Image courtesy of d_vdm on Flickr

In case you didn’t know, I am a big fan of the website Nerd Fitness. Well, last week, Steve Kamb, the man behind Nerd Fitness, and Vic Magary released a new workout/diet plan ebook called the Rebel Strength Guide. Since I have recently lost 50 pounds and I now fall in the category of “skinny fat” (not really fat, but not toned and just sort of dumpy looking), the timing of this book aimed at getting you lean, strong, and cut, could not have been better.

Along with the guide, Steve is running a six week contest.

I am going to kill this contest.

I don’t really care if I win the contest, but I am going to give it hell and fight my way to the top of the contenders. I have been fat and mopey for too long, and I now feel like I have the opportunity to be the guy I never thought I could be. The guy mowing his lawn without a shirt on. The confident guy at the party. The husband who can still get a second glance from his wife while getting ready for work.

The time is now.

So I plan on using this blog as a place to keep my status updates and measurements.

Initial Measurements:

Here is my baseline.

• Height: 6′ 2″
• Weight – 193 lbs
• Body Fat %: Need to measure (will do Wed.)
• Arms: 12″
• Chest: 40.5 “
• Waist: 39.25 ” (I wear a size 34 pant, so I’m not sure I did this right)
• Thigh: 20″

And the before picture montage. As you can see. I still have a ways to go to get to where I need to be.

6 weeks to a better me:

This contest is a also being run in conjunction with the Nerd Fitness 6 week challenge, in which you set 4-5 goals and use the Nerd Fitness message boards to keep yourself accountable. Here are my fitness and nutrition goals:

• Rebel Strength Guide Dumbbell Division Rank 1. Three workouts a week track.

• Train for and run in a 10k Race (already registered for one on May 7th and 30th). 3 runs a week, one being 15% improvement in distance over previous week’s best.
• Stick to the Rebel Strength Guide diet plan and log all of my food in Daily Burn.
• No sugar in my coffee and only one “special” coffee drink a week.

And some Lifestyle centric goals

• In bed with TV off by 11:30 every night
• Don’t bring work home.

So here we go!

Stick with me and see where it takes me.

Image courtesy of foskarulla on Flickr

You may have noticed that I have been writing more these last few days. Partly, that’s because my wife and my sister packed up all of the kids, 4 total from 10 months old to 7 years old (God, give them strength.), and took off to the beach.

Only one ER visit so far during the trip!

So I am wifeless, kidless, and have extra free time on my hands. But mostly, I’ve been writing more because…

I’ve been feeling really inspired lately.

The weather is nice, the air is fresh, the world is getting colorful again. But for me, there are three primary reasons that I have been feeling so good. I thought I would share them with you.

1. I’m almost there

Image courtesy of Evil Erin on Flickr

It is hard to believe, but I am nearly at the end of my planned weight loss journey. All I have to do is “just tap it on in, tap, tap, tappy.” Last December, I set out a three phased plan to lose weight:

• Starting out: I started at 236 lbs. (Boo this weight!)
• Goal 1: Be down to 220 lbs by April for my fraternity’s annual graduate dinner. Check (though I gained 3 pounds from the dinner and Pabst Blue Ribbon that weekend)
• Goal 2: Be down to 200 lbs by September for my 10 yr high school reunion. Check (and the old high school honeys couldn’t keep up with my tootsie roll)
• Goal 3: Be down to 190 lbs by New Years Eve so my wife’s birthday present can be ABS (And back abs, ’cause there’s a Situation up in here)

Really, I didn’t know what I should set my end weight goal to be. I ended up and chose 190 because it was a good even number on the upper end of the “Normal weight” BMI chart. (Holy shit! I just realized I am in the normal weight range on the BMI chart!) I knew that would get me to a point where I would really be able to assess my body and reassess my goals.

Do I need to drop 10 more pounds?
Do I need to start training for a strongman competition?
Do I look like a tool being so skinny and need to start going to Mickie D’s again?

I wouldn’t know till I got there… Well guess what? I’m 3 lbs away from 190!

I’ll write up a bigger post when I finally get there, but for now, I’ll move onto Inspiration #2

2. There are soo many good books out there

Image courtesy of luis de bethencourt on Flickr

I have tried to stop watching so much TV lately. In case your wondering, September is NOT a good time to stop watching TV. But after a late summer TV binge where I watched a whole season of True Blood, Mad Men, Fringe, and 3 seasons of Stargate SG-1 (Only 234 Stargate seasons left to go!), I decided books should move to the top of my priority list.

