Turning self-improvement into a hobby

   Gamification doesn't work for me. I don't care about little numbers or achievements for doing my daily tasks or due diligence. I don't feel the need for reward for doing what needs to be done. I don't hold it against anyone who it does work for, it just bounces off of me. I get a small hit of instant gratification from doing the hard thing, not because I love challenging myself (I do,) or because the nature of it being hard, but because I know that I will be basking in the glory of a task completed soon enough. I get a lot of joy out of things I can turn into data and track; I'm not sure if it's because the human brain is designed around finding patterns or simply because those metrics give me a sense of progress in what I'm doing, but I really enjoy it. 

  With that in mind I've furthered my self-improvement by beginning to count calories. I don't mind eating the same (or similar) things day in and day out, so I worked out my Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) and Total Daily Energy Expidenture (TDEE). Using the Mifflin-St Jeor Equation we come up with a BMR of 2,654 calories per day for a 39 year old man who is 6'0" and 375lbs. This is my resting rate, not taking any activity into account, the amount I would burn just existing in bed all day. When you take into account my 6 weeks of elevated activity where I'm averaging 1,160 actively burned calories per day, I wind up with 3,814 calories to maintain my current bodyweight. At a deficit of 1000 a week, I will lose 2lbs (about .9kg) a week while consuming 2,800 calories.

The aforementioned 6 weeks of significantly increased activity. 

   So I set to putting together a meal plan I can act on that will meet the caloric and macronutrient needs of my body moving forward. I don't want to start burning muscle for energy as this process goes on, so I will need a significant amount of Protein, I need lubrication for my joints since I exist in a larger body, so I will need a heavy dose of fats, and I need glycogen to fuel my workouts and walks, so I will need to eat a lot of carbs. I can do all of those things in a way that is smart and healthy for my body, while managing my type 2 diabetes and hopefully getting me to a point where I am no longer considered diabetic and can stop taking this damn medicine. I did some digging around, found a few good bits of information, and settled on this: 

Here we are, healthy fats, protein, good carb sources, and fiber! 

   The real deal here is that I've taken all of this data and turned it into a self-improvement tracker, a hobby I can consistently improve at. I'm using HEVY (@apieceofenergy) to track all of my workouts and get some more metrics like these: 

A solid distribution chart, pretty cool.

Obviously I started lifting again a few weeks ago

Clearly reps per muscle group have increased

 

  All of this gives me a ton of data to work with. Coupling that with my intent to increase my general health, undo the damage I've done to my body (or at least whatever damage I can reverse,) I have even more reference points for my progress in this particular endeavor. By approaching it like a hobby and contextualizing progress through consistent data points I will not only have tracking information to compare myself to the only thing I should be comparing to (me yesterday!), but I will further increase my chances of success.

  I think when I was younger I lacked the understanding to set myself up for success, so even when I did this before I didn't maintain it for longer than a year, but now I have a deeper knowledge of self and find that motivation never even really plays a part in follow through.