Health

Feb 30 Day Trial Progress

Trial: Spend at least 30 minutes exercising every single day.

2/22:
From now on, my 30 day trial updates will be posted in the Twitter block on the right-hand sidebar.

2/21:
I walked 2.8 miles today on my weekly trip to my house. No arm exercises today.

Walking: 2.8 miles (~1 hour 15 min.)

2/20:
Today I walked half a mile to the post office and 1.2 miles to get dinner at KFC. No arm exercises.

Walking: 1.7 miles (~1 hour)

2/19:
I walked about 2.5 miles this afternoon, and another 2 miles or so this evening. No arm exercises today.

Walked: 4.5 miles (~2h)

I’ve also decided to stop spamming my journal with all these posts, and instead update a single post each day. So, with that in mind…

2/18:
Today I got in my 30 minutes with a trip to the supermarket. No arm exercises today.

Walking: 1 mile

2/17:
Today was my birthday, but no rest for the weary — a trip to the supermarket and arm exercises!

Walking: 1 mile (30 min.)
Chest Dip Initial Pose: 15 sec.
Downward Facing Dog: 15 sec.
Plank: 15 sec.

2/16:
Walked 1.4 miles today, for well more than 30 minutes, but at a slower pace than usual. No Fast Circuit or arm exercises.

2/15:
I went to the supermarket today to get in my 30 minutes. I also looked into some yoga poses and thought about ways to increase my arm strength to where I can do the Fast Circuit arm strength exercises more reliably. I decided to try doing some less strenuous arm strength exercises to get my arms used to simply supporting my body weight before making them do more. I performed two yoga poses for 15 seconds each (Downward Facing Dog and Plank) and held the initial pose from Chest Dips (supporting myself on my arms between two chairs) for 15 seconds as well. My arms were vibrating and trembling and shaking the whole time. This seems to be a more reasonable place to start than a goal of 15 chest dips. So, then, here is my entry for today:

Walked: 1 mile (30 min.)
Chest Dip Initial Pose: 15 sec.
Downward Facing Dog: 15 sec.
Plank: 15 sec.

2/14:
Today I got well more than my target 30 minutes, thanks to a trip back to my house and a quick walk to the post office. I’ve decided to start mapping things out on Google Maps to see the distance I walked, as that’s a lot more informative than “to the post office” or the like. For my reference, here are some one-way distances:

Post office: 0.2 miles
Supermarket: 0.5 miles
El Camino (from where I’m staying): 0.6 miles
El Camino (from my house): 0.8 miles

So, today I walked a total of 3.2 miles between my two trips.

2/13:
I took a walk to the supermarket for my 30 minutes. It was a little rainy, but I don’t mind that too much. It’s been a long time since I’ve done the Fast Circuit routine, and I’m starting to feel a little bad about that. I don’t mind the exercises, but I find it difficult to motivate myself to get through the stretching that I do first. If I could just start with the real exercises, it wouldn’t be so bad. I’ll consider ways to overcome my resistance, and I’d appreciate any ideas you might have on how to do that.

2/12:
2/12: Took a longer walk today, to a friend’s house and the supermarket. This was quite a bit more than 30 minutes. 🙂

No Fast Circuit.

In other news, please pardon the changes around here — I’m customizing the layout of this site right now, and there will continue to be bugs and oddities until I’m finished. Thanks for your patience!

2/11:
Walked to the supermarket today, making my 30 minute goal.

2/10:
I only made 15 minutes today, a quick trip to the post office.

2/9:
As expected, I got in the walking today, though it was not when and where I expected. It was later in the day, a trip to the supermarket. Also as expected, Fast Circuit is off the menu — I’m exhausted! Eleven hours at the hospital will really sap your energy. I expect to return to the Fast Circuit tomorrow, though.

2/8:
On day 8, I got my 30 minutes of walking in the form of two quick round trips to the post office. Weekends seem to be harder than weekdays, probably because of people being at home more. Tomorrow I’ll be spending a good chunk of my day waiting at the hospital — there should be plenty of time to walk, but the Fast Circuit exercises are unlikely to happen. 30 day trials are tough!

2/7:
On day 7 I didn’t complete my exercise goal. It was a busy day with a lot going on.