I wanted to share some of the one’s that have stuck out. You may notice that they are all non-fiction and pseudo self helpy. That is why I’ve been so inspired.

• Rework (by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson) – This book really changed my perspective on how I go about my work. It’s raw and minimalist and all-around amazing. The book link is to amazon, but even if you don’t buy or read this book, please check out Signal vs. Noise, the blog for the company that that the authors run… incredible stuff.
• Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard (by Chip and Dan Heath) – Wow, I’m must be all about multi author books. I am only on the second chapter of this book, but the book’s introduction is so impacting that I had to go ahead and mention it.  They use an analogy for the psychology of change that has completely tangibilitated the whole subject for me (it’s so good, I made up a word for it). The introduction is available in the Amazon preview, so if you have a few minutes, go read it. You will not be disappointed.

But I haven’t just been inspired by the good ol’ bounded paper books. There have been some epic e-books out in the wild. One of my new favorite things is reading e-books while I workout on the elliptical machine. I’ll hop on there late at night, and get fully absorbed in these books. An hour later, I realize I’ve burned 700+ calories and by brain has just been filled with wonderful knowledge and motivation. Here are two that really hit me.

• Fearless Health (by Matt Gartland) – I think I have mentioned Matt before, but this *FREE* e-book is spectacular. It came out in August, and sat on my virtual nightstand for a while, but I finally picked it up, and I am really glad I did. The book is directly targeted at your mind and it’s role in becoming vibrantly healthy… and it doesn’t miss. Check out this book and Matt’s blog Healthy Lifestyle Design!
• Rebel Fitness Guide (by Steve Kamb) – You all probably know by now that I’m a huge fan of Steve and what he does over at Nerd Fitness. This book does not disappoint. It not only gave me motivation and inspiration, but it lays out a clear exercise and eating plan that will lead you to become, well, a bad ass. I will admit I don’t follow his plan religiously since my wife and I take classes at the gym together, but if I missed a class at the gym, I attack his plan with a vengeance. (Is it odd that I go to a gym called Empire Fitness, but I actively train to be a part of the rebel alliance?)

And lastly, I just bought a bundle of minimalist guides from some of the pros like Leo Babauta of Zen Habits, Everett Bogue of Far Beyond the Stars, and Adam Baker of Man vs. Debt. This package was put together by another awesome author, Karol Kajda of Ridiculously Extraordinary. I’ve been a outside observer to most of these minimalist blogs and authors, checking out their blogs now and again when they had a viral post, but this package was too good to pass up. The package contains 17 books for $27! Some of the books I was already thinking about buying anyways at their full price, but at $1.50 apiece, I couldn’t not click.

Check out the 17 Minimalist Guides sale here, it is only available for two more days (stupid limited time offers and my inability to not fall for them). I can’t wait to dig in.

3. I am actively trying to better myself

I mentioned in my last post that I am trying new methods to meet some of the lifestyle goals I have been having problems with. I am still only two days into it, but I can already tell the Geek Into Shape Goal Board is keeping me focused and honest.

I woke up this morning with a bad craving for a Pumpkin Spice Latte  (did I mention I love the Fall), but I was able to withstand the urge because all I could think about was that little yellow post-it note that says: “NO $4 COFFEE”. So instead of going to the coffee shop, I worked out for an hour. Two birds, my friends! Two birds!

Here is my progress so far:

First progress report

Back to the Grindstone

Well, now I’m off to do manly things like mow the yard and clean out the garage (my Wife gives me chores, you know).

I would really appreciate it if you would share some of your recent  inspirations with me in the comments section.
Do you have any good book recommendations?
Am I missing a new fall TV show that I shouldn’t be?

Image courtesy of margolove on Flickr

It’s time for me to change how I attack my goals.

Why, you may ask? I have definitely been successful with my primary goal — losing weight. But there are still some pesky lifestyle goals that I cannot seem to get solid footing on:

• Not eating out during lunch (but everyone is going, and it’s Greg’s birthday, and the boss will be there)
• Stop buying $4 coffee (but it’s so damn good, and I’m so sleepy, and the barista is sooo hot)
• Go to bed at a reasonable time (but I’m in the middle of a raid, and I need to catch up on blogs, and Caprica is on the DVR)

I know how to achieve these goals, but I can seem to make it happen. I always seem to lose focus due to the daily grind. And I’m tired of it.

