[BANDHAV]

Originally Posted by SDP

Congratulations, BANDHAV! We would look forward to regular updates from you.

Thanks SDP.

Today was the second day of Gym, the first day trainer was easy with me as he don't want to scare me off but today he seems to a little cruel. Instructed me to start with 10 mins walk/jog on treadmill, followed by 10 mins on stepper, 5 minutes of cycling, followed by number of cardio exercise. All these without any gap. The best part I managed to survive through all this and felt good at the end that my body didn't give up in between.

Yesternight took my 2.5 years daughter along with me to park after dinner, though I hardly walked but playing with her in park was really enjoying and satisfying experience. I carried her on my shoulder while coming back to house and I felt more exhausted then I used to after my walk. For records she weighs around 14Kg.

Originally Posted by MileCruncher

@SDP: Apologies, haven't been regular here.

I think I'm doing decently on the health front. Last to last week ran 44Kms and last week ran and walked 63 Kms. Lost some weight in the last few weeks and am just a shade under 70Kg (Ideal for my height is 68Kgs but my aim is 65Kgs) from 81~82 Kgs. All my old clothes fit me well and am good. No reduction in eating.

BTW last Sunday walked for 40Kms in 9 hours as a part of a walkathon and even though I was injured and hallucinating by the end of it, I felt good that my body could endure the grilling.

Now target is to get a flat abs (am already in the flat stomach zone) and start riding cycle. Start atleast with a 100Km ride.

Cheers

Great MC, all these numbers sound fantastic.

My gym is around 3 kms one way from my house, I am using my bike for going there, which anyway was lying unused. Now I am planning to restore my almost 15 years old Hero Ranger cycle and use it for going to gym, will check with a nearby cycle shop that what would be the cost of restoring the cycle to good mechanical shape.

[ajitkumarlb]

I needed to brag a bit today, could not hold it till Monday.

I was 97.5 Kgs when I started this in Jan, checked today and I am 92.5 Kgs.

So its working, three more such sprints, I should be at the desired weight.

I know the initial few Kgs will be easy and will need more than whats being done now to go down further...

Originally Posted by rahul_sinha

...
I get thoroughly bored of routine affair at gym, hence thinking on buying a bicycle and just loiter around and find places of interest, will be a good exercise as well. Eventual plan is to go to office on bicycle atleast once in a fortnight. Lets see.

I thought about a cycle for a while and I decided to go with a stationary (Recumbent) Cycle and I have cozily placed it in front of the TV. So the 30 or 40 min I am on the cycle, I get to watch TV. Some times I pick up a magazine/newspaper/book when TV is not interesting.

So that addresses the routine thing for me.

Another advantage with this setup is, I am not impacted by the weather outside. Rain or Shine I can cycle...

But yes nothing beats cycling outside.

[SDP]

Originally Posted by ajitkumarlb

I needed to brag a bit today, could not hold it till Monday.

I was 97.5 Kgs when I started this in Jan, checked today and I am 92.5 Kgs.

So its working, three more such sprints, I should be at the desired weight.
...

Hey, congratulations! That's very good progress for the first 2 months! Keep it up, wish you all the best for the next sprint!

[SDP]

Update for last week:
#1 Weight-Control
1. Went for briskWalk-cum-jog on 6 days in the last week.
2. Walked up to the 10th floor 8 times during the week.
3. Attended one hour meditation session on Monday. Felt good after a gap of 2 weeks.
4. Constantly munching on misc food items is still a problem. Need to address it soon.

#2 Reading
1. Multiple iterations of 7 habits continue. No teaching last week. Spoke to wife about teaching it to her, she seemed open to that idea.
2. Was planning to start Harry Potter series. Unfortunately the audiobook is in m4b format and my phone does not play that. Used couple of programs to convert it to mp3. They converted only first one and half hours. Need to figure out a working solution.

#3 Planned 'core' work
1. Planned 'core' work of around 10 hours this week. Spent a lot of time with people at work.

----------------------------------------------------------------
Ajit, Fordmanchau, MC, BANDHAV, selfdrive, Rahul_Sinha,
How was your week?

[selfdrive]

Gardening update:
- Brought a few pots in different sizes and a bag of soil
- Bought seeds for tomato, coriander and ladyfinger
- Also added a few already flowering potted plants to encourage me to keep going till the seeds germinate in other pots
- Mixed the soil and sowed seeds for tomato, coriander and ladyfinger

Friends update:
- A friend had flown in from Bangalore and forced a few of us college mates to meet up last week.
- This felt so good that I am planning to meet at least one close college friend every weekend. If no one is available, I will call and chat with one. Some may be running scared! Have to get into this habit

Cycling update:
- repaired my son's bigger bicycle and removed the two side wheels. I expect to teach him to ride confidently on two wheels on the bigger bicycle.
- My bicycle seat was stolen sometime ago, but the replacement is not available. Need to look for this next weekend.

Other updates:
- Found the kite we had purchased a year ago. Need to get the thread/ spindle (?) for that. Hopefully on the to do list for this week

Felt much better sense of achievement with these activities than anything else at work/ home for the last few months!

[selfdrive]

I missed out putting up the most important update:

Getting rid of slavery to Technology or devices

Managed to spend all of Sunday without logging on to the laptop or using the mobile for internet (well, other than answering a few calls).
Considering switching to a basic no frills mobile that can only make/ receive calls. No games, internet connectivity, nothing.
Back to simple living at least for now! Let us see how it goes

[IronH4WK]

Originally Posted by selfdrive

Gardening update:
- Brought a few pots in different sizes and a bag of soil
- Bought seeds for tomato, coriander and ladyfinger
- Also added a few already flowering potted plants to encourage me to keep going till the seeds germinate in other pots
- Mixed the soil and sowed seeds for tomato, coriander and ladyfinger

oh boy, don't remind me of gardening! i re-potted all the plants in our balcony (around 10-15 of them of various sizes) last month. got new pots (plastic brown ones with the plate under it), one bag of soil mixed with manure, little bit sand from front of our apartment (there were a few open bags lying around) and started work.

got two troughs too to plant basil and rosemary. after planting the seeds my wife tells me that rosemary can take up to three months to sprout! i was like

anyways, by the time i was finished with it (almost took the whole day), my back was hurting so bad. i went and had a hot shower, grabbed a pillow and soon fell asleep, only to be woken by wifey for dinner

[selfdrive]

Originally Posted by IronH4WK

got two troughs too to plant basil and rosemary. after planting the seeds my wife tells me that rosemary can take up to three months to sprout! i was like

at least you sowed some other seeds. So you will some success soon. The idea is to stick by it and slowly make it a habit.

In my case, I jumbled up the handling and sowed a lot of tomato seeds together in one pot thinking that it was coriander. Now I expect to see many tomato plants in one pot!

Some replanting is in order.

More than anything else I was happy to know that I could survive for a day without any computing. I hope to repeat this every weekend and hopefully on weekday evenings too. I may consider getting rid of satellite television too. Or at least ensure that I dont watch any.

As for the gardening bit, I am now inspired to take a step further somewhere down the line. So I have asked my friend to let me know if he requires some labourer for his farming activities in the pre monsoon. He has sportingly agreed. Now that will be a real test, need to get myself in shape for that!

[ajitkumarlb]

Workout:
Mon & Tue: morning 40 min & night 20 min
Wed & Thu: 40 min
Fri: JOB
Sat & Sun: 60 min

Food:
Mon - Fri: Complete control - Small Breakfast, Small Lunch, Fruit bowl/No Dinner
Sat & Sun: had to attend two parties, though I ate in less quantity, there was fair amount of ice cream, paneer& malai in the menu.

This Mon-Fri diet is not sustainable and may not be good for health, the main cause of disruption is my erratic timings. Need to work on this.

Book:
20000 leagues under the sea done
Started on Adventures of Sherlock Holmes


@SDP
Are you buying the audio books online or downloading them from somewhere?
I am presently hooked on to LibriVox - good collection of classics there.

[SDP]

Originally Posted by ajitkumarlb

Workout:
Mon & Tue: morning 40 min & night 20 min
Wed & Thu: 40 min
Fri: JOB
Sat & Sun: 60 min
...
@SDP
Are you buying the audio books online or downloading them from somewhere?
I am presently hooked on to LibriVox - good collection of classics there.

Much better week! The spike at job seems to me settling down.

Most of the audiobooks that I have are downloaded from torrents. Some are received from friends. Will definitely check out LibriVox. Thanks for the tip!

[SDP]

Originally Posted by SDP

....
I mean, do you run these 'self-improvement initiatives' as "projects" or "operations"?
Should you have measurable goals for such things or 'just do it'?

