As part of my company's health benefits website we have a tool called the Health Risk Assessment (
HRA) that
asks you a series of lifestyle questions to determine your overall health score. I took it for the first time in 2007 and just retook it today and my score improved 10 points from the last time I took it. The only thing I scored really low on was my nutrition, so I need to take greater steps here to improve. Mostly in increasing fiber consumption and maybe cutting some fat intake according to the detailed report. And it looks like I can do a little work on my stress level and life load, but according to the detailed assessment these I don't need to worry about too much just need to be aware of them so they don't get out of control.
Here is the overview of my score:
The change column is the number change since the last time I took
the assessment for that category. Weight score is based on
BMI. The last time I took it I was at 170, but this time I was at 169 (according to the scale this morning), so you can tell I float that cut off way too close. I think if I can keep staying away from junk food and high fat foods and keep the
exercise up and keep getting the same amount of sleep I could really be a whole new person in the next few months! I think I am going to take a closer look at the foods we buy and see if there is any way to revamp that. If we get in the habit of looking ahead to meals it could help from just eating fast and easy (pizza, carry-out, etc). I think we could find healthy foods that we still like too.
Oh, and another great thing about this HRA tool is that my company gives us a $100 credit towards fitness related purchases for taking the test once each year. I think I am going to use the money to get some new running shoes this year. I will need them later this summer!
Labels: exercise, fitness, life
Committing to a Healtier Longer Life
Lately, I have been thinking more about my health and energy level and how I want to someday be able to actively enjoy my retirement years with minimal health issues. The only way that I can make this a reality is to take control of my life and not always give in to the temptation to eat the junk food or over eat just because a bigger portion is in front of me or extra food is available. I grew up in a family of farmers and big strong men where eating big meals was expected if you wanted to be big and strong. That may have made sense to someone who is constantly physically active and needed a lot of calories to make it through a day but these days I spend a lot of time at a desk and even if I were farming, modern technology has taken a lot of the physical
exertion out of the typical farmer's day. Yet, it's this notion of big meals and cleaning your plate that has been ingrained in me for more than 20 years and I find myself slipping into that mode from time to time. It is tough to overcome, but in all honesty, I am in control here and being aware of this habit should make it easier to recognize and overcome!
These days I get my physical activity through running, push-ups, sit-ups, etc. Unfortunately, I have been horribly inconsistent and just as I start to make progress I slip into making excuses for not going to the gym today (which often leads to several straight days) or telling myself I "deserve" a break. Seriously, what does that mean? What I deserve is to have a healthy life where I have lots of
energy and I am not constantly wrestling with digestion issues! The last 2-3 weeks I have pushed hard to get to the gym or get some exercise at least 4 or 5 days each week and I feel awesome! It took time and lot of internal arguments with myself to push through the apathy and make myself do what is necessary and now I can't stand it if I don't get some
exercise in each day. This is a feeling I want to hold on to going forward. That's one of the reasons I am writing this post because I am hoping that it keeps me honest and serves as a reminder of what I really want for myself. Also, feel free if you see me to ask me how the
exercising is going because my friends and family can also help keep me honest! ;) Another thing that I have had to overcome is making the excuse that I am too busy to exercise. I have decided that this is not an excuse I can use anymore! There is always a lot that needs to be done in a day, but one of the highest priorities should be to take care of myself, because if I don't do that then how can I take care of anyone else? I have found that if I carve out time in the morning before work, that is more than enough to get some good activity in. Sure I have to wake up a little earlier, but as long as I am responsible and get myself to bed by 10 PM I still get 7-8 hrs of sleep. Yes, I am tired when I first get up, that will never change. But what I have found is that once I get moving I am fine and after my workout I feel 100 times better than if I just roll out of bed and go to work!
If you do any reading on
nutrition or health and wellness you find that most of the literature will tell you that there are no "quick fixes" its a lifestyle change, which is a hard thing for most people to overcome. You really do have to make significant changes to not only your patterns but also the way you think about and approach things like schedules, diet, etc. I really believe that one of the major reasons we have such high health care costs in the U.S. is because people don't take care of themselves. We eat unbalanced diets, spend more time making excuses for not getting exercise and then want access to cheap health care when we get diabetes for being over weight or have heart problems because its too weak. Trust me there are other problems than this with our health care system, but like Obama has said, everyone has to do their part to fix a problem like this, including individuals! But enough of my soap box on that issue. :)
What this boils down to for me is that I want to start living a longer, healthier life. I am 33 years old and would like to have children someday. What that means is by the time they are in their teens I will most likely be
pushing 50. I want to be able to be active with them even when they are in high school and beyond. I don't want be complaining about chronic pain or what have you. When I retire, I want to be able to travel and hike, and do many of the things I do today. The only way I can help make that happen is to take a serious look at how I take care of myself today and be willing to make some changes. I am not saying I am going to turn into one these over the top granola crunchers that tries to impose their lifestyle on others. I will still have a piece of cake or the occasional cookie, but there is no reason I can't make the majority of my diet healthy with a good balance of the food groups. There is no reason that I can't make at least some time to
exercise. That includes when I am on vacation, where it can be easy to say, "I'm on vacation. Why should I
exercise? I will do it when I get home." Again, its a lifestyle change, and its one I am going to try to make!
Labels: exercise, fitness, health, life
Last year when I met Kelly, she started getting me into running. Anyone who really knows me probably just laughed, and rightfully so. It's not that I live an inactive lifestyle. Quite the contrary. I would much rather be outside, hiking, camping, fishing, walking around the neighborhood than sitting at home. Furthermore, I love to participate in all kinds of sports including basketball, football, bowling, soccer, etc. You name it and I have tried it or would be willing too. But, for some reason I never really got into running for the sake of running. I had a brief stint in track and field where I performed fairly well in the sprinting competitions, but never latched on to it like I did other sports.
