Fitness Goals for 2017

Fitness goals are very common for New Years Resolutions, and I certainly have my own. My goals are fairly modest, which might be characterized as being not ambitious enough, but it also makes them more attainable. Plus, achieving those modest goals might provide the inspiration for further goals later in the year. What I’m going to focus my energy on is undoing the harmful physical effects that been brought about by my current employment situation. Since starting my new job, I’ve put on about ten pounds. This has been due to the long hours, stress, and loss of sleep, which have combined to make me feel hungry much more than before and thus my food consumption has gone up over the past two months. Normally this biological response would be a good thing, as it would be my body recognizing that I’m in a bad place and trying to stockpile calories to stay alive, however the human body isn’t very good at telling the difference between when it is in a disaster zone and when it just has a lousy desk job, so it is telling me to eat more even though I’m in no actual physical danger. The tipping point when I realized I needed to take action came not too long ago when I was getting dressed. I used to fit nicely into a size 32 waist, but with the additional weight I’ve put on I’ve been having to use my pants that have a size 33 waist, and I’m not ok with a large chunk of my wardrobe being unusable. Right now I’m weighing about 160 pounds, so my goal is to get down to where I was two months ago, at around 150 pounds. Some adjustments to my diet are already in the works and I’m recommitting to my old gym routine. I’ve put on weight and managed to lose it in the past, so I know can do this, but it won’t be any fun, and it certainly will not be as easy as it was when I was in my early 20s. I estimate it will take at least a month or two (from around the time of the publishing of this post) for me to first halt the downward slide and then take off the gained weight. After that, if I’m feeling inspired, maybe I’ll go for some other goal, and if that happens to be the case I’ll be sure to let you know.