Retrospective

September was fun but it wasn’t good for my weight. I went out to eat with friends multiple times. I had my birthday on the 15th and turned 25. In that week I was ordering and eating out pretty often. Even went for brunch. I haven’t been very carefully recording on MyFitnessPal and my weight has been a sine wave between 59.6 and 62.65. I just made a sheet of the times I ordered in food, normally I’d order in food at the end of the month as a reward but this month I ordered 20 times. These aren’t 20 separate days, some of these are meals followed by deserts. That’s how I got to my all time high weight initially. Not proud but I ordered Nutella Waffles 9 times this month. I ordered Indian Chinese food 7 times. I ordered burgers once. The remaining 3 orders are from relatively healthy places, Albahaca and DRVN. I have also eaten out 5 times, 4 of which can be excused as they were birthday related.

I had identified this problem a few weeks ago. A week ago I started taking it seriously but I have fallen back to ordering. If the weight wasn’t going down as expected I’d order, because what’s the point of being nice anyway. If the weight would drop, I’d order because it’s going down so I deserve it. This is wrong. I need to focus on daily losses and just moving in the right direction, which is down. I’m hoping that writing all of this puts some sense into me and I start working towards the goal again. The best way to exercise self-control is not to exercise it at all.

  1. Running: I wanted to run 93.6 km, I am done with 111.6 km. So this is done! I am past my 1000k goal. I get Hokas. ✅

  2. Weight: The rant before explains that I have failed this goal. It’s the 26th today and I weighed 62.65 this morning. I don’t think I can fix it by the end of the month. I wanted to weigh 59, so this is a loss. ❌

  3. Reading: Done with 2 AD videos and 2 Chapters of Google SRE Handbook. Read 160 pages of Godel Escher Bach and then decided to read That Will Never Work, a book about Netflix by Marc Randolph, one of the founders. No prize was associated with this. ✅

  4. Side Project: Wanted to reach a hundred users but then decided to pivot and focus on businesses instead. Got about 50 signups. ❌

  5. Nike Training Club: I got done with 12 exercises using a combination of f45, skipping and NTC. ✅

That’s £100 for charity for whose counting. The dollar equivalent was $127. If you have a charity that you feel closely about, leave a comment.

Charity

Hopefully Give India is legit and so is this foundation. One can only hope I guess.

Month Planning

The top goal is to get the weight in control. I have realized that running every day allows me to not give into my food urges. So here’s the plan

  1. Running: I’ll run 5km daily for a total of 155km at the end of the month. There is no win here. If I don’t reach 93km at the end of October I get the usual £50 penalty.

  2. Weight: With the September Fiasco I am essentially at the same position I was at the beginning of August. This is bad. I weighed in at 62.65 this morning. So the goal here is to get back to under 60, and then finally under 59 and the end of the month. I think it should be doable, as I am starting early I have more days and also I have been at that lower weight. Till I get down to under 60, I can’t get the iPhone as that was associated with being under 60. Till I don’t get under 59, I can’t order in food. I can go out for a meal assuming its with someone, so needs to be a social and lets cap that to at most 4 in the month. The PS5 is coming out in November and I want a weight goal associated with it too, I put that at under 57. I don’t think I’ll weigh 57 at the end of the month but one can wish. Win: At under 60 become eligible for iPhone again, at under 59 become eligible for a cheat meal, at under 57 become eligible for a PS5. Loss: £50 charity if I am not under 59 at the end of the month, also iPhone and food ordering remains blocked.

  3. Reading: Shahriar from Metaview was kind enough to send a few books my way this month. I want to finish INSPIRED by the end of the month. It’s a book about creating products that customers love. I also want to finish Chromosome 6, a medical thriller that my sister sent. No wins here. Loss: £50 if I don’t finish either of the books.

  4. Exercise: I’ll take up f45 for the month of October. A trainer at f45 suggested that I do strength sessions. That’s the plan, to do 4 sessions at f45 each week. There’s a good possibility I end up sore after a few sessions. So setting reasonable win and loss goals. Win: If I do more than 12 sessions I get another month of f45. Loss: £50 to charity if I don’t do 10 sessions.

  5. Side Project: I don’t want to put any numbers here but I’d be happy if I achieve what I set out to achieve every sprint. No wins or losses here. I’ll report with results.

  6. Meditation: I bought Waking up By Sam Harris on the 3rd of August thinking I’d meditate again but I have only done 15 classes in the last 54 days. That’s bad. I want to bring a morning routine where I get up at most by 8 o clock, and meditate. I have created a sheet to track sleep, meditation and f45. No wins or losses here. If the results are terrible I’ll have something next month.

I’ll also track my calorie intake in MyFitnessPal religiously! I have already moved my target from 63 to 56! It thinks my current weight is 59.7, I better correct that now. Stay tuned.