Fitness Goals-100 Days at a Time

A friend from high school which I used to play basketball with, commented recently that I don't talk about Fitness very much and mostly talk about Finance......truer words have never been spoken.  So here we go, Fitness Real Talk. 

Let me start out by saying I stopped(canceled membership) going to the gym June 2013, so 8 or 9 months ago, I then took the $54 I was paying in gym fees and put that toward buying Nike stock, the irony on this is simply priceless.  I stopped going to the gym for a number of reasons. 

• I wasn't seeing results.  I was lifting heavier weights, but I'm not entering any Strongman competitions anytime soon, I want to be lean and fit circa 2000, just so I'm at least in this century at least.

• Because of the results, I showed up less and less.  The gym was in my building and sure it was nice to go before work or during lunch, it was a process.

• Summer was coming and I knew I wasn't going to be hitting the gym, I was going to be running and biking more than anything.

• Angel, my dog.  I walk my dog every day, 2x a day, a quick 15-20 min walk in the morning and a 30-60 min walk when I get home.  So I was already getting my walking exercise and I could see results just from walking daily.

Good news as of October 2013 I was lightest(227lbs) I've been since probably when I graduated college.  This was all without working out during this time, just walking the dog and eating right, throw in a Sunday basketball game and call it a week.  

In October my parents came and I told myself I was going to ease up a little because I wanted to have a beer and whatever my parents were going to cook during this time, I was also easing back in butter and cheese(gluten free or grass-fed only, usually Kerrygold)  I was doing my best to stick with this and try to add items that were at least gluten free.  Since October-February I have been a roller coaster of eating, going completely rogue and eating what I wanted to strict Paleo for a week or gluten free additions.  I have included intermediate fasting to balance some of the heavy eating days. 

The fact remained I was all over the place with weight, going up a little more than I was going down, just happy to be under the 230 mark was a success.  I am able to walk daily usually 1-2 miles with my dog, so that has been the Winter Workout in a nutshell, throw in some Sunday basketball aka the only day I sweat throughout the week.  So thanks Angelita(my Siberian Husky).

If you live in the Midwest.......

I am a believer in Paleo and over the last 2 weeks have been working to get back to my Paleo ways, not as strict  as my 30 day Paleo challenge, but working my way back to that point.  I have started a 100 day transformation. Over this time period I am working on getting my diet and my fitness level at a constant level and where I feel like I need to be. 

As many have you have seen, taking a large time frame and attempting to be successful is one of the most difficult things in the world for many and definitely for myself.  So along the way I am creating goals along the way in 7 day increments.  For example Days 8-15 were adding a set of push ups each day to the week, making sure I reached my month long goal of reaching 42 miles walking for the month, and bringing my lunch every day to work.  I also created 2 items, 1 is my Duke notebook where I am open and honest of what I ate, what went well and what I didn't do so well.  The other is a calendar of those 100 days, only putting positive comments on each day, if I did the push ups, ate Paleo, walked extra, it's the Positive Only Calendar.  

As I'm putting words to computer I'm realizing my short term goals are great and I'm doing well with following and living up to those goals, doing my best to be held accountable.  What I failed to do was create an end goal and goals along the way to show my progress, if you want to reach a goal you have to have measuring points.  So I'm going to start listing out my goals below.  I'm also going to be dedicated to posting 1 Fitness blog a week to show my progress and what I've been working on throughout the week, It will be Fitness Friday post.  


End of March Goals

• Lose 8 lbs which should put me right around 215 lbs

• Walk a total of 60 miles(keep track on Nike app) this is Mon-Fri after work and all day Sat-Sun, morning walks will not count since it's 5:30 am and I'm lucky to know I'm wearing clothes to go outside

• Add in 2 sets of (push ups, sit ups, body squats)

End of April Goals

• Lose 8 lbs which should put me right around 207 lbs

• Add in 2 weekly runs in place of the walks, still keeping a total of 60 miles for the month

• An additional day of a sport per week( this could be an additional day of basketball, volleyball, flag football, anything to keep active)

100 Day Goals

• Hit 199 lbs

• Create a summer workout at the park/beach 2-3 days a week

• Have a 80/20 Paleo program, which will include a list of items I tolerate(IE grass fed butter) with my Paleo standards

• Complete 12 Fitness Friday Blog Posts

Around this time I was right around the 240 mark, plus or minus 2 pounds.  I had definitely dropped from being my 265 when I was in Florida and switched to cutting out the evil sugar from my diet, but gained a solid 10 lbs since being in Chicago and eating hot-dog's and drinking beers. I took the summer off to walking daily and occasionally running and biking and playing basketball on Sunday, results were not there.  Although neither was my focus, I think in my head I thought if I do these things the pounds will come off.  My eating was "normal", I wasn't eating fast food every day, but I also wasn't shying away from eating how I wanted either. 

