Planking Alone

I’ve never been one to do New Year’s resolutions, I just don’t see the point of them.  In most cases, New Year’s resolutions peter out once the initial drive dissipates.  But, I decided to try some changes early this year, and just like most things with me, I didn’t do it half ass, I did multiple changes.  And of course, I made Laurel join in the fun because, well, I wanted her to join in my fun.  I decided to try 30 days of each, and as noted, did them all together.  Thirty days with no internet, other than for work and banking.  Thirty days of no meat, except for fish.  And a thirty day plank challenge, which I found on the internet, before I started my 30 days of no internet, of course.  I had very mixed results, and the following summarizes how this experience went for me.  And Laurel.

No Meat

Bleah.  This one was no fun at all.  I have been wrestling with becoming a vegetarian for a while, and I also considered modifying it to allow fish in my diet.  This was my attempt at seeing if I could make this move.  I’ll preface this by saying, maybe if we were a bit more adventurous or imaginative, it may have been more successful, but as it was, it failed miserably.

I guess if we would have started from a point of being massive carnivores, this would have been a significant change.  But Laurel and I eat a pretty healthy diet, and really don’t eat a lot of meat, and if we do, it’s mostly chicken.  We eat some pork, we eat some burgers, but we’re not crazy meat eaters, we rarely ever eat steak. 

But eating fish every day can really get boring.  Maybe if we had a really good fish market nearby, it would be different, but our Publix only has so many options, and we got sick of the same 3 or 4 types of fish very quickly.  And as noted, we weren’t real imaginative, maybe if we would have found interesting or exciting fish recipes, it would have gone better, but we didn’t. 

I found it hard to believe, but I almost caved toward the end of the 30 days, I couldn’t take it anymore.  But, we made it, we went 30 days with no meat.  We quickly moved back to meat day 31, I couldn’t wait to get a good burger again.  The funny thing is that we are now mostly looking at fish when we go to the grocery store, but there’s some sort of freedom of not having to buy fish, it’s a choice now, not a requirement.

No Internet

I didn’t make Laurel join me on this one, I did this one alone.  A little background.  I just got sick of all of the negativity in the news on the internet and on social media.  What drove me over the top was an unlikely place.  Sports.  As many know, I’m a huge fan of Pittsburgh sports, so I follow a couple local Pittsburgh sports sites to get my daily dose of Pirates, Penguins, and to a lesser extent, Steelers.  It’s gotten to the point in all walks of life that we can’t seem to ever focus on the positives, we dwell on the negatives.  With sports, there doesn’t seem to be any difference.  I started noticing that even when the Pirates or Penguins won, a great deal of the story, and most of the comments, still found fault in something from the game.  We’ve grown to the point where winning just isn’t enough.  We want our teams to play to perfection, otherwise, we’re just not happy. 

I gave up the internet, as noted, I still had to stay on e-mail at work, and I had to continue to pay the bills, but no more MSN, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, DK on Sports, Facebook, Bloomberg, or any of the rest.  This one was so easy, and you know what?  I was so much happier, and I actually went a few extra days afterward, I enjoyed it so much.  I had stripped so much negativity out of my life.

I’ll have to admit, it was a bit disconcerting.  Having no idea what was going on in the world was scary.  I kept wondering if a war started or if a financial crisis occurred, would I know?  I figured, if it were big enough, someone would tell me.  I did have a few moments that made me realize, I had to get connected again. 

One of the situations was a funny one.  My staff came in for a morning meeting, and Nancy Cox-Lupori said to me, “What’s this merger for BB&T going to mean for us?”  I started laughing and said, “Nancy, you forget.  I’m off the internet, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”  She quickly told me about BB&T’s merger with SunTrust, and I was up to speed again.

The other one really bothered me.  A dear friend from our days in Dayton and mine at Barco, Kathi Keeler, lost her mother, and since I was disconnected, I didn’t find out for a week or so after she died.  I took that one badly as I would have liked to have been able to reach out to her sooner than that to express my condolences.  That one made me think that it’s not so good to be disconnected from the world.

What this also taught me was that I’m the one who controls all of this.  People can write all sorts of negative things, but one, I don’t have to read them, and two, I can decide how it impacts me.  I don’t have to get angry or upset over what someone says, I’m the one who is making that choice.  And as noted, I don’t have to read it.  Since I’ve been back on the internet, I think I’m making more constructive and healthy choices. 

30 Day Plank Challenge

As noted, I found this plank challenge on the internet, and it had a gradual progression of increasing the number of planks you did and the time you spent doing them each day.  It also called for doing different variations, straight-armed planks, forearm planks, hip dips, back and forth and up and down.  Some of these, particularly up and down, were not so easy.  Also as noted, I made Laurel do this one with me. 

While I run, and I do yoga, I’ve not been happy with my core, and I’m a firm believer that your core is critical to maintaining good physical health.  I used to do a lot more core work, but I’ve slacked off over the years, leading me to this challenge.  Plus, Danielle Mason at work has started calling me Steve McFatty and tells me I can’t have any more candy.  OK, she’s joking, but I still wasn’t happy with my core.

While we weren’t completely “religious” on this, it was supposed to be 30 days, and I think it took us 32 days or so to complete it, we did it to the end.  I will have to say also, it wasn’t easy.  Part of it had to do with my travel schedule.  I would call Laurel from my hotel room, and we would be planking together over the phone, timing our planks, helping each other through.  At the end, we were doing four one-minute planks to finish off the 30 days.

This was the one change I/we made that I really enjoyed, if you can call it enjoyment.  It was great to see or feel the progression and improvement that we made over the 30 days.  It was also nice to be doing this together and supporting each other with our planking challenge.  So we continued on our plank challenge for the next few months. 

As time has gone on, Laurel’s desire to plank has continued to dwindle.  To be fair to her, Laurel teaches yoga and takes yoga classes, and between the 10-15 classes she either takes or teaches each week, she does plenty of planking.  Between the 2-4 classes I take each week, I don’t do plenty of planking.

So I plank alone.  Once in a while, Laurel does join me, which is really helpful, because planking alone isn’t the most fun thing to do, but for the most part, I plank alone.  It’s been about four months now, and while I’m still not religious about it, I do a fair amount of planking each week.  Would you notice a difference in how I look?  Based on Danielle still calling me Steve McFatty, I don’t think so.  What’s more important though is I feel so much better.  My core feels stronger, and I firmly believe your core is critical to the rest of your body feeling better.

While I tend to be my harshest critic, I would say that my changes this year (please don’t call them New Year’s resolutions) were a huge success.  In summary:

•       We determined that we are not ready to become vegetarians.  I wish the experiment would have turned out differently, but we learned from it.  We like variety, we do eat fairly healthy other than all the sweets we unfortunately eat, but we do pretty well.  I’m happy with this one at the moment.
•       While I really loved the time away from the internet, I also realized how unrealistic that is.  I need to control what I read, and I need to control how I react to what I read.  As I say this, I realize how basic and simple this is, and I’m somewhat embarrassed to say it, but it’s true. 
•       I have come to “enjoy” planking, even if I have to plank alone.  Yes, I wish Laurel would plank with me, and I still really try to get her to join the fun, but I do understand, and I can accept this.  As I sit here tonight in my hotel room, should I call Laurel, see if she wants to plank with me over the phone?  No, I think I’ll plank alone.