Week 2: Back on Track

2/5/2019 10:33AM

I had a good week this week; it could’ve been better but it could’ve been worse. I made progress towards my fitness goals, started improving my diet, and learned a couple things about my spiritual health through reading chapter 2.

Let’s start with my fitness situation. After last week, I decided to de-load my squat to prevent any chance of injury, and I’ve been working to improve my form. While it may not show physically in my form, I have a feeling I’m putting too much stress on my lumbar spine when squatting. I think I’m using too much of my back and not enough of my legs to move the weight. In order to fix this, I decided to adjust the angle of my head when moving the weight as well as to focus more on moving my legs rather than visualizing sitting (which I focused on prior in order to get deep enough), which focused on moving my lower torso. I’m adjusting my head to angle a bit downward so that I keep a neutral spine, rather than have it curve upward with my head and neck. I’ll have to do a few more squat days to see if these new changes are helping my back.

SMART goal: squat three days in the next week and re-assess in week 3 blog.

Regarding other areas of my personal fitness, I am working on fixing my lat pull-down form. Previously I was pulling with a complete grip on the bar (using thumbs), and was pulling the bar with my arms rather than engaging my lats. I’m utilizing a new grip, where I hook the bar with my fingers and don’t use my thumbs to grip it. This has made it easier for me to visualize the movement and resulted in better lat engagement. Hopefully this continues. I’ve lost some water weight, but I can’t tell how much because the scale in my suite is broken. I also ran my first half mile yesterday, clocking in at 4:36. Not bad but not great.

SMART goal: Keep working on new form and run twice next week, rather than once

I’ve made improvements to my diet over the past week as well. I’ve started gradually cutting out starchy carbs from the dining halls, especially the tater tots that ECC always has, and I’ve also cut down on the fountain Gatorades I’ve drank. The biggest immediate improvement is that I cut down the ECC ice cream to a small cup, once a week. The biggest disappointment of the week is my calorie tracker. While it is very accurate when I use it at home, because I control the portions and measurements of my food, it has been reduced to a rough estimator when it comes to school meals. I have little control of the portions I eat at dining halls and have no way of accurately measuring the caloric content of my meals. I’m doing my best to “guestimate” and have decided to focus more on the nutritional content and makeup of my meals rather than obsess over calorie estimates. My body will tell me when I’m full, I just need to listen to it and give it what it needs.

SMART goal: Eat a spinach salad with meals whenever I eat at ECC, keep cutting down on the bad foods in my diet.

Now we’re getting to my implementations based on the chapter reading. This week I read about psychological and spiritual health, and I got some good information I can apply to my health plan. Regarding psychological health, I came up with three goals relating to the categories listed in the book:

1. Realistic Expectations – I’ve always set the bar way too high for myself when goal-setting. I need to lower my expectations and embrace the grind, rather than try for instant results.
2. Make (Quality) Time For Me – I need to make some QUALITY time for myself to pursue my interests in the coming week. Lately I’ve wasted far too much time browsing the internet and watching YouTube videos. This waste of my time has left me feeling unproductive and guilty. I could be better spending this time reading and painting.
3. Get Adequate Sleep – For the past week, maybe week and a half, I’ve had terrible sleep. I just can’t seem to get quality rest; I always wake up tired, almost like I never slept. I’ve been having very lucid dreams, and have been tossing and turning constantly, so maybe that has something to do with it. I’m going to try and stay away from screens for an hour before I sleep to see if that helps.

Finally, I achieved my SMART goal regarding drinking: I only drank once, going out to the bar with my friends, and was safe the entire time. I also drank a lot of water at the end of the night and woke up without a hangover, which was nice. It wasn’t all good though. I spent A LOT of money at the bar, something on the order of 50-60 bucks. I don’t have an exact number because I don’t really want to check. So on top of what I had before we went out, I had about another seven drinks at the bar (8*7=56), yet I was cohesive the entire time. I don’t think the drinks were weak, because I watched the bartender pour one and she poured the rum for 8 whole seconds. So I either have a superpower or am earning a double major in alcoholism. Either way I’m setting a new SMART goal to limit my spending at the bar, and by proxy, my drinking.

Finally, I think I’m doing well spiritually, as I’m getting a lot of satisfaction out of planning dances and inviting organizations on campus as the formal social chair of my fraternity, so nothing to really add here.

That concludes week 2, looking forward to week 3!