Sinfest is one of my favourite comics. Irreverent, intelligent and always funny. Yesterday’s was a treat though - and it might be the recipe for the perfect Salad.

When most people realise they need to change something about their lifestyle to improve their health or fitness, they almost always look at adding to it first. They’ll start running or swimming, or start a diet, or join a gym. Few people take the time to analyse (and then, of course, break) their bad habits before anything else, and that means missing out on some great - and potentially very low effort and low maintenance - opportunities.

The problem is that most of us don’t know what all of our bad habits are. We think of the ones we do know about as just a part of our lifestyles - innocent little quirks or harmless vices to be indulged, nothing more. It certainly never occurs to us that an evening spent in front of the telly is a bad thing, or a wasted opportunity - even if we’re not watching anything in particular. One chocolate bar a week? We think of it as merely a treat, no implications or real effects. Can of coke with lunch? It’s only a can …

Of course, we’re wrong. An evening in front of the telly could be 4 or 5 hours. That’s a serious chunk of time - easily enough time to see real people, read a book, cook something new, go for a run (or walk) or go to a course. A chocolate bar a week is only 300 calories. One can of coke is 139 calories. One evening a week, for a year, though, is enough time to learn the basics of a new language (to holiday standard). One chocolate bar a week is 15,600 calories (almost 5 pounds (11kg) of bodyfat). One can of coke a day is … wait for it … 50,735 calories a year (over 14 pounds (32kg) of bodyfat).

Take a moment to reflect on that. A lot of people have at least a can of fizzy drink with their lunch, a chocolate bar a week and spend the evening in front of the TV. They could lose over 19lbs (43kg) of weight and learn a new language in a year, just by cutting down on a couple of bad habits.

Bad habits add up over time, just like good ones do.

The trick is to identify these habits (and then learn to break them, or even better to outright replace them with good ones).

The first step is to be more conscious of your actions. Learn to monitor yourself. Keeping a food (and drink) diary is boring, but a really excellent way to learn about your own eating habits. If you’re having trouble keeping it going, try using a Seinfeldian Chain (thanks, Monica). Keeping a TV diary (or even better, sorting yourself out a TV planner and only watching what you really want to see) or an internet diary serves the same use.

Diaries like that only work if you look at them. Writing everything down and then letting it gather dust is counterproductive. So the next step is to take time to look at what you’ve eaten in the previous month. What you find might shock you - great, time to make some changes (and you’ll be able to see where you need to start). It might be that it all looks ok (again, great, you’re eating well).

Once you’ve identified and started to replace your bad habits, the fight is not yet over. People have a tendency to find things to fill their time, and you might end up replacing one bad habit with another. In that respect bad habits are a lot like weeds. You can clear them out, but you’ll always need to be vigilant if you want to stay clear of them.

I cut down on TV only to replace it by spending time online. I gave up World of Warcraft but spent more time in the pub. I stopped going to the pub as much and started watching more TV. There were some (like smoking and soft drinks) that I’ve just stopped without replacing them with something as bad. Overall, I’ve reduced my bad habits considerably and I am now aware of the ones I still need to address.

Do you know what your bad habits are? Did keeping diaries (food, TV, exercise) work for you? Do you have any tips to help other readers? Share in the comments!

5:29am. You’re asleep. Dead to the world. Just a few short seconds later, all of a sudden, a piercing, painful, high-pitched devil scream invades your ears, your brain … even your eyes feel it. Some evil little box by your bed says it’s time to get up! Who does it think it is, ordering you around? You smack it in the snooze button. Yeah, you’re asserting your authority. A vague memory of a promise made to yourself the day before to go for a jog this morning flashes through your mind. Bah, what does yesterday-you know? Yesterday-you had no idea how horrific the world would be at this point in time. Just 9 more minutes, then it’ll be ok. Just 9 more minutes ….. zzzZZZZZzzzzz

There is something … awesome about the early morning. That feeling you get when, in the early morning, you look at your watch and realise that usually you’d only be getting up at this point but that today … awesome today … you’ve actually achieved something already … it’s one of the best feelings there is.

And yet, when it comes to that moment at 5:30am when your alarm starts screaming at you, in that split second when you make your decision to rise or hit snooze, the memory of that feeling is utterly overwhelmed by the single thought - “Bugger that, this duvet is awesome”.