It’s time to make a change how I attack my goals!

I have been ranting on and on about how Agile Software development methodologies have benefited my overall health and fitness mindset. The premise is very simple: focus on action toward your goals rather than over-planning, and set small, incremental goals intended to add up to your long term goal. This is what I have been doing, and still no luck. But I just realized I haven’t tried to incorporate one of my favorite aspects of Agile Development into my new healthy lifestyle — the focus on information radiators.

I first read about information radiators in the book Agile Software Development: The Cooperative Game. An information radiator is a clear and easy to access display of critical information that is used to track progress towards an end goal. The genius of the information radiator is that it provides a clear visualization of how you are doing against your goals. It should be the first thing you see in the morning and the last thing you see at night. Now, I don’t know nuthin ’bout no fancy psychology, but having that constant visualization of progress helps provide immediate focus to what needs to get done.

Aha! An information radiator is what I’ve been missing!

So I decided to try an experiment, and build my own information radiator. I call it my Geek Into Shape Goal Board.

I thought I would take you on the journey with me – building the board, setting goals, and tracking my progress. Hopefully this will give me the clarity and the focus each day to overcome the little unhealthy devil sitting on my shoulder. If it works for me, maybe it will also be what you are looking for. So here we go…

Step 1: Choose your information radiator

I thought about a few ways to do this. I wanted to go cheap, so buying a giant white board like I use at my job was out of the question. I initially planned on just painting an empty wall I had in my bedroom, but the Mrs. just laughed at my face when I brought that idea up to her. So, I decided to go with a nice, simple cork board. I used a standard black frame cork board that I got from Target (here it is on Amazon)

Step 2: Choose your methodology

Since my goals are so focused on day-to-day activities (and since my board was only 22″ wide), I decided to set up daily goals, based around a week-long tracking period. I plan on setting four goals each week. As I achieve each daily goal, I will “mark” that goal as completed by advancing the goal (like a progress bar). At the end of each week, I will assess my progress, possibly modify my goals and/or add new ones, and start fresh for the next week.

Step 3: Design your goal board

Now that you have your information radiator and you have set your methodology, it’s time to get creative and have some fun designing you board. Here is what I did:

Initial Goal Boards Design

With this setup, I gave myself a cool header, and my main progress chart is sort-of like a weekly calendar. I left some space in the middle for (what I consider) the most important piece of the board – my motivation.

Geek into Shape Goal Board With My Motivation

Step 4: Set your goals

The next step to finalizing the Geek Into Shape Goal Board was to set my goals for the week. When I designed my board, I left enough space for 1.5″x2″ post-it notes to track my goals.

Writing down goals for the Geek Into Shape Goal Board

Since I could fit four goals on my board each week, I took the list I mentioned at the top of this post (I promise to go to bed early tonight. I promise to go to bed early tonight. I promise to go to bed early tonight.) and added a fourth goal of working out for 45 minutes or more for 6 out of 7 days during the week. Here is what my final board looks like:

Final Geek Into Shape Goal Board with Goals

Step 5: Place your information radiator

I decided to not place this on the free wall next to my bed, like initially planned. I realized that I normally haven’t even come into consciousness when I mosey past that wall. So, since I am trying really hard to meet these goals this week, I decided to put it somewhere more visible to me:

Placing the Geek Into Shape Goal Board

Step 6: Track your progress

To be continued…

I am so excited to try this new method. It puts these goals that I have set for myself right out in the open. Each morning, my goals and motivation for achieving these goals will be staring me in the face, refocusing my mind, and beating down any urges I might have to sabotage progress.

I’d love to hear what you think. Would a constant visualization of your goals, your progress, and your motivation help you stay focused? Do you like my board (I do)? Please leave a comment with your thoughts!

Code Monkey want a better body. Code Monkey way too fat.

As I mentioned last week, it only took a few key changes to drastically change the way I approached and, more importantly, conquered my fitness goals.  These changes had nothing to do with learning about the the latest fitness and diet trends — I already knew all of those. The changes had nothing to do with joining a gym or buying fancy equipment — I had tried both. No, my problem was all mental, and mostly due to a lack of confidence and a lack of hope. I didn’t believe that I could tackle the monstrous project called “health” because I didn’t have the skills or experience.

Image courtesy of juco on Flickr

Well, all of that changed when I took a new approach to how I thought about fitness and diet and health. Small mental changes, little fitness mind hacks, that helped me relate my fitness journey to other aspects of my life that I was successful at. I would have to say the biggest of these mind-hacks was when I realized that I could treat my fitness related goals like I treat my software development projects.