2/6:
Today I walked to the supermarket and did the Fast Circuit routine I wrote about yesterday:

3 Chest Dips: 3
10 Squat and Heel Raises: 10
13 Bend and Raises: 13
11 sec. Arm Hauler: 11 sec.
5/side Hip Twist: 5/side

Actually, I did the Squat and Heel Raises twice, because I realized after the first set that I’d done them wrong, so I repeated them correctly.

Other than that, not much to say. Tomorrow I will maintain the trial at least with the walking, but I am considering taking the day off from the Fast Circuit. I will, of course, update here and report what I did either way. If I decide to do the Fast Circuit anyway, I will likely repeat today’s workout exactly. Till next time…

2/5:
I almost didn’t do this today, but at the last minute decided I didn’t want to break the chain, so to speak. So I did it. Not much walking today, tho’ I did do a bit of wheelchair-pushing at the hospital. Tonight, I did the same five Fast Circuit exercises as yesterday, but more repetitions. Here are my numbers, with the longterm goal, then tonight’s goal in parentheses (i.e. how many needed to beat yesterday), then how many I actually did after the colon.

20 Chest Dips (3): 3
30 Squat and Heel Raises (6): 10
25 Bend and Raises (12): 12
30 sec. Arm Hauler (11 sec.): 11 sec.
10/side Hip Twist (6/side): 6/side

Tomorrow I’m going to set out to do about the same number of repetitions as I did today, with a couple of slight adjustments. I want to work on my form and get to where I can hit these numbers with less strain. There’s no point in adding reps of an exercise that you can’t do properly in the first place. My medium-term target is 50% of the long-term target, so I will reduce the Hip Twists back to 5 and increase the Bend and Raises to 13 (12.5 rounds up, after all, not down). So the goal for tomorrow is:

3 Chest Dips (on the way to 10)
10 Squat and Heel Raises (on the way to 15)
13 Bend and Raises
11 sec. Arm Hauler (on the way to 15 sec.)
5/side Hip Twist

After doing these tomorrow for form, I’ll see if I can adjust the reps upward the following day, and when I hit the medium-term 50% goal, I’ll probably plateau there for a little while to try to actually get good at doing that workout before increasing further. Or perhaps that would be a good time to add another exercise and work on getting it to 50%? We’ll see what happens when the time comes.

2/4:
Today I walked to the supermarket and back for about 30 minutes worth of walking. Then in the late evening I finally got around to trying out some of the Fast Circuit exercises.

I tried the following exercises, with the goal before the exercise name and my actual count after:

20 Chest Dips: 2 (low arm strength + high body weight = ow)
30 Squat and Heel Raises: 5 (I lose my balance doing this.)
25 Bend and Raises: 11 (This seems pretty easy compared to the others — maybe I’m doing it wrong?)
30 sec. Arm Hauler: 10 sec. (An endurance exercise rather than a bodyweight exercise.)
10/side Hip Twist: 5/side (My best performance, 50% of the goal.)

I passed on these exercises for various reasons:

Jumping Jacks (In a second-floor condo at midnight? Let’s piss off the neighbors! Also I’m too self-conscious to do them outside where someone might see. I should probably work on that too.)
Dive Bomber (Looks intense — not sure I’m up to this one yet.)
Triceps Push-Up (Actually, I tried this one, but I couldn’t do even one, and it felt bad for my abs.)
Half-Squat (Similar to the Squat and Heel Raise, and I’d already lost my balance enough times for one night.)
Atomic Sit-Up (This would be MURDER on my abs and would contravene doctor’s orders.)

I’ll try to add those in later, after I’m comfortable with some of the others. For now, I’m happy with the ones that I was able to do, and I want to concentrate on getting them up to speed. Hopefully that will help me get in a little better shape overall so that the ones I wasn’t able to do tonight will be a bit easier.

The goal for tomorrow, aside from walking, is to do these same five Fast Circuit exercises and at least match my performance today on each one. Till next time…

2/3:
I walked a ridiculous amount today, due in part to mistakenly heading the wrong direction when I left the house. I probably clocked a coupla hours on foot today, between my trip to the post office, walking from there to my house, walking back to the bus, walking to the supermarket…

The bad news is that I didn’t find time to work in anything from the Fast Circuit, and I probably won’t before bed — that will have to wait till tomorrow.

I’m enjoying getting out of the house a bit. As my circumstances presently require my presence here most of the time, I need to make sure to find reasons to get out and about a little bit when I can. It’s important to keep cabin fever from setting in — a topic I will explore a little more another time.