Fast forward to September.  I read and listen to alot of informational items, mostly about money and health and fitness.  After listening to Robb Wolf and his podcasts, Fat Burning Man, I finally got off my arse and did a 30 day Paleo Challenge.  To my surprise it was easy and I really liked the principals behind it.  Eat meat, veggies, and fruit, I was able to lose 10-15lbs and my Achilles pain that I was waking up with every morning(I was walking around like I was 60) went away.  Pretty great intro to eating Paleo and feeling great, I had thoughts and hopes of getting down to 185-190, about what I was in high school during basketball season.  Of course this was when I'd eat Burger King before a late basketball practice and just run it off during practice.  That doesn't exactly happen, It's 9-5 and cook and clean and walk the dog and watch some TV to finish up the night.

So I have issued a challenge to myself and to anyone who reads this, tell me what you are doing to avoid that winter weight, what do you do when your work out?  

I want to get a kettle bell to add some weights into my workout, have any thoughts on this?  What's your goals, does weight or fitness matter? 

Are you the same as you were in high school or college or whenever you were your fittest?

Finance=Fitness Lose Weight=Savings, etc

The name of the blog much like most of my posts here are Finance and Fitness Dreams, I think there are so many different correlations to each other, that it deserved a special post to compare a little.  I will be the first to tell you I struggle with both Finance and Fitness, I'm not 600 lbs or filing bankruptcy, but I struggle to not eat an entire bag of chocolate covered pretzels or rack up credit card debt and I think these are highly correlated.

Let's start with a couple things that always pop up when talking about Fitness or Finance.  He's born with great genetics, that's why he has a 6 pack or the finance equivalent they were born into that money, these are the same thing just different worlds.  The real question is ok that's true you don't have great genetics, your family didn't hand you a trust fund on your 18th birthday, so WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?

There are so many cases of people getting in better shape and increasing there net worth, so I believe these go hand in hand, here's a couple that Finance and Fitness terms that do that:

Finance=Fitness
Budget=Diet
Investing=Gym
Money/Job=Healthy Food You Eat
Credit Cards=Junk Food or Carbs
Cash=Meat/Protein
Good Debt=100 Calorie Snack Packs
Retiring Early=Crossfit or Explosive Movement Exercise
Bankruptcy=Obesity
Side Income=Going for that Extra Gym Session Saturday Morning
Investing in Index Funds=Walking

I'm sure there is 100's more, this was my brainstorm of Finance=Fitness, maybe you can come up with your own and we can get a huge list going or at least bigger list!

So many things have gone the other direction for Finance and Fitness in America and even all over the world, being in debt and overweight is the new "normal"  What are you doing to break out from this, I mean what am I doing?  I'm on a budget, I walk every day, I stay away from Credit Cards, I keep to a Paleo or Paleo Lite eating pattern, I practice what I preach.  Do I fail?  Every day, but if you move on from that daily failure, you can make the next day a success.  I ate chocolate covered pretzels yesterday(a lot of them), does that mean I'm ditching my Paleo Lite(90% Paleo, 10% Organic/Gluten Free), h-e-l-l no(said with attitude, neck cocked, possible finger wave), it means I'm going to do my best possible to eat right today and just as important as that is what went wrong yesterday so I can fix  this.  Because you know the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and expecting different results.  I know that yesterday my breakfast was very light, so I had a snack early, which left my lunch very small.  That means today a couple things are changing, I went with a heavier lunch, of more meats and vegetables, not just the small sandwich I ate yesterday.  I will not be going to CVS/Walgreen's to pick up some more junk snacks.  Is there other solutions, h-e-l-l YES(just shouting this time), I could have not waited till my 3rd alarm and then slept 20 extra minutes and ate a real breakfast, eggs and bacon.  Today was not that day, so we moved to another option, I was prepared in some way.

Be prepared. if it's one thing that's important about Finance and Fitness it's being prepared, if you are not prepared to make a major purchase you might resort to using a credit card or not have a good lunch and your eating chocolate pretzels and looking like this guy.



