Health Month

Well January is coming to a close and I’m finally ready to comment a little on my health kick over the last month. For Christmas Kelly got me a pair of great Brooks walking shoes. The next day we went and bought an exercise bike at Sports Authority with some holiday money. On the 27th I weighed myself, which produced a number I had never seen on a scale before. That afternoon I started using the bike and writing down what I ate. Over the next week I would check out a couple of different apps and websites before setting on Livestrong for tracking my food (and fitness) and RunKeeper for my walks and stationary bike time. Both sites have accomplished iPhone applications so I would never have an excuse to not keep track of what I’m doing. RunKeeper in particular is an amazing application. It tracks automatically uses the GPS in my phone to track my walks noting how far, fast and how much climb in elevation. It has helped make for much more accurate recording of how much exercise and how many calories I’ve burnt. Kelly and I have linked our accounts together to form a street team. It helps us keep each other motivated. You can check out my profile page here. Leeahaynes's Profile | RunKeeper. So far I’ve completed 30 activities for a total of 88 miles. Five and a half of those miles were in Big Basin where RunKeeper came up big. There was no cell service whatsoever in the park, no phone, no internet. But the GPS still worked so it kept perfect track of our walk and downloaded the maps and uploaded the walk as soon as we got back to service. I recommend it highly. The iPhone app used to cost $10 and I think I would have been happy with that. They ran a promotion for the new year announcing that it was going to be free for the entire month of January. I little help to kick start New Year’s resolutions I guess. Anyway they had such a groundswell of users in response that they have made Runkeeper Pro a free app for good. I heartily recommend it. Special thanks to Sarita for giving me the heads up about it early in January.

There is a third site that I’ve found very helpful early in this health quest. That’s Buster Benson’s Health Month. Buster is the one that developed the 750Words site that has prompted me to go on an eleven month unbroken journal writing streak. Health Month is a game. You play by choosing rules that you plan on following for the coming month. You choose what the rules are, how often you are going to do them them is and how difficult you think it is going to be for keep on track. For example my rules for January were as follows:

Exercise for 30 minutes at least 5 days a week. 

Walk at least 15 miles a week

Stay under my recommended daily calories at least 5 days a week

Allow added sugar 4 days a week

Drink at least 42 glasses of water a week

Write 3 pages in a private journal every day

Meditate for 20 minutes at least 5 days a week

Read a book for at least 30 minutes 5 days a week

Track my meals every day.

You start the month with 10 life points and you lose points when you miss a goal. You also get points that you can spend to heal yourself or someone else. Everybody is split into four brackets depending on how hard and how many rules you have and then ranked with a points formula. It sounds complicated but in practice it’s pretty easy and the site does most of the work for you. There are times that I’ve done things on my list just to make sure that I don’t lose a point. If that happens just a couple of times a week it’s worth it. It also is nice to see your goals every day when you check in. It’s another site that I recommend highly. 

All in all this morning I stepped on the scale and the number I saw was 12 pounds less than that first scary one at the end of December. I have more energy than I have had in many years. I can’t thank Kelly enough for all here help and support this month. Besides she is the one that got the whole thing kicked off by buying me these fantastic shoes.