It amazed me how closely aligned the processes I use every day when I write code or plan my software development project were to the process for losing weight and setting goals. I’ll admit it wasn’t a huge leap to make this correlation, it seems obvious in hindsight, but it was this minor mental mapping — software development to fitness — that kick started my weight loss and kept me delivering on my fitness goals.

Here is exactly how programming and software development helped me lose weight and meet my goals:

1. You need a good development environment

Image courtesy of John Wiseman on Flickr

As every programmer knows, you need a good development environment to get things done. Without the proper environment, you’ll often find yourself limited in your capability to move forward or spinning your wheels trying to get started because of too many options.

Finding the perfect environment is a can be a little bit of a task in itself.  Take the time to look at your options. The environment you choose should easily mold with your personal style, taste,  and experience.  Like choosing a software development environment, you don’t want limit yourself to the status-quo or what the “pros” say you should use when choosing your fitness development environment.

Explore, experiment, and like Goldilocks, find one that is “just right”.

Here is my mini guide for fitness development environments:

• The minimalist environment (This is the style for all of you vi and gcc’ers): You don’t need a fancy gym membership or exercise equipment to get you where you need to go. You understand that you only need two things in this world to get into shape: you and gravity – and those things are always available.
• The DIY environment (This is for the “best tool for the job” coders): You realize that there are some great tools that exist to help you meet your goals, so you buy a few weights and some resistance bands and you maybe even splurge on an exercise bike. But with this method, you are not limited or constrained on what you do. You build your own environment based around only the things you need.
• The virtual environment (This is for you… virtual environmentalists?): Like the DIY environment, you have a hodge-podge of tools at your disposal, but you have an specific environment you are aiming for as a part of your end goals, so you really try to set up your training environment to match.   If you want to be a fighter, you enroll in a martial arts class where you learn critical skills you need or buy a punching bag to hang up in your garage. If you want to be a rock climber, you build find or a training wall.
• The fully integrated environment (This is for you Eclipse and Visual Studio users): With this method, you commit to a place that offers the kitchen sink when it comes to fitness. I’m talking about a good, ol’ fashion, all-purpose gym.  You need weights – you got ‘em. You want aerobic classes – they offer those too.  You want tanning beds – most of them surprisingly have those as well. Even though you may have to pay a premium for it, you have just about everything you need in one nice, consolidated package.

For me, it was a combination of the all of these environments that got me where I needed to be. The fully integrated environment helped me figure out what was available and mold my training path. The DIY environment helped me supplement the areas that the fully integrated environment lacked. And the DIY environment allowed me to workout wherever I happened to be sitting or standing at the moment.  One, none, or all of these environments might work for you. Take time to try them all and see which gives you the best results.

2. Just get Started

The most important thing I have learned in software development is that, sometimes, you just have to get started. You can spend hours researching the “perfect” ab workout or developing a detailed 48-month fitness plan, and never move a muscle. The unfortunate thing is that there is no perfect plan. Like in software development, you can spend all your time trying to figure out the perfect framework, or the best libraries for the job, but sometimes the best way to figure it out is by diving straight in.

Start moving. Do anything. Run. Walk. Pop, lock it, drop it. It doesn’t matter – just do it.  If you need to refine you workout routine later, as you read about optimal methods for your specific goals, you can. But just get moving today.

3. Always be agile

Photo courtesy of Garrettc on Flickr

A while back, I wrote about how to Agile development practices applied to health and fitness. The concept of Agile Development comes with a host of methodologies that keep your development paths clean, quick, and versatile. Here are a few of those methods that I used to drop pounds.

• Use short iterations for your goals: Of course you have a long term goal (40 pounds, run a marathon, etc.), but the best way to meet your long term goals is to set many short term goals that build up to your long term goal. The time frames should be short and and the goals attainable. For example: If you want to lose 50 pounds in 6 months, set a goal of 8-10 pounds a month and then forget about the big goal. Each month, put all of your focus on the short term goal. Sprint towards that goal as fast as you can.
• Do daily scrums – Each morning, ask yourself the following questions: What have you done since yesterday? What are you planning to do today? Do you have any problems preventing you from accomplishing your goal?
• Allow time for reflection: At the end of each sprint, take some time to reflect on the previous month. Did you meet your goal? If you didn’t, why not? Reassess your next month’s goals. Maybe something has changed – a new long term goal or a new long term deadline – that might change your short term goals.

