Tag: Health

The Year of… 2014

I've got this!
I’ve got this!

Each year I spend some time over the holidays to think about the upcoming year. I tend not to think about resolutions, which in my mind, have a connotation of success or inevitable failure. Instead, I like to outline my focus for the coming year. Think of it as a vision statement that guides my goals. It’s important to jot these things down because ideas swirling in my head result in little action. Writing down my areas of focus act as a roadmap for the journey throughout the year.

Throughout the ups and downs related to my job, my mind would wander to three main topics:

1) Travel
2) Health and Fitness
3) Financial Freedom

And a fourth topic came to light over the past couple of months:

4) Managing my digital life

Travel

It’s no secret that I love to travel and experience new places, cultures, and all of the emotions that come with those adventures. I spent most of November reading the travel blogs of inspirational people who had left their growing careers for a nomadic lifestyle. Oftentimes we tell ourselves that there’s never enough money or time to travel. This is clearly false; if so many others can change their lifestyle to one of travel, then why can’t I? These people aren’t rich; they’ve just shifted priorities. These people don’t spend a fortune; they just adopt strategies for near-free flights and elite status upgrades. These people aren’t unique in thinking about an unconventional life; they’ve just decided to take action. And I’m jumping on that bandwagon: Travel Hacking. Couch Surfing. House Sitting. Remote Living. Discount travel of any kind. It’s all in the realm of possibility. I’m not saying I want to be completely nomadic and go off the grid, but I do want to travel more. That’s what it comes down to. And I’ll figure out how. Of course, I also have a list of places I would love to visit, but more on that in a subsequent blog post.

Health and Fitness

Admittedly, choosing to be as healthy as I can be and adapting my schedule to include fitness is a lifestyle, not a fad. So this focus is nothing new, but I write it down every year. I have been plagued with several injuries. My ankle hurts; I have tendonitis in my right elbow; curses to the chronic neck and back pain; and the entire right side of my body from the waist down feels like it requires some major physiotherapy. All excuses though! I’ll be taking control of these health issues in the New Year. A costly endeavour, but health comes first. Nutrition will also be a priority again this year after a miserable attempt last year. At the very least, I should try some new recipes. And then there’s my workout routine. I plan to complete P90X3, organize fitness challenges, and begin running again. It’s time to conquer some more races and inch my way toward that triathlon. Hiking will be a predominant activity as always.

Financial Freedom (well… sort of.)

No, I don’t want to retire… yet. But I will be exploring ways to add value to my current skills through workshops and certificates while I expand into contract work. This involves learning about small business ownership and how I can offer my statistical and data analysis services remotely. I also plan to look into the process of becoming a Beachbody coach and what all of that entails. Financial freedom is definitely a work in progress, but it’s on my radar this year.

Managing My Digital Life

This will be ongoing, but I’m so bogged down with different emails, software that I don’t use to its potential, gigabytes of photos that are spiralling out of organizational control, and an online presence that requires full-time hours to manage. There has to be a way to make things easier. There just has to be.

And those are the 4 areas of focus. Everything sounds fine and good, but how do I translate these points into actionable goals? I use the SMART acronym, of course. SMART goals are ones that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time Oriented. I’ll be creating my SMART goals within the next few days.

So what will 2014 bring?

A lot of excitement! I know there will be many great experiences and changes as always. It will be busy, but I’ve come to realize I’m at my best when I’m busy. However the year unfolds, I know it will be a good and overall positive 2014.

P90X3- It’s Here! It’s Here!

P90Received-1Christmas has certainly come early for me! My Beachbody P90X3 Deluxe package arrived today! The contents include:

  • 16 Extreme P90X3 Workouts
  • P90X3 Nutrition Guide and Fitness Guide (this will be my holiday reading this year!)
  • 3 Additional Extreme Workouts
  • E&E Energy and Endurance powder
  • 3 Pro-grade Resistance Bands

I’m so excited to start on January 6th!! Weeee!

Zapping my Head with X-rays

Computed tomography (CT) scanning machine. OOhhh. Ahhhh.
Today I had an appointment for a head CT scan. I’ll say right now that there’s really nothing to worry about, and the point of this post isn’t about my well-being. So what’s it about? It’s about the machine. The CT scanning machine is so cool! Cool to the point that I asked if I could take a photo. The tech’s response: “Well, we’re not really hiding anything… so I guess so”. I can only imagine how expensive that machine is. A quick google search puts the estimates in the 500K to a million dollar range, maybe even more. Plus, with operation and labour costs, I’m sure it’s a costly procedure.
According to Wikipedia, CT scanning of the head is used to detect infarction, tumours, calcifications, haemorrhage and bone tauma. CT stands for “computed tomography” and refers to the computation of tomography (sliced/sectioned imaging) from ionizing radiation (X-ray) images.
The whole event was pretty quick. Actually, I think I was done in less than 10 minutes. The prep involved wearing a medical cap and something to cover my eyes. The most important thing was to keep my head completly straight and steady in the head rest for the entire duration of the scan. Then there was a fairly loud whirring sound and small movements of the table as scanner zapped my head with x-rays and snapped images. Then I was sent on my merry way like nothing happened. It was an interesting experience.
The next time I visit my doctor, I’ll ask him to go through the images with me. I’m sure my brain will showcase its photogeneticism, which, as a reminder, is the genetic predisposition to showcase awesome photogenic abilities and appear aesthetically pleasing in at least 95% of all photographs *… and cue smile*. Or in this case, *… and fire neuron*. Obviously, I’m hoping for these images to be aesthetically pleasing 100% of the time :).


