New Rule: Eating in front of God and Everyone!

As I continue to meditate on my habits, I started analyzing  thinking casually about my negative eating habits.  When do I find myself making less than ideal food decisions and why?

Here's a hint:

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What you see before you is my brand-new office carpet, sullied with a stain.  What made that stain you ask?  Oh, just a bit of inferior Hy-Vee brownie ground into the fibers by being rolled over by my office chair.  

Hello, my name is Rice, and I am an office-eater.  

Here's how this goes.  I walk by the food-area of my office, pretending to be "checking my mail box" when in reality, I am scoping out the snacks.  More often then not, I grab a treat.  I prefer the chocolate and baked kind, but anything will do in a pinch.

Then, I scuttle back to my office to eat it, hiding my shame behind my closed office door while I work.  

Sometimes, I repeat that process.  

Usually, I don't even enjoy it because I am too busy emailing or it is not that good.

I use my office to hide my shame.  And, I eat while I am working because I am pretending to be productive.  And because I am not paying attention, I drop chunks of inferior Hy-vee brownies on to the floor and roll over them.

I go through a similar process in my car, though that often involves Starbucks baked goods for breakfast and/or ice cream or frozen yogurt in the afternoon.  

So, new rule: no eating at my desk or in my car.  If I want to eat lunch, or an inferior Hy-Vee brownie, or six welcome week cookies, or frozen yogurt, I have to do it before God and everyone.  

The teachers lounge: cool.

The commons area: cool.

Outside: cool. 

My house: preferably at my kitchen table, but if other humans are present, then at the coffee table.  (We have no dining room). 

Restaurants: cool.

The idea is two-fold.

1. Eating an inferior Hy-Vee brownie at 10am will be so shameful that I won't want to do it in front of other people.
2. Going to eat an inferior Hy-Vee brownie in the teachers lounge will be such a bother that I won't even bother.  

And before you start emailing me helpful house keeping tips for removing inferior Hy-vee brownie stains, or suggesting I have the carpet square swapped out, you should know that I am keeping that stain.  It is the spot of shame!

Habit Building: Dream Squelching

I drive a hoopty.  I bought my 2001 Mazda Protege with my Hurricane Katrina FEMA money back in 2005.  Since then it has seen me through 2 cross country moves, a travel book, and much more.  It's been my turtle shell and my under appreciated and under maintained work horse.  But, it is showing its age.  

Last spring, while driving down to Arkansas, the speakers went out.  No, not the radio, the actual speakers.  (The radio console display has never worked, so I always relied on books on CD.)  Since then, I have been listening to books on my phone.  On the interstate I have to nestle the phone under my bra strap so it is close enough to my ear to hear over all the white noise.  Various attempts at battery powered speakers have failed.  

The upshot of this speaker failure is that I have been listening to some interesting books.  I finally got through the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.  Because I got a lot of bang for my buck, I bought War and Peace which is 60 hours worth of listening.  I am through the first 2.5 parts before I needed a break.  And, I cried my way through Wild: Lost and Found on the PCT even though I wasn't a fan of the writing.  I have also been listening to books that I have been meaning to read but never get around to: How Children Succeed by Paul Tough on the importance of non-cognitive skills.  Today, I am listing to Charles Duhigg's The Power of Habit.  

It is written like most of these hip, semi-scholarly books that focus on one critical element and use character studies to get them across.  A bit Gladwell, a bit Freakanomics, a bit self-help: I am liking it, and I am hoping it might guide me to establish and reestablish some of the good habits I used to have in my fitness and eating life.  

Habits are pretty fascinating.  They are things that we do with the lizard part of our brain.  We do them without thinking, and so while they are pretty complex, they are also pretty easy.  A habit is formed when you have a trigger, an action, and a reward.  The brain starts craving the reward before the action, and then a habit is formed.  

The argument is that if we can figure out our triggers, actions, rewards and cravings, we can either create new habits or we can change old habits.  

The reward and craving the reward is critical.  So, as I think about getting back on track with a regular gym schedule, I have been thinking about a reward for myself.  Something I can crave and work towards when I am thinking about flaking out.  (Not ready to deal with old habits, like every time I work on a computer I want to eat something sweet, but we will get there, I hope.)

So I said to myself, "Okay, Rice, we will establish some goals for this week.  And, if you achieve those goals, you can buy something."

I find shopping has many of the same go-go-happy feelings associated with it as does eating or drinking, but without the calories.  

I read a lot of Outside magazine while flying hither and yon this summer, and in one article they talked about the Nike Fuel Band, a little watch that keeps track of movements and helps track calories burned.  It's pricey, like $170 bucks, but it seemed pretty cool.  "Okay," I thought, "if I can just get through a week of reasonable goals, I can buy myself a Nike Fuel Band."  

Baby steps.  (I talked to a guy on RAGBRAI who had done an impressive 18 years.  I asked him how he did it and he said, "one mile at a time.").

The building blocks of a new habit.  

• Trigger: getting up in the morning.
• Action: going to the gym or working out.
• Reward: shopping for a cool new gadget.

Then, I told the Tiger about this plan.  

Big Mistake.  

"Oh, I've heard those are kind of worthless," he said.  "I just don't trust them or the technology."  

The logical part of my brain thought, "what the f does he know?  He heard his friend say one thing about it and he doesn't even remember the conversation!  Don't listen to him!"

The non-logical part of my brain was crushed.  

"I mean, but you can still get it.  Get it if you want to!  I mean, do some research, but yeah, I think it's a good idea," he back pedaled.  

But, no, the dream was squelched.  The squid-ink black cloud of doubt covered thoughts of my reward.  Now, even if I got the Nike Fuel Band, I would just be thinking about how it probably was worthless and a waste of money anyway.  It was sullied.  No longer this nifty gadget that would be my fitness buddy on the long road ahead.  It was "just a cool watch," a waste of money, and now it always would be.