There are so many support groups that have this model built in already. Use them. My favorite is the 28 day challenge on the Nerd Fitness message boards. Each month, you set 3 goals that you are pushed to meet within 28 days. Each day (or week, or never, your choice), you post your progress — what you did the day before, what you plan on doing the following day, how you feel, etc.  At the end of each challenge, you have a week to share and celebrate your results. If you didn’t meet your goal, there is a whole community of people ready to help you work through what you need to change and motivate you for the next challenge.

4. Use Design Patterns

Photo courtesy of Grant MacDonald

As in any field, there are problems common to all software development projects. For these problems, people have built general, reusable design patterns that can be adapted to your specific goals. Keeping a good working knowledge of some of the most common design patterns can save you time during your development. Instead of focusing on a secondary problem, you can just focus on the core business logic.

The same is true for fitness. If you have a specific goal in mind, chances are, someone has had that goal to and met it. If you are lucky, they wrote the method they used down and put it out into the public domain so you can just adapt their plan to you. You might know these as training plans. Here are a few of the fitness design patterns that I have used:

• I want to get off my ass and run a 5k – Use the Couch to 5k pattern.
• You want to win more push-up contests at work – Use the 100 push-ups pattern.
• You want to fight the dark side and become leader of the rebel alliance – Use the Rebel Fitness pattern.

These patterns can give you a big head start towards meeting your goals, but don’t feel you have to follow these plans word for word. Remember we are all different. Use them as a guide, but you will know when it is time to start building your own custom pattern. Remember to write it down and maybe you will have your own pattern that will act as a guide for others.

A few more quick mind hacks

There are a dozen more little hacks I use, most of which are too small to give a deep discussion on, but I thought I would quicklymention a few of them.

• Always refactor your code - You should frequently reassess your workout routines and try to remove inefficiencies and isolate the things that are working. We are all busy people, if you can get your workouts down to the most efficient components, then you will save time and get more results for your effort.
• You’ll always benefit from better debug logging – Always keep a record of what you do. When you get to the end of your sprints, you might need to look back to remember what you have done. You need to write down all of your core stats (weight, mileage, pounds lifted, etc.) each day as well as your emotional and physical state. Did you lift more during the week you got more sleep?
• Set up good regression tests – As you meet goals and set new goals, do forget you go back and test your overall fitness levels. If you successfully ran a 10k and set a then new goal to be a backup dancer for Usher, make sure you don’t lose your ability to run a 10k. At the end of every fitness sprint, you should pick a few things that will test your overall fitness ability. Use your old goals as your regression tests.

Conclusion

Applying good software development practices to my fitness life really helped me feel like I had control over my destiny. I knew all of these processes worked. They have taken me from a white screen to a complex application many times before. Thinking about my fitness goals as just another software project gave me the confidence in myself to complete it. I hope this will help some of you too.

I’m interested in what my fellow software developers think.

• What processes in your daily life as a code monkey have you applied to your fitness life?
• What processes can you apply?

Let me know!

I know, I’ve been gone a while. But, hey, that’s the way life is. Work. Youngest baby started to crawl. You know, the regular excuse type stuff

So, I thought I would update everyone as to what has been going on in my world. Have no fear, I’m not out of the exercise game. I have been a little inconsistent, but I have been chuggin’ along and making some great progress.

10 years already?

I just had my 10 year high school reunion this last weekend, and I made my weight goal for the reunion – UNDER 200 POUNDS! I haven’t been there since my freshman year of college. I am also now wearing size 34 pants, and need a lot of new clothes.

It feels so freaking awesome to be where I am. I still have work to do, but I am at a point where I feel very confident in my size and appearance. I no longer feel “fat”. I just feel like I need to shape up a little bit. I feel like I am in control of my weight now and it is manageable.

Here are some comparison shots (I unsurprisingly don’t have many pictures of myself, but I am becoming less camera shy as I lose weight… It’s amazing how that happens):

December 25, 2009 - Playing the role of the jolly fat man too well

September 4, 2010 - Teaching my daughter the fine art of cornhole

I still need to keep at it, but I am pleased with where I am, and the maintainable changes I have made to get to this point.

Ow, my calves hurt.