I mean if you really think about Jared could be the spokes model, yeah Jared's a model for Finance and Fitness.  What this guy do he got in shape, ate right to lose weight, does some exercise and boom has a net worth of 15mm(here's an article that says so http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/jared-subway-guy-marks-15-years-turkey-subs-article-1.1365511).  I of course prefer David Beckham and Warren Buffett(Mark Cuban rejected my offer, just kidding sorda).

I am also a big believer in "Laser Focus"  If you want to do anything to the best of your ability, you need to dedicate 100% of your energy if not you will not get the best possible results.  A simple way to think about this is try eating a healthy snack while doing a bench press, pretty tough to lift those 200lbs when you have an apple in your mouth.  I know that sounds a little ridiculous, but so is expecting the best results without dedicating yourself.  In previous posts I have mentioned that I Sprint and Relax, because otherwise I end up cheating a little on both.  For me I have 2 focuses currently and that's why I believe I ate a bag of chocolate pretzels yesterday, I wasn't laser focus on my fitness goals.  I have went from my Paleo challenge all the way down to Paleo Lite, I still have the ultimate goal of losing 14.8 lbs(down 2.2 lbs), but I'm not going to get there unless I change my habits Now.  I listen to a Dave Ramsey podcast every morning, as a friend from work says, he reminds you to save every day and I let him know yep I need that reminder.  It's the same for Paleo and Fitness, apparently I need an every day reminder.

Yes Finance does equal Fitness, neither one is easy, neither one is difficult on a numbers level spend less than you earn and eat less than you burn, seems simple enough.  It's not otherwise everyone would be wearing one of these shirts(abs in cutoff shirt and sweater tied over your shirt equals rich in my crazy mind).  So I guess what I'm saying is when I've made it to where I want to be I'll be wearing a cutoff belly shirt with a sweater tied over my shoulders............I can dream, Finance and Fitness Dreams.

Why this is a Retire Extremely Early and Paleo Lifestyle Blog

As you have probably seen in a few posts previously the overwhelming direction of Finance and Fitness Dreams entails two distinct directions,  Retiring Really Early and the Paleo Way of Life.

Many of you might think this is pretty interesting or many might think I'm crazy.  Good news is I'm OK with either one.  I don't want to be normal, I have absolutely no desire to be 45 and working in corporate America waiting for the day I can retire and "enjoy my older years".  One of my favorite quotes is "youth is wasted on the young". Why not retire at 30, 40, or 50?  Think of the things you would be able to do with your free time:  visit family, volunteer at a non-profit, maybe travel.  I'm not sure what your dream is but mine is many of these and more.

I'm on my way to retiring in 7 years. The concept is simple, have a passive income(non 9-5 job) that is greater than your monthly spending.  If you have 2K in income per month, well you better not spend a dime over that, whether you are traveling, buying groceries, or making a payment to the IRS.  Make more than you spend.  Crazy concept I know.  As most in there 30's are figuring out this is the  best income producing time you have had, so this is when you pile up savings and pay down debt.  We are currently on our way and our plan looks something like this in terms of year by year:

• Year 1(the next 7 months for us)-Pay off Half of my Student Loan Debt, pay 33% of our Rental House Off, Pay Regular Payments on our current home, Contribute the Matching portion to our Roth 401K and 401K(Year 1-7), Contribute personal savings to a personal Stock Portfolio(Year 1-7)
• Year 2-Pay off Student Loan Debt, Pay 33% of our Rental House
• Year 3-Pay off our Rental House(creating a Passive Income Stream in Year 4).  At the end of year 3, based on a tight budget we would be able to retire, since the income from the Rental House and our Current Home(paid for with rents coming in) would satisfy our current costs.  But to say it would be tight would be an understatement and I don't think that's my dreams to be living on a tight budget, it would take away some of the very things I want to do with my retirement.
• Year 4-Reevaluate our current situation, time frame, pay off schedule, and goals.  Pay 25% of our Owner Occupied Home
• Year 5-Pay 25% of our Owner Occupied Home
• Year 6-Pay 25% of our Owner Occupied Home
• Year 7-Pay 25% of our Owner Occupied Home and be Debt and Mortgage Free

So this puts us in a situation where we would have the option to retire.  We would live off what is considered the average household income in America.  We would need to budget for the every day expenses of groceries, utilities, etc while making sure our taxes, insurance, and health care were included in this.  After those few expenses everything else would be used to do the things we find retirement worthy.