2/2:
Today I walked to the post office and to Togo’s and 7-Eleven for lunch. This was a quick trip, and didn’t get me over the 30 minute goal, so I also walked to my doctor’s appointment, which was about a 30 minute walk each way. So I wound up with nearly three times my goal. 🙂

I asked the doctor about calisthenics, and he said it should be fine, but that situps are generally not the best idea for people who have had abdominal surgery (which I have), so I should look into some less intensive alternatives. So tomorrow I will review the exercises in the Fast Circuit workout and see which ones seem like the best fit for me, and add in at least one of them.

Two down, twenty eight to go…

2/1:
Today I started my first 30-day trial with a walk to the supermarket to do some shopping. Just about 30 minutes of walking. I also did laundry, which involves going up and down the stairs a few times — good exercise there! I got my 30 minutes in, and read a little bit more about the Fast Circuit workout I want to try.

Tomorrow I’ll walk to the post office and then to get lunch, and maybe round it out by walking to the doctor’s office for my appointment. That will get me far beyond my 30-minute goal. Off to a good start!

February 30 Day Trial

On the advice of several of my favorite bloggers, I’m going to do a 30-day trial. My first trial will be to spend at least 30 minutes exercising every single day. At a minimum, this will be walking, but I plan to include some other activities as well. I’d like to try a calisthenic workout — I found one that looks pretty good at Men’s Fitness — though I expect I’ll need to cut down the reps significantly based on my current physical condition. In any case, I’ll need to run it by my doctor first to make sure it’s safe given my surgery wound, and if he says no, I’ll stick to lighter forms of exercise such as walking.

As part of the trial, I will be updating here daily to track my progress. I’m looking forward to reporting positive results! I already have some things in mind for future 30-day trials — an hour a day of reading and improvements to my diet would go a long way, so one of those is likely to be on the agenda for March.

As always, questions and comments are welcome — you know what to do!

My Personal Inventory

I thought it might be helpful if I provided an example of a personal inventory — both for you (so that you can see what I’m talking about) and for me (since it’s been a while since I’ve done this). So here’s one for me. It’s been about six months since the last time I really sat down to do this, so I’m looking forward to seeing how it turns out. My life is very different today than it was six months ago.

So, without further ado, my personal inventory!

Health

This category is the most challenging of the three for me, and I’ve had a couple of health-related setbacks since the last time I took stock. Overall, I consider my health to be decent — I don’t get sick more often than average, rarely need to visit the doctor, and generally find that I don’t struggle with health issues. That said, there are a few issues that I am dissatisfied with or at risk for.

Here they are, in decreasing order of priority:

  1. In the past six months, I’ve discovered that I have a health condition related to a fiber deficiency in my diet, and have increased my fiber intake as a consequence. Pro-actively monitoring my diet in previous years could have averted this condition, and it’s important that I continue watching what I eat permanently in order to avoid exacerbating it.
  2. I wear glasses to correct my vision, which is quite poor uncorrected. My glasses are three years old, and it is well past time for new ones. They are currently on order, and I will switch to the new pair as soon as they arrive. I have worn glasses for all of my adult life and teenage years, and I would like to get rid of them.
  3. I carry around a lot more weight than I need to, and given the family history of diabetes, it is likely to develop into something more serious if not kept in check. This, coupled with my high cholesterol, means that I should be pro-active about improving my diet and exercise habits.
  4. I have a history of depression.
  5. I just don’t seem to have the time to improve my health, nor much enthusiasm for doing so.

Things aren’t as bleak as all that, though. I’m not one to focus solely on the negative (anymore), so here are the positive aspects of my health:

  1. As noted above, I have already improved my diet considerably. I eat a lot more vegetables than I used to, and I eat smaller portions. Although I still eat junk food, I am a lot more moderate about it. For instance, a trip to Jack in the Box used to consist of a large Bacon Ultimate Cheeseburger meal with soda and a large milkshake. These days I’ll get a Junior Bacon Cheeseburger, a small fries, and a small milkshake — or if I’m being really good, a Chicken Fajita Pita, side salad, and a small milkshake. My philosophy is that a diet that denies you everything you want is a diet that won’t last very long. It’s a lot easier to eat LESS of the things I like than to replace them with things I don’t enjoy as much.
  2. I walk a mile every morning. My commute makes this easy — I take the train, and I live a mile from the train station. Although I wasn’t keen on the distance from the train station when I moved here, I find now that I’m glad of it. I know someone who’s struggling to find time to walk a mile before work each day, whereas I do so automatically without thinking about it!
  3. My depression has been in remission for two and a half years, and I haven’t had any trouble keeping it that way — despite some negative events in my life since then (such as a breakup and the development of my dietary health issues).

