Too busy to be healthy?
I have been thoroughly enjoying summer this year despite it being the coldest year on record for the past 60 plus years. My life is like my job, split up into different phases throughout the year. I have different focuses for different purposes. I am in a transition right now. I am heading out of summer and into Harvest. Because of my job, I have to cut my summers short. I begin a crazy work schedule that is dictated by the ripening grapes and fermenting juices that are constantly coming into the winery. Harvest is a two to three month period of total chaos and the most important part of the year for a winery. If we mess up here, we ruin the entire year's worth of wine. It is long hours. I work at least six days a week, I am up at 4am and I get home around 8pm. It is so busy I have little time for thinking about anything else like eating, sleeping, drinking, friends, family...you get the idea. It is a bit like the military I guess...eat when you can, sleep when you can because you don't know when the next chance you will get will be.
Immediately following harvest is my favorite time of the year, Autumn. It begins with my birthday in October, then about 5 of my friends and family have their birthdays, then Halloween, Thanksgiving and my annual November trip to Hawaii.
One of my favorite views.
Vacations: my raison d'être.
As I have mentioned before, I enjoy having something to look forward to, to plan. This year I am going to try to keep a healthy lifestyle through Harvest using Hawaii as my light at the end of the tunnel. It is going to be difficult. Very difficult. I will have absolutely no time to cook a proper meal. I will be provided with lunch at work but that lunch will be a greasy burrito or pizza as it always is. I am looking at this as a challenge. I need to find a way to continue on a healthy track when I will mostly be eating cheesy, oily foods, have no time for exercise and will be running on 6 or less hours of sleep a night. Pretty big challenge, yes?
The Plan
I have no plan. Not yet anyways. I do, however, have a bit of guidelines laid out in my head. You see, tomorrow is exactly 15 weeks from when I leave for my trip and it just so happens that I would like to lose exactly 15 pounds. That comes out to a pound a week which seemingly isn't a very difficult goal. From my experiences though, I usually gain a couple pounds during Harvest and then a couple more during the multi-birthday month of October.
Learning to adapt will be the key. This will be a whole new experience for me. Some ideas I have are to make large batches of fruit and veggie smoothies which I can easily grab as a breakfast on my way to work. I can also set out to find some pre-packaged, easy to prepare foods.
My Goals:
Exercise - Get as much physical activity as I can while working
- Get as much exercise as I can BEFORE Harvest hits (about two weeks)
Nutrition - Fit as much fruits and vegetables in my diet as I can
- Continue to avoid overly processed foods and trans-fats
- Find a way to make meals in advance
- Find natural, healthy, pre-packaged foods that are easy to prepare
- Continue to drink two liters of water a day
Tomorrow is the beginning of the first week. I will weigh myself and every Thursday after to see if I am making progress or if it is getting fat as usual.
/
0 comments: