Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Personal Health Status - None Of Your Concern

I've always thought that personal health and training is a personal matter, and shouldn't be flaunted about in public. Yeah for you and personal achievement, but I just don't get the concept.

That being said, let's discuss my own health.

I dated a girl who was a fitness freak. Seriously. To the point that it turned me off from doing anything physical that was healthy for me.

Cue up to a very different mindset today.

During my recent unemployment, I peaked at around 180. In high school I was a buck 50 easy, so you can imagine what I felt when I found old high school pictures and clothes and didn't fit in them. For me, something had to change.

I also found myself on the dating scene, and I knew that it was something desirable to be fir to a degree. So, I joined a gym and actually went to it.

I went a little crazy at first with the thought that physical therapy would help me overcome the recent break up, and for a while it did. The break down for me was just getting in to a routine that drained me constantly. I got to the point that if I didn't walk an hour a day on the treadmill after work or finish one of 5 different fitness apps I had going then nothing was going to work.

Around this time, Penn Jillette of the famous magic duo decided that he was going to drop weight like crazy to help himself get off the 6 blood pressure medications he was on. It worked for him.

Inspired a bit, I decided to try what he did for food, which was an extreme vegan diet. No salts, oils, refined sugar, meat or animal products of any kind, and trying to break eating habits. He wrote a book about it that ill be coming soon, but some of what he talked about got in my ear and stuck there in my brain. So I tried it, and failed after almost a week. That was in Bloomington, and I was gearing up for a big move south.

Once I hit Austin, a lot of what I was doing went to the wayside. I had managed to get myself up each morning and dole out 50 push ups, 10 sit ups, and 10 squats. I ran about 5 minutes each day, and hit the gym for more in Bloomington. Here, I was lucky to try and do just the push ups.

Back in Illinois, I had gotten in to cooking new food items for myself. It was a hobby that I was glad to get in to a little more after the breakup. I went from eating frozen pizza and mac n cheese for most of my meals to actually making pizza dough, sauce, and many other dishes. I learned about making Mountain Dew cupcakes and tried to just make everything from scratch because the thrill of learning a new dish got under my skin.

In Austin, there are food trucks everywhere. And they are deliciousness. So the weight went up, and the more curious case of stress eating about not having a job crept in.

Then I got a job. A job meant structure. A job meant routine. So back to my daily exercises I went.

Now, I am at 60 push ups, 15 sit ups, 15 squats, and about 30 various chest and arm exercises with some hand weights. After work, I have been going on hour long walks. Before, I was kitting maybe 2000 steps a day. Now I'm cranking in about 7500 on a low day.

Through the week I'm eating more of a vegetarian diet. For breakfast each day I do a handful of some vegetable, be it carrots, green peppers, or celery. For lunch I have a couple handfuls of almonds. A couple months ago when I was at 180, now I'm around 165.

I don't say this to brag. The routine works for me, and it probably won't work the same for you. All of our bodies are different, this way works for me personally and I don't want any judgement from it, be it good or bad.

It is kind of funny these days. I'm on some dating apps to see what the single life is around this town. You wouldn't believe how many women are gym rats to a degree that disturbs me. Not because they work out, but because of the massive amounts of gym selfies taken and handstands in front of famous monuments. For fuck's sake, you can do a handstand, why should I give a fuck? You can lift or run a marathon, why should I care?

That's the think when you go extreme with the gym thing - you find out it is all a dick measuring contest when you start to brag about it to others. You have to be in it for yourself, not for others.

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