Resolutions 2010

If you have a blog, you might as well use it.  Nothing is more motivating than the fear of public ridicule, riiight?

I always make resolutions every year.  That is because I tend to always keep them.  I have a running list of items that usually take most of the year to complete and by around August/September I realize I have made pretty substantial progress, which further motivates me to top off the list.  I don't think I bite off more than I can chew usually.  And I usually avoid making promises to myself that I have no desire to keep.

That's why I could relate to the following WSJ article on how to best keep resolutions (don't overload your prefrontal cortex with a lot of things at once) but also was afraid of its implications for me in 2010:  Blame It On The Brain.  The article states:

The brain area largely responsible for willpower, the prefrontal cortex, is located just behind the forehead. While this bit of tissue has greatly expanded during human evolution, it probably hasn't expanded enough. That's because the prefrontal cortex has many other things to worry about besides New Year's resolutions. For instance, scientists have discovered that this chunk of cortex is also in charge of keeping us focused, handling short-term memory and solving abstract problems. Asking it to lose weight is often asking it to do one thing too many.

The implication here is that making many New Year's resolutions may be asking our prefrontal cortex to do too much.  And also, something we probably always knew: "Willpower, in other words, requires real energy."

The real challenge for me to keep any of my resolutions in 2010 would be that my prefrontal cortex is usually overloaded on a day-to-day basis.  I am on at least 5 cases at any given minute, and I am constantly juggling a number of balls in the air at work.  If I'm not working or thinking for work, then I am thinking about work, or planning, planning, planning... to do more work.  My dear dear overworked poor prefrontal cortex.  The odds are stacked against it.  It may explode any minute now.  When I come home from work, I am exhausted as if I just ran a marathon, but the only thing that has been moving in my body all day has been the cholesterol that is moving into my arteries.

So, asking too much from my cortex in 2010 will likely not lead to success.  Combining that article with this other take-it-in-pieces guide to making and sticking to New Year's resolutions - A Cheat Sheet for Keeping Resolutions - it looks like I'll have to take a more reasonable and thoughtful approach to my resolutions this year. 

The Cheat Sheet also adds the following helpful advice (hence this blog post): 

Announce your intentions. After trying and failing repeatedly to build meditation into his routine, Mr. McGuinness raised the stakes on New Year's Day, 2008: He published his resolution to thousands of readers of his blog at www.wishfulthinking.co.uk. The public commitment has made the difference, he says. When he feels like shirking, he asks himself, "what am I going to tell my blog readers?" Clients and readers sometimes ask if he is keeping his resolution.

And you should also "get a little help from your friends" with resolutions.  So, it makes perfect sense for me to blog post my resolutions so that the world (my family) knows what I am up against and will help me by not feeding me truffles and ice cream.  Importantly, the article also advises one to "[f]igure out your attachment to bad habits" as a way of releasing them.
 
Ok - so let's apply that to me.  What is my attachment to gaining weight/being fat?  I can honestly say that nothing is better in my life as a result of having these extra layers on me.  It doesn't even keep me that much warmer in the winter!  It doesn't give me any flotation benefits in water either. 

But I think the biggest challenge to my losing the pounds is I am really tired by day's end from work and all I want to do is go home and eat and watch tv and relax and get ready for bed.  The normal person would respond by saying - "Ok - then make working out the first thing you do in the day!"  Truuues... but additional point, I loathe waking up.  To the point that I would stay up late just to wake up late.  I think the biggest problem for me is this.  If I could normalize my schedule (hello, decent alarm clock?  warm milk at night? go home earlier and eat dinner earlier? go to bed earlier? no jon stewart at 11?) then I could get up earlier and work out earlier in the day.  It could all be so easy if all the stars would align to allow me to rejigger my schedule!  I mean, leaving work earlier means getting to work earlier!  But I can't because I am sleepy!  See how that all is interconnected?

Resolution # 1 - End Winter Hibernation Sleep Patterns

1. Buy a new alarm clock in January 2010.  One that works.  One that has dual alarm function.  One that wakes me up to NPR or my ipod on those days when only Lady Gaga will do to kick my a** out of bed.
2. Rejigger internal biological circadian clock so that I feel sleepy at a time when normal people feel sleepy (when is that btw? 10 pm?).  Start going to bed earlier.  By mid Feb. 2010, I should be coming to terms with my new circadian clock.  This is particularly challenging to do in the dead of winter when it is dark when you wake.  This may need to involve the use of lightboxes. 

3. Keep proper sleep and wake patterns for all year long!  (This is huge and I want a ticker tape parade if I can stick with it.)  The added benefit is being up earlier in the day and ending my day earlier and hopefully giving me the energy to attack my other resolutions.

Resolution # 2 - Prevent Premature Death By Heart Attack

No joke here.  This is probably the most important goal on my list. 

Cholesterol, Total: 278  [Normal is 125-200]

HDL Cholesterol:  68  [Normal is >= 46]

LDL Cholesterol:  187 [Normal <=130]

In the spirit of oversharing, there you have it.  As of July 29, 2009.  I have certainly changed many of my eating habits but have also let things slide in the busyness of the holiday season.  So, it's time to climb back on that wagon.

1. Weekly food plans and grocery shopping for the week.  Feel free to ask me what my food plan for the week is.  When I say, "I don't know," feel free to ask me what death tastes like.
2. Use all my christmas-gift gadgets and cookbooks to help keep me on a non-take-out and no-pizza- except-rarely role.
3. Get back to packing lunch every day.
4. Figure out some healthy alternatives for my Bengali sweet tooth.
5. Revisit the good doctor for a followup blood test in the end of February. I will post the results here.
6. For every month I stay on the healthy food plan, I can get a cleaning lady to clean the apartment instead of having to do it myself (agree Boo?).  That's motivation.
7. Somewhere in this list involves getting a trainer, joining a gym, and getting me and my heart moving.  I am not going to set an arbitrary poundage goal but I think it would be nice to have shed 20 lbs by July 29, 2010.

This type of culinary discipline takes pre-planning and time, something that is relatively rare in my life.  But I suppose this is the most important goal of them all.  Don't let me forget that.  I think it is appropriate to see where I am on July 29, 2010, a year after my diagnosis.  These resolutions should be second nature to me by then.

Resolution # 3 - End My Relationships With Vikram Pandit and William D. Ford

Everyone's heard me talk about this one.  The only difference is that I can actually be in the home stretch this year if I sacrifice (and if Boo sacrifices too, as he has been doing already, for me).  I can break up with Vikram - slamming the door in his bailout-taking face by around mid-year, leaving me another half a year or so to plan my escape from Mr. Ford.  By Dec. 31, 2010, I should, at a minimum, have a net worth of ZERO.  Here's to my future!!!!