I begin my personal wellness project tomorrow, and I have to say I am actually quite excited about it. In the next two-three months I hope to establish some new lifestyle habits that will improve my quality of living. While one of my goals is to lose 8-10 pounds, my main focus is on improving my eating habits.
The myfitnesspal site/app seems to be a pretty slick tool. Both the food and exercise sections have a full library of foods and activities that simply allow you to select and add them to your daily lists. It calculates caloric intakes and expenditures for daily and weekly periods. It also generates daily caloric intake targets and weekly expenditure targets to assist you in meeting your pre-determined goals.
My nutrition goals are to eat more fruits and vegetables, focus on portion control, and reduce the amount of snacking that I do, which will in turn help me reduce the number of sugary foods that I eat. My diet as it currently is is not really that bad, but replacing morning cereal with fruit, yogurt, and granola is one simple way to improve it. Also, bringing only healthy food to school for lunch and snacks will force me to eat healthy during the day. Night will be my most challenging time as it is when I snack most often. Not buying snack foods, and sheer will power will have to get me through the evenings.
I have always been very active and diligent with my exercise habits. Work, completing my masters, and a two-year-old have made that more difficult. This project will force me to workout diligently to ensure that I am meeting my weekly caloric expenditure goals. The exercise routine that I envision is:
Sunday – muscular strength
Monday – aerobic
Tuesday – rest day
Wednesday – muscular strength
Thursday – yoga
Friday – aerobic
Saturday – aerobic
Aerobic exercises will consist of mainly running as long as the weather allows, along with stationary cycling. Muscular strength exercises will be mainly body weight and abdominal workouts. Yoga is something that will be new to me, but I think I will experience the most significant gains from it. I hope it helps my strength and flexibility. I plan to use some virtual workouts through youtube and other apps for many of my workouts. I will post them as I use them.
As tomorrow is my first official day, I will be posting my baseline stats and my progress for the day.
Chris, love the focus here on healthy eating habits and exercise! I always seem to get lots of exercise with walking the dog and chasing after the kids. Snacks at night are definitely a challenge. Curious, do you do any type of meal planning? I always find that when we have time to plan out our meals, we seem to eat healthier.
Hi Chris,
It sounds like you have a very solid and balanced plan focused on multiple areas of your heath. Megan is completing a similar project, perhaps you two can bounce ideas off of each other or do some collaboration. For yoga, I would recommend YogabyAdrienne on youtube or Diana Bye Yoga if you are wanting to try some in person or virtual classes. Good luck!
Hi Chris,
I also picked fitness/healthy habits as my learning project. I have already picked up jogging a couple of years ago, but I really want to use this project to expand my knowledge of different types of exercise. I also want to eat healthier and maintain a healthier lifestyle as a busy teacher ( who seems to have too many snacks on the staffroom table so far this year).
I want to also do some yoga or stretching on my rest days which is new to me so let me know if you find any good at-home yoga workouts!
Do you have a Nintendo Switch? If so, RingFit Adventure is a great video game that allows you to kill monsters while working out. Pretty cool! Maybe your two-year-old will like watching the tv while you work out!
Good luck!
What a great project. I am currently in a program that I will follow for 8 weeks. It has a lot of the similar focuses you have mentioned. The spacing of the meals is key too. I find I am more aware of what I am eating which has also made me provide better meals for my kids. I always tried to give them a balanced meal but our fridge is stocked with way more wholesome food now and they see me eating it so they are naturally falling into better eating habits too. Best of luck with this journey. I look forward to hearing about how it goes.
That is a great idea for a project plan. I think that these days teachers are heroes in Covid -19 times– man things must be stressful for all you teachers and administrators. Get back to what you enjoy. Be kind to yourself. Perhaps a little mental health wellness too with meditations or mindfulness practice? You have inspired me to use My Fitness Pal and look into mindfulness apps to enahnce my self- care. Thanks. Looking forward to reading about your journey. Take care.
Wow! This sounds like such a great project and one that I definitely feel I could get behind. Although I did not pick this topic (even though I feel like I should have), it is something that is so beneficial in many ways. I used to run quite a bit, and work out a ton, however, now with a young kiddo I find I put myself last even more so than ever. I will be tagging along on your journey to get some tips about how to get back into the swing of things.
It sounds like you have a good foundation down. Remember, it takes 6 weeks for something to become a habit. If you can get through those first tricky 6 weeks, you will be on your way. Remember, even the most motivated people can let go of good habits. When we lack motivation we need to fall back on our determination, and that my friend is something that can make or break us. Good luck! I am excited for you (and for me to learn).
Thanks for the feedback, everyone. I am excited for my journey and look forward to connecting with others who have chosen to embark on a similar path. We can do this!