I am also up to running a 5k in my Vibram Five Fingers. It took me longer than I expected, both from laziness time constraints and muscle soreness.  I kept wearing my VFFs to this high intensity cardio class at the gym. I was doing alot of jumping and quick direction changes in the shoes, which really stressed some muscles I wasn’t used to using. I kept off my feet for a week here and there, which slowed my progress, but I didn’t want to put myself out of commision for longer with an injury.  I’m not in a hurry.

I plan on running my first actual race this weekend if I make it back to where my parents live. If not, there is a race in my current town at the end of the month. I plan on running with some of my buddies, one of which will be wearing VFFs as well. Not that I’m against running in regular shoes, but I feel like I’m in a special, cool club since I switched to VFFs.

Website and Podcast

Like I mentioned above, I’m not out of the game, but life is taking priority right now. I will probably switch gears to write more about my personal journey. There are so many good sources for fantastic original content out there, like Nerd Fitness and Healthy Lifestyle Design, so I just plan on switching to a mostly consumer mode on geeky fitness content for a while. If I do have something to say or something sparks my interest, you will definitely see a post here or a guest post somewhere else.

As for the podcast, I don’t want to be a pod-fader, so I won’t. I’ll just be a pod-not-very-often-updated-er.  I have a road map for about 30 more episodes, but it takes a bit of work to write, record, and edit the episodes currently. And I have some more ideas that are taking up more of my brain power currently.

So that’s me right now! What have you been up to?

This picture will make sense in a minute... maybe.

When it comes to modifying your life to cut the flab and shape up, there are normally two main paths you can take:

1. The Balanced Approach – Incorporate fitness into you current lifestyle, maintaining a healthy balance.
2. The Fitness Grind – Stop work on your current lifestyle, and dedicate all of your time to becoming healthy.

If you have ever read my site, you probably know that I am a huge fan of the first option. I believe that you have to maintain the activities that you love to keep your mental health, even if they might not be the best for your physical health. Slowly incorporating healthy changes into you life, in a way that changes your habits and patterns, will give you the best results.  The catch: This often takes a long time.

So, what about the fitness grind?

Recently, I have made some aggressive goals that have “forced” me to go down the second path.  I have cut out video games, stopped working on web development projects (except for this blog), and let my DVR fill up with episodes of Fringe. I have put a hold on almost all of the recreational geeky things I normally do.

Well, this has worked out really well for me.

I never thought that this was a good, “healthy” approach for achieving and maintaining overall health. But my mind has been changed due to a single mind hack, which I thought I would share.

Think of the Fitness Grind like an MMO Grind

All of you MMO junkies know all about the MMO grind.  You set your goal: “I want the Epic Helm of Whoop-Ass that you get when you become exalted with the M.F. Face-Crusher faction.“  Well to get that, you do your daily quests, you wear the faction tabard and plow through dungeons, you put aside other endeavors temporarily to focus on the task at hand.

Well, why can’t you apply this to fitness?

I had never thought about applying the mindset I had for years of playing World of Warcraft to my fitness endeavors.

For a short time, switch your primary focus to fitness, and let other things go undone for a while.

This means no World of Warcraft (which is ironic), a minimized workload, blogs going unread, etc. Once you put all of your focus on fitness, be persistent. During the grind for the Epic Helm of Whoop-Ass, would you make extra time to finish the daily quests and make a few dungeon runs? You betcha!  So do the same with fitness.

Never miss a daily fitness quest.

Be vigilant – after all, the more days you do your daily quests, the faster you will meet you goal, right? Do extra workouts to get you to your goals faster.

One of the biggest ways this mind hack helped me, was how I thought about the end-game. In my previous attempts to dive head-first into fitness – my eye was on the goal, and nothing else. This caused me to be short-sighted and I often burned out if I didn’t get the results I wanted. Well in our make believe MMO, our immediate goal may be to obtain the Epic Helm of Whoop-Ass, but the real goal — the long-term goal — is possessing the helm and having the ability to equip it in all future battles – well beyond the immediate goal of current grind.  In the fitness world, you may set a goal to lose 20 pounds, but the big picture goal is the benefits you get after losing 20 pounds.

Focus on the immediate goal for the current fitness grind – but always keep your eye on the big picture!

When you meet your immediate goal, the fitness grind is over. But the fun is just beginning – you now have new tools in your inventory that you have free reign to use. Don your Epic Helm of Whoop-Ass and wave good-bye to the M.F. Face-Crusher Clan and reap the rewards of your hard work.

Enjoy the benefits and rewards of the fitness grind!