Getting up early is a skill. It’s an easily learned one, too. As a geek though, you might be more used to the opposite - staying up late, coding deep into the night. Getting up early might well mean a change in working patterns, eating patterns and, worst of all, nights-out-on-the-beer patterns.

The first thing to do is to start sleeping well. You have zero chance of getting up early, or without fighting with yourself, if you’re not well rested. That means aiming for 8 hours. No screens (either TV or PC) for an hour before bedtime. No alcohol in the evening. Eating at least a couple of hours before bedtime. Clean sheets once in a while. A cool room (your body needs to cool a little before you’ll be able to get to sleep). All the usual things associated with having a good night’s sleep.

For me, this particular part of the process took the longest. In many ways it isn’t over. I still go out for a few beers once in a while, watch TV late, stay up late writing code, stay up late writing about going to bed early - but the majority of the time I pay attention to my sleeping habits and so now sleep better than I used to. I also value my evenings more - I go out for a casual beer less often, and read and relax a bit more.

While sleeping well is a good start, and will help you rise earlier and with less argument from your sleepy-brain, it’s still some way from there to being capable of leaping out of bed first thing. The next step is to introduce consistency.

I used to have three alarms a day for weekdays, and none for weekends. I had an application that controlled all of this on my phone. There was a theory behind this madness. The first alarm would be quiet and early, so that on the off chance I was well rested, it would wake me up early. The second was louder and later, at the time I wanted to get up every day. The third was the last ditch “Get up or you’ll be late for work” alarm: loud, persistent and annoying.

Of course, that didn’t work. When I didn’t sleep through the first alarm, I’d just turn it off, well aware I’d be woken properly later. That effectively ruined my last half hour of sleep for no good reason. The second alarm would usually wake me … temporarily. And then I’d turn that one off too, and half the time would just roll over and go back to sleep. And here it gets tricky - by the time the third alarm goes off, I’ve completely lost track of which alarms have gone off and, additionally, hate the world. So sometimes I’d go back to sleep (oops) and sometimes I’d get up - in a bad mood. All round, I slept for more hours, but far worse, and was late for work more often. Nice!

Now, I have one alarm. It’s not loud, and it’s not quiet. It’s loud enough (it actually gets louder as it plays, which is good). It goes off at the same time. Every. Single. Day. All 7 of them in the week. All 365 of them in the year. All of them. No sleeping in on the weekends. It goes off at 5:30am. Yes, a - not p - m.

This means I’m consistent. I go to sleep when I’m tired. I avoid TV late in the evenings and read instead. A bonus I’ve found by avoiding late night TV is that I’m actually able to tell when I’m tired and should go to sleep. Some nights I get 8 hours, some nights 6. I feel ok when I wake up though. That’s a big help.

Next, I have conditioned myself to - as soon as my alarm goes off - sit up. No thinking time, no rationalising another half an hour in bed, and no slow awakening. I just sit up and swing my legs out of bed. It’s a shock some morning, especially when it’s cold. But by then I’m awake. Having tried to get back to sleep from then, I can confirm it’s actually not easy at all. I don’t give myself a chance to hit the snooze button or to do anything but get up.

I shake out the cobwebs with a cup of tea or coffee some mornings, if needed, but usually I just get on with things. Within a half hour or an hour I’m set for the day. I’m dressed and fed. I’ve checked the stats on my personal and professional sites. I’ve checked my email. And I don’t have to go to work for an hour. I can go to work early and buy myself an extra hour in the evening. I can spend a few minutes on the exercise bike, or go for a run (note: “can”, but at the moment, “don’t”). On the weekends I can catch up with cleaning the flat before the missus is even complaining I haven’t brought her breakfast.

I’ve not gained extra hours, really. I am awake for roughly the same amount of time everyone else is. But my day is different - I always seem to get a lot done in the morning when I decide to spend the morning doing. Sometimes, I get stuff out of the way where before I’d have got home in the evening with that stuff hanging over my head, still to do -that’s an awesome feeling, having nothing to feel guilty about not doing.

