Image courtesy of Dashu Pagla

I was reading a post by Leo Babauta over at Zen Habits about sticking to a meal plan, and I immediately recognized the same patterns and thought processes that I follow at work everyday doing agile software development.  When I was first introduced to the agile frame of mind, it seemed to fit with the way I imagined software was supposed to be developed.  But this article helped me realize how easily agile practices can be applied to our everyday health and fitness.  Instead of building software to meet requirements, we are executing a plan to meet our health and fitness goals.  I thought I would start a series of posts related to this topic, with the first post starting with the basics: the values in the Manifesto for Agile Software Development itself.

1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Since the text above is primarily referring to a team of people and a customer of some sort, I will narrow the scope of the statement to be “Individual and Self-Interaction.”  What this means, is that is is much more important to be honest with yourself when it comes to your own well being.  It the world of health, you are your main customer (wife is a close second).  You have to acknowledge the fact that you are responsible for your destiny, and the more often you interact with yourself (that’s called thinking) about your requirements, goals, and progress, the better chance you will have at meeting your expectations.  This does not mean processes (workout plans and diets) and tools (exercise equipment and nutrition trackers) are not important, but they will only take you as far as you allow them to take you.  So next time your office-mate waves a box of Thin Mints in your face, make sure to do a little self-interaction and say NO!

2. Working software over comprehensive documentation

Well of course we aren’t talking software here, so I will relate working software to your intermediate and end goals and I will relate comprehensive documentation to your exercise and nutrition logs you keep along the way.  I know I have preached the importance of tracking your fitness results in past articles, and I still do; however, the more important thing is making significant progress against your health goals.  If you want to lose 10 pounds, it is much more important to meet that end goal that to track every step along the way.  That being said, I believe that the end goal can be met faster by constant progress updates, which can be obtained by keeping those metrics along the way.

3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation &
4. Responding to change over following a plan

When applying these rules to health and fitness, it is easier to take the last two statements together.  Earlier, I mentioned that you are your main customer for your own health.  It is critical you are constantly reiterating to yourself what your goals are, what your health requirements are.  You may try to set a goal up front, a contract for your future health.  You may develop a plan to meet those goals, and that is great.  But the more important thing is to allow yourself room to modify your goals and your plan as things change.  In the world of health and fitness, the requirements (goals) don’t change as much as new requirements come in and take priority (baby, work, 6 seasons of Lost).  Always reassess what is important to you and be flexible in your plans to adjust to any changes in goals you might impose on yourself or changes in the environment you are in trying to meet those goals.  On a deeper-dive into the day-to day planning, response to change is a key to meeting the individual milestones to meet you goals.  If you are training for a 5k and mother nature decides to dump two weeks of rain on you, don’t just push off your schedule and miss your “deadlines.”  Go to the gym and hop on a treadmill, go buy some water resistant clothes and water-proof ear-buds and go running in the rain, or just change the workout to something new altogether.  Just be agile.

Final scratches

I know all of this is obvious.  But it is sometimes easy to forget the priorities to meet our goals.  Remember, the priority is to meet the goal, not to do it perfectly to a plan and have every calorie and mile mapped out. Just get out there and do it.

I plan on going into more detail on some of the 12 Principles of agile software in a future post, so stay tuned.

There are some things people consistently track in life, such as bank transactions, hours worked against tasks for work, or the number of jelly bellys my daughter has put up her nose.  Why do we do this?  Easy… So we can have knowledge and control over these things:

• So I know how much money I have and where my money is going.
• So I know how long a work task has taken in the past so I can estimate and schedule better in the future.
• So I can know whether my daughter still has jelly bellies in her nose.

The ability to track these things give us the knowledge to set our limits for the coming days, weeks, months, or years.  It also gives us the insight into what has helped and hurt us in the past.  This knowledge is what is needed to stay in control of the critical things that define how we live and work.

Tracking your fitness and nutrition is no different.  In fact, it is probably more important that the examples above.  The ability for us to know our progress and see our current status gives us the power to control our body and meet our goals.  I want to show some examples from my personal experience to help bring my point home.