It is amazing how small changes in mindset can affect your life. This may not work for you, but it has kept me motivated to lose weight for the longest period in my life. Not because I want to weigh 200 pounds, even though that is my current goal, but because of what I will be able to do as a 200 pound person:

• Be able to keep up with the kids.
• Look good in a T-shirt
• Run a 5k

These are the rewards of meeting my goal, and they are well worth the fitness grind.

Are you in the middle of a fitness grind? What are the immediate and long term goals of your fitness grind?

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Coffee Grinder Photo courtesy of tonx

I said whaaaat’s uuuuupppp… with thaaaaatttttt?

I haven’t posted in a few weeks so I thought I would write a quick update about what’s going on in my world and the world of Geek Into Shape.

I’ve lost my age in weight this year.

January 1st of this year I weighed in at 236 lbs. This was not a good thing.

But no worries!

This motivated me to hit fitness hard again this year, and this year, I found my click. I weighed in at 209.5 lbs last week, which means I have lost 26.5 lbs, which also happens to be how old I am, since the beginning of the year.  This is about the only time I wish I was 50 years old. This is also the lowest weight I have been in sevenish years.  I give myself a whopping boom-shaka-laka.

Birthday Goal

My birthday, which I share with the American flag, is coming up in a few weeks.  I would like to be down to 200 lbs by my birthday.  With my current schedule, I don’t know if I will be able to make this goal, but I will sure as hell try.

I have also been thinking about only asking for healthy things for my birthday. I was originally going to get a the Droid Incredible, but I’m not up for a phone upgrade until the end of the year, so my new – healthier – wishlist looks like this:

1. Vibram Five Fingers

I’ve heard so many good things about these. Which kind should I get – KSO? Sprint? Classic?

2. Daily Burn Pro Membership

I really just want the cool profile banner, plus I would probably use some of the Pro training plans

Shake Weight

This is is for the Mrs. *wink wink* *nudge nudge* *say no more* *say no more*

New Socks

Because you always have to get socks as a gift, and this time, I actually need them.

Geek Into Shape News

So I have been putting some thoughts into new ideas and projects for Geek Into Shape.

I have a few post ideas floating around the ol’ noggin’.  I haven’t had as much time to sit down and write these ideas out the last couple of weeks, but I hope to get there soon. So thanks for being patient!

I have also been playing around with some Android development.  I really want to make a fun fitness application that incorporates a game aspect (like Farmville/Mafia Wars) and an achievement system to fitness and nutrition.  I have a few ideas, but time is the biggest limitation.  I do love hacking away at code and learning new systems, so I really hope to free up some more time to work on this.

I am working with an old high school friend to get a couple of fun drawings and graphics for the site. I have been wanting to create a Geek Into Shape logo for a while, and I would love to use some of the drawings she will be doing.  I’ll unveil them as soon as I get them. So pumped!

The final update is that I have been working on a top secret Geek into Shape project that I can’t talk about yet… expect an announcement soon though…  Ok, it’s a Geek Into Shape podcast and it should be released this weekend. Man, I suck at secrets. More information coming soon!

So what’s up with you?

Hello, my name is George, and I am a nerd. As you might have already guessed, I look like I belong in a gym.  I fit right in. Me and muscles over there… tight. That bar thingie with the circles on it, got it under control. The girl with the tight booty shorts, oh yeah, she was looking at me doing my hip thrusts.  Oh I forgot, I’m a liar.

I have always kept my distance from gyms in the past, but in my grand plan of being a sexy bitch, I needed to step up my workouts. So, I recently signed up for a two week trial to a gym, and let me tell you, gyms are hard to walk into as  an overweight semi-geek type. I never had an issue in high school with the whole geek vs. jock shenanigans, but the whole concept of a gym reminds me of that stereotypical divide.  Muscle bound dudes. Super fit aerobics instructors. People with tans. I am not a shy person by most standards, but I was definitely a little intimidated my first time stepping through the gym doors.  I can see how a lot of people have bad gym anxiety.

However, a gym provides so much benefit, so sometimes we have to just suck it up.  And that is exactly what I did, and so far it has worked out great.

So, since I have recently been through the process of getting into gym mode, I thought I would share some tips that helped me ease the transition from couch and office chair to step class and weight bench, both mentally and physically.