Overall, health is the area of my life that needs the most improvement, because it is also the one for which I have the least enthusiasm. My primary motivation in health is to avoid negative consequences, whereas in the other areas of my life I have pro-active motivations and goals. Perhaps I should examine my outlook on it and try to find a way to be more interested in and pro-active about my health.

Wealth

Wealth is one of my favorite topics — I love talking money! I’m also pretty happy with where my finances are right now, although things could always be better!

I have a decent job in Silicon Valley, I have positive cash flow, and my assets outweigh my liabilities, although not by much (yet). I am on my way to being able to retire, the only question is… when?

I used to believe that the best option was to accumulate a million dollars, invest it at 5% (or more, but 5% seems conservative enough to count on), and live off the interest. The downside to that plan is that it takes a very, very long time to acquire $1M by working for a living. At the pace I’m currently going, it seems likely that I’ll be old and/or sick by the time I am in a position to fully retire. I don’t want to wind up with a retirement I can’t enjoy.

Additionally, I’m unhappy with the time investment required by my work. In theory, I work an eight hour day, but in reality, from the time my alarm goes off at 6 AM till the time I get home over twelve hours later at 6:15 PM, I’m doing things that are necessitated by my employment. The overhead of holding my job is 50%. I consider this excessive, it detracts from my happiness, and I want to find ways to reduce the amount of time I invest in earning income.

So now I’m considering the benefits of passive income, and learning to believe that retirement or semi-retirement is possible much sooner that way than it is with strict accumulation. Why should I spend vast quantities of my time working for someone else until the bank account is full? Why wait 40 years to begin enjoying the fruits of my labors if I can independently create multiple streams of income that will support me now? I am learning a lot about decoupling my income from my time.

It’s a transition, though, and one that I’m right in the middle of. I’m not fully decided what I want to do. There are other things I could do to speed up the accumulation, such as moving to a programming job. Right now I’m at a financial crossroads, looking around, trying to decide what to do.

I have some personal projects I’m working on in hopes that they can contribute to my early retirement from traditional employment, not the least of which is this blog. My biggest challenge right now is making the time to work on them.

Relationships

Relationships are important to me in a way they didn’t used to be. My sojourn to Portland, OR took me away from my friends and family here in Silicon Valley for two and a half years, and it was largely that social distance that brought me back. Right now I am in pretty good shape with my relationships, though there is one major thing I would change:

Time.

I don’t have the time I wish I had to see all my friends. There are people I haven’t seen since I moved back to Silicon Valley six months ago, and others I see occasionally or even frequently and wish I had more time for.

That said, I am glad to have reconnected with the friends that I have, and to be dating a wonderful woman who makes me very happy. In many ways, my relationships are the best they’ve ever been in my life, and with the exception of wanting time for even more of the same, I can’t think of anything I’m dissatisfied with.

Conclusion

There’s a common theme here: time. Overall, my life is pretty good — the best it’s ever been, even. The pervasive problem that keeps cropping up everywhere is that there just aren’t enough hours in the day — or days in the week — for everything I want to get done. And what time I have is largely consumed by employment. This issue seems to be the greatest challenge standing between me and the life that I want to live.

I hope that this personal example has given you some insight into the sorts of things you can write about in your personal inventory, what the value of doing so might be, and how to go about doing it. As always, please share any feedback you may have in the comments!

Welcome to Uplift!

Welcome to the Uplift! personal development blog. My focus here is on how to improve your life and enjoy greater freedom and happiness through self-improvement and lifestyle design. My name is David Safar, and I make no claim to be a guru or an expert on this subject. On the contrary, I am still near the beginning of my path, and this blog is as much a chronicle of my journey as it is a source of information and advice for those who wish to follow a similar path.

