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How did I do on 2012 resolutions?by Tom Arneberg, Community Columnist
My wife has been nagging me -- er, lovingly reminding me -- that I need to write a followup column on my New Year's Resolutions for 2012. A year ago, I wrote about two goals: getting back to writing one column a month, and losing weight. I'll start with the easy one. I wrote twelve columns in 2012! This included my 100th column in September, and my ten-year-anniversary column in December. I wasn't able to write exactly one in every calendar month, since I missed one in May and one in October. But I wrote two in July and two in December, so I think that still qualifies as completing that resolution. (It's ironic that this, my first column of 2013, isn't appearing until February...darn it, I'm already behind for this year.) My second 2012 resolution, losing weight, was a little harder to judge. I started the year at 184 pounds, and finished at 177. I guess that counts, but most of that loss was in January 2012, so I was hoping for better results than that for the rest of the year. It certainly was not for lack of trying in the exercise department. Thanks to my handy GPS watch and heart monitor, I was able to keep meticulous record of all my workouts in 2012, which I can sum up nicely with a few Unix scripts:
They say that to have a new habit become part of your routine, you must repeat it faithfully for 21 days. As of this writing, I am now past my 800th consecutive day of exercise, which I define as getting into my target heart range for at least 30 minutes. I think that habit is now solidly formed. In my post-year analysis a year ago, I had calculated that I averaged 53 minutes per day exercising in 2011. So I upped my goal for 2012 to an hour a day. Therefore my 63 minutes per day average is definitely a success in that category! It may not have helped my weight all that much, but exercise does have other benefits, even beyond feeling better and increasing stamina. Check out the three-year trend in my cholesterol numbers, with NO DRUGS:
Total cholesterol, Triglycerides, and LDL are all better when lower, while HDL numbers are better when higher. So I'm improving on all fronts. And this improvement is despite eating two chicken eggs every morning. Exercise is truly the miracle drug! If you REALLY like details, here's the breakdown of the top 15 activities I did in 2012 to get into my target heart zone:
Each day when I wake up, it's not a matter of whether I'll work out, but only when and how. My exercise decision algorithm goes something like this, in order of priority:
That's my normal strategy. Exceptions include sports like tennis and racquetball, Boy Scout activities like backpacking and canoeing, and of course chores like mowing the lawn and shoveling the snow. (As long as I can strap on my heart rate monitor and get into my target zone, chores count!) So I guess that leaves the other half of the weight loss strategy -- EATING. And dang, what do you know? I'm out of space! Oh, well. There is one goal that I will be LOWERING this year: I plan to exercise on only 365 days.
You can reach Tom at tom@arneberg.com. |
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