Step 1: Get your mind right

You can’t begin to take advantage of the gym until you get over (or at least bury deep inside) any gym anxiety you may have.  Here are some small things that helped me:

Realize that people in the gym look the way they do because they go to the gym. A good number of the people that go to the gym are already in a maintenance mode, and are exercising at a rate in accordance with their fitness level. This makes it hard Joe McFlabbybelly, who is 30+ pounds away from his goals and gets winded from pouring milk into his Lucky Charms, to feel at home in a gym.

You have to start somewhere.

Just realize that you are on the right path.  Sooner than you think, you are going to being that guy/gal you see throwing up dumbbells that are bigger than your head. Just stick with it.

Nerd out on research and bring the knowledge! Would you start a new software project written in a new programming language without going through the quick-start guide, multiple tutorials, and a few screencasts? Would you dive right into a raid without looking at boss abilities, discussing strategy, and doing a ready check? Sure, if you expect to wipe. The correct answer is:  No!

One thing that I think all of us geeks have in common is our insatiable curiosity and our ability to gather as much knowledge as possible to be prepared for whatever it is we are obsessing over at the moment. The same applies to the gym.  Make goals and research how to meet those goals. Come to the gym prepared. Know what classes you want to take, what workouts you are going to do, and come with a purpose.

Don’t cause yourself to crash and burn just because you don’t know what to expect.

Step 2: Equip the right gear

Since I don’t know what level of geek you are, I will not assume that you know not to wear your storm trooper outfit to the gym.  So no storm trooper outfits. But don’t let that prevent you from showing your geeky side while whipping your ass into shape.

Embrace your geekiness in the gym! Don’t be afraid or ashamed to stick out from the crowd.  While most people at the gym are wearing their MMA Tapout shirts or skin tight Under Armor gear, I proudly wear my Nerds 2^2 Ever shirt to the gym.  I embrace my horn-rimmed glasses that fog up when I get sweaty.  I enjoy stripping down to my whitey-tighties in the locker room… Ok, not that last one. But seriously, don’t be afraid to let your geek flag fly in the gym, our t-shirts are way funnier than their t-shirts, and chicks dig funny t-shirts.

Make gym time your geek news time with podcasts. I assume, like me, you have blogs you read to keep up on the latest tech trends or the latest news to your favorite game(s). Well, lucky for you, someone probably produces a podcast that hits all of the major tech, gaming, political, woodworking, or Local Causal and Markov Blanket Induction for Causal Discovery and Feature Selection for Classification news your heart desires.  The last one might be hard to find, but the others are definitely covered!  So load up your MP3 player of choice with some great news podcasts and make gym time learning time as well.

Step 3: Crawl, Walk, Run

When going to the gym for the first time in a while (or ever), you are bound to get sore. But never use that as an excuse to stop going to the gym. Start somewhat easy (don’t be a wuss, though) and plan on being sore the first few times back.  If you aren’t sore, you’re probably taking it too easy and need to step it up (remember when I called you a wuss about a sentence ago?).

The burn says its working. Plan for the inevitable muscle soreness that will follow your first few workouts.  Don’t plan any major physical activities the first few days after your first trip to the gym.  My first day at the gym resulted in 3 days of pretty bad muscle soreness.  Unfortunately, not much can be done for muscle soreness.  The best thing that helped me was going for long walks to keep my muscles warm and light stretching. Take the pain lightly and don’t let it dissuade you from going back to the gym.  While it sucks, it means that your body healing itself to prepare you better for the next time.  After a few weeks, your muscles won’t be as sore after each workout, so you can hit the gym hard after that. You can even treat the pain as an immediate result from your workouts… you may not see the results right away, but you can sure as hell feel them.

Step 4: Give me a ‘C’! Give me an ‘O’! Give me a ‘NSISTENCY’!

(I ran out of header room)

Grind out reputation with your gym’s faction. Make sure you take advantage of the gym. Take extra time to get to know the gym common folk.  Make sure you know where to find a good mead (protein shake). Know how to find your (aerobics) class trainer. Know how to get to the the local smith (machine) to help craft your armor (muscles).   Use the chat channels (your mouth) to make new friends (friends). Do your gym dailies and grind your way from Neutral to Friendly and beyond. Keep at it, the rewards are well worth the daily grind.

Step 5: Have Fun!

The end goal is to get fit, but you have to have fun doing it. Treat the gym as a fun place to get fit and meet new people who are trying to (or already have) achieve the same goals. If you genuinely don’t like it, stop going… Remember that a gym is just one of many methods to reach your goals.

Hopefully these thoughts and tips might ease your transition into the gym… it did mine.

George

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.

• 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!