My Lifestyle Progress Report Series

For quite some time, I have been thinking about publishing a sort of monthly Creative Commons licensed record of how I’ve been doing, in general. I have several goals that I’d like to eventually reach at some point, and I feel like by recording and publishing my progress and struggles, I’ll be far more motivated to try my best, given the public record. It’ll also hopefully be helpful to others in similar situations as me, they can see what’s helped and what’s proven ineffective with my goals.

Things that I’d like to mention are as follows:

• Weight loss goals
• Exercise
• My mood
• Any recent developments
• etc.

Weight

I’m a rather short guy for the age of twenty three. At a normal height, eating 2000 calories a day would be quite normal. At only 155cm, it’s not, so I’ve gotten quite chubby, at about 65kg. For a North American, it’s not really abnormal to be this chubby, but it certainly isn’t healthy. My weight is a reflection of how I eat. As someone who knows how to lose weight, I want to demonstrate that it really is possible to do it all on your own. It will not be fast, nor will it be easy. To reach my hypothetical goal of 45kg, it will take me about two years, through slow but steady progress. It could takes less time, but it isn’t likely to.

Exercise

It’s the thing everyone knows is beneficial. Aerobic capacity, reflected by ones resting heart rate (RHR), is at least somewhat co-related to mortality. For me personally, regular exercise does boost my mood a significant amount over the course of time. I’d like to personally aim to reduce my current resting heart rate of about 90 to a level a bit more healthy, though I have no specific goals in mind. I try to do about 20mins of cardio exercise a day, cumulatively. That’s 150mins a week.

I’ve also somewhat regularly taken on a few stretches, hopefully to help with my posture and to alleviate lower back pain that occurs when I’m standing, but that I get immediate relief from when sitting. It seems to occur when I’ve been standing for too long, mostly at work.

Mood

This is quite tough for me to talk about, and possibly the most important thing for me to discuss. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if I was diagnosed with depression. I have a long history of poor mood and suicidal thoughts, though I’m not suicidal. I’d like to discuss my progress through getting this resolved, and the routines I perform to keep my poor mood at bay. Exercise is one of these things. After a long winter however, it’s too easy for things to fall out of sync.

So far, I’ve brought it up to my primary doctor (PM), and I’m expecting a phone call that will connect me to the resources I need.

Other

One of the other reasons why I’ve decided to do this sort of thing is because just a few days ago, I saw that a Herbalife distributor had popped up in my city. If you didn’t know, Herbalife operates as a pyramid scheme. It’s not outlawed here in Canada, as investigations into pyramid schemes are difficult and costly to execute. Their products are marketed as miracle drugs that can help users with anything from losing weight, to fertility issues, to literally curing cancer. It’s a massive scam.

By personally publishing, and showing people that one doesn’t need to use their products to lose weight, I can hopefully talk someone out of buying supplements of any kind to lose weight. While supplements may seem to show promising results at first, they don’t work, because they don’t burn body fat. They more often than not flush the body of water and waste, and when they don’t, they don’t actually do anything. Please, let me prove it to you.