After 1 week of Health Month, I’m out

As some of you know, Health Month started last week and I got swept up in the excitement because a) I’m wildly competitive, b) I like a good challenge and c) I can easily get wrapped up in tracking personal wellness (see: 30 by 30)

Anyway, in an effort to spare you the drawn-out details, I followed all the rules this week and in the process learned what I’d like my “health month” to be, based on the habits I want to break/create as I head into 2010.

The rules were pretty strict, though the diet Karen and I have developed over the past few years got me to a really great starting point. You can see the rules below, along with the annotations in bold on how I’m going to alter things a bit to suit what I want to change for myself:

No Alcohol <- Can only drink on days I've gone to the gym and drink wine instead of beer/liquor when possible.

No Smoking <- quit 6 years ago

No Caffeine (Exception: Unsweetened Green Tea) <- cutting down to 3 caffeinated beverages a day

No Illegal Drugs <- already on it

No “Big Breads” or Refined flour (Exception: Whole Grains) <- already on it

No Meat (exceptions: Fish, Chicken, Lean/Uncured Pork) <- shooting for half my meals to be vegetarian

No Pasta (Exception: Whole Grain Pasta in Small Amounts) <- already on it

No Dairy, Butter, Margarine, Cheese (Exception: Yogurt with no added sugar or sweeteners) <- don't really use butter. only have low fat cheese.

No refined Sugars <- already keep those to a minimum.

No Artificial Sweeteners <- already on it

No Fried Food <- limited to one meal a week

No Fast Food <- already on it

Very Limited amounts of salt, olive oil, salad dressing <- already on it

No Rice (Exception: Brown Rice) <- don't really eat rice. If I do, it's brown.

Exercise 2-3 times a week <- shooting for at least 4

Add 1 Custom self-improvement pledge <- read more books!

Monitor your weight, mood, etc., and report back to others / blog it. <- already on it

After living by the official rules for a week, I’ve decided that I want to have some flexibility to focus on the particular issues I want to solve which are, at a high level: regular exercise, portion control and cutting down on caffeine. Another motivating factor is that as Karen and I enter our last 2 months before the baby arrives, I don’t want to force myself to be too restrictive (only if I can continue to hit the gym) so that we can seize the opportunities we do get to live it up a bit when we can.

I probably should have known better that now wasn’t a great time for this and naturally, a part of me feels like a huge failure but I imagine I’ll get over that as long as the metrics I’m tracking (particularly weight and exercise) continue going down. My goal is still to lose 15 pounds, starting at my January 1st weight. Thanks to things like Runkeeper and FitBit, it’ll be easy for me to keep track of all that.