I’m Bad For My Body

 

I’m hard on my body. I’m really, really bad at taking care of it. I mistreat it a lot, too. I’m probably really lowering the trade in value of it, but I don’t care. I should get it in to see a doctor, you know, for a routine check out and scheduled maintenance, but I’m too lazy to do that. Worse, I tend to put a lot of mileage on it, and I usually put the wrong type of fuel into it. I tend to over fill it, too, which isn’t very good for it.

My Body has every right to be mad at me.

 

I don’t really care about my looks.

 

I should start by saying that before I say anything else. I’m not going to write an article about my body image issues. I have them, we all have them, but that’s not what I’m concentrating on today. I also don’t want anyone to think that I am anti-fat.

I know full well that being fat doesn’t immediately equate to being unhealthy.

I’m not making generalizations about people at all in this post. I’m talking about me, my life, and my bad habits.

I am bad on me.

 

“It’s like committing suicide when you’re curious enough to stick around and see how much worse it can get.”

–@Yeti_Detective on Smoking

 

I Smoke

I know. I know. Trust me, I know. It’s horrible for you, it kills you, it’s expensive. I get all of that. Still, I do it. Almost a pack a day, actually. I have in the past stopped doing it for some significant periods of time, but I didn’t want to. I still don’t want to. I do wish I hadn’t started because I wouldn’t know what I was missing out on, but having smoked now for 11 years, I enjoy it and have no intention of ever ending my love affair with the one thing that is guaranteed to destroy my health and happiness.

There is no way around that fact: Smoking makes life suck.

It takes away breath and energy. It makes everything stink like cigarette smoke. It’s a horrible, dirty, disgusting, filthy, expensive habit.

I just can’t stop myself from doing it.

 

I Overeat

I’ve been a lot better about this since I started tracking my calories on LoseIt.Com. I still tend to over indulge myself when I am having one of those days, but for the most part, I’ve been very, very good about what I put into my body for the last 2 months and that’s a source of pride for me. Now, maybe how I’m eating isn’t the most healthy, but by cutting back on how much I eat and when, I’ve saved money and lost weight. I still have a long way to go to get ahold of my problems with food. I use it as an emotional crutch sometimes, and that isn’t healthy. Still, I’m pretty proud of what I’ve accomplished so far and hope to keep going.

 

I don’t Exercise

I used to boffer fight 3 times a week. Boffer, for those of you that don’t know, is a modernized, mostly safe, form of Swordsmanship. It isn’t the same as fencing or actual historical martial arts. The rules and body mechanics of it are very different, and it is not universal to translate, say, German Longsword into boffer, but it’s a pretty close representation. It’s combat using padded weapons and a safer form of combat to represent getting medieval on your friends.

I used to be pretty good at it, even, but for the last 6 years or so, I’ve let myself, and my skill, get out of shape.

That is my third biggest regret of the last decade.

I’ve been working to remedy that, but I don’t have a group to practice with up here, and it gets hard to get motivated on my own.

 

Soda Was Gonna Be the Death of Me

I am surrounded by both family and co-workers that have diabetes. Diabetes is a bad scene, man. It terrifies me. My immediate reaction to developing a fear of diabetes was to stop eating the vast majority of sweets. I don’t really do cookies, cake, and the like very often (when I do, I tend to limit myself). Candy is a little harder to resist because it is convenient, but I tend to avoid going near it.

None of that was a drop in the bucket for the amount of sugar I was putting into my body by drinking soda.

Dr Pepper is my soda of choice. It has 27 grams of sugar per 8 oz serving. That means a can of Dr Pepper has almost as much sugar as a bag of skittles.

(Click Here to See how Much Sugar Really stacks Up)

When you’re drinking somewhere around 32-64 ounces a day, 7 days a week, that’s a lot of sugar. For the record, that’s more than 3 POUNDS of sugar a week. That’s like eating a freakin’ 3 pound bag of sugar a week. THAT IS NOT OKAY, GUYS!

Honestly, that never really occurred to me until I started looking at what I wasn’t putting into my body anymore by giving up soda.

I knew that there was an insane number of calories there (roughly 450 calories in a 32 oz Dr Pepper), and that I was better off drinking water and coffee.

I saved money that way, too, since both of those things are free at work.

Really, there is no downside to not drinking soda.

Soda is worse than cigarettes.

 

A Long Way To Go

I really have realized lately that I can’t treat my body like it’s disposable. I am trying to be better at taking care of myself. I don’t exactly know what that means for sure, but I feel like I’m moving in the right direction.

I am eating better.

I am actually getting enough sleep.

I am treating myself like it’s okay to not die horribly.

Still, I need to exercise more. I recognize that. I am eating better and not putting pounds and pounds of sugar a week into my system.

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p align=”left”>I am getting better, and I will continue to do so.