Day (what day is it?)

I have implemented a few more things to my day-to-day activities to make sure my usually stagnant life gets and stays active. First, let me say that I am a big fan of TV watching. I didn't use to be (back when I was young, thin, single and popular.) I had things to do, people to see and a life to live. However, with the discovery of shows such as Castle, The Office, Bones and Dancing with the Stars, my life seems to revolve around Hulu and Netflix. (I'm kind of a commitment-phobe and can't be counted on to be in one place every week at the same time.) And ever since the Play Station Network got hacked into and shut down temporarily, I can only watch those things at my computer. That calls for a lot of sitting time. I've made the agreement with myself that if I am going to watch TV, I will do so without a chair. I have to at least stand. Last night, I incorporated lunges from side to side mixed into a steady walk, jog, dance combo I was doing to keep it fun. I figure this will do 2 things if I really stick with it. 1- I will burn more calories and stay active. And 2- I will only watch TV when I REALLY want to and not just when I'm bored. (which is usually when I plop my big 'ol fanny down to watch something.)

I have been reading a few magazines like Men's Health (Pasquale subscribes and I love it!) and I've seen more than one study on the effects of couch sitting and TV watching. There are so many reasons to get up and not just be a couch potato. But I didn't really connect it with sitting at the computer before, that is, until now. All the heart problems and weight problems associated with sitting and watching TV can almost all be eliminated by just standing up when doing so. I'm going to try that out for a while and report the changes.

The other thing I've started doing, I've actually been mentioning to Pasquale for a while. It was all just in theory before. But this morning, I did it. I used to make a pile at the bottom of the stairs of the things that needed to go upstairs. Then I would just take them all up in one fail swoop. It wasn't to save time or be more efficient, or anything cool like that. It was because I am lazy and hate going up and down the stairs. I'm pretty sure there are a few of you out there that feel the same way.

So, what I had in mind was force myself to go up and down those dreaded stairs a bunch of times every day. The goal is 20 times up and 20 times down each day. So I hung a piece of paper and a pen at the top of the stairs and one at the bottom. I wrote the date on each one. Now after I go upstairs, I will make a tally mark next to the date. When I go downstairs I will do the same. Hopefully by the end of the day, I will have amassed 20 tally marks on each page. If not, guess I'm going to be going up and down the stairs right before bed. I really want to make that a habit and up the number of times I tread the stairs each week.
I have 3 tallies on the downstairs and 2 on the upstairs right now and it's already noon. We'll see how long I keep this one up. I may have to adjust my goal for this first one until I get into the habit of it. But this will be the barometer for the experiment!