The Regiment v. The Routine

           We hear all the time about the “same old routine.” By its very definition, a routine is just the same old same old. It is boring. It is mundane. I thank goodness that I do not have a routine but what I do have is a regiment. My boss at work (who luckily is also one my best friends) chastises me over the fact that you can pretty much set your watch by my schedule. He believes you have to take different routes to work and arrive at different times to be able to throw off the assassins. You don’t want to make their job easy for them. And yet, I leave the house at almost the same time every day.
           I eat the same breakfast. I eat my morning snack at the same time. I eat my lunch at the same time. I eat my afternoon snack at the same time. I am in bed at the same time. I wake at the same time (pretty much). While I know this sounds routine but let me tell you what this also gets me. 
           I get necessary sleep for recovery. I am never hungover headed into work. I cannot remember the last time I was sick. I am not out until all hours of the night. And while this sounds like a boring life, I can also tell you that my bills are paid on time, every time. 
           I told you from the beginning that this journey is about improvement of body, mind, and spirit. It is an odd thing. Once you start seeing results – and I mean real results – it becomes this wonderfully addictive drug but it is a drug of self-improvement.
           You start out saying, “I am going to lift some weights but I am not going to be supplement guy.” Then the results start and you want more. So now you are doing the research. You see how whey protein and Vitamin B and C can help you. Then that starts snowballing.
           The Little Debbie snack cakes start to fade away. To make sure you have a good healthy meal for lunch, you start planning ahead and cooking pounds of chicken in the crockpot the night before. You start investing in Tupperware. You are buying flats of green beans and planning snacks rather than just eating whatever is easily at hand. You start seeing beer for what it really is – liquid bread. And then you start making choices. Do you really want another beer knowing how time it is going to take on the treadmill to get rid of it?
           Now, I don’t want you to take this wrong way. I am not against having a few social drinks with some friends every now and again. There are days where a nice cold beer after a hard day’s work or after excessive time out mowing the lawn is perfectly acceptable. But as your training continues, you begin to cut out things that are going to jeopardize the next day’s training.
           A drink is fine. Falling down blackout drunk is not acceptable. At my age, it would take me days to recover from such nonsense. And for what? A momentary escape from reality? I like my life. What do I need to escape from? In the words of that once popular internet meme, “Ain’t nobody got time for that.”  
           I am not telling anyone how to live their life here. I am not so vain as to believe I can shake a moral finger at you and tell you what to do. As always, this blog has been about what works for me. But over the last year, I have seen dramatic improvements in my life. I feel better. I feel healthier. My mind has become more studious as I have been doing research on how to make improvements. This process has taught me patience. It has taught me that hard work put in daily through small increments pays off tremendously in the long run.
           It is not just about lifting the weights. It is about packing the gym bag the night before to make sure you have everything. It is about smart planning at the grocery store. You find that striving to be the best you can be in the gym starts bleeding over and improving other aspects of your life as well. And that, my friends, is pretty darn awesome…