Self Improvement – Page 2

I Need a New Belt

I’ve fallen off of posting for a while, but I’m still planning to continue uploading my short story collection up here.

Today, however, I had another great weight loss milestone. I was wearing pants that I have to wear a belt with, and throughout the day I noticed that my belt was a little loose despite being configured as tightly as possible.

Long story short, my belt is no longer doing a great job of keeping my pants up, though I discovered this at home and not by having a tragic wardrobe malfunction in public.

I guess getting a new belt can be added to my list of things to do this weekend. I’m a little happy about this because I’ve been worried about not having as much gym time as I would normally get this last week and a half.

My next big focus has to be on getting rid of some of this belly fat. I’ve made really good losses elsewhere, but I’m not as concerned about them for health reasons and otherwise.

I’m thinking that some good core exercises will help, but I’m a little bit of a procrastinator, so I’ll start tomorrow.

Getting more disciplined with exercise overall is a good idea. I’m pretty disciplined (though not perfect, by any means) with my diet, but my exercise routine is anything but.

Diet Milestones (Again)

One of the things that I worry about as I diet is that I could forget the reasons why I went on a diet in the first place and what the weight loss has brought me.

Just this week, I had two things happen to me that I hope to remember if I ever get the temptation to ease up and fall off the wagon.

First, I was stretching out one of my legs and I reached down to grab my ankle/calf region and felt nothing but muscle and bone. Admittedly, I never had a whole lot of fat around my ankles, but feeling that as opposed to having the little wiggling and jiggling I was used to was really sort of a “I did it!” moment.

The other thing that happened to me is that I was getting ready in the morning and I put on a belt (I typically wear business casual attire, with my shirt untucked: needing a belt at all is simply a consequence of losing enough weight that my old pants don’t fit me as well anymore), only to find that I was adjusting it to the smallest possible size.

The particular belt I had is one that I got just a few weeks into my diet, when I discovered that I had already become too small for my other belts.

I guess I’m going to need to replace it soon.

I’ve been a little put off recently by the lack of any visible weight loss, especially in my belly area, but apparently I’m still dropping some pounds, and that’s a good feeling.

Reflections on Weight Loss

As of this week, I’ve hit my original goal weight when I started dieting. I’ve still got some distance left to go before I’m at an ideal weight, but I’m a lot healthier and happier than I was before I got here, so that’s a good plus.

A few things I’ve noticed that I want to quickly reflect on before I forget them on this are:

I’ve gotten a lot more deliberate in what I eat. No more sides at restaurants unless they’re something I actually want.
Letting myself have an occasional indulgence as part of a planned, regular occurrence (AKA cheat day) makes it a lot easier to resist those temptations during the rest of the time, since I’m not developing a “Woe is me, I can’t have donuts” complex.
It’s required me to change the way I view my actions. No more blaming the junk food for my choice to eat it. Developing the ability to resist temptation is important, and one of the reasons my prior efforts have failed.

I think it’s a little telling that despite the fact that I eat less, and generally a little more austere fare than what I ate before I went on my diet, I’m still pretty happy with what I’m eating.

In fact, I think I might actually rate my overall satisfaction from the food I eat as higher than I would have before my diet. There are a few things that go into that, of course, since I’m not getting as much carbohydrate-induced spikes in hunger, but I think some of it is getting rid of the things I used to eat just to have something to eat.

Now that I just eat primarily protein and greens, with fresh fruit as an added element, I find meals more enjoyable than I used to because they don’t have any associated feelings of overindulgence (and guilt) or potential pain down the road in the form of indigestion.

The Importance of Reading

Since beginning a voyage of self-improvement in March, I’ve read 200 articles and at least 10 books just for the sake of reading more.

I spend at least one hour every day dedicated solely to reading, and I spend a fair amount of time reading stuff written by people who ~~are wrong~~ disagree with the beliefs that I hold.

And I’ve noticed a few positive trends in my life.

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The Writer as Stoic

Stoicism is an important philosophy in the founding tenets of the Western world; it is frequently tied into Christianity owing to the religion’s nature as part of a Roman tradition (albeit one that grew to outstrip the political entity that eventually adopted it).

Stoicism involves the pursuit of morality and virtue above all else (which certainly helps explain its appeal to Christian scholars who saw a link between it and the teachings of their faith, leading it to be preserved for centuries with a great deal of fervor as a sort of secular proof of the rightness of a moral life).

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Overcoming the Self

I looked at the scale, and I knew intuitively that my weight was going to kill me. I had been having problems sleeping because I couldn’t get comfortable. I was dealing with minor, but persistent, pains that were impacting my life choices. I wasn’t happy with how I looked.

I knew something had to change.

Of course, I’d try changing before, so what made this time different?

Well, for starters I was reaping the full consequences of my actions. Homer Simpson-esque jokes about pitying my future self were less amusing when I found myself as the butt of the experience.

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Enjoying the Simple Things

Tonight as I try to get some writing done, I figured that I should write something a little more personal and introspective, since I’m doing most of my stuff for Loreshaper Games over at steemit.

As I’ve gotten more disciplined in how I live my life, I’ve found that it’s important to make time for the simple things. Increasing the amount of moderation with which I have lived my life has made the everyday things more significant and more meaningful.

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Life is Short: Leave Virtue As Your Legacy

The other day I was driving home from an outing when I nearly got into a car accident because a massive van tried to enter my lane and did not stop when I honked. I was, fortunately, able to swerve into another lane, but I had a huge rush of adrenaline (as one is prone to do when nearly in an accident).

As I pulled up to the next red light, a thought popped into my mind:

“Life is short, leave virtue as your legacy.”

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The Secret to Productivity

One of my goals in the past few months has been to become more productive, as this blog certainly shows (I’ve also put Loreshaper Games on steemit which I’ve been doing another daily post for over the last couple days).

There are a few things that I noticed about myself before I got serious about productivity. I had a hard time keeping up on projects, really working in fits and starts more than any disciplined manner. If I didn’t work in the way I planned, I just sort of gave up for the day (I still struggle with this a little). I had given up on my old habit of just turning off my internet for 50 minutes (I don’t do a whole hour on the timer, because I’ll typically pause the timer and go have a cup of water or the like and do a little head-clearing exercise, which brings me to a whole hour).

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