I Will Step Up

One of the first things Ryan did was ask us for two goals for the camp. I firmly believe the best goals or targets are measureable and defined in an affirmative voice. By this I mean that I prefer to say, "I will have perfect attendance at boot camp" instead of "Exercise more frequently." More frequently than what, my old habits? I hope that you can see the difference in the two types of statements. The first sentence does not leave any wiggle room for me to skip a workout while the second does grant that slack. By defining my goals in such a way that they are measurable, it is easy to notice if I start to falter.

Really, there are two major goals I want to achieve in my first boot camp. I already spilled the beans on my first goal, "I will attend every class of boot camp." My biggest hurdle is always physically lacing up the shoes and deciding to exercise. Once I'm actually exercising, it isn't such a grind. The thought of working out is worse than working out. Just mix in a sprinkling of 4:45am wake up calls and that's a recipe for re-setting the alarm and rolling over. I'm more interested in my attendance than intensity levels because I know my competitive side will make it worthwhile once I'm there. Besides, any exercise is infinitely more than I've done for the past 5 years.

My second goal is, "I will keep an honest food log every day." The biggest problem with my previous "diet", and I use that term loosely, was that I had no idea what I was consuming. There wasn't a single iota of concern that even though I had already eaten a big lunch and dinner, whether or not I should reach for the snacks while watching TV. It seems I've read countless times that the first step to correcting your food intake is to start monitoring it, so that's my plan only with more healthy foods. I quickly grew tired of the pen and paper log Ryan provided us and had an epiphany. "I always have my phone with me… why not use Twitter to keep my food log and post pictures of everything I eat?" So Paul's Food Log was born a week ago, 12/3. I've done a surprisingly good job remembering to post each meal and snack, but if I forget pictures that means I've already eaten! In case you were curious - and serious nerd alert here - I am using so many hash tags because I want to build some software to read the Twitter feed and dynamically create a printable food log that's in a more traditional format. If I wind up building this, I would extend it so that all SIU campers could tie a food log Twitter account into the program.

The first day of Boot Camp was the pre-test, which included the mile run, pushups, regular and assisted push ups, regular and assisted dips, sit ups, and planks. For those unfamiliar with the name "planks", men from a Greek house may more affectionately refer to these as "Boes and Toes." The idea is to support your body weight on your elbows and toes while keeping your body flat as a board (or plank) making for an intense core/abs workout. Anyways, my pre-test results are as follows:

Exercise	Time or Reps
Mile Run	21:12
Regular Pushups	20
Assisted Pushups	5
Regular Dips	8
Assisted Dips	4
Sit Ups (in 1 minute)	15
Planks to failure	35 seconds

It's foreign to me to move my exercise goals to the backburner, but then again I'm doing a lot of things differently this month. These take a backseat because they're actually signals that I'm meeting my two major goals. I was unsure of how to accurately estimate how much progress I could make in only 3 weeks time, so we'll find out at the end of next week whether or not I'm a good forecaster.

• I will lose 10 pounds
  
• I will finish a mile under 18 minutes
  
• I will do 30 regular pushups
  
• I will do 15 regular dips
  
• I will do 25 sit-ups in 1 minute
  
• I will hold the plank for 45 seconds
  

Long term health is the major driver for me doing Step It Up. My lifestyle was not sustainable; there are no other ways to describe it. Below are my long term goals.

• I will weigh 266 pounds (100 pounds!)
  
• I will get off the recently prescribed blood pressure medication
  
• I will get my cholesterol and blood pressure back into the "healthy" zones.
  

Wow, those goals seem like a pipe dream at the moment but, as the title of this post says, I Will Step Up! I hope you will follow along on this blog to see how far I've come and encourage me to realize these goals.