There are days when I spend the “extra” time going for a walk (and when it was warmer, going for a run), or sitting outside enjoying the peace and quiet, or even, once in a while, sorting myself out a nice unhealthy cooked breakfast. On wednesdays I play racketball ridiculously early. I think the biggest benefit - the very best reason to get up a bit earlier - is just to have an hour to myself, to do with as I like.

By the way, if you were wondering why the snooze button gives you 9 minutes rather than, say, 10, or 12, or 14 minutes, Cecil Adams has The Straight Dope on this one.

If you have any tips that work for you, please share them below!

Image Credits

Snooze Button by seanmcgrath
Sunrise by Eye of Einstein

How many people, when they start trying to get fit or lose weight, stick with those changes? Not many, I’d wager. I have friends who’ve tried diets; some of them even worked, until the diet ended and they went back to eating badly. I have friends who’ve tried starting to exercise (myself included) who’ve let themselves do so less and less until they just give up entirely. I know people who’ve thrown out their TV, or microwave, in an effort to be more active or eat better, only to buy a new one weeks later.

The one thing in common with all of these people is something J.D. touched on recently in his recent How Fat is Too Fat? post on his Get Fit Slowly blog:

The actual weight isn’t that important to me — it’s the slow, sure lifestyle change.

As soon as you start focussing on weight or size, you are looking at a result of a problem, not the cause of it. If, like me, you are overweight, that’s not the problem - that’s a symptom of the problem. Not eating well, not exercising enough, drinking too much … these are the potential problems. The trick to making changes is to make them sustainable.

If you like going to the gym, you probably already do and are probably already in decent shape. If you hate going to the gym, unless you start enjoying it, you’re not going to stick with it. If you can’t stand running then, however determined you are, starting running is not going to become a new part of your lifestyle unless you learn to like it.

The same applies to just about any change you make - cutting out carbohydrates from your diet when you really like pasta isn’t going to work, because you’ll drift back to what you like. A temporary low fat diet may help you drop a few pounds in the short term, but as soon as you stop you’re going to put them back on, because there was no permanent change to your lifestyle - just a temporary change.

There are three ways to make sustainable changes to your lifestyle: Do More Activities You Enjoy, Learn to Enjoy More Healthy Activities and Learn to Dislike Unhealthy Activities.

Do More Activities You Enjoy

This sounds obvious, but most people start improving their health and fitness by doing things they hate. No wonder they don’t keep at it. There’s a huge number of people who buy exercise bikes, running shoes, rowing machines, just after new year because they’ve decided to do something about their health - and most of these things just sit and gather dust for the following year(s). And why? For the majority of people, there are plenty of things they could do that they actually enjoy.

Enjoy country air? Go for more walks. Enjoy cooking? Go to more markets and buy fresh food. Like both? Walk to markets! You should be aiming for half an hour of strenuous exercise, several times a week - but that doesn’t have to be the same thing every time. Got children, nephews or nieces? Take them to the park. Got a mother-in-law? Go running when she’s about to visit!

The trick is to do more of the healthy things you like - a year from now, you’ll likely have stuck with the change.

Learn to Enjoy More Healthy Activities

It’s quite possible that you don’t like anything that you could do more of that is more healthy. It’s unlikely, but possible. In which case, the best thing to do might be to find more things you do enjoy, or learn to like things you currently don’t like.

Running’s a good example, as that’s what I learned to like in the last year or so. I disliked the fact that running is lonely and a bit boring. Solution? Run with someone else, where there is an awesome view (the seafront). If running alone, I still run in places that are definitely not boring, but with music (or the radio). Problem solved - I now look forward to a run, instead of dreading it.

The same applies to just about anything. Intimidated by the gym? Go with a friend. Don’t like eating vegetables? Try new recipes until you find some you do like. Always skipping breakfast (very unhealthy, that)? Find a breakfast you enjoy. Ideally one that’s either dead simple to make (e.g., cereal) or you enjoy making (me, I like poaching eggs, not that I can do it properly).

Learn to Dislike Unhealthy Activities

This might be one of the most powerful and easiest ways to improve your lifestyle. Do you spend your evenings watching TV? Do you drive to the shops when you could easily walk? Do you microwave your dinner instead of cooking with fresh food? Do you eat 2 dishes because you don’t know how to cook anything else?