P90X: Curse you Tony Horton!

So one of the goals I wanted to do for the new year was get into shape. I think I made this resolution last year, but I’m not sure what happened there! It included an unused gym membership for which I’m still paying :S. It was also due to some ‘drama’ that occurred in the latter half of 2009, of which I’ve stopped trying to understand. BAM! Breath, Accept, and Move on. 🙂 And my ongoing saying: ‘Don’t try to understand people and why they do the things they do. Just be content with the way in which you react and deal with those situations.’ That’s just an aside, but I realize that thinking that way eliminates a lot of mental energy in the long run. People are funny in general. Not ‘haha’ funny, but ‘I don’t get you’ funny :D.

So here I am, making an attempt to get into the best shape ever.  I’ve tried the original Power 90 program, and although I didn’t complete the full 90 days, I definitely saw positive results with it after 60-something days.  So for this new year, I decided I would take the plunge and order P90X- the Extreme Home Fitness program by Beachbody.com.  And let me tell you, it’s a crazy intense program with a pretty strict nutrition plan.

As I write this, I have now completed Day 5. I’m am sore. Very very sore. But it’s been good so far, and I’ve been impressed with my ability to remain completely motivated even after cursing at the TV or laptop (depending on where I’m watching the DVDs).  Believe me, the cursing is warranted.  My life has basically become work/exercise/squash/eat/sleep. Yes, in the midst of this crazy program, I’ve committed to playing squash twice a week for that extra cardio. Silly me.  And to add to my work day, most of the workouts last about 1.5 hours each day.  I even found myself getting up at 6 am on Day 2 just to get the workout in, because squash is on Tuesday nights :S.  Oh, and the nutrition plan basically calls for me to eat about 2400 ‘good’ calories a day, with lots of protein in there. Needless to say, I have been eating non-stop, and ingesting WAY MORE than I’m used to…  sigh. That alone is getting quite costly…. especially the protein shakes and bars. And lots of chicken breast. LOTS! But overall, so far so good :). So here’s a quick run down thus far of Week 1:

Day 1: Chest & Back, and Ab Ripper X.  Ridiculous. WAYY too many push ups and pull ups. I realize I’m quite weak and can’t really do any of the pull ups without the assistance of a chair for support. In any case, I’ll work my way up ;).  My entire body basically cramped up once I tried Ab Ripper. Overall, it was a painful day.

Day 2: Plyometrics. And so I was up at 6 am to do an hour of jump exercises, which killed the legs and the buttocks! Think jumping then squatting, then jumping then squatting. Rinse and repeat.  By the end, the legs hurt. The butt hurt. I hurt. Oh yeah, squash that evening didn’t help the legs. I could barely walk the next day.

Day 3: Shoulders & Arms, then Ab Ripper X.  Not as bad as chest and back, but it still hurt. I realized that I need some heavier weights, because I should be maxing out at 8 reps or so, but was able to go beyond that for some exercises.

Day 4: Yoga X. My goodness, who knew that yoga was so ridiculously intense! I sweat more than anything… and it’s an hour and a half long! I think I have the ‘tree’ and ‘frog’ positions under control 🙂 Those push ups and downward dogs are killer though :S.

Day 5 (Today!): Legs & Back, then Ab Ripper X. I’m starting to make some progress with the Ab Ripper stuff, with less cramping.  The moves are still tough though, and sometimes I’d rather be reading an article on diagnosis codes for administrative data (i.e. WORK! eek) than doing ab work. But it’s a good pain in the end I suppose. As for the legs and back, the pull ups for the back exercises are still not going so well, but the chair helps tremendously. I actually like the leg exercises. Though the wall squat for 90 seconds was a bee-otch.

Day 6: Kenpo X. I’m looking forward to this one, as there’s going to be lots of punches and kicks. That’s right… don’t mess with me.

Day 7: Rest or X Stretch.  Well, clearly to keep the momentum going, I don’t plan to use it as a rest day. So hopefully the stretch is less intense as the rest of the week! I’m thinking it will be… how painful could stretching be??? I may retract this statement following Day 7.

Then I have to repeat that routine for Weeks 2 and 3. Fun times indeed! Then Week 4 is a bit of a cool down week, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy! Not sure what that week will be about, but I anticipate lots of sweat and hopefully visible results. Although now, I’m in shape. Round is a shape :). After Week 4, it’s a whole new playing field :S.

And who’s Tony Horton?? The guy who developed this program, and my new ‘personal trainer’ in the DVDs. His photo is above. The guy is like 51 years old or something, but he’s in amazing shape. I hope to be in shape like him after 90 days… and when I’m 51! I love and hate Tony Horton all at the same time… “Curse you Tony!!!! I will NOT do one more downward dog!!…. Alright fine, I’ll BRING IT!!!”