the snacks after the kids go to bed. The wife and I frequently watch TV or a            movie together, so it was always really easy to snack. I didn't completely eliminate the snacks,            but I cut it way down, and some nights I didn't have anything. I would chew my gum and drink          my water.

After the first couple of weeks, I began to try and shorten the amount of time it took to do the workout by increasing the reps, as well as add in some cardio and more weight training. It has been very gradual. I have tried and stopped a number of things. Some things were dropped or changed due to it putting too much stress on my surgery shoulder, but others just haven't been kept up because of time constraints. The thing that has remained consistent has been the push-ups, crunches, and light weight curling.

One note, was that I had to change up how I did push-ups because it was hurting my shoulder. I had always done push-ups by having my arms be parallel with my shoulders, as in my arms at a 90 degree angle from my body. I changed it to a 45 degree angle, as that is a more proper technique I've read. That has made it much better and easier. Just food for thought in case you were like me.

As of this writing, I have worked up to this (changing it incrementally each week or so):
4 sets consisting of the following:

1. 25 push-ups
2. 100 crunches
3. 25 curls

On Mondays/Wednesdays/Fridays:

1. I have tried to add in some cardio by adding 1 lap on the treadmill to each set. With 4 sets this rounds up to a nice mile. I have been able to increase the speed in which I do the laps each week, and right now the total mile run is around 8 minutes (but remember I only do 1 lap at a time, so don't be too impressed, or think it is impossible for you).
2. I have also worked up to a set of 15 10-pound dumbell shoulder presses
3. A set of 20 tricep curls with the 10-pound weights. This one I've had to change form a couple of times because of the stress it has put on my shoulder. It probably means I'm not doing it right, but changing how I've done them has cut down on the pain.

Randomly and inconsistently:

I have tried a number of other exercises to target specific areas, but nothing has been added consistently. I'd be up for learning new and better techniques, and Youtube is helpful for looking up how to do things.

1. Leg Lifts
2. Squats
3. Wrist Lifts
4. Shoulder Shrugs with weights
5. Planks

Let's be real

Ok, the routine I laid out might be starting to sound like any routine you've read about, and quickly decided it wasn't for you. I know I read (typically in January), many such workout routines, and know that those kinds of New Years resolutions never seem to last. So let me be honest (which I feel is missing from most of those paid advertisement workouts):

1. I wasn't perfect. I had my routine, and I tried to adhere to it, but I wasn't perfect. I had dinners where I had seconds, or ate something completely unhealthy. There were nights where I snacked because I was going through a small bout of depression. Healthy meals were missed, extra workout things added were not done, snacks and sugar were eaten. When my family was going somewhere and we stopped at fast food, I ordered something. I went to the beach on vacation with my family and almost everything was thrown out the window for a full week. Life happens. You stumble on stuff like this. The important thing is to try. Get back onto it. It's not too late. When I got back from vacation I went back to my routine, even if it meant taking it a little more slowly since I was out of it for a week. It's ok. You are ok.

2. There are things I wish I would be doing more. I wish I did more cardio. I know that more cardio would mean being more healthy, and definitely more weight lost. But I hate cardio workouts. I always have. I could do it while playing sports because while you're playing, you don't notice it as much. And sometimes I can do cardio exercise while training for sports, because I want to do better. But just doing cardio throughout the day sounds awful for me. I don't understand those guys that just go for a run every day. So for me, I did single laps at a time. I listened to music while I ran so that it would distract me. I daydreamed while running so it would distract me. I figure even if I do just 1 mile, and split the laps up between sets, that's still forward progress. That's still good. Find something that works for you. Maybe you can do more cardio, I wish I did more. Maybe I'll find the discipline someday.

3. I wish I slept better. Some say that the most important thing when it comes to physical health is sleep. I think they say the average is 7-9 hours? I'm at 5-6, and it's disrupted sleep. I have trouble sleeping, sure. But the main thing is that I stay up late. I want to because I don't get time to myself or alone time with my wife until the kids go to sleep, and that whole process isn't done til like 9:30-10 at night. So unless I want to just go to sleep immediately when they do, if I want to do something I have to stay up. I would be doing better if I slept more, I know.

4. I still have depression. This comes as no surprise to people that have it, and I'm not as bad as many, but even having health doesn't mean that goes away. I still have bad days. But do I think my mental health is better since I started getting more healthy? Of course! Anything you can do to try and cut out the negative things that you dwell on during episodes will be better for you.

5. I don't know how much of this I will be able to keep up. That's always the catch for so many of these life changes. If it doesn't become habit, then you just go back to the rut. I think starting out small gives me a better chance at continuing. I can conceive of myself continuing on eating a more healthy breakfast from now on, at least on average. I think drinking more water and chewing gum is something that can be done long term. I think that doing 100 push-ups and 50-100 crunches with every set of push-ups is doable per day, especially if you keep it up. It doesn't take very long, especially when you've done it a bunch. I don't know if the cardio and the weight lifting will continue. I hope it does, but I doubt my schedule will allow to consistently work out for as many days as I can currently do. But I figure if I can continue to eat more healthy, and do even a little workout, I'll continue to make forward progress.

Results (Picture time!)

I apologize for the picture quality, I have never done this before and don't know what I'm doing, lol. I also didn't have a hard plan of what I wanted to do when I started this when it came to pictures.

 

 

I started this on May 15th. When I weighed myself I was 230 pounds. As of July 13th I am 210 pounds. I definitely have more energy. I don't know how to measure muscle gain, but I know I've gained muscle and tone. I think I look better. I still have a nice layer of fat over pretty much everything, and that will take a long time to get rid of, lol. I'm not sure I will ever be rid of it, but I am liking my progress. My abs are more tight and pronounced, and the same with my arms. I am actually getting back muscles around my shoulder blades, which I've never had before, so that's cool. My chest is also less saggy than it was. I'm unsure about how much more strength I have, as I have not been doing classical strength training, but I'm sure the pushups have helped. There are plenty of things where my shoulder hurts less than it did. Obviously, losing 20 pounds is really nice. I'd like to lose more. I am still considered to be overweight according to BMI and pretty much all standards, so it'd be nice to get that down some more. But forward progress!

So that is my journey so far. Thank you for lasting this long. I am proud of what I've accomplished so far, and hopeful that it will continue in the future. I wish you well in your health goals, and feel free to ask me any questions, or offer some tips! I'm always up for learning something new. Thanks again for reading, and happy gaming!