These are all habits that definitely fall on the unheathly side of the line, and all easily rectified. You don’t have to give your TV away or bin your microwave, but do be more conscious of the time you spend watching TV, and the meals you eat. Awareness is a good thing - you might find yourself shocked (and hopefully appalled) by the amount of TV you watch, and the type of foods you eat - good! Actually thinking about it - reflecting on it - will inevitably lead to you wanting to change it. You will find yourself wanting to watch less TV and finding other things to do (and some of those things might even be healthy). You will find yourself looking in different aisles at the supermarket for your dinner. You’ll find yourself walking to the shops to get a pint of milk, because when you stopped for a moment to think about it, you realised you didn’t need to drive and the walk would do you good.

There are some things you can do, pro-actively, to help with this. If you can’t cook, go on a course. If you watch too much TV, start writing down how much and what you watch. Same for driving - start writing down where you drive and why. Make sure you actually look at the logs, or they’re worthless. These are good starting points to help you change the problem, if you make use of them. And once you’ve started (i.e., aware of the problem), you’ll find yourself fixing it and liking the change.

A Shortcut!

Cheating … it’s wonderful. And with everything above, there are very easy ways to cheat your way to success. Top of the list, and by far my favourite - make friends with people who already do what you want to be doing!

You spend a lot of time with friends. If your friends are fit and healthy, there will be plenty more opportunities for you to do healthy things. If your friends live in the pub (or ice cream parlour), then you’ll have less opportunities. If you have friends who like to cook, you can learn from them. If your friends only eat baked beans on toast, the reverse is true.

I’m not suggesting you ditch your current friends, of course, but adding to your current group of friends with people who can help, motivate and support you with your lifestyle changes is always going to be a major plus and make any lifestyle changes you do make far more sustainable.

When I started paying more attention to my fitness a couple of years back, it almost directly as a result of taking a new job with a fitness-obsessed company (I manage several websites selling sports supplements, clothing and equipment) - not an ounce of fat on most of the people I worked with. I was also the only smoker in the place.

That induced in me an almost overwhelming sense of guilt. When I was younger (18 and below) I was rather sporty - I played a lot of squash and fives and was in decent shape. In the years following school, though, I got myself a collection of desk jobs, ate worse and drank more. I developed (it’s still there) a decent beer belly and a smoker’s cough. So the guilt was, I think, understandable - it wouldn’t have taken much to carry on with some basic exercise routine and even though I knew I should, I didn’t.

It was that change in circumstances that prompted me to actually act on the advice in the book I’d read a few months previously, Allen Carr’s The Easy Way to Stop Smoking (and the title is by no means sales patter - following hundreds of painful failed attempts to quit, stopping smoking using this book was easy). I also made a conscious choice to improve my lifestyle and my health.

Things started pretty slowly from there though. I’d stopped smoking but didn’t really seem to be making any progress with the lifestyle and health changes I’d decided to do. I found myself simply putting off doing much, and making excuses to myself for doing so.

First among them, I think, was just that it seemed like a mountain to climb. I had a fair bit of weight to lose and wasn’t really capable of doing much exercise. Not a good combination. I’d started out expecting to be able to do the sorts of levels of exercise I’d done as a teenager, but of course that was completely unrealistic. I needed to start slowly, and it took me a while to realise that.

I also made a simple mistake of starting with bad gear. When I started running (before the couch to 5k plan, I tried a few runs), I was running using very old trainers, and that meant that within a very short space of time I was extremely uncomfortable, unable to run far and unwilling to go again. Getting hold of better trainers and gear was another opportunity to put off starting properly again which I stupidly embraced.

I started to look at what I was doing in longer terms than was sensible. Rather than think about running this week, I was thinking about running every week, forever - and I can’t think of many things more offputting than that idea. It all became much easier to motivate myself when I looked at it one week at a time.

Finally, possibly the best solution to procrastination, I started a predetermined plan with a friend. She had fared no better than I at the fitness thing, though we’d both been talking about it for months. Agreeing to run together, early in the morning, towards a goal, with a clear path to get there, meant that there were no excuses, no opportunities to cry off. We ran in torrential rain, high wind and even hail, because it was a running day and dammit we were going to finish the plan.

And finish we both did. What neither of us had considered, of course, is that after that, we’d not be exercising together, towards a goal, or with a plan. And at the moment, we’ve both slipped back into a far less organised routine of fitness. I’m still playing squash and racketball, but no longer feel like I’m working towards something specific.