Well, the year before I met Kelly I decided to sign up for the Chase Corporate Challenge here in the city. Mainly, because my company offered to pay half the entry fee if we signed up and wore a shirt with their logo on it. So I figured why not. I could use the exercise and it might be fun. Well, I ran/walked the entire 3.5 miles and really didn't enjoy it much. I had a terrible finish time and my joints were in a lot of pain. I then went the rest of the year without running another race.
Then, just before I met Kelly, my college buddy Dan asked me if I wanted to run in the Muddy Buddy with him later that year. I had heard of the race before and it sounded like fun so I agreed more for fun than for competition. Then a few weeks later I met Kelly. I told her about this race I was in and she suggested that I sign up for a serious of 5k races with her to make sure I got in shape enough to run my race with Dan. Well the first one we ran together was the Corporate Challenge and I did a ton better when I ran it with her. After that I tried a series of races and really began to enjoy them. They were all 5
k's (3 miles) and I never really thought I would do any longer than that, until this winter when Kelly convinced me to sign up for the
Shamrock Shuffle with her. It is an 8k (5 miles) race. I was a little concerned about the distance but she set up a training program for me that I was able to stick with for the most part, except for the few weeks that I had the flu. Well come race day I was really nervous that I wouldn't be able to run the whole thing and that I would hold Kelly back.
The race started out tough, with my legs and joints tightening up within the first mile or so. I told Kelly to go on without me because I wasn't sure how the pain was going to be. So, for the next mile I ran alone, but started to notice some of the pain go away, by 2.5 miles I had caught back up with Kelly again and we ran the next mile and half together and then somehow got split up while running through the water station. I went the next 3/4 of a mile by myself wondering where she was. Apparently, I had got ahead of her and didn't realize it. She caught up to me with about 1/4 a mile to go and we crossed the finish line together. Finishing the full 5 miles in about 50 minutes. We averaged about 10 minutes miles and ran the last mile the fastest at around 9.5 minutes. This was a great time considering I fully expected to have to walk parts of the race, but thanks to Kelly's support I ran the whole thing.
Next up the Race to Wrigley. Its a slightly shorter (5k) race, but should be fun because you finish the race by running through the
concourse at Wrigley Field. The
proceeds got to Cubs charities.
Labels: exercise, Running
Riding Alpine Valley
So, Kelly has been talking about learning to snowboard for sometime now and since we had some time off between Christmas and New Years we decided to try and head up to one of the local "ski resorts" to let her give it a try. On the Friday following Christmas we decided that we would take the day and head up to
Alpine Valley in
Elkhorn, WI so she could take a lesson and try it out. Also, we both received some new Snowboarding gear from Christmas and we want to test that stuff out as well.
Well the night before we got a little bit of snow in
Evanston, but not enough to keep us from traveling the 1.5 hours up to the resort. So Saturday morning we packed up the Jeep and headed north. Once we got into WI, we quickly realized that they had gotten several more inches of snow than we had. It was a beautiful winter wonder land. When we got to the resort we realized that everyone had the same idea we did for the day and there were lines for everything. Fortunately, Kelly was able to get into her lesson right away. She opted for the 1:1 lesson so she could get more personalized attention, which was probably for the best. While she was in her lesson I ventured up the slopes on the my own to try out the runs. I had never been to Alpine Valley before so I was excited to see what it was like. My first run was awesome. All the snow from the night before made the ride extremely smooth and I didn't have to wear myself fighting the icy conditions like I normally do at Midwest resorts. I went down
several times and the only time I fell was when I had to exit the chair lift and a group of girls decided to stand around in front of it causing everyone my chair to wipe out when we tried to avoid them! Oh well, nothing hurt other than my pride :). After a few more runs, I went down to where I was going to meet up with Kelly after her lesson. She came back with glowing reviews from her instructor. From there we grabbed a bite to eat and went back up the slopes. We stuck to the green slopes (beginner) so Kelly could get her boarding legs, but toward the end she did brave it enough to try out one of the intermediate runs. Watching her reminded me of when I was first starting out. Its tough when you first learn because it seems terrifying when you are picking up speed and you have 50 million things running through your head on how to slow down and stop, but the panic usually takes over and you end up crashing hard. I can't count how many times I took a hard fall that made me thing "yep, that's it, no more snowboarding for this guy," but the fun of riding that board down
through beautiful
scenery takes over and you end up going again.
Kelly was definitely having that beginners anxiety, but who can blame her? Its not like skiing, when you fall down there you have more
control because your feet aren't attached to the same board. She took a couple of hard falls, but she was a trooper and stuck it out. Honestly she did really good for her first time and seems to be excited about going again. Which is good, because the next step is to get a few more local trips in and then get out west for some really mountains!
Labels: exercise, snowboarding, sports
2 Cool Sites for Runners
So, I am not much of a runner, but I know people who run so I routinely get exposed to cool tools that are used by these folks. The first was introduced to me by Kelly. It's called "
Map My Run," and allows you to map out the course you plan to run in your neighborhood and tells you how long the distance is going to be. Its cool because you can create the route, turn-by-turn rather than just inputting a start and finish and letting the computer figure out the best route, this way if you want to follow a winding path on your run you can make an accurate route.
The other tool I came across while reading the
Red Eye on the train this morning. Its called
jogtunes.com. This site allows you to coordinate your songs on your mp3 player to match the pace of your workout. It helps you calculate your workout pace in beats-per-minute so you can choose the best tracks to get you through your run.
With cool stuff like this, it almost makes me want to get into running. Yeah, right, almost :P
Labels: exercise, gadgets, sports