Sigh.  

Perhaps another habit we need to work on in the Tiger Den household is this one: 

• Trigger: Rice expresses something she is excited about it.
• Action: Tiger squelches dreams with unfounded, Teutonic-doubt.
• Reward: Tiger experiences that very German-happy place caused by inflicted schadenfreude on the people he loves.
• Craving: Rice's self-doubt makes her want to eat all of the leftover Chinese food in the fridge, without even heating them up.  

Author's Note: After I explained to the Tiger how his unfounded-doubting squelched my dreams, he was incredibly sorry and apologized several times.  I also tried to squelch one of his dreams, but he wouldn't reveal any of them at this time.  Revenge is not an ideal relationship-strategy, I realize. 

Anyway, so here are my sad little baby step goals for this week, that have no reward at the end of the rainbow if I do actually accomplish them.  I'll just begrudgingly accomplish them, I guess.  

1. Work out 5 times this week.
2. Eat 90% well at least 5 days.
3. Don't drink beer every day.
4. Lose 1.5 pounds. 
5. Drink 2 liters of water a day. 

Whatever.

Big Announcement: You CAN'T Just Dry Heave the Copper Triangle

As you can see from the new count down clock to your right, I have a big announcement.  I am going to challenge myself to do something really scary.  The Copper Triangle.

Why Are You Doing This? 

I have this bad habit called "you can just dry heave it."  When I first started doing events that really scared me, I was really scared, and so I would actually train for said events.  After training, I would be somewhere between marginally and fairly successful (my first RAGBRAI is an example).

Then, because the event hadn't been as scary as I had thought, I stopped worrying about it.  

Then, because I wasn't worrying about it, I stopped stressing about it.  Then, eventually, I stopped really, seriously training for it.  I would use the reassuring old philosophy of "well, you can dry heave ______."  

The dry heaving philosophy is a good one when you are not sure that you can do something, or you are trying to talk your friends into one more beer in the anti-penultimate town on the Monday of RAGBRAI, but when you start to use it as an excuse to not train, that is a dangerous habit.  

I've been dry heaving a lot of stuff.  I dry heaved the Survivor Cross.  I dry heaved the Stair Climb.  I dry heaved RAGBRAI, and I have come to conclude that dry-heaving is not as much fun as actually training and being ready for something.  Actually, much like non-metaphorical dry heaving, dry heaving sucks.

But Why Are You Doing This?

I needed to challenge myself to do something that I am full on actually scared of.  The Copper Triangle involves several things that I am legit scared of.

1) Climbing, a lot.  6,000 feet over three mountain passes. I have never done any real climbing, and it doesn't work well when you are fat.  Scary.  

2) Altitude: you can't just dry heave altitude.  You have to be fit.

3) Descending: going down hill is the worst.  I am going to have to actually ride my bike and overcome my fear.

So, there you have it: super scary stuff for me.  And, the scariness of that stuff means that I will have to: 

1) Lose weight

2) Be in good shape

3) Ride my bike a lot. 

For some people, I am sure this is not much of a challenge, but for me it is a big F-ing deal.  

I know it is a big deal for me because I was seriously reconsidering even doing it the Monday of RAGBRAI as I was climbing up a bunch of long, hot hills, listening to the CB radio of the guy next to me. He was getting radio updates about the hill conditions ahead.  Not good.  Meanwhile, the Mayor, who has just sucked an entire PBR through a straw is bopping along next to me happy as a North African Climbing Tree Beaver.

Okay, But Why Are You Doing the Copper Triangle, Specifically? 

Because the Mayor suggested it and I am too lazy to come up with my own ideas.  Also, it's about a year away.  

So, How is this Going to be Different from all the Other Stuff You've "Done" or Dry Heaved?

Well, like my first RAGBRAI I am legit scared of this.  That legit scaredness really seems to work for me.  

And, I've got some other ideas.  

1) Scaling back at work--the last year I have been working a lot to get prepared for our big vacation.  Working a lot seems to be a trigger for me to eat poorly and skip working out, which is why my fitness and eating have been in a death spiral and my clothes don't fit.  And my head looks huge. 

So, this semester, I am just working the normal amount, and I am trying to say no to extras when I can.  

Also, I am resolved NOT TO TEACH next summer.  I am going to take the whole summer off, so I can focus on riding my bike and not eating all of the things.

2) Seeking professional help--I am going to seek out some folks that can help me on this journey.  I don't really know how to get ready to climb three mountain passes when I live in Iowa (I am not actually sure I could define what a mountain pass actually is).  So, I need help.  And, I am going to seek it out.  

Further, I am resolved to actually try to race with my "team" next summer.  Forcing myself to train and race with those girls, I hope, will push me out of my comfort zone.  Which is what I need, right?  

3) ???Disband This Blog???--Before I get three angry emails, this is just a thought, but I do want to write a book.  I am wondering if this blog acts as a steam release value for the writing energy I should be putting into book writing.

4) Extreme Idea I Probably Need Talked Out Of: 

I was kind of thinking of getting the elevation profile tattooed on my right wrist as a nice line drawing.  Then every time I go to eat something, I will be reminded of where I have to take that brownie/cupcake/IPA.  

Now what? 

Great question.  Right now I am in the pit of fitness despair.  I just need to get back on that pony and start riding.  

Then, I need a plan.  

Then, I need a back up plan in case the first plan fails or back fires.  

And, so, there you have it folks.  The Big Announcement.  It is going to take a village to get me over those mountains and we only have 344 days to go.  

I am pretty scared, but, I think that's pretty good.