Perhaps I need a new plan. Couch to 5k Running Plan again? Couch to 10k this time? Couch to 10k Cycling? I’d love to hear your ideas, if you have any.

I do know, for sure, that having a good, achievable plan outlined before you start is a huge bonus and will leave the excuses far fewer places to fester.

It’s been a few months since my last post, and that’s just poor blogging (as Sam pointed out). I’ve been meaning to start writing again, but … well, haven’t got around to it.

Primarily the reason for that is guilt.

I finished the Couch to 5k plan, and am extremely proud of myself for doing so. Unfortunately, I failed dismally to keep up the running after the end of the plan.

In the last week of the plan, my shins were painful while running, and I decided that since the plan was finished I’d take a week off to let my legs, and the rest of me, recover. A week turned into two, which turned into a month (procrastination is powerful). All the while, I was trying to motivate myself to write about the end of the plan on here.

After a month, I managed to make it out for another run. I assumed I could go out and run 5k straight away after a short break. I was wrong. The cold had set in, and I found breathing difficult during the run (throat and lungs were burning fiercely after a short part of the run). Since then I’ve not been anxious to go out again, and without someone else to run with its fallen by the wayside.

That is, until last week, when I decided the best thing to do would be … to start the plan all over again! I know what’s involved now and know I can do it. The first run was a doddle compared to the first time I did the plan. And I can work back up to reasonable distances. All I need now is a way to ensure I keep running when the plan’s finished this time.

For anyone who was following my progress, the plan was awesome. The last two weeks were actually bordering on enjoyable - I found myself able to relax while running and felt really good about the whole thing. 3 times a week was managable, and I was certainly feeling the effects.

Since then, I’ve not been a complete slacker - I’m now playing squash and racketball 3 or 4 times a week, and have joined a local league. All is not lost!

Really this is days twenty two and twenty three rolled into one - there’s not a lot to say about the running at this stage! I’m now on to week 8 of the Couch to 5k plan. I really didn’t think I’d keep it up this long (said the Bishop to the Actress … da dum, tsschh) but am really happy to have done so. Plans rock.

Today, as for the other runs this week, I’m running 2.75 miles. I’m now fully on to distance rather than time - the point is to be running 5k after all. The runs are not getting much easier now, but they’re all doable. I can hold a conversation while running and recover reasonably quickly. My legs ache for a few hours, but that’s about it for the side-effects. At this point, I can see this being a habit I can keep up without too much trouble.

Ok, this isn’t actually part of the Couch to 5k plan, however …

My running partner is a day behind, and so this morning I decided to join her on her route (a nice seafront run). I missed a day earlier in the plan, so saw this as a nice opportunity to catch up. I’ve got no squash tomorrow, so no worries about being able to do anything following 2 days running in a row (which I’ve not done yet).

And it was much tougher than normal. Apparently those days of rest aren’t just there to make the plan look pretty. Without a day to recover from the last run, my legs starting aching much much faster than usual. The route itself was fairly tame - nice and flat - and we went early so it wasn’t too hot. Still, by the end I couldn’t have continued much further. Still a long way to go, I think!

The third and final run of week 7 of the Couch to 5k plan - only two weeks to go until the plan is officially complete! I am happy to report that I’ve lost … wait for it … absolutely no weight at all. I’m fitter though - the rest will happen in its own time.

I was back to my field-y golf-y uphill route today and my legs suffered for it. However, I did find I was able to enjoy the run more and spend a bit more time with my thoughts (which previously have been limited to “must … keep … running … mmm bacon”).

On to the second run of week 7 of the Couch to 5k plan today - another 25 minute jog around Hove.

I covered a bit over 2.5 miles and found it a little harder than Monday’s run. Still, things will only improve with time. The last 7 minutes or so of today’s run were particularly tough, as my legs were complaining rather a lot. I ignored them as they were just being lazy and though I ache now rather more than after Monday’s run, it’s a good kind of ache.

I also ran a different route today. It’s starting to get light later in the day, and my usual route is soon going to be pitch black at the time I go running, so I need an alternate. Today’s route is a strong contender, though I still haven’t run along the seafront where I live. Perhaps that’s something to do on Friday.