Fitness, Health, Taekwondo and Me

Laura started taking taekwondo in November of 2008 at a school in Burien and it she seemed to really take to it. As I watched her in class and then watched her test for higher rank, it started looking kind of fun to me, too, and last April, I started taking classes. The first few classes were pretty hard and at the time I wasn't entirely sure that I'd be able to survive, but here it is, 9 months later, and I'm still going and progressing in rank (I'm a green belt and will be testing for purple in about 3 weeks).

When I started it was all I could do to do the three 45-minute classes a week, but eventually I joined the "master club" and stepped up to four one-hour classes per week, and started doing the W.A.R. workouts as well (W.A.R. == Warriors Achieving Results, a general workout/circuit training class that does a hard workout for 45 minutes). At my peak, I was working out before lunch 6 days a week for about 1/2 hour, 4 hour-long taekwondo classes, and 2 45 minute W.A.R. classes. I say, "at my peak", because of late, I haven't been doing the lunch workouts, and life keeps intervening, and I'm lucky if I can make two or three classes, and because of a bit of awesomeness (not) I pulled the other day, I ended up going to class and not to W.A.R. (note to self: don't forget to take your meds, forget to hydrate and then eat poorly on class/W.A.R. day or you will experience dizzyness and tunnel vision and have to stop).

I've discovered some unfortunate truths along the way. I remember at one point, long before I ever thought of doing taekwondo, learning "eating right is not enough". I.e., Eat the right number of calories in the right proportions of protein/carbohydrates/fat all you want, and that's great, you might even lose weight, but you won't be healthy. Now, I've learned "exercising lots is not enough". It helps with some of the numbers (cholesterol, blood sugar, blood pressure), but not enough. I guess I can't eat like "normal" (whatever that means) and exercise 6-8 hours a week and expect any real results; I am in better shape than I've been in a long time, and I do have more endurance and more wind, and it's important to look back at what I was like when I first started. But, it's not enough, because I have to lose weight, and I'm not really losing weight. I've lost a little, but my joints tell me that I need to lose a lot more. So, exercising lots is not enough either.

So, where to go from here? Well, it is fortuitous that next Monday is not just a Monday but also the 1st of February. I like beginnings and this one seems to be shouting at me "time for a new beginning!". I've found a tool that combines the utility of all the fitness/diet trackers out there with the annoying social aspects of Facebook and this combination may give me a bit of accountability, which I also need. If I put my food and exercise diary where my friends and family can see it, I'll at the very least be embarrassed when I eat a pizza (yah, a whole pizza) and either enter it where they can see it, or don't enter it out of shame. That will help in the short term, and maybe get me going towards forming more good habits for the long term. So, going back to the "new beginnings" theme, I'm going to start this plan on 2/1, and see how it goes.

Now, I've still got to get my head on straight, and that's the hardest part. If I don't do that, then it doesn't really matter what I do in the long run, because I'll just run back to my bad habits in times of stress like I always do. Gastric bypass, LAP band surgery, this new plan, none of it will matter unless I figure out why I have to eat like i do. Anyway, one thing at a time, I guess.