2009 Goals

Well, well — a new year. That must mean it’s time for the annual goal setting. Or maybe in my case the re-setting of goals that I didn’t reach last year. One thing is for sure, I really, really need to stop eating the sugar and grains. I’m a hard core addict to that crud. I can totally see myself down on my hands and knees in the kitchen at 2 a.m. looking for shards of chocolate on the floor. Seriously.

Goal #1 – lose 30 pounds.

Goal #2 – increase times/weights in a few benchmark lifts and endurance events. 

I’ll post a couple of charts on this page. (Yes, charts. Yes, I am a geek.)

I haven’t done all of the lifts/workouts yet. Obviously, I can’t do them all in one day. I also didn’t use my previous PR’s for the lifts, but I did use numbers that I’ve attained within the last month. I plan on hitting most of the stuff in the next few weeks and I’ll update the charts as I go.

For the weight loss I currently don’t plan on strict Zoning or strict Paleo. I’m just going to avoid grains and sugar at all costs and try to eat clean. I’m also going to try and do an up day/down day type of thing that I’ve had some success with before. Basically on the down day I will restrict myself to around 800 calories a day, and on the up day I will not restrict myself at all and eat as I please (but still trying to avoid sugar/grains.) I absolutely cannot restrict myself to 10 blocks, or 1200 calories a day. I will go insane. With the up day/down day I only have to hang on for one day at a time, which I think will be extremely beneficial to my mental health. I did this for a few weeks last year before my black belt test and I lost a lot of weight in a few weeks, and I felt great. Of course, I was also scared witless by the thought of falling on my face in front of the whole panel of Masters and Grand Masters that were testing me. Some of that weight loss might have been the sweat I was shedding just thinking about that. (Incidentally, my bo staff started to come apart in the middle of a form, which resulted in me hitting myself in the knee with it and then dropping it – about two feet in front of the Masters. The only thing that could have been worse was if I split my pants at the same time. I also almost got accidentally knocked out by my parter on the self defense techniques. Miraculously, I stayed conscious and they passed me.)

Which brings me to the one major goal that I did reach last year – that I am awful proud of – which was getting my black belt in Kyuki-do. That was a huge weight off of my shoulders and I’m really glad it’s over. I hope to test for second degree in Kyuki-do and black belt for Judo in the next few years. Hopefully I won’t drop anything or split my pants or get knocked out this time.