Fat Writer

I'm fat again.

It seems like once every 16 months I go through this phase where I lose the weight and then slowly gain it all back.

I've pinpointed my problems and they boil down to lack of exercise.

Basically, my schedule looks like this:

6:30-9:30am: Get up and write.  Drink coffee.
9:30-10am: Get ready for work.
10am-10:30am: Drive to work.
10:30am to 6:30pm: Work at day job.  Eat lunch, which is usually a sandwich or soup or something that's generally not great for me but not too bad either.
6:30pm-7pm: drive home.
7pm - 10pm: get dinner, watch TV, spend time with Matt and dogs.  This is usually where I go wrong.  I am so tired and hungry that I eat too much and do too little.
10pm-11pm: read and go to sleep.

That's pretty much every day.  On the weekends it changes slightly.  I get up a little later and during my free time I do things like clean the house or wash my car.  But I'm usually so burnt from the week that, after I finish my writing from like 9am to 1pm, I just want to relax.

I know that I need to modify my eating habits.  I usually do well with that for a week or two.  But I fail in that I usually run out of time to prepare my lunches ahead of time.  And by the time I get home, it's too late to make dinner.

As for exercise, I would do better exercising in the AM, but that's when I do my best writing, so I can't sacrifice that time.  If I got up any earlier, I'd have to go to bed earlier and I'd never see Matt, so sleeps later and goes to bed later than I do.

I try to get in the habit of running after work, but I'm so tired that I generally fail at this after a week or two.

So I'm looking for strategies.  Ways to create not just a diet, but a lifestyle that is conducive to being more fit.  I like running/jogging.  Like lifting weights. I have a gym membership at a gym that's open 24 hours.

So far, I've made my writing desk at work into a standing desk so that I'm on my feet for that time.  I can't do the same at my other office, but I try to get up and walk around as much as possible.

Later this week, I'll post my goals and what I'm going to do to achieve them.  Any suggestions from you all would be greatly appreciated!

Into the Giant's Den

I am there. Or rather, I'm nearly there. I'm embarking upon the penultimate scene and will be wrapping up book one within the month. I could forseeably have it done this weekend, but I don't want to rush it. It's funny because maybe a month ago I felt like it would never be done, and now I'm loathe to pen the last couple of chapters. Luckily I've got the second two books to work on...and boy are they gonna be good.

I have a lot of editing to do though. I was aiming for a tight 80 to 90k word book and this one has ballooned up to about 130 to 140k. Hopefully I can cut it down by 10k words when I combine the first few chapters but the narrative is already pretty spare. Unlike my first book (which I have decided from henceforth will be known as my ugly baby) I was very brief with description and didn't get overly writerly. Either way, I'll see when I'm done and I do my first read through.

Of course I have to type the rest of it up (YUCK!).

I've decided I'm going to take six weeks and start myself back on the road to healthiness. This time last year I was in the best shape of my life. This year at at the worst. I blame it on my depression and writing two books in about 6 months. It's hard to worry about diet when your whole focus is on work. Not to mention I have a full time job. So I'll be hitting the gym pretty hard and starting back on my super-healthy diet.

I'm also turning 30 in a couple of weeks. Scary.