Personally I believe that one should have a defined goal at the begining of such a journey (just like a "project"). Split that big goal and into smaller goals which could be targertted in the short to medium term and then track progress. So a series of small targets that lead into the big one.

Another part of me argues that - with goals, you always have the possibility of getting demotivated when the goal is not met.
...
A hybird approach could be: don't worry about measurements and goals till sufficiently long duration, till it has become a habit.
...

Quoting from part of a old post of mine in this thread. Its been 7 months since I have been regularly doing the brisk-walk/jog 6 days a week. There has not been a single week of default. So, I guess, I am pretty much in the groove now. Time to swich to 'project' mode from 'operations' mode .

Did a little bit of reading about Body-Mass-Index (BMI) and did some calculations to arrive at the target weight for self.

1. Picked up the standard BMI chart.
2. Drew a horizontal line for my own height i.e. 5 feet 9 inches.
3. This line intersects the "Normal Range" at 2 points. So, for my height, I should be in the 58KG to 76KG range to remain in the 'Normal Range" of the body-mass-index.

Around 8 months back, I was 76.5KG and already knocking on the doors of the "Overweight" range. Not good.

Going forward, the target is to remain well within and towards the center of the "normal range".

For my height, a BMI of 21 translates to 62KG and a BMI of 22 translates to ~65KG. (BMI = weight in kg divided by square of height in meters)

So the goal for the weight-control 'project' is to achieve a BMI of 21-22 and remain in the weight range of 62-65KG - the green zone marked on the chart above. That means losing 10 odd Kilos from my current weight! Its going to be challenging.

Originally Posted by MileCruncher

...
I think I'm doing decently on the health front. Last to last week ran 44Kms and last week ran and walked 63 Kms. Lost some weight in the last few weeks and am just a shade under 70Kg (Ideal for my height is 68Kgs but my aim is 65Kgs) from 81~82 Kgs. All my old clothes fit me well and am good. No reduction in eating.
...

That's a good target! What's your height?

[MileCruncher]

Originally Posted by ajitkumarlb

This Mon-Fri diet is not sustainable and may not be good for health, the main cause of disruption is my erratic timings. Need to work on this.

No diet is sustainable in the long run. So make sure you do cardio exercises regularly and eat healthy. My appetite has gone up and the quantities have also increased but am still losing weight

Originally Posted by SDP

That's a good target! What's your height?

I'm 5'6". But the BMI doesn't talk about muscle mass or people with extra muscular body. I have too much muscle mass developed due to my playing football and rock climbing. Running is thankfully helping me tone down.

Last week was recovering from my Ultra Walkathon so didn't run much during the week. So decided to do a 30K run on Sunday. Small blog here Anirudha Basu ran: It was one of those c... | dailymile

Cheers

[SDP]

Originally Posted by MileCruncher

...
I'm 5'6". But the BMI doesn't talk about muscle mass or people with extra muscular body. I have too much muscle mass developed due to my playing football and rock climbing. Running is thankfully helping me tone down.
...

That's actually true. BMI does not account for body-frame and the sex of the individual. Another aspect is about athletic fitness. Quoting from wikipedia

BMI is particularly inaccurate for people who are fit or athletic, as the higher muscle mass tends to put them in the "overweight" category by BMI, even though their body fat percentages frequently fall in the 10-15% category, which is below that of a more sedentary person of average build who has a "healthy" BMI number.

[motomaverick]

Really good thread, i was avoiding this one for quite sometime thinking might be just another thread with wishes & desires than anything concrete (no offence to any threads ). But i was pleasantly surprised at the content and this has motivated me to pickup my "Important - Not Urgent" activity which is "Getting Back into Shape"

Now how much out of shape am I? Well check my BMI chart here you will know how horrible it is.


So the goal is to loose 4 inches of the tummy and get the BMI below 24. I am not much of a believer of ideal weight for "A" particular height as its not practical so BMI is a much better measurement.

So what am I going to do?

Join Aerobics class from tomorrow i.e. 15th March 2012. Wish me luck

[selfdrive]

^^Wish you well in your efforts motomaverick. Do note that the idea of this thread is to provide regular updates. Twofold benefits there:
- One is encouraged to put in consistent efforts at least for the sake of updating here
- Other members are encouraged by your efforts and hopefully compete in a positive manner for their benefits

Please keep us updated!

Edit: How/ where did you figure out the BMI index? I would like to do it for myself, but I am not able to find a reliable source. One that I would like to believe before I put in the hard yards