                                       

During these 7 years there will be bumps along the road, but I have put our 7 year plan on a very Ronald Reagan conservative(I'm not political, although I do think Ronald Reagan seems pretty cool for an old guy) approach, especially with the fact that I think this can be done in 3 years and the reason for an evaluation to see what we think is best.  Along the way we may beef up our HSA Savings or Retirement Bonus of our 401K.  The strategy in year 4-7 may lean more towards creating an even larger emergency fund of all cash, possibly switching the investments to a larger portion in taxable versus non-taxable income.  This is the journey this is my path, I plan to retire early by using Rental Income.  Along the way I will read everything I can get my hands on from retire early finance blogs, books, and anything else that I think will bring me closer to my desired location, Retire Extremely Early!!!



I have chosen the Paleo lifestyle for many reasons but mostly because it yields results.  Recently I did the 30 day Paleo Challenge and was able to lose some weight and feel healthier, with items such as my Achilles being pain free, which is an amazing feeling from walking around every morning like you are 65.  Since the Paleo challenge I have been for the most part Paleo(minus Christmas, HoHoHo) along the way.  I am good not having Dairy, Legumes, and Pastas back in my diet.  The one exception is cheese, I'm from Wisconsin, that's against the rules.  I do keep the cheese to gluten free so usually Boar's Head or if I can find a cheese that is from Grass Fed Cow's then I'm in business.  So this week I am starting back with my Sprint and Relax Paleo.

I really believe eating right with Paleo and exercising(Walking my dog a couple times a day) is the way to health and feeling great.  So this week will be the week of the Chicken!  I will have a couple obstacles with work, new year's, and college basketball game, but will be a great test early.  My goal as of January 31st is to have less than 7 items that are not Paleo or at least Gluten Free.

I can't suggest enough to read up on eating Paleo.  If I could sum up Paleo I would say it's eating like your Grandma and Grandpa used to eat,  just more natural products, not processed or with a bunch of ingredients you can't pronounce.  Have you tried Paleo or thought about retiring early, let me know with a comment.

Do you spend your savings on Lattes and Lunch?

Daily/Weekly Spending.

So over the past month or so I have noticed my spending to be going up a little bit, I'm usually pretty good with only buying 1 or 2 coffees($2-$4), 1 snack($3-$5), and lunch once or twice($10-$20, so spending $15-$29 a week isn't terrible in my book, but it not only needs to get better, but it needs some more attention.  My goal is to keep my total to $20 for the week, this includes coffee, snacks, and lunch.  I'm going to keep track of my spending during the week and see where I am at.  I encourage you to do the same.

Day 1-Monday-Running Total at the Start of the Day $0.00

$8.50 on some amazing Paleo Granola mix, this should last me throughout the week as a snack, it's a little more than I usually spend, but it's for the whole week.  Strike that I ate the whole bag today, i'm pretty sure I gained 5 pounds doing so and it was delicious.  I also brought my lunch, so while this saved me some cash, the amount of food I ate, Paleo or not was about as much as an Offensive Lineman for the Packers.

Day 2-Tuesday-$8.50

So I lost my fantasy football bet and decided to pay up today and reward myself for losing apparently, 2 medium coffees $4.   Well in terms of losing I apparently lost on this one.  Good news is I am doing an intermittent fast today(http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2013/08/06/a-beginners-guide-to-intermittent-fasting/).  Here's a good website that gives the details good and bad.  I've done it a couple times over the past weeks and I find it great for balancing out my body and practicing hunger control.  Sounds crazy, but many people do it intentionally and unintentionally every day.

Day 3-Wednesday-$12.50

I have decided is going to be No Money Spent Wednesday, I mean I have a goal right, based on the way i'm going I'm going to lose and I don't like to lose unless it's the LB's, that's pounds for all you metric kilogram trackers out there.  I did a great job, brought in my coffee and ate some leftover chicken for lunch, I really feel like I won today.....Winning

Day 4-Thursday-$12.50

Well it certainly helps to have a Chili-Cookoff at work, I am spending $0 today on lunch, I will be doing my best to not spend over the $15 my wife "gave to me" for a Happy Hour, plus a little money coming from my work for the event always helps.  The good news is I was able to use the $15 for the Happy Hour from my wife, I'm going to include that in my total, I'm also going to include the $5 entry fee for entering the cook-off which if I would have won(should have won my Chili is delicious).  So I did spend a total of $20 today on the extra's in life, beer and chili.  When I came home my wife did happen to buy some take out food, which I do not count in my specific budget, but that is something I'm hoping to work together on very shortly:)

Day 5-Friday-Running Total at the Start of the Day $32.50

Today is a good day right, because it's Friday!  I started the day off with a free coffee(I have a coffee betting problem and I'm not afraid to admit, I won today).  I brought some lunch from home, keeping it simple with lunch meat, cheese, and an an orange.  I'm working on keeping this day free of spending, so I plan on wrapping it up with a total of $32.50.

Day 6-Saturday-Running Total $32.50

So once again the good news is I was able to not have any spending on my part, which for a Saturday is semi-amazing.  My wife and I did stop by portagegrounds.com
for a coffee purchased by my wife, while we figured out our spending habits and I am going to help set up an automation system for my wife, starting January 1.  I also ate my Paleo breakfast before I came so even if I would have spend money it would have been $2 or $3 total.

Day 7-Sunday-All-in Total for the Week $32.50

I did not spend a dime on food, actually cooked a couple things on Sunday(key to success for limiting Eating Out).  The most I did was drive the car to go play basketball, so I brought my water, worked up a sweat, and finished up the day right.

So in Summary for the week, this is actually really expensive for me from what I would like my budget to be.  The budget I would like to keep is $50 for the month, so in Chicago that amounts to about 1 coffee and a lunch a week.  I feel like I have been doing a poor job of my eating out budget, so I am sticking strictly to cash for the month of December, taking $50 out of the checking and calling it a month.  Well if anything this has kept me accountable and I learned that I still need to keep a stricter budget with coffee and eating out during the week because it encourages me to eat more healthy and Paleo and also keeps the costs down.

Thanks for reading and make sure to comment on what your budget is?  How you manage bringing in your lunch and eating out?  If I'm crazy for keeping track of this?

Paleo and the 30 Day Challenge-It's Finance and Fitness

I have been away from writing for awhile and due mostly to focusing on other items in my life.  I found it best to use all of my focus on one item in my life to get the most production.   This is what I refer to as Sprint and Relax.  

So what have I been up to for the last 2 months?  Well the most important thing was I did the 30 day Paleo Challenge.  Paleo might be known better to you as the Caveman diet or the hunter-gatherer diet.  Here is a general outline of what I ate for those 30 days, shown below, you can check out  Robb Wolf's What is the Paleo Diet? for more info.

 Ok to Eat                 Avoid

Fruits	Dairy
Vegetables	Grains
Lean Meats	Processed Food & Sugars
Seafood	Legumes
Nuts & Seeds	Starches
Healthy Fats	Alcohol

I really took this seriously, I ate almost to the tee the outline above, I don't eat that much bread anyways besides sandwiches,which is usually the most difficult item for people to give up, but that was easily replaced with lettuce or cabbage.  Cheese or Dairy was probably the most difficult for me and after the 3rd week I ended up adding it back in.  Like many lifestyle changes, you end up taking what you can't live without and  I added cheese back in but went with a common theme in the paleo way of life to eat everything as natural as possible, just like your grandma used to make.  So I added Kerrygold Swiss Cheese which is made from all natural grass-fed cows, I also did the same thing with butter, using the same brand.  

I was able to lose around 15 pounds in those 30 days, which I am really proud of.   My parents came to visit and I knew immediately I would take a little break from my Paleo lifestyle.  Overall I have stuck with Paleo, many of the principals are easy to follow.  If I am ever in doubt for any of the items I choose to eat or need a recipe, I can always check the Internet to confirm or for the most part if it's Gluten Free then it's good to go.

  

Losing weight and being healthy for me starts with Paleo.  I did not go out of my way to exercise with the exception of walking my dog every day, so I think that's what made me feel great about this, I wasn't running 5 miles a day or lifting 3 days a week, I stuck with Paleo and it worked.

I think finance and fitness have so many of the same principals to winning.  You have to eat healthy or be financially fit, no credit cards or ice cream,  eat less than you need or don't spend more than you earn.  So many of these things are exactly the same and exactly the reason why America is Obese and Broke.  So try something different this week and bring all of your lunches or don't put sugar in your coffee this week, I think we all need to start somewhere and today is a good day.