How Your Friends Make It Easy to be Healthy: Progress Report
Finding an Exercise Plan That Works, and a Progress Report
This is a diary of the healthy lifestyle goals that my son, Chris, and I are making together each month.
In August, Chris’ goal was to go to the gym five days a week and to run every other day, whether at the gym or not. My goal was to get a half-hour of aerobic exercise five days a week, with stretching and weights on the other two days. We had worked on similar goals in July, but wanted to do better. We felt that some days get too busy and interfere with exercise, so we wanted to find a way to make it work every day.
This journal entry has two parts: our August exercise results, and a report on the progress we’ve made since we started making goals in March.
August: Finding an Exercise Plan that Works
Chris’ Experience
Chris is making a couple of adjustments to make it easier to reach his goal.
He was thinking that Blink Fitness, the gym he goes to with his gym buddy Sarah Jes, is too far to get to when time is short. So he joined a second gym that is closer to his apartment and is open 24 hours: Planet Fitness. Both gyms are affordable, even on a low budget.
Also, he is planning a half-marathon on October 9th. He’ll be running in the New Balance Bronx 10 Mile Race for Charity. He’s running for Team for Kids, an organization that helps promote fitness programs for youth around the country and fights childhood obesity. (If you would like to support, here’s the link to donate: https://runwithtfk.org/Donate under runner Chris Bellant). That motivates him to keep up with his daily goals in order to get in shape for it.
He wanted to do a Tough Mudder — a half-marathon with an obstacle course in the mud — but he will be promoting his independent film, “Loserville,” which premieres on September 29th in Hollywood.
Besides the obvious benefits of exercising, such as getting in shape, Chris also appreciates how exercise helps to clear stress.
My Experience
I went swimming once a week and walked for at least a half hour straight five days a week in addition to taking stairs and walking the long way to things every day. I do stretches every day, but on the two days that I didn’t walk or swim, I did the “Fit for 50” military program that I described in the June entry of my health diary (How Your Friends Make It Easy to be Healthy: Exercise). Once or twice, when I was home on a hot and rainy day and had to get a half hour of aerobic exercise, I danced around the house to my favorite tunes — fun!
During the hot weather, I did my walking indoors. Now that Autumn is coming, I will be going outdoors while the weather is temperate (in the 60’s and 70’s). There is a park nearby with a hiking and exercise path under the trees. And I love hiking in the woods, especially during the Fall color change!
I feel like I have a routine that works. Of course, in the future, I will be adding new and different activities to keep going in the face of obstacles.
Progress Report
Chris’ Progress: Quitting soda pop stuck; Quitting pizza stuck; Chips, not so much. He did completely quit chips in May, but had to substitute pretzels to do it, and then relapsed. He’s still trying to find time for good food and exercise. When he quit pop, he switched to Gatorade, vitamin water, etc. “That’s better,” he said, “but still too much sugar.” A trainer once told him, “Anything that doesn’t have a natural color is not good for you.”
As I was researching chips, I was shocked at an article about chips being addictive. And if you click on the link under the following photo, you will find an article illuminating the serious health risks of eating chips.
My Progress: I found that after a month of adding more fruits and vegetables to my diet, I began to forget to do that and fell back into old habits.
As far as sweets and wine, I have improved my personal rule to one or the other each day. But when it comes down to choosing which one, wine usually wins out. Also, I keep the portions down on sweets, but still tend to pour a big glass of wine. When I go out, I have two glasses, and maybe even something sweet in addition. In those cases, I make it a point to have neither one for a few days. Right now, I’m trying to catch up on eight days of neither one! So I’ve really cut down on sweets, but not so much on wine.
I feel that I’ve made the most progress on exercise, because now I squeeze it in every day. In the past, I would really get into the groove of exercising and then something like getting sick or too busy would stop me. Then it would take awhile to get back to into a routine. Whenever I tried to really make it a daily thing, I’ve been amazed at how walking makes it easy to do. Also, I have my favorite things like swimming and dancing. My latest group exercise routine is a hip hop class. Music always makes exercising easy for me because I love the beat. It feels more like partying than like work! 😉
To be continued…
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