Had a small health scare last week and the doctor basically told me everything I already know....poor diet, over weight, not enough exercise, not enough sleep and so on...
A couple of immediate fixes - the only caffeine I'm allowing myself to have is from either coffee or unsweetened tea. I quit energy drinks a few years ago but I can guzzle diet coke like nobodies business. Soda with all of the chemicals and the ease of drink is out. I'm not the biggest coffee fan so a cup in the morning and a cup in the afternoon or an unsweetened ice tea and I've been good now that I've adjusted to the lower caffeine intake.
That helps with the sleep issue as well...I've been getting to bed around midnight and waking up at 5 during the week and sometimes not falling asleep at all. The Dr suggested Melatonin to help with the sleep but its been making me groggy in the morning. I've now been getting between 6 and 7 hours of sleep. He seems to think that the sleep deficit is one of my biggest problems.
Exercise is something I enjoy but don't always get around to. Now its 30 minutes of some sort of physical activity every day. Mostly riding my bike since I enjoy it. I've revived my biking thread: http://markweinguitarlessons.com/forums/threads/the-biking-thread.42304/
Stress is something that I work on but with a small business and a youngish family that is difficult sometimes.
The absolutely hardest part for me is discipline with my diet. I know what I should be eating and in what quantities but if I have some sort of coping mechanism when I'm stressed I tend to overeat. With the help of Mrs W I've been getting back on track with that. Since she is allergic to gluten (and is smarter and more disciplined than I am ) I've been trying to emulate what she eats as much as possible. She is incredibly healthy since they discovered her gluten issue.
I got a new Withings scale and blood pressure monitor that I'm using with the Health app on my phone to monitor my progress as well. I've gone from 272 to 266 in the last week and the plan I guess is to have me at around 225 or 230 by September. Its always been easy for my to lose weight fast and then put it back on so I am really trying to do this in a sensible manner..we'll see how it goes.
Anyhow, you can probably find a ton of these threads from me in this forum over the last 7 years but this is the current effort. My username on MapMyWalk (which is what I'm using to track my bike rides) is Mark64868426 if anyone wants to connect that way.
A couple of immediate fixes - the only caffeine I'm allowing myself to have is from either coffee or unsweetened tea. I quit energy drinks a few years ago but I can guzzle diet coke like nobodies business. Soda with all of the chemicals and the ease of drink is out. I'm not the biggest coffee fan so a cup in the morning and a cup in the afternoon or an unsweetened ice tea and I've been good now that I've adjusted to the lower caffeine intake.
That helps with the sleep issue as well...I've been getting to bed around midnight and waking up at 5 during the week and sometimes not falling asleep at all. The Dr suggested Melatonin to help with the sleep but its been making me groggy in the morning. I've now been getting between 6 and 7 hours of sleep. He seems to think that the sleep deficit is one of my biggest problems.
Exercise is something I enjoy but don't always get around to. Now its 30 minutes of some sort of physical activity every day. Mostly riding my bike since I enjoy it. I've revived my biking thread: http://markweinguitarlessons.com/forums/threads/the-biking-thread.42304/
Stress is something that I work on but with a small business and a youngish family that is difficult sometimes.
The absolutely hardest part for me is discipline with my diet. I know what I should be eating and in what quantities but if I have some sort of coping mechanism when I'm stressed I tend to overeat. With the help of Mrs W I've been getting back on track with that. Since she is allergic to gluten (and is smarter and more disciplined than I am ) I've been trying to emulate what she eats as much as possible. She is incredibly healthy since they discovered her gluten issue.
I got a new Withings scale and blood pressure monitor that I'm using with the Health app on my phone to monitor my progress as well. I've gone from 272 to 266 in the last week and the plan I guess is to have me at around 225 or 230 by September. Its always been easy for my to lose weight fast and then put it back on so I am really trying to do this in a sensible manner..we'll see how it goes.
Anyhow, you can probably find a ton of these threads from me in this forum over the last 7 years but this is the current effort. My username on MapMyWalk (which is what I'm using to track my bike rides) is Mark64868426 if anyone wants to connect that way.