T.C. of an O.J.

First some background: At the company I work for, they’re rolling out this whole fitness initiative thing, which basically means they want the people who work where I work to stop being so fat and unhealthy so they save a bunch of money on health care costs.

On the one hand, I think it’s great that the corporation is actively promoting a healthier lifestyle; on the other hand the bottom line is they’re doing it for the good of the machine, not the people who work it in. They’ve brought in a fitness expert who says “fabulous” a lot, but also gave a really informative and motivating presentation on how your body stores and burns fat. He pointed to the fact that when we try to starve ourselves in the name of diet, we often end up doing our body doubly bad by sending it into fat storage mode and then breaking our fast with processed sugars, which our body also stores as excess fat.

Instead of chipping in on the cost of an employee’s gym membership, there’s going to be a series of these fitness expert talks. Although I think a business that’s truly serious about its workforce hitting the gym should subsidize, at least in part, a portion of the cost for those employees to hit the gym, its good that at least they’re educating the employees that want to voluntarily come to these fitness seminars. Some employees are bitter and resentful that someone would come in and tell them that they’re fat and need to exercise (these people are fat and need to exercise), but most seem to be excited (at least initially) about it and everyone I’ve heard that has gone to the first seminar has had positive things to say.

This whole fitness initiative comes at the same time as my own personal fitness initiative. I realize that I’m not in high school anymore and in order to keep up with high schoolers, I’m going to have to start taking care of myself. I remember a time when I could run a warm-up mile in under 6 minutes and have a heart rate of under 60 bpm immediately afterwards! Now, I’m looking forward to being active with my children, when I have them, so they should have a dad that can take them to school on the playground for a few years before a need a walker to get around. I’ve been trying to get back into shape by going to the gym before work, running, lifting weights, and just being more active in general. My good friend Wonder is undertaking the work-out portion of this endeavor with me and so far, after just a few weeks of getting up early before work, it’s going pretty well.

The big part of this whole thing is the realization that I need to eat better and that Taco Bell and Nutty Bars shouldn’t be mainstays of my diet. An element of this whole fitness at work thing is that employees could sign up for a series of fitness assessments, over many months, to measure and evaluate health and fitness progress. It seems as though the fitness philosophy of my fitness expert aligns with my goals; he wants to set us up for maximum fat burning while adding muscle mass. Although I need to cut the junk out of my diet, Mr. Expert believes in the 80/20 principle, which means if you eat right 80% of the time, you can party the remaining 20%. Good, because it is Friday and there was no way I wasn’t going to Chipotle for lunch. As Mr. Fitness would say, “Fabulous”! Of course, I thought it would be cool to sign up and see the progress I’m making with my renewed commitment to exercise and diet.

Here are the results of my first assessment:

Fitness Assessment #1

From the first assessment, my systolic blood pressure seems a little high because in the past, its always been excellent. However, all my measurements and results are at least in the acceptable range. As a goal, I’d like to get my body fat percentage under 15% without losing any lean muscle. I also want to make a better chart when I have time that has all sorts of bars, graphs, and lines. Damn, I love making charts.

So, hopefully this post will be the first in a series of posts where I post the results of the most recent assessment. I’m not trying to brag or boast, nor am I obsessed with fitness…although it’s tempting to run out and get crazy and buy a lot of spandex. It’s just my wish that you’ll follow along with me if it interests you. Watch as I make stunning progress or cover your eyes in disbelief as I fall off the wagon completely and skyrocket into obesity: Only time will tell.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 18th, 2008 at 9:46 am and is filed under Blogroll, Gittin' Fit. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.