#100DaysofHealth

Hey, I’m on a roll. 10 things I like about my body, about exercise, why not about eating right? Way back in the first week of #100DaysofHealth, I set up my philosophy on eating during this time as, “Eat real food, not too much, mostly plants” (which I stole directly from Michael Pollen, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma).

After nearly 8 weeks of nearly constant exercise, I gotta say I’m not as excited about it as I was at the beginning. In fact, I’m starting to have some of those thoughts one has (“Do I REALLY have to do it today? It’s not working. I hate it. I can’t wait for 100 days to be over”) that lead pretty quickly to giving up.

I’ve decided to think good thoughts instead of discouraging thoughts about my health and body this week (see day 52). Being a born and, at this point, highly skilled pessimist/critic, this has been harder than you’d think. Starting with, I’ve struggled with what to think positive thoughts ABOUT. So I’m just going to start with the obvious thing: the body that I’ve been modifying (or perhaps abusing, depending on your POV) for the past 53 days.

Yesterday, as I was sweating and straining my way up a mile-long hill on my bike during an 18-mile ride that I would have called impossible 2 months ago, I was simultaneously listening to a Tedx talk by about body image and how it contributes to the epidemic of eating disorders in the U.S. today. The gal presenting the talk related how, as a not-even-very-pudgy 10 year old, she was ridiculed and excluded by her classmates, which of course led to 20 years of incessant dieting and fear of food, which led to the day she actually DID reach her goal weight, and then burst into tears because being 125 pound was supposed to make her life perfect. She blamed ‘society’ for the pressure she felt, for the anti-fat prejudice that she faced, and for the abuse she took as an overweight person.

I still find it strange and fascinating that we have so many well-defined options for getting and keeping the bodies we want, but so few for creating the minds we want. Sure, there are widely varying opinions about which diet and/or exercise plan is the right one, or the best one; but there’s no question that there are plenty to follow, and that most of them, if followed, will work.

So I have this friend. I know, it’s surprising. In fact, it might be more apt to describe him as an “accomplice”. I assume we all have one of these: the person you’d go to if you really wanted weed (and didn’t have tenants). The one you text when something hilarious occurs to you that’s waaaaaaay too inappropriate to go into your Facebook status.   The one with whom you either drop all pretense of being offend-able, or else get offended, a lot.

“The days are long but the years are short”—Lazarus Long, or Gretchen Rubin, depending on your source. I am very, very close to being halfway through my #100DaysofHealth project. It’s stunning to think that it’s been 7 weeks. It feels like forever, but also like I just started.

I’ve spent crazy amounts of time over the last 48 days researching exercise, health, fitness, longevity, mental health, and, most importantly, how to fit all this, permanently, into an already overly-busy, overly-committed life. Far and away, the book that’s impacted me most has been Younger Next Year for Women (there’s a men’s version, too, of course; in fact, “for Women” is the sequel). The book is a good read; it’s funny, irreverent, and inspiring. But the one line summary is this: exercise hard, 6 hours a week, stop eating crap, and get some friends.

So it turns out, at least according to this book I’m reading and a new longitudinal study about risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease that the keys to a long, healthy and compos mentis life are diet (check), exercise (check), and creating and maintaining close social relationships (dup doh). At this moment, there are about 5 people in my life who, if they died or decided not to hang with me anymore, would leave me more or less without a “social circle”. Which is apparently something that I need for my own long-term health and happiness.

I like to live my life as a series of 7- to 30-day challenges. As near as I can tell, it’s the only way to ‘try out’ the hundreds of promising self-improvement, business-improvement, and health-improvement ideas I hear every year from sources ranging from Tony Robbins to Tedx to Oprah Magazine.

I’ve been pretty immersed just lately in all the studies/articles/conversation about what I’d call “habits of highly effective healthy people”. As I may have mentioned a time or 50, a lot of the information one finds in these studies is contradictory, and I’ve come to the conclusion that: