11:00 AM—Read Facebook. Get into various debates with friends, check Blogger, check Twitter, check email, drink coffee.
12:00 NOON—Look up personal ailments. Check for statistics. Look up risk factors. Take BMI. Compare BMI to chart of obesity and stroke and heart attack risk. Read about how current existing health conditions are risk factors for more heinous life-threatening ones. Drink more coffee.
1:00 PM—Panic.
2:00 PM—Have random confrontations with family members. Decide dogs are being aloof. Drink more coffee.
3:00PM—Find an article that says women who drink coffee have less statistical chance of stroke than those who do not. Calm down slightly.
4:00 PM—Look for positive, goal-oriented solution. Find one.
Clearly my penchant for Hysterical Internet Diagnosis is its own disease. The advent of the Interwebs has made it extremely easy for me to be a hypochondriac in the comfort of my own home. It's a handy way for me to up my blood pressure, increase my negativity, and escalate my fear to the point where all I need is a tiny little push to fall out of my office chair in a dead faint, hit my head on the router and die (spilling coffee on the way down, of course).
Falling over and dying through self-imposed hysteria doesn't appeal to me. I have planned my demise—and it's in a program I have invented in my own mind called "Seniors in Space." This program will debut when I am 101 years old and chosen to attend as Blogger Laureate to Mars. I will venture into space with a few of my healthy and ancient friends, we will toast the good times with Tang, and succumb quietly among the stars. (I would go at 99, but I am waiting for the handwritten card from the President of the United States.)
Seniors in Space
So who wants to join me in the Seniors in Space program? We have plenty of prep time—and they say 100 will surely be the new 85. To make this happen we will have to get practical. Getting practical for me includes actually setting some goals, both short and long term. In the short term I have a new commitment—a 12-week heart-healthy eating and exercise program. Twelve weeks is so doable. It doesn't stretch ahead into the months and years in some far reaching and unattainable fashion, and the Internet is chock full of all sorts of get-healthy, cool websites developed by all kinds of cool organizations just waiting for you to use for free.
Go Red
I have decided to use the web-based tool of a very reliable organization—the American Heart Associationâ. In 2010 they had a big media blitz for the Go RedÔ program. I am usually a little behind the times (in fact, I am just watching Seinfeld all the way through at the moment), so it makes sense that I would participate in the Go RedÔ program in 2011. I like to schedule my procrastination. The web tools are all right there waiting to be used and for the most part things I already know. But, for me, the value is my own accountability. Short-term goals are really just that—deciding something and making a practical plan.
Sometimes practical things work like magic. Their simplicity is the key.
Practical Magic
So starting this Friday there will be a new theme—Practical Magic. For the next twelve weeks I will be accountable on Friday. I may be in Vegas on a bender on Thursday night, but come hell or high water on Friday I will be accountable here twelve whole times. I hope you will join me as I write about how I am improving my heart health by doing these things:
· Lowering my BMI
· Reducing my waist measurement
· Charting and increasing my overall fitness
· Eating heart healthy and calorie aware meals
· And hopefully dropping the 20 pounds I need to attain 100 pounds of weight loss!
I could use a little cheering section and I hope some of my readers will join in for any part of the program that makes sense. I hope Fridays on “BatB” (Beauty and the Blog) will be lighthearted and fun as well as little steps toward a real achievement. Consider it our training program for Seniors In Space. Who will join me?
Go RED! And Hellllllloooooooooo!
http://www.heart.org/
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