As a reminder, here at The Prudent Plastic Surgeon, I’m going to be doing something new. Every week, I’m going to make a post called Sorta Off Topic Sunday. This week, it's about my quest to get healthier.
Here we go!
A couple of months ago, I had my yearly primary care appointment. It was the first one since I moved from NYC to Buffalo.
Most things were ok. But I did find out that I weighed by far the heaviest that I ever had. After labs, I also had modestly high cholesterol.
This was a bit of a wakeup call. But I wasn’t surprised in the least
I’ve never had a hugely healthy diet. And while I’m active, I’m not a huge fan of exercise. I love sports but there are more limited opportunities now as an adult.
If you want to see a hilarious video, check out this trick shot video from when I was in medical school below.
As a kid, I got away with this because I was also active and has a high baseline metabolism. Even in residency, I got away with it because my crazy schedule limited when I would eat. I also lived in NYC and walked all over the place, serving as exercise.
Anyway, after that appointment, I made a decision and started my quest to get healthier
I didn’t set a goal of losing a certain amount of weight. While I wanted to lose weight, my goal was beyond that. This is a lifestyle change that I want to keep indefinitely.
A weight loss goal is not a good goal. Once you reach it, you are very much as risk of going back to old habits. A weight loss goal will also encourage you to seek your goal as quickly as possible. But this is a marathon not a sprint. Hence my goal.
So I set about to meet this goal by creating simple and sustainable habits that can build up to massive results (Not that different from my financial strategy).
Here is what I have done:
- Drink more water
- Eat one bowl of Mini Wheats for breakfast and then nothing until lunch
- Limit myself to only healthy snacks between lunch and dinner (fruits or vegetables)
- Eat a protein bar for lunch when at the hospital instead of fried cafeteria food
- Eat a handful of chocolate chips after dinner to satisfy my sweet tooth rather than ice cream or desserts
- Walk up and down stairs at the hospital instead of using the elevator
- Do a Peloton class 1-2 each week
