Yeah, I know we are a few days into the month but I still find it alright to say Welcome to August 2008.

So what is the idea with this? I will each month set some small rules/goals for myself; nothing major such as “I need to blog 30 times this month”. As we all know, I will just fail then.

I will then at the start of the next month do a quick review of how the previous month went. But why should I write about it? Should you care? Well, the main reason to write about it is to document it and also to put some pressure on myself. Who knows maybe someone will find it inspiring and do the same. So maybe you care or maybe you don’t but in any case you might borrow some ideas.

The rules/goals are not “Live and Die By the Rule”; they may be broken and there will be exceptions but they should be followed as much as possible.

So let’s get started…

August 2008

No more sweets

Now this sounds as if I’m eating a lot of sweets normally; which I don’t do. Just from time to time. So in August I will not buy M&M’s, cake/deserts at work, no snack for when I drive to and from work.

If I’m visiting people and they offer a piece of cake then sure, I’m allowed to have one piece. If I go to the cinema then it is fine if I have a bit candy, just not a lot.
All this should be rather easy to handle; I seldom have cake/candy at work and I’m almost not buying M&M’s any more. Actually, last time I was in the cinema (Hancock) I didn’t even finish my M&M’s.

I just have to be sure that I always have fresh apples or other fruits at home as a replacement for snacks.

Fitness

I have for the last one year done VERY little fitness; nothing organized at all. Sure I went to a fitness studio earlier but for the last year I just paid and didn’t go (Talk about wasting money…).

So now it is time to change that and I will do it very simple for myself: I will each evening do 2 times 20 push ups and 2 times sit ups. This is not much but I have to start out slowly, especially with sit ups as after 15 of them my back hurts but I know that I will soon get over that point.

The MAIN exception to this rule is that I finally started going to the fitness studio again, so far just once but damn it was great to be there again. So I will be going there 2 to 3 times a week.

Next exception will not happen this month but who knows; maybe next month and the exception will be “Wii Fit”. More about that when/if it happens.

Mindless time wasting

It happens from time to time that I don’t feel like doing anything, so I end up sitting at the TV. Nothing wrong in watching a movie, checking the news and such, but it often happens that I sit and zap between the channels thinking “Oh, there must be something new interesting now”. Two hours later I then go to bed, a bit annoyed that I wasted the time doing nothing; at the same time it happens that it gets too late and then I will be tired the day after.

So no more of this, sure I will still check if there is something in TV but if I don’t find something then I MUST get away from the TV. There is always something else I can do: Go to bed early, play poker, read a book or even write a bit on the blog.

I’m not going to list playing games or playing online poker as mindless time wasting, mainly because I don’t play much any more and I don’t find it a waste of time. Well, playing Lord of the Rings Online might be a bit of a waste but I never feel bad about it (as I do with TV). Playing poker is something I will do from time to time because I really enjoy it.

That’s all for August 2008

Not a lot of rules to follow but it should be a good start; waste less time and get fitter. This sounds pretty perfect for me. I will get back to it early September and then we will see how it all went.