I am a 27-year-old Silicon Valley native currently working in software and seeking a greater enjoyment of life than I am currently experiencing. My life has improved tremendously in the past three years, and I am doing everything I know how to do to keep it on its current trajectory. It is because of this intention to keep improving that I decided to create a blog. Uplift! is both the result of my upward momentum and a means by which I intend to reinforce it. I chose the name Uplift! because of the word’s many positive connotations. It encapsulates many ideas that are to be central to this blog — improvement, enlightenment, joy, self-reliance, helping others, and so on. Uplift! is an active imperative verb. It is not “be uplifted”, which would imply passive acceptance of uplifting stimuli. Uplift! means making an active choice to work to uplift yourself, uplift your loved ones, uplift humanity. Physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, Uplift!

Topics

It has been said that most of the problems people have in their lives are in the areas of health, wealth, and relationships. I believe that this is a useful model of reality — not perfect, but good — so my posts will usually focus on one or more of these three areas. I will also be discussing the idea of lifestyle design. I have only recently been introduced to this concept by Timothy Ferriss’s book The 4 Hour Workweek, and it has great appeal to me, so I will be exploring it in greater depth. My background is in technology (most specifically in web software testing), and that will no doubt influence my thinking and my voice as I explore these topics.

Let’s take a look at some of the more specific topics we’ll be covering:

  • Wealth: This is currently the area I’ve been the most successful with in my own life. I’ve personally recovered from being over $12,000 in debt to being in the black again and on the upswing. I am now looking into ways to free myself from the obligations of full-time employment and put my wealth on auto-pilot so that I can devote my time to something more meaningful than mere survival. I believe that it is possible to earn a living without sacrificing most of your time to make someone else rich. With dedication and creativity, I believe you can break free from the traditional model of employment and generate enough passive income to lead a comfortable lifestyle and still have enough free time to enjoy that lifestyle. It is true that time is money, but the exchange rate is not fixed. There are ways of making money that don’t require a massive investment of labor or sacrifice. What matters is how you use your time, not how much.
  • Relationships: This area of my life is undergoing a slow transformation right now as I learn and assimilate new ideas about what is possible for the relationships in my life and how to achieve success. There are many important kinds of relationships, but I tend to focus on romantic relationships because my own opportunities for growth are the most abundant in that area. I believe that it is possible to form rich and rewarding and joyful relationships with the people in my life, and to attract into my life more of the kind of people I enjoy being around. I believe that attractiveness and charisma are learned skills that anyone can develop by studying social dynamics and making an effort to use the concepts learned by interacting with people more.
  • Health: This is the area that could use the most attention in my life. Of health, wealth, and relationships, health is the topic of least interest to me, though no less crucial to happiness and success. One of my challenges right now is to change my thinking about health and to find a way to be interested in addressing it proactively rather than reactively. This area of life includes diet and exercise, hygiene, habits such as tobacco, alcohol, and drug use, and other various factors that affect your physical and mental wellbeing.
  • Lifestyle Design: As mentioned above, this is an idea I discovered in Timothy Ferriss’s book The 4 Hour Workweek. The basic premise is that your lifestyle is something you create, and as such, you have a great deal of control over it. Accepting a lifestyle which doesn’t suit you is the same as choosing to perpetuate it. By deciding what kind of lifestyle you want (i.e. dreaming big dreams) and choosing to make it happen, you can transform your life and leave behind the unsatisfying old lifestyle. Ferriss also explains how you can automate your work life to minimize the amount of time you must spend on it and allow you the freedom to realize those big dreams. Right now this is one of my primary goals in life. I want to work less so that I can enjoy life more. I’ve noticed a pattern in my life and the lives of those around me: time and money seem to be an either/or proposition. Either I have the time I need to enjoy life but I’m broke (e.g. when I’m unemployed) or I have the money I need to enjoy life, but I’m spending so much time earning it that I don’t have time to enjoy it. I’ve reached a phase of my life where I believe it is both possible and crucial for me to transform either/or into both/and.

Communication Is a Two-Way Street

As we take a look at how this path unfolds in our lives, I want to encourage you to comment when you feel you have something worthwhile to contribute. Uplift! is not intended as a one-way medium of communication from me to you, but rather as a dialogue between us. Comments are currently enabled; I will keep an eye on how this method of communication is working out and adjust as necessary.

Once again, welcome to Uplift! I look forward to hearing from you and learning more about the world of serious blogging.