It is the first Sunday of February 2022. Next Sunday, we will watch the Bengals and Rams match up in the Super Bowl. I guess that this is the Sunday before the Super Bowl storm. I plan to get ahead of my work week this morning while Little Chirp sleeps in. Then we will hit the gym, afterwards we will spend a couple of hours on work and homework followed by playing board games.
I just finished setting my goals for the next twelve days. I use a sort of agile, sprint method for setting my goals. I tried different time intervals over the years – a month, semi-monthly, one week, two weeks, etc. I found twelve days to be an ideal time period to allow me to make progress on goals, but short enough to keep focused. The fourth twelve-day period starts today. Reviewing and setting my goals for the twelve-day period always gets me super motivated, and I am ready to jump in.
Reflecting on my first three twelve-day periods of 2022, which I refer to as segments, I am crushing my work goals. I am also loving work. I am also meeting my running goals, which will slowly get me back to being able to run a half marathon. Happily, I am also meeting my goal of reading a book in each segment. I have actually read five books, so more than one each segment. I am completely failing at my goals to lose weight, improve my diet, and engaging in exercise that is not running. I am also failing at my goals to reconnect socially. I tend to still just want to stay home. Staying home alone inevitably means eating much more than I would if I went out with friends. I plan to refocus on my physical and mental health goals in this fourth segment of 2022.
The only goal left to determine for this next segment is my diet. Over the past 36 days, I have significantly increased my physical activity by running and walking. The results are that I am rarely tired during the day; I have zero joint pain, and I am noticing an increase in my mental focus. In short, I feel better. This increase in physical activity has helped me maintain my weight, but I want to lose weight, so a diet is in order. Any diet would be an improvement over my current eat constantly and eat whatever I want diet.
I am still thinking over my diet goals. I know people have strong opinions about diets that work or do not work. I personally believe that all of the popular diets work if a person actually follows them. It is about a person making an individual commitment to a diet that works for them. I am bad about kicking off a low carb diet with a bean and cheese breakfast taco. I will do some thinking and research, and then I will set personal goals, better described as rules, around what I will eat in the next twelve days. I hope to lose two pounds of body fat each twelve-day period for the next three months, thus I will lose roughly fifteen pounds, which will put me at my ideal weight and body fat percentage.
I am going to go for a run on this beautiful Sunday morning while I give my diet goals a think. Fasting? Low carb? Weight Watchers? Whole30? Mediterranean? Paleo? Vegan? Zone Diet? Why is there no such thing as a bean and cheese taco diet??