In previous articles, I have encouraged you to make small sustainable measurements as you reach your fitness goals. To bring any new readers up to speed, in last week’s article, The Science of Health: A Beginners Resolution, I suggested that you view your New Years resolution as a science experiment. Create meaningful lifestyle goals but allow your journey to flow at a sustainable pace in order to prevent burnout or procrastination.
Your fitness goals will be easier to maintain if you place your focus on your overall well-being rather than one particular outcome of a lifestyle change such as weight loss. In order to set the example, I have decided to include you in my New Years resolution towards better health.
Following a change in careers that lead me to Miami, Fl I discovered that life as I knew it was not going to survive the rigors of a 4 hour commute and the stresses of poor work environment. Based on blood tests from early last year, I was able to deduce that these external effects were severely harmful to my well-being. Not only did my blood pressure surge over the course of a year but my cholesterol levels spiked as well. So this made me think, now that I am beginning to resume my life as I had known it, what would my blood chemistry look like as I returned to a healthier lifestyle?
My New Years resolution is to cut out processed sugars and grains as well as dairy over the course of the next month in an effort to return to my clean eating lifestyle. There is no focus on exercise in my experiment because it will be the focus of the second phase of my 2015 “experiment.” I want to have an unbiased result so I will be doing a meager 30 minutes a day which is the minimum requirement according to multiple sources. 30 minutes is nothing compared to the 4 hours a day I was used to back when I was body building.
To measure my results I will track my blood chemistry every eights weeks over the course of six months. I am not at risk of anemia so my focus will be on my blood pressure and cholesterol levels which are still in the normal range but a bit high on the spectrum. I am an active blood donor through the mobile OneBlood program and I will use their free wellness tests to track my progress over the next 6 months.
As a reminder, last week I brought up a study on short-term mood regulation by Dr. Timothy Pychyl, a professor of psychology at Carleton University in Canada. His study focused on why we procrastinate, how procrastination hinders us from reaching our goals and how a mood regulating process (such as creating small sustainable goals) helps us reach our goals. To prevent burnout I have came up with a system where I can measure the outcomes of the blood tests and placed them alongside an easy to follow procedure of slowly cutting out processed foods.
I will showcase the results from my blood tests as they become available while providing you with the resources I use to maintain my fitness goals over the course of the next six months. Be sure to read my “Dirty Laundry” to stay abreast of this little experiment and be sure to let me know in the comments below what your goals are for 2015!
In Health,
Michelle W.
Motivated 4 Life 