Tracking Body Weight

Roller coaster! Of weight... Say What!? Roller coaster! Hoo Hoo Hoo!

Look at my body tracking chart.  You can clearly see the a trend:  The time periods I consistently tracked my weight (look for the clusters of dots), I lost weight.  The time periods that I took a break from tracking my weight, I gained weight.  I found out, that during the time periods in which I went more than a week without recording my weight, I gained an average of 1.5 pounds.  During the time periods that I consistently tracked my weight, I lost about 2.5 pounds.  Even during the times that I tracked when I wasn’t dieting or I wasn’t consistently exercising, I could easily see if I was gaining weight.  I knew I needed to to make adjustments in my diet that week or step up the workouts.  The simple knowledge of what was going on helped me make smarter decisions.

Tracking Nutrition

Photo courtesy of Clint M Chilcott

The same type of knowledge applies to tracking what you eat.  One of my friends was having a hard time losing weight.  They exercised consistently, around 5 times a week for 30+ minutes a session, but they were stuck at being a little heavier than they should be.  They had plateaued.  One day I suggested they start tracking what they ate during the day, and the results were surprising to them.  They were unknowingly taking in ~2500 calories each day,  which is not bad in itself given the amount of exercising they were doing, but most of their calories were from fat and carbs.  They thought they ate somewhat healthy… at least not unhealthy… But when they actually paid attention to what they were eating, they realized they needed to change.  They knew which of their favorite foods was hurting them, and which foods were helping them.  Once they modified their eating habits, they crushed through the plateau and was back on their way to their goal.

Motivation

I am, admittedly, not very consistent in my fitness endeavors.  I believe this to be true for most people as well.  We all have great intentions and hit the ground running, and somehow fizzle into old, bad habits.   I don’t have any good solutions for this problem, but the one thing I strongly recommend is to keep on tracking.  Who cares if you didn’t work out for a week and slipped on your diet.  Log your weight.  Log your calories.  Continue to track your weight and your food intake no matter what.  This way, when you start slipping, you recognize it much quicker.  You are much less likely to stray too far from the course.  You are constantly aware of your current status, your progress towards your goals, your weak spots in your fitness routine, and most importantly, your triumphs.  Knowing these things will continue to motivate you to be better, because, as Sir Francis Bacon once said, knowledge is power.  Mmmmm. Bacon.  No wait, bacon would put me over my calorie limit for the day… See.  Knowledge.

Where To Go From Here

So how do you start tracking your weight and nutrition.  Well it’s as easy as a pen and paper. … Ha!  Did I just say to use a pen and paper!  Don’t be crazy!  What is this, the 90s?  Ha!

There are many other ways to do this in the modern world.  I’ll list a few:

• Gyminee
• Traineo
• FitDay
• Excel (And it’s free alternative)

I personally suggest Gyminee.  I have used this one for a while now and absolutely love it.  But it doesn’t really matter which one you choose to use, as long as you consistently use it.  Most of these services offer a mobile option as well so you can log what your eating in real time (wives and girlfriends love it when you ignore them for your iPhone… trust me).  So what are you waiting for?  Get started!

courtesy of joeltelling

It’s not much, but it’s a push towards the right direction.  I started off the year with a blank calendar.  Every day I did some exercise and marked an X on that day.  Right now I’m 34 days into it and feel good about my small accomplishment.  I have a full calendar month of X’s

So far, my exercise has been minimal: pushups, situps, body weight squats, and the occasional walk.  The change has been minimal too.  I have lost zero weight, but that’s to be expected because I’ve been eating like a madman.  I can’t say that I notice any difference in my appearance.  What I do notice is that I feel a little stronger and have more energy.  My plan is to keep this up as long as I can and start cutting back on my food intake.  

For now though, I’ll just enjoy my small success and keep plugging forward.

courtesy of Christmas w/a K

I’m having moderate success with my daily exercise commitment.  I’ve managed to exercise a little bit every day since the beginning of the year.  I’m feeling more energized during the day and I feel a little stronger than when I started.  That’s the good from this.

Now for the bad.  It’s cold.  When it’s cold like this, I have zero desire to get out and do some appropriate cardio.  Also, when I’m stuck inside I tend to eat more.  I’m eating better than I used to, but my calorie intake isn’t low enough to yield weight loss.  My weight is basically just holding steady.

So, in summary:  I’m still exercising daily.  It’s not enough.  I’m eating too much.  My weight is holding steady.

Hello and welcome to your first Weekly Geek Workout; a weekly workout supplement that will take your love for tech, movies, and all things geeky, and use it to whip your ass into shape.  The goal is to provide a daily exercise or two to add to your normal workout regiment.  Which exercise and how much you do is all based on the weekly theme and your geek cred based on that theme.  This is a fun way to push your workout just a little harder, but remember, this is meant to be added onto your normal workout.  If you are too sore or tired to do everything, then don’t!

This week is for all of you Twitter junkies out there.  If your anything like me, Twitter is a source of infinite distraction and increased screen-time.  But not this week!  Oh, no.  This week, it’s time for your Tweet tooth to take a healthy turn. (Tweet tooth… Get it?  I just made that up.  I’m the funniest, most cleverest guy I know!)  ready?  Well then, here we go:

Monday – Upper Body

Take the square root of your total number of twitter updates (on the top right of your twitter profile).  Do that number of push-ups.  For example, I would need to do 15 push-ups.  I got off easy!  Poor Leo Laporte has to do 40… Sorry Leo.

Tuesday – Abs

Head over to TweetStats, enter your twitter name, and click ‘Graph My Tweets!’.  Take the number of tweets from your most active month and divide it by your tweets per day.  Do that number of crunches and hold a left and right side plank for that number of seconds.  For example, I would do 34 crunches (55 tweets during my most active month divided by 1.6 tweets per day), a side plank for 34 seconds, and then a second side plank on the other side for 34 seconds.  If your numbers come out to be unreasonable, just do what you can, but remember to push yourself.

Wednesday – Cardio

Today will be fun!  Today, I will assume you use a Twitter app like Thwirl or Twitterrific, an app that gives an audio notification upon receiving a new tweet.  Turn up the volume on the computer, and every time you hear a new tweet, stand up and do 30 jumping jacks.  Every time you get an @ reply (someone posts a message with @yourname in the message), run in place for one minute.  Do this all day.  You can even do this at work, unless you will get fired, of course.

Thursday – Lower Body

Click on the profile of the person that has the newest tweet.  Take the square root of their total updates, like you for yourself on Monday.  That will be the total number of leg exercises to do.  Start doing ten repetitions of each of the following exercises: squats, lunges (alternating legs), mountain climbers.  Keep rotating until you meet the total number of leg exercises.

Friday – Flexibility

Go to your Twitter home page.  Count the number of unique posting methods from each of your followers.  This is the section at the end of each message that says: “xx seconds ago from PLACE.”  Double the number of unique posting methods and do a variety of stretches for that many minutes.  For example, the people I follow have posted from the web, twitterrific, TweetDeck, and TwitterFon.  So I would need to do 8 minutes of stretches.  You can find plenty of stretching routines on the web, but you can start here, here, or here.

That’s It!

You’re done.  I hope you had fun with this.  Please let me know how you did, whether you enjoyed it or not, what you did different, etc.  I also want to remind you that I am not a professional, so anything I recommend or suggest has no medical basis.  Please consult your doctor to make sure you are capable of doing the exercises presented here.  Please keep checking back for updates to this series, such as the weekly geek workout for coders and the weekly geek workout for social networking nerds.  If you have any ideas, please email me or just leave a comment.  As always: Have fun and stay active!

George

I’m happy to report that I’m turning this fat ass ship around and heading back towards my goals.  I started off this year with a calendar to mark off every day that I exercise.  I just finished out Day #8, and I have to admit that the chain of “X”s are starting to motivate me.  Every day I’m trying to do something be it walking, pushups, sit ups, squats, lunges, whatever.  Anything that makes the heart pump a little faster and cause some sweat.  

Starting out like this is a slow process, but it keeps me from getting burnt out.  I haven’t lost any noticable weight, but I’m feeling better.  I never realize how crappy I feel when I’m not exercising and eating too much until I start back.  My energy level is up and I feel good.