Monday, October 02, 2006

How to stay healthy, 37950 pushups and situps in 275 days!

I got my best advice for exercising from a very unusual source. It a page about Grid Technology. I landed there in my usual daily grid hunting missions. Dan's site is one of the sites that I visit regularly. I was unable to visit his site for a while 'cos I was busy working in a far away and having an unofficial holiday.
So to catch up with his posts I had to spend a while at his site. I also noticed an article titled, Slow and Steady wins the race! I thought to myself, what? I don't want a slow grid! Let's see what he is up to. First I thought it is MS Excel ;). (Dan works on getting .NET on the grid or vice versa).
Anyway the article gave me two ideas that I have already put into action. Fear of starting is one of the main reasons we make resolutions, like new year resolutions that we forget by January 15Th, which in turn was planned since previous September. Dan's advise is that day is today.

As his first advise is that new year starts today! How funny, I have been trying to give up smoking but I never really tried, Someday! that was my thought. But after reading his simple procedure for keeping up resolutions, I said to myself that some day is today! Well wait on this for a while as I explain his methodology, actually his brothers methodology, according to Dan.
Here is an excerpt from his posting;
"Well, this year that changed. I finally found a resolution worth doing. Not for the first time in my life, I'm going to copy my older brother.


and a Last year, my brother Dave had a great resolution: on January 1 he did a push up sit up. On the 2Nd, he did two push ups and two sit ups. And so on. By April, he was doing 100 of each per day. By July, 200 per day. And, of course, on December 31st, he did 365 push ups and 365 sit ups. And during the course of the year, his physique changed drastically. In September, when he turned 40, his wife gave a toast at his birthday dinner and said that he looked better then than he had in their entire relationship.


So I decided to do it this year. It's a fun resolution because it starts so easy (it felt almost silly when I got down on the floor and did one push up; but I did it, and I was on my way). Even now, 31 days in, it's a very brief "workout," but it's starting to feel like an honest set of push ups (and crunches)."
As of today he is on 275 pushups today: 37950 total!

So I joined his club from two ends (I did not ask his permission, just invited myself). I will do what he does for exercise and I have added one more. I will give up smoking breaks to mach my exercise. Like One push up and sit up + give up one smoking break. The formula is;
"The sheer numbers involved get staggering. Over the course of the year, I'll do 66,795 push ups (you can figure this out in Excel, or you can use the fun method: 1 + 2 + ... + n = (n + 1) * (n / 2)). I know I'll be breaking them into sets eventually, but for now it's fun to see how long I'll be able to do them in one set."
Now I am on my 15Th of both. I am amazed at how easy it is.
Thanks Dan, this is the best healthy advise I have ever got from a tech guy! Happy New Year Dan!

1 comment:

Dan Ciruli said...

Hey! Glad to see you're on the bandwagon. And you've stepped it up a notch by quitting smoking, too! That's terrific.

276 days into the year, and I feel great (I've also started biking to work instead of driving, and that helps, too). Good luck!

My advice: get some other people to do it with you--it helps to have others who are doing it, because it makes you stay committed. Or